Owner Activation System — Full Course

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Welcome to the OptionBuilt™ Owner Activation System.

This training is designed for wealth managers and CEPAs who want a better way to engage business owner clients and prospects — before a liquidity event, before planning gets urgent, and before the owner is surrounded by competing advisors, bankers, attorneys, tax strategists, and institutional relationships.

This first lesson introduces the core problem the system is designed to solve:

Business owners do not usually delay important planning because they do not care.

They delay because planning often feels like it will compete with the business.

And for most owners, the business is where they live mentally, emotionally, physically, and financially.

That is the false tradeoff.

The Business Owner Reality

Most successful business owners live inside the business.

Their calendar is shaped by the business.
Their stress is shaped by the business.
Their identity is shaped by the business.
Their wealth is usually trapped inside the business.
Their future optionality depends on what the business becomes.

So when a professional advisor introduces tax planning, legal planning, wealth planning, estate planning, liquidity planning, insurance planning, exit planning, or life-after-exit planning, the owner may intellectually understand that the conversation matters.

But emotionally and practically, they often hear something different:

This is important, but it is going to pull me away from the business.

That is the hidden barrier. The advisor thinks they are offering value. The owner hears another demand on their time, attention, cash flow, and decision-making capacity.

This is why so much good advice stalls. Not because the advice is bad. Not because the owner is lazy or irrational. Not because the owner does not care about their family, future, wealth, or legacy.

The advice stalls because the owner has not yet seen how that advice connects directly to the business results they are trying to protect, improve, or create.

The False Tradeoff

The false tradeoff sounds like this inside the owner's head:

"I'll get to estate planning after the business is more stable."
"I'll deal with wealth diversification once we finish this growth phase."
"I'll think about life after exit when I'm closer to selling."
"I'll slow down once we hit the next revenue target."
"I'll take care of that when things calm down."

But things rarely calm down. The business keeps demanding attention. New opportunities appear. New fires break out. Key employees leave. Margins tighten. Planning windows close.

And the owner keeps living inside the same assumption: If I spend time on personal, financial, tax, legal, estate, or life-after planning, it will slow down the business.

OptionBuilt™ exists to challenge that assumption.

The Locked-In Insight

Here is the core belief shift behind this entire system:

Core Belief Shift

Owners don't act until they see that tax, legal, wealth, and personal planning will not get in the way of achieving business results. They act when they see that alignment accelerates business results.

That sentence matters. Because most advisors try to convince owners that planning is important. But successful owners already know planning is important.

The issue is not importance. The issue is priority.

And owners prioritize what they believe will improve the business, protect the business, reduce pressure inside the business, or help the business become more valuable and transferable.

The Owner Activation Gap

We call this the Owner Activation Gap. It is the distance between:

The advice owners know they should act on
The business-connected clarity they need before they will actually move

Most advisors live on one side of the gap. They have good advice, good intentions, good planning tools, and real expertise.

The owner lives on the other side. They have pressure, urgency, identity, payroll, customers, leadership issues, family questions, and a business that still feels like the center of everything.

OptionBuilt™ closes the gap by helping the owner see how their life, business, and wealth actually connect.

The Freedom Flywheel™ Preview

The traditional model says: Business growth first. Financial planning later. Personal freedom someday.

OptionBuilt™ reverses the order: Personal Freedom first. Business Freedom next. Financial Freedom as the outcome.

Personal Freedom creates clearer decisions. Business Freedom turns clarity into value. Financial Freedom becomes the natural outcome — as the business becomes stronger, more valuable, more transferable, and less dependent on the owner.

As Financial Freedom expands, personal pressure decreases. When pressure decreases, the owner can lead more clearly and act on professional advice sooner. That is the Freedom Flywheel™.

What This Means for You as an Advisor

If you are a wealth manager or CEPA serving business owners, this system gives you a better entry point. You are not leading with products, fear, or technical planning.

You are leading with the question the owner actually needs to answer:

The Better Question

What do you want this business to make possible?

You become the advisor who helped the owner connect the dots. That is where trust deepens. That is where stalled planning begins to move. That is where you earn a more meaningful seat at the owner's table.

What This Lesson Is Not Asking You To Do

At this stage, you are not being asked to start owner conversations yet. You are not being asked to send emails, hand out books, or invite owners into the Collective. You are still learning the system.

The full Owner Activation Toolkit is only unlocked after you complete the course, apply, are approved, complete onboarding, order the required book and Execution Guide bundles, and receive your advisor-specific QR code pathway.

For now, your job is to understand the belief shift: Owners are not waiting because planning does not matter. They are waiting because they do not yet see how planning accelerates what matters most to them inside the business.

Advisor Readiness Prompt

Which business owner clients or prospects are delaying important planning because they believe they are "too busy with the business" to deal with it now? Consider owners who have most of their wealth tied up in the company, who know they need to update planning but keep postponing, who are 3–10 years from a possible transition but not yet preparing seriously, or who are successful on paper but still under pressure personally.

Write down 3–5 names privately. You are not reaching out yet. You are simply beginning to see where the Owner Activation Gap already exists in your world.

Lesson 1 Resource

The False Tradeoff

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In Lesson 1, we introduced the false tradeoff: Owners don't act until they see that alignment accelerates business results. In this lesson, we go one layer deeper.

Most advisors serving business owners are not giving bad advice. In fact, the advice is often technically sound, financially responsible, strategically important, and professionally appropriate.

The problem is not the quality of the advice. The problem is where the advice lands.

The Owner Is Not Living in Your Planning Category

Every professional advisor has a lane. Each lane matters. Each advisor may be right.

But the owner is not waking up each morning thinking in professional advisory categories. The owner is thinking about the business:

Payroll. People. Customers. Cash flow.
Margin. Growth. Leadership. Problems.
Opportunity. Risk. Control. Family pressure.
The next fire. The next decision. The next quarter.

So when advice arrives in a professional category without being connected back to the business, the owner may agree with it intellectually but still fail to act.

The Difference Between Agreement and Activation

One of the biggest traps in business owner advisory work is mistaking agreement for activation.

Agreement sounds like: "That is a good idea." "I know we need to do that." "Let's revisit this next quarter."

Activation sounds different. Activation sounds like: "Here is what I want this business to make possible. Here is why this matters now. Here is the decision I need to make. Here is the next action. Here is the timeline."

Most advisors are getting agreement. OptionBuilt™ is designed to help create activation.

Business owners can agree with you for years and still not move. They may like you, trust you, respect you, and refer to you — but until they see how your advice connects to the business, the life they want, and the pressure they are trying to reduce, the advice stays parked in the future.

Why Advice Gets Mentally Filed Under "Later"

When a business owner hears advice, they are usually filtering it through one core question, whether they say it out loud or not:

The Owner's Filter

How does this help me with the business?

Not because they do not care about anything else. But because the business is the dominant engine in their life. The business funds the lifestyle. Creates wealth. Carries the risk. Shapes the calendar. Affects the family. Determines optionality. Often defines the owner's identity.

So when an advisor introduces planning that feels separate from the business, the owner does not necessarily reject it. They defer it.

That deferral may be rationalized as timing: "I'm too busy." "We're in a growth phase." "We'll get to it after the next milestone."

But underneath the timing excuse is often the same false tradeoff: If I spend time on this, it will pull energy, attention, money, or focus away from the business.

The Silo Problem

Most owners do not suffer from a lack of advisors. They suffer from fragmented advice.

Each conversation may have value, but the owner is left carrying the burden of integration. They have to translate every recommendation into one question: What does this actually mean for my life, my business, my family, my wealth, and my future?

Most owners do not have the time, structure, language, or emotional bandwidth to do that integration alone. So the advice competes instead of compounds.

The owner is not necessarily avoiding the advice. They are overwhelmed by the lack of one integrated picture. This is the opening for a better conversation.

The Advisor Opportunity

The opportunity is not to give the owner more advice. The opportunity is to help the owner see how the advice connects.

Not just: "What is your tax exposure?" But: "What does this business need to make possible for you, your family, and your future — and how do we make sure the tax strategy supports that?"

Not just: "Are you ready to sell?" But: "What would make you option-rich enough to grow, hold, transition, or sell without being forced into a decision?"

This is a different advisory conversation. It does not minimize technical planning. It makes technical planning more relevant.

The Advisor's Better Bridge

Instead of leading with what you do, lead with what the owner wants the business to make possible. That one shift changes the conversation.

It moves the advisor from service provider to strategic relationship partner. From planning category to owner outcome. From "Here is what you should do" to "Here is how this helps you build the life, business, and optionality you actually want."

The owner does not need more disconnected advice. The owner needs a process that helps them integrate what they already know they should be doing. That is what OptionBuilt™ provides.

What This Lesson Is Not Asking You To Do

You are still not being asked to start owner outreach. At this stage, you are learning why the system works. Implementation only happens after you complete the course, apply, are approved, and unlock the full Owner Activation Toolkit.

Advisor Readiness Prompt

Where has your advice — or your profession's advice — been technically sound but disconnected from the owner's business reality? Where have owners agreed but not acted? Where have planning conversations repeated without progress? Where have you been positioned as one advisor in a silo instead of part of one integrated owner conversation?

Privately note 3 examples. You are not solving them yet. You are beginning to identify where the Owner Activation Gap already exists in your practice.

Lesson 2 Resource

Why Smart Advice Stalls

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Lesson 1 named the false tradeoff. Lesson 2 explained why smart advice stalls. Now we need to show the mechanism that changes the conversation. That mechanism is the Freedom Flywheel™.

The Freedom Flywheel™ shows owners that personal clarity does not compete with business performance. It improves it. It shows that business design is not separate from personal freedom — it is how personal freedom becomes operational. And it shows that financial freedom is not something owners someday earn after the business works. It is the natural outcome of aligning their life, business, and wealth in the right order.

The Traditional Model Is Backward

Most owners have been taught to build freedom backward: Business growth first. Financial planning later. Personal freedom someday.

That order feels logical. First, build the business. Then, make money. Then, someday, enjoy life.

The problem is that "someday" keeps moving. The business grows, but so does complexity. Revenue increases, but so does pressure. The owner gets more successful, but not necessarily more free. The business is never magically ready. It has to be designed that way.

The OptionBuilt™ Order

OptionBuilt™ reverses the traditional order:

The Triple Freedom Framework™

Personal Freedom first. · Business Freedom next. · Financial Freedom as the outcome.

The framework is not just a set of categories. It is a sequence. And the sequence matters.

Personal Freedom answers: What do I want this business to make possible?
Business Freedom answers: What must the business become to support that life?
Financial Freedom answers: What optionality, liquidity, and security become possible as the business improves?

When those questions are answered in the right order, the owner no longer sees planning as a distraction from business results. They begin to see planning as the way business results become more focused, more valuable, and more useful. That is the unlock.

How the Flywheel Works

Personal Freedom creates clarity. Clarity improves business decisions. Better business decisions create Business Freedom. Business Freedom increases value, transferability, and cash flow quality. Stronger business value creates Financial Freedom. Financial Freedom reduces pressure and creates optionality. Reduced pressure improves the owner's ability to lead, decide, and live intentionally. That strengthens Personal Freedom again. Then the loop continues.

This is why alignment compounds. The goal is not to remove the owner from the business overnight. The goal is to help the owner build a business that increasingly supports the life, wealth, and legacy they actually want.

Personal Freedom: What Do You Want the Business to Make Possible?

The flywheel begins with Personal Freedom. That does not mean vague life planning or abstract reflection. It means the owner gets clear about the real purpose of the business:

What do I want more of? What do I want less of?
What kind of role do I want in the business?
What do I want my family to experience?
What would make work optional, even if I choose to keep working?
What does "enough" actually look like?

Most owners have never answered those questions with enough precision to guide business decisions. Without a personal filter, they can create success that feels impressive on the outside and exhausting on the inside. Personal Freedom gives the owner a decision filter — it tells the business what it is supposed to serve.

Business Freedom: What Must the Business Become?

Once the owner has more personal clarity, the next question becomes practical: What must the business become to support that life?

If the owner wants more time, the business may need better leadership, delegation, and role clarity. If the owner wants more optionality, the business may need stronger financials and less owner dependency. If the owner wants to sell someday, the business may need value acceleration, leadership depth, and recurring revenue.

Personal goals become business design criteria. The owner no longer sees life planning as separate from the business. They begin to see that the business must be designed to support the life they want.

Business Freedom Accelerates Business Results

This is where the false tradeoff breaks. Personal Freedom creates better business direction. Better direction leads to better business decisions — improving leadership, accountability, systems, financial visibility, transferability, enterprise value, and strategic focus.

Alignment does not make the business weaker. It makes the business more focused. It helps the owner stop chasing growth that creates more pressure and start building value that creates more options.

Financial Freedom: The Natural Outcome

Financial Freedom is not ignored in the OptionBuilt™ model. It is simply placed in the right position.

As the business becomes stronger, more valuable, more transferable, and less dependent on the owner, more options become possible: more liquidity, more diversification, more transaction readiness, more succession options, more ability to sell from strength instead of pressure.

Financial Freedom is really about optionality — the ability to make decisions because they are right, not because the owner is under pressure. And that kind of optionality requires a stronger business, not just a better investment portfolio.

How Advisors Can Use This Mechanism

The Freedom Flywheel™ gives advisors better language. Instead of leading with a planning category, you can lead with alignment:

Instead of "Let's update your estate plan" → "Let's make sure the wealth, ownership, tax, and estate decisions around this business support the life, family outcomes, and optionality you actually want."
Instead of "Let's talk about diversification" → "Let's make sure your business keeps growing without forcing your entire family's future to depend on one company, one market, and one person — you."
Instead of "Let's prepare for exit" → "Let's build optionality before you need it, so whether you grow, hold, transition, or sell, you are making decisions from strength instead of pressure."

You are not abandoning your expertise. You are connecting your expertise to the owner's world.

Advisor Readiness Prompt

How would your owner conversations change if you led with alignment and optionality instead of planning categories? Which owners are chasing growth without more freedom? Which owners have wealth concentrated in the business? Which owners would engage more deeply if they saw planning as a way to improve business results rather than distract from them?

Privately write down 3–5 examples. You are learning to recognize where the Freedom Flywheel™ could change the conversation.

Lesson 3 Resource

The Freedom Flywheel™

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Now we need to show what the owner actually experiences when they enter the 30-day process. Because the OptionBuilt™ Collective is not another content library. It is an owner-only execution environment.

You are not sending an owner into a vague community, passive course, or generic planning funnel. You are introducing them to a guided 30-day experience designed to help them clarify what they want their business to make possible, identify gaps across life, business, and wealth, and build a practical plan rooted in the business they are still building.

The Advisor Concern

Before introducing an owner into anything, a good advisor should ask: Will this help my client? Will this replace my role? Will this make the next planning conversation better or harder? Will this reflect well on me?

Those are the right questions. The OptionBuilt™ system was built with those concerns in mind.

The goal is not to pull the owner away from their advisor. The goal is to help the owner come back to the advisor with more clarity, better questions, a completed Execution Guide, and a practical first-version plan their team can help execute.

The owner does the deeper reflection, benchmarking, and planning work inside the Collective. The advisor helps apply the completed work after the cohort. That is the division of labor.

What the Collective Actually Provides

The Collective gives the owner what most advisors do not have time, structure, or permission to provide: a private owner-only environment where they can slow down, clarify what they actually want, benchmark where they are stuck, and build the first version of a practical plan rooted in the business they are still building.

Most professional advisors feel this gap. They may be excellent at wealth, tax, legal, or estate planning — but they are often not positioned to help the owner translate personal goals into business design, value acceleration priorities, operating rhythms, and leadership needs.

That gap is exactly where owners get stuck. The Collective helps the owner organize those questions through one integrated lens: What do I want this business to make possible, and what must change across my life, business, and financial world to support that?

The 30-Day Rhythm

The 30-day owner experience follows the four parts of the book. The owner completes one part per week.

Week 1 — The Freedom Problem. The owner identifies the real cost of how they are currently building. The goal is recognition: the problem is not effort. The problem is fragmentation.
Week 2 — The Triple Freedom Framework™. The owner learns the core framework and clarifies what they want the business to make possible, and how business design must support those goals. The goal is orientation.
Week 3 — The Freedom Playbooks. The owner moves into practical execution — identifying where they are still the bottleneck, where clarity is missing, and where business value and owner freedom are connected. The goal is prioritization.
Week 4 — The Collective Advantage and Execution Plan. The final week turns insight into a practical plan: one priority for each freedom, key questions for the advisor team, and an accountability structure. The goal is application.

The Personal Freedom Score™ Is Mapped to Action

The Personal Freedom Score™ is not a dead-end assessment. It is the entry point into a mapped action system.

Each of the 30 yes/no questions points to specific resources inside the Collective — targeted Playbooks, Mindshift Briefs, curated tools, and practical exercises. The owner is not told "Here is your score. Good luck." They are shown where to begin.

Why the Playbooks Matter

The Playbooks are practical, focused resources designed to create action — not long theory documents. A Playbook may help the owner clarify a decision, name a constraint, prepare for an advisor conversation, or understand what kind of professional help may be needed.

The system helps owners focus. One gap at a time. One priority at a time. One next step at a time. That is how progress becomes manageable.

Why the Mindshift Briefs Matter

Some owners do not need more tactics first. They need a new way to see the problem. A Mindshift Brief helps an owner challenge the assumption, fear, or habit that may be keeping them stuck:

"I have to stay involved in everything."
"I'll think about that after the business is more stable."
"My wealth is safe because the business is valuable."
"Exit planning means I must want to sell."

These beliefs are not spreadsheet problems. They are owner problems. And if they are not addressed, technical advice often stalls.

The Role of Peer Owners

One of the most valuable parts of the cohort is the owner-only peer environment. Business owners often process differently with other business owners than they do with professional advisors.

Inside the cohort, owners hear from other owners facing similar pressures. That creates relief. It also creates momentum. The owner realizes: "I am not the only one wrestling with this."

Why Advisors Can Trust Greg and Cara

Greg Maddox brings more than two decades of experience in the business owner world. He currently serves as a Senior Business and Exit Advisor with Cultivate Advisors, a national advisory firm that has supported thousands of business owners across industries.

Cara Gray brings the personal clarity, identity, purpose, and alignment side of the work. Her earliest understanding of this problem came from watching her father lose the businesses that had shaped his identity and purpose. She has also owned two businesses herself, and her work has been licensed by John Hancock for use across its large wealth advisor network.

Together, Greg and Cara built OptionBuilt™ to integrate what is usually fragmented: personal clarity, business design, financial optionality, execution rhythm, advisor collaboration, and owner-only peer support.

What the Owner Gets Back to You With

At the end of the 30-day cohort, the owner should come back to you with:

A completed or substantially completed Execution Guide
A first-version Triple Freedom Plan
One priority for Personal, Business, and Financial Freedom
Better questions for their professional team
Greater awareness of where tax, legal, wealth, estate, insurance, or investment advice may be needed
More readiness to engage

Instead of pushing them to act, you are helping them apply what they have already clarified. Instead of trying to create urgency from the outside, you are responding to urgency they have discovered from the inside. That is a much stronger advisory position.

Advisor Readiness Prompt

Which owners would benefit from coming back to you with more clarity, better questions, a completed Execution Guide, and a first-version Triple Freedom Plan? Who would benefit from a more integrated view of where tax, legal, wealth, estate, insurance, or investment advice may be needed?

Privately write down 3–5 names. You are not reaching out yet. You are learning to recognize who would benefit from the 30-day Owner Activation experience.

Lesson 4 Resource

The 30-Day Owner Activation Experience

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This lesson matters because the OptionBuilt™ system only works if everyone stays in the right lane. The advisor has an important role — but the advisor is not the facilitator, is not inside the owner-only Collective, and is not being trained to deliver the OptionBuilt™ system.

The advisor is the bridge between owner insight and professional implementation.

The Advisor's Role

As an approved OptionBuilt™ Advisor Network partner, your role is to:

Open the conversation
Provide the book and Execution Guide bundle
Use your advisor-specific QR code
Encourage the owner to enter the waitlist and Personal Freedom Score™ pathway
Invite the owner into the 30-day Collective cohort when appropriate
Serve as a light-touch resource during the 30-day experience
Lead the post-cohort review meeting
Help the owner apply their completed Execution Guide and plan with their existing team

The Clean Division of Labor

You introduce. You encourage. You help apply.

Greg, Cara, and the owner-only cohort guide the deeper work.

The Advisor Is Not a Passive Referrer

This is not a passive referral program. You are introducing the owner to a framework, process, and community that helps them clarify what they want the business to make possible. You are giving them a practical book and Execution Guide bundle. You are staying connected lightly while they work through the process. And then you are leading the review conversation after the cohort.

The advisor's role is not passive. It is positioned. The point is to make you more relevant to the owner, not less.

The Advisor Is Not the Facilitator

At the same time, the advisor is not the facilitator. You should not:

Enter the private owner-only Collective
Lead cohort sessions or facilitate the Execution Guide
Create additional worksheets or add extra homework during the 30 days
Try to coach the owner through Greg and Cara's work
Present yourself as certified to deliver the OptionBuilt™ Framework
Use the materials outside the approved process

This boundary protects the owner, protects you, protects the peer environment, and makes the system easier to scale.

Why the Collective Is Owner-Only

The OptionBuilt™ Collective is private and owner-only by design — not because advisors are unimportant, but because owners need a place where they can speak candidly with other owners.

Inside the cohort, owners may be wrestling with questions they have not fully admitted to their advisors, teams, spouses, or families:

"Do I even want to keep doing this?"
"What if the business is not worth what I need it to be worth?"
"What if I do not know who I am without the company?"
"I want to sell, but the company is not ready."

Those questions require peer trust, owner trust, and process trust. The owner-only boundary creates that trust. The advisor supports the process from outside the room.

Light-Touch Advisor Support

The purpose of your check-ins during the 30 days is not to advise more. The purpose is to maintain momentum.

A strong advisor check-in sounds like: "Keep going. Capture anything you want us to review later. We'll use what you build to make our next meeting more productive."

A weak advisor check-in sounds like: "Send me everything you've completed so far. Let's review every worksheet this week. I made you another spreadsheet."

That creates friction. The owner already has a process. Your job is to help them stay with it.

Professional Lane Protection

OptionBuilt™ does not provide tax, legal, investment, insurance, estate, accounting, or wealth management advice. That is a core boundary.

When those issues surface inside the Collective, the owner is directed back to you — the referring advisor — so you can facilitate a conversation with the appropriate professional advisor. The Collective surfaces the issue. The professional team helps execute the solution.

OptionBuilt™ does not step on your toes. OptionBuilt™ helps your advice land faster.

The Post-Cohort Review Is Where Your Role Expands

During the cohort, your role is light-touch. After the cohort, your role becomes more active.

That is when you review the completed Execution Guide and owner-built plan, help identify planning opportunities, help the owner decide which parts of the team need to be involved, and help translate the owner's clarity into next-step action — potentially around wealth planning, tax planning, estate planning, liquidity planning, succession, exit readiness, family communication, and advisor coordination.

The post-cohort review is where the owner's work becomes advisor-led implementation. Schedule it as soon as the owner's cohort start date is known. Do not wait until the 30 days are over.

Advisor Readiness Prompt

Am I comfortable introducing owners into a private, owner-only environment where I do not participate directly? Am I comfortable letting Greg, Cara, and the cohort guide the deeper work? Am I willing to support the owner without creating extra assignments during the 30 days? Am I prepared to lead the post-cohort review meeting and help apply the owner's completed plan?

If yes, this system may be a strong fit. If you feel the need to facilitate, control, or own every part of the process, this may not be the right fit.

Lesson 5 Resource

Advisor Role & Lane Protection

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Now we need to show how to start the owner conversation in a way that feels simple, useful, and low-pressure. The easiest first step is to help the owner take the Personal Freedom Score™. This is the Freedom Score First Conversation.

Why the Freedom Score Comes First

Most advisors feel pressure when they introduce something new to a client or prospect. They worry about sounding like they are pitching. They worry about overexplaining or confusing the owner.

The Personal Freedom Score™ solves that problem.

Instead of starting with: "Let me tell you about this 30-day cohort" — you can start with:

The Opening

"Before I try to explain the whole process, let's see if this is even relevant for you. I have a simple five-minute exercise that will show where your life, business, and financial world are already aligned — and where there may be gaps worth looking at."

That creates curiosity. It gives the owner something tangible. It allows the owner to see themselves inside the process before they are asked to consider the next step.

What the Personal Freedom Score™ Does

The Personal Freedom Score™ is a simple five-minute assessment built around 30 yes/no questions across the three freedoms: Personal Freedom, Business Freedom, and Financial Freedom.

The purpose is to reveal where alignment already exists and where friction may be quietly costing the owner time, energy, optionality, value, or peace of mind. The owner receives immediate results — a customized online interpretation and a PDF sent directly to them. That gives both of you a tangible, personalized starting point.

The Owner Activation Flow

Once you are approved and onboarded, many owner conversations should follow this general sequence:

Step 1: Start with what you've observed in the owner's world.
Step 2: Connect planning to the business — show this is not a separate conversation.
Step 3: Name the false tradeoff. Bring it into the open.
Step 4: Invite the owner into the five-minute Personal Freedom Score™.
Step 5: Review the immediate results together.
Step 6: Introduce the book and Chapter 3.5. Now the book has context.
Step 7: Introduce the Execution Guide as the owner's practical work product.
Step 8: Introduce the 30-day cohort as a relationship benefit.
Step 9: Position the advisor-led follow-up — make it clear you remain part of the process.

After the Score

"This is exactly why I wanted to share the book and cohort with you. The score gives us a snapshot. The book gives you the framework. The Execution Guide helps organize your thinking. The 30-day cohort helps you turn it into a practical plan we can use together."

Why This Works for Existing Clients

For existing clients, the Personal Freedom Score™ gives you a way to reframe stalled planning conversations. You are not saying "We need to do more planning." You are saying: "Let's take five minutes and see where your life, business, and financial world may not be fully aligned yet."

That is a more inviting conversation. It can surface issues around owner dependency, liquidity, business value, family priorities, wealth concentration, legacy, and advisor coordination — giving you an immediate, personalized starting point for a deeper relationship.

Why This Works for New Prospects

Business owners are approached all the time. They are used to hearing: "We specialize in business owners." "We help with exit planning." "We help manage post-sale wealth." Those messages may be true, but they are common.

The Freedom Score First Conversation gives you a different opening:

Prospect Opening

"I work with owners who want their business to create more freedom, value, and optionality — not just more complexity. I have a simple five-minute score that helps highlight where your life, business, and financial world may already be aligned and where there may be gaps. Would it be worth walking through it together?"

That is not a product pitch. It is a useful invitation.

The Credibility Halo

Approved advisors receive a custom QR code that keeps every owner they introduce connected to them inside the OptionBuilt™ Advisors Network.

When you place an order, each book and Execution Guide arrives with a premium notecard — personalized with your name, a short welcome, and your unique QR code. You hand the book to your owner client, and the two of you scan the code together to unlock their Personal Freedom Score™.

The owner receives a high-value book and practical Execution Guide, connected to a larger system — delivered personally by you, not downloaded from a website. You are positioned as the advisor who brought them a better way to think.

Advisor Readiness Prompt

Which use case is most relevant to you — activating existing business owner clients, starting conversations with new owner prospects, re-engaging past owner relationships, or equipping referral partners?

Who would respond well to a simple five-minute exercise? Who would benefit from seeing where their life, business, and financial world may not be fully aligned? Privately note your first 5–10 possibilities. You are simply preparing to see where this system could create value.

Lesson 6 Resource

The Freedom Score First Conversation

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You have now completed the core education portion of the OptionBuilt™ Owner Activation System. Now we need to explain what happens next.

Completing this course does not automatically give you full implementation access. That is intentional. The OptionBuilt™ Advisor Network is designed to protect the owner experience, preserve professional boundaries, ensure proper attribution, and make sure approved advisors use the system well.

The next step is to apply.

Who This Is Designed For

The OptionBuilt™ Advisor Network is designed primarily for wealth managers, private wealth advisors, financial advisors, CEPAs working from a wealth, financial planning, estate, tax, legal, insurance, or planning seat, and select CPAs, attorneys, insurance professionals, and M&A-adjacent professionals who serve business owners.

The best-fit advisors already serve business owners or have real access to business owner relationships.

The Fit We Are Looking For

A strong-fit advisor usually has several of these characteristics:

You currently serve business owner clients.
You want to grow your book of business owners.
You understand that owners need help before liquidity, not just after.
You want to differentiate yourself from other advisors pursuing owners.
You are comfortable using a system you did not create.
You are willing to stay within clear role boundaries.
You want to become more relevant to the owner's life, business, and wealth conversation.
You want a practical way to activate existing clients and start better prospect conversations.

The Post-Course Pathway

Step 1: Submit your advisor application. The application helps us understand your professional role, client base, business owner focus, and readiness to follow role boundaries. Submitting the application does not guarantee approval.
Step 2: Fit review. Possible outcomes: approved, approved pending onboarding conversation, not a fit right now, or waitlisted for future fit.
Step 3: Partner terms and role boundaries. Approved advisors acknowledge the Advisor Network partner terms, clarifying that you do not enter the Collective, do not facilitate the Execution Guide, and use approved materials and messaging.
Step 4: Book and Execution Guide bundle order. Approved advisors purchase the required minimum bundles — including Life First. Business Second., the OptionBuilt™ Execution Guide, and a personalized Luxe notecard with your advisor-specific QR code.
Step 5: Advisor-specific QR setup. Your QR code connects owners you introduce to your advisor record, guides them into the Personal Freedom Score™ pathway, and supports follow-up and attribution.
Step 6: Advisor onboarding. Confirms how to use the score, position the book and guide, and select your first owner conversations.
Step 7: Toolkit unlock. After approval, onboarding, bundle order, and QR setup, you unlock the full Owner Activation Toolkit.

What Approved Advisors Unlock

The toolkit is organized across five categories:

Setup and Compliance Assets — partner terms, professional boundaries guide, onboarding checklist, compliance support language
Freedom Score First Conversation Assets — conversation script, score walkthrough guide, debrief guide, follow-up emails, debrief meeting agenda
Book and Execution Guide Handoff Assets — handoff scripts, "Read Chapter 3.5" language, client outreach emails
30-Day Cohort Invitation Assets — invitation scripts, cohort waitlist explainer, light-touch 30-day check-in cadence, follow-up emails
Post-Cohort Review and Application Assets — review meeting agenda, Execution Guide review checklist, planning opportunity identifier, First 20 Owner Conversations Checklist, objection handling guide

Why This Matters

Most advisors want to be involved after the exit. But by the time the exit happens, the owner may already be surrounded by new advisors, bankers, attorneys, transaction teams, private wealth groups, and institutional relationships.

The better strategy is to become indispensable before the transaction.

The OptionBuilt™ Owner Activation System gives you a way to do that. Not by pitching harder. Not by trying to replace the owner's team. But by helping the owner start the right conversation earlier:

The Right Conversation

What do you want this business to make possible?

What must the business become to support that?

What financial, tax, legal, estate, insurance, and wealth decisions need to align around that?

That is how you become more relevant. That is how you deepen relationships. That is how you grow your book of business owners. That is how you become harder to replace.

Lesson 7 Resource

Application Guide

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The Full Course.At Your Pace.

The False Tradeoff

The Business Owner Reality

The False Tradeoff

The Locked-In Insight

The Owner Activation Gap

The Freedom Flywheel™ Preview

What This Means for You as an Advisor

What This Lesson Is Not Asking You To Do

Why Smart Advice Stalls

The Owner Is Not Living in Your Planning Category

The Difference Between Agreement and Activation

Why Advice Gets Mentally Filed Under "Later"

The Silo Problem

The Advisor Opportunity

The Advisor's Better Bridge

What This Lesson Is Not Asking You To Do

The Freedom Flywheel™

The Traditional Model Is Backward

The OptionBuilt™ Order

How the Flywheel Works

Personal Freedom: What Do You Want the Business to Make Possible?

Business Freedom: What Must the Business Become?

Business Freedom Accelerates Business Results

Financial Freedom: The Natural Outcome

How Advisors Can Use This Mechanism

The 30-Day Owner Activation Experience

The Advisor Concern

What the Collective Actually Provides

The 30-Day Rhythm

The Personal Freedom Score™ Is Mapped to Action

Why the Playbooks Matter

Why the Mindshift Briefs Matter

The Role of Peer Owners

Why Advisors Can Trust Greg and Cara

What the Owner Gets Back to You With

Advisor Role & Professional Lane Protection

The Advisor's Role

The Advisor Is Not a Passive Referrer

The Advisor Is Not the Facilitator

Why the Collective Is Owner-Only

Light-Touch Advisor Support

Professional Lane Protection

The Post-Cohort Review Is Where Your Role Expands

The Freedom Score First Conversation

Why the Freedom Score Comes First

What the Personal Freedom Score™ Does

The Owner Activation Flow

Why This Works for Existing Clients

Why This Works for New Prospects

The Credibility Halo

Becoming an OptionBuilt™ Advisor Network Partner

Who This Is Designed For

The Fit We Are Looking For

The Post-Course Pathway

What Approved Advisors Unlock

Why This Matters

This is the beginning of the opportunity.

The Full Course.
At Your Pace.