Mentor Interview
Interview With Max Zaker CEO of Keller Williams Realty-Chula Vista
Date: May 25 2018
Tyler: So, what made you want to become a business owner?
Max: Since I grew up in a family where most of my family members owned their own businesses. So I was inspired by that but what I did not realize is that becoming a business owner was really, really, hard and um, but it’s something I really wanted to do since I was a young man. After going to school, and you know, I had a couple of great jobs, um you know, I was pretty sure that someday I would want to do that just so it gave me the freedom of being creative so that if I had an idea I could implement it. But then I also learned it’s really really hard work but it’s well worth it.
Tyler: What is hard about it most of the time?
Max: You know, like most things in life, I’ll give you an example, if you look at an athlete, right, or you look at somebody who does well in the entertainment field, you know, looking from outside in, you know, it looks easy. But what we don't see is the perseverance, the practice, the training, the time, the commitment, the passion that these people have to put into it to succeed at that level, right? To become an accomplished athlete or an accomplished entertainer or musician, starting your own business is no different, right? It really takes a lot of dedication and commitment, and um, despite your best efforts small businesses fail by a large percentage every year. So um, you know, as a business owner or someone that wants to become an entrepreneur you have to be prepared to accept failure as a potential consequence of wanting to become a business owner. And that's scary. It can be financially devastating, it can be very uncomfortable but what we don't talk about enough is everybody wants to be in business for themselves but if you look at the success rate versus the failure rate the failure rate is much greater. People that do ultimately succeed, there is a good chance that they fail two or three times along the way. But from every failure you learn something. So, it’s uh, it requires um, commitment. You have to have a vision. It requires hard work, you taking financial risk while everyone else is, you know, enjoying their weekend and at home with their family or vacationing or traveling. You know, as a business owner it takes a lot of, as I said, hard work. And being a business owner, it’s not a nine-to-five work, right? But for those of us that still want to do that it’s also a great opportunity to achieve great successes.
Tyler: From the three people I researched I noticed a lot of the times they’re really dedicated. They came up from a poor family or family that didn’t have as much and they wanted to have what they didn’t have when they were children. So, was that kind of the same for…
Max:YES! Although I, you know, grew up like you in a very loving family, you know, I had parents that they loved me and cared for me. But you know, I was one of six children and my father was the only one who worked. And he was a small business owner himself so there just wasn’t that much resources to go around. But there’s plenty of love. So, I grew up in that environment but although my parents did not have a formal education but they were smart enough to teach us that you can do, for the most part, what you want to accomplish. Whatever you want to set your mind to. So, they gave us that drive that if you want something you have to go earn it, right? But in some ways I think that your research really is really interesting that most people acquired exceptional successes in their lives typically didn't start out that way. So, I think there is some truth in that, you know. If there are things that you really wish you had as a child growing up, if you were to turn that energy into something positive, it could become the fuel, you know, to push you forward and to work harder and to try harder. And if you fail once that’s okay you get up and you try again. So, that’s definitely been my journey as well.
Tyler: Who are three people that you look up to when it comes to businesses?
Max: You know, there are many successful business owners but success to me is more than monetary success, right? There’s certainly one person that I can think of right now, a gentleman by the name of Ron Cunnings. Who was my former COO at a company that I worked at. And you know, he was an english professor, highly successful at his job. He was a COO of a very large foundation but you know he’s someone that believed strongly that everyone has a social responsibility, even companies, even successful CEOs. You know, he was my mentor. He was the one who really taught me, you know, despite how much financial success you have along the way let us not forget that we have a social responsibility to the environment we live in, to the people that we work with, right? And that type of thinking shaped the way I run my companies. How I hire people, even at times that I have to terminate people, it’s always with this idea that I care for people right? So, he was certainly someone that I look up to and there are other people along the way. In fact, the founder of the company that I worked for by the name of Dr. Joe Jacobs he was a self made billionaire. Talk about someone really coming in. He started his company from the trunk of his car and he built a multibillion dollar engineering company. And I knew him on a very personal level. He was one of the most wealthiest but yet the most humble individual you would ever meet in your life. As a matter of fact, if you met him somewhere in the grocery store or somewhere out in the public, you would not have known that this man was worth over five billion dollars. But in the end he decided to give a large portion of his wealth to do philanthropic work, right?
Tyler: What’s that?
Max: Philanthropic work is foundation, it’s people that give some of their money or wealth to a foundation to do charitable work. Weather it’s in the field of education or healthcare or whatever it is that’s important enough. So, he was another person that I really, really look up to. He was someone who was successful, highly successful in building companies. But yet he stayed very true to himself. And that is what, you know, all the success in the world is not something you can take with you. It doesn’t belong to you. And he was willing to share that. And certainly if you go above that, there’s other people that I don’t know on a personal level, like Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft. If you look at his life's journey, while he was very successful right out of college but yet if you look how he runs his company the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I mean, they literally give millions and millions of dollars every year to research development. And so, that’s definitely somebody I look up to. Not that I’ll ever get to that level but there’s lessons that we could learn from people like that.
Date: May 25 2018
Tyler: So, what made you want to become a business owner?
Max: Since I grew up in a family where most of my family members owned their own businesses. So I was inspired by that but what I did not realize is that becoming a business owner was really, really, hard and um, but it’s something I really wanted to do since I was a young man. After going to school, and you know, I had a couple of great jobs, um you know, I was pretty sure that someday I would want to do that just so it gave me the freedom of being creative so that if I had an idea I could implement it. But then I also learned it’s really really hard work but it’s well worth it.
Tyler: What is hard about it most of the time?
Max: You know, like most things in life, I’ll give you an example, if you look at an athlete, right, or you look at somebody who does well in the entertainment field, you know, looking from outside in, you know, it looks easy. But what we don't see is the perseverance, the practice, the training, the time, the commitment, the passion that these people have to put into it to succeed at that level, right? To become an accomplished athlete or an accomplished entertainer or musician, starting your own business is no different, right? It really takes a lot of dedication and commitment, and um, despite your best efforts small businesses fail by a large percentage every year. So um, you know, as a business owner or someone that wants to become an entrepreneur you have to be prepared to accept failure as a potential consequence of wanting to become a business owner. And that's scary. It can be financially devastating, it can be very uncomfortable but what we don't talk about enough is everybody wants to be in business for themselves but if you look at the success rate versus the failure rate the failure rate is much greater. People that do ultimately succeed, there is a good chance that they fail two or three times along the way. But from every failure you learn something. So, it’s uh, it requires um, commitment. You have to have a vision. It requires hard work, you taking financial risk while everyone else is, you know, enjoying their weekend and at home with their family or vacationing or traveling. You know, as a business owner it takes a lot of, as I said, hard work. And being a business owner, it’s not a nine-to-five work, right? But for those of us that still want to do that it’s also a great opportunity to achieve great successes.
Tyler: From the three people I researched I noticed a lot of the times they’re really dedicated. They came up from a poor family or family that didn’t have as much and they wanted to have what they didn’t have when they were children. So, was that kind of the same for…
Max:YES! Although I, you know, grew up like you in a very loving family, you know, I had parents that they loved me and cared for me. But you know, I was one of six children and my father was the only one who worked. And he was a small business owner himself so there just wasn’t that much resources to go around. But there’s plenty of love. So, I grew up in that environment but although my parents did not have a formal education but they were smart enough to teach us that you can do, for the most part, what you want to accomplish. Whatever you want to set your mind to. So, they gave us that drive that if you want something you have to go earn it, right? But in some ways I think that your research really is really interesting that most people acquired exceptional successes in their lives typically didn't start out that way. So, I think there is some truth in that, you know. If there are things that you really wish you had as a child growing up, if you were to turn that energy into something positive, it could become the fuel, you know, to push you forward and to work harder and to try harder. And if you fail once that’s okay you get up and you try again. So, that’s definitely been my journey as well.
Tyler: Who are three people that you look up to when it comes to businesses?
Max: You know, there are many successful business owners but success to me is more than monetary success, right? There’s certainly one person that I can think of right now, a gentleman by the name of Ron Cunnings. Who was my former COO at a company that I worked at. And you know, he was an english professor, highly successful at his job. He was a COO of a very large foundation but you know he’s someone that believed strongly that everyone has a social responsibility, even companies, even successful CEOs. You know, he was my mentor. He was the one who really taught me, you know, despite how much financial success you have along the way let us not forget that we have a social responsibility to the environment we live in, to the people that we work with, right? And that type of thinking shaped the way I run my companies. How I hire people, even at times that I have to terminate people, it’s always with this idea that I care for people right? So, he was certainly someone that I look up to and there are other people along the way. In fact, the founder of the company that I worked for by the name of Dr. Joe Jacobs he was a self made billionaire. Talk about someone really coming in. He started his company from the trunk of his car and he built a multibillion dollar engineering company. And I knew him on a very personal level. He was one of the most wealthiest but yet the most humble individual you would ever meet in your life. As a matter of fact, if you met him somewhere in the grocery store or somewhere out in the public, you would not have known that this man was worth over five billion dollars. But in the end he decided to give a large portion of his wealth to do philanthropic work, right?
Tyler: What’s that?
Max: Philanthropic work is foundation, it’s people that give some of their money or wealth to a foundation to do charitable work. Weather it’s in the field of education or healthcare or whatever it is that’s important enough. So, he was another person that I really, really look up to. He was someone who was successful, highly successful in building companies. But yet he stayed very true to himself. And that is what, you know, all the success in the world is not something you can take with you. It doesn’t belong to you. And he was willing to share that. And certainly if you go above that, there’s other people that I don’t know on a personal level, like Bill Gates the founder of Microsoft. If you look at his life's journey, while he was very successful right out of college but yet if you look how he runs his company the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I mean, they literally give millions and millions of dollars every year to research development. And so, that’s definitely somebody I look up to. Not that I’ll ever get to that level but there’s lessons that we could learn from people like that.
Mentor Interview Summary
My first question I Asked Max Zaker was “So, what made you want to become a business owner?” he told me after going to school he had “a couple of great jobs” “I was pretty sure that someday I would want to do that just so it gave me the freedom of being creative so that if I had an idea I could implement it.” Max does enjoy being a business owner but he said it is really hard work so I asked him “What is hard about it most of the time?” He answered with the best example ever “if you look at an athlete, right, or you look at somebody who does well in the entertainment field, you know, looking from outside in, you know, it looks easy. But what we don't see is the perseverance, the practice, the training, the time, the commitment, the passion that these people have to put into it to succeed at that level”. Max said It takes a lot of dedications and despite the best effort a large percentage of small businesses fail each year. “to become an entrepreneur you have to be prepared to accept failure as a potential consequence of wanting to become a business owner. And that's scary. It can be financially devastating” “People that do ultimately succeed, there is a good chance that they fail two or three times along the way. But from every failure you learn something” After a while of talking to Max I learned where his motivation comes from. Every morning he comes into work for his family. When he was a child he was growing up in a very loving and caring family but because he had 5 siblings his family didn’t have as much. Because he lived in such a loving family he loves his wife and his kids and is motivated to give them more.