What if the key to building generational wealth isn’t just what you invest in, but how you run your business?Ā
As we kick off the second week of 2026, many of us are still looking at our goals and wondering if we have the “right” plan. Gary Harper, CEO of Sharper Business Solutions and creator of the RISE Business Framework, shares his incredible journeyāfrom a troubled youth and corporate executive to losing it all in the 2008 crash and battling a life-threatening illness. Through these trials, Gary discovered that business success isnāt just about profit; itās about a vision-driven life rooted in purpose, accountability, and the “three Ps”: Passion, Product, and Profit.
In the first half of the interview, Gary and Corwyn dive deep into the spiritual and mental foundations of a successful entrepreneur. Gary opens up about his “rock bottom” moments and explains why most people fail because they are chasing someone elseās vision rather than their own.
Donāt miss Part 2, where Gary dives into overcoming fear, finding your true calling through his three pillars of purpose, and mastering the oxygen mask principleāwhy you canāt lead others until you lead yourself.
Key Takeaways:
- 0:16 ā Why building generational wealth goes beyond investments and starts with running your business strategically.
- 4:41 ā Garyās early journey in real estate and lessons from starting out with minimal resources.
- 6:44 ā Lessons from financial setbacks, bankruptcy, and staying true to integrity in business.
- 9:47 ā How vision creates purpose, purpose creates passion, and passion drives success.
- 11:47 ā The power of self-accountability and its role in achieving both personal and business goals.
- 15:11 ā Garyās KPI framework: Key Purpose Indicator ā Profit Indicators ā Performance ā Process, and how it translates from health goals to business success.
- 17:59 ā How to define your purpose and financial freedom mark to guide business decisions and personal growth.
Connect with Gary:
- Website: https://sharperbusiness.com/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gary.harperii
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Connect with Corwyn:
- Contact Number: 843-619-3005
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Shoutout to our Sponsor: Country Boy Homes
You served your country with pride. Now it’s time someone serves you. At Country Boy Homes, we believe every veteran deserves a safe, beautiful and affordable place to call home.
We proudly offer VA loan friendly, manufactured and modular homes built with integrity, quality and your family and mine. Whether you’re retiring to the peaceful low country or starting fresh with your family, we’re here to build the future you’ve earned. Give us a call today, 843-574-8979.
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CORWYN:
Our question for today that we hope And we expect so how about this? We’re going to operate today in expectation Y’all feel me on that what we are going to have what we are going to receive So what if the key to building generational wealth isn’t just what you invest in? But how you run your business?Ā
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So Good morning. Good morning. Great morning guys. Welcome to another fabulous episode of Exit Strategies Radio Show. Hey, y’all know who I am, but i’ma tell you anyhow Corwyn J Melette, broker and owner of Exit Realty Lowcountry Group in beautiful North Charleston, South Carolina, quick shout out to those who listen to us faithfully to tune in got to give a quick shout to my guy Burt McQueen for tuning in. Thank you, my guy for for tuning in and listening to this show Elder Pastor Evans. Y’all folks out there in Muddy Mullins, but all the way back through mont’s corner all the way through over to hollywood what you know, no good guys Thank y’all so much for tuning in So our question for today that we hope Then we expect so how about this? We’re going to operate today in expectation Y’all feel me on that. We’re going to operate today in Expectation what we are going to have what we are going to receive So what if the key? to building generational wealth Isn’t just what you invest in But how you run your business, so i’m super excited because today our guest today using this mantra Transformed his life now. He helps others By doing the same with the framework that builds more than just profit So let’s talk today about legacy driven leadership Our guest today is none other than Mr. Gary Harper. Gary is the ceo Y’all know what I say about that. That mean he the boss y’all. The CEO of Sharper Business Solutions, the creator. He builds he puts something together right there the creator of the Rise Business Framework, he’s a real estate investor, but most importantly he’s a business strategist, you all please give him a warm welcome to this show on today. Gary. How are you doing?Ā
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GARY:
Great, Corwyn? Thanks for having me on today. What a great introduction good energy. I’m feeling it man. I’m feeling I love what you bringĀ Ā
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CORWYN:
Well, look here. That’s what I try to do. So just so you know, i’m always available for hire, all right for those keynotes.Ā
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GARY:
So when you get that next keynote I want you to call me and I will make sure we fire him up Well, i’ve been on stage in caesar’s palace before and not been introduced with that level of tenacity and energy.Ā
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CORWYN:
That’s good stuff But look here, please pass me around treat me like halloween can Give me out So gary look, thank you so much for taking time out of your business schedule to be on the show with us today If you don’t mind for our listeners, we always ask our guests to give their own high level who they are and what you do So if you could please do that, that would be amazing.Ā
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AD:
Let’s take a short break. You served your country with pride, now it’s time someone serves you at Country Boy Homes, we believe every veteran deserves a safe beautiful and affordable place to call home, we proudly offer va loan friendly manufacturing modular homes built with integrity quality and your family in mind Whether you’re retiring to the peaceful low country or starting fresh with your family. We’re here to build the future you’ve earned give us a call today 843-574-8979 today. Country Boy Homes built to honor built to lastĀ
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GARY:
Yeah, so my journey started as a troubled youth. I mean, I got kicked out of schools. I had really hard time Growing up. My dad was in military 21 years spent a lot of time Away and I think with all young men and their dads being gone for an extended period of time you tend to find yourself In trouble a little bit. I had a phenomenal parents amazing parents But still when you’re left to the town times you find trouble So I did and I was in my teenage years. I was in virginia and found myself getting in trouble I ended up being mom and dad just hey, you gotta get out You gotta go out and do your own thing and at 17 years old I left and moved to chicago And I met my brother-in-law and my sister was up here and they really they kept me busy and he got me started in real estate and helped me I was living in his rentals and fixing them up and flipping them and During the day i’d sleep in them. It’s funny He put me in a house in geary indiana and said hey, I got a glock nine millimeter a 38 special and he’s I need you to keep people from breaking in and stealing the copper but you can stay here for free if you do That and i’m like Okay, and I did so during the day i’d rehab the house and at night I Protected and I slept on a bed on the floor walked to the mission for lunch ate ramen noodles as crackers You know from the dollar store and kind of made my way I think for me it started to shift when I got into corporate america. I I started working in corporate in 1997 I got married that year and found myself needing to take care of my my future my generational Legacy, and so I started having kids and I went from 7 15 an hour Buying books in a copy center to becoming an executive And I worked my way up to executive. My title was national manager of business initiatives and development And I was only 22 years old. I was young And i’m not even really sure why I got the opportunity other than I just grinded worked hard and delivered results And you know, they look past the inexperience. They look past the lack of education. I just grinded I worked hard and I think sometimes hard work and heart gets you performance more than knowledge And that’s where it led me So I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth or gold spoon in my mouth I was born working hard with a military family. It moved a lot My dad worked hard and my mom worked three jobs take care of us and just I was taught to work hard And I believed in myself. I believed in myself when other people didn’t and so I worked my way up to that corporate executive level and I stayed there till probably 35 years old and During that time I started making decent amount of money. I had read some books from Robert kiyosaki and carlton sheets that kind of dates me a little bit Most of your listeners may not know carlton sheets, but I listened to carlton sheets and he’s now passed but Learned a lot of things and then obviously being around my brother-in-law and him fixing flipping houses Just got the itch and I started buying rentals and I started holding on to him started a property management company as well And you know, I don’t know about you man, but 2008 to 2010 was not very kind to me It was not a good year for me good years Corporate america perfect did great one executive of the year ate out 10 years Found myself winning all these awards behind my head here and man and just life was good other than the investing side and I don’t assure that I was very Intelligent on how to invest just felt like it was important to do and create passive income. That’s what I’ve been taught But 2010, 2011 came along man, and I found myself on the wrong side of that investments and they reassessed taxes in northwest indiana I found myself way over in payments and under rents And you know leveraged way too deep along the value the property values dropped and I filed bankruptcy. I didn’t have any other way out but erwin that year was tough for me because not only did I lose my wealth that year and all my savings and everything else and Other investors were pocketing the rents and not paying their mortgage, man I I had to pay and I felt like the bible says You know a good name is better to be chosen than great riches and i’m like this is an integrity thing Yeah, I gotta pay my bills all the savings. I had built at that point was gone You know, it’s all gone. And even the lender was like you probably should just file bankruptcy at this point.Ā
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CORWYN:
I don’t know what to tell you Well, at least they gave you a way out right so at least they gave you some advice some counsel or direction Or gave you an idea maybe you didn’t have and that you weren’t willing to cover So so gary, let me jump right here with the question. You have a mission if you will to create and help people to create Vision driven real estate businesses and I kind of gleaned from what you said here a moment ago When you gave reference to scripture that you help people to incorporate that Into the overall vision and the direction they go. Is that correct?Ā
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GARY:
Yeah, I mean the Bible says where there’s no vision of people perish And without vision we lose hope. Oh Man, look here.Ā
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CORWYN:
So I have a client and she’s listening this morning She just heard that and that probably just fired her up right there because she tells me all the time Corwyn the people like Vision will say that to me all the time. So how do you work with people? With that, how do you work with them? Because I mean people have an idea But oftentimes to be and this is just my observation gary, please correct me or disagree if you do But people have like this idea But they don’t have vision which is where you see it through where you see what happens once you cast it it’s like you throw the like you’re willing to you out there fishing you You cast your reel right and cast your bait into the water, but you can’t envision It getting the fish and coming out. All you just see is yourself throwing it out there So, how do you deal with people with that?Ā
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GARY:
Well, I mean, I think a lot of times what happens in this world is people think they’re shooting after vision But they’re trying to fulfill somebody else’s And I think that’s where we missed the mark is that we’re not casting in our own lines We’re not creating our own vision We’re just we’re taking somebody else’s or mirroring somebody else’s and calling it our own and then there’s no passion and I always tell people like Vision creates purpose, purpose creates passion, passion drives obsession, obsession creates focus and focus gets success and so if it’s not our Vision then we’re never going to chase the purpose And if we don’t chase the purpose and we have a way to measure saying chasing that purpose Then we’re not going to get passionate about it And if we don’t get passionate about it We can’t expect our people that we lead to get passionate about it And I think it’s really important that our passion and our purpose support each other And support our vision but like chasing somebody else’s vision is never going to get you anywhereĀ
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CORWYN:
so Man looking anybody who’s watching this y’all just saw me over here about that I feel like I was about to have a you know as old folks say a fit Yeah, because what you just touched on is some of the stuff that I talk about And that we conversate about on this show, but also outside of this All the time because people don’t care. They’re not passionate about anything other than themselves You see what i’m saying So but gary look so you really focus in this process on systems and scaling But one word and i’ma drop this word and let you pick up whichever one you want to start with But also because we don’t like this word accountability Made my back shiverĀ
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GARY:
You know, I was gonna say Corwyn there a minute ago when I was talking about passion I thought this was gonna turn into a pentecostal podcast, you know what I mean? I thought we were coming out speaking in thousands I said he’s starting to come out of the chair a little bit like you’re on a roller coaster or something I don’t know. I know what’s about that I love it.Ā
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CORWYN:
I love it. But gary that word accountability man, it slays people, you know it because we want to do what we want To do but don’t want to be responsible for making sure that we’ve done what we’re supposed to do.Ā
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GARY:
Yeah, yeah, 100 I mean, I think accountability is the key to getting results and without accountability And self-accountability we can pay people we can hire people We can push other people our spouses loved ones things like that to hold us accountable without self-accountability There’s no commitment. And so first of all, we got to start with a vision, right? We got to figure out where we want to go and self-accountability Is clear and easy when you want to go and when you want to get there and that’s why vision is so important And here’s the thing without the right vision you’re going to struggle you’re going to hit hard times and when that times happen You know, it’s like me for example Corwyn in 2011. Not only did I file bankruptcy I got bit by a tick that year. I came down with lying’s disease Oh, wow, and I went back to a five-year-old mental state for a year I was told by a doctor that I was probably not going to live past That age of 35 because of where it bit me it bit me on my back of my neck went into my brain And to get through that time like I had to be very purposeful in how getting through that I had to envision Myself getting healthy. I had to create a vision That’s honestly when I sat across from that doctor with my head in my hands and the tears running down my forearms I thought to myself. Oh dear god. What did I do with my life? And I said god, what’s my purpose? What’s my purpose? What’s the vision? Where do you have planned for me? And I sat there thinking to myself. Oh dear god, if you give me my life back I’ll give it back to helping other people and that’s when it was born for me And here’s the thing when that kicked in and that passion showed up I become obsessed. I become obsessed in a good way I think obsession can be good and bad But in a good way because the obsession was driving me towards my purpose because of that I got laser focus and that’s when what’s when accountability shows up and not just in business Accountability expands all aspects of our lives, right? And so not too long ago. I lost both my dad my mom and my dad’s little final words He says gary this covid stuff, you know It’s not gonna be kind to you if you get it and he said he says listen I need you to make me a promise. You need to lose some weight in the time girl when I was 320 pounds I was a big boy and i’m only five foot seven So you imagine how many I was pretty good boy, and I was not in good shape and he’s scary I need your promise me being in the military 21 years. He was like you need to take care of yourself And part of the framework that I created for rise with rise kind of came from that Vision of how do I lose weight and here i’ll give you an example So in systems of rise because rise stands for resources inspiration systems and engagement in the system aspect That’s where we create sustainability and accountability Right, and one of the ways we create accountability is in results in metrics metrics. Tell us a story I always say numbers don’t lie people do And so like numbers tell us a story. I went to my doctor and I said, hey i’m losing weight. I’m feeling good I’m doing better and he says oh good. Let’s see what the scale says. So you lost no weight. I’m like, oh, okay Well, I was an accountability moment He said well, let’s get your blood work done. Maybe you’re doing a little better there Maybe the weight’s not coming off yet, but i’m doing better got my blood work done came in a couple days later He says here. Why are you lying to me? I said what are you talking about? He says you should be eating better I said i’m eating better He says your a1c is 7.4 Ain’t no way you’re eating better because that a1c would be in under the six and I was like, all right Well, I mean numbers don’t lie and I don’t that what was that? It was accountability So i’m like, all right. Well, these are results Of my efforts. So what do I need to change? I need to change my purpose I need to change my vision like I need to be more intentional here about achieving this weight loss goal And so what I created was the first kpi which is called what I call my key purpose indicator It’s like how do I measure my purpose my purpose of getting healthy living a long time longevity? Well, the only way to do that is to live a long healthy life, right? So then I created my profit indicators my profit indicators were my gain What do I need to gain to live a long life to fulfill my purpose? Well, I need to gain healthy blood work. I need to gain my numbers and my blood work need to show that i’m gaining health Then I built down to my performance indicators, right? My performance indicators the scales got to come down the weights lifting weights got to go up I got to get the results which is performance But then I built down and what I figured out was probably the most critical kpi to accountability And it’s called the process indicator every day. We perform and do things we conduct processes every day whether it’s taking a bath or walking or drinking water or whatever and those processes Drive us to the performance that gets us the profit the gain that gives us our purpose And so I built down properly from purpose the gain profits down to performance down to process And so every day I had to eat 180 grams of protein I’d have 100 carbs grams of carbs. I have 75 grams of fat and I had to have you know A gallon of water or more I had to have 100 ounces of water I also needed to walk 10 000 steps a day. These are daily tactical process indicators And here’s the thing if I don’t do those every day, then I know that i’m not creating accountability Your business is no different Corwyn. It’s the same thing. You have a purpose for why you started Every business starts with what I call a three piece. You have a passion You have a product that makes profits. Those are your three piece every business, but from that you got a purpose You know, what is our purpose? What are we trying to accomplish in this business? And maybe that purpose early on is just making you some money man, so you can stop working that job And that’s okay. I always say there’s two purposes for our business. It’s either leave a legacy or to make money That’s the only two reasons why people start a company But that purpose has to be defined and then we have to measure it When I first started my investment and looking for that exit strategy for myself in life. I needed to be at 4955 a month in passive income. That was a long time ago, by the way And it’s probably a little higher these days, right But it was a while ago, right? And so I needed to be at that to create freedom now that number is higher now But I had my I had my freedom mark then I had my twelve thousand dollar healthy mark And I had my abundant mark which was twenty thousand dollars a month in past And that abundant mark allowed me to live abundantly and give back abundantly and give up my life and I always tell people life It’s an acronym. It stands for labor influence finances and experience. I want to give up my life to help others My labor my influence my finance and my experience and so that’s what my purpose indicator was And so your listeners today they need to have that mark They need to have that thing they’re driving towards that fulfills life purpose That’s the vision, but we ain’t gonna get there without the accountability of it So now we have to have a game we have to have profits How much money do I need to make in order to cash flow four thousand nine hundred some dollars a month? To give me my purpose and then from that I had to look at performance How many properties do I need to own to create the cash flow three hundred dollars a door that gave me my gain? That gave me my purpose But then down the process, what do I have to do every single day? To fulfill my performance to give me my gain To give me my purpose and part of that was every day It was like how many properties do I need to look at every single day? How many properties do I need to put on contract every single week to give my performance? How many profit per door do I need to have in order to give me my cash flow? And can I hit my purpose indicator of five thousand dollars a month and once I figured out that equation? Accountability became something and I think that’s the key it starts with the vision to create passion Create a session to drive focus to get the success But then you have to build down to that accountability And then you have to want it bad enough to hold yourself accountable to getting it You know, i’ve already run a 5k this morning before we talk, you know, I got out ran why? Because I gotta fulfill my purposeĀ
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CORWYN:
I love it, man. I love itĀ
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Speaker 3
Don’t touch that dial. In the second half of our conversation gary gets real about the paralyzing power of fear and how to replace it with knowledge. He’ll break down his three pillars of purpose to help you find your true calling and explain the oxygen mask principle. Why you have no right to lead others until you’ve mastered leading yourselfĀ
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CORWYN:
Guys, that was a great show today and we thank you so much for taking the time to listen to Exit Strategies Radio Show. My name is Corwyn J Melette. Yes, that is me And I thank you from the bottom of my heart for tuning in for today’s episode Exit Strategies is my baby. It is how I give back to our community. It is how I foster goodwill spread good news and trustfully help you get great results. Guys, as I always say to you as I always say to you I love you. I love you. I love you and we’re gonna see you guys. I’ll be in them streetsĀ
