That headline is pretty much the most accurate way to describe it, because this whole thing was never really the plan.

Before any of this, I was just focused on building my insurance agency from the ground up. I was in the trenches every day, learning the hard way what worked and, more often, what didn't. On the side, I'd often find myself chatting with other local business owners here in the Greater Sacramento Area, just sharing tips and strategies.

Meanwhile, my buddy Brandon Walcott, who runs the "Failure to Abundance" podcast, was doing his thing. He and I are always giving each other a hard time, and he kept seeing me help these other entrepreneurs. So one day, half-joking, he basically dared me. He said something like, "If you think you know so much, why don't you come on the podcast and prove it?"

Never one to back down from a challenge, especially from him, I said yes. I got serious for a minute and distilled everything I’d learned from the last three years of grinding it out into a simple, no-fluff, 9-slide presentation on online marketing. It was just the real, actionable stuff that had actually worked for my own business.

I went on the show, we had a blast, and I figured that was that.

But then, people started calling me, asking me to speak in front of their groups. So, Brandon and I looked at each other and said, "What the heck, let's put on a presentation and see what happens." We figured a few people might show up.

It sold out.

We scheduled another one, and it sold out even faster. That was the moment we both kind of paused and realized, "Uh oh... I think we might have accidentally started a business."

That's what grew into "The Average Joe's MBA." It's all built on that one core idea: we're not academics, we're practitioners. Brandon and I are still running our own small businesses every single day. We're still in the fight. The "Living Library" is living because we are—we're constantly learning, adapting, and adding what's working for us right now.

So yeah, it really did all start with a friendly dare between two jokesters. We just wanted to share what we were learning from our own experience, and it accidentally turned into a passion for helping other business owners do the same.