Juggling Productivity, Partnership, and AI in Entrepreneurship with Alexander Pauls

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the work at home rock star podcast.

I’m excited for today’s guest. We have another husband and wife team. It’s going to be great to talk about working with your spouse. Uh, but he’s the owner of KP designs. And they help their clients to create brands, to websites, to SEO, to ads. And, uh, I’m excited to be rocking out today with Alex Pauls. Hey, Alex, you ready to rock?

Alexander Pauls: I’m ready to rock Sam. Let’s do it.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. We always start off on a good note. So tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

Alexander Pauls: I would say my most proud, um, aspect of success would be my wife and I, uh, doubling our business the first year we were together and then doubling it again, the second year that we were together and, uh, that to me, that was an incredible, uh, accomplishment that I never thought could actually happen.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Isn’t that great. I tell you, you get to celebrate it together as

Alexander Pauls: well. Oh, for sure. It’s, uh, it’s the, the juice is a lot sweeter when you get to like celebrate it with the person you love most in life. [00:01:00] Yeah,

Tim Melanson: absolutely. Now, okay. And then that just kind of leads right into the bad note because did it all go as planned or was there things that didn’t work?

While you

Alexander Pauls: were doing that, Oh man, so I would say that the only real bad note would be me coming from corporate and out of my cubicle, not realizing how much you have to work on your business. It’s a double edged sword. Like I’m constantly thinking about work. I’m constantly thinking about our business.

I’m constantly, um, you know, looking for that next big thing to do. So I would say that that’s. It’s, it’s bittersweet because it, I mean, regular folks, they, you know, pack up at the end of the day, they go home, they eat their dinner, they watch their Netflix and being an entrepreneur. Um, I didn’t realize how much time you actually spend thinking about your business, dreaming about the next amazing thing that you want to accomplish.

So, like I said, it’s bittersweet, but I would say it’s for the most part [00:02:00] when those things pay off, it is amazing. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and you know what, that’s really the inspiration for this podcast in the first place is that kind of stuff. Cause I, I come from a cubicle too. I was in a cubicle more than 15 years ago.

And when I left that cubicle thinking that I was going to start this, this business, you know, you think, okay, well, you know, I’m great at what I do. So, you know, why not just cut out the boss, man, and make all the money myself. And it turned out there’s a lot. A lot of thinking, there’s a lot of strategy involved.

There’s a lot of things that catch you off guard that you have to spend time on. That’s not the actual thing that you provide as a service, right? And, uh, and for some people like probably you and definitely me, I love that. I love it. I love strategizing. I love thinking about what’s going to happen next year and, you know, all that stuff and trying to figure out what, what to do next.

But, um, you know, is that for everybody? Do you think? Um,

Alexander Pauls: I think that it could be for everybody. I would say one of the [00:03:00] hardest things I’ve had to do reprogramming my mind is getting out of that scarce mentality. Like when you really look at the world and the 7 or 8 billion people out there and the however many millions of different companies and, and opportunities there are to work with somebody, um, coming from that corporate world.

You’re always trying to like fight for your little piece of piece of meat and you really have that. I don’t know. They just like managed to program that lack mentality into you. And what my wife and I have discovered is that our people Find us, our people come to us. I mean, my, my people aren’t necessarily your people.

I mean, we, we do roughly the same thing, but I can’t take care of everyone. I can’t take care of all 7 billion people out there. So there’s plenty of room for, for, for Tim and his wife to work together. And there’s plenty of room for, for me and my wife to work together. And we, and all we need is like, you know, [00:04:00] 20, 20, 30 clients a year, maybe.

I would say 20 would be perfect. And I mean, 7 billion is a huge number. That’s a lot of people out there. And I think one of the biggest things that people getting into the entrepreneur space need to realize is that the sky’s the limit. And the sooner you build your, your brand and your voice and the better you do doing that, you’ll attract your people to you and you won’t have to worry about what the next guy is doing.

You don’t have to worry about if somebody’s stealing from you or taking food off your table because your table is set by. I, by you and your family and the things that you do and the way you present yourself in the world. Yeah. I love it. I love it.

Tim Melanson: I love it. Yeah. And I think that, I mean, coming from like a, like a company perspective, like you’ve got that ladder, that sort of pyramid that’s set up, right.

And you know, every time you climb up that ladder, There becomes less of those positions, I think. [00:05:00] And there’s more people kind of shooting for that position. So I think that’s where a lot of that program comes in. It’s like, well, you know, me and my peers are all shooting for the same job. Only one of us can get it.

So if I win, they lose or, or if they win, I lose. Right. And I think that that’s where that kind of comes from. Whereas. When you, when you step out and you’ve got your own business, well, and especially nowadays where you can do business online, I mean, clients have all over the world, like seriously, like this, this 8 billion that you’re talking about, maybe it’s not all 8 billion, but there’s a big, big number of people that you can serve and you know, you and I can go out and obviously we have been right.

So we’ve never crossed paths. We’ve never fought over the same client, right. And we’re still doing, doing fine. Right. So I think that I think that, that the, this whole idea of the scarcity, you know, it is in the corporate world, in the, the, the job world, but, you know, if you could have a little bit of faith.

Right. Then, uh, then there’s lots, there’s [00:06:00] lots of room for growth in your own business. Right.

Alexander Pauls: For sure. I mean, one of the books that I’m writing that I’ve been writing for so long, it’s called every day is garbage day. And it basically starts off with me getting hit with this lightning bolt while I was taking the garbage out.

That. Man, I’ve been like climbing this corporate ladder and my ladder is up against the wrong building. I don’t know, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that analogy and I was just like, oh my goodness, like I could totally, all of a sudden I could see clearly, I could see the writing on the wall. I’m like, I’m not meant to be doing this for the rest of my life.

I’m chasing, I’m totally chasing the wrong things. All I’ve ever wanted, even when my wife and I first got married when we were 20, all we ever wanted was To work together to figure out a way to work together, but I always had this government job with these golden handcuffs. And I thought, Oh man, like there’s no way I could be an electrical engineer and, and make more money.

And then when you know it, like the last two years, we’ve had the best years ever. And I made more [00:07:00] money than I ever did in a government job and just. When you can like break out of that, that mindset that you need the government job or you need that, you know, you need that constant paycheck to, to help things going like you really, you don’t realize the prison that you’re in until you actually break out of it.

Yeah, it’s terrifying. Like, I was terrified. One of the most scary things ever was leaving my pension and leaving my holidays and sick days, but I only got one shot at this life. And am I going to, you know, have all these regrets on my deathbed? I thought about that a lot. Am I going to have regrets on my deathbed that I didn’t take that, that chance, that risk?

And I, I’m so happy that I did. Because I, I don’t have to say what if, right? What, what if, and, you know, the last two years, yeah, my wife and I, we spent a lot of time together. We spent a lot of time together with our kids. And we made the best of a bad situation. [00:08:00] And man, am I ever blessed for that? It’s like, wow.

I mean, during there was lots of times we were complaining and driving each other crazy. But now I look back and it’s like, man, it was like a blink of an eye, but I got to spend so much extra time with my girls. And that’s. I would say most parents regrets is not spending enough time with their kids when they’re little.

And here’s this like, crazy pandemic thing that, that says, oh, hey, you’re all going to be locked together. And I make jokes that, oh yeah, uh, they’re, we’re all driving each other crazy. But man, I mean, all I ever wanted was as much time as possible with them because that’s something I can never get back.

That truly is the most precious commodity we have. Yeah, I

Tim Melanson: agree. So we’ll, let’s, let’s explore that a little bit because, um, Being self employed is, yes, it’s flexible, but you still gotta get the work done. And so it requires a certain amount of discipline. And actually, sometimes you, you may end up spending some late [00:09:00] nights.

Like, how do you work that out so that you can make sure that you’re, you know, spending time with the people that you love, but also making sure that you’re bringing in That’s what they say. Yeah.

Alexander Pauls: Yeah. I love, you know what? I love that question to me. That’s probably one of the best questions you can ask an entrepreneur because I’m totally squirrely.

So one of the best things you can do for yourself is figure out who the hell you are or how the hell you’re going to work the best way possible. Right? So I luckily have figured out early on. So if anybody, if anybody out there. Figure this out first. I get the most done probably like 5 a. m to 8 a. m and if I need to, I can work later on at night like 9 to 11.

Those are my best times. It’s dark, it’s quiet, it’s almost like being back in university when it’s like you need everybody just out of your way. There’s no emails coming in. It’s just quiet. There’s no text messages. It’s just those times where I don’t [00:10:00] get pinged or distracted. So I got, I got a good, you know, five hours of really productive time.

So those five hours easily equal eight to 10 of a busy, you know, office, office day where your phones ring in emails, meetings, whatever. So during, during the day, I, I spend my time networking, I spend my time doing podcasts like we’re doing right now. I spend my time on calls and meetings and then answering some emails.

But as far as getting the actual work done in the business, on the business, I have my set times, kind of like hours where no one’s going to bug me. So I don’t know. And that’s not, that doesn’t work for everybody, but that works for me. Nice.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that works for me. Not the mornings, mornings. I’m not, not so good, but, but my evenings.

Oh, geez. I get a lot more done during the evening that I do in the morning. So, yeah, I’ve noticed that too. You sort of had these like times when you’re like. Just in the zone, I [00:11:00] guess. Right.

Alexander Pauls: Yeah, for sure. Like, I don’t like having meetings early in the morning. That is my time to get a lot of stuff done and I get irritated and I know I’m not my best self.

So I tend to schedule like my Calendly. It’s mostly afternoons because after lunch, I’m tired and lazy. So I know I’m not going to be work productive, so I might as well go and get energized from the people I interact with and they forced me to like get hyped up and, and not. Tired, right? Otherwise I’d just be slouching on the, anybody who’s had a big lunch and then sat in a cubicle, try and get a bunch of work done without, you know, passing out.

Right? Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: Now, so one of the main things about being self employed is that you, you, you’re now responsible. You’re responsible for everything. You’re responsible for, you know, all the sales, all the marketing, everything, everything up there, but also you’re also responsible for, you know, keeping your skills sharp and learning more and, you know, all that stuff.

So. You know, do you, how do you keep up on these things? Like, how do you [00:12:00] learn? Uh, do you have mentors? Do you have coaches? Like,

Alexander Pauls: what do you do? Yeah. I would say when I first started, uh, with KP design, I back engineered. My position, I figured out what our company was missing, what my wife needed. And I would say if you’re going to go into business with somebody, there’s so many solopreneurs out there and it boggles my mind because if I didn’t have my wife, who is already an entrepreneur and could help me learn a lot of the tricks of the trade, get a, get a business coach.

But there’s, there’s a lot of resources for learning stuff. So I used a lot of resources to engineer my position. I had a lot of previous skills, but then when it was time to get to that next level, uh, we hired a business coach, Aaron Marcus from conquer your business. So shout out to Aaron Marcus. And she really helped me.

Figure out the activities that I was doing that created [00:13:00] money for our business. Separate that from the busy work that I was doing that made no money. But I tend to, I tended to be spending more time on it because I enjoy doing that busy work. And, and once you see that in black and white, like these are the things that Tim and Alex need to do to make money.

Do more of that. Hire somebody, a VA, whatever, a position as soon as you can, as soon as you have enough money, stop doing the things that don’t make you money and spend your time doing the things that make you money and pay somebody else to do those other things. That was a huge, to me, that was a huge game changer for our business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and actually it’s a, it’s a pretty common thing that people will say that if I were to do it again, I would hire somebody quicker. Right?

Alexander Pauls: How to delegate quicker. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, one of the things I learned too was to, um, bring somebody on before you’re ready. Because when you’re ready, it’s already too late.

You need, you need to be like uncomfortable and just, you know, you know that you need to, so just do it. [00:14:00] That, to me, that was one of the biggest, biggest, uh, learning. Learning tips from a business coach.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, especially, especially like, uh, because I, I totally relate to you. I think we’re probably similar personalities, like just that busy work that makes you feel productive, right?

And it’s not necessarily things that really you need to do, right? Uh, you know, some, maybe someone has to do it, but, I mean, you could hire somebody for, you know, 15 bucks an hour to do it, probably. Uh, right. It’s not, it’s not like a, you know, a special task, um, but if, because we’re productive type people, I’m sure that bringing somebody on and handing all that stuff off.

Now you can’t do it. Now you gotta, you gotta go find something else to do. So it might even like pull you out of that comfort zone and go, okay, well I can’t do all this stuff I’m comfortable doing. What else can

Alexander Pauls: I do, right? Yeah, we tend to do the work that we like to do, which ends up being that busy work.

I really think that this comes from our programming in schools, and then in university, and then in our cubicle [00:15:00] jobs. We, like, once you get your cubicle job, no matter what you do, you get paid. I mean, eventually things have to get done, but you can, you can do that busy work and you can like, look busy and that looks, and that’s great, right?

Even as an electrician, when I was a power electrician, I, I had my busy work, but as long as everything got done great. When you’re a business owner, when you’re an entrepreneur, you, yeah, you just have to like flush that, flush that crap down the toilet and it’s time to work on the things that are going to make you money.

Because at the, at the end of the day, you. Did this to be free, not, not to be busy. Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I hear you. I hear you a hundred percent in a, in a, in a cubicle job. It’s more important to look busy than it is to get

Alexander Pauls: things done. Yeah, it’s a total mind shift and I wish that the schools did a better job of teaching kids that I mean, I teach my kids this kind of stuff now while they’re, you know, even, even my youngest daughter, she’s kind of mentoring under us and she’s 15.

So she’s getting a lot of lessons [00:16:00] that I wish I wish I would have had when, when I was that age, because I never like, I mean, coming out of school, you don’t think that way. You just think, oh, I’m going to graduate, I’m going to get this job and I’m just going to do that job for 30 years and then retire.

Yeah. Yeah, that world

Tim Melanson: is over now, like so over. So, yeah, I, I hear you. I’m our, our kids are teens as well. And

Alexander Pauls: it’s, it’s really, I can just

Tim Melanson: imagine, like, I kind of wish my parents were in that situation when I was going to school. Cause you, you would actually probably see a lot of the contrast as well.

You’d look at your friends, parents, you’d look at what you’re learning in school, and then you’d come home and your parents do things totally different. And they’re working together. You know what I mean?

Alexander Pauls: Oh yeah, my kids always call us like the weird parents. We’re the weirdos. But at the same time, their friends are saying, Man, your parents are like, really cool.

Like they’re… Oh yeah. But my kids don’t see the coolness, right? Like, it’s so funny to hear the, to hear the friends say, man, [00:17:00] your parents really like each other. And our girls are like, well, yeah, they’re supposed to, aren’t they? But they don’t realize that there’s troubled households out there. And I mean, that’s a sad reality, but I’m happy for.

The, the foundation that we have that the house that we built and for them to learn, learn under us. I mean, to me, that’s, that’s a huge accomplishment. I’m super, that’s one of the things I’m most proud of is showing my girls what’s possible. Nice.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So now one of the, one of the big struggles with working from home is finding a spot, you know, getting a good home office set up.

So let’s talk a little bit about your, the jam room, I guess is what I call it.

Alexander Pauls: Yeah, I love I love that topic. Uh, we have so every everybody’s house is totally different right at the beginning of the pandemic. My wife actually set up her office in the, uh, walk in closet, which is hilarious. She just wanted this like.

Quiet place away from the kids and she was getting her work done. [00:18:00] And then that only lasted for a little while. And we turned our upstairs, we have like an upstairs bonus living room. So we just decided one day we are going to tear it up, get the couch out of here, get the TV out of here, get the kids crap out of here.

And we’re turning it into KP design headquarters. We got our two desks. We have our library. I actually have, you can’t see it here, but I have a huge bookshelf. That I have in front of me to limit the distractions of the people that walk by. I mean, ideally it would be a wall with a door, but it’s kind of nice to have it, have it set up like that.

But, uh, my wife and I, we actually, so you can’t see her, but she would be on the, she’s not here right now, but she’s on the, on the left side of me. That’s where her desk is. And whenever we need our quiet time, we put on our noise canceling headphones and we. You know, we, we escape into our, our mental cubicles, if, if you will.

And, uh, I’m probably a lot louder than she is because she’s just doing the creative work and [00:19:00] I’m, you know, talking to people on the phone and, and, and like I said, doing podcasts and things like that. So, but I, I think we’ve done a great job of turning what we thought was a room that we absolutely needed for the kids to lounge in.

Into like our, our work area and the kids don’t miss it like me, like me and mom or we’re up here and you guys are downstairs in the, in the adult living room now and they like that. They’re by the kitchen. They can snack. They can do whatever. And we basically took, took over their toy room and, and turned it into.

Into KP design headquarters, and I already have like a, so if we do another podcast, you’ll see after the winter, I’m going to totally revamp this with some built in desks. It’s going to be, it’s going to be slick. That’s

Tim Melanson: awesome.

Marc Mawhinney: Hi, it’s Mark from natural born coaches, and I want to give two very big thumbs up to Tim Melanson and his creative crew agency.

I have been [00:20:00] using them for a long time, and I am 100 percent happy. They get the job done right. They are fast and they let me focus on my business. I don’t have to worry about anything. So again, I want to give them two very big thumbs up. I have no problem recommending them. I don’t give testimonials for everyone because my name is attached to it.

But I gladly do so for Tim and the Creative Crew Agency. So use them, you won’t regret it and good luck.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we did the same thing only we took the basement.

Alexander Pauls: There you go. That’s the

Tim Melanson: ticket. And it’s like, it’s like you like, uh, sort of like it’s this, I don’t know, a rule that the, the, the teams get the basement, right?

Well, we’re like, no, none of that took the whole basement over. And now that’s where actually we have our bedrooms down here as well. We just, we gave them the master and now they have the upper floor. Like you say, the kitchen’s right there and everybody’s happy. I mean, we, we can come down here. We’ve got our own little apartment.[00:21:00]

It’s fantastic. I, I think anyway.

Alexander Pauls: Yeah, our, our basement happens to be our Airbnb suite. So we have like an extra business, but I joke, it’s like, man, if I could, I would totally move down there. Cause you got like, I don’t know when, when I was a teenager at a basement room and I loved it, it was like living on my own already.

So if I, if I did it again, I would be. Totally at home. My wife likes big windows and light and I could care less about that stuff. Well,

Tim Melanson: we do have bay windows on her side, right? And so yeah, she has lots of light down down here, but yeah, I, man, we call it an apartment, our own apartment. And it was just, it was so funny when the kids figured out that we were doing like, at first it was like, Oh, you’re getting the master bedroom.

You know, this. And then all of a sudden, you know, our daughter comes down and she’s like, wait a minute. So that means you have the whole basement. Yes, we do

Alexander Pauls: live in the dream. [00:22:00]

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. So now what about, okay, I mean, in order to, uh, to, to really get moving, you got to get people liking you. You got to get fans.

So I’m wondering what’s your strategy on, you know, bringing in business, I guess, doing the marketing and all that.

Alexander Pauls: I would say for us, it’s, it’s funny. You, you try and like pinpoint that tangible thing, right? You try to pinpoint it as best you can. And without like sounding cocky or anything, um, my wife and I have found that people.

Like us combined, so when the two of us are together doing, um, like podcasts or social media or, or our photos, even on zoom meetings, when we, when we meet with people, like, they just really click, not everybody, but I would say our, our clients, when they meet with us and we’re together, they like our dynamic.

That’s, that’s what they like. It helps that we, uh, have like elevated visuals and our website is. [00:23:00] You know, like I said, I’m trying to be humble, but I think our website is top notch. And when people come to it, like we, we really try to showcase us as a premier, uh, website, branding strategist, consultant company that can help you get to that level as well.

There’s nothing worse than going to a website company’s website and it just looks terrible. And then you go look at some of the work they’ve done. And it’s like, is this from 1997 or what? So we really try to incorporate. The elite visuals with the fun and charismatic combination of the two of us, like we’re very different, but we’re very relatable.

We just want to be relatable with people and I find that when people like you and get to spend some time with you and then they get that trust factor and they know that we’re taking care of all of their. Needs like we don’t farm out any of our designs, any of our websites, we do it all ourselves. So, and [00:24:00] we do it in a short amount of time.

So not only are you getting it like quick, you’re getting it at an exceptional price and it’s going to be exceptional work. So we like to do the best value formula and uh, yeah, so far it’s really and then the other thing was when we found out was not being the most expensive and not being the cheapest, but being that best value And, and conveying that to the people like, yeah, we’re not, we’re not the cheapest.

It’s okay. We’re also not the most expensive, but you get that. You get us, you’re buying us, you’re getting this experience and people like our people really tend to like that. And I bet you, um. It’s probably the same thing for you too. Like when people meet you and they get that, get that vibe, it’s like, yeah, this is the guy I want to work with.

Like this guy’s cool. Yeah. I, I, yeah.

Tim Melanson: I mean, this whole, I love this podcast because it’s like really making a good case for, you know, couples working together. [00:25:00] And I feel like I get the same thing, like it’s, it’s, and I can see it. It’s kind of, it’s kind of endearing. Right. You know, you get on the phone. Oh, you’re a husband and wife duo.

That’s interesting. You guys work together. You are all okay. And then like you have these complimentary skills, right? Obviously, you know, someone does some and they’re, they’re just, I think it’s just something that, you know, anybody, I mean, if I, if I was on a phone call and I was working with a team like that, I think that’d be cool.

It’d be like, Oh, wow, this is really cool. You got, you know, you got both sides. And then, as you said earlier, you know, as a couple, you can work really efficiently. I mean, you have to, you’ve got to figure some stuff out. Right. And so, and so when it comes down to it, like things are pretty seamless between the two working together.

It’s not like I’m sending it off to India or wherever it happens to be. Right. It’s, it’s like, no, I’m just dealing with this couple and they’re doing everything. And it’s, it’s fantastic. Click. I think that if you can get into a situation where you can work with your spouse, I [00:26:00] recommend it. I think it’s

Alexander Pauls: fantastic, right?

Oh, for sure. And I always say like my origin story was my wife sitting me down and like basically saying, look, this is my company. I’ve been working on it for 18 years. You’re not allowed to screw this up. If you’re going to do something, do it. Don’t, don’t like overpromise under deliver. So I, I got the, I got the big talking to you right away.

So we established right away who the CEO was. I have visions and there’s a lot of times where she’s like, no, I don’t want to grow this. Like one of my big visions was to grow it, grow us into an agency and to have people underneath us and to eventually sell this business. She did not want that. And I’m like, okay.

That’s the CEO. And I had to put my ego aside and be like, okay, well, I mean, who am I to come in and, you know, pull the rug out from under her and say, no, look, this is something that we’re going to build to be a 10 million agency. And we’re going to sell it when we’re 55 and, [00:27:00] and head off into the sunset.

And she wasn’t having that. She just wants a few clients every month. She wants it to be small, priced well, work with the right people, and, and enjoy ourselves. And if one day our daughters want to take over, we hand it over to them, and we start working on the next, on the next thing. But, um, retirement just isn’t for me.

I’ve tried, I tried it once, and I was like, no, this is boring. And it’s like, you gotta… You got to figure it out. So I, like when I left my corporate job, I, I took a big payout and we traveled Europe for six months with our kids. And then I had another six months off to kind of figure out what did I want to, what did I want to do next with, with my life?

And, and that’s when the writing began and the creativity and figuring out, okay, like what’s, what’s that next chapter going to look like? And I realized in that, that I did not want to retire because I had built up this lifetime of skills. And I just can’t [00:28:00] imagine not using them ever again, just sitting on a beach or whatever and, and just letting all that go to waste.

I, I think our lives are too precious to just not, not share with, not share our knowledge either. Like when we get to a certain age, we need to share that knowledge with, with the younger people. And, and, uh, we can still be very valuable that way. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: I agree. And I mean, I always think about, I feel bad for people that work their butts off all year for that one vacation, right?

Yeah. Whereas, you know, I, I tend to think of it more like, why not just create a life that you enjoy that you don’t have to escape from? To say that, you know, a trip wouldn’t be awesome every once in a while. But I mean, you know, it’s, it’s just. I think that, I think that if you are careful with and, and it sounds like your wife’s got it figured out with, with, uh, you know, setting up a mission statement and figuring out exactly who, who, who you are and what kind of lifestyle you want to live, [00:29:00] you can, you can make that work.

It takes some hard work and it takes some faith. You know, you’re, you’re, you’re listening to two couples that are doing

it.

Alexander Pauls: So, you know, I mean, have you ever done, um, like a road trip or, or, uh, a business trip that was half vacation? Have you ever done that? Like we did that in, in April and our kids still talk about how much they enjoyed it.

And they don’t remember us going to some meetings in Phoenix. They were too busy in the pool playing and having fun in our Airbnb while mom and dad were out at a couple of meetings. They don’t remember any of that, but we managed to get away for the winter and have a And have this trip that they still talk about, which is so, it’s so funny, but yeah, we, we killed two birds with one stone.

Yeah. We’ve done,

Tim Melanson: we’ve done a few little mini trips like that, but, uh, Nicole and I really have been working full time together since like the, the lockdowns. And so we haven’t really done a whole lot of traveling since then. However, [00:30:00] that’s in the, in the future for sure. We’ll definitely be doing a little bit more of that stuff.

And I think it’s going to be fun. I think it’s great. We’ve done a few

Alexander Pauls: trips where I’ve had to work, but she didn’t. Um, but yeah. I’m still trying to convince my kids to be homeschooled. Yeah, yeah. Like they, they think, oh, I don’t want you to teach me. I’m like, what do you mean? I’m not teaching you anything.

I said, you’re teaching yourself. Like homeschooling is just, you’re on your own schedule. I said, you, like my oldest daughter, you could have a job and do a little bit of homeschooling. You’re, you’re set. Like you’re already like. Paying all your bills and I said, you could probably travel on your own by the time you’re 16 or 17, but these kids, there’s just so, uh, they don’t realize how much freedom they could have with they want to, they’re too busy wanting to fit in with society.

That’s it. I was just going to say that

Tim Melanson: it’s a social aspect of it all. Right. And, you know, I, I kind of get that, you know, high school was all about the social life and all that. And so. You know, but on the other hand, yeah, you’re right. A how much further would they [00:31:00] been? Like, if I could go back and redo it, I would have definitely taken entrepreneur class rather than go to high school and even university.

Okay. I took a degree in university and I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t do that again. I mean, it was a great social experiment and social experience, but other than that, when it comes to the learning of it, I’m not using hardly anything that I learned in university. Everything that I do now has been learned by me since university.

Alexander Pauls: So, right. Oh, for sure. And I always said coming out of college and university, I probably used about 5 percent of what I learned. I mean, I took advanced calculus, physics, even being an electrical engineer. I never used any of that. All I did was emails and meetings and, and look, and look at some things. I’m like, this is where, where did all my education go?

I just couldn’t believe it. Yeah. I took

Tim Melanson: computer science. And, and, uh, hey, sure I am, I’m building websites, but it’s, it’s, it’s not coding anymore. There’s no coding really [00:32:00] involved in, in building websites. Well, I mean, you can, but you don’t have to anymore. The tools are so incredibly good

Alexander Pauls: that you don’t have to get down to.

Like it’s like, it’s nice to have those things, but now that, uh, I mean, one of the things that we talk about is AI and everybody’s freaking out that AI is going to take their jobs and it’s like, but that’s not the thing. If you’re really good at what you do, you can wield this tool to make you a lot more efficient.

Like, yeah, you’re a computer scientist, you can code, you can get chat GPT to code you a bunch of stuff. I mean, if you and me both did that, mine would be garbage and yours would still be 10 times better because you would know what to tell, what to ask. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So there’s, there’s a lot of power in that.

There’s a lot of power in the knowledge that you have. And so many people are like, Oh, websites like chat, GBT can just make a website. I’m like, yeah, well, chat, GBT is going to make a piece of crap and it’s going to probably fall apart in two minutes, but yeah, whatever I said, if, if we do it [00:33:00] and. And we use these tools, man, think about how much more efficient we would be and how much better products we can keep making for, for our clients.

So we, we really look at, uh, um, the way things are changing, but not in a negative way. There’s so many people that can look at it negatively, right? You can

Tim Melanson: look at anything negatively and you can look at anything positively, but that, I mean, you know, I think that’ll be one of the, one of the things that is common about every guest that’s been on this podcast.

Is we look more at the positive side than the negative side, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. I don’t think

Alexander Pauls: right. Oh, yeah. I mean, just I mean, this has nothing to do with me, but just an example of a funny opportunity that this young girl, um, somewhere in the States, she used chat GPT for, um, writing, uh, greeting cards and she used another AI art tool.

To create like the images for these, for these things and they just combine them and put them on an Etsy shop and she makes money doing that. I’m like, and she’s [00:34:00] 15 years old. I’m like, that’s like, the world is like Grand Theft Auto. Like it’s just this big sandbox that you can just do what, when you realize that you can do incredible things and you figure out how to game the system, man, like life’s pretty cool.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. Okay. I can talk forever, but it’s time for your guest solo because we’re running out of time here. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Alexander Pauls: I would say the exciting thing right now is it’s been a grind. I would say that 2023 has been a grind, but having a partner like my wife and working hard.

And. And just tweaking and figuring things out, uh, it’s, it’s very interesting. And then using these AI tools, uh, to our advantage and, um, a lot of the people that we’ve been networking with are a lot higher level because we feel like there’s so much, so much stuff has dropped off in the past. And, you know, [00:35:00] the cream is kind of rising to the top right now.

So I’m really seeing that, uh, a lot of potential for. For big things for our business, it’s just a matter of us and we have, we’ve kind of like, whether the storm, I would say from April to June, we were just kind of like, what’s going on? Like all the things that we used to be doing weren’t quite working.

So we tweak them. Now things are starting to like bear fruit. So it’s, it’s a testament to resiliency. So if I can say anything to anybody is be resilient, try different things. Don’t give up on yourself and know that, um, you know, if, if you, it’s all mindset. If you keep your mindset positive, yeah, there’s gonna be tough days, but the incredible things that are on the horizon, if you just keep going, um, Yeah, you can’t, you know, your resiliency, be unstoppable, do incredible things, find an awesome [00:36:00] partner to work with, because you can just go so much further with somebody than you can by yourself.

And when you happen to be married to that person, it’s, it’s an even more fun adventure. It’s not always perfect, but it is pretty awesome when you get to go and chase that carrot down the, down the line together and build that future for yourselves. Love it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. When it comes to resiliency, I’ve always found that the it takes about three months to build some momentum.

And it takes also three months

Alexander Pauls: for that momentum to disappear, too.

Tim Melanson: So, so sometimes it’ll take you three months to realize that what you’re doing is no longer working anymore. And then another three months to actually be able to back up again. So that kind of sounds exactly like what happened with you guys.

You guys are now probably in pretty good shape. That’s my guess.

Alexander Pauls: We, you know, we were so full throttle for about three years. We were exhausted. And then. This three months where it was kind of quiet, I, I looked at, I looked at Katya, I said to her, this is our chance to rest. Like [00:37:00] this is the universe telling us it’s just time to rest, not panic.

Think about what we’re enjoying and what we’re not enjoying and almost like a tree like a bonsai tree you just chop off the the leaf that you’re not you’re not enjoying and you know, let let that tree bear the fruit again and Yeah, I’m telling you it’s it’s pretty yeah, I’m getting goosebumps but it’s pretty magical when you have patience with yourself and you’re kind to yourself and Um, it, like I said, again, it just helps to have that partner to bounce things off of.

So if you don’t have a partner, get a mentor, get a business coach, somebody that’s, you know, going to be honest with you and, and help you go in the right direction. And man, it, it is, it’s so valuable. Love it. So tell me again where we find you. Yeah. So you can find us in a couple of places. You can find us at conqueryourbusiness.

com. My wife and I, we do business development, branding, uh, consulting for [00:38:00] businesses, websites, and then you can also find us at kpdesign. ca. And both of those, uh, get to know us. Reach out and uh, we love talking to people for if we’re not the right ones for you I love to network with people and I am more than happy to share like we like just for an example We don’t do Shopify sites We don’t do e commerce sites and I’m happy to refer people to Some of my friends in the industry and we’re like I said, it’s it’s okay to not be for everyone.

No and don’t Yeah. Don’t think that you need to work with, with everyone. It’s, it’s not always going to be a perfect match. So, um, yeah, so conquer your business. com, kpdesign. ca and, uh, check out what we’re doing and if you like it, yeah, give us a shout and I just wanted to say, thanks so much for your time, Tim.

It was really fun talking to you. No problem. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: And thanks so much for rocking out with me as well. It’s been a good time to the, to the listeners. Make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment. We’ll see you next time on the work at home rockstar podcast.

Alexander Pauls: Thanks for listening [00:39:00] to learn how you can become a work at home rockstar.

Or become a better one. Head on over to workathomerockstar. com today.