Redefining Riches through Health and Happiness with George Siderias

When George Siderias beat cancer, he didn't just survive—he thrived, turning his life into a masterclass on balancing the pillars of a fulfilling existence. Tune in as George, a financial savant and devoted family man, shares his journey of intertwining health, relationships, and mindset with financial acumen. Our dialogue uncovers the profound impact of overall well-being on wealth management, and George's insights are a treasure trove for business dads striving to succeed without sacrificing personal joy.

This episode isn't just a peek into one man's life; it's a guide to disciplined living where less truly is more. George opens up about his own epiphany, not during the darkest days of his illness, but in the aftermath when reshaping his world became imperative. We talk about how the right mentor can spark a revolution in your health and habits, leading to a richness in life that goes beyond the bank account. Join us as we connect the dots between daily self-improvement, presence with loved ones, and the bedrock of financial stability, all through the lens of George's inspiring story.

Follow George on his socials at:
Instagram at: gsiderias
Facebook at: george.siderias
Check out George on his website: f3coach.com/

You can join over 350 other Dads like you by joining The Balanced Business Dad's Facebook group here: dadupgroup.com

Check out our website at: thebalancedbusinessdad.com

Socials:
RJ on Facebook at facebook.com/arjay3rd
RJ on Instagram at instagram.com/rjcampbell3rd
Dustin on Facebook at facebook.com/dustin.charles.718689
Dustin on Instagram at instagram.com/dustin_hoog

Transcript

Voiceover: 0:01

Dads, do you want a thriving business that doesn't control you, a passionate marriage and kids that adore you? Do you want to grow deeper in your faith, be healthier both physically and mentally, build more meaningful relationships with your friends? Welcome to the Balance Business Dad podcast, where, in each episode, we dive into balancing and optimizing the six pillars of life Faith, health, marriage, fatherhood, brotherhood and business. And here are your hosts, pioneers of the Balance Business Dad movement Dustin Hoag and RJ Campbell.

Coach Dustin: 0:37

What's up, gents, and welcome to another episode of the Balance Business. Dad, I'm your host, coach Dustin With me, as always, the very seasoned, the very distinguished Mr RJ Campbell.

RJ Campbell: 0:47

RJ. What is going on? It's a week into the new year. We're already planning for the holidays. It is yes.

Coach Dustin: 0:55

I am. I'm counting down January. January is not my favorite month. I'm just going right to it. I go to Mexico in three weeks, so let's get through January. Yeah, it's the dark period.

RJ Campbell: 1:03

Yeah, it is. Yeah, I mean it's just dark in the morning.

Coach Dustin: 1:06

Yeah, it's just the dark period, yeah, for sure Gotta get through it.

RJ Campbell: 1:07

Get through the next six weeks and spring is here and life is good.

Coach Dustin: 1:11

Yes, well, as much as we think people want to hear us ramble, they don't, so we're gonna get on with the show. So, guys, we have an awesome guest with us today with an incredibly inspiring story that we're really just gonna kick it off and hear from that. But George Ciderius, from the outside of New Jersey. I just learned about the whole East Coast thing. I knew nothing about it, but RJ and him were talking a lot about it, but that's where he's at. So, george, welcome to the show and thank you so much.

George Siderias: 1:36

Gentlemen, thank you. Thank you for having me and I appreciate the opportunity. And, yes, this is the dark period. It is like 20 degrees here and I hate it. So yeah, so let's get it warm as fast as possible.

Coach Dustin: 1:48

Absolutely, absolutely. So we're gonna just jump right in. So, george, let's start with really who you are, kind of what you're doing now and then how did you get to what you're doing now?

George Siderias: 1:58

Great, great question. So again, I am entrepreneur. I have been in the finance. I basically grew up in the business world. My family's been in the restaurant business my entire life, so I grew up just understanding what it takes to run a business, the sacrifices that it takes, and I always knew that I wanted to work for myself and I've never actually worked for anyone besides my dad I don't think that counts so I've never worked for anyone besides my dad and myself. So I've been in the financial services industry for a little over a decade, so that's been a core part of my business.

George Siderias: 2:42

And recently I've started to incorporate just other facets as I've attempted to get better overcome some personal things. I've really looked at, okay, what has really gotten me to overcome these hurdles in my life? I guess we'll get into. I'm also a cancer survivor. I just celebrated 18 years as a cancer survivor. I've had ups and downs in business that we all do but also personally. So I've started to incorporate personal development as part of my overall business and really helping my clients understand how important it is to have their mind right, have their body right, because it all incorporates their finances, how they are with their family. I know you just said you're going on a trip to Mexico, right? So being able to help my clients really incorporate every part of their world, not just their money, how they're feeling, their relationships, their mindset, how they are with their kids so I've really just incorporated all of that and being able to give everything that I've learned over the last 10 to 15 years to my clients to help them.

RJ Campbell: 3:49

Love it. So your clients are originally coming to you for financial services and now you're expanding into yeah, but it's everything. It's your mind, it's your body, it's your mind. It's not just where are we going to put your money?

George Siderias: 4:04

Yeah, and it's crazy because I never even thought to incorporate those aspects. It was like, hey, let's just handle your money, let's make sure that is done. But the more I started thinking about it. Well, if we want to build well to have in the future, we need to be in good shape. We need to be here, as you were called, season before. So if we want to all get to that point and be able to spend our wealth, give it to our kids and our grandkids, we need to be in good shape. We need to make sure that we're focusing on building those relationships with our partners, with our kids. But we need money to do that so they're all incorporated. And it's that same person that is not confident enough to walk into their boss and ask for that raise. They don't know how to do it, they don't feel confident. So it's really just about incorporating all of that stuff, not just focusing on their money and what their investment returns have been.

RJ Campbell: 5:03

Wow, my financial advisor has never asked me about my personal fitness or mental health, mental awareness, mental fitness, anything. I know that, thank you.

Coach Dustin: 5:13

I know, I know that. So I love that. That is because it does make sense. I mean, it's how you show up in one area of your life is how you show up in the others, right? So if you're showing up, you want to do well in finances and everything else is not doing well, you're not gonna do great in finances. So I love that. That is a. It's a great niche there. So when you say you focus on, you know, the health of people, I mean, are you a personal trainer as well, a health coach? What is? What does that look?

George Siderias: 5:37

like. So no, I am not. Like, I know what my, I know what my lane is, I know um, so yeah, so I know that, yes, I could go down and get personal trainer certified, but it's not even about that. Like we can like, I have my own app they were about to launch. Now that people can go in, depending on if they're working out at home, we're in the gym, we can create workouts for them, but it ultimately doesn't matter. I have some clients that like to go to a CrossFit gym three to four days a week. Great, we just track it right. So I'm not a Nutritionist. I'm learning more about that, but it's hey, can we just get you eating wholesome food? Like I, with every part of life, we over complicate it. It's oh my god, I need to understand Every piece of thing that I'm putting in my body. Well, you can understand. Don't eat the you know the candy bar. Let's eat chicken, right, I mean, even with your finances. Like we over complicate it.

RJ Campbell: 6:33

Like I Don't know where to put my money.

George Siderias: 6:36

Well, we just got to start saving. So, yeah, I'm not. I'm not in any of those areas. What I'm starting to do now is I do have someone on my team that is a Certified personal trainer, that they're going to build a workout if you need that. I do have access to other healthcare professionals if somebody's not has a specific Medical condition that we need to be aware of, and all those things. So I'm building out my team, but I know my lane. I just need to work with my clients and even on the financial side, like if we're giving or we're discussing taxes or legal I know enough about those things. When we're bringing my team in and those strategic partnerships that I have to talk about, here's how we leave money in them in the most tax-efficient way. I want to go from an LLC to an escort, like I understand it, but we're gonna make sure those professionals are really given that expertise and that's what it comes down to with my clients.

Coach Dustin: 7:32

It's kind of like a Modern family office that you incorporated health with.

George Siderias: 7:37

Let me tell you that is so crazy that you say that, because I call it the virtual family office, that most clients, most clients, will never have the opportunity to have something like that because they don't have 20, 30, 40, 50 million dollars. They don't even under like. When I even say that they're like what's a family office? I'm like watch billion, watch the show. I watch the show. It's crazy because I'm the only ones are in my. In my office I run my own team. There's 110 advisors and people still think that I'm out of my mind, that I built this Structure because they're in the Stone Age. I'm like okay, you guys keep doing what you're doing. I'm just gonna build what I'm doing here and just give as much value as I can to my clients and just build it that way.

Coach Dustin: 8:25

I Like that.

Coach Dustin: 8:26

So for RJ, because he didn't know what a family office is never honestly, I learned it from total money makeover by Tony Robbins, the book where he talks about how people could get access Two different things that he had and stuff like that in the book. But what my understanding of a family office is and you'll obviously have a better understanding to kind of help all the listeners is An awe. It's kind of like a one-stop shop for everything you need your attorneys, your tax people, your financial advisors, you would get your mortgages through there, kind of everything. For the higher net worth people I would say, so they don't have to keep on.

George Siderias: 9:01

Yeah. So essentially, yeah, those, those high net worth people have understand that they're really good at making money, right? So they go into these offices and just say here's all my money. Handle everything for me. We're just gonna go keep printing money because that's what we're good at and it's a one-stop shop.

George Siderias: 9:20

But everyone has those people in their life right? So when I first meet a client, when I discuss the structure of what we do, you have someone that does your PNC, right, your auto and home insurance. You have, maybe, somebody you bought some life insurance from, somebody that does investments, hopefully somebody that's doing your taxes, legal. You work for a company. You have an HR person. You have a bank person, a mortgage person. The average American has no idea how all those things should be coordinated because those professionals are working silo, they're working in their individual area.

George Siderias: 9:58

We hope that you're getting expertise. A lot of times you're not and there's no coordination and there's gaps across the board. Right, sorry, I made you choke there. Right, so right, we know there's no coordination. So, right, rj is sad. Right, you guys are saddled with okay. Well, what do we do? How do we coordinate it? Am I doing the right thing? Am I not? So what we come in is we're essentially the CFO for the client. You guys run your life, you run your business. We're gonna help coordinate all those moving parts. We don't have to replace them. But what's important is it's all about expertise. So if your cousin's brother is doing your taxes from their basement and, just right, has no idea about taxes, well I don't care about the relationship because you're not getting expertise.

Coach Dustin: 10:51

Right, that sounded like a very New Jersey thing to say.

George Siderias: 10:55

Yes right, yes, yeah, yeah, it's right, and this is another one. Hey, my best friend from college had an internship at Northwestern Mutual. They sold me a life insurance policy Right yeah, and I've never done anything with it. Well, great, we can keep it. But again, I know we're joking, but really important, like are the beneficiary designations matching your legal documents?

George Siderias: 11:25

right yeah, I'm appreciate it Now most people don't have a will, but if they do, they're not coordinated. Because, again, my industry is flawed. Right, They've done an awful job. They sell policies. They never see you again. You put money into an investment account, unless you got a quarter million dollars and up, they're not talking to you. So I've seen this over a decade. These are the things that I found. So that's really where the coordination comes in. I come in and make sure that everything's wrapped around. We have no gaps. If we have to replace them when we do it. But essentially a one-stop shop. And now just incorporated the personal development coaching. How do we make sure you're in good shape and whatever you need, you're eating the right way, we're taking care of your money, we're saving appropriately and getting you to just a better position?

Coach Dustin: 12:16

Man, I love that, I love it.

RJ Campbell: 12:17

So that's Dustin's word for 2024. Simplify, simplify. It's kind of where you were going before. This stuff should just be simple, and I have to. It's my favorite book of 2023. Dustin knows I'm going to talk about the comfort crisis and I loved in that one.

George Siderias: 12:35

Well, I read that in 22. Very yep.

RJ Campbell: 12:37

Great book. It's what the health person that he refers to. And that guy says I don't care what diet plan, I don't care what you're doing, I'll keep it clean. He says just eat like an effing adult. It's it. Don't live on the Twinkies, like you mentioned. Eat like an effing adult, yeah.

George Siderias: 12:56

It's simple. It's amazing when you actually just do a workout, you put the right stuff in your body. How much better you feel if you just go from saving no money to 50 bucks. Like I mean, it's just, it's amazing what you can do when you it's all about taking action, though. We get so we get so consumed with information, Like you can turn Instagram TikTok, it's all. Everyone's got these ideas of how to, you know, create the new invention or do this, and all these quote unquote gurus that are not licensed, that have no idea what they're doing and just putting out these things and it's like, well, where do I go? What do I do? But you're right, Keep it simple.

Coach Dustin: 13:44

So this you know I always feel I'm a huge personal development junkie and I can pinpoint when it started for me in my life. And you know I coach a lot of entrepreneurs these days and you know I can see that when people want to lean into personal development, they're all in. What started that journey for you? I mean, was it that being the cancer? Was it the getting into the financial world? What started the personal development journey for you?

George Siderias: 14:11

So you would have thought it would be the cancer. But I was young. I was young and stupid, right, I was 20, I was 24 years old. I thought I was Superman. I was like, all right, let's take this on, I'm good, it was just me, right. So that didn't do it. It all hit me about six to eight months ago.

George Siderias: 14:30

So I've been again running a successful business. I was just around the wrong people for the last like just years, just around people. That again, I grew up in this industry and I just started to see again the bad habits of, hey, let's just focus on making money and the other stuff didn't really matter. It was just, hey, our spouses stayed home, we just went out and had meetings all day and we didn't really care about being home. So I was around that and I thought that's what I was supposed to do and just got around wrong people, just got into like some alcohol stuff and then ultimately led to start of a divorce about a year and a half ago and just was battling through that. And then I heard someone six months actually a little over it was in June of last year this person stepped on stage and the second I heard them on stage I said that's the person I need to just keep me alive and I've had coaches for the last couple of years, business-wise but not really focusing on me.

RJ Campbell: 15:45

And.

George Siderias: 15:45

I've overcome a lot. I fought in the cage, I beat cancer and I thought I was mentally tough but I needed someone that was even tougher to get me in line. So I heard him on stage, my coach Wes Watson. He's one of the I think he's the number one personal development coach in the world. I just heard him. I sent him a message and I said I need you. He said great, that was a Saturday, he's like Sunday. I signed up in his program Monday I was in the gym. Never look back.

Coach Dustin: 16:15

Interesting.

George Siderias: 16:16

I cut out. I haven't had a sip of alcohol since then. I didn't drink a lot, it was just a couple of times a week. I'd have like a drink or two and it just fogginess right, just creating all these distractions that I wasn't focused. I was always in good shape, ran CrossFit, did MMA, I ran a marathon in 2022, but I just I didn't have it up here, so I started on June 4th of 2023. I absolutely got ripped. In 60 days I lost. I'm not a big dude, but I lost like 17, 18 pounds, six pack, absolutely shredded.

George Siderias: 16:57

I ran the Chicago marathon five months later and sub four hours and that just changed it. But it's changed everything for me my relationship with my ex, like the stupid fights that we would have. I just started to. I can control what I can control. She wants to be mad at me great, be mad, but it has nothing to do with me. When I'm with my kids, now I'm present. My phone is down. When I'm with my client like it's just. Everything has totally cleared up for me because I built the daily discipline that I thought I had before that I did. So I'm just reading. I've read more books in the last year and a half than I have in my entire life.

RJ Campbell: 17:41

Crazy, how that happens.

George Siderias: 17:43

It's unbelievable. I hated reading, but every day, so my routine. I'm up at 4 am every day reading 10 pages to start today, 10 pages at the end of the day working out, eating right, no alcohol, just that's it, eliminating all those stupid vices that got me into the bad position before and I learned right Ups and downs from it. So again, we're all going to make mistakes, right? Personal, financial, running a business, right, whatever that looks like. But we can always get better. If we don't learn from it, we just keep creating the same thing over and over again.

RJ Campbell: 18:20

Love it. Wow, that's a balanced business, dad. Right there, I almost went right down the six pillars, yeah.

Coach Dustin: 18:25

So, and that's what I was going to say, it's, you know, the balanced business that is, a person who believes in personal development, because the goal is to be better tomorrow than we were today. And you know we've been playing with this idea, but it really is mean. I'm a new person tomorrow, right, I'm new with what I'm doing Right, every day. It's new because it's that.

George Siderias: 18:46

Yeah, we'll do it today. Yes, every day, yes.

Coach Dustin: 18:48

Yeah, exactly so I love that man. Thank you so much for this. I mean this is I love how you tied the finances into it, because I don't really hear a lot of personal development people talk about that how, once everything else rises, the finances will be on track. I'm going to assume maybe you want to say, or don't, but your business has been better than it ever has since you started on this personal development journey. It's kind of funny how that happened, right, it's kind of funny how it happened, not even trying.

George Siderias: 19:17

And what's interesting is, during all this last year, I've launched three other businesses on top of my financial business. So I left 2023, coming into 24, just saying like wow, like I thought I was busy before. We just launched three new businesses. I have three new team members my team now like junior advisors that are coming out to my team because I'm just honed in.

RJ Campbell: 19:46

That's what it takes. So what are the businesses outside of financial?

George Siderias: 19:53

So it's a personal development coaching it is. We are about to launch an entire supplement line across the board all natural products that I use that have helped me in this process, and then also luxury car rental as well.

RJ Campbell: 20:10

Nice. Wow, that's related. I like it yeah.

George Siderias: 20:15

It's, it's it's just, I've been thinking about doing it and for the last year I'm like, oh, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. And just kind of I started talking about it and just kind of again, just weird how things happen just kind of fell, fell into my, fell into my lap, and I'm like, okay, let's do it. So just continuing to build all that, Because again it's, it's all incorporated in every part that I do and that's also a learning part for me too. I wanted to keep things with some synergy. I didn't want to pull away from what I've been doing, I just wanted to add to it. So I didn't want to go from hey, I'm the financial person to go open up a restaurant, Because then that's taking me away from the day to day with my clients.

George Siderias: 20:56

I just wanted to help them Again. What supplements are you taking? Here's what I take. Let's put some clean stuff in your body.

Coach Dustin: 21:05

Yeah, makes complete sense. I love it. Well, I mean, you know, george gave us a ton of things that we can put into action, but what I love about it, it's all about how personal development is going to help us grow. And I love that we had this interview the beginning of the year, because this is something you can start right now Just personal development. You can see, you know, we have a free Facebook group for all the balance business dads out there. You know that we can post books and different things like that Because, like you said, reading is one of the easiest ways to really jump into that world from personal development. So, thank you so much for this. Any closing words for all the business dads out there?

George Siderias: 21:41

Start today.

George Siderias: 21:43

And the number one thing again dads, your leaders were men. Be that man. Lead your family, protect your family. You can't do it if you're out of shape. You can't do it if you don't have a strong bank account. You can't expect your kids to go out and try something if you're not doing better. So stop lying to them. Stop saying this is going to be my year, I'm going to get in shape, and then they're not doing something in school and then it's ah well, it's okay, dad didn't do it. Just stop lying to them.

George Siderias: 22:22

So that's something that I've done is I'm just challenging myself. I'm going to do as big a thing Like I'm running three of the six world marathons this year. I'm running London in April, I'm running Berlin in September and New York in November, because I don't want my daughter, who's getting into gymnastics, afraid of doing a back bend. We just got to practice. We just got to get better. So start today. Be the leader and the man that your family needs. You can change your entire life by taking action today. I did it. You can do it.

RJ Campbell: 22:57

I could drop Love it. Yeah, that's good. Contact when can we find you? Yeah, that's good.

George Siderias: 23:05

I'll hop into the Facebook group to drop my contact info there, but you can find me on my Instagram page as first initial last name at, g Cedarius. Everything is on there In my Instagram page my website for coaching my financial company because I got to be separate, so everything's up there. But I'll hop into the Facebook group to drop my contact info in there and anything I can help guys.

George Siderias: 23:28

Again, I'll post stuff, I'll post my workouts in there, whatever I can do to help you guys out and create that, because, again, we need to be better as men, as leaders and dads and fathers. So I'm excited about it.

Coach Dustin: 23:41

I love it. What was the one book? If you had to give one book away, what would it be? We'll close with that.

George Siderias: 23:48

Extreme ownership.

RJ Campbell: 23:51

Oh, you love that one. That's a good one Jocko's good.

Coach Dustin: 23:53

I got to see Jocko speak a couple of years ago. It's good.

George Siderias: 23:56

I mean there's a lot of good one. I think that's the first like you got to start there, that is like it. That's the first one that I read in my reading journey and it just, it just opened my eyes. Yeah, so if you haven't read, that's an easy one, you know, or to listen to. Obviously there's a ton, but yeah, I think that's a good place to start. And you also can't you can't go wrong with any of the two David Goggins ones. You can't go wrong there either.

Coach Dustin: 24:22

Yeah, that's an intense man. Yeah, he's intense. Yes, he is.

Voiceover: 24:25

Yes, he is Awesome.

Coach Dustin: 24:27

Well, guys, this was great. Again. Facebook group how do we get there? Yeah, so go to dadupgroupcom. That'll take you right to the Facebook group. You join that kind of thing. Or just go to the balance business. Dad on Facebook, join the group. We'd love to have you there. And, guys, just remember to dad up, because the people who love you the most deserve it. It's pretty much it.

RJ Campbell: 24:47

We summed it up. We'll see you next week. All right, thanks, george, and we're out. Ok, cc and you.