Vinnie Fisher / Founder & CEO, SiteTrust. Coach. Speaker. Author

The Trust Gap: What AI Is About to Expose About Your Business

Vinnie Fisher has done something most entrepreneurs only dream about: he built and exited three seven to eight figure companies, and now he is using everything he learned to tackle one of the most urgent problems in modern business, the AI trust crisis. 

A corporate attorney for 26 years, a serial entrepreneur, and the author of four books, Vinnie is the founder and CEO of SiteTrust, the certification platform that helps businesses prove to their customers that they use AI responsibly. 

In this candid conversation with Paul Povolni, Vinnie shares the chip-on-his-shoulder origin story that drove him from a broken home to the top of his law school class. 

He breaks down what makes a business truly sellable, why the converting offer is the single most important thing in any company, and how he found the idea for SiteTrust in the middle of a church sermon. 

Vinnie also introduces the Trust Gap framework, covering the three leadership gaps every business leader needs to shrink, integrity, awareness, and courage. 

And he closes with a message that might just be the most practical thing any entrepreneur can hear: your real superpower is not quitting.

GUEST BIO:

Vinnie Fisher is a serial entrepreneur and problem-solver who has spent three decades identifying critical market gaps and building scalable infrastructure to solve them, from 26 years in corporate law to founding and exiting multiple seven to eight figure companies generating over $400 million in sales. A lawyer by trade, Vinnie practiced tax and business law for 10 years before leaving the field in 2007 to pursue entrepreneurship full-time, building companies across industries including early internet, web hosting, and back-office financial operations. He is now the founder and CEO of SiteTrust, the certification standard for AI disclosure that helps businesses demonstrate transparency, reduce legal exposure, and earn measurable customer trust. Vinnie is the author of four published books, including "The CEO's Mindset," "False Profits," and "Beyond Your Shadow," and is currently writing his fifth book, "The Trust Gap." He lives in Ohio with his wife Deb and their four children.

LINKS: sitetrust.com/gifts

Paul Povolni (Voppa) is the founder of Voppa Creative and a creative leader with over 30 years of experience in brand strategy and design. Based in Jackson, Mississippi, he has worked with clients internationally, leading teams in award-winning branding while serving as a coach and speaker. Paul delivers workshops and keynotes on brand strategy, creative thinking, and organizational culture, and hosts The Headsmack Podcast: Conversations with Misfits. His work centers on helping organizations lead with Clarity, Creativity, and Culture.

Headsmack Website

Voppa Creative Website

Transcript

Paul Povolni (02:24.014)
Hey, welcome to the Head Smack podcast. My name is Paul Pavolny and I am excited to have another Misfit with me. I have Vinny Fisher and he is a founder and CEO of SiteTrust, solving the trust challenges organizations face with AI disclosure. A serial entrepreneur who has built and exited three seven to eight figure companies over 26 years as a corporate attorney. Vinny now provides the certification businesses need to demonstrate proper disclosure with AI. of four books and currently writing The Trust Gap.

Vinny, how you doing,

Vinnie Fisher (03:05.821)
Paul, great to see you buddy. And sorry about the ding there that's probably on my computer and I'll find it as we're hunting here talking. But I'm really excited to be with you on the today. I've heard not only that we developed a friendship, but I hear so many people in our lives who say wonderful things about you and your community. So I'm honored to be here.

Paul Povolni (03:12.302)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (03:26.716)
thanks, man. I'm looking forward to it. It was great meeting you and hanging out with you a couple of weeks ago. And as soon as you started talking, we started talking, I'm like, I've got to have him on my podcast. Love the stuff that you had to share. We're just in a group setting and you were just pouring out your wisdom on folks that were in that space. And I was like, okay, this guy is amazing. And so I'm glad you can make it, man.

Vinnie Fisher (03:51.721)
Thanks a I really appreciate that. I'm delighted to be here.

Paul Povolni (03:53.934)
So the way I usually like to start this is I like to start hearing a little bit about your origin story, a little bit about you can go as far back as you wanna go that makes it relevant. But tell me a little bit about your origin story. Where did you get started? How did you get started? What was that journey like to where you're at now?

Vinnie Fisher (04:11.837)
You know, my story sums up in a big chip on my shoulder. You know, I came from pretty broken conditions and I just kept hearing the noise that I was going to stay in those broken conditions. And there's just some internal drive I had that I didn't want to be in those broken conditions. And so this gigantic chip on my shoulder that I wanted to prove all of that noise wrong is what fueled the young years.

And if I'm going to be honest, it kind of sometimes even fuels me now in the right or wrong setting where like I get treated as the underdog or.

And so it's just always been my thing. And I'm thankful that I've matured through it, because it's actually also the origin of not such great decisions either, like an ego-based thing. I'll do it even though you don't think I can. But that's where my story really starts. I'm a person that was the first person to graduate from college in my family, and then went on to graduate from graduate school, which is known as, for me, law school. so.

Paul Povolni (05:12.545)
Wow.

Vinnie Fisher (05:18.281)
I had a bunch of those accomplishments and kind of, so to speak, from that standpoint, separated myself from the pack, as you might say. But that's where it all starts.

Paul Povolni (05:30.232)
So early on when you came from those not so great settings, were there some early inspirations? Were there people that you started looking up to that said, I want to be more like them than the situation that I'm in?

Vinnie Fisher (05:43.623)
The most put together people in my life were two couples. One was my dad's parents, my grandma and grandpa, Leo and Dorothy or Doritha as we called her.

I go out to Graham. So maybe everyone's called her that. But they were the most intact couple I knew in my life. And I spent my summers with them, literally myself. I went and moved with them to their lake home. And when I say lake home, I cottage built out well over time. And it was just so formative for me. So it's funny, I didn't have a lot of...

Paul Povolni (06:11.574)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (06:17.923)
summer middle school and high school friends because I spent those years with my grandparents, but it was like a refuge for me. And then the other one of their children, my aunt and uncle, were this intact but the most successful couple I knew. And they lived in another part of the country. And so I wanted to be all four of them when I grew up.

Paul Povolni (06:24.759)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (06:34.008)
Hmm.

Paul Povolni (06:39.254)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's amazing. It's amazing how we have those influences, you know, in our lives that sometimes aren't even direct. Sometimes they're direct, but sometimes they're indirect influences that actually are those life changing, inspirational, you know,

head smack type moments that were like, okay, I want to be more like them. And, you know, that's, that's, that's awesome. so, you know, you kind of, they were inspirational to you. And so what was that journey like into law? what made you choose law? Was it just because you just had a brain for that stuff? Or like, what inspired you to go into law?

Vinnie Fisher (07:13.683)
You know, forever I've been, have, you you take these personality tests, right? When you're, when, you know, I'm like 80. So when I was young, we didn't have like these tests, not 80, but people will now think I am because I said that. I, I, I would have always heard from people, man, you're like an arguer or even said in a better term, you're like a debater. And I, there was not a topic that I didn't like to debate. And this was pre lawyer stuff. So people would always say things like,

Paul Povolni (07:35.566)
Hmm.

Vinnie Fisher (07:43.697)
man, you're going to be a great lawyer. Well, in like early high school, I'm not even confident I knew what a lawyer was. And so I my summer year of high school, I got a chance to get like a what you would think of as like a part time job. And I got to work for this lawyer in town, basically doing everything running to court, fetching things, emptying garbage cans, answering the door, like taking notes.

and he was highly intelligent, super caring, super, super successful. And I'm like, okay, I do want to be my aunt and uncle and my grandma and grandpa, but this is the smartest, coolest man I've ever met. And I noticed something, everyone respected him. And I was like, huh, wow, it's something I hadn't ever had was respect.

Paul Povolni (08:29.763)
Mm.

Vinnie Fisher (08:34.473)
And so I was like, wow, people say I'm good at this. So then all of a sudden, next thing you know, like forever, I just said, I'm going to be a lawyer. Like I, I'm not even confident I knew what one was. I just knew this person helped a lot of people and garnered a lot of respect in the room. And so I wanted those two things. So I set out to be a lawyer.

Paul Povolni (08:54.774)
And so, you know, once, once you finally took, pursued that and, you know, did everything you need to do graduate and whatever, what was your first job like? What was the first thing that you kind of jumped into?

Vinnie Fisher (09:05.865)
You know, it's funny, if you look at my college career, I got kicked out of school. I played division one soccer, hurt my knee. The classic kicked out, got back in. met this amazing lady at the time, young lady who I thought was super hot. She convinced me to go back to school. And then I conned my way into marrying her and she became my bride now of 31 years. And well, in that process, kind of this endurance kicked back in. And so.

Paul Povolni (09:28.257)
awesome.

Vinnie Fisher (09:34.053)
I limped my way into law school, scored well on the entrance exams called an LSAT, but I had like a very mediocre grade point because of all my past carnage in college. Well, I get into law school and I super excelled. Like I just kicked into gear. I had the girl, I wanted the career, the capabilities were there. So I finished seventh in my class. Well, that opens up every door you can think of, right? Because you're at the top of your class. So I got recruited by this big fancy law firm.

and I started my career in one of these like high priced super wear the suit firms that massively trained me to be a very good corporate.

Paul Povolni (10:11.948)
Yeah, yeah. And so how long did you do that before you ventured into entrepreneurship? Or was it at the same time? Like, what was that journey like?

Vinnie Fisher (10:19.497)
Yeah, it was really good. I had three years there and in the three years there, I realized I was very good at business generation. So I was generating more clients than almost not all, but a lot of the partners. so

I had an opportunity to like play my card and see if I can accelerate faster there or move on to another firm where I could double down on that. Well, they didn't, the big systems don't work that way, as you know, in every big system. And so I ended up having to play my card and take a big chance and we got very entrepreneurial, became a partner in a mid-sized firm that I really excelled very quickly at business generation, business opportunity, deal flow. So what kicked in when I switched from the big firm to the

more movable mid-size firm was it became like my practice and my thing with two other guys. Deal flow started on the side company, started doing business deals. It kicked in a whole other gear of this entrepreneurial gear. And by the time I got to the third plus year of that, I had already been winding down my law practice and was on a series of entrepreneurial runs.

Paul Povolni (11:26.456)
Now, did you have somebody that inspired you in the entrepreneurial route? You mentioned you had that one lawyer that inspired you into law. Was there somebody from your past that inspired you on the entrepreneurial route?

Vinnie Fisher (11:37.033)
You know, I had already been pretty entrepreneurial. In college, I opened up a delivery service where we've delivered packages for companies. And I had a tax service even before I got into any of that stuff. And so I was always a hustler. Because of that chip on the shoulder, I didn't want to be poor. One of the chips that people ask me, why were you

Paul Povolni (11:55.438)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (11:57.773)
have a chip is I didn't want to be poor. We were poor. So just didn't want that anymore. And so I was always hustling to make sure I could make a couple of bucks. And not all of that was always in a good way. I just always was wanting to make a couple of bucks. And so when I took that attitude into what I consider better operations, I just always was a hustler. Well, one of my clients was this young guy in the internet and he met with me one morning and he's describing to me his business. I'm like, does this thing ever make any money? And he slid over his bank statements and everything changed.

Everything changed. It's like the whole world changed for me. I was already a pretty well-priced lawyer making north of $500 an hour for my time and getting value billed all that. And then I saw his internet business and his bank statements and I'm like, well, I want to learn that. So this friend of mine who ended up becoming my client, then also my business partner is a guy named Mark, introduced me to a world that has opened up way more opportunities than I could have ever imagined by just traditional practice.

Paul Povolni (12:27.598)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (12:56.204)
So did you take any of the learning from law and entrepreneurship into that? Or was a whole new learning? Like what lessons did you take from one season to the next season?

Vinnie Fisher (13:07.387)
One of the most amazing things about being a business lawyer is you get the privilege to help other people fix the dents in their business. And so I got like a PhD in business operations by being a business lawyer. And so I took all of that. I didn't have to leave any of that wisdom. I all got to come with me. And then I realized I'm actually a very quick decision maker.

Paul Povolni (13:20.418)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (13:31.657)
I have the ability to make very quick decisions. I only need about, I say 70 % of the information to make a good decision.

I probably do it with 52%, but I do 70 % of the information and I make decisions. And so because of that, I can iterate very quickly and move. And so I took all of that with me. As a lawyer, as a business lawyer, I have a massive advantage in business because I know the goods and the bads. And when someone brings a lawsuit or a complaint or a friction or a thing, I know how to walk through that. Now it's not easy. I've been a defendant multiple times, never easy to be sued. But when you like know how the whole playbook plays out, you actually are able to,

Paul Povolni (13:53.836)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (14:08.699)
regulate business way differently.

Paul Povolni (14:11.437)
Yeah, well, and that would would you consider that your primary superpower is being able to pivot and identify solutions and make decisions fast? Or is there another superpower that you feel you have?

Vinnie Fisher (14:26.043)
Yeah, that's really good. I do think the speed to iteration, which is interesting because as a lawyer, you were trained to be risk adverse, and I learned I'm highly risk tolerant. And so not certainly great as a lawyer giving advice to someone about their risks. I wouldn't talk you into risk. I'd talk you through taking the risk, right? And so that's not

Paul Povolni (14:36.879)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (14:48.024)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (14:49.841)
you know, you got to take the goods and the bads with that. But in the process, and I realized, well, I've got a way larger category for taking risk than just about everyone I do business with. And so if there is a superpower that if that is one, I'm not confident that willful blindness is a superpower. But if it were one, that would be one. think what I actually really quickly took to was problem solution orientation. Like I could see a problem and I could quickly because of iteration see

Paul Povolni (15:05.807)
Hahaha

Vinnie Fisher (15:18.777)
a version of solution that could work in the marketplace. And so that's actually probably the thing that I've been pattern wise the best at over and over.

Paul Povolni (15:30.733)
Yeah. Well, I think a lot of people, and the reason I call it a superpower is for some people that's their kryptonite is making decisions, you know, to iterate, to pivot, to, you know, leave what they're, what's not working and move on to something that maybe is, or to, adjust, to, to reformat, to rethink, to re-systemize, to re-process. And so for a lot of people that, that, that you haven't that superpower to them is like, they're envious of it. They're like, you know, I'm stuck.

Vinnie Fisher (15:38.664)
and

Yeah.

Paul Povolni (16:00.631)
because I can't pivot quickly. I'm stuck because I can't make decisions quickly. I'm stuck because I get held up in this cycle of non-decision. so that is a pretty good power to have, but you framed it as you see problem solutions a lot faster than most. And that's a pretty good superpower as well.

Vinnie Fisher (16:24.199)
And I think they go like, they're like brother and sister, they go together. And so, you know, I'll tell you, in my law practice, it got me in a little bit of trouble because you would describe your idea to me and, you know, I may not have the storage capacity in my brain that most have, but I've learned that this thing spins really quick.

And so my ability to see something fast is a wonderful thing that I have. Again, like I said, sports injuries and all this, like, I don't store as much. I probably forget more than most people remember, but it spins fast. So someone would bring their really complicated idea. And because I iterate really quickly and my mouth is part of the way I think, I would spit out an idea that was 18 months in their problem. And I came up with an elegant solution in 18 minutes.

Paul Povolni (16:56.655)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (17:14.469)
And people would get mad at me. Like, it wasn't actually very healthy. Like, there is another side to this, right? So I had to learn things like cadence and walk people through a timing and like, see if, and by the way, that also got me in trouble. Like, I had an idea I wouldn't necessarily see all the way to fruition and I'd want to jump on another one.

Paul Povolni (17:14.509)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (17:19.267)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (17:36.494)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (17:37.225)
So fast iteration unregulated can cause you to build 70 % bill bridges.

Paul Povolni (17:45.741)
Wow. Wow. That's good. That's good. Yeah, that would be, guess, the kryptonite to it is if you don't learn also how to regulate that power, right? And you start making decisions that could sometimes actually be too soon. You know, it's too soon to jump in that or it's, you know, the timing's wrong, the situation's not right. One of the other things that I noticed even in our short time together is your willingness to call out

Vinnie Fisher (17:55.07)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (18:13.421)
the wrong, you know, when we sat around in a group of people, somebody was sharing some ideas and you were very quick to say, here's, here's what's wrong with that idea. Has that ever got in trouble?

Vinnie Fisher (18:26.714)
Yeah, I actually have a motto. I should probably wear it as a tattoo on my big five head. But it says the best advice is the unsolicited advice. so, you know, it's funny, I've just always, I've always, I think it's because I don't like bullies. And it's because I don't like, because of that debater in me, I don't like when when we, when we have things grounded in falseness. So I, I genuinely care.

Paul Povolni (18:36.249)
you

Vinnie Fisher (18:54.973)
for the person I'm speaking up to. And I know it comes across as a little bit abrupt at times. So it gets me in trouble because of my intensity of my personality. But if someone gives me just three seconds of the benefit of doubt, it usually results in a friendship. if the first glance is where it stays, then this boldness, this abruptness about me needs a little bit. I need to take my sharp elbows and take that razor's edge and soften them.

Paul Povolni (19:05.188)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (19:24.879)
Well, I think everybody needs somebody like that in their life, honestly, because, you know, in that situation that we're in, was, it was a bunch of guys sitting around entrepreneurs, business owners, you know, coaches, things like that. And somebody just shared a situation and you were able to quickly see the errors and you spoke up. And that's like, people wish for somebody like that, like call me out on where I'm wrong. Call me out on what I'm doing. Cause a lot of people would just sit there and nod, you know, and, and in their mind, maybe they're seeing the same problems. Maybe they're seeing the

the same errors, maybe they're seeing the same problem, but they just they don't speak it out. And so I think that really is a gift to somebody if it's filtered through compassion, if it's filtered through care, and you know, I really care for what's best for you. I think that's a gift that you bring to people. And I think that's awesome.

Vinnie Fisher (19:55.293)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (20:10.747)
I agree with that totally. Thank you for that. And I think those fruits of the spirit are important. And those where I get myself in a little bit of trouble. But you know what's funny is someone asked me like, why are you that way? You know, because I have a chip on my shoulder. Remember my con theme is this chip. I'm going to do it all. I took an inventory, gosh, along the way. And I realized I didn't have a lot of deep friendships.

Paul Povolni (20:17.645)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (20:36.861)
I was a friend to many, but I didn't have a lot of people who were deep in the regarding and not letting people in. And I made a decision along the way that what's the friend I want? I want someone who's gonna speak into every category of my life. So I decided to be that friend. And so I'm thankful. I've got a few people, my wife, these two guys named Jeff, you met somebody, Dr. Attaway. These are people who are willing to speak into my life and...

Paul Povolni (20:50.723)
Yeah, yeah. Wow.

Vinnie Fisher (21:03.589)
I like to say PC version, call me out on my BS. And so I'm really very thankful for that. I honestly come from that posture most of the time.

Paul Povolni (21:17.229)
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. And so, you you took you took all this chip on your shoulder, this desire to succeed this decide to make a difference. You know, you build three companies and you exited them. What were those three companies? What was that journey like?

Vinnie Fisher (21:32.135)
Yeah, so the most recent one was fully accountable. I exited in August of 24. You know, each of them are different. And I'm pointing out that one because that was the one I sold to my management team. And what was interesting about that is in the other two, one called Creative Learning Workshop and another one called Consumers Choice, in both of those, I sold off the assets and kept parts of things. And I got to keep some of my things. And it's just the nature of selling stuff. Keep what you want.

Paul Povolni (21:57.261)
Okay.

Vinnie Fisher (22:02.185)
And when I sold fully to our management team, I was the one leaving with a packed box. It was a really surreal experience, actually. And it's actually made a substantial part of those feelings have made it into the trust gap, which by the way, that along with some other things I want to give as a way as gifts, we have a thing we can talk about later. I have a way for our audience to take advantage of gifts that I have. And we'll talk about that. you know, the reason I'm highlighting that one.

Paul Povolni (22:08.559)
Wow.

Vinnie Fisher (22:30.601)
It wasn't my most successful exit. It was the one that was the most recent and I believe living in your recency more than your past, but it's also the one that hit way differently because of this all the assets stayed and I was the one that was leaving.

Paul Povolni (22:47.213)
Wow. Wow. So what made those businesses sellable? What was that journey like for the entrepreneur that might be listening to this and they're looking at an exit? What do you feel made them sellable?

Vinnie Fisher (23:00.441)
The number one thing is not trapping yourself in it. The number one thing, and I know people hear that, but I was not a core ingredient to the operation of that business. So every day, I had privilege of having a mentor, guy named John Maxwell, who was like, every day, work yourself out of a job. Every day, work yourself out of a job. And I found out early on at a company I had brain host, we were the seventh largest web hosting company at one point. We were exploding at every piece of us.

And I remember being annoyed by doing the same job over and over. And in that process, I thought, well, I can do something really quick, get it working right, but I don't want to do it again. And in there, I used to joke, I'm inherently lazy. And there's probably some fun to that, but I don't like doing the same thing twice. And so as a result of that, I quickly want to get others into

Paul Povolni (23:32.143)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (23:47.373)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (23:51.245)
positions that they're going to be better at than I'm going to. I might be the best starter on your team. I'm definitely not going to be the best finisher in certain categories. And so because of that, that's my model. I quickly build team. I'm actually really good at it. I know how to spot Eagles and I just get out of their way. so, you know, because of that, then honestly, if you have a converting offer, which is what I'm good at, once you get an offer converting, building the business part is kind of fun. Without a converting offer, business is really hard.

Paul Povolni (24:17.507)
Yeah, yeah.

Right, right. So talk about that.

Vinnie Fisher (24:22.353)
And so, yeah, that was it.

Paul Povolni (24:27.215)
So talk about a converting offer because I think, you know, if that's the key, so talk about the key. What's so important about it? What is involved with coming up with that? How do you measure that? What's the process for developing that?

Vinnie Fisher (24:43.749)
few shows on that question but I think in the key the whole thing you know there are are life cycles to a business right so by the way I have a pet peeve there's no such thing as a startup it's just a mode so if any of you use the word startup you don't have a startup you're just in startup mode so site trust my newest company is in startup mode I'm still working out the conversions of the offer and that's it

Paul Povolni (24:45.066)
Hahaha.

Vinnie Fisher (25:08.453)
fun, hard place to be for every company, right? And until you get through the mechanics of spending a dollar to get a dollar, to get a repeat customer, you don't have a converting offer. Like, if you work on a few referrals and you can pay a couple bills, great and all, I'm not here to knock that business. That's not a, that's an organization that you deliver services at. That's not a replicable, repeatable model. And so an offer,

Like we did a fully accountable, like we had four positions and we figured out, I figured out how to write a sales offer that got you all four of those positions for less than the price of the cheapest one on the team. And that clicked and it just clicked. And then I put packages together and we created that offer that allowed people to have the entire back office for the price of four people for the price of less than the cheapest one. And the thing clicked, but it took me 18 months to figure that out. Like it just...

Paul Povolni (26:03.951)
Wow.

Vinnie Fisher (26:05.577)
Everyone's like, oh, you're an overnight success. 18 months later. so like in all of it, like when I at BrainHost, our web hosting company, the offer was we will create your five flat pages of your website and deliver it to you. Built. This is in 2010, might I add you, when that stuff didn't exist. So we had to do things like create that stuff. Well, when we could get that, your hosting account live and deliver it a website in it, we clicked.

Paul Povolni (26:24.185)
Wow. Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (26:35.765)
And so we were averaging 7,000 sales on the front end a day because the offer converted. But I'll tell you how much it sucks when your offer doesn't convert. You're spending money, you're maxing out your credit cards, you're like begging the, not the beg ones, nothing to do with you because the thing isn't working. And so the hardest part of business, which all of us marketing junkie freaks think we like, is getting the offer to convert. It's what keeps you up at night.

Paul Povolni (26:36.164)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (26:45.252)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:02.381)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (27:04.073)
I'm excited about fully, excuse me, site trust, and what we're doing with AI disclosure, but I'm the earliest I've ever been in a market and I'm still figuring out making the offer convert. Like sometimes I'm like, man, then what are you doing? This is a young man's game, but like it is the business. And so when I say it's the whole thing, now maybe I'm addicted to that part of the business, but you also don't sleep well. You're convicted. You're like, and if I don't have that passion, ain't no one else going to fight through the hard stuff.

Paul Povolni (27:15.8)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:19.095)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (27:34.563)
Yeah. Yeah. That is so good. Well, and, know, I've, I've heard it said, and I've said myself, but I've recently modified it. You know, it's not the best that wins. It's the best known who wins, but I would even add to that. It's the best offer that actually wins because you could be the best known. You could be the best at what you do, but if the offer isn't clear and isn't good, then you're not going to get any kind of conversion. can be super well known and still not be getting sales.

Vinnie Fisher (28:02.301)
We had our first version of fully accountable, I think was we had a better team than our second version. because we, we cherry picked some people from the fancy accounting firms and they're just really well pedigree and could do the job, but we couldn't sustain keeping them at first. Cause we had this like awful message that we were going to be a fractional accounting to like small business, which it just, I mean, I'm not here to knock it. It just didn't work. And, and so the idea in my head,

And so I'm doing it. Let's fast forward to site trust. So the thing was great right out of the box, the standard for AI disclosure. It's a big gap. The whole premise is that the way to actually gain trust with your customer is to use disclosure and honesty. The great way to reduce risk in your business is to use disclosure and honesty. This is tried and true. We're bringing it to AI. Well, as we started building it,

I started reading about responsible AI and governance. So I started adding all these things in there and confusing my message. This happens. I'm like PhD style offer writer and I did it to myself again. Here I am adding all these things. So I had to rip it all back and get back to the core of what we do. I'm thankful we built some things along the way that we wouldn't have built otherwise. But here we are locking in. We're close. By the way, we're so close.

Paul Povolni (29:04.525)
Wow, yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:09.591)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (29:25.301)
18 months from now, people are going to think we're this a massive overnight success, but like we're close and it's the hardest part of it, man. And I want to encourage all of you who are in offer conversion, take sales calls. The best thing you can do is not drive more leads, not spend more money on your thing. Take calls. You need as many nos as you can get stacked up to figure out what yes is.

Paul Povolni (29:29.871)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (29:50.401)
Wow, wow, that's good. So let's talk about site trust. Where did that idea came from? know, the AI, AI, you know, it doesn't seem like it, but it's still kind of an infant, you know, it's kind of still a baby. And so where did the idea for site trust come from?

Vinnie Fisher (30:04.937)
In fairness, I've owned the brand since 2013 and I've always been in and around trust. The first thing I did with site trust was back when there was this thing that was new to the internet, it was called WordPress and it wasn't getting indexed in Google. And we were the first pinging service that got your site recognized in Google. And that's how you trusted that we were the people that helped Google trust your site, right? Fun, 47 downloads, a lot of, you know, like.

Paul Povolni (30:27.725)
Nice.

Vinnie Fisher (30:30.857)
over, over, over. That was fine. We had started doing privacy because of our hosting company. And then it shuttered. It shuttered to like 20. We ended up selling off like some of the tech, closed down what we did. I retained all the IP around the name because I really loved my name. had like name envy of my own name. And so I didn't want to have it. And so 2020, like I kind of started really getting around trust again. And then this, the world shut down hours before I was about to launch a version of

Paul Povolni (30:47.8)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (30:57.679)
Oh... Oh wow.

Vinnie Fisher (30:58.951)
and the trust deal. And I was really thankful because I think it was the wrong offer. So it sat, fully accountable was rolling. I got a couple ideas and I sell fully accountable and I'm working on Mentor Academy and I'm in the middle of Mentor Academy. We're rolling profitable seven figure company that's doing coaching and training. And I started launching, I was really annoyed. Remember that lazy guy doesn't always like to do work twice. I started messing around with some AI tools to get my ads.

because they just kept wanting me in the studio to shoot more content. I'm like, let's just do an avatar version of me and let's see. And the avatar outpulled me.

Paul Povolni (31:36.815)
Wow. Wow.

Vinnie Fisher (31:37.801)
buy a lot. And I'm like, all right, it's the same sexy guy. It's the same sexy voice. Why is this out pulling me? And so there's reasons and all that. Well, on my team call, one of my girls, the queen of content, you can look her up on our team. She's kind of indignant. She's like, don't you think we're lying to people? And I'm like, what are you talking about? It's the same fat bald guy on, I don't know what he's saying. She's like, no, it's not. it's a duplicate of you. I'm like, it's my content.

Paul Povolni (31:43.215)
you

Paul Povolni (32:00.463)
you

Vinnie Fisher (32:07.941)
our stuff, how are you? Like I was like fired up. So I was mad at her. I chose to like ignore her, which sorry, she knows I'm good at ignoring her sometimes. And so she's probably listening to this kind of rolling her eyes right now. And so I came home to dinner and I have a bunch of young people, professionals always rolling around my home. And at dinner, was sharing my indignance about this conversation and a buddy of mine who's dating my daughter. He's still my buddy, believe it or not. And he says, you know, Papa V like,

If I know it's AI, I can deal with it. If I don't, I don't trust any of it. And he froze me. And I thought, that makes a lot of sense. And that was in September of 25. And I spent my time consumed. I couldn't stop thinking about that comment. So one day in church, October of 25, my buddy Jeff, who's a friend of mine who says he's the, you know, whatever, he's the senior pastor of our big fancy church. He says this story, I'm about

tell you divine intervention, I might call it drifting during his sermon, we get to the same place. And I actually had the full framework of a disclosure tool for site trust come to me, like, as clear as clear as could be the same clarity that I had how I built fully accountable happened with site trust. And I went to my team, I actually I went to a john Maxwell event before my team stood up at this thing. And in front of 120 people told john about my dilemma.

Paul Povolni (33:08.643)
Ha ha.

Vinnie Fisher (33:34.663)
And he said, Vinny, you have a real trade-off. Close a profitable company and go after something you're supposed to go do. I'm like, that didn't help me at all. And so like, I then brought my trade-off back and he was right. It helped me a ton. I just didn't like it in the moment. And I knew I needed to lay down Mentor Academy and off to the races with site trust. And I knew early market, early everything. And how ironic right now with AI, everyone's like, it's the system, it's not us.

just yesterday for all of you listening, Anthropic showed that everyone has more individual accounts than there are team accounts. And most of the survey produced that the individual accounts aren't even being reimbursed by companies, which all of us are using these as our hidden little secret tools to make ourselves better. How ironic that's our approach to this thing when we want to act like it's human driven and we want to hide behind it. So that's what I set out to fight was that. And I'm like,

Paul Povolni (34:18.831)
wow.

Vinnie Fisher (34:33.767)
We can be better in business. HR had to do this. Credit cards had to do this. A standard that we can decide if we want to play by the rules or break them. But if everyone creates their own rules, there's nothing that market or commerce can rely on. And so I'm setting out to fight that.

Paul Povolni (34:50.807)
Wow. Well, an AI is, you know, it is a wild west right now. I mean, there's so much stuff out there. You know, talking about law, I heard a story of somebody that actually tried to use AI as their lawyer in a in a actual court case. And they they badly lost. I mean, that because of hallucinations and things like that, it was making up stuff. But I think I think

Vinnie Fisher (35:14.867)
Well, even worse is last week, California just, I just shot a video about this, so I'm gonna have fun with it. But we had to create a rule in California that judges are applying so that lawyers, if they use AI, disclose it and fact check their citations of their cases. Hear me out. Lawyers have to have a rule to tell them to do their job correctly. This is how crazy AI is right now.

Paul Povolni (35:38.756)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (35:41.321)
I think in order to accept the hardships that we need to go through to clean this up, we have to be okay that most of the system thrives in mediocrity. So we're delighted to have this thing do our work. And when we get caught or it doesn't do it well, we blame it on ourselves. And so how we live well in a system is structure. That's why we want HR rules. That's why we want speed limits. That's why we want curfew and rules and...

Paul Povolni (35:51.502)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (35:59.171)
Wow, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (36:08.701)
This is the way, imagine if we woke up every day and the time of the amount of day was different, your breakfast was now something you ate for dinner and it wasn't just your thing your kids did on opposite day. We don't exist with that. We need structure. And so what we are doing is creating a standardization for disclosure so that it either is or isn't disclosed. And what do you do with

Paul Povolni (36:13.839)
Right.

Paul Povolni (36:21.55)
Right.

Paul Povolni (36:30.745)
So what does that look like for a company? What does that disclosure look like? Is it simply a button on the website? What does that look like for a company?

Vinnie Fisher (36:40.253)
Like any industry that's had to go through like its version of regulation, there's always three tiers to any type of disclosure. There's self-disclosure, which is at its basic level, just that a conspicuous policy placed in view of your consumer through the buying journey or through the, how they enter your site. So our badge pops right on your primary site, you prop on the badge and your living policy is right there, upfront and center. Remember when we started

buying things in a shopping cart on the internet and you used to have to check privacy and check terms and conditions because it needed to be conspicuous because we had to train behavior. Well, that's what's going on here. And then the law talks about other layers of disclosure. If you have other hidden things, what's your duty to create this insurable interest between you and the consumer or what you think about it as a business or as a customer? You ever read the terms and there's a capping to your liability?

Well, if I don't set a standard in our relationship, I can't ensure my interest and I can't cap my liability. So those are the things we're fixing because everybody wants that. So we can play by a set of rules. So self-disclosure is everybody who's using AI. That will be end of this year, early next year, wait for the midterms and it'll light on fire. Verified disclosure and audited disclosure is really more about the deep embedding stuff. So the lawsuit that just came out about mortgage company,

that's using zip codes to exclude mortgage approvals. The AI got so smart that it saw which zip code was likely to default. So it stopped approving applications in that zip code. Well, so as that application got smarter, that wasn't the intent of it, right? And so what do you do there? Well, there's an insurable interest and there's a gap because there was somebody injured.

Paul Povolni (38:14.765)
Wow, wow.

Vinnie Fisher (38:26.973)
So if we actually have the right foundation, then business can respond correctly in the remedy of that injury. Because we're going so fast, we're not thinking about these things.

Paul Povolni (38:27.119)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (38:36.223)
So, right, right, right, right. Oh yeah, and we are going incredibly fast. And like I said, it's still a baby, it's still in its infancy, it's a wild west, it's...

Vinnie Fisher (38:46.663)
Yeah. Insurance companies love me. Lawyers think it's super cool. Businesses that actually have a mature base to them, that are not worried about getting a customer, they're more worried about their single points of failure. That's where our legs are running deep now. And I keep saying, as we keep going into the boardroom, it'll shove it down to everybody.

Paul Povolni (39:05.175)
Yeah, yeah. And so, so who, who is the ideal person that needs to be considering something like this?

Vinnie Fisher (39:12.549)
anybody that doesn't want to be sued for thousands of dollars for lack of disclosure. But right now, because the way the small business marketplace works, until you're forced to do it, people don't chase proactivity, they respond to reactivity. so the smaller the business, the more reactive. The smaller business disproportionately pays more money fixing their mistakes than they do preventing them. So the medium size and maturing business

tends to think in single points of failure. Smaller businesses react to whoever's the noisiest.

Paul Povolni (39:48.335)
Well, so with the badge on there, kind of stuff would qualify on your website to have something like that? Does a plumber or a roofer need to have something like that? Why would they need something like that? Or is it just people that are working in insurance, working in law, working in areas that...

Vinnie Fisher (40:12.393)
It's everyone. it's everyone. And so if you're a site and you have a website and you actually engage customers and you do anything with AI. And so what's happening in the service business is all on lead sites, right? They're automating their phone calls. And so what's hilarious to me, Illinois, is it yesterday? Today, yesterday, just put a rule out that.

If you have a phone call that comes out robotically, you have to tell the customer that it's an AI call. Just listen, everyone. It's hilarious to me that you don't. I can show you on our stuff with our clients, your conversions go up when you tell them it's AI. Just like the models on Instagram, once they disclose their AI, they've exploded. They didn't go down. The biggest models on Instagram right now are AI models, and they're not even hiding from it.

Paul Povolni (40:49.528)
Wow.

Paul Povolni (40:56.185)
That's interesting.

Vinnie Fisher (41:01.757)
This is your weapon. so Illinois passed a rule and this was because of home services that they'd get these outbound calls. Now this got wrapped up because of another issue. You know, there's outbound calls going out right now where I can, I only need 30 seconds, not even, I probably need three, but 30 if I want to be super clean. I could record your voice in just this call right here, get a robo call going and I could call your mom and say, hey, mom, this is Paul. Could you send me a few bucks?

Paul Povolni (41:31.503)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (41:32.953)
It's there. So the criminals are always the criminals. They're always going to do it. Well, they've advanced so cleverly in all this. Well, anyone who's trying to do business kind of gets caught up in this. When we just don't disclose what it is, these rules are now for everybody. If you're using a lead dialer, an automator, anything that follows up autonomously, look at the one we have going on right now with the patient who's getting doctor advice from its AI tool. It was actually really good advice.

Paul Povolni (41:59.918)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (42:01.701)
until it wasn't. And now all of a sudden, they're like, I can't believe it was an AI doctor. And then the same group of people who are mad are also defending that we should have AI music. It's all down to choice. That's why we can solve this with disclosure, because there's an AI song that's out right now that my daughter Sophia is all mad at me about liking. I think it's clever, but I know it's AI and I'm enjoying it for what it is. If I, that's why the whole thing that we're trying to figure out.

Paul Povolni (42:03.309)
Right, right, right.

Paul Povolni (42:15.929)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (42:27.299)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (42:30.909)
we'll eventually get there about leveling the playing field. A lot of people are gonna lose a bunch of money before we get there.

Paul Povolni (42:38.103)
Yeah, yeah, wow. Yeah, I actually, in a humorous way, I started adding to some of my posts that it's made con carne, you know, made with me. It was made with my brain. It wasn't made with AI, you know, because yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (42:52.071)
And by the way, this framework of a simple disclosure, like, and you're already a client as a gift you got for the way you got it. And so you should just proudly display your badge. We've offered it to you. And so the simple fact of a self-disclosure immediately creates a relationship that you've transferred risk to the buyer. I call the MTOR, a buyer beware. And so now you've said in these general areas, I use it. So no one can come back with injury and say, I didn't know you used AI in your business.

Paul Povolni (43:21.517)
Right, right, right. And so have you seen people start adopting this? It was just too early in the process for people to actually.

Vinnie Fisher (43:23.453)
which is what's happening.

Vinnie Fisher (43:29.641)
Yeah, we have like a little over 100 companies now and you know, like I would have thought by now I would add 250. And so it's because it's early and we have to explain it. But as soon as we explain it, like, oh my gosh, you know, if you don't have to explain your offer, you can grow faster. If you have to explain your offer, you might as well be the person at Sam's Club handing out water sips if you drink, right? It's going to grow a little slower. And so we're in that phase.

Paul Povolni (43:55.875)
Yeah. So, so how do people like what, what do they need to do to be able to get the badge that says they're a site trust business?

Vinnie Fisher (44:07.465)
So they have to go through a small form. then if it's self-disclosure, if it's that simple little form with a process where we help them complete the policy that we've built for them so they can publish that on their site and allow us to certify that they've published that on their site and their badge will be live on their site. If they need the other things, whether they need to be quarterly verified or have an independent audit, those have ongoing resources that somebody internally or a

consultant advisor would have to do that work to maintain those levels, but self-disclosure is a pretty clean and straightforward process.

Paul Povolni (44:44.759)
Yeah, well, and that's what it is. It's self-disclosure because there are some companies that don't want to be honest about their content and about what they're doing. And they're not going to sign up for something like this. But being true to your customers and true to your people that you're trying to help is so important these days because trust is such a valuable thing. so talk about the trust gap. You you've you've written a book, you know, or you're currently writing Trust Gap. Talk to talk a little bit about that.

Vinnie Fisher (45:08.211)
Hmm.

Vinnie Fisher (45:13.577)
You know, all leadership has an authority gap, right? So people who are listening to this right now, you have a premier podcast, people like your stuff. You go places, they recognize you. There's this like respect given to you. That authority gap is real. I have that for my business success, my team, position in the community. That's there to stay. That's like a respect gap. And we should garner and hold that as privileges we're capable of holding it.

But there's these three other gaps in leadership that are absolutely shrinkable.

I don't think you can completely get rid of them, but I think you can shrink them. And so the three of them are integrity, awareness, and courage. And so what I say all the time is you say things, I say things. Do the things I say represent who I actually am? That's this integrity gap, right? This idea of like, do the words I stand line up for who I am and, you know, not to pick on AI, but if someone's like, I'm this, I'm a devout this, I do this, but I hide and lie,

I have a gap in integrity. And so awareness is another one. This is like, here's what I think about myself, but here's what Paul thinks about Vinny. Do I have enough of a relationship that I have people speaking truthfully back into my life? And so as you move up in authority in your own organization, the altitude of the distance between you and your team offers a very interesting dynamic to whether you're getting appropriate feedback.

Paul Povolni (46:19.331)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (46:44.817)
And so there's always a gap in awareness and you can work at it by trying to create these safe environments or protectable environments that allow for people to share honest, assessed feedback to you. And then finally, courage. Courage is probably my jam that gets me in and out of trouble the most. says, you have, courage is an interesting thing. Like everyone, like everyone loves the D-Day movie that's coming out here in a few weeks because it's awesome. It's a valor and courage.

Paul Povolni (46:45.123)
Wow, yeah.

Paul Povolni (47:01.743)
You

Vinnie Fisher (47:13.639)
But I want to talk about the thing you do when you're comfortable. I had Medcacademy rolling, right? I had the courage to lay down a rolling business to go chase what I think I was supposed to do missionally.

Paul Povolni (47:18.286)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (47:27.741)
What are you gonna do to overcome comfort and go after whatever your, you know, I think everyone has a gift and everyone has a talent and we have a social obligation in society to use those as best we can to help each other. Well, in the interest of air conditioning and money in the bank and comfort and checking out, to me, is like when you do the right thing and you don't have to.

Paul Povolni (47:52.163)
Wow, yeah.

Yeah, I love that. with integrity, you know, recently I spoke at an event and I wanted to open it up in a memorable way for everybody. And so I shared a story about having to survive on Miracle Whip and bread when I was in college as a foreign student and didn't have many options. What I did is I had a jar of Miracle Whip. And so I opened up the Miracle Whip, got a spoon and took like a big spoonful of it and just, you know, put it in my mouth and grossed everybody out.

They're all freaking out. like, that is so nasty. That is so gross. And so then I continued my seminar, my talk.

And then at the very end, told them, you inside this miracle whip jar is actually yogurt. I replaced it last night with yogurt. It's not actually miracle whip inside this jar. But the point was, you know, what's on the outside, the outside label says miracle whip, but what's on the inside is not the same thing. And when you don't have brand integrity, when it's, my talk was about culture and the importance of culture is you might have on your website, you might have on your brochures, on your business card, something on the

Vinnie Fisher (48:49.491)
So good.

Paul Povolni (49:01.573)
that says this is who we are, but on the inside, you're not the same thing. That's when things are broken and that's when you're gonna lose that trust. And so I think that in...

Vinnie Fisher (49:09.895)
Yeah, we've come from this post it to prove it economy, right? And in process of that, we've been able to post up some amazing stuff about ourselves.

Paul Povolni (49:13.335)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (49:18.641)
If someone had a free look at your client satisfaction rate, both internally and externally on your team, does your team roll their eyes when they're watching your podcast about how you talk about this amazing culture you have? Does that look like, you do you make a bunch of promises that you don't even fulfill on? Like, here's the reality. We all have gaps in each of these categories. And I think as a leader, our job is to see where the largest gap is.

Paul Povolni (49:31.949)
Right, right.

Paul Povolni (49:44.099)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (49:44.401)
and see what we can do to identify that. These are blind spots because what I've noticed in my career, the more I work at addressing and shrinking these gaps, probably the better I'm in in leading all categories that I've got the privilege to lead.

Paul Povolni (50:02.305)
Absolutely. Well, and then even with the awareness gap, I think that's so critical. think sometimes, even within churches, I think sometimes there's an issue of that awareness that you talked about, that the pastor, the larger the church gets, the less the pastor smells like sheep. And he's no longer super connected because he starts to get more removed from everybody else. And so he thinks things are going fine. He thinks things are going perfect. But if you talk to the sheep, they're like,

No, it's not. so talk a little bit more about that awareness gap.

Vinnie Fisher (50:34.065)
Not even close.

Vinnie Fisher (50:38.631)
Yeah, it was funny. just had a client, we were talking about this yesterday morning, and he said, you know, I have this person on my team that I think is leaving to take another job. And I said, interesting. How did you figure that out? He's like, you know, I kind of smelled out the tea leaves. So then I went to my number two and shared my concerns. He's like, yeah, I've known about that. I wasn't sure if I should have told you. And so as you move up, some people...

They don't want to take things to you because they think they can either handle it or they don't want you to respond in a way that it's just so interesting how people like make these decisions. Well, the more and more you go up, like that's why you continually have to build around you.

this idea of an environment that seeks feedback. So what I did in business and still do is I go to the youngest, and I mean not in age, youngest in tenure, and because they're not scared of me yet. And I talk to them and get a sense of what's going on because, and then I bring that back to our leadership team. And I'm always doing like a little bit of an inventory. And my buddy, pastor of a church, he spends a lot of time with the residents.

Because one, they're innovative, they got young ideas, and they just, since they only bring energy and effort to the table, they don't have enough fear yet to know that they should probably wait their turn, and they just speak up. so, I think leaders have to bring that altitude down a little bit. It's really hard to expect people to.

Paul Povolni (52:04.749)
Yeah, they're dewy-eyed sheep, yeah.

Paul Povolni (52:13.251)
Yeah, yeah. And the third gap, do you want to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, courage.

Vinnie Fisher (52:17.065)
I think a lot of people don't take risk because they're, I think the classic thing is they're afraid of losing what they already have. And I think that's really hard and I want to be super respectful of my comments.

But I think if you want to do something really well, and I don't think really well means just money, I think we not only owe it to ourselves, but I think if you have a clear vision of something you're supposed to be doing and you don't do it, I actually think you're more likely to be discouraged, possibly depressed, drifting, not on point.

If you've ever seen someone who seems to be really rocking it, it's because they're out there accomplishing and they might even, I used to be a skier, right? I'm older now, I'm still a skier. My boys are like, my gosh, now you can ski dad. I used to always say, if you're out over your tips, you're gonna act like you're out over your tips. And sometimes like some of the most intense thrills I had when I was skiing is when I felt like I was out over my tips. Well, if you don't have this intensity a little bit in life, what gets you out of bed?

Paul Povolni (53:28.548)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (53:29.991)
And so I would say that if you're somebody who, and I'm guilty of it at times, who's trying to like have life be easy, life's gonna be way harder for you. If you accept that life's hard and you want a challenge, then interestingly, life's probably not as challenging for you.

Paul Povolni (53:42.051)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (53:48.301)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (53:50.385)
And I think that's the core of courage. Like, you know the things you gotta do. And you know, one of my old COOs was a perfectionist. She needed to see the whole thing before she could go. So she used to have to rely on my go before her go. And I'm okay. She at least got words around it. But I think I'm not asking you to be flippant. I'm not asking you to, I'm asking you to take the risk you know you're supposed to take.

Paul Povolni (54:04.089)
Hmm, yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:16.301)
Yeah. And do think the consequence of not taking those courageous steps is regrets? Do think that's the biggest? Because that's a big thing to...

Vinnie Fisher (54:24.467)
that's really good. That's really good. I like that a lot. know, John Maxwell, the most recent book I'm looking at is like, how to fail, right? Like, what do you learn from failures? He makes a comment in there that failure and success should stay right next to each other. His point is don't get too high, don't get too low. Right. And I think your point about regret is actually the math we start doing on the woulda, coulda, shoulda.

Paul Povolni (54:45.421)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (54:54.029)
Yeah, absolutely, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (54:55.685)
And we all do it. And I get it the worst when I see one of my buddies exceeding at something that I probably could have been doing. And I gotta get out of my head trash and let that go, not let that go, cause I didn't not let that go because I keep staying in that posture. So I also believe you are exactly where, like when people like their culture sucks, I'm like, you got the culture you built.

Paul Povolni (55:03.374)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (55:15.149)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (55:21.721)
Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (55:21.777)
you have curated the life you have. I mean, you also can do something about it.

Paul Povolni (55:27.479)
Right, right, right, absolutely. Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (55:30.119)
And so I think like we can find so much joy and the most joyful people I know. I'm talking, listen, I like having a couple of bucks. I don't want to act like having some money isn't fun. But once you get to a certain point, adding more doesn't change any of that. At some point it's about how you help other people. And when you get this satisfaction of helping others.

Paul Povolni (55:45.4)
Right.

Vinnie Fisher (55:52.733)
And you fill in the blank of how that means significant to you. These are the most joyful people I know. Retirement, take care of yourself, do nothing to help others. That just sounds like a recipe for misery.

Paul Povolni (55:58.392)
Yeah.

Paul Povolni (56:04.427)
Yeah, wow. Wow. So would you say that people get over failure faster than they get over regret?

Vinnie Fisher (56:13.801)
Yes, because I think that failure is not a thing. I think you a succeed and opportunities to learn things. And so regret is a closed door or a window. And so you look back at regret because, my dad had this, he's dead now and I can talk about it. My dad had a life of regrets, things he thought about, dreamt about and did nothing about.

And we talked about that late in his life and he said it was his biggest regret was the whole entirety of regret as a category. And so it really broke my heart. I love my dad, obviously, and I guess that's the obvious, but I did love my dad. And it really breaks my heart when I think about those things. And I love it, Paul, what you're saying there. It's funny. I don't live too much in waste, so I don't spend a lot of time there, but we all can reflect. Right. And so

Paul Povolni (56:37.027)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (57:05.027)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (57:06.853)
I just think I encourage everybody to give failure a different relationship. I don't like fake a tea maker because it doesn't mean anything, but we're all rookies at something. And I think some of the people who are the most learned and smart, like super smart like you, are afraid to have pie in their face.

Paul Povolni (57:11.959)
Ryan, Ryan.

Paul Povolni (57:18.264)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (57:25.997)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. We're all afraid of failure and we have an unhealthy relationship with failure.

But I think regret really is the thing that sticks with us the longest. Like you said, you look back and say, man, if only I done this when I was younger, if only I had made that move, if only I had had the courage, as you talked about the third gap, if only I had moved beyond those, now that I look at them, were fears that weren't even good fears or relevant fears that were...

Vinnie Fisher (57:39.913)
It's so true.

Vinnie Fisher (58:00.421)
And if you're someone who's susceptible to this, let me give you a couple of little tests. You ever watch an event, a sporting event, and the outcome is an upset or a, and you say, I should have bet on that. You're somebody who most likely lives in the dreaming realities of the past.

Paul Povolni (58:17.967)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (58:19.721)
And so what I say is be careful about that person. That person needs to be uninvited from your brain because we get caught in waste when we think about that. I think you make a decision and you move on and like you can't, well, I guess my grandma used to say, stop crying over your spilled milk. She's a little bit tougher to make this, I could take it, but I got her point. It's like, it's a red spill. Like what are we going to do about

Paul Povolni (58:27.897)
Right.

Paul Povolni (58:36.911)
Right.

Paul Povolni (58:41.774)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

Well, and that would be the difference between the regret and the failure is, know, the failure is a moment. It's something that happened, you know, that you can you can move past and you can learn from as you as you mentioned that, you know, failure is is clarity. Failure is a is a time to to look back and see, OK, I'm going to learn from this. Whereas regret, is it does become a loop in your brain. And so, you know, having the courage and having the boldness to step into

are the things that you feel called to do that you feel are the right things to do. Those are the things that will lead to a life with a lot less regrets. And we all have them. mean, it's hard to avoid it. You we always think about the thing I should have done, could have done, would have done type thing.

Vinnie Fisher (59:27.432)
Yeah.

I mean, I closed Mentor Academy, a good operating organization. We honored our commitments, so I closed it right-ish. And I know right now I'd be sitting here triple clicking on why I didn't start SiteTrust.

Paul Povolni (59:43.011)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (59:45.253)
And we would be doing that math. Now, the consumers will tell me 18 months from now if I'm a successor or not. I get it. And welcome to all that. But I refuse to believe I have that clear of a vision that I'm not supposed to be given at a real shop. The rest of it figures itself out.

Paul Povolni (59:59.491)
Right.

Vinnie Fisher (01:00:01.085)
But I know this, it's like my dad. My dad lived with us his last 16 months of his life and Deb and I did everything we could to take care of him. We don't ever wake up regretting that we didn't try every thing we could do. But I've had situations and I've had friends who sit around wondering could they have done more.

Paul Povolni (01:00:19.809)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And that comes from living that life of courage, right? Not not not being stuck in that courage gap.

Vinnie Fisher (01:00:27.709)
Yeah, and so if you experience that, then it's such an opportunity to, like for me, it's an event of faith, like step out on it, take some risks, because every other guys who say something like, you're definitely not gonna get a sale if you make a phone call, or it's gonna be no if you haven't even tried to get a yes. Like all of that comes to the same thing, you gotta try.

Paul Povolni (01:00:50.381)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (01:00:52.745)
You got to try. And so my, having four kids has helped me be more battle-tested on that. But like, well, I'm always, I've got the gift of encouragement. My encouragement can sound like a tough coach at times, but it's always this like, come on, let's just give it a shot.

Paul Povolni (01:01:08.557)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Give it a shot. Don't look back and say, if only I'd given it a shot. Give it a shot. You fail, you learn, you move on. You go on to the next thing. You go into a better, smarter, wiser, if you take time to learn from that experience. So as we wrap this up, I can't believe how quickly an hour has gone. As we wrap this up, I'd like to ask the question, what is something that you wish I'd asked you about or a head smack that you want to share?

Vinnie Fisher (01:01:39.091)
You know, I love all those superpower questions. And I think that if I really dove down in there, I learned something about myself. I learned that I'm tenacious. There's a lot of smart people around me who talk themselves in and out of things. And throughout the process, I noticed that I'm somebody who just doesn't give up. So my real superpower is outlasting somebody. And so if you bring nothing else to the table, just don't quit.

Paul Povolni (01:02:07.492)
Love that.

Vinnie Fisher (01:02:07.749)
and you will probably find out that everyone else dropped off 50 % along the way.

Paul Povolni (01:02:12.365)
Yeah, yeah, wow. Yeah, I believe that too. And that's such a great way to end this is sometimes the difference between, you know, average and genius sometimes is just wrestling with the problem a little longer, just a little longer than everybody else. And you'll find that's where the magic happens.

Vinnie Fisher (01:02:26.119)
Yep.

Just kidding.

It's so true and having had the privilege of experiencing that multiple times, I always think, wow, I'm really kind glad I didn't give that one up.

Paul Povolni (01:02:40.055)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then people look at you as this genius, this amazing person where it's like, I just stuck with it a little longer. I, but everybody else is dropping off. just stuck with it a little longer. And that's, that's where.

Vinnie Fisher (01:02:47.592)
Yes.

Vinnie Fisher (01:02:51.379)
I went two years without a paycheck of fully accountable and I was right at the 11th edge thinking, I'm not gonna get this offer to work. And then we got it to work and we built this great company and we sold it. It's like, everyone like loves that whole part of the story, but that 18th month when like, gosh, was I wrong? Is this gonna work? And then it worked. And man, it is way easier to have a job on someone else's team sometimes. gotta be honest with you. Some days like Walmart cards sound great right now, but.

Paul Povolni (01:03:13.135)
Hahaha

Paul Povolni (01:03:18.552)
Right, right.

Vinnie Fisher (01:03:19.465)
This is anyone who wants to lead whether you're on someone's team or you're on your own team this is a message of hope and the hope is like You know the other thing I wish I would you would ask me is about my sense of humor. I don't take myself very seriously. I Think we we take life too seriously. I Think we choke the fun out of it because we take it too seriously

If you can't laugh a little bit or you haven't been laughing with your closest people, I think you're choking it a little too hard. And I don't care what you have going on. There's enough to start laughing at yourself. There's enough humor to go around that you can't be both thankful and anxious at the same time. And I've noticed that.

The crying and laughing are like fear and success. They're so close to each other. You ever been like laughing or crying and all of the opposite emotion happens with your wife or whatever? It's like, how does that turn into that? It's because they're right next to each other. And so I think that, I think life needs to be more enjoyable. And I think we're the ambassadors who need to introduce enjoyment into it.

Paul Povolni (01:04:20.141)
Yeah, yeah.

Paul Povolni (01:04:24.207)
Yeah, I like that. And yeah, it is sometimes it's even a matter of reframing it. think I saw I can't remember if it was an actor or an athlete, but they talked about that a study was done on the difference between fear and anxiety, or excitement and anxiety. And they said, it's exact same chemicals. It's the exact same bodily reactions. And so when they start, yeah, when they started feeling anxiety, they they flipped their mindset to say, Oh, I'm excited. I'm excited. I'm excited as and because

Vinnie Fisher (01:04:45.513)
It's the mindset.

Paul Povolni (01:04:54.161)
because it's the exact same chemical reactions in your body between the two and so they just flip the frame.

Vinnie Fisher (01:05:00.797)
That study is the reason I stopped. So you ever have someone say they're excited about something really hard to do, but you're like, I don't think that's true. think this is like, I used to stop saying that isn't exciting because it's actually the posture you need to have the valor and the courage to fight through all the conviction to get it done.

Paul Povolni (01:05:17.871)
Yeah, yeah.

Vinnie Fisher (01:05:19.923)
totally agree with all that. Dude, you and I could probably talk for hours.

Paul Povolni (01:05:23.919)
Yeah, absolutely. We could. And we've already done it and it feels like it's only been a few minutes. And so, yeah, we're gonna have to do a part two or something else at some point. So how do people get a hold of you? What's the best way to learn more about site trust, learn more about you and what you're doing?

Vinnie Fisher (01:05:38.003)
So you can go to site trust.com for your listeners. You we love to give things away. We don't really make offers to people. at site trust.com forward slash gifts.

please, the only thing I take from you is your email and then I guess you're in my email system. But we're gonna have a whole bunch of gifts for you. If you're really struggling with like adoption of AI and how responsibility and leadership and health assessment, we have a treasure trove of gifts for you there. And then I'm Vinny Fisher everything. Like if you can't find me or someone who works in one of my social accounts, then you haven't looked.

Paul Povolni (01:06:09.005)
Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Well, I'll put that link in the show notes and Vinny, this has been an amazing conversation. Enjoyed our time in person and enjoyed this just as much. It's been absolutely wonderful and appreciate you coming on, man.

Vinnie Fisher (01:06:21.481)
Yeah, thanks for having