ost of the interviews on Acquiring Minds are with entrepreneurs recently into their acquisitions.

But occasionally we'll have guests who've been doing this for much longer, and we get to see how a career as an acquisition entrepreneur unfolds over decades.

Today is one such example.

At 58 years old, Paul Lajoie today takes home $1m per year and tallies his net worth at almost $20m.

And it all started about 25 years ago, when he and his brother bought a flooring business doing $300k of SDE.

We hear that story, and how it set up Paul to continue buying businesses right up until today.

Given his track record, it's no surprise that Paul has conviction about this path of buying businesses — including versus the alternative of starting them.

He's bought 12 over the years; only one of those acquisitions has failed.

Meanwhile he's started 4 businesses, and 3 of those have failed.

That's a 92% success rate vs. 25%. What a testament to the power of ETA.

All that said, Paul does not oversell the dream.

When he bought that first flooring business, he moved his family to a more affordable home and traded his Lexus for a beater. Sacrifice, long hours, sleepless nights were all features in the early days of his journey.

You should expect the same, he says.

Here he is, Paul Lajoie, owner of Heritage Hardwood Floors, Maxwell Pipeline Services, and BizBuyPro.