Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the CEO of mBolden, and what she does is she helps organizations and leaders navigate transformation with clarity and confidence. So I’m very excited to be rocking up today with Suzanne Knight. Hey, Suzanne, you ready to rock?

Suzanne Knight: Yes, Tim. I’m so ready.

Tim Melanson: Yay. We always start off when you’re in a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Suzanne Knight: Well, I am so glad to be here. Thank you for having me. So my good note is around a bit of background. I started my business mBolden two and a half years ago, and I had a long corporate and big firm consulting career before that. And so my good note is to say it is possible to build a business where you work from home, where you build your own client base, you create a portfolio career, and you can actually. Reduce a lot of risk because the thing is that people talk about corporate world as that place where you can have security, stability, a steady paycheck. But the [00:01:00] thing is that for me, I deal with future of work and I have a large network and so many incredible people have been laid off over the past five, six years. And so that old view of being able to come into a company, spend your whole career working hard, adding value. with loyalty and receiving loyalty isn’t necessarily the case now, so I say is good Note. I’ve been able to build a business where the momentum, the client relationships, and the low cost base of not investing in an office outside has created security and stability for myself, my family, and my business.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Congratulations. Big applause for that one. That’s awesome.

Suzanne Knight: have been able to tell you two and a half years ago I had ambition. I wanted it to happen, but like, when you’re doing something for the first time, you don’t know exactly how it’s gonna go. And so I actually had some moments, like probably [00:02:00] December when I was looking back at my year and I was planning out 2026 and I had that moment of. did something good, like I’m actually proud of myself. And often as entrepreneurs we don’t take that moment to stop, think, reflect, ’cause we’re just so busy doing and grinding, which is really how I had been running 2025. But it was that reflection point where I looked and added everything up and like reflected on the incredible clients I worked with and the keynotes I delivered and thought. I did a lot of things and I feel really good about

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome.

Suzanne Knight: and kudos to you for running your podcast now 11 years.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: incredible as well.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much. Yeah, it’s uh, it’s interesting that you say though, that the, you know, the days of the steady, stable job are over and because I think like, I mean, I talk to people about this all the time and I think everybody kind of knows that, but. The actions don’t necessarily match [00:03:00] what they already know, right?

Because I mean, I, you know, you, you’ll have someone say, oh, they’ll actually say, well, I can’t quit my, my job. I got that steady paycheck. And then you’re like, you know, that’s not really all that steady, right? They’re like, well, yeah, but like, okay, but you know that it’s not right.

Suzanne Knight: the thing. And I’ll say like there are people who feel like there’s a certain level of security because of employment protections, and if they get laid off, they’ll have some level of severance. But I’m seeing bigger and bigger gaps between people losing their job and finding the next

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: runs out, and I’m seeing that consistently.

And so I don’t think the protections that were there before in an. Active healthy labor market where you are on the bench or you have your open to workup and you’re immediately getting calls. I’m not seeing that happen the way that it happened before. And I’m also seeing it be very selective where some rules, at some levels are very much in demand, many of them are not. And so I think it’s really about people [00:04:00] taking that own risk profile and saying, with the work I do, the education I have, the experience I have, the market I’m located in. Am I in a position where a corporate job gives me stability and security or. Would I actually be more stable? Building a portfolio career, investing in my own learning, being open to gigs or to building even something physical Like I’m very much thinking these days about how people should be building something in the real world.

Tim Melanson: Mm.

Suzanne Knight: AI continues to proliferate, I think about something physical, tangible, whether it’s a product, whether it’s a service like coaching a basketball team, whether it’s something where you are adding value, where people are seeing you and and connecting. That I think will be harder for AI to replace and as people crave community and connection, having offerings that work in that space are beneficial and you can have an incredible portfolio [00:05:00] career where part of your offering is something, even if it’s a side hustle, something in the physical real world that will be future proof.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And, and I think, uh, it’s so, it’s so interesting ’cause I don’t know what’s gonna happen in the next. Five years, like with this whole AI thing is just so unknown. It’s very, very interesting what’s going on. But you’re right, I, I think that most people are going to end up being like AI trainers or AI users, right?

They’ll, they’ll be doing their work with the help of ai. And so, um, I think that. Uh, I mean, these jobs are not gonna, like, AI can’t just work on its own. Like, it, it needs somebody to be moving it forward, right? And so when people are worried about losing specific jobs, it’s not that those jobs are gonna go away, it’s just that they’re gonna be, the people that are doing them will be far more productive [00:06:00] and there’ll be less of them to go around.

Um, but these big companies that are. Hiring people, they’re, they’re laying people off because of their employees becoming more productive with AI too. So, uh, and, and like what you said earlier about, um, like one of the things about, uh, how do you know whether you are in demand until you go and look for a job, right?

Like, it’s like you find this out when you get laid off. It’s not like, you know, you’re constantly looking around while you have a job because. Most people don’t do that. They, they’re like, oh, no, no. I’ve got my stable paycheck. I’m good to go. And then it’s when they get laid off that they start looking around and realize, oh my, okay, everything’s changed now.

It’s hard to get a job. Right.

Suzanne Knight: a hundred percent. Okay, so here’s the thing. believe that people should think. If I were to get laid off today, what would I do?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: Then on the other side, say, if I were to [00:07:00] be laid off in one year from now, what would I do today? Knowing that that would happen and to triangulate between the two to say. Maybe I would work on my personal brand. Maybe I would start to invest in attending more events and building relationships. Maybe I would do more favors for people and stock up on some goodwill. Maybe I would take a course or. Just learn more, listen more, read more, spend a bit more time future proofing myself so that I can survive agnostic of a company that I’m employed within, but that I have marketable, transferable skills. And I would also say. If you’re not restricted with your current employment, start that side hustle because you never know when that will actually be a supplement to your income, or it actually gives you something to anchor in on if something major changes, and there’s always that point of being laid off. But [00:08:00] you also might have family circumstances change. Like I have friends who were very happily working in their regular job, and then a loved one got sick and they decided they had to change their lifestyle to be able to spend more time with this person. So having another income source allows you to do that without blowing up your life in the moment that you’re also dealing with maybe an emotional or financially challenging circumstance.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well one of the really good pieces of advice that I got years and years ago when, uh, so, well, I used to work in high tech and, um, my, the bubble burst right when I graduated. So I had no like, like heyday in, in, in it, like many people in it did. And so, uh, I was always kind of like thinking, okay, this some, something else is gonna happen.

But one of the people that gave advice when I was, uh, going through the layoffs was that. You know, the people that have a lot of success think about their job. They think that they think [00:09:00] about their lives as they’re self-employed. And I’ve got one client, which is my job,

Suzanne Knight: Yes.

Tim Melanson: and, and I thought that’s a really interesting way to think about it, because you know, if you’ve got one client and that’s your job, well what happens if you lose that one client?

Well, now I have to go find another client to replace that client. That’s a lot harder. Well, what if I had two clients or three clients? Because I think that, I think that a lot of people, when they think about starting a business, I think what scares them is they think that it’s gonna have to be like, I’m just have to, I’m gonna have to go find new clients every day and every month, and I’m just gonna be hustling, hustling and hustling.

But that’s not necessarily true. You can have retainer clients, you can have just a, a handful of clients. You can pretty much be working like you have a job. Right.

Suzanne Knight: Yes. You, you totally can. So two things on this. One is you nailed it. Like the reason why I left corporate was exactly that point of one client versus many clients. So the work I do is I go into organizations and I help them execute on [00:10:00] their strategy. Many of my clients already have a beautiful strategy in place.

Maybe they worked with an elite strategy company to do that. Then they have a hard time translating that strategy into business outcomes. So I come in with my firm, mBolden, and we help build the governance, the prioritization, help the leaders lead in ways that drive action and mobilize their teams. So I say that because when I was in corporate world, I would do this for about two or two and a half years with one company and set them up for success. And I would almost work my way out of a job because if I was effective, then we would’ve transformed the ways of thinking, working, organization, design, automation. We would’ve made work easier, more seamless. And so then once that’s solved, all that’s left is business as usual, which isn’t really my. S, you know,

Tim Melanson: Forte. Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to operate.

Yeah. So the thing is that I did it twice in big corporate from the [00:11:00] inside after a long career in a big consulting firm. And then I said, I’m actually tired of having to rebuild from scratch. So it was while I was still in my corporate job that I said, this is the last corporate transformation I’m gonna lead from the inside.

I’m going to build my own firm so that I can transform an organization. I do under that umbrella of my company has actually built and grown momentum brand logos on a page, and then I do the next one and the next one, but it’s additive rather than me building and then starting from scratch with another job hunt.

So that, that is why I made the change and I think for people. I will tell you a bit about my business structure, if that works, and the portfolio career that I’ve created. So one is mBolden and it’s that large company consulting, typically multinationals or major multi-billion dollar entities. That’s my client [00:12:00] base, and I help those clients deliver on their results. But I also do keynote speaking. I get inbound leads from my website or from LinkedIn primarily, or friend or client referrals to come in and speak at their town hall, their manager offsite. Sometimes it might just be their C-suite or board. Group, like I could do a full keynote for eight people, 12 people, and really tailor it to that audience.

So keynotes, I get inbound. I also have a speaking bureau that finds opportunities for me, so, so that’s something where there’s a bit of an engine working, providing inbound and speaking tends to be a lower. Time commitment, lesser time commitment for the client and for me, like I might do one keynote or I might get booked for a couple keynotes in different markets, but it, it might be something like. sessions or five sessions, a consulting gig could be anything from [00:13:00] host my offsite for a couple days, do interviews with the leaders before that, and then provide us with to-dos. it could be six months or two years of hands-on driving implementation and delivery. It’s bigger, it’s meatier, and it’s harder to find the right clients ready to move into that transformation state. At that moment compared to keynotes where everybody needs a keynote all the time, then there’s more. started doing master classes in September of last year. That was because I got so many inbound requests for mentoring and people were asking me the same questions that I thought, let’s actually cluster them, cover the topics that they want.

Make a beautiful in-person experience of that. ’cause you know how I feel about in-person community connection, and that will actually be something that I monetize as part of the business, but I have full control over that. I’m not waiting for a. B2B sale to happen, or for a client to come to me, [00:14:00] advertising an event or an opportunity, and then people individually can sign up and I can scale it up or down.

It could be 12 executives or entrepreneurs in a room. Could be 50. Like I,

Tim Melanson: Hello.

Suzanne Knight: doesn’t matter to me as long as I plan for it.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Okay. That’s a.

Suzanne Knight: I know it, it’s a lot, but you know, I, I want to go into detail because the thing is that when people are looking to start their own thing, I want this to be like a menu for them to know that you can seek out clients, you can also create environments where people can come to you and you can do the long term and the short term in your offering. And it’s kind of a good thing to build something so that you’re never stuck. You always have money coming in, and you always have relationships that you’re building that could lead to the next thing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. So now, uh, like about the bad note, like I, I mean, you’ve been doing it for a couple years [00:15:00] now. I know that that was for me when things started to go poorly, I just start making decisions. ’cause, you know, things do, do go up and down sometimes in business. Right. And I do like to talk about that.

I’m, I’m wondering has there been any big mistakes or any big things that happened that wasn’t as planned that we can learn from?

Suzanne Knight: Sure. So two things. The first bad note I’ll share is the bigger, more emotional one. When I started the business, I thought that things. Would start up faster than they did. So I started the company nobody knew about. It took me two months to actually get the website up and to start to understand what my own service offerings really would be.

And then it took me another two months before I landed my first client and then another month before I started working with them. all in all, it was about five months from the time I left the corporate world until I started with a client. And in that window. I [00:16:00] was terrified looking down this like long hallway with no light.

There was no light at the end of the tunnel. There were no clients or things that I was waiting for that if I just get to that point, this will happen. There was no certainty that I would ever have a first client and. There was no certainty that I would figure out the business before my finances ran out and that I would have to make a bigger decision around my lifestyle, my home. ’cause the challenge too is when you start a business in your late thirties, or you start a business, when you’re an established adult, you have established adult expenses. It’s not like you’re 18 living in your parents’ house. You know, all good. You just need to get through the day and someone will feed you and you have a warm place to stay.

Like as an adult with three kids, there was real risk, and so I was constantly thinking what needs to be true to be able to make the [00:17:00] money before my savings? Out and I had to make a decision. So that was scary. So what I would say on that is it can take months for people to realize what you’re offering, to even understand that you have made a change and that there is a service that they can procure.

And this is where I had no overlap between my corporate work and my entrepreneurial endeavors. I didn’t start anything until I was fully free and clear. I don’t know. I, I don’t know if that was the right move. Like I could go back, I would’ve had to balance non-competes ethics and compliance issues and be really careful about not crossing that line. But at the same time, if there was a way that I could have gotten an approval to have some non-competitive side hustle, so that at least I wouldn’t have been leaving a comfortable corporate job and salary in the moment to go to that. [00:18:00] Point of having nothing set up.

Tim Melanson: Mm.

Suzanne Knight: think there probably would’ve been some middle ground.

So I would say explore within, if you’re thinking, if you’re in corporate thinking of starting your own thing, explore what is available to you, put it out in the open if you’re comfortable, or look at the rules, like actually look at the policies and say, can I start a non-competitive side hustle? That will give me some level of certainty. And maybe it’s just networking. Maybe you don’t officially start anything, but you start to build your network and your brand such that when you’re ready to start the business, you’ve built an infrastructure and foundation around yourself, even if you haven’t launched the company.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, totally.

Suzanne Knight: That’s the first big one.

Now I’ll share another one. It’s small, but to me it felt very big. So tech issues. I cannot tell you how difficult these little micro problems are and how much they can derail my [00:19:00] days, my weeks, my months. So when I started the business, I had multiple email addresses. I had one from my consulting firm, mBolden. I had my personal Gmail that I had for years. I had one for the Women’s network. I had. One for a client, when they brought me on, they wanted me to use an email with their domain. think for email addresses means four calendars that you’re trying to sync up.

It means that you have your inbox where you’re getting constant inflow, but. They don’t all go to one place. I had times where I would have multiple computers beside each other, each with a calendar on it, and I would be manually syncing them all up. And this was before the point that I had an ea. It was all me, and it was incredibly difficult. And the thing is that I tried. Everything I problem solved. I tried Calendly, I tried Zoom. I migrated to Google Workspace. I tried the team suite, [00:20:00] Zapier like everything I could think of, and I had all the phone calls with my domain provider, with Google, with all these companies. Here’s the thing. I ended up finding out that these systems were incompatible.

The private email that I had through my domain was never actually going to sync up with something like Calendly, but there was never anything that told me that that would be the case. So I look back. sounds simple, calendars don’t sync. But the practical reality for an entrepreneur trying to build their brand and their business is that when you have double bookings coming in to multiple calendars and you have missed meetings because somebody puts something in and you don’t get a notification, it can kill your business, your reputation, and it is so incredibly stressful. The time it takes, like I spent so many days, nights, and weekends trying to problem solve an impossible problem. [00:21:00] I’ll tell you what I ended up doing. I ended up moving everything to Google Workspace. I ended up saying to clients that I’m not able to use their email addresses like I have my own. And that also creates separation as a contractor or consultant where it doesn’t look like I’m an employee of the company, which is. Also important. And then the other thing I did is I did get an EA who manages the calendar, and that has been worth its weight in gold. So I would say like an entrepreneur, you may not have the capacity and time allocated to deal with the problems that come up. You may not have started with the skillsets to be able to immediately solve those issues, but you will figure it out.

You will come to a solution. Because you have to, because there’s no one else to do it. You don’t have a tech department, an IT group to do it. You figure it out and while it’s hard, eventually you will.

Tim Melanson: Wow, wow. So much to unpack there.

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: The, the [00:22:00] first part, uh, that you had mentioned, like I, I, I had this, um, this advice once, it said the best time to build your network was before you need it. Right? So, so I think that that is a really great way to do it if you do have some sort of like non-compete because you’re going into a business that’s similar to the business that you’re already in.

Starting to build that network and starting to network online or, or even go to your Chamber of commerce would be a good way to, to start that. But um, but I also have heard that well in my. In my observation that it takes about three months to build that momentum. So that is, you’re right, very stressful if you’ve got like, if you’ve like burned the boats and now you’re off on your own and you’ve got nothing else, and now you have to wait three months for something to start to to catch, right?

Like that’s stressful. How do you know it’s gonna catch? Like it might not.

Suzanne Knight: this is the thing, and it depends what kind of business you’re in. Like for me it took five, six months before I got real traction and you [00:23:00] know, that was a long period of time to be burning through my savings. Other businesses pretend that you’re starting a product. Business and it takes a while to create the design and produce the thing and ship the thing.

There could also be a long timeline, like it’s not just service businesses where you could have a window and like when you’re starting and let’s say you get to that three months or six months. That doesn’t mean that you’re immediately replacing your old income, it just means that traction is starting.

Could take a year or two years. Who knows how long before you’re really feeling that that pull and you know people coming to you for your offerings. For me, I would say it took about. months from the time that I that I was starting this business and left corporate until the point that I thought, oh, this is good, like 14 months before I had the big break, and I had the big clients and the big pull, and it’s not that I didn’t have clients before, but [00:24:00] it was that I still had some level of anxiety about it and I didn’t know where the next client would come from. And then I would be grateful when the next client would come, but it wasn’t with certainty. At 14 months, I was in a position where I was able to rebuild my savings. And that gave me the confidence and stability that also allowed me to invest in more marketing and a better website. And to start exploring SEO and to I’m gonna have a better speaker reel.

I’m going to start to dress the part like. of that takes money and it takes certainty before you’re ready to put money back into the business at that level. So just don’t expect it will be quick, but with determination, with the right product, market fit, with listening to what. The business world and your client base are telling you and pivoting if you have to, you can figure it out and come [00:25:00] up with a thing that people are gonna want.

And it could work and it could be financially beneficial, but just don’t expect that it is guaranteed to happen

Tim Melanson: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now, uh, I mean, having a bit of a roadmap to follow can help as well. And listening to podcasts and getting out there and understanding that there is a bit of a lag behind, but. Uh, I mean, I, I just, you know, I think that, uh, I, I know for me, I, I had a severance when I started my business. I think that it is just smart to have some sort of like backup plan to keep you through because it is gonna take some time to get going, right?

Suzanne Knight: A hundred percent. And the thing about the severance is don’t underestimate when you’re applying for the job and in offer phase of negotiating the severance at that point. Because you

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: the corporate world with optimism saying, this is gonna be great. I’m gonna love it. I’ll be so good. Then maybe it works out [00:26:00] or it doesn’t, and you never know when you’ll be really grateful to have that severance.

You know, when I was in my corporate world, I never negotiated severance and I should have, and I heard from a friend that she ended up getting a very generous severance that she had negotiated upfront because she was employed in an impressive job. She left that job. After being headhunted to this new company and she ended up getting 18 months of fully paid severance that she negotiated in at the beginning, that in no way would’ve been offered to her if she hadn’t pushed for it.

So I say if you’re still in that corporate cycle, that is something you should negotiate and you should do it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Um, now on your tech stuff, so, um, I don’t wanna take too much time to talk about me, but I’m like, one of the things that I do is exactly what you, uh, were experienced. I figure out tech problems, I untangle them and I’m like 90% sure I would’ve been able to figure out your problem.

Suzanne Knight: Well, now I know I’m gonna call [00:27:00] you. You know, even two weeks ago I had the dumbest problem in the world, also tech that you probably could have solved for me.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: a coffee shop and I was working and reviewing some documents, and my laptop ran outta battery. So I plugged it in. It turned back on. But here’s the issue. The keyboard switched to a different language. it was blocked because I had had these key, that was another problem I had to figure out. I, I figured out that you can change the keyboard

Tim Melanson: you can. Yep.

Suzanne Knight: but here was the issue. For some reason, it was stuck, it was blocked. It wouldn’t let me do it.

And so what happened is the keyboard that was on wouldn’t let me put numbers. I have numbers in my password. I have numbers in my apple ID to reset, and I had numbers in my wifi code, so I was literally dealing with this. Block that I didn’t know how to do. I messed around with it for an hour and a half with chat GBT on my phone

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: it out, and I eventually [00:28:00] just went to the Apple store, like the, you know, the neighborhood ones

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: Apple certified?

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: I just went and handed over the laptop and was like. I don’t care what you have to do. I don’t care if you are charging me for this thing, like please just solve my problem. Like I’ve just wasted an hour and a half and I am now convinced I am not capable of solving this myself. And the woman unlocked it in like 30 seconds.

So

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: Don’t try to figure it out yourself like you are wasting so much more time and money on, on doing something that’s not in your sweet spot. Just call Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and I think that that is, I mean, not called Tim, but I think that that particular idea is something that all of us need to take to heart because we spend, especially when you first start your business, you’re a solopreneur. You’re wearing all the hats, you’re doing all the things right. And that’s great.

And I, I think that there’s a certain amount of. Knowing all the parts of your business or, or at [00:29:00] least having an idea of what needs to be done. But then it has to be like really quick to realize that, okay, that area there, Uhuh, I need to find somebody. Because you are gonna spend a, a lot of time on something that you isn’t your gift zone, and that that time is money really, especially when you need to build up momentum in three months.

Right?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh, a hundred percent. And that’s the thing that when you’re in scarcity mindset, it’s really hard to think about delegating or outsourcing. And you’re thinking, I’ll pay a hundred dollars to the Apple store to fix my thing, and that’s a hundred dollars. That could have brought groceries into my household, like it’s so stressful.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: At the same time, how much is an hour and a half of your time worth on client work, business development and the frustration and stress of sitting there dealing with something that didn’t even result in a solve with my case, with this, uh, keyboard issue. And so that’s the thing now where. I’m very clear on [00:30:00] what is in my jo, my zone of genius, what is not, what energizes me and what doesn’t, and I actually follow my energy cycles.

So I wrote a book. I realized for myself with this book, it’s not out yet, but I’ll update you guys maybe if Tim will let me later. Um, but the thing with the book is wrote best. In mornings and early afternoons. By the time it was evening, I was exhausted and if I was trying to write, it took me two or three times longer to produce what was probably subpar delivery.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: it’s the same on the client side where like. I will have times that I am my best self ready to have meetings and engage. And then there will be days where I know I have a big proposal due, or I’m pushing for a delivery date for an actual engagement result. And I know that that is not the time to book unrelated client sessions because my, my [00:31:00] head’s gonna be somewhere else.

So I do time blocking and I try to group like. Work together.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: I’ll do a full day of business development or a full day dedicated to a client if I can. And then the other thing is I follow those energy cycles and reflect on it. To sometimes say, here’s what I did today. Which of these things were in the best window for me? Like, which of these felt good to do? And which of these felt exhausting, burdensome. Like they really weren’t. The right fit for the time and place that I was working

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s great. That’s, that really is good. And so, okay. So the, the, the benefit that we had by working for ourselves is that we don’t have to work if we don’t want to. Right? We, we can, we can sort, sort of take a day off if we choose to and all that stuff. However, you know, the other part of it is that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

So [00:32:00] now when it comes to like, uh, like, uh, doing the things that you don’t feel like doing, right? Like, like, uh, where is that sort of balance where you have to go, you know what, it’s gotta get done, let’s do it anyway. Versus. Let’s not do it right now and let’s wait till the energy is better.

Suzanne Knight: Very good question. So I look at a couple things. So I used to be a solo. Printer at the beginning. Now I have a small team and I also built, this is something I recommend. I built a freelancer network where I pre-screened, pre-interviewed, and did signed NDAs and client agreements so that. My clients are my clients.

If I’m subcontracting to someone, they’re still my clients. So I signed all of those forms after interviewing people So now when I have opportunities and there are things that are ready to be delivered, I have people I can ask. Another is I built systems where, let’s say for marketing, I’m very [00:33:00] happy to manage my own LinkedIn.

I write all the posts myself. I enjoy that process, and then I post them myself. But I find that I’m less willing to do that for video content. So I’m happy to be videoed, but I’m not somebody who’s going to enjoy or be energized by the editing or the music or the captions for the video content. But I’m happy to prepare and show up ready for a filming day and deliver what I have to deliver.

So I outsource that stuff ahead, knowing that it will never. Be the thing that energizes me and there are people way better at at it than I am now. We go to the day to day, there can be a day that I’m sick. This is a hard thing, like I had the flu before holiday season and I still had stuff I was trying to finish before everyone went out, but like I had a flu and it was only stuff that I could do that was really hard because some of it I had to finish before the holidays to [00:34:00] be able to fulfill the contractual agreements.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: I was able to push, but I’ll say whether it’s the textbook best thing to do or not, when it was a contractual, uh, requirement and I truly didn’t have someone else that could do it and it was make or break, I did it and I was sick and I felt like crappy and I was lying on the couch, but I still got the stuff done.

But anything I could push, I pushed. And I have a prioritization. Scheme with my ea. This is something that is separate from the meetings or client work, but it’s actually around when I get inbound leads or when I have opportunities to connect with people, or people ask me for mentoring. We do a prioritization around what this call will be or what it means to the business.

So priority one is existing client. That means that they are actively engaged, paying money for services or [00:35:00] that they recently did and could renew, but it’s, it’s very much tied to active. Client two is like, or priority two is prospect. That means that there is a real potential that they could become clients, but they’re not clients today.

And so that could be an inbound lead where they are very clear on a scope of work that they want with a legitimate organization that could afford my fees. And I need to speak with them to be able to understand the offering versus the need and broker a deal. So that’s priority two. You see that comes after existing clients once some, once someone engages me, they are my world. And then priority two is future prospects. Three is very active. I get a billion threes. This could be friends wanting to reconnect. It could be mentoring requests. It could be people looking for a job. It could [00:36:00] be conferences where they might want me to speak pro bono at a women’s event. It’s not going to be a client.

It’s not going to make money, but there’s a social good associated with it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: It could be people randomly reaching out saying, Hey, I wanna learn about this part of your business, and you don’t really know where it’s gonna go. But all of those are three. So those come after the core that are gonna keep my business moving forward and keep my family and my core safe and secure financially.

So those are threes. I limit threes. I do threes, but I’ll say there’s one day every two weeks that I’ll take on some threes and I’ll stack them in calls. All day, or sometimes there are threes that I do in person and it’ll be a day. And from morning till night, I’m doing straight out coffees and meals the entire day. And I also do threes ad hoc where I actually prefer if I have quiet time on a day to just pick up the phone and call a three and check it off the list rather than booking [00:37:00] and protecting time in the calendar that I might want in the moment to use for different energy.

Tim Melanson: I love that.

Suzanne Knight: four. Priority four is I don’t wanna meet with this person for whatever reason.

It could be that there is. There have been meetings that haven’t gone anywhere. It could be that that meetings suck my energy. It could be that there’s some level of conflict with a person who’s not necessary for me to have in my life. It, it really depends. But fours are the, the do not book list. And so fours my EA knows just they will never get a spot in my calendar.

I’m telling my secrets now, but I, it’s important to have boundaries

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Suzanne Knight: to say. No, if there’s something that feels uncomfortable or that you know is gonna drain you and the rest of the day, you’re gonna be that little bit worse. Having spent the time having that meeting or with the person. that’s, that’s my prioritization, four point [00:38:00] prioritization, and it works very, very well for me.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So many things to talk about. We’re running outta time. I just wanna make two, two points. The, the first one is you had mentioned that you stack things that are like together, and I think that’s a great idea because I think that. You sort of build momentum and you know how, like, you know, sports players will have like a routine before they go do their event and all that stuff.

It like gets them in the mood, right? And, and like flipping between tasks, task, task and all that stuff, you have to start over again. So I think that that. Is a great idea for actually making yourself in the mood. Because if you have a couple of especially good ones that work out really, really well and like some successes, you check them off the list, now you’re feeling good and like you’ve just created a good feeling.

Right? So I think that that’s a, a really good, uh, thing too. And then the, the second part about your ea about your, the band, the people that you have around you, like I think one of the hard parts. About, [00:39:00] I, I don’t know if everybody’s like it. I think probably a lot of people are feel bad about saying no and about right.

Like someone you know says, Hey, can I pick your brain for a few minutes? And you’re just like, uh, but you do anyway, right? And it takes your time. But having that person or even a system that like. Is in between you and that person now, like, it’s so funny how like you could have a rule say, Hey, I’ll only like you say I, I’m not, the fours are not getting any time.

I would bet you if you were in charge of that instead of your ea, a few of those fours would sneak through, right?

Suzanne Knight: they used to. And so that’s the thing, like I had to make firm boundaries with my EA

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Suzanne Knight: which she manages consistently and manages it better than me. But then I also realized that every, yes. a no to something

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Suzanne Knight: And so every time I said yes to a four, I was saying no to being able to actually do a proposal or [00:40:00] to fix my website or

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Suzanne Knight: go to the gym or make dinner for my kids, and it just wasn’t worth it.

I actually did a TED Talk on this, a TEDx, and it’s called The Myth of Doing It All. What to do instead. And I talk about very specific tactics that I use in my own work and life to maximize productivity and efficiency. So highly recommend for anyone, Suzanne Knight, the myth of doing it all. See TEDx on YouTube.

But that’s where I talk about yes is a no. You need to center yourself, your wellness, your engagement in your own life. ’cause nobody else is gonna do it for you if you don’t put up those boundaries. People will take what they can get. It’s just human nature and, and no one will protect you. Although your EA is a good substitute, but you still have to hold firm to the boundaries.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean a yes. I, I, I think yeah, A yes is like a no to everything else. Like [00:41:00] you’ve made a choice to do this one thing and you can really only do one thing at a time. I mean, hey, some people say that you can do multitask, but it’s really switch tasking. You can only do one thing at a time, right?

Uh, unless you create an AI double and then well, who knows what happens, right?

Suzanne Knight: Why stop at a double?

Tim Melanson: We could create a whole army of mees that would do stuff, but, uh, but, uh, who knows? That’s, that’s down the line. But yeah, like, I, I think that that is really important. And I, I guess maybe the, the finding out the, the wording around it, like, I bet you there’s some really good wording that you use to make sure that those fours don’t get into your schedule.

Right.

Suzanne Knight: A hundred percent, and so I’ll put this offer out to you, Tim, and any listeners here. Send me a note. You can have my contact actually on LinkedIn, Suzanne Knight, and reach out. I will send you my wording. I actually created a document that has the descriptions of each priority and that has a stock [00:42:00] response, email, and protocol for each level that my EA follows. Take it. Like if you message me, I will send it to you, adapt it, make it yours, or just straight copy paste it. But yeah, it’s been working for me for the past, let’s say 18 months, and I’ve gotten progressively more productive as we’ve improved our operating processes.

Tim Melanson: I love that. Okay, well this is a good time to get into your guest solo then. So what’s exciting in your business right now?

Suzanne Knight: So my business right now is pretty hectic in annual planning. I love connecting with leadership teams, and it could be either like the C-suite of an organization or it could be like one vice president in a domain. Looking to figure out how they’re going to deliver over the rest of the year or the quarter and mobilize their team. So those sessions could be a mix of focus on the work. So what are we trying to deliver? How does it align to the strategy? How are we measuring success? Who’s [00:43:00] doing what and where do those dependencies fall and where are the risks that could keep us from being successful? other side of it is often around high performing teams.

So how do we show up as one? How do we keep from having duplication of work or silos, like let’s actually make work fun, interesting, engaging, support each other’s success, and let’s actually contract on that in the room. Focused on the work. So those are things that I’ve loved doing lately, and I would say from November until end of February, those are quite busy.

But then we get to midyear planning around that June point, and you can rotate or move all of this depending on the company’s fiscal year. So that’s a great way to engage me or to just chat if you wanna bounce some ideas about what it could look like. The other is keynotes. I am so enjoying going in front of [00:44:00] whether it’s a manager offsite, whether it’s an enterprise town hall, a leadership meeting, and talking about a couple things. Never waste a good crisis, has been my most popular keynote for a number of years, and it’s about in this context of constant, relentless change, how do we build. path forward when we don’t exactly know where we’re gonna go. for leaders and managers, how do you guide a team and keep them engaged and feeling good and well and productive when you don’t exactly have that path ahead of you? To guide them too. You’re figuring it out along the way. So there’s a certain bit of resilience that I talk about there in growth Mindset. And then over the past six months, a very popular topic I’ve been discussing is a lot of Tim, what we’ve been talking about here. Creating more time, finding ways to be more efficient.

I talk about this in my TEDx, [00:45:00] the myth of doing it all, but I’ve translated it for a corporate or government or conference audience to be able to say, using the best of Lean Agile and the lessons that I learned driving corporate transformations. With 80 clients in 14 countries, here are the specific tactics that you could employ, whether you are a solopreneur, whether you’re trying to live your best life with your family, whether you’re a corporate leader, these are the specific things that anyone can employ for zero cost,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Suzanne Knight: just a little bit of willingness to test and learn.

Tim Melanson: Wow, okay. Wow, you got a lot of stuff on the go and you’re a great speaker, so I bet you those tech TEDxs are awesome.

Suzanne Knight: Thanks, Tim.

Tim Melanson: I’m wondering, like, so who would be the person that would get the most out of working with you?

Suzanne Knight: So the person who would get the most out of working with me on the event side, typically I would be booked by a chief people officer, a head of events, [00:46:00] someone in corporate affairs, or even an executive looking to. Buyer and motivate their team. And then on the consulting side, it’s typically corporate.

It’s typically anyone in a large organization looking to live and work better. But if you are a based. Really anywhere and you’re looking to participate in one of the workshops or masterclasses that I host, I do them about four times a year. It’s not something I offer all the time, but I’ll do them some in person in Toronto, some of them virtual, and anyone around the world can participate and uh, that actually gets a lot of entrepreneurs.

So I would love to have any of you there connect with me on LinkedIn, Suzanne Knight, or my website, suzanne knight.com and you can sign up for my email list. hand write all my emails. I do typically one or two a week, and they’re a mix of tips. I’ll do templates. Let’s say I create something for a conference or a keynote, and it’s [00:47:00] something that I think will be useful.

I typically give it out for free on the list, and then sometimes it’s just storytelling, like I might tell. Story of that annoying keyboard lock situation and, you know, I, I just love the community part of it and building a network and connection whether or not we ever work together. I’m so happy for us just to be connected.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Awesome. That’s so cool. I, I was gonna ask you how to get connected, but you’ve already mentioned it. So

Suzanne Knight: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: now hardest question, who’s your favorite rockstar?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh, I, rockstar is a broad.

Tim Melanson: Musician.

Suzanne Knight: musician. I would say Tracy Chapman.

Tim Melanson: Ooh.

Suzanne Knight: a sweet spot. I love Nora Jones. There’s that certain powerful emotive ballad, singer songwriter that just gets me. And I find that like if I’m feeling down, I wanna listen. If I’m feeling up, I wanna listen. But those are the ones that [00:48:00] I go back to over and over.

Tim Melanson: Do you sing along?

Suzanne Knight: Oh my gosh. Oh, so I do, but nobody would wanna hear. Unfortunately. I’m good at some things. That is one that would really feel like a punishment to any of you to have to listen in on. But

Tim Melanson: So,

Suzanne Knight: sing along with it.

Tim Melanson: have you ever gone to karaoke?

Suzanne Knight: I have, and it was so embarrassing. I went to karaoke in Florida with my dad about a decade ago, and I’m not kidding, like we were in some dive bar.

Nobody was there. Maybe like five or six locals. I was the only ones. Singing B 50 two’s Love Shack in the dive bar with my dad. I don’t know. Must have been more than 10 years ago. ’cause that’s horrifying. But yeah, that’s the last karaoke and probably the last one I will ever go to.

Tim Melanson: Well, you know what? It makes a good story, doesn’t it?

Suzanne Knight: Yeah, and I never told it before, so kudos to you, Tim. Forgetting that

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Suzanne Knight: of me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. [00:49:00] Maybe it’ll make it into, into one of your tech talk. Uh, your TED Talks at one point.

Suzanne Knight: Let’s, let’s hope not. But yeah, this was enough. I disclosed it once. That’s enough.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Suzanne. This has been a lot of fun.

Suzanne Knight: Well, it was wonderful, Tim. Thank you so much for having me. It was a joy I.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Digital speaker Agent, and what he does is he helps speakers get on more stages so more people can hear the message, learn from experience, and improve lives. Super excited to be rocking out today with Glenn Freezman.

Hey, Glenn, you ready to rock?

Glenn Freezman: Hi, I am ready to rock. How you doing this morning, Tim?

Tim Melanson: I’m doing excellent this morning. We always start off in your good notes, so tell me a story of success. We can be inspired by.

Glenn Freezman: I wanna give you a crazy story that happened 13 years old,

Tim Melanson: Yes.

Glenn Freezman: which was the through line of my entire life. In a nutshell. Uh, family went bankrupt for the third time. are in, repossession house is on foreclosure. I’m a latchkey kid playing basketball with the JCC. I literally live there from one o’clock in the afternoon or two o’clock when the school let out through nine o’clock at night.

When I get picked up playing ball one day on A [00:01:00] and clink it off the rim, and I hear somebody yell from the other court, Hey, little help. reached out and I look up. I’m 13 years old. I’m only five foot five. I need a center at all times to be able to play and get into big games. Ends up that this guy, he asked me, I said, what are you doing here every day?

He says, what are you doing here every day? I thought, I’m latch key kid. Here’s what I do. I said, I have nothing. This is just where I hang out. I said, what? Why are you here every day? He said, I’m just a vendor. I said, what do you ven? He said, Philadelphia soft pretzels. I said, really? I said, where do you sell ’em?

He said, from parade routes, from Maine to Virginia. And every Philadelphia Phillies game, Eagles game, Sixers games, flyers games, the parade route all up and down the east coast as well as, uh, concerts and parade and, uh, circus. Anywhere there’s venue. We’re selling pretzels. I’m 13, we’re broke. Tim, I say to them, where do you sell ’em?

How much do your [00:02:00] guys make? I have to go do this with you. He says, Glennn, I don’t know you. He says, and there’s no way I’m allowing a 13-year-old to come do what you’re doing. I said, Mitch, I need the job. I can do this. He comes over, he meets with my parents, and I said, basically, I will give up my childhood for my adulthood.

He goes, I am not going to do what my father did. So I ended up getting very, very lucky, very, very early on by meeting a very, very street smart pretzel guy.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: It changed my life and literally his, I like to say his lessons were salty. He was a pretzel guy. His lessons were salty, his lessons were hard, and his lessons were twisted.

But it set me up for a lifetime of success because I got to hang out with people when I was 13 who were obviously resilient,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: [00:03:00] resourceful, selling. Magic air, you know, pretzels. And it ended up that through our stories today, hopefully we’ll get to some of the great stories. But he changed three generations because the time that we needed it most, which was about 30 days into our relationship of me selling pretzels.

And I’m talking every night taking a subway to the Phillies games. And we worked a few parade routes. I had heard Tim, that overnight that. They were taking the house and they were, and we were done. And we were in dda, Maryland that that Saturday working a parade route. And after the day, I made my 150 bucks cash and he said, Glenn, you’re off today.

What’s wrong? And I told him this story and I said, Mitch, here’s the deal. I need $13,500 today. And I already did the math. And if you [00:04:00] give me that money, I will have you paid off in two years and I’ll give you 10% interest. And he said, Glennn, I will give you the money. No interest. I control the money. We can learn a lot. He gave me cash that day, which I came home as I did every other night that I came home from work. But normally I put $25 on a kitchen table. This time I put 13,500 and went to bed. That one act from Mitch changed my life, changed my parents’ life, and because of what I learned for the next five years working for him, of which time I sold 500,000 soft Bretzels changed my kids’ life because it set me up with the lessons that I learned while doing it for a lifetime of success.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: That would be my, that, that would be the greatest story that that happened to me, that I’ve told [00:05:00] numerous amount of times, and I’m still friendly with him. He’s a professional now. He professionally plays cards at the, at uh, the Borgata

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: and still hustling on the streets. Still incredible mentor. Still an incredible friend.

Tim Melanson: Wow. That’s an incredibly good mentor and incredibly lucky that you were able to. Just be there at that time. Right, Right,

place, Right.

time.

Glenn Freezman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow.

Glenn Freezman: and, and, and as a 13-year-old I had, I had no idea what you were allowed to say. Not allowed to say. There was no, which is one of my, through lines of life, no inventor’s, remorse.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: I didn’t know what couldn’t be done, so I didn’t know what I couldn’t ask at 13 years old saying, listen, I need $13,500.

People said to me at 13, you’ve asked that question. Yeah, because I knew what was happening at home. There was no other choice.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah, you’re not living within a box, right? Like, uh, I know, I, I know that, that, uh, that comes up in music sometimes as well where, [00:06:00] uh, you know, they talk about the Beatles actually is one of the examples. And the, the way that that history goes is that, uh. Paul was the educated one. He had some musical experience and John was not.

He, he just kind of went by feel, and the things that he would come up with would be outta the box. It’d be things that he didn’t, he didn’t know he wasn’t supposed to do. Right.

And, and, uh, isn’t that interesting as kids, like, we don’t know what we don’t know. And I, I, I always think, isn’t it amazing how these kids learn so fast?

Well, they don’t know. They’re not supposed to learn that fast.

right.

Glenn Freezman: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. You know, and when, when you think about, when people say to me, well, like, who is your mentor? Or, or something like that. I think everybody that has ever spoken to me has come into my life for that particular second.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Good or bad, they have mentored me.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: It doesn’t, we can learn a lot from a bad example.[00:07:00]

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: It all depends how we disseminate it, right? And how and what we end up with from everything that we interact with.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I think in a lot of ways we learn, we learn a lot more from our bad, from our bad experiences

than we do from our good ones. Um, which is why we do talk about the, the bad notes. So, I mean, can you tell me something that didn’t go as planned? Like what, what’s, what’s the biggest mistake that you made on the journey?

Glenn Freezman: Yeah. I will tell you that I got into the title insurance business when I came, when I started my real life, let’s say, and there was a piece of the title insurance that I thought it would be very, very cool. Now, this goes back 25 years ago, so before the internet and before wifi,

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: because people don’t understand that you and I, well, I, I am older than Google had people going.

Really? Yeah. I’m older than the internet.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: You know, because people just think it’s been around forever and ever. [00:08:00] So prior to wifi. We own title comp. I own the title insurance company, and I was tired of my people having to leave to go to drive to someone’s house or to drive to an appointment to sign papers.

I thought it’d be really cool to have like a ability to sign papers over the inter over over a trunk line,

Tim Melanson: Right.

Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: which, is the precursor, which would be strong enough. And spent a lot of money and spent a lot of time designing what was called that settles it. ’cause we were, it was for the settlement portion of our title insurance and we were doing a lot of deals and by people were just running around.

And I thought to myself, you know, if we could solve an hour up in an hour back and not having my people be outta the office three hours, but only one hour, I could do three times the amount of settlements. Plus I believed that all the [00:09:00] customers would love it, I, Tim, I was dead on, right? The problem was that I learned that there was nothing that was impossible, as long as that’s what you wanted to do.

So I went off of my merry way because this was my first real, real life opportunity. It wasn’t just hustling and grind, you know, on the streets. So I basically built everything and I did it in, in what I now consider ready, fire, aim. I just didn’t use the correct order.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: So I got ready and I opened and was partnered with a company called Mag Networks at the time, which was owned by Sony, so we could get the trunk lines run into certain office complexes that were very large, so those people could come to an office complex and we could phone right into that office complex and run the paperwork with them.

Tim Melanson: Right on.

Glenn Freezman: Well. Part I missed was that the notary, which I [00:10:00] believed was there to make sure that the customer understood the documents and that Tim was really Tim, right? That Tim Mellington, when you showed up, you were really you.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: However, this second part of that, which is buried deep in is that you are not under any duress while you are signing these documents.

Tim Melanson: Uh.

Glenn Freezman: The president of the National Notary Association out in California, I get a call from him saying, you can’t do what you’re doing. And I said, why? He said, because. I can’t, we, you have no way of knowing, number one, who these people are and I said, yes, I do. Because our technology shows that they can hold their license up to the screens.

We wrote the technology back 25 years ago that would read that strip and know who you were and go right into your, what they now call this wallet, uh, questionnaire. You want to ask you questions that only you would know.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I said, and it’s way stronger than me just sitting there plus. The threat is, [00:11:00] Tim, I have you on film.

If you are not you, while you’re signing these papers, good luck telling this to the judge. I have you on film. I view Dead to Rights. I’ve cut out that fraud. He said, but how do I handle dur rest? I said, there’s a three day right of rescission. I said, every time someone signs a mortgage, right, there’s three days that they can rescind that mortgage.

These, these were second mortgages, so it was a three day right Sion. I said, so you’re telling me that the bad guy’s hiding behind the door for three days? He says, I’m telling you, you’re not doing it. We’re gonna shut you down.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: And I was in the middle of a very successful title insurance and didn’t do what I would normally do and what I’ve done my whole life and say, I’m glad you told me that.

Now I’m gonna beat you at that.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Glenn Freezman: Right? You taught me what the miss is, so now I’m gonna figure it out.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: because I was successful doing something else, I didn’t poke the bear. Two years [00:12:00] later, the National Notary Association changed the laws read that the, the rest was out and that remote closings were now available.

And guess who was the founder of that company? The president of the National Notary Association.

Tim Melanson: it was. Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: Okay. Yeah. Right. So that one I would say is something that. Because of, because of the way I’m wired, which is, Hey, this is the great idea. Make it happen. Now was a big lesson early on that said, you got, you have to, at least you can’t rush time and you can’t fight the law unless you’re powerful enough to have the law changed on your behalf.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Glenn Freezman: Uh, it, it was a huge one, but it, but now if you look every, so. It dragged along, and if the laws changed in Virginia, that Virginia became, in America, a national notary remote [00:13:00] closing network,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: because they were the first state that allowed it. So every remote closing was happening, would use a remote closing, sitting in Virginia.

It was my exact business plan.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: Closings today are done that way because COVID made it sexy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: It never became mainstream. It was always, well, we don’t like this. We don’t like it. You know how it works. And then all of a sudden something happens and everyone goes, yeah, we think we could do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we got no other choice.

Glenn Freezman: We have no other choice now.

So now we’ll, now we’ll allow it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

And then they realized how good it was.

Glenn Freezman: They, they, right, right. Uh, I was, I was proud of the fact that I was part of it. And I made something happen, but I didn’t really get anything out of it other than the, you know, the, the try the swing at the bat and to know that a deep down, I know who started this.

Tim Melanson: absolutely. Yeah. Well, the guy literally took your idea[00:14:00]

and just implemented himself because he had the power to change those rules

where he could have done that for you, right?

Glenn Freezman: Well, you could have, but that’s not, but I know where I’m at in life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And I, and I don’t really care what he is in life, but I know where I ended up.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Cha, I, I don’t know. I, I do believe in karma, so I think, I think that

things happen the way they’re supposed to. Right?

Glenn Freezman: yeah, yeah. I believe so. Yeah, I believe so.

Tim Melanson: Now I like you, I like the way you think about mentorship, like meaning that everybody that you meet is, is teaching you something. And I’m wondering if we can take that a little bit further.

Like what, like, do you, do you hire coaches? Do you have masterminds? Like what, what do you do anything structured when it comes to mentoring?

Glenn Freezman: For me every time I interview any speaker, it’s gonna be to say, working as within my new company, they all bring their own little slice of what it is that they’re selling on stage. So I have this [00:15:00] passive ability to speak to every one of my. People who pay me to be on my system, I have an incredible ability to learn from every one of what they go out and teach internationally to groups all over the world, and each one of them have a nugget in there, every single one of ’em.

And I’m a huge believer. Again, that knowledge is every place. So I don’t have one particular, because I think that there’s too much good that can come from too many people. I think one of the big problems that I have with what’s going on in the world today is that everyone’s source of truth is whoever they spoke to last.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I would rather know a hundred people’s truth and then make up my own mind.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, me too. Me too. I find, uh, I mean, not to get into the, into that, those weeds too much ’cause it’s, it’s very charging. But yeah, like there’s, [00:16:00] everybody’s kind of created their own little echo chambers and their own little bubble bubbles where, you know, the people that they’re listening to and they’re talking to are the ones that think exactly the way that they think.

And therefore, uh, you know, and, and then the misinformation runs wild in that circle. Right? Uh, I,

I’m the same way as you. I, I, I don’t, I’m not the type that’s gonna go if you, you know, if you like this guy, I am delete me. Right? Which you, you see people doing all the time. I’m like, no, I, I, I wanna have this, this breadth of people that I can connect with, right? I like having all these different

ideas and then I can make my own idea up, you know? Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: Right, right. And then you tell to somebody and that becomes their source of truth.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I, I love the idea that there’s so much going on. I mean, it, it makes it very difficult and we won’t get into it. I understand why, where, where we’re not going with this conversation,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well,

Glenn Freezman: make it difficult to, to understand the truth.

It really [00:17:00] does. So,

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Glenn Freezman: but as far as the mentors go, my, my strongest one again goes back to when I was 13. The lesson that I learned at that literally were my through, through line. What I, the way I started DSA today. Not today. The way I started DSA, which is digital speakers, uh, agent goes back to this mentor Mitch, who I, I’ll give you a great story. I owed him $13,500. The deal was that if I made a hundred dollars on a day, he was keeping 80 of it, I would get 20. He taught me this thing called the 80 20 rule. I was 13 years old that any time in life, if you don’t end up with your father while you are, every paycheck you make bank, 80% live off of 20%.

You’ll never be like your father. Start it today, and when we get up to being [00:18:00] 21, you’ll have money and that money will keep going. When you get married, go to 30%, you have a buy a house. 40% have kids, 50% have a second kid, 60%. goes to college, 50%, another kid goes to college, 40% and back it in and back it out.

But always pay yourself first. You’ve heard this lesson a billion times. Pay yourself first. was in control of all of that. Every, he would pick me up from school on a Friday and basically I went back to his house. We would work whatever event was Friday night and then the parade route, Saturday and Sunday. We wake up on a Saturday morning and I’m at his house and I, and I knock on his door. It’s eight o’clock in the morning.

I go, Mitch, what are we doing it? It’s eight o’clock in the morning. Where are we? We’re, why are you still sleeping? He goes, we’re not selling anything today. Well, there’s no parades. I go, Mitch, there’s gotta be something to sell. Something. He’s all right. Grab the daily news and figure it out. [00:19:00] Now, Mitch had eight words that changes.

The, the, the landscape and for me changed everything. What do you see? What do they want? They were the eight words I had to live by. What do you see? What do they want? So basically I had to go into the, into a newspaper and find somewhere to sell something today. So I said, Mitch, there’s a temple football game, small college at the time, 40 years ago.

Very small, very small stadium. He says. He says, alright, we’ll go there. We get dressed 12 o’clock game. We drive over to the stadium. We’re walking and I said, Mitch, we have nothing to sell. We didn’t get the pretzels. He said, we don’t order the pretzels before we don’t get pretzels. I said, really? He said, yeah.

I said, then what are we doing here? He said, we’ll figure it out. We walk into the stadium and we’re walking around the concourse and everything is closed ’cause there’s only 2000 people at [00:20:00] this football game. We’re sitting at the, we’re, we’re walking around now the, the stands on one of the, where you can walk around the entire stadium.

And he asked me, what do you see? What do they want? What do you see? What do they want? And I said, well, I see 2000 people. What do they want? Watch the football game. Great. We can’t make any money from that. What do you see? What do they want? What do you see? Well, I see 2000 people. What do they want? Well, there’s nowhere for them to eat.

There’s no food because all the concourses were closed. What do you see? What do they want? Well, now I see that there are four stands that they could buy something, which is on the two ends of the end zone, on both sides of the end zone.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: What do you see? What do they want? Well, they obviously don’t wanna get outta their seat and go stand behind the end zone, where now they can’t see anything.

It’s going on with the game. They probably, they want, what do you see? What do they want? They want someone to bring them the [00:21:00] food. Exactly. Let’s go do that now. Street smarts, pretzel guy. We have nothing. I said, how are we going to follow me? And don’t laugh, just play your role. He’s six five by the way, so he is, you know, overpowering.

He goes down to the southwest portion of the end zone. He says to the guy for the end zone, and there’s only four stands we were just sent over from the, from the east north side, and we need soda. We gotta have soda right now. You gotta gimme three cases of soda. They hand us soda. We went to the next stand and same story, but we needed cups and then we went to the next end.

Same story. We needed ice. They were selling the soda for a dollar a piece. We now have 200 sodas. 200 cups and ice we go through. He says, what do you wanna sell these for? I said, well, we’re [00:22:00] delivering and we might as well sell ’em for more than a dollar. He said, okay, let’s sell it for $3. We walked through, we sold our, our, we have 600 bucks now, literally out of thin air because he was a, because we had the ability to find money everywhere.

That was his lesson. The cool part of his story is that now it’s halftime and we’re sitting at the 50 yard line. We’re watching a football game, halftime. They’re doing a 50 50 rally for raise money for the school. He says, Glennn, how much money did we make today? I said, 600. He said, okay. What about the cost of the goods?

I said, we didn’t pay for that. He said, someone paid for that. I said, okay. Then we made 400. He said, great. Give me 150. So I gave him 150. He took 150 and he put 300. Into the bucket. I said, oh, that’s cool, Mitch, so we can double our money, right? He goes, no, that was our donation. We have to pay for the goods that we just took.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Glenn Freezman: What I’m not gonna teach you is how to be a thief. [00:23:00] I’m gonna teach you. There’s opportunity everywhere. Keep your eyes in your ears wide open and do the right thing. Yet we didn’t steal their soda, we borrowed it. We taught them you have a better way of selling this. He literally, we donated that money, so he didn’t put his money on anything, so no one ever called the raffle.

So they got to keep the money ’cause they must have picked one of our tickets. Okay. But then he went back to the guy who runs those concessions and said, listen, my little buddy here and I ran doing a little test and you could sell three times the amount of soda at, at triple the price if you just take your product and walk it through those stands. That’s mentorship. That’s mentorship not only in business, but in life.

Tim Melanson: wow.

Glenn Freezman: deal I have ever made, Tim, everybody had to win everybody.

Tim Melanson: And now they all do it.

Glenn Freezman: And now they all right. And now they all do. Oh yeah. Right. And now they all do it. Yeah. But [00:24:00] again, money everywhere. So that, that’s, that’s pure mentorship. Giving, giving yourself to somebody without the expectation of a return.

Tim Melanson: wow, wow, man. So many lessons in that. Now what, what about, what about practicing? Because, uh, I mean. Like, how do you hone a craft like that? Like, it’s so random, right?

Like is there something that, that, uh, like did he teach you any lessons about, about getting good and staying good at, at what you’re doing?

Glenn Freezman: You know, it’s funny you say that because I think most of the, I think all the lessons I ever taught were just by watching.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

Glenn Freezman: I’m watching, I’m watching guys that, and he would hire, most of the guys played basketball with, or he grew up with and they were from people who were, you know, like me, almost homeless to attorneys that just needed extra cash. So, you know, on a four hour ride listening to, and I’m 13, listening to [00:25:00] people who are 25 to 30. Talk about their lives and about what’s happening and how they’re succeeding, and just soaking that in.

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Glenn Freezman: You don’t, you don’t need to be, there doesn’t need to be a quiz to learn. What have you learned? What do you see?

What do you want? So let’s move forward. And now I, I get the opportunity after selling a, I sold the 500,000 soft bretzels. I went to college, paid for my own college, paid for my own car from the pretzel money because, let me back up for a second. At 16, well, I was 15 and 364 days old. When we’re driving to a, a bravery, he goes, by the way, if you had any car within reason that you wanted to buy, what would it be?

I said, Oldsmobile Forza. They were 6,500 bucks. He says. He says, well, we’re driving by to pick Karen dealership. Why don’t we go take a look at that on the way? I said, okay, I’ll show it to you. We get [00:26:00] there, it’s on the little spinny thing, you know that they put the cars on and he says, oh, is that the car?

I said, yeah. He said, oh, that’s really cool. He goes, yeah, it’s 6,500 bucks. He says, do you want it? And I literally say, yeah, I want it. He says, okay, well then let’s buy it. I said, how are we doing that? He said, well, let’s bring the guy over here and see what, what he has to, uh, you know, what the numbers are and do what, do what we taught you.

Do what you’ve learned, work your deal. Let’s see what happens. The guy comes over, he starts talking to Mitch. Mitch is going, I’m not buying a car. He is. So I said, all right. So we lay it out. He gives me a price, he walks out. I said, Mitch, how am I paying for this card? And he literally, he pulls out something and he says to me, oh, this is your Schwab stock account. the 80 cent, outta the 80% of the money you have paid me back. I’ve invested it for you the whole time.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: He said, so let’s buy [00:27:00] this car cash. I’m already paid off. He said, I’ve been paid off ’cause I’ve invested your money. And the money we made, I took my money. I’m good. He says, you now have enough money in here that let’s buy the car for cash so you have no debt.

And in two years we can, you know, you’re, you’re good for college.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: So we ended up making that deal on that car, and I bought a car a day before I was legal to drive it right now, so. So you. We have that now. I go into the title insurance business. Four years later I leave college. My mother had had really gotten bad with her cancer, so I left college with the idea that, dad, I will run our one candy store and you take care of mom at home.

So I left the University of Hawaii if there are one semester to come home and take care of that. When all that was finished and I was done with the title business, my mother had passed away. And my [00:28:00] father took over the one store and I went back to, to, uh, my brother who was a struggling attorney, was opening, was looking for business.

So he got very lucky. Someone from the money store, I don’t know the money store ever hit Canada.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, we did have them here.

Glenn Freezman: Okay. So, so it was a second mortgage title at second mortgage, uh, company. So it was before credit lines existed. You would take a second mortgage on your house.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: He happened to be in a, in a strip center there.

So the person from the money store one walks down and says, Hey, we have to have an attorney close our loan. No one showed up. They say, okay, uh, will you close this loan? My brother says, yes. He goes up and he finds a mistake on the paperwork that happens like three times in a row, and they finally say to him, you’re really good at this.

Why don’t you close our lows? That leads into the fact, well, why don’t you open a title company? My brother says to me, are you done doing whatever you’re doing? How about you partner with me in the title company? You do the sales and the marketing. I’ll make sure the [00:29:00] title company runs great. I walk up now again, ready, fire, aim.

I walk up to them five days, intubating the title business. I know nothing. I say to the, and it happens to be that the, the area manager was there and then the district manager was there. So it was from like, Washington was there, Marilyn was there. Everybody from Trevose, Pennsylvania was there. And I sit there with my breast little balls and I said, listen, I know you, I know you wanna give my brother five deals a month, which is very nice.

What I would love to know is what every other title company that you’re using is giving you. Right now that you’re, that is making you happy so I know what my brother has to put together in order to get all your work, because we can’t really live with five between here and New Jersey. You have 30 offices.

That’s what I want. Tell me what I have to do to get that. [00:30:00] The guy from Washington literally stands up and he turns around and he says, why don’t you go take a seat in the, in the waiting room there. I’m like, oh my God, I’ve been in this five days. So I go out there and I come back and he says, here’s what we want.

We want, we are gonna order it. We are, we are gonna have Tim and his wife come into our office on Monday morning when they’re at our office. We’re gonna call you up and we want you to figure out in the courthouse exactly who owns Tim’s house, the names and the address. I need you to send me that, that I need you to call me ’cause we fax machines.

Were not even there yet. I need you to call me. Gimme those. Gimme those names. Wait 30 minutes and come up and close the loan. Great. What else? Well, we’re going to, we’re gonna close, we’re gonna close that loan Monday before you even ordered title. So you have no idea what’s even going on in the courthouse.[00:31:00]

And we’re funding it Friday. So between Monday and Friday you have to order the title, get back to mortgages and liens, figure out the payoffs, see what’s, see what’s actually a lien on any property, and clear all that out because we’re funding it on Friday. I said, okay, what else? He says, I need you to be able to close that loan the day of application. Everyone else is doing that. Okay? I go back and I tell my brother, he goes, impossible. Can’t do it. No way. No way, no way. I said, Brad, I just spent five years. I’m telling you everything’s possible. So I just make a few quick calls to his searchers and I say, you know, to one of the guy who was a Philadelphia surgeon, lemme ask you a question.

How did you, uh. How much do you charge my brother? $15. How long does it take? 12 days. I said, you’re making $15 [00:32:00] every 12 days. He says, no, but you know, he says, that’s our timeframe. I said, what if I doubled your money? I need him back the same day or the next day. I’ll double your money. I’ll give you 20.

I’ll give you, I’ll give you $25. He said, I could probably do that. story short, I do all five of his things and we’re giving him back and I go a respectable 30 days and I call the guy back and said, can we please have another meeting? I think we’ve nailed it. We’re good. He says, okay. He goes, the guy from Washington’s coming in next Thursday.

We’ll do a meeting. Bring your brother. said, okay, great. I tell my brother and he is like, I know you screwed this up. I know he is very opposite of, I was, he’s very, he’s a lawyer, I’m not. He goes, I hope you didn’t screw this up. I don’t wanna go out to work for a bank. Come on. I said, I think it’s okay. We go out to lunch and the guy from Washington turns around and he says, my brother says so, so what are we doing here?

The guy from Washington. So I thought, well, [00:33:00] you’re, you’re a little asshole, brother. Walks into our plays. I’ve been doing this 30 years. He’s been doing it what, five days. And he walks in and he tries to tell us that he could do exactly what every other company can do as long as we just tell him what it is. He says, we thought he needed to learn a lesson. So we brainstormed and decide what five things would be nirvana for us that no one else would ever consider doing. We gave it to him just to kick him out of our office. He did all five of them.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: He literally did all five of them. How would you like Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s work Now what do I see? What do they want? told me exact I didn’t have to be a, I didn’t have to go be a magician or the Wizard of Oz. They told it to me.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: when you say, how did [00:34:00] I hone those skills? I went right back to the fact of if they want it, then 60,000 people in that stadium also want it, which means that every one of the money stores competitors, champion Mortgage, Upland Mortgage, statewide, capital, American business Credit, all wanted the same thing.

And that’s how I got from five deals to a thousand. Eight words, what do you see? What do they want? That’s the through line of my life.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Great stories, man. Okay, well I’m excited to get into yours, guess guest. So to find out a little bit more about how you,

how your business is working. So tell me what’s exciting right now in your business.

Glenn Freezman: What’s exciting now is when I had thought I was retiring at 50.

Tim Melanson: I.

Glenn Freezman: I had a bunch of, I went to the National Speakers Association, the NSA and Toastmasters, [00:35:00] and I joined a club that taught standup comedy. I had realized that the grind of trying to get on a stage as a keynote speaker was ridiculous.

It was looking through. Air because you had to find, there was no internet

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Glenn Freezman: that that had a basis. So you had to find an opportunity and then apply for an opportunity after you figured out what that opportunity was even looking for. It was a, it was a it, it took two and a half hours. It just to apply and just like apply for a job.

You send out 90 of them, maybe you get called back, maybe you don’t. It was so brutal, Tim, him that I said, I, I can’t, I’m not doing this. So I went and I went into consulting for a mortgage servicing company and then a sub servicing company. I do my 10 year [00:36:00] stand. The service, the subs servicing was horrible.

A lot of good lessons of everything I would never do in a business. Got lucky. Got on the servicing side after 10 years, decided, you know what, I’m done again. I’m retiring again. Decide I’ll go back to speaking. Tim. Nothing changed. Nothing changed except the technology. I said, well, what do I see? I see 1,000,200 thousand speakers out there.

That are going through the same grind, and I keep using that word. It’s the same grind that I was, that I walked away from 12 years ago. I am going to create a simple thing for me, a bot for me, an agent for me that can go out into the internet and find these opportunities and something that is going to then fill out my paperwork, meaning.

I wanted to say, here’s what my learning objectives, [00:37:00] takeaways, and challenges in my bio are. Here is exactly what the opportunity’s looking for. Here is the perfect resume for that opportunity so I can do them in 20 minutes. When I wrote a rudimentary coded that and created that, I’m showing to my buddies who are speakers and they’re like.

You wanna speak, you’re gonna speak on this, right? You’re gonna go out and sell this? I said, no, I just bought it. I just created it for me. They said, well, gimme a, gimme one of those. And my, everybody who I spoke to said, well, gimme one of those. I want that, right? I want what you’re doing. I said, all right, well then I guess I’m still not gonna speak ’cause I would rather create this in real,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: real terms, real times.

So we are right now launched. We have built a, a system that literally does exactly what I had envisioned a [00:38:00] 100% from start to finish, and it’s proactive. So what happens in our world is we, we, uh, we’re asking you for five things. What is your, what category do you speak on? What geography do you want to talk on, talk to?

Would you go international, state, local? we ask you for certain pieces of information on something we patented, which we can clone the way you write by what our video voice, your psychometrics, meaning what is your Myers-Briggs score, what is your DISC score? What is your personality like? And then through. A, b, c testing, we can figure out exactly how to write, which means that the answers we’re giving you are as if you actually wrote them. So all of that took 10 months to build and rebuild and reconstruct.

And the difference in this, Tim, was I was totally blind on [00:39:00] what it actually took to open up a technology company. Everything else I opened was bricks and mortar. Well, it was pretzels, it was title, it was candy stores, it was title insurance companies. You opened it up, you had a product. Here you’re inventing a product,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: and then you have to get it out into the world. So one of the, so they, else goes onto TikTok and they go onto Instagram and everyone has their, you know, their selfie and they’re walking down the, you know, this street as if they’re nonchalantly talking to nobody about it. Everything. And it just, I said I can’t mark it that way. I am not a big fan of fighting in the Red Sea.

I need to find a blue sea. What is it? I got lucky again because people came into my life, uh, who were speakers and one of ’em was a TEDx coach

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: nickname. My last name is Freezman, so nickname was Freeze Pop, right? So, hey, freeze pop. What will you give me [00:40:00] if. I can basically, I, I coach people who pay me $7,500 to teach ’em how to get on a TEDx stage. another program that teaches different groups of people for $7,500, how to speak and grow rich. So let’s say I have a hundred people that now already that have paid me. I said, here’s what I wanna do, Frank. I want you to bring my product to them because you’re their trusted advisor. They already trust you and I will make you a partner. everything that you bring to the table, everybody has to win. Okay? So what goes on with that is instead of me looking for Tim, the speaker and Billy the speaker, and mark the speaker and married a I went to who they trust the most. So my affiliate marketing [00:41:00] plan, which is so important to me because I’ve learned from all these people, and then I said, well, if I’m gonna learn from you, that means your people learn from you.

They’ve already trusted you. And if you said to me, Hey, this digital speaker agent, now that I taught you how to get on a stage, can actually find you the stages. Now I’ve actually taught you how to be a TEDx coach. These, this thing points out the world that TEDx opportunities are, and it fills out your paperwork for you. The person who, anybody that’s with does anything with speakers, became my client then they sell to their people, which again removed my grind, which moved my, my, my friction and my grind was going out and saying to a million speakers, Hey, do you want to buy this? No. I would rather give your trusted advisor the ability to say to you, I know this works. I think you should buy this.

Tim Melanson: Wow. [00:42:00] Wow. Love

Glenn Freezman: That was, you know, and that, and that was that. And then again, it’s the through line that tails back to we partnered with the money store when competition, when, when our competition later years started to say, this is a great idea. We’re gonna start like taking bites out of what you’re gonna do. We’re gonna come after you to protect our, our kingdom. And you, and I don’t know if Canada has it, but in America, every real estate office right now owns their own title company and owns their own mortgage company.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Glenn Freezman: That was because I started that with Jack Kemp, who was the secret, who was the secretary of HUD at the time in America, had said to them, when I walk into a realtor’s office, they extort money from me. They tell me, how much are you gonna make on a title policy a thousand? Then if you’ll give me $400 of that thousand, I’ll make sure my buyer knows you’re alive. Otherwise I’m giving it to another company.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Glenn Freezman: And I said, well, you know [00:43:00] that I’m not doing. And I went down to Jack Kemp and I actually met with him with our title underwriter and I said, this is what’s going on.

He took us off the record. He reached over, he pressed the button. He took us off the record. He said, Glennn, there are 2 million realtors in the country that vote Republican. There’s only 10,000 title agents. Who do you think we’re rooting for here? And he reached back over. He said, now we’re back on the record. He said, tell me what your plan is. My plan is to go and partners with the realtors, go and partners with the mortgage companies. Let them put up half the money. We’ll put up half the money, we’ll do all the work. They can control the sale. At the end of the day. I’ll split the profit with them, but it leaves their teeth in the game.

It keeps it, it should be, it keeps it more legal and open to all your, all your buyers and all your mortgage orders. Right? Why don’t we just do it that way? He goes, I like that. Yeah, let’s do that. Let work on that framework. [00:44:00] That was the framework of, of. A controlled business arrangement, which is nothing more than a partnership, was nothing more than what I just did with digital speaker agent.

That mortgage company was my affiliate. They controlled the buyer, they trusted the money store, and yeah, they could get title insurance anywhere, but no one knows what title insurance is. It’s 40 years later. Still know what knows. The title insurance is.

Tim Melanson: I

Glenn Freezman: It, it it great. It’s known as a ripoff at closing.

You go there, it’s another 3000 bucks on there. It was born out of commercial real estate where there’s actual claims. The amount of claims in residential is so infinitely small that it’s just a, it’s, I did, I made, I put two kids through college and built an entire life and got great wealth out of it for the, for the residential. It’s not, it’s not as necessary as it, as it is sold to be. But [00:45:00] the, the lesson being that that same through line that I learned at 13 years old and showed itself in title insurance is the exact same thing I came back to again, where, how do I reduce this friction for everybody? How does everybody win? So now I say to my.

TEDx coach, we’re gonna have a controlled business arrangement. You control your buyers. I’ll do all the work at the end of the month. I’ll give you a piece of the profit.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. So how do we find out more then?

Glenn Freezman: Well, digital, uh, digital speaker agent.com

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: is our website. You can go there. All our information’s there, my contact information you wanna consider this conversation. Hit me up there.

Tim Melanson: Awesome.

Glenn Freezman: You know, wide open. I, I love to, I like to, I, I did a Ted, TED talk on that, right? On giving without an expectation of return.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.[00:46:00]

Glenn Freezman: And I, I think it’s incredible how many people in my life that I have gone back to and said, you remember what you said to me here? And they’re said, no, I have no idea. How many people have come into my life? That said, when I was 17, I remember we were at, and you said, and it changed my life. So I think we have to be careful with the words that we use because people do listen and we are, and we are considered mentors

Tim Melanson: Yeah,

Glenn Freezman: whether we know it or not.

And I think it’s important that the lessons that we give are the lessons you wanna be remembered for if it should happen. So. If you’re a speaker, if you’re a coach, if you’re an affiliate, if you’re anything that kind of fits into anybody in the speaker’s world, you know, look us up. A digital speaker agent.

You just wanna have a cool conversation. We can have a virtual coffee, and if you’re close enough, I’ll meet you for dinner.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. I love that so much, Glenn. Alright, so this might be the hardest question. Let’s talk a little bit about music. So who’s your favorite rockstar?[00:47:00]

Glenn Freezman: Lifetime Springsteen.

Tim Melanson: Ah, yeah, of

Glenn Freezman: I’ve seen him over a hundred times. Uh, he was been, you know, the, I, I loved, I liked the energy he brought. I, I remember seeing it, I remember sitting in the concert the first time and looking at it, was at the spectrum and looking around and saying, oh my God. Like if he tells people, like when he stands, they stand, when he clap, they clap.

When he sings, they sing like, this guy’s got total control over this. It’s just incredible. So, you know, and, and I grew up and right in that sweet spot of his era watching, you know, watching his entire career, you know, he would be my ultimate favorite.

And then, and then music wise, anything with steel drums,

Tim Melanson: Oh,

Glenn Freezman: ’cause it puts me right on vacation.

Tim Melanson: right on.

Do you play any music

yourself?

Glenn Freezman: do not, I, I, I, I didn’t, [00:48:00] I was probably the only person ever to get thrown out of choir. ’cause I couldn’t do the recorder. the recorder,

Tim Melanson: The little,

Glenn Freezman: couldn’t screw up.

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Glenn Freezman: I would. They gave me a recorder with the holes cut out because I couldn’t do it. Our fifth When, when I graduated from Les Elementary School, it was fifth grade, I was told by the, we had to sing three songs.

Lip Sync. What’s nuts with that is that years later my daughter incredible. She had a Broadway voice. She was in every play. She was, you know, working out, she was in plays everywhere, but I I, I brought nothing to that table. Yeah, nothing.

Tim Melanson: had plenty of other

Glenn Freezman: who’s your influence?

Right.

Tim Melanson: my, my favorite band is The Beatles.

Um, and that’s a huge influence. And actually when I was learning music, it was through The Beatles and actually Dave Matthews band as [00:49:00] well. Uh, those were the two influences when I was

learning.

Glenn Freezman: Great. How’s it

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, and very, very different types of music too.

But, uh, but it, it, it allowed me to learn lots of different stuff. ’cause The Beatles wrote so much,

so many diff, so many different types of music.

Glenn Freezman: One of the greatest quotes, not quotes, but one of the things I remember from the Beatles, Beatles was The 10,000 Hour.

Tim Melanson: Oh yeah.

Glenn Freezman: You know? And no, very few people understand how power those 10,000 hours are, but the, you know, and the Beatles didn’t understand it, you know, either probably. But they were so ready to hit this ground running when they hit America.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Explode because they were already there. And, uh, lemme give you a crazy quick analogy. I think that’s why I was successful in life. I started out in, in second grade, my defense mechanism was everything was shutting down in my life. Was comedy, making people laugh. Being the class clown is gonna sound crazy.[00:50:00]

Being the class clown literally is the greatest position you can have growing up.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Glenn Freezman: Because at the end of 12th grade, we have learned how to speak to power on behalf of the powerless and learned how to listen and react in real time constantly. We put in our 10,000 hours of public speaking by the time everyone else was ready to begin. I would love, I’m trying to get together the, the ability to do a TED Talk on there’s no such thing as a broke class clown.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And I’ll ask you this question, do you happen to remember who your class clown was growing up?

Tim Melanson: Oh geez.

Glenn Freezman: who’s the guy who always had the funniest line and the teacher allowed it because she knew it was part of the ecosystem?

Tim Melanson: I, I, I don’t, it might have been me. I don’t, I

don’t even know ’cause I was pretty loud in my classes.

Uh, but I don’t know. Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: And your success, if you asked that question, everyone’s gonna go, you know what? It wasn’t me, but who was this [00:51:00] guy? And I’d say, well, what does he do for a living? Very successful. We’re all successful

because we had the, we learned to speak and, and the analogy, and I’m not comparing myself in any way, shape, or foot to the Beatles, but that 10,000 hours of what we honed our craft on,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Glenn Freezman: whether consciously or subconsciously brings us to our, whatever, 10,000 hours you put in to get to where you’re at right now. There was there, there was an ability, ’cause you’re great at what you’re doing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve always loved public speaking and I, I do. Yeah, I think that’s a really great topic. Just that whole class clown thing. I think you need to do it. Do it. I want, I don’t wanna watch that.

Glenn Freezman: I’m gonna keep going. I like it.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with you today, today, Glenn. This has been a lot of fun.

Glenn Freezman: This has been great. I so appreciate you having me on and every success you can have to you and everybody you love. Okay,

Tim Melanson: Thanks, and to

the listeners [00:52:00] picture you subscribe late and comment. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the founder and CEO of Perform and Function and what he does, he’s an executive coach, he’s a leadership team, organization development consultant. He’s an author, a speaker. And what he’s doing is he’s helping people to increase their self-awareness, empathy, uh, emotional intelligence, interpersonal dynamics, and to discover their purpose and passion and achieve their business and life goals.

So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Karl Hebenstreit right. Hey, Karl, you ready to rock?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: I am totally ready to rock. Tim. Let’s jam.

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

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So I think, uh, probably the success story for me is leaving corporate America as an internal employee and deciding to take the plunge and become a solopreneur, an entrepreneur in a solo entrepreneurship, and actually being able to live my life. With the purpose that I want to support the clients who want to [00:01:00] be supported and do the work and see the change that I’m trying to invoke in people that actually want to change.

So that’s the, that was the biggest, the plunge that I took four years ago, a little over four years ago, and it’s been a wonderful experience ever since. I can’t see myself going back.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. Yes. Once you go this way, you’re not gonna go back. Right. There’s too many advantages and, uh, and a lot of the things that you were afraid about. I mean, hey, was there. Things that you were afraid, you know, that was kind of holding you back.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Of course, of course. So,

Tim Melanson: and how did they transpire?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: so I think one of the biggest things that was. Something that I was not looking forward to and, and actually COVID helped with this, was not having a support network. I’m a very social person and wanting to be around people and going into the office and being around people was always something very important to me, and having those relationships and connections, so going solo would prevent me from having that.

However, being. In shutdown for [00:02:00] during COVID showed me that I could still have those relationships and connections. They are virtual and then at times they can become phy in person, right? You can actually physically be in person with someone at some point, and that has to happen at some point as well.

But those virtual connections can be just as strong as some of the ones that you have to physically be in a a site or location for some other challenges that I was concerned about, were. How would I be? Make sure that I would continue to get some steady revenue stream that would be predictable, uh, and pay for during vacations.

How would I continue to be paid for? Well, you’re not, but that’s a different story. You have to change your mindset a little bit around that, and you just have to be. Ready for the unpredictability and the ebbs and flows and you get to predict them. Once you’ve been in business for a couple years, you can see like when are gonna be my busy times and are gonna be my slower times, when can I take a vacation and not worry about not being able to support my clients or missing out on business or anything [00:03:00] like that.

But again, it just takes a mindset shift and really the faith that the business will come. Especially when you’re solid in your career and you have worked in many different companies and you have wonderful connections and networking contacts from all these different companies in the past, and even currently, the business will come based on that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. If you’ve been a good employee, then chances are you’ll be okay. At least right when you,

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah, your reputation, right? When people know your reputation, they’ve worked with you, they’ve seen the results. They know how collaborative you can be. They know how. They know your skills and your expertise, and they know that you can be, you’re dependable. They will remember you and they will come back to you and they can say that, you know, I may not be in the same company that I was in with you.

I’m now in a different company. Can you come in and help us with this? Something similar to what you helped in the past, or we need to expand on something. Can you help with that? That’s what happens, and your [00:04:00] network is huge. Your network is really how things happen. It’s, and I know lots of people go out there and do cold calling and, and participate in all sorts of different vendors that help them with sending out emails or, or doing sales navigator stuff.

That’s not how you’re gonna get your business. You’re gonna get your business from the people that know you, that have worked with you, that can vouch for you, that can give you references, they can refer you to other people. That’s how your business is gonna come around and that’s going to continue growing.

Tim Melanson: That’s how it worked out for me too.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Mm-hmm.

Tim Melanson: You know, and, and it, it is true. ’cause I think that a lot of people will, uh, I don’t know, just be afraid to contact their, their local network, maybe thinking that they’re gonna be bugging them or whatever it is. But I mean, you know, if you do good work and you know, whatever it is that you do is something that other people are gonna need, well then why not let people know what you’re doing?

Right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: There are some personalities that are better at it than others. There are some [00:05:00] that are more assertive and more open and comfortable with reaching out to people and saying, this is what I’m doing. Do you need help? Or do you know anyone that needs help? And other people are more, let let my work speak for itself.

They’ll find me. Right. Who is more likely to get the business or. The, the reach out, right? So, and, and it could be a little bit of both, right? So you do have to step into your, out of comfort spot, your discomfort, and really go and, and market yourself and let people know that you are available, that you can help them.

And it would be great to work with them again. So that’s really the message. And you can show them the successes. You can have case studies, you can have all sorts of different things and how you can help them improve the situation that they’re in, and make a stronger business, make better interpersonal relationships with their teams, with their organizations, which again, always leads to, to better business outcomes and more [00:06:00] revenue.

So it’s, it’s great. It’s, it’s really, it’s really stepping outta that. That comfort zone, getting into the discomfort, letting people know, putting it on LinkedIn, putting it on Facebook. If they don’t wanna see it, they’ll scroll past, but they’ll still keep you in the back of their minds.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and uh, I know I’ve had a bit of a, a wake up when I will see like a peer that is nowhere near as good as I am going out there getting a bunch of success because they just have the ability to get out there and tell people what’s going on. Right. Like, it’s, it’s, it’s frustrating in a way ’cause you’re thinking, oh geez, you know, I’m, I’ve got so much more experience, I’ve been doing this for so much longer.

How are they getting so much success so quickly? But you know, on the, on the, on the flip side of that, I mean, you know, if you do really, really good job, even if it is just for a few people, eventually those referrals come back to you, don’t they?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Exactly. Exactly. And the other thing I want to go back to just what you said is how are they getting this business? And I’m [00:07:00] not, how are they getting these successes? And I’m not, we all have that capability to sell ourselves to. Toot our horn to, you know, tout our accomplishments, whatever it is that you want to talk about.

That way, it’s just that it’s uncomfortable for some of us and more comfortable for others. However, we still have that ability and we can reach out into it and say, you know, I’m worth it. It’s, you know, the self-esteem needs to increase that self-esteem and put it out there because people can’t read your mind that you’re there and you’re available and you can do this for them.

They have to be told, right? They, there are creatures that need to hear the, the message and the communication be reminded of it. So that’s really what needs to happen.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and you know, it’s, it’s actually interesting because the, the customers themselves, you know, everybody kind of has these same personalities, right? Some people are very e easy, they can talk to people, very easy. And some people have a hard time talking to people even when they need something. So it’s actually possible that there could be somebody in your network that wants your services and [00:08:00] is afraid to ask you.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Exactly, exactly. You have hit the right note there with that, uh,

Tim Melanson: Assessment.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Absolutely. Yes.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. So now along with the good notes, sometimes things don’t go as planned. There’s some mistakes that you can make along the way, and I’m wondering, can you share with me something that didn’t go as planned and, and how you recovered from that?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: I think early on in my career. Was the biggest mistake that I made that helped put me on a more positive trajectory to realize that this is the journey I need to be on. So, earlier on in my career, I thought I knew intuitively what other people needed. And I think it’s the same issue that most of us have.

It’s, it’s, we think that other people think that the way we do or have the same values or, or preferences as as we do because we can’t read their minds and know. What they want, what their values are, what their challenges are, what their needs are. So early on in my career, when I was in my twenties, I was [00:09:00] tasked with going and presenting at a conference, and I presented as if the people that were in the audience were gonna want my product.

They, they, they could see the value immediately and they, why wouldn’t they wanna buy that or buy into this, this program? And the reality was, I wasn’t speaking their language, I wasn’t. Talking about their pain points. I wasn’t asking them what they were looking for in the presentation, and I had people walk out on me, and this was very embarrassing and very hurtful, and it was a great lesson for me to learn that I don’t know what they want unless I ask them for it.

So luckily I had a, a second session right after that and I pivoted and I asked the people what they wanted, what they were looking for, told them what I was looking to do, how I could change the presentation or the message or the communication to fit their needs. And that’s my biggest realization that.

Yeah, we need to figure out what other people want, what they’re looking for, and what they need so that we can explain it in the terms that they want to hear, so that [00:10:00] they’re not gonna reject something or don’t see the value in it because it’s not being spoken in the language or in the way that they want to receive it.

So that was my biggest lesson of let go of the golden rule of treating others the way that I want to be treated, and instead find out how they want to be treated to go to the platinum rule and treat them, communicate with them, approach them in a way that they want to be treated. In the way that is gonna be most responsive for them and learn from that.

Then go into the platinum rule and say, okay, how can I integrate this new perspective with this new knowledge that they don’t, they’re not gonna look at it the way that I do. Let me take the value from their perspective, integrate it into mine, and now I have a much more expansive worldview and I can be even more inclusive in future interactions.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Right. Um, you know, I had a, a similar experience early on. I, uh, I was referred to a, to a business coach who needed some tech support and now was doing some tech support stuff. And I remember, I, I, I helped, helped her out with her problem, fixed it, everything [00:11:00] was great. And then because she’s a business coach, she’s like, okay, well.

Because I’m a business coach and you helped me out. I just can’t not ask you some questions. So, so she asks me about my website and she says, okay, just bring it up. So she looks at my website and it is technical jargon everywhere, right? Like, and she looks at that and she goes, oh. She’s like, Tim, if I had seen this website before I hired you, I wouldn’t have hired you.

And I was like, oh dang. She’s like, I don’t understand a word. This is, and I am your, your target client. So it’s, it’s very similar, right? People, people just don’t, you can be all super technical and write all this crazy stuff, but people don’t understand any of that stuff. They just want to know how you’re gonna fix a problem, right? Yep.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Reach them in the language in which they speak. Yeah. How they wanna receive the message.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. So, let’s talk a little bit about getting fans. ’cause you know, in today’s world, there’s lots of people out there, lots of [00:12:00] ways that you could reach out. What’s the way that you found, you know, especially in, I mean, you’ve been, it is the last four years, so it’s fairly recent here.

How are you getting success in, in creating that audience? Actually no, in converting that audience to fans.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah, so I’m gonna go back to what you, the story that you just talked about, website. You have to have a website, and that website has to be easy to navigate and have all the information in the language that your target audience is gonna want to read it and receive it. So definitely have that, that clean website.

And I, mine was just totally revamped. I’d had a website that I, I created, so you, you can imagine how good that was. It was not, uh, back in. Started in 2001 and just kept adding to it. So I can’t even tell you how many different pages, landing pages there were. I think there it was probably at least a dozen little tabs to go all the way across.

It was, yeah, it was a little cumbersome and had all the information that you needed. Absolutely had great resources, great information, but probably. Uh, not as, [00:13:00] yeah, it was overwhelming and not as friendly to people to come to visit it. So definitely have a great branded representation of yourself in a way that your target audience can go and read it and access it and know that this is.

Like your, your client that was receiving your technical services would say, yes, this is the person I wanna hire. Right? Have all the information and just enough to say, yeah, I wanna reach out and ask more questions. So, and definitely have wonderful content there that is relevant to people, and people can definitely go to my website and get some wonderful downloads that are free.

That can definitely help ’em in all aspects of their lives. It’s www.perperformandfunction.com. It’s a play on word form and function per perform and function.com. And check out the different tabs and look at the downloads there. You can get some great, uh. Resources, like there’s the Explicit Expectations Alignment Guide, which can help you in your, your relationships and your communication with people and, and really understanding how to work better with people.[00:14:00]

But anyway, so Mark Market, that website that you have, get it out there. Definitely also take advantage of LinkedIn. LinkedIn is great for all those professional re relationships and resources and network contacts that you have. Keep building that LinkedIn network from all of your clients, your past coworkers and colleagues, your bosses, your customers.

Just add them all in there because it’s a great way for you to post and let them know what’s going on, what you’re doing, and it’ll be a great reminder for them. It’s not like you’re hitting them over the head with, here’s another email, here’s another newsletter, here’s another whatever. It’s they, they have to go to LinkedIn to see this, so when they’re, when it’s on their turn, their time to go and look at LinkedIn, you’ll, you’re.

Updates will pop up in, in your, if you’ve written an article, if you’re on a podcast, if you’re, whatever it is, it’ll pop up there and keep you top of mind to them to see what you’re doing, what you’re talking about. That’s on brand, [00:15:00] that’s referencing what could be important to them and their challenges and their needs, so you’re always gonna be in the back of their minds that way.

Mention podcast. Definitely look into podcasts that are gonna highlight your expertise to get it out into the world. So not only your, uh, network will see it when you post it on LinkedIn or Facebook or, or, or Twitter or X or Blue Sky or wherever it is or Instagram, but the world will see it too, and someone else may tap into that.

My very first podcast that I did, this was. Oh, many, many years ago, I’d probably say about 10, 15 years ago, that netted ultimately a client that I still have for the past. Four to five years I’ve been working with that company, and that was, that wasn’t even my intention. Someone asked me to be on their podcast.

I said, okay, sure. I’ve never been on a podcast before. And that has come out. That relationship has come out of that. [00:16:00] So you’d never know where a podcast will lead, who will hear the podcast and say, yes, this is exactly who I need, or, I need to talk to this person. This person needs to talk to my business partner, or whatever it is that can happen from those.

Write articles, write blogs, uh, get interviewed for different media that, that reach out and are looking for expertise people to talk about expertise in your area. There are wonderful resources, free resources out there that you can tap into for finding out what podcasts are looking for guests, what, what websites are looking for people to write blogs or people to interview for articles or series or whatever.

Check all those different things out and get your name out there. So that’s, uh, a great way to, to make sure that you’re keeping in touch with your network as well as reaching out even more broadly to tap into other people that may not even know you yet.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. There’s so many options out there nowadays. That’s what’s [00:17:00] so good, but also so cumbersome too, right? Because where do you start? I mean, you only have so many hours in the day, right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Mm-hmm. Well, your first stop should be Tim.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: out to Tim.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Absolutely. So, let’s talk a little bit about practicing Now. Nobody really likes to practice, I don’t think, but it, it’s, it’s important. And I’m wondering what, what is it that you do for practice? Mm-hmm.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So practice. Luckily I get to integrate it into other aspects of the performance too. So my practice can be from reading books that are new on the subject matter, for example, the Enneagram of other colleagues or or other practitioners or writing books on the topic. And I. I need to stay on top of what’s going on with Enneagram or coaching or, so definitely reading books and attending conferences is, I think the, the one that combines multiple forms of practice as well as performance.

Because [00:18:00] when I go to a conference, I will usually be a speaker at the conference, but then I can also get to attend all of the other speakers and the events that are going on there too. So it’s a performance, but it’s also networking and it’s also practice. Because I’m practicing, I’m learning from other people at the same time.

So conferences are huge, especially if you’re fortunate enough to be a speaker at it, because then you get more exposure. Other people learn about what you’re doing. They can develop in the moment and take practices home to continue their development. But you’re also learning and developing yourself, like listening and attending and participating in other of the speakers events as well.

So I think those are huge.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, that’s a great idea. If you can figure out a way to make the performance and the practice kind of work together, then that’s like a win-win everywhere. Right. Yeah. Yeah, I know that, uh, for, for me, in, in with my music, I actually host jam nights, you know, once a week. And so it’s twice a week actually now.

So it’s, it’s it’s practice and it’s performance at the same [00:19:00] time. Right. And I mean, what a win you can get there, right. When you can create an environment where whatever you’re doing is, you know, less pressure than an actual performance, but also, but, but also you, you have some way to. Move the needle forward in your business through your practice, right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Right. And conferences can also be, yes, they can be pressure filled, but they can also be, you’re among your peers, you’re among your, among your colleagues. They wanna see you succeed. They wanna learn from you, and you wanna learn from them so that the, that pressure is. I would say mitigated a little bit.

So I think conferences are

Tim Melanson: I love it. ’cause it’s it, like you say, it’s performance, it’s practice, and it’s team building and

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah. Mm-hmm. Absolutely. It’s all, everything together.

Tim Melanson: I love that. So let’s talk a little bit about the instruments and the tools that we use to get success in our businesses. And I mean, nowadays there’s lots of technology. Uh, what, what, what is, what is it that you use in your business to get success?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So. [00:20:00] We already spoke about LinkedIn and maybe you can include Facebook in there and social media platforms as well. Calendly has been wonderful, especially I’m a solopreneur in my business, so it’s a free calendar system that can help your clients schedule meetings with you. You don’t have to the back and forth and all the administrivia of going and communicating and say, are you available then no.

This is the wrong time zone or, or whatever it is. It does it all for you. So I, I’m a big fan of Calendly. It’s fantastic. You just have to make sure that you’re keeping it up to date. If you travel and you go somewhere, change your time zone. Because it’s still going to, it doesn’t know that you’re traveling, so make sure that you update your time zone so that they, you know, what times you’re really available for, on specific dates.

So that’s, uh, that’s a, a great lesson learned there. Also, I’m gonna throw in. Other tools being resources. So you have to have a really good accountant, a really good tax accountant to help you with what you need to do, [00:21:00] keep you on track with, okay, here’s deadlines that you need to submit for taxes for whatever it is.

Uh. Have a great accountant and at some points you may also need other resources, a great printing resource, a great print shop or anything like that. If you need to print a, do print, um, someone great to help you with your website if you don’t wanna do it yourself or if you don’t have time to do it yourself or you don’t wanna learn how to do it yourself.

I also use ai, so I partnered with an AI vendor to help create a clone of myself to do coaching and also delivering of e-learning. So there is an AI version of me, so it’s a IR Karl who’s a clone and delivers some of the workshops electronically virtually, and I don’t need to be there. And also the coaching.

Tim Melanson: That’s crazy. Yeah, there’s a lot of that going on. I actually took a, a, uh, a seminar with Tony Roberts, with Tony Robinson. That’s exactly what he was teaching is the AI clones. Uh, I mean, it’s crazy what they can do. [00:22:00] Um, it’s overwhelming in a lot of ways as well. Uh, but I can just imagine where things are gonna be in a few years, right?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes, absolutely. So, wait, am I am, am I speaking to your clone right now or is this the real Tim?

Tim Melanson: This is the real Tim, believe it or

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Okay, good. Good. Yeah, that’s just, just what a clone

Tim Melanson: though. Yeah. What about you? Are you the real Karl?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Who can say

Tim Melanson: Who can say, isn’t that

R. Karl Hebenstreit: what does real really mean?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think at this point we probably would be able to tell. Uh, but I don’t know if that’s gonna be the case in a few years.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: I’m not glitching out yet.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, actually that’s the real you, the clone wouldn’t glitch like that.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: that’s right.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, it is time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: So I am really excited This past end of November and through the beginning of December, I was actually on a cruise ship and I got to [00:23:00] speak five times on the cruise ship. So I’m really focusing more on doing more speaking, keynote speaking engagements, and this was a great launch into that. So I’m really focusing on that in my business.

Obviously I can’t do that from home, but all the pre-work and all of the marketing and all of the logistics and getting ready for it is all done at home. And so the majority of my time, of course, I am working from home. Um, especially I, I do my executive coaching from home. It’s all done virtually via Zoom and I can deliver workshops.

Virtually as well, which I do from home and on the occasions that I do need to physically travel, for example, the end this month, I am going to, if it’s good enough for Celine, it’s good enough for me. I’m going to Caesar’s Palace and I will be doing a gig, uh, not a singing gig like Celine did, but I will be doing a, a workshop for about 200 people there for a couple hours, and I’m really excited about doing.

Those types of speaking engagements where it’s a large number of people that are getting the message at the same time, and I can make the most impact with that large number of people. So that’s, uh, that’s what [00:24:00] I’m really excited about.

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. So who would be the person that would get the most outta working with you?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Anyone could get the most outta working with me. I work from individual contributors all the way up to this, uh, teams and this C-suite. So. Anyone who wants to bring me into an organization to show them, I, I specifically work with the Enneagram, which is an amazing tool. You asked about other tools. I mean, we, we are talking about more actual tools of, of business tools, but this is the, the, the tool for the transformation that I would use with a coaching client or even in a workshop or in a speaking engagement.

In a keynote where I can help people get from that golden rule to the platinum and rhodium rules, and really start understanding what motivates themselves and what motivates others. So if that’s a need in your life to try to understand yourself and others better, and everyone has that need. Then I am happy to work with you and your organization.

I’ve actually written a children’s book called Nina and the really, really tough [00:25:00] decision, which translated into five languages to help children learn about this earlier on in their lives. So it’s not as difficult for them to have these, these learnings and experiences later on in life, and they have to change their mindsets.

Then they can start off with the right mindset and really see how to integrate everyone else’s perspectives along with their own to have a broader worldview and a better understanding of themselves than others. Grow that empathy and emotional intelligence. Yeah,

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. You mentioned your website earlier and I’m wondering like, what’s the process of someone you know, if they did wanna work with you? Like how, how do they go about doing that? Is there forms they have to fill out or what, what, what happens?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: not really. My contact information is right on the website. They can send me an email at Karl with A-K-K-A-R l@performancefunction.com. People have gotten in touch with me through LinkedIn and sent me, um, that they, they want something or they’re interested in getting more information or they have a, a conference coming up or a meeting coming up and they have a workshop or they need a keynote speaker.

So LinkedIn works great. There [00:26:00] is definitely through the website you can see all the different services that are being offered and there’s a way to get in touch with me on the website as well by filling out a form there. But there’s so many different ways and my phone number’s even on there. So it’s, yeah, there are so many different ways and you can obviously just schedule a meeting on Calendly too.

Tim Melanson: All right, Karl, this is probably the hardest question all day. So who is your favorite rock star?

R. Karl Hebenstreit: My favorite rock’s pink. I’m gonna go with pink. She’s the, you said rock, so I’m gonna go with pink because she’s kind of, I mean, she is rock.

Tim Melanson: she’s

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah, she is awesome. What a performer. What a multifaceted and talented performer. Powerhouse, not only with vocals, but with meaningful. She has the right message.

She has the right values. She’s like flying through the air. She’s just incredible.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I saw the, uh, there was a documentary about her a

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes. I saw that too.

Tim Melanson: And yeah, I mean, she’s more like a, like an acrobat than a,

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yes.

Tim Melanson: than a, uh, dancer for sure.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Yeah. [00:27:00] We’ve seen her in concerts several times and I’m, I’m happy to see her anytime she’s, she’s around. She’s just an incredible human being.

Tim Melanson: I’m right on, right on. Love it. Favorite song.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Ooh, from pink or just overall?

Tim Melanson: From Pink.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: Oh boy. Oh, oh my God. So many. Um, oh, perfect. Let’s go with perfect. I won’t use the, uh, I won’t, I won’t use the one that goes before it.

Tim Melanson: This is the G version of it.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: That’s the, that’s the, yes. The, the podcast appropriate and a prude version of that song.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So much fun rocking out with you today, Karl, this has been great.

R. Karl Hebenstreit: It was wonderful hanging out, rocking out, and jamming out with you two, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Thank you so much. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and to follow the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. Today’s episode, we are talking to a speaker, an author, a podcaster, an insurance agent, and what he does is he helps people to navigate working from home. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Chris Castanes. Hey Chris, you ready to rock?

Chris Castanes: I am Tim. I am. All ready to go, man. You got me all juiced up here now. Ready and excited.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Right on. Well, we always start off in a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Chris Castanes: Oh, great. Uh, one of, one of the, one of the stories of success is, um, honestly, I just, I wanna, I like bragging about my books. I, I’ve written a couple of books. Um, one of them, the first one I self-published, it was just a learning curve that was took forever and it, when I published it. I felt like I had really accomplished something.

It took me about six months to figure out how to do it, edit photos and all that stuff. And it was just fun [00:01:00] to do, you know, it was just like a good project and the book was, did exactly what I wanted it to do, which was just be a good marketing tool and get my, my name out there and let people know this is what I do.

And it, it was just, you know, it was like a little win for me. It was, it was a good one.

Tim Melanson: Nice. Yeah. Writing a book is kind of a big deal, isn’t it?

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, it was fun. I, it was really a lark at the time. I was wanting to just write a book on something that I wish somebody had told me before I got into the business of sales. So the book is called, you’re Gonna Be Great at This, and. And, um, and the reason I call it that was because anytime, I don’t know if you’ve ever been on any, uh, interviews for sales jobs, but especially a, a position that’s a hundred percent.

Uh, commission, you know, where they don’t, you don’t have a salary and they can’t find people. They, they’re always looking for people for these positions. So they, they just tell you [00:02:00] stuff, you know, oh, it’s the best product ever, and we’re the greatest company ever. And, and, you know, we’ve got the best products and you’re, and people are gonna love it, and you don’t even have to sell it.

They’re gonna come to you and ask for it, which is all, you know, not

true. And then of course they always throw in that, you know, we’ve, even though we’ve only known you for eight seconds and you’ve got a great personality, we know you’re gonna be great at this. And I always, I always tell people, when you hear that run, you know, that’s so people think when I say, yeah, it’s called, you’re gonna be great at this.

They think it’s like motivational, but I’m like, no, it’s not, not, that’s not what it’s.

Tim Melanson: It’s a bit sarcastic, I guess.

Chris Castanes: Yeah, it’s a little backhanded, you know? Here you go. So, but that’s what the, that’s the whole tone of that book is, is just, here’s stuff that’s out there, the landmines and what to look out for if you’re going into a sales position and it’s, and it’s all, or, or if you’re self-employed.

’cause if you’re self-employed, you’re in sales. And that’s the whole point of the book. But yeah, that was my, that’s [00:03:00] my, my win, I guess.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Right on. Well, along with the good notes, sometimes things don’t go as planned, and I do like to talk about the bad notes as well. So can you tell me something that didn’t go as planned and how you recovered?

Chris Castanes: Uh, well, that’s every day. You know, it’s, uh, being, being a business owner, you always have those, those down notes. And, um, I, I, a great one was just yesterday, as a matter of fact. It was just, you know, coming out of the new year, you’ve got your, you. New motivation, you know, I’m gonna go out there and knock it outta the park.

And my resolutions and what I’ve been doing recently is just sending people emails and notes on LinkedIn and saying, Hey, here’s my calendar. Book a time and I’ll come to you and we’ll meet. And um, sure enough, I got my first, uh, stood up for my first appointment of the year yesterday after driving 20, about 20 miles to this coffee shop and.

Nobody showed up and I’m calling ’em, and they didn’t even return the phone call. So that’s my [00:04:00] one, one of those little failures that it just, you know, there again. It’s, it’s, it’s just those things that happened, but it’s, you know, and it’s, it was a little extra punch in the gut because this person booked the appointment on, on to, on their time.

So it wasn’t, like I said, I’m gonna see you, you know, at this point and this time they did it, and it still didn’t, they still didn’t show up. So, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s par for the course when you’re in business though.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And, and, uh, I mean, nowadays, like thank goodness for Zoom, uh, like I moved everything pretty much to zoom now. I barely ever go and meet anybody in person anymore. And you know, so this sting is much less when they don’t show up to a Zoom call as opposed to driving across the city just for a meeting, uh, you

Chris Castanes: I know it is, it is painful and, and Zoom is, is great. I’ve actually done a few more Zoom calls, especially since COVID of course, but you know, [00:05:00] I’m still old school, you know, let’s go meet for some coffee, I’ll buy you some coffee, and I give ’em some brochures and you know, that kind of thing. And it’s hard to do that when you’re over a computer, but at the same time, you know, I’m not wasting, you know, a gallon of gasoline.

Whatever else, you know. Uh, hour of my time, hour and a half driving all over the place for nothing. So there’s good and bad, but yeah, I, I get it.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. It, it, it does happen, eh, uh, and, you know, ’cause, uh. Mean, you had mentioned that you’ve been self-employed for a long time now, 25 years, right? Isn’t it? Something like that or

Chris Castanes: yeah, I mean, I’ve been, I’ve been in sales since I got outta college back in 1985, but I went, I went. Back to the corporate world for a little bit, um, and gotten back in back, gotten back into sales in 2000

and, um, and I’ve been self-employed ever since. And it’s, you know, it’s got a lot of ups [00:06:00] and downs.

It’s fun. You know, you have to, you have to learn how to navigate ma, manage your time wisely, um, market yourself, all those things that are. You know, customer service, once you get the sale, you still have to service the customer and you know, it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah, there’s a lot of juggling. Mm-hmm.

Chris Castanes: yeah. You gotta wear a lot of hats and, you know, I, I ha luckily I haven’t had many HR complaints on myself, so, but, but if I don’t start behaving, I, I might turn myself in for something.

Tim Melanson: Jeez, you’re, you’re lucky. You’ve got a good boss.

Chris Castanes: I know.

Tim Melanson: Well, uh, I, I do think so. I mean, talking about sales, I, you know, I, I did spend some time in, uh, in commission sales as well, mostly in the network marketing industry actually. And, uh, I, I think it’s, it’s, it’s interesting because it’s one of those things that, [00:07:00] um, when you start a business. You know, you think, oh, you know, I’m, I’m a great, you know, whatever it is, you know, a mechanic or hairdresser or web developer, whatever it happens to be, and you think I’m just gonna start my own business and cut out the middleman.

And you really realize really quickly that sales is like a lot of it, like a lot of it. And, uh, I don’t think, I don’t think a lot of people are really prepared for that. Uh, we don’t, we don’t learn sales in school, do we?

Chris Castanes: No, we don’t and, and I wish they. Hal it, uh, uh, honestly, I do, and, and I talk about that in my first book about how there you get people who get caught up in network, network, uh, sales and, and affiliate sales and things like that, and, and they’ve bought a franchise into some multi-level marketing. And, um, you know, okay, it’s just a side hustle.

You don’t have to, and they don’t realize it’s, it’s sales, you know, and, and you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta go out there and, and, and do the stuff. You gotta [00:08:00] network. You know, you can’t, what, what do we say? You can’t just put your lamp. I think it says it in the Bible somewhere. Like you can’t just put your lamp under the, the table, you gotta put it on top of the table for everybody to see it.

So you can’t just sit at home and, and hope that, you know, invite your 37 Facebook friends to your new business page and expect them to buy things. You gotta go out there and hustle and, and go to networking events and online things and LinkedIn and everything. It’s, it’s, you gotta, especially now with.

Social media, you’ve gotta really do a whole holistic approach to your, your marketing. And if you do the marketing. Efficiently and effectively that takes more of that sales workload off of your plate. The, the, the sales is a whole lot easier if the marketing is done right. So that’s always been the, you know, the thrust is like, let’s, let’s figure out how to market first, then we can set the [00:09:00] table for the sale.

Otherwise, you’re just going in and. To cold call people, and it’s brutal, you

know? So,

Tim Melanson: Yep. Oh yeah. And I’ve been there too. The cold calling and all that stuff. ’cause I, I, you know, I, I, it’s, it’s funny ’cause I mean, you know, a lot of people have a really negative opinion of, you know, multilevel marketing and all that stuff. And yeah, there’s a ton of scams and a ton of scammers, that’s for sure.

However. Uh, the, the, the other side of it is that if you were to get into it, not thinking that you’re gonna be a millionaire, ’cause come on, you’re, you’re probably not, uh, especially if you have no experience, uh, but you will learn, you will learn a lot about people, about, about communication and about sales.

And I think what the, the kind of like a bit of a distinguisher between what you just said there about the marketing and the sales, you know, part of it is you gotta figure out a way to get people to come to you in the first place. And then once they come to you, you gotta figure out a way to talk to them to try to connect you what you do to [00:10:00] what they do.

And that would be more like the sales side of it? Is that how, how you see it too?

Chris Castanes: Oh yeah, I mean, exactly. I mean, I mean take, take for something for instance, like, um, you know, hamburgers, you know McDonald’s. Does all the marketing upfront. They don’t have a sales guy just walking around town going, Hey, who wants a double cheeseburger?

You know? And, and so you walk into their business and then they still upsell you, you know, Hey, did you want fries with that or do you wanna supersize that, or whatever.

So. Even though every industry’s not the same, you know, nobody, people enjoy hamburgers, people don’t enjoy buying life insurance. And so you really have to make the marketing even better or more effective on that, in that industry. Um, because people are going, gosh, you know, if I got a choice between, I’ve got 10 bucks in my hand and I’ve got a choice between having a happy meal or having, you know, covering my family if I die. [00:11:00] They’re gonna take the.

Tim Melanson: They are gonna take the hamburger. We know that. Yeah. Well, yeah. ’cause uh, I mean, now, you know, the, the world is so different, like, because there’s, I mean, there’s two types of businesses that you might be running. You might be running a business where nobody knows what you do and nobody understands what you do, and you have to spend some time educating them on why they even need you in the first place.

But then there’s the other side of it of. Everybody knows what you do. You know, it’s something that everybody needs. But now you gotta figure out how to, how to distinguish yourself against everybody else who’s selling the same thing, right? And both of those are very challenging,

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, especially if you’re, uh, you know, if you create your, uh, something totally new. If you’ve come up with some totally new product or new market that nobody even knew, knew was needed, the education part, like you said, that could, that could cost you. Thousands of of dollars just to, just to [00:12:00] get people to wrap their head around what you’re trying to explain to ’em.

Um, you know, compared to, you know, well, we sell screwdrivers. Everybody, everybody’s, everybody that’s ever had a toolbox has a screwdriver in there, but nobody’s gonna know about some new. App that measures houses or something, you know, whatever. So there’s always the education part that kind of ties in with the marketing, but it’s, it’s such a, a bear sometimes if you’re doing something that’s just people don’t understand, or, you know, what, what I tell people a lot of times is there’s, I, I’ll give them the fill in the blank, uh, scenario.

I’ll say, okay, I am saving up for blank. Just think in your head, what do people save up for? You know, they save up for a down payment on a car or a home. Uh, nobody saves up for. Long-term care insurance.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, so, so if, if your industry doesn’t fit in that, [00:13:00] that little blank very well, then you’re gonna have a much harder time selling that product.

And so, and that means you’re gonna have to figure out how to market it. And if you’re not good at marketing, you might want to spend the money to hire a marketing firm. You might want to go and learn how to be a marketer, but. If you’re that poor guy that went out and joined, you know, you’ve been working in the engineering field all your life and now you’ve decided that you wanna sell protein shakes on the side as part of a multi-level marketing, just as a side hustle, and you don’t know anything about sales or marketing or anything like that.

It, it can be a bear. And I, I go to networking events all the time and I see people and they’ve come from these, you know, well, by the way, I’ve also got this other product and they just look sad, you know, they just, they look like somebody just punched them in the gut. Like, nobody told me I was gonna have to come to do all this stuff.

You know, they told me people would just come to me and, and get it, you know, so it, it’s. It I, it’s one of those things where you just wish people would [00:14:00] be honest and upfront when they say, Hey, we’ve got some idea for you, a business idea or sales product. We want you to sell and tell you, here’s the batting average and here’s how many people have come through the door in the last week that didn’t do well at this.

And here’s, you know, they always wanna show you the leaderboard. You know, here’s all man. Look at these top producers. Well, those are three guys out of 10,000 that have come through in the last six months. Where are the other ones? You know, so it’s, that’s one of my big gripes has always been, just be honest with people.

If what you’re selling is difficult, let ’em know that because turnover costs money too. And when you’re hiring salespeople or you’re hiring people to come onto your on board and sell your products, that costs you a lot of money as well. Uh, time and effort and get materials and training, training and all that stuff can cost a lot of money.

So you could really nip that in the bud. By just telling people upfront, here’s the real deal. I’m not gonna give you the rose colored glasses. [00:15:00] I’m gonna let you, you know, do you think you’re up for this? That’s, that’s the way I, I position it because I also hire, I don’t wanna say hire, but I have a little downline of insurance agents and, um, and I don’t take ’em unless they’ve been in the industry at least two years.

I, I don’t want the rookies, I don’t have time for it. Um, let, there’s a whole other. 10,000 other insurance companies out there that will hire the rookies and they’ll weed ’em out. And then I’ll take those that are sticking around and I’ll say, okay, come and work with me for a little bit also. So it’s, we’ve kind of gone off topic here a little bit, but the marketing and the is just, is such a.

Big, you know, part of it and, and making sure that you know how to position your products and, and if you don’t know how to position your business, especially if it’s a, a service industry, you know, something like that, real estate or something, you’ve gotta, you’ve gotta really learn that part of the business as well.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean, yes, but also [00:16:00] there’s another thing that I noticed too, is that there. Uh, I, there are some people that tend to, it doesn’t matter what they’re selling, they’re good at it.

Chris Castanes: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: You know, like it’s just, you, you know, you have, you have some people that just, you know, especially in those, in those companies that will jump around from like protein shakes and now they’re selling insurance, and now they’re selling and they’re, they’re making boatloads of money and no matter what they sell.

So there is some sort of like, like com, like there is sort of some sort of base skill, right. Involved. Right.

Chris Castanes: There’s, there’s a mentality there, and you’re right. You know, you can get that person and they’ll say, dude, I’ve been selling cars and I’ve been really good at it, and I’m just tired of it. I want to go sell. Refrigerators

Tim Melanson: Right.

Chris Castanes: whatever. And there are, those people are always gonna be out there, but they’re the, they’re far and few between really.

Um, and, and usually when you see those veterans at some, whatever business it is, say, say it is a, a big life insurance company, that guy [00:17:00] that’s been there for. 25, 30 years, he’s that person. He or she’s that girl that can go out and go wherever she wants to go. And if you’re good at sales, that sales set, that skillset is transferrable,

Tim Melanson: Yes. Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, and, and, and they can sell Yellow Pages ads.

They can sell ice to the Eskimos. But the question is. There, you know, how much ice did that Eskimo really need? And are you really doing that? Uh, that person, the service that you, you say that you are, are you, you know, are your values, uh, being translated through that transaction? So it’s really a matter of making sure that you know.

You know what you’re doing, how to do it right, and, and you can learn it. You know, there’s always positive. We’ve gotta have a positive mindset and all this stuff. I know some people that have really bad mindsets and they still sell, you know,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: you know, so I, it, I’ve never, I’m not a psychologist. [00:18:00] I’m, I don’t even play one on tv, but I can tell you that I’ve worked with all sorts of people and, and the ones that usually are successful, the ones that are just.

Let me, let me talk to you like we’re just friends and have a good conversation, and I’ll tell you the, the ups and downs, I’ll give you the positives and the negatives of this product or service. And those people gain trust, they gain credibility, and they’re gonna get the referrals and they don’t have to do all that.

Stressed out. High pressure selling. You know, I, I always say don’t do high pressure selling. Do good pressure selling. Um, you know, don’t tell people you have to have this life insurance product. Just go, look, Tim, you know, you’re married, you’ve got a, a family, you’ve got a mortgage. This is something you need.

If you or my brother or sister right now, I would highly recommend this. And that’s, that’s just good pressure. You know, I’m not, I’m not gonna beat you up if you don’t buy it. We’re still friends, whatever.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: And just [00:19:00] take it down a notch.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yeah. So what about, uh, what about mentorship? Like, do you, do you have mentors in your life that have gotten you to this point?

Chris Castanes: I’ve had a few mentors and, um, you know, my, my big thing on that has always been just. You’re always gonna have like a manager or a sales manager or somebody, don’t regard that as a mentor. Regard them for what they are. A good mentor won’t have any kind of financial stake in your success. And if you can find that person who, like for me, I had a older gentleman years ago who took me under his wing and he was retired and he just said, you know, I’ll just check in with you every once in a while and if you’ve got a a problem.

Call me and he showed me the ropes and, and really taught me a lot. And when I was doing well, he. He was happy, but he wasn’t making any money off of me. You know, he wasn’t going, Hey, [00:20:00] yeah, I finally got that guy making me an override commission, whatever. So, you know, and then when I was doing bad, I could pick up the phone and, you know, cry my blues to him and he would say, you know, well, let’s, let’s figure out what you’re doing wrong.

You know, so that’s, that’s a great mentor there. But a sales manager. No, not really. They’re just, they’re just trying to get you to stay in line and make sure that you’re doing, you know, they’ll, I mean, they, sometimes their intentions are good, but you have to understand that their intentions are also to keep their job and your job is to help them, you know, so.

Tim Melanson: There’s a bit of a conflict of interest. So I mean, it, it can, it can go in your favor because I mean, the conflict of interest is on a positive side. They win by you winning, so that’s good. But on the negative side, they might talk, not give you those like tough to hear truths, right?

Chris Castanes: Well, and they will, but they’ll, but then they’ll say, you know, well you need to get out there. And

you know, when somebody says, well, if you [00:21:00] just change your attitude, well, you know. Or, or like my, like my old man used to say, you know, all you need to do is go out there and get 10 pounds of confidence, you know?

And I’m like, well, you get confidence from getting little successes. And that’s, that’s how you build that confidence up. You don’t just go like, alright, I’m confident now. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s a progress. So, yeah. You know, it, it, it’s good and bad both. But I just always try to find somebody that’s a little bit more detached from the situation and it can be a little bit more objective and, um, you know, they’ll, they’ll help you out.

You can always find somebody.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that’s important too. Like, I think, I think that having a, you know, a rich circle of influence, you know, in and outta your business. I mean, because I mean, if. Is it, it’s blind spots, right? I mean, you know, if, if you’re talking to somebody who’s in the same business as you all the time, then they might not be able to see what somebody who has no idea.[00:22:00]

Like I, I remember when I, even when I was in university, um, when I was struggling with a tough. Problem. It was more helpful for me to talk to somebody who had no idea what I was doing than it was for some, for me to talk to one of my, to one of my, my classmates, because you have to explain it to them in a way that they would understand.

And then they go, oh, well I see your problem. Or they don’t even, sometimes they don’t even say anything. It’s just you work through your own problem by going, oh, that’s what I’m doing wrong, just by explaining it to somebody.

Chris Castanes: by explaining it and breaking it down into very basic pieces, you’re, you’re explaining it to yourself. You know, and, and that’s a great con. That’s a great idea. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, and I mean, hey, nowadays we can talk to chat, chat bots and stuff like that and probably flesh through some of these things without even taking someone’s time. But on the other hand, having a person is, is, is, is better, I think.

Chris Castanes: Yeah. [00:23:00] Or cat, you know, I just get my cat and talk to my cat.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, so now you mentioned like, uh, you know, confidence comes from getting little wins.

Like, do you have any practices that, you know help you to get that those little wins or

Chris Castanes: Uh, well, one of the things I do is I just keep my calendar, uh, booked. You know, I try not to have a whole lot of downtime, uh, between, we always used to say, uh, between 10 and four you should be either seeing clients or fighting to see clients and. So between 10 and four, it’s either seeing a client or I’m got it written in the calendar, you know, I’m going to do some marketing, or I’m gonna do some, make some phone calls, or I’m gonna be sending out emails or whatever I gotta do.

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Chris Castanes: And just keep that, keep that everything’s got plugged in on that calendar. Uh, otherwise I’m sitting around playing, you know, candy Crush or watching TV or [00:24:00] whatever, hearing, you know, being self-employed and working from home. You can’t see it, but right over there’s a TV and you know, and then right back of me below this futon is my, my base.

And so, you know, there’s always that, you know, I just wanna like get up and go, man, I really would like to learn that, that new baseline that I didn’t learn, you know, whatever. So it, it’s fun. To be self-employed, but you have to have that discipline to go, I’ve got to stay narrowly focused, just if nothing else, between 10 and four.

And then, you know, from nine to 10 I’m still waking up, brushing my teeth and getting my head together and doing those things. And from four to five, I’m wrapping up the end of the day and getting ready for the next day. So if you just plug in that calendar, make sure everything’s. Good and make sure that you’re not wasting time.

Like when I get done with this podcast, I’ve probably got about 20 minutes and then I’ve gotta drive half hour up the road to a networking event and, [00:25:00] um, where I will be, you know, handing out brochures and trying to talk to people and doing all those things that are fighting to see clients, as we say, and fighting for referrals as much as you can.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and, and that’s, that’s just it, right? I mean, when you’re self-employed, you don’t have a, a boss that’s telling you what to do. You don’t have that same sort of like pressure, but it’s like, um, if you don’t work, then you don’t eat. And it might take a few weeks for that to start to happen, right?

Chris Castanes: Right. I mean, you gotta get out there and just plant those seeds and, and, or it’s funny, a friend of mine, he always refers to planting seeds that will blossom down the road. And I go and, and my analogy is always I’m planting landmines and I’m waiting for somebody to step on ’em. You know? So you.

Either way, you know, you’re, when you’re in sales or self-employed or whatever you’re doing, you’ve gotta play the, play the long game as well. And you gotta really be understanding that if [00:26:00] you’re not gonna just, you know, turn on the computer today and money’s gonna come in, I’ve gotta go out there and do the work, set the set the landmines, and keep setting those landmines.

And sooner or later, the ones I, the 10 I drop today, one of ’em is gonna explode next week. And you know, that’s a violent kind of analogy, but it’s one I like.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well there’s, there’s so much faith involved too in business. ’cause you, you, you, um. You know, it’s just, it’s different when you have that two week paycheck coming every time and you’re like, okay, well I know it’s coming. Whereas this right here, it’s like you plant all these seeds or you drop all these landmines and, and are they gonna, are they gonna pay off?

I don’t, like, you don’t really have that, uh, that shore thing, right. But I mean, on the other hand, you know, I, I mean, you’ve been self-employed for how long? I’ve been self-employed for 20. It always comes back. It does, right?

Chris Castanes: Yeah, I mean, it’s [00:27:00] it having a little faith in yourself. Goes a long way. And, and, and there again, it’s all about how, you know, those are, that’s marketing. That’s if, if it’s not working and your land minds are just duds and nobody’s stepping on ’em, then maybe you need to adjust your marketing a little bit and you have to be a little bit more self-aware of what’s working and, and just being honest and saying, and, and, and the, and the other trap is when you, when you set one landmine and somebody steps on it.

Then you think, oh, that’s always gonna work. And then you find out that that was just a fluke and that was, you know, not, it wasn’t the case. So sometimes we have that one little quick success that, and then we think, well, that’s a good pattern to get into and realize that it’s not. So it more of a trends kind of guy sometimes, and I say, let’s, let’s see what’s happening over the long term. And look at some numbers. Let’s see where the numbers are going. You just had that one one little pop, but you didn’t have another pop for a [00:28:00] month. Maybe there’s something wrong there and that’s why you’re eating mayonnaise, sandwiches for lunch instead of a, a real hamburger or something.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. So let’s get into your solo. Tell me what’s exciting your business right now.

Chris Castanes: Uh, the most exciting thing right now is, is probably my podcast. I’ve, um, as, as I was telling you earlier, I, I do insurance, but I’ve branched that over into this other field. ’cause my, what I’ve done with my insurance agency, mostly since COVID, is I’ve just put it online and it’s, a lot of it is self service.

People can go on there and get their own. You know, dental and vision insurance and things like that. But what we’ve done, uh, also is with the two books and I’ve done some speaking engagements and, um, things like that. And so we’re, we’ve opened up this podcast. Arm of the business about six months ago, and I’ve just had a blast.

It’s, it is just fun. I’ve enjoyed it. I, um, I’m [00:29:00] comfortable in front of the computer talking to the camera and talking to people about, you know, fun subjects like sales and marketing and things like that. And, and I have my own podcast. I’m marketing that and it’s just fun. I mean, it, it’s, it’s, you know, it’s just something I enjoy doing and talking to other podcasters and being on a guest on other people’s shows.

It is just been, it is just been a hoot and, um, you know, and people are, are most, haven’t had any bad experiences. Everybody’s been very nice and I’ve only cried twice and so, you know, I’m very sensitive.

Tim Melanson: So what is it that you guys talk about then?

Chris Castanes: We, well, it’s very similar to your podcast here. We talk about, uh, things that can help, um, small business owners, solopreneurs, uh, anybody that’s self-employed. You know, ten nine, what we call 10 99 salespeople here in, in the states. Um, you know, we don’t have benefits, so we have to get our own [00:30:00] ’cause everybody else has employee benefits and we don’t.

So we have to do our own, uh, thing when it comes to that. But we do our own marketing and so I’m very active in, in like the local Chamber of commerce.

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Chris Castanes: you know, and I, and networking events and those, and what you find is that’s, that’s that world, more of those people, uh, and we’re all in the same boat.

And even though we’re not, I, a lot of times I’ll go to a networking event or, and there’ll be, uh. Competitors of mine there, and we network. And just because somebody’s your competitor doesn’t mean you can’t get along with ’em and talk to ’em. And, and I’ve actually gotten more business referrals from my competitors who don’t like doing some of the things I do.

And I don’t like doing some of the things that they’re doing. So we’re swapping referrals amongst ourselves and that’s the kind of thing we talk about on the podcast, uh, mindset, uh, skill sets. Just tips and tricks, uh, you know, [00:31:00] things that can help people. You know, one of my, one of my favorite little pieces of advice, you know, sometimes it’s like if you got a sign magnet on your car, where are you gonna park your car at the grocery store?

You know? And I always tell people are like, huh? I don’t, I’ve never even considered that. Park it next to where you, everybody pushes their shopping carts, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Chris Castanes: Because that’s gonna be the highest visibility. And, and, and I’ve had people, I’ve never even thought that that would be a thing. But you know, I don’t know if that’s gonna help, but it’s not gonna do you any good to park your car in the back of the parking lot ’cause you’re afraid another car might hit you if you’ve got a sign magnet.

What was the point of getting the sign magnet? Nobody’s gonna put it, come out there and see it, you know? So you might as well make it in braille if you’re gonna do that. So I don’t know. So that’s the kind of thing we put on our show. It’s just, uh. You know, tips and tricks and helpful advice and marketing and networking and things like that.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So how do we find out more then?

Chris Castanes: Uh, well the show is called, um, you’re gonna be great at this. It’s on [00:32:00] Spotify, YouTube, apple, all those. And, um, it’s just there. You just tune in. I’d love to have. Some more listeners. Uh, we’re very, uh, as I say all the time, I have dozens of fans all over the world. So, so it’s a new podcast and I, and I’m learning it and I’m not, I’m not, you know, upset.

You know, people are like, how do I want to have 10,000 subscribers? And I’m like, dude, I’d be happy if I have like a half dozen at this point. I’m keep the bar low.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Awesome. So then, uh, this might be the hardest question. So who is your favorite rockstar?

Chris Castanes: Well, let’s see. Um, that’s a good question. I mean, I’ve always been a, a fan of, uh, Elvis just because he was just such a pioneer. But, um, my, my new favorite genre of music, let, let’s do it this way. My new favorite genre of music has been punk covers of old classic rock songs.

Tim Melanson: Wow.[00:33:00]

Chris Castanes: So, so there’s a, there’s a, uh, several bands out there that do, uh, you know, a lot of punk bands that will do covers of classic rock songs.

And then there’s some that, that’s all they exclusively do. And I really like that kind of stuff. So like, there’s a band called Me First and the Gimme Gimmes. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of

Tim Melanson: heard them. Yeah, I’ve heard of them.

Chris Castanes: yeah. They’ve been around for years and years. I, I mean, I love listening to that. Uh, that’s what I like playing on musically and, um.

So, yeah, that’s a, you know, it’s one of those things where it’s just fun to hear it and listen to it and, and it’s, you know, fun to play. Uh, um, you know, when you’re, when you’re in a, you know how this is when you’re in a band and somebody’s like, well, let’s play this song and it okay. But it’s really slow and. People might want to hear it, but it’s not fun to play. You know, and then there’s things that you just want to play, and it’s loud and it’s, you know, keeping you busy and making your brain go a hundred miles an hour. That’s, that’s the kind of stuff I like. So, and, and I, especially when you’re a little a [00:34:00] DD like I am, and, you know, so.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much for rocking out today with me today, Chris. This has been a lot of fun.

Chris Castanes: Well, thank you Tim, and you’re doing a great service out there too. I, I appreciate your podcast, you, you share a lot of great guests and have lots of good information to share with people, so thank thanks to you as well. I.

Tim Melanson: Oh, thank you so much. Right on. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast. I’m very excited for today’s episode. We’ve got founder Mark Aylward, what he does is he helps successful men rebuild confidence after hardship. Actually, better yet, he helps capable men rebuild confidence after hardship.

I’m very excited to be rocking out today with Mark. Hey, mark, are you ready to rock?

Mark Aylward: I am Tim. Thank you for having me.

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

Mark Aylward: Yeah, so I built and sold two, uh, successful IT staffing companies. The first one was with my mentor. He basically invested in me and taught me everything about starting a contract recruiting firm. And then I went off and did it on my own with a buddy of mine years later. So I think the, you know, all of the topics that you, uh, talk about are very interesting to me because I spent my entire life.

Helping people progress professionally, [00:01:00] mostly in the forms of getting them better jobs or promotions and negotiate on, on their behalf. But the, I remember my first placement was a single father with three young boys who was about to lose his house. And uh, that’s the first time I ever heard, mark, you saved my life.

And, uh. I’ll never forget that. I remember thinking that day, this is what God wants me to do, so I should start, I should start to figure this out. And there’s all kinds of other stories around that one. But that, when you said what you said, that’s the one that popped into my head.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Well, and now unfortunately, sometimes the good notes have to come along with bad notes too. So the things that don’t go as planned. And I do like to talk about both of those things. ’cause yes, I mean, we all have great success stories, but also a lot of things that keep people out of, of making changes in their lives is the fear of failure.

And I wanna make sure that people understand that we all, we all have the bad notes from time to time, and you can recover from those. [00:02:00] So can you share one that we can, uh, learn from?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I think even though I have a, a litany of interesting stories around a very contentious divorce and my children and I are all happy and healthy now, and, and very loving relationships. So we came out of that storm. The one that strikes me as most relevant perhaps to your audience is, you know, when I sold my second company, um, it was under duress.

Uh, and that’s related to the divorce. One of the things that we did not do, and I would advise this of anybody contemplating building a company or selling a company, is we did a great job on the due diligence with regard to the financials. Uh, we were great with the numbers. What we didn’t do is investigate the culture and the culture of where you’re going to work.

Because I went to work for these people for a two year contract post sale. What we discovered about the culture is we weren’t a good fit for the culture at all. And, [00:03:00] um, I regret not investigating that. It did impact my earnout, it impacted my satisfaction, my happiness. It was a rough couple of years. And, uh, but, but who knew?

You know, I mean, when you don’t, when you’ve never done something before, you’re usually going to miss something. And, uh, investigating the financials is great, but you also do need to investigate the culture because. Companies buy other companies for reasons they might want geographic locations, they might wanna expand in a particular direction.

From an industry standpoint, there’s a purpose behind the purchase. And without understanding the purpose behind the purpose, the purpose behind the purchase, if you will, um, you’re probably gonna get it wrong. And we did. So that was, uh, that’s a big one. There are many others, so if you wanna talk mistakes, we could stay here for a while, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Well, uh, the, the idea of culture does keep coming up quite often and more and more now than it did 10 years ago when I started the [00:04:00] podcast. And, you know, it, it is interesting because people do think about the numbers. I mean, not everybody, but, but, but you, you tend to think about, about the numbers. Okay, is this a profitable company?

Is this something that I’m gonna buy? And even when it comes to hiring, when it comes to. Finding top talent, people will focus on the talent instead of the culture. Like there’s so many, like areas of your business that, you know, you think of the obvious thing, but you don’t think of the culture as much.

And now that’s becoming more and more important because I think a lot of people are, um, gravitating towards culture and there’s so many different types of companies that you can be interested in. I’m wondering, like, is is that something that comes up in other areas of the business too? Is culture.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I, you know, I spend a vast amount of my time on LinkedIn. It’s my source of marketing and leads, and I create a lot of content. I build my authority there. I build my credibility there. And there’s a lot of talk on LinkedIn about work. I mean, that’s what the platform started for. [00:05:00] It’s become other things as well, but.

The big thing about culture is I’ve gone into hundreds of companies over the course of about 30 years, maybe thousands, from small companies to Fortune 100 companies, and when you look at a company through the lens of how they hire people, what I’ve con my contention is that how companies hire people is how they do everything.

And the, it’s hiring, it’s onboarding, it’s training and development, and I see. An almost absence of consistent culture because I don’t think, to your point, I don’t think people pay attention to it. I think people kind of expect it to occur or it’s gonna trickle down from the top because whoever the CEO is, or the founder or the owner, who he or she might be is what the culture’s gonna look like.

I think that’s a false assumption. I think culture needs attention. And what I see on LinkedIn is one of two [00:06:00] things. People complaining about their culture and not doing anything about it, or people not talking about it for fear that they’ll be punished for talking about

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Mark Aylward: And I never understood that probably ’cause I’m an entrepreneur, I say whatever I want and that.

That’s usually helpful for everyone, but not always. Um, and I remember having a conversation with my first boss when he was yelling at me in front of people and I pulled him into his office and I said, look. I love this work. I love this job. I, I appreciate you signing my paycheck. I’m very grateful. But if you ever yell at me in front of other people, particularly people that you want me to supervise, I’m walking out that door and you’ll never see me again.

It can, it completely changed our relationship for the better. And I told, I’ve told him recently, ’cause we still talk. I don’t, were you doing that on purpose or you just being a dick? And he doesn’t even remember the incident. It was probably 25 years ago, but that was my first taste of. [00:07:00] Am I gonna do anything about this or am I gonna let myself be treated poorly?

And that’s a cultural thing for me. It’s, it comes up as toxicity on the LinkedIn platform, and I just think I, I don’t think anyone pays enough attention to it. I don’t think most companies do it well. I think it’s often just a sign on the wall that you walk by every once in a while and you’re reminded of this vision or this mission, but it doesn’t translate into the day-to-day environment.

And I think it’s a really missed opportunity for most companies.

Tim Melanson: So do you have any suggestions on how, you know, if you were just starting a new business or if you were trying to overhaul your current business? Just some, some tips on how they can create that culture. Like intentionally.

Mark Aylward: Well, I think it comes down to values. Think this is when I coach people individually, I talk a lot about alignment and then what I mean by alignment is are you doing and saying things that are in alignment with what you [00:08:00] truly believe in? And Tim, I find most people never have that discussion with themselves.

We just make assumptions about what our values are like. Everybody wants to be known as honest. Everyone wants to be known as kind. Everyone wants to be known. But I think about things like clarity. And being concise and being consistent and being personally accountable. And those are all admirable traits, but left unsaid, left, you know, alone.

They don’t just happen. Right. So I think that if I were to advise someone, which I do advise people when they’re contemplating starting companies, ’cause that’s kind of in my. Wheelhouse. Um, I would, that’s the first thing I do with everybody, whether they’re starting a company or just looking to improve their personal circumstances, is let’s talk about what’s important to you and let’s, let’s get that on the table.

And I’m not here to agree or disagree with what your values are. That’s not my judgment to make, but I do [00:09:00] think it’s helpful and it’s critical that we, if you start writing content, if you start speaking out loud, if you start visiting clients and making phone calls. What comes outta your mouth should start with, this is what we believe in, this is who we are.

And I think it’s that simple. I think it’s just give it attention, make it an exercise, and then understand like any exercise, like sit-ups, you gotta do ’em every day. You can’t just do a hundred of ’em one day and expect you’re gonna have six packs. Abs. That’s not the way stuff works. So I hope I answered your question.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, you did it. I mean, really it’s, I mean, when we choose our friends, when we choose our relationships, I mean, all those are hopefully considering values first. Right? And, and picking people that will fit that. So why not your companies? Right. I think people just, I. Assume that they gotta fill a spot with the, the best, you know, technical talent of that AR area, but they don’t necessarily think of, [00:10:00] you know, how is that person aligning with what I believe?

And if you believe the, the same things, you don’t have to convince anybody of that, right? Mm-hmm.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s, it really is a, a, a heavy ball, um, the, this, not this idea of hiring people, which is my, you know, if I have an area of expertise, that’s certainly one of them, just from the, the amount of years I’ve done it is, is the. This idea that I never hired anybody because of their experience. Not once. And uh, ’cause I didn’t care what their experience was.

I wanted them to be honest. I wanted them to be hardworking. I wanted them to be personally accountable. And my favorite question in the interview process, Tim, and sometimes it was the only question I asked was, tell me about the hardest thing that’s ever happened to you in your life and how you came out the other side.

Um, and, and I get storytelling. I get creativity. I get imagination. I get personal accountability. I get everything I need. Or I don’t with that answer. And, and I think, [00:11:00] and you’re a software guy or an IT guy. I don’t know if you’re, I, I assume programming is part of that skillset. So, you know, the garbage in, garbage out thing is, is something you’re aware of.

But I, I think the other thing about hiring is people hate to do it. It’s the process itself is so cumbersome. It’s so burdensome. It takes so much time. And, uh, I’ve never met. A CIO that liked hiring? Not once. So I think what people do is they get into the hiring process and then they settle because they get sick of it.

And I think that’s way more common than most people understand.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And then what’s even more fun is firing.

Mark Aylward: Oh man, it’s the worst. Uh, it’s I’ve, I’ve never done it without allowing people to keep their dignity. I was always very sensitive to that. But also Tim, even though it’s the hardest thing to do as a business owner, in my estimation, [00:12:00] it was also always the best thing to do for both parties. And I used to tell people, look, this the way that I do this recruiting thing.

Is my way. You don’t, you don’t fit into my way. And it took us a few months to figure that out and that’s okay. So you’ll be better. Better off going, finding a way that suits you. ’cause my way is not the only way and will be better off because we will have one less frustrated person, you know, working here every day.

So let’s just agree to, to part ways, respectfully and um, that always went pretty well. It just looking, getting ready for it was always the hardest part. You know, the actual doing it was, was, wasn’t always that hard. Couple times it was.

Tim Melanson: Agreed. So I’ve got a lot of analogies in this, uh, podcast, and one of them we talk about is practice. So, I mean, in music it’s, it’s, it’s obvious, you know, you do need to practice before you go do your big show in business, I’m not sure if it’s as obvious. Do, do, do you have practices that [00:13:00] you do to make sure that you’re up on, you know, the latest in your business?

Mark Aylward: I do, I, I, and it’s a great topic. I really, I was resistant to goal setting. Um, I always have been, I always felt pressure from goal setting. And, um, I was, I worked for people that set goals for me, set goals with me. And, but when I started working for myself and even more recently, I’m, I’m a huge. Proponent of process and, and if, if the process works, if it’s something you can do relatively quickly, something you can look forward to doing consistently every day, something that it has a simplicity to it that doesn’t make it burdensome and it supports.

Whatever your goal is, and for most of us that run our own companies, that one of those goals is revenue, right? And you could take revenue, you could take profit, you know, six of one half dozen of the other profit’s [00:14:00] more accurate, but they’re both aspirational goals, right? One comes with the other usually. I get first thing in the morning. I get up and I do, uh, I have a prayer ceremony. I’m, I’m a Catholic and I went to Notre Dame and they send me an email every morning about whatever gospel’s being read at mass that day. And I read that with my girlfriend in person or on, on FaceTime. That starts me off.

That’s really cool and it’s simple. Um, then we do some breath work, Wim h breathing, if you know who Wim Hof is, and if you don’t, you should look ’em up when we’re done. Um, and that’s a 15 minute exercise that is vibrates. I get my face in the sun, I drink some water, and I, I open up my journal and my journaling is, uh, is, is the point of your question.

And that is, that’s where all of my processes and systems sit. And I could go into detail on that. At another point in time because it’s fairly detailed, but it’s very simple. The exercise of [00:15:00] filling out that page in my journal takes me about 10 minutes. And so by the time the sun rises, I’m ready to go.

You know? And, and I think all of that sits well into your concept of. The musician that, you know, you gotta play those chords over and over and over and over again. So, um, my, my repetitive tasks are pretty obvious. They’d be creating content, commenting on posts, writing posts, doing videos, guesting on podcasts, anything to get the word out there to people about who I am and what I do.

And then what comes back is people with whom that resonates, usually engage me in some capacity. That’s an oversimplification, but that’s the way that works.

Tim Melanson: Well, okay. So for me, uh, with journaling, uh, we’ll take that as a, as an example, I’ve been an off and on journaler for 20 years. I’ll, I’ll, I’ll be very, very good at it for a while and then just sort of forget about it. I don’t even understand how that [00:16:00] happens. And then I’ll be on a podcast or something like that and someone will mention journaling.

Oh yeah, geez, I haven’t done that in a while. And they’ll get back to it. I’m wondering, how do you, how do you stay consistent? How are your, or are you also off and on?

Mark Aylward: I was for a long time. Uh, and then I bumped into a guy that had a structure that resonated with me. It had a spiritual bent to it, which resonated with me. Um, it was funny, I was wrestling with myself a couple years ago, the difference between prayer and meditation, and I had this little kind of. Pagan versus Catholic argument with myself, like, if you’re meditating is, are you doing a disservice to God?

Or like, it was really interesting. I was really struggling with the conversation, so I just got rid of the meditation and stayed with the prayer. That was part of it. And so, uh, that makes me feel an obligation. ’cause God’s involved. I gotta, I gotta show up for God this morning, you know? So. That might be a large part of it, but you know, sometimes we’re just ready [00:17:00] for things that we weren’t ready for two years ago or five years ago.

Sometimes things resonate because someone says them to you differently, and one of my favorite phrases is we need to be reminded far more often than we need to be educated. You know? So most of the stuff that you tell me, I will have heard already, and most of the stuff I tell you, you will have heard already.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Yep. I agree. So a structure is, is, is useful and, and I agree. I, I find, I think that the times that I’ve. Been very good at my journaling has been when maybe I’ll get like a book that has a journal component to it and you’ve got this structure that you can follow. ’cause I mean journaling, what do you write?

What, like, unless there’s something, some sort of steps that you can follow, it’s just, I, I don’t even know what to do. Right.

Mark Aylward: Well, there’s a, there’s a school of thought that says just brain dump, just free flow, right? I mean, I think getting things out of your system is cathartic no matter what it looks like. [00:18:00] So I would say to people that are contemplating this or are struggling with it, as you’ve suggested, as ’cause I did too, structure for sure is one of the solutions.

If you’re, if you’re a God person, you know, being obligated for to God for something is pretty powerful. If you’re not, of course it doesn’t make any difference, but, um, the structure of mine is there are things that I write. And then there are boxes that I check like, did you pray today? Boom. Check. You know, did you, what’s your flow anchor today?

Gratitude. Okay. Check. You know, and then I was, I don’t know if you know Andrew Huberman. The, the psychologist therapist, celebrity, um, he talks about psychological things all the time. He’s a very bright guy. Uh, interesting fellow. I heard him long, not long ago. Say, people do, I am statements. I am, you know, I’m, I’m struggling with self-doubt.

I’m struggling with imposter syndrome. If you flip that, instead of saying [00:19:00] I am, say you are. You then become a third party advocate of you. It’s not you telling yourself anything anymore. This expert is telling you this and it’s incredibly interesting. I see you nodding your head when I, I said that to my doctor the first time months ago.

She goes, dad, that makes perfect sense. I go, yeah, it’s pretty crazy, you know, so something to consider trying, you know, if you, if you want to get back into some journaling and some structure. So I make a list of things and instead of being self-doubt, I am confident. Right. Instead of being, you know, prideful, I’m humble.

You know, it, it, they’re, they’re easy to flip, right? But the, the notion of saying, and so that’s a list. There’s two or three lists. And then another thing is I pick five areas of my life that I just throw a little love and gratitude at. And could just be a five second thought. It could be a prayer, it could be a phone call.

These five things require my love and [00:20:00] attention every day. And before I did that, like my children, God, my girlfriend, my business, my health, before I did that, I would, like most people probably, I would go all in on one of them and neglect the other three or four. And that’s just human nature. So this, this reminder to give all five of these areas.

A little bit of love. It’s pretty powerful. So that, again, back to the structure of my journal.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Now another thing that I found is good for accountability is being accountable to another person, right? Like either finding like a mastermind or a coach or some sort of accountability partner because like, like you say, I mean trying to be accountable to yourself. I mean, you let yourself down all the time,

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But as soon as you put something else, like either God or, or maybe another person in into the mix, now it’s like, oh, I’m gonna go meet with so and so. I better do what I said I was gonna do before I go meet with him.

Mark Aylward: yeah, it’s very powerful point. It’s really, I, I, um. [00:21:00] I just wrote something about accountability and, and human nature being, uh, we don’t like to be held accountable. Um, none of us do. And but even the ones of us that don’t like to be held accountable know that we need to be held accountable. And, uh, I I, I don’t practice the accountability buddy.

Uh, I just, that phrase just turns me off. Maybe I should just call it something else, but I do have a few guys. Um, and my children and my girlfriend and my dad and my, my older brother in particular who don’t let me get away with things. And I, I don’t think, I try to get away with things. I’ve, I learned a long time ago that the light shines on all of us eventually.

You know, you can hide whatever you try, whatever you want to try and hide, but they’re gonna, people are gonna figure it out eventually. But I think you’re right. I think. You know, if you’re going to the gym in the morning, not to meet anybody, you’re gonna miss some days. But if you gotta meet somebody there at [00:22:00] seven o’clock, you’re gonna probably be a lot more likely to get there because you don’t wanna let them down.

So, I agree.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And what about o other types of coaches? Like are you a type of person that hires coaches in in the past or even in the current.

Mark Aylward: I just terminated a relationship with a coach and it wasn’t for anything bad. It was just, I felt like I’ve reached. At the end of what this person can offer me. And I started to hear some redundancy in the messaging and I’m like, this is just a decision I need to make. And, um, yeah, I think that hiring, ’cause I’m a coach, right?

I, and I think that, you know, the, the classic example everyone wants to talk about is just Tiger Woods or Michael Jordan, or, you know, they all have coaches. They all have multiple coaches for exactly what we’re talking about. To be held accountable to help, to help you get outta your own way. You know, we often cannot see what’s wrong with us.

Um, there’s biblical verses about [00:23:00] that all over the place. Um, you know, the, the, we can see the splinter in someone else’s eye, but we can’t see the log in our own eye. You know, that’s. That’s a parable. I think coaches are great. I think the most important part of a coach is that he or she has to resonate with you.

I don’t think the messaging is, is as nearly as important as the resonance, which would involve integrity and values and consistency and accountability and, um. I have this phrase that keeps coming up that I started using that I’m gonna keep using ’cause I like it. It’s called kind candor and, and kindness to me is telling people what they need to hear, not what they want to hear.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Mark Aylward: That’s being nice. And I think being nice is basically kissing someone’s ass. I don’t think it’s productive at all. Uh, and candor is required because I’m not gonna gloss over something because I’m concerned about how it might make you feel. But if I’m trying to be kind while I’m being candid, then it probably will be.[00:24:00]

Accepted. It probably will be heard, it probably will resonate, but candor without kindness is ineffective. It’s old school. And kindness without candor is a waste of time. So, um, that’s, those are my thoughts about that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I, I agree. And I mean, if, if the person on the other end of it doesn’t take your kind candor, well then they’re not, they’re not in a place where they’re ready to grow anyway, and there’s really nothing you could have done to, to help them at that particular

Mark Aylward: know? Yeah. It’s, it’s so true. And I think, you know, I’ve had family and friends experience with things like addiction and, and alcoholism, and it’s almost unlikely that, that any of us don’t have some connection to that. And if you have, you’ll, you’ll know. And I’m, I’m in it right now with one of my brothers to be transparent and, um, he’s not ready for help.

And it doesn’t matter what I do, [00:25:00] it doesn’t matter how logical I am, it doesn’t matter the damage that’s being done. It doesn’t matter, uh, until someone is ready to be helped. It’s very difficult to help ’em. So I don’t push myself on people for exactly that reason. I, I want people to come to me. I want people to say, I, I read your thing over here, and it was interesting to me.

Can we talk a little further so I don’t chase people down for exactly that reason?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, and, and uh, to flip that around too, like I, I, I have noticed that if I react poorly to something that someone else says, like, to, to that, you know, kind candor, I, I find that that’s like a. It’s like a, like a, a marker for me. I, I kind of go, okay, why am I getting upset right now? Because, you know, there’s something in our, probably in our psyche that’s just blocking us just like it is with the people in our lives that we’re trying to help, that they don’t necessarily know that they’re getting triggered for, for whatever it is.

But I do find that those triggers are, are illuminating.[00:26:00]

Mark Aylward: I agree. I think that’s a great level of self-awareness and which is a great quality to have. I, I pride myself in being self-aware. I don’t think you can be too self-aware, but maybe you can. I, I think that, you know, like yesterday I, something happened that made me angry and I don’t like to be angry. I very rarely am angry, and to your point, I, I stopped myself and I thought I was about to say something to someone else I was talking to, and it was.

It was layered in this anger that had nothing to do with them, and I paused, which is another thing that I teach people to do. When emotion comes, you don’t re, you don’t respond. You pause and regain object activity to the extent that you can. My, my dad taught me that as a fighter pilot. What’s the first thing you do when an engine catches on fire?

He says nothing. Absolutely nothing because if you react out of fear, chances are people will die. And if you don’t, if you stop yourself and regain your objectivity, all that training that’s in your head will come back to you and you’ll know what to do. [00:27:00] And I just, I, um, that’s a powerful lesson that, that I share with everybody.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, no, I, I, I agree. So, okay. I’m excited to talk about your business. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Mark Aylward: So as I, as we kind of alluded to in our pre-game discussion, I, I really had, I had to make a choice because on one hand what I do, helping people improve professionally. As well as personally, ’cause I can’t do one without the other. Um, and I think they’re closely tied. I can’t help everybody. I’ve had so many conversations with people who would not want to have a discussion with someone who is an expert in getting better work.

Right? Almost everyone is open to that discussion. Well, you can’t market to everyone. You can’t message everyone or you’ll help no one. Right. And that’s a classic marketing, uh, mistake that people make. I’m, I’m, this thing’s good for [00:28:00] everybody. Well, that, that doesn’t matter. So I had to pick, and over the last couple years I thought, I, I’m investigating this notion of how confused we are about what a man is today.

And that’s not a political statement, that’s just an observation. And there’s all kinds of historical data to support this. If you’re familiar with the Harvard study of men that goes back to the 1930s, they got 85, 90 years of data. They just interviewed men about happiness, and over the course of 80 to a hundred years, they went from just white men to all kinds of different colored men to their children, to their wives, to some of them are grandparents, some of them have passed away.

So it’s a really robust set of data and it, it. It really intrigued me that men were struggling so much and then I thought, well, I have some of this experience. I have had some hardship, I’ve had some adversity. I lost everything, and I’ve been able to recover from that. What a wonderful thing to be able to help someone else do.[00:29:00]

And to your point about how many female coaches there are out there and how few male coaches there are out there. I remember walking around in the courthouse ’cause I was in that courthouse for. 10 years off and on, like all the time. And people are wandering around and they’re scared and they’re anxious and they’re depressed and they’re frightened and they’re unclear about what to what?

Like where is this room 3 0 5 where I have to go in and lose my house and you know, my children. And I just thought to myself, there’s a lot of people that need help, so I’m just gonna grab this. The sliver of middle aged men, because that’s when life, you know, you’re running in your twenties, you’re running in your thirties, you’re starting a family.

Maybe you’re having kids every, you’re just running, right? And then at some point, probably around 40, but there’s not a number. It’s just a guess. All of a sudden, life slows down a little and you get to look around and. [00:30:00] Not all of us, like what we see when we look around and, and we recognize I haven’t had time to even breathe until now and I don’t like the way that looks.

So what do I do about that? Well talk to Mark. You know, so again, an oversimplification, but that’s it. It’s so serving other people like that and having people say things to you like. You saved me. You know, you, I’m, I feel completely different now. I’m optimistic again. I’m hopeful again, I have a plan of action that you’ve helped me define, and I’m gonna start taking these steps and I’m gonna come back to you to get refreshed periodically.

And that’s, that’s really worked out well. That’s really become my messaging is there. My coaching is there, my content is there. Everything is kinda lined up nicely and I, I feel again, like this is kind of what God wants me to do.

Tim Melanson: Why do you think it is that there are so many female coaches, but not as many male coaches?[00:31:00]

Mark Aylward: It’s a great question. I, these are just opinions.

Um, so, so not facts, but I’ve got two daughters. Both of them are entrepreneurs. Both of them are successful, they’re beautiful, they’re intelligent, they’re hardworking, they’re feminine and they’re tough. And, um, women are more open. To being coached. Women are more open to talking about things that are bothering them.

That’s gotta be one of the reasons. Um, guys, on the other hand, in my experience, you know, if I had conversations with some of my friends that I grew up with, that in a really intimate fashion, they would start to tease me. They would start to make fun of me. They would, they would say, they would call me names that I can’t repeat here on your podcast.

And that’s all fun and good. Um, I think it’s those two reasons. I think that men are not willing, at least by perception, to be coached about intimate [00:32:00] things. And that’s the only way to get past hardship is to talk about tough things and, and women are more open to it. But I also think that the culture that we live in is yelling at the world You need to help the women more.

The men are fine. And the men are not fine. That’s a misinterpretation. But I, I think it’s something that’s kind of lasted even after it stopped being fine and we just haven’t adjusted yet. I’m writing a, a book right now, Tim, and it’s, I’m in the middle of this historical transition from my, my dad knew exactly who he was.

He was a fighter pilot. He was an airline pilot. He was a father, he was a provider, he was a protector. There was never any question about that. Right when I started to grow up, that’s when things started. Feminism arrived in the seventies, maybe even arguably the sixties, and a lot of that was good. We needed a lot of those things.

Women deserved a lot of the stuff that came with that. But what we didn’t do is we didn’t [00:33:00] replace the old masculinity definition with a new one. We just said, don’t do that. We didn’t say, do this instead. So that just leaves men confused. And I, I see examples of that everywhere. So that’s, that’s a long-winded answer to why I think there are more female coaches than there are male coaches.

And then when I went to study my competition there, there isn’t any, you know. it’s crazy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, because, because I mean, the other side of it is that there are probably less men willing to even take on that role in the first place, let alone the men that wanna take it.

Mark Aylward: I, I certainly didn’t see that path coming. It, it came for me. It didn’t come because I was trying to, to attract, I mean, who wants to attract hardship, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it, I, I think, I think you’re right. I think men are sort of like supposed to be strong and have it all together, and they’re supposed to be the [00:34:00] leaders of the households and all that stuff from what we’ve been taught. But like you say, things have changed. And now a lot of those things were like, you know, I remember just being even confused if I’m supposed to hold a door open for a woman or not.

Mark Aylward: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, just like, just the basics of it of going like, I, I think I, I should, isn’t that nice? Like, aren’t I being a good person by holding a door open? Why am I getting yelled at right now? Right.

Mark Aylward: yeah. No, it’s, it’s so funny that I’ve used that analogy many times. ’cause I, I opened the door for everybody

Tim Melanson: so do I.

Mark Aylward: and, and I say hi to everybody. Matter of fact, I was pulling into the grocery last night and I, I was coming around. From this angle and there was a open parking spot there and there was someone in front of me.

That was coming this way and she was there before me, but I had the, I had the space to just slide into that spot and essentially flip her the bird. And I just, I just chuckled and I, I went straight past her and pulled into [00:35:00] the left and gave her that position. And we both got out of the cars at the same time and she just said, thank you so much for doing that.

You’re a good person. And I said, that would’ve been a dick move. And we both got a laugh out of it. It was really funny. I think, I think strong women are really comfortable with masculine men. I think it’s insecure women that aren’t, and I don’t, I don’t suffer. Insecurity. Uh, I’m not judgemental about it, but I’m like, if what I say or do in kindness and good intention is offensive to you, that’s not my problem.

That’s your problem. And I’m not taking that on as my problem, whether you want me to or not. I’m sorry, not doing that. So that’s a very interesting place to be. ’cause as you seem to understand, it’s, uh, why are we confused about these things? Right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it seems, but I mean, hey, who, who knows? Uh, however, I think I, I hope that now men are gonna be [00:36:00] more open to accepting that help. And I, I think maybe can kind of like even flipping back to what we talked about earlier about the, the, the kind candor, right. You know, if. If you’re feeling like triggered regularly by, by things and angry and, and upset and sad and all that stuff, well then maybe that’s the time to kind of look inside and go, okay, maybe I need a little bit of help with this ’cause I don’t know how to fix it right now.

Right.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, well, there’s a humility to that that’s, that’s challenging for people to call upon. I, I think it certainly was for me, I mean, a couple things that happened to me after my contentious divorce and being a single dad was I just became a much better listener. And that’s a good thing. I told you a little bit about the fact that my daughter’s, you know, I, I went through everything that a mother’s supposed to go through as a father.

I’ve had a couple people tell me, I think your experience as a single father of two girls has shaped you in a fashion that makes you somewhat unique. And I keep getting reminded of that. And I think the other interesting and kind of funny [00:37:00] part is, you can’t tell this on, on the podcast, but I’m 6 4 225 pounds.

I’m not a small man and I can be very loud and, uh, so people assume I’m masculine and I believe that I am. But when I come at them with the soft side. I see a lot of surprises. Like I’ve had people tell me before, I didn’t expect that at all, and I’m like, good. That’s good.

Tim Melanson: Good. Alright, so then how do we find out more then?

Mark Aylward: Yeah, I mean mark a word.com and it’s mark with a k and a word is A-Y-L-W-A-R-D. And everything that I do can be accessed from there. I would also suggest looking me up on LinkedIn and my name, a word mark is, is my, my, I think if you type in mark a word, I show up, my LinkedIn profile shows up as the number one choice.

’cause it’s a, it’s an obscure English name that doesn’t really. Have much, um, presence here in the States. It’s a Newfoundland, [00:38:00] Ireland, England Trail, you know, Nova Scotia and um. So, yeah, there’s a, and I think the first step for anybody that is intrigued by anything I’ve said would be just click the button that’s on that front page.

There’s like three or four of them. As you scroll down, it just says, schedule a conversation and it’s a 30 minute call. We, I do it for free and I basically just get to where I can tell you at the end of that how I can help you. If I can help you. And I’ll also, if you choose not to. Access my help at that.

I’ll give you a couple things that you can take action on that will move you forward, uh, free of charge. So it’s a, it’s a kindness gesture, but it’s also, you know, there’s a sales component to it. I just don’t get salesy on the call. ’cause as I told you earlier, I’m not interested in convincing anybody about anything.

I’m interested in people saying, that resonates with me. I want to hear more.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. You can’t help anybody who’s not ready anyway. Right. So

Mark Aylward: No, no,

Tim Melanson: right on.

Mark Aylward: no. You can’t.

Tim Melanson: One more question might be the hardest one. Who’s [00:39:00] your favorite rockstar?

Mark Aylward: Ha,

Tim Melanson: I.

Mark Aylward: that’s easy for me. He passed a couple years ago, but Tom Petty, um, I went to a Tom Petty concert when I was 15 years old at the Cape Cod Coliseum, which doesn’t exist anymore. And he was the backup band for a band called the Jay Isles Band, which is a, if you’re not from the northeast, you might not know them, but they were.

They were, they had their fame for a while and uh, they were a big deal. And then this band that the blue stage lit up and all of a sudden this song called, I Need to Know, started getting played. And I’m like, man, and I saw him three or four times and it’s, he’s always the best cons, best live show I’ve ever been to.

And, um, my daughters are fans of his now we’ve got all kinds of literature around the house, books about him. And yeah, that was an easy question for me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Don’t get many that know it. Exactly. That’s awesome. Oh, Tom Petty is amazing. I’ve got so many, uh, I [00:40:00] know so many of his songs that I do in my cover work and it. Always gets a, a great reaction from everybody. Like men, women, everybody, everybody loves Tom Petty.

Mark Aylward: have you, have you seen, I think it’s called Wildflower, the

documentary.

Tim Melanson: I have, yeah. Very good.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, it’s a fantastic, it’s a fantastic film. Rick Rubin’s in it. I, as I recall, really interesting. I just found him to be a really interesting guy the whole time. He was a great musician. I mean, he did, he’s the one who said, these tickets are too expensive.

Don’t raise your prices. I want my fans to be able to see me. He was, uh, he had a very challenging life as well, personally. But, um, yeah, that was an, that was a, that was an easy question for me,

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well, thank you so much, mark, for rocking out with me today. This has been a lot of fun.

Mark Aylward: Yeah, me too. I’ve had a great time and uh, maybe we can do it again sometime.

Tim Melanson: Great. Yes. Awesome. To the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Excited for today’s episode. We are talking to the owner of Fight Club, martial Arts and Archery Training Center, incorporated. He also the Master’s method. So I’m excited to be rocking out with today with Emmanuel. Hey, he helps people to go inward and I guess figure out who they are and, uh, we’re gonna learn a lot more about that in a few minutes.

So welcome to the show, Emmanuel Manolakakis.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Man, look. You got it, man.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So, hey Emmanuel, you ready to rock?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I am right.

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

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Oh, many, many, uh, stories of success. I mean, uh, for fight club, uh, man, it’s been, um, getting close to 25 years for, uh, martial art club, and I still remember. In the first year or some first year that I started, uh, uh, teaching. It was just the part-time thing at the time. Uh, you know, somebody came in [00:01:00] and said, uh, straight out to me, if you could imagine this set out to me.

Uh, he was looking at different packages that I had for training in martial arts and he said, uh, I’ll, I’ll take the six month one because. Most martial art clubs don’t make it to two or three years. So he goes, I don’t wanna Right to like imagine right to your face. I was still shocked and like basically said, you won’t be around so I don’t wanna commit to you.

And I’m like, wow. That’s, that’s it. I I, and at first it upset me and then I realized, but that’s the truth. And this is the hard part of, of, of life, right? This is the truth. And I said, you know what? I’m gonna make sure that I do everything in my power to make sure that it makes it to three years.

Tim Melanson: That’s a good goal.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: it’s now it’s 25, and it was, I, every time I’m here, every time I do another year, and January’s coming around the corner now, every time I do another year.

I’m just, I’m so grateful and blessed that to be able to do this, I know there’s not many martial arts schools, uh, operating at a full-time capacity, uh, for this long. Um, so I’m quite special. I mean, it, it’s a testament [00:02:00] to a lot of the hard work, but at the same time, it’s still, um, so much of being an entrepreneur.

Being a person is a little bit of luck, right? Like, you gotta, you gotta get lucky too. You gotta be good. You gotta be lucky too. So I’ve been blessed with both. Um, so that’s a great, that’s one of my good, one of my favorite stories that it’s still around ’cause of what that person said.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Uh, I mean it’s, uh, it, it’s definitely the same in just about any business, right? I mean, there’s, most businesses don’t make it through even the first year. So,

Emmanuel Manolakakis: No they don’t. Yeah, they don’t.

Tim Melanson: yeah. So now I.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: go ahead.

Tim Melanson: Well, well, so I was gonna say like on that note, I mean there are things that don’t go as planned, which is the reason why most businesses don’t get through.

And I like to talk about these bad notes because it’s something that keeps people out a lot. You know, they think maybe that person who would’ve said that to them, maybe, maybe they might’ve went, ah, okay, maybe I shouldn’t be doing this. Right. Um, so I was wondering, can you share with us something that didn’t go as planned, something that was a [00:03:00] big mistake that you recovered from?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Okay. Big mistakes, so. When I first started, so there’s, it’s not. I, I don’t see things as right and wrong. Uh, but you can, we can look at this for your listeners. There are things that just happen and no matter, you know, no matter how good we all are, like as an athlete, when I was a younger athlete and I played it pretty high level sports, um, you know, we practiced all week long and we had a great plan and we, we thought of it, everything that could happen.

But when the game happened, man, it all went, it all went. The shit, you know, just went crazy and you just realize the team that will really make it to a higher level. Are the ones that are adaptable, the teams that are able to be, you watch it in hockey, you watch it in baseball, the teams that play together, and that can adapt quickly because everybody’s figuring you out and you’ve gotta be adaptable.

Even as a martial artist, as a person in general, society is changing. You are changing. I mean, getting older, your, your views are changing. Your knowledge is changing. So, you know, [00:04:00] in. When it comes to martial arts, you see a lot of it’s, I, I can only speak specifically to martial arts, but it’s also to musicians.

Anybody that is in the creative realm, right? Like there’s, there’s some creativity there. Everybody begins by copying somebody, right? Like if you’re a musician, of course you’re gonna play Stairway to have it if you stay there like. For five or 10 years, you see the problem, like you’re not, there’s no authentic, and people will realize that, right?

When you’re running your own business, the biggest mistake you can make is copying all the time. Um, it’s fine to do it a little bit at the beginning only to get your bearings and then find out what’s your take on it. How did you, you know, like how did you change it? And that only comes from authenticity.

If you’re a chef, it’s you, you cook from the, the foods that you like, the things that you experienced. Or if you’re a musician, well you, you develop your voice, you develop your song, you develop the stories [00:05:00] and the, and the, the, the, the writing material to be more authentic. And then you connect. So, you know, in martial arts, there’s a tendency to think that you can make everybody happy.

Like somehow cover all the bases. But you can’t do that. That’s ridiculous. You can only, you can only connect with some people that wanna listen or agree with your perspective. That’s it. So don’t make the mistake of trying to make everybody happy. You don’t need to. You could just, you could just do what you do and find your raving fans that, that love you.

You know? So really start it small and like kindling wood and create a big fire of people that, um, like what you do and like exactly how you do it. That doesn’t mean that they hate other people, but they like how you do it and what you do. Right? Like, I like Johnny Cash for Johnny Cash. Like, I didn’t want Johnny Cash to be Bernie Spears.

I don’t want him to. I want that, that, that. That, that’s what I like. So I think a big mistake is, uh, [00:06:00] um, when people start to copy too long, and that can go for even a restaurant. Find your niche, man. Find your niche, find what you, find what you do, and do it really well. You know? And that, that, that is, is probably the the mistake.

The mistake I’ve seen that I did at the beginning too. I started to copy what other martial arts schools did and it was fine. It was a starting point, and then I’m like. That’s not me. I’m not, and I I’m not one of these guys that’s gonna scare students. Like, oh my God, someone’s gonna jump you and beat you up.

And I’m not, I can do that. I’m gonna teach you how to fight as a, as, as a, as a, a warrior poet, as a something. It’s beautiful. I’m not gonna, I want you to understand, you don’t have to fight because you’re angry. You can fight because you love what’s behind you. You don’t have to hate what’s in front of you.

You can just love what’s behind you. That’s all it really is. Like it. Those are old warriors we’re warriors in, in old societies, not that long ago, couple hundred years [00:07:00] ago, it was the most respected person. It’s the person that protected your society, you know, and he was, he was a noble person. It wasn’t like an animal or something.

What’s happened now in martial arts specifically is um, people are crisscrossing entertainment versions. And you know, so well listen, you know, I don’t wanna upset people. We need to be honest about stuff. Boxing used to be a beautiful martial art, but then, and then it was, but then it got associated with entertainment and then it got associated with Vegas and drinking and gambling.

And then so now it changed and it became entertainment. It’s not so much and people can’t, if you can’t see that, you don’t, you, you’re missing it. Right? Uh, MMA is a wonderful thing. Uh, it’s great, but it’s also entertainment. Right. So forget that when you’re protecting yourself, it’s your country, it’s your life.

It’s something really important. It’s not like to, to entertain you. It’s [00:08:00] like, remember that scene from Gladiator? Or you’re not entertained. Like, it’s like, he’s like, I’m in general man. I protected you guys, but now you want me to entertain you. He’s so, he was so frustrated with this concept. I’m a warrior.

I went to battle and protected freedoms and had liberty and noble and respect, and you want me not to dance around and entertain you? It’s like, I, I can’t do that side of martial arts. You know? I can appreciate it. Um, but I, I can’t, I can’t do that side. There’s, if you wanna entertain, you can go see a movie, play some sports and stuff like that.

But for me, martial arts is something a little bit different and I, I think that. Um, for your listeners, you have such a spectrum in music as you’re a musician, right? You have people that do it just for the love of music, right? And, and then they still make a quite a good living. They don’t, they’re not poor.

They’re, but they don’t want like a Britney Spears, they don’t want that, right? There’s a lot of people like this, you know, very impressive people, um, in, uh, [00:09:00] in, in the food industry. And there are people that wanna run a Michelin Star restaurant. What is the difference between a regular restaurant, Michelin, it’s just more detail. The bar is much higher. It’s really simple. They don’t care about more customers or more patrons. It’s like, this food represents me, it represents everything. And it’s like, whoa. And when you, who wouldn’t like me, part of a Michelin star, whoever hasn’t had an experience you gotta do at least once in your life, it’s pretty amazing, right?

It’s, and that bar is set by the entrepreneur.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: That the person running that restaurant, it’s a chef. His and he, he holds what he does at a very high standard, right? And entrepreneurs can choose that you, it’s your choice. Now. You can have a low standard, high standard, or somewhere in between. It’s up to you, right?

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, when it comes to music for sure, I mean, there’s so many things that you went through there. [00:10:00] There’s, uh, you know, even genre, right? I mean, if you’re trying to make everybody happy, you know, there are people that sort of gravitate towards one genre and if they like country and you’re playing death metal.

Probably not gonna like you very much, right?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: but I, I will tell you, I will tell you this though, there’s two, um, musicians at the Fight Club. Um. Both longtime students and one of them is a death metal guitarist. And I will tell you, I I, I’ve known him for a better part of 15 years, a wonderful man and he, um, his taste in music is all over the place.

You can go to his house and he will listen to jazz. He’ll listen to blues. He’ll, he listens to everything. This is a big misconception people have of a lot of it. At the metal guys, like people on the extreme listen to all kinds of music. You know, they’re, they don’t, they love all of it. They’re not saying, oh, it’s not, it’s not this or that.

Like a good chef, he doesn’t care. He might, he might be cooking, uh, making a [00:11:00] Japanese chef, but he can appreciate his French cooking. A, a great chefs, great people, great musicians, they totally appreciate, they love the authenticity. They see that, right. That’s, that’s a, that’s the highest to me, when you’re talking master level stuff, which is the course masters method that I teach.

It’s, it’s really just who you are. And the person that does that, uh, in, in a seamless way and who they are. It doesn’t matter if you’re a chef, a musician, a martial artist, you are showing people who you are. And that’s, I mean, I’m not sure what greater thing anybody could ask for, um, in this world than before you leave this world that people knew who you were, like most people that they don’t know that, you know.

So it really is authenticity that that’s at the core of all of this, and that doesn’t come easy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and, and a lot of that, that very, very heavy, heavy metal. It’s, uh, it’s technically very, very, very difficult. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yeah. Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: kind of like at the top level, which to [00:12:00] me that kind of makes sense. I think that’s why it’s so difficult to understand for the average person, the average person.

Um, you know, we’re bombarded with all this formulaic, very, very simple, simple music. That’s the stuff that ends up on the pop charts, right? Uh, so something that’s, that technically difficult like , you know, even in the seventies when music came out, uh, in, in the eighties and even in the nineties, I think it started change in the nineties.

Remember when you had to like, listen to something a few times before you liked it. Like, like, that doesn’t happen anymore now. I mean, you, you, the music is created in such a way that you listen to the first time and you’re hooked. And that’s how it’s created. It’s, it’s not, uh, it’s not the same, you know?

And, and I think that, I think that’s the difference between music. I think a lot of people ain. Uh, I mean you say that about fighting, it’s the same in everywhere. I think that everything has become more entertainment. It’s built for the entertainment value of it, rather than [00:13:00] just for the love of it. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I love it. Yeah, and you can always tell, because listen, like I said, copying is fine at the very beginning. We all do it. We copy our teachers, it’s fine. But at some point you have to look at yourself and say, would I really do this? Like, that’s all I’m saying. Would I really do this? Because under pressure, um, real pressure, talking game pressure, the game is on the line pressure or.

For more serious matters like a military people, like your life is on the line. Like that kind of stuff, right? Like that, that’s a lot of reality for people, right? Any of the first responders, every time they go to a call, you don’t know what you’re gonna face. It can be, people may not understand that ambulance, police, firefighter, whoever gets their first.

Somebody calls 9 1 1. Whoever gets there first is responding. And if it’s violent, it’s violent. If it’s, if it looks calm, but then becomes violent like you, their, their lives are on the line, uh, in many cases. And you, when you’re that kind of a person. You are gonna be ’cause you [00:14:00] won’t care. You’re gonna be who you are.

Right. It that’s not just for old people. You know, you meet those old people that just don’t care. Right. They just tell you if they don’t like you tell you to go to. I love, that’s so funny to me because they, they realize they don’t care. They finally reach that point where this is who I am. If you like me, great.

If you don’t, I got this way somehow. You know? And if you want to care to understand how I got here. Right. So as a teacher, I try to, I try to really understand who somebody is. So I’m, I’m teaching an art of course, but I’m also trying to understand the person and seeing how we can bring them together.

Right. And if you ever watch those shows, like the Voice. It’s really amazing how these top level singers look at a person saying, I, I, I, you’re, you’re playing somebody else’s song, but I want to hear it your way. I don’t wanna hear that person. I don’t wanna hear Billy Joel. I want your version of Billy Joel.

And then what, what those professional, you know, uh, you know, [00:15:00] singers are, are, are analyzing is, is the authenticity of that voice And it’s like a, a, somebody looking at a painting, is that a Rembrandt, you know, like. Man there, a lot goes into it, right? If you got, if you are comfortable with your voice and you’re comfortable with who you are, and you can sing somebody else’s stuff in your way, that’s what I want.

That, that I think is a good life. Like you, you’re finding your way. ’cause there is no purpose that that serves Canada, the world, anybody. If you’re just copying somebody all the time, there’s just no purpose.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: It’s just you. It,

Tim Melanson: gets you,

Emmanuel Manolakakis: yeah. The old, the old.

Tim Melanson: figure out what your style is, right?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: the old, the old Greeks used to say, when you need a hero, like when you need a hero in life, you need him now.

Not you don’t have time to train him. So who is a hero? A hero is somebody who sees things differently that nobody’s prepared for. This is the whole kung fu panda. [00:16:00] This is the whole how to train a dragon. The person was absolutely different from the, from the society and, and the enemy or the, or the problem was not ready for them. And that’s how you are victorious. And, and that says so much. Like I, that’s why I I, when I see teachers, especially with young kids, because I teach kids too, and again, here’s a whole other story. I didn’t want to teach kids if we all, I didn’t wanna teach kids, but I’m so good at it. Um. Because I don’t treat them like kids.

I imagine them as an adult. I, I fast forward to the 5-year-old, 10-year-old boy and I say, or girl and say, what do you like at 21? How do I get you to 21? That’s what I do when I teach kids. I can’t teach them at that age. Because they’re just annoying. Everybody is, is lying there that what I’m trying to do at that age is not get in their way.

Don’t, don’t change them if they’re, if they’re like loud, try to get them to quiet down, but don’t take the loud from [00:17:00] them, like that’s their voice or that’s their way. Right. Kids change so much, but people always try to correct them and then they’re, they always feel they can’t be who they want to be.

Feel that, right. Don’t take that from them. That’s the, that’s their gift that was given to them. So try to teach a kid and seeing how they’ll grow and connect the dots. That’s what a teacher should be doing, not just for kids, but for adults. The same thing. Kids are big men are just big babies. Come on.

They break. They’re all the, they’re all the same. You know?

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s funny. Yeah. You take

Emmanuel Manolakakis: for, we all are.

Tim Melanson: the adult and you take the adults and you treat ’em like the

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yes. Yes. A hundred percent. Uh, 100%. And they love it. The, the adults are so tired of adulting. They’re so tired of it. They, they wanna play more. They’re tired of being right and wrong, and they, they just wanna play more for sure.

So,

Tim Melanson: So now you mentioned earlier that, uh, you know, when you get into, uh, you know, sports, music is the same. I mean, you, you, you get, you can practice all you want, but then you get into the, to the game or [00:18:00] whatever it is, and unexpected starts to happen, and all of a

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Oh yeah.

Tim Melanson: you know, everything you practice is not the same.

So how do you practice? How do you get ready for the unexpected?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: great, great. Absolutely, great question. So you, your training has to be like that. So I, I remember, uh, watching, so I, I did, I did quite a bit of bodyguard gigging as well, so I, I did a lot of close protection work, celebrities, musicians as well. I, I won’t say their names. I’m, I’m obligated not to, but I, I still remember one musician, uh, guitarist, great guitarist by the way.

And. Nowhere. He’s, I’m watching him, right? He’s on stage. There’s, I don’t even know how many people, I’ve never seen this many people. I couldn’t run a damn mic across that stage. It was so many, I, I mean, which I was scared to just walk across the stage. Forget about sing. This guy was in the middle. He was in a rift doing just, and I was just enrolled by the, by the music.

And all of a sudden he just stops. He turns and grabs another [00:19:00] guitar and continues away. And it was like, and then I look and he broke a string in the middle of a solo, and he just seamlessly, I, I just noticed that he turned around, which like, that’s kind of an odd time to be turning around and grabbing a new guitar.

Without a hesitation, your training has to, uh, you have to say to yourself, what can go wrong? So let’s give you a martial art example, or even in as an entrepreneur, you can pick your examples. You pick a problem. So I could be in a situation with a person, all of a sudden what appears to be one person comes to more people, all of a sudden there’s three people or two people I’m facing or more.

How do I deal with that now? What would I do now?

Tim Melanson: Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Okay. Or all of a sudden, in the middle of everything, I, I hurt my hand, so now I can’t use my left hand. I can only use my right hand or. What happens if in the middle of this altercation somebody grabbed me from behind? Not even a bad person. It can just be a loved one trying to [00:20:00] pull me away from the fight, but doesn’t understand all that’s going on.

And that happens a lot. A lot of people in real situations, bodyguarding for sure, they don’t understand what’s happened because a bodyguard can see things much clearer. He is, that’s. He sees ahead of it. So most people are trying to calm things down, but the situation is escalating and we need to remove people and they don’t understand them.

So you have to look at those situations and and prepare for them. And you don’t have to freak out. You just have to say, what if? Okay, we do that. So I need to practice with one hand. I need to practice against three guys coming at me. I need to pro. What if a weapon comes out, okay, now I need to have some weapons training, and then.

You have to layer and it has to surprise you in training. Your training has to be organic like that. So if I was teaching a class, I’d be like, okay guys, um, you know, go on the ground and wrestle with each other, just one [00:21:00] person at any given moment. If somebody from another group feels like jumping onto the other group, they can. All of a sudden it’s a game. But what you’re doing is you’re preparing those people for things that will not go your way. That’s all. It’s, it’s not, I, I want all your listeners to understand this is an entrepreneur’s life. You, you have to plan everything can go wrong. Like the pandemic. Think about it. For me, the pandemic, I mean, as for martial arts, it was devastating.

Right. It was devastating, but I made it and I made it because I had really dedicated students. I got online, we trained outdoors, we figured it out right, and it was seamless for me. I didn’t hesitate at all. I, I didn’t. When things go wrong, right when they go wrong, they go wrong real quick, and you need a steady hand at that exact moment.

Right. Whether you’re a general in the military or whether you’re a [00:22:00] CEO at a business, you have to not be ready to be with cliches. You have to be ready to do the real work and, and be ready to adapt. Stay positive, but not false positive. Right. Not false positive. Right. Um, I had the luxury of training with quite a few, uh, military special forces and.

It’s, the stories they tell me are, are so funny. They’re not even scary. Like we’re talking about a unit that’s completely surrounded by the enemy and they’re pinned down. They’re waiting for help. They don’t know how long it’ll be. They’re just taking fire from all sides. Like there’s just no front.

There’s like, it’s all around. They’re completely surrounded. The only help is a helicopter that could come in and rescue them and it’s like a scene of a movie, but this was real. And they said, I go, God, what were you thinking? He goes, I don’t know. One guy started talking about how his wife is probably repainting their house.

Another one is probably saying how he’s probably trying to sell his car. Like I go, they’re just talking about normal things. Because it’s too [00:23:00] intense. We, you, you and, uh, I still remember that in my sports days we’d be talking about some of the funniest things in the middle of a quite serious game because it calms you down.

Right? And there’s a scene, there’s a scene in Saving Private Ryan, the movie where the unit was starting to fall apart towards the end of the movie. They were getting all over each other and that. And, you know, uh, Tom Hanks being the, the commander of that little unit that’s looking for, for private Ryan says, uh, to his sergeant, uh, what’s the, what’s the, the, the company had this toll, ’cause he didn’t say what job he did in his civilian.

So people started raise money to see when, if they reach him out the money, he’ll say what he does and he turns to the. To the, to the unit. And he says, uh, how much is the, the, the Tali? He

Tim Melanson: pod A.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: the pod, a couple hundred bucks. But he goes, he goes, I’m a teacher and everybody. Your teacher, like if for a moment it broke that [00:24:00] like, it, it, it normalized this thing, this craziness that is the war.

It normalized it for a second. It’s like he’s just, he’s a teacher and it brought them back to when they were civilians, they took them out of like this soldier mode of like constant pressure. So, um, a, an athlete that is at the highest level. Real high levels, not amateur levels. Amateur levels is different.

High levels, they, they don’t understand how to add pressure. They study how to remove pressure because too much pressure hurts them, much like a musician. What do they think about before they go on stage? They’re getting up, but they’re also calming down.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Right. They’re also calming down. So, um, and I, I’ve watched this, you, for all your listeners, look at those people in the Olympics.

It’s a great event. Highest level, right? Pretty high. Pretty high level. Watch what a sprinter is doing before he is about to run or she’s about to run as fast as possible. They’re bouncing, they’re shaking out tension. They’re wiggling [00:25:00] their hands, they’re wiggling their feet, they’re trying to relax.

Nobody is saying they’re just trying to relax. And I’m the same under real pressure. I’m just trying to calm down and when I’m calm, that’s where my confidence lies. When I’m angry or tense, that’s where my fears go, and I don’t want to be in my fears. Right? There is a lot of things as a teacher that will piss you off and anger you.

Um, not just, not just the students. Lots of stuff life. Different obstacles that are put in your way as an entrepreneur, a lot of things will anger you. That is not where your best work lies. It’s not where your authentic work lies. The best a person can be is when they’re calm and relaxed. And it’s also, um, like I talked about, creative expression, right?

Creative expression is when you’re chill, man. That’s, that’s that. That’s when you come up with your song, that’s when you find a solution to this problem that is daunting, right? [00:26:00] So. I hope your listeners understand this. And so, as I was going along teaching martial arts, these threads were coming along.

Students were talking to me. You know, they were saying, oh my God, I, I’m going home showing my kids what you’re showing me. And I, I, I, I, they love it. I mean, you should start teaching kids, oh, I don’t teach kids. Oh my God, no. How, I can’t do this. I can’t do this. And then all of a sudden I sat down. What if I imagined them at 20 one’s so that I can do. Right. And then the fighting aspects of martial arts is an, is is another thing. Um, I, I can do that, but there came a point where I’m not really angry and the situations that I’m coming across don’t warrant a fight, but yet they are tough. So I realize that it’s inside your head. So we start working on, uh, mental training.

At that exact same time I was, I was doing very well in archery ’cause I was competing, I was still competing in archery competitions. And I realized how much of it is mental. And I really started to connect these dots. And I started showing a handful of [00:27:00] students this mental training that I go through.

And they loved it. It was, it was more important to them than the physical training. And I fully believe, um, that the future right now for all people. Going forward, past 2026 is gonna be a lot of, is being able to control your mind? That’s not a, is it? There’s just too much information, Tim, for all of us to be sitting here going that we can handle this.

This is like a crazy buffet. There’s no way we can eat all this food and people are trying to. And they’re just getting an upset stomach. They’re getting, they’re getting. And if people don’t believe me, just talk to any medical professional and look at the rise of A DHD drugs. Look at the, look at the rise of, of people that are going on, uh, medication for anxiety, for stress.

All of this is manageable. It’s just stop the information. Do, how much do we need? We have more information than a hundred years [00:28:00] ago. A president or prime Minister had, we have so much information. You don’t need more. You don’t. Last thing is you need more. If you wanna be happy for your listeners, you need less.

That doesn’t mean, that doesn’t mean be ignorant, doesn’t, doesn’t mean be ignorant or naive. It means you need less information and maybe more wisdom. Wisdom is the combination of I get some knowledge and then I practice, or I do that thing a lot and then I get a little bit more knowledge with a lot more action, and that becomes wisdom.

People just, they’re, this is, and this is not my opinion, this is the old Greek philosophers said this, they, they, they were the same, right?

Tim Melanson: Well, I think, I think, uh, I think you’re right. I mean, I mean this is a deep conversation that could go on forever, but, but I think that, I think that, uh, you know, back, you know, 30, 40 years ago, we really were only in contact with our bubble. And the, that bubble sort of [00:29:00] thought the same. We were sort of like similar.

And now with the social media and with the, the world becoming smaller, we’re exposed to everything all at once. And a lot of it

Emmanuel Manolakakis: In

Tim Melanson: the way we think. And people are getting triggered very, very quickly and focusing on the things they don’t like. Right.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Or they can’t control. Or they can’t

Tim Melanson: Or they can’t control. Yeah, exactly. And I think, I think that’s where it is.

I mean, when you, when you think about the people that are the happiest, it’s the people that just. Let it be, you know, whatever. I mean, they’re doing what they’re doing over there. It’s not really affecting, is it really affecting you? I think that that’s the thing is that they’re only being affected because they’re looking at it and they’re focusing on it.

Whereas before we didn’t even have the ability to see it. We might see it walking down the street, oh, I don’t like those people over there on the, you know, whatever, under the bridge, whatever it happens to be, and, and then they just kind of keep walking. But now it’s. It’s in your [00:30:00] hand, it’s on your screen, it’s everywhere, and you’re kind of going like, I hate that.

And, and people are not managing those triggers very well. So I think, I think, I think you’re, you’re into it. I think now is the time to figure out how to handle those triggers and, and, and not be triggered by it, right? Mm-hmm.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yep. No, go ahead.

Tim Melanson: so let’s get into your solo a little bit. Let’s, let’s talk about what, uh, what’s exciting your business.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: For me now, it’s the. A shift from when I first started martial arts, a very physical thing. And, and it was great. I mean, I loved it like that as well, but I’m realizing more and more now that it’s the mental side and I’m just, I’m, I’m really digging, helping people manage that side. And they’re like, it’s, it’s so refreshing for people to understand that, um, wow.

Because let’s say to be physical, you gotta go somewhere. You might have to go to the gym, or you gotta go outside and go for a run. Or if you’re in a cycling, you gotta get on your bike. And mental training can be done anywhere. This is what’s great. Like you, you, you have 10 minutes. You can just [00:31:00] sit down and, and, and just, and focus like the, the research on visualization training, which is, you know, maybe long time ago has been, I mean, Pele was talking about that.

I mean, it’s nothing new, but it’s now it’s gone like 3D like visualization is kinda like, okay, me imagining doing a sport and positive outcomes and that being real. But now there’s just so much more to. To that kind of training people starting to understand how deep the mind is. Right. And I, even, me, I’m, I’m amazed that like, it’s not just left and right half of the brain, but it’s, it’s like.

Really maximizing, um, what we do with this thing. And I really see the connection, um, to happiness. I really see the connection to, uh, performing at your utmost best. Like I, I don’t even care about winning. At all winnings like subjective. There are some, there’s some Archer competitions I won, I didn’t deserve, and there’s some that I should have won that I didn’t.

Um, winning is, [00:32:00] is I care about performing at my best. Like when I go to teach. I don’t, the class might not have gone as good as I would’ve liked. Maybe the students didn’t understand the lesson as as good as I would’ve liked, but I know that I, I did my best. I can’t control how it will be understood and really.

Dissecting that, that there’s this idea that we have a powerful brain it, but it’s hard to walk around and just tell people, look at my beautiful brain. You know, it’s much easier to say, look at my six pack. Right? You, you know what I mean? Like, look at my big arms. The problem with inner work mind, like mind and the, and the spiritual stuff, like inside of us.

Nobody can see this, but that’s also what makes it so special. What, what makes your home so special? Nobody sees this. You invite people in and who comes into your house? Only the people that you trust, right? So the inner workings of your mind and, and your spirit. These are places that very special and we should treat them like that.

A long time [00:33:00] ago, I, I grew up in them. I’m a 69 baby, so I grew up like, you know, mostly in the eighties were my, my teen years and everybody in Scarborough and in Toronto in those days, you know, if you’re Greek, Italian, Portuguese, European, you had that nice room. This is, you only went in that room when it was like, you know, Easter, Christmas, you know, that was the good room.

You know, that was a very special place where you went to celebrate over. And, um, the mind is a very special place. It’s a place that only you go really, and, and you go there to find your authentic self, not to copy other people. So I’m really excited about the mental training. I, I think it’s, I think. As a society and as people living in Toronto, for me, my students, this is gonna be the hardest part of living in a big city.

Not the physical ability of it, it’s the mental. So helping them navigate that is, is really exciting. Me.[00:34:00]

Tim Melanson: Wow. So I, I’m d different, I, I, I know that because I talk to people and, and I have no problem being alone with myself and with my own thoughts. However, I hear that a lot of people do have a hard time with that and.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: I like how you said that. I hear,

Tim Melanson: I hear

Emmanuel Manolakakis: yeah.

Tim Melanson: so, uh, uh, I’m wondering, ’cause this might actually be scary to those people thinking, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don’t think I wanted to be doing that.

Or maybe they want might be pushing it away. What would you say?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: 10 minutes. Come on guys. 10 minutes. You can’t sit still like you. I, I hope everybody listens. Do you understand? If you can’t say, if you can’t sit still for 10 minutes, you under listen. In Scarborough, if you rode the bus back when I was, before I had my car, you’re on that bus for like 30 minutes.

There’s, there was nothing to do, guys. Okay. Like I, little did, I know I was practicing 30 minutes of mindfulness. I’m doing not, I was so progressive. Back [00:35:00] in the eighties, you had no cell phone? No. You just sat there, man. You just sat there and you guess what? You looked at everybody. You were mindful, oh, there’s a woman that’s pregnant coming up.

I got it. I should get up. Let a pregnant woman sit down. Or, oh, there’s an older person come up. I should get up. Or you, you just take 10 minutes, man, sit down and don’t look at your phone. Breathe and just observe the world. Just observe it. It it just 10 minutes. It is beautiful. It is beautiful, um, to do that.

And it starts with 10 minutes, and I don’t want anybody to do anything more. I, I did it long time ago and I, I quickly made it 20 minutes. Like you should never, like, I, even though me and you are talking to people now, we’re asked, we’re we’re telling ’em some stuff. I am not a guru. I am, I will present information.

I want everybody to test everything I say and if it’s, if it works and it’s good [00:36:00] for you, please continue it.

Tim Melanson: Love it.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Come on. Like eat some good food. I dare anybody to have a little bit of cabbage with their meal, a dinner for a week straight, just a little bit of cabbage, and watch how their gut will feel. Great. Tell me you don’t. If you don’t like that feeling, well then go back to eating whatever you’re eating. So read something past something, eat something. Try some training to anybody that doesn’t understand how beautiful it feels to go for a 15 minute walk after you have dinner. If that doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. But I will. I will guarantee you, you’ll, you’ll enjoy it. That’s a wonderful practice. Very simple. So I’m all about starting very small. Letting things grow and enjoying it. Just like you’re planting a seed. Let it grow. Don’t, you don’t have to yell at it,

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: let it, let it grow.

Tim Melanson: So how do we find out more about you then?

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Uh, for me it’s really simple. I have, well, I have a book I’ve written, so if people [00:37:00] want, you can go, you’ll find on Amazon, it’s called Eudemonia the Highest Human Good. By a manual I’ll, I’ll, I’d be happy to. Uh, so it’s on Amazon, eudemonia is the name. Um, they can also go to my website. There’s fight club.ca and there’s another website I started off just after the pandemic, which is a lot more the personal growth, personal development.

Um, it’s called Masters method ca. And I’ve kind of put all my kind of more mental training. There because it seemed like there’s a, a different group of people that not necessarily want martial arts, but do want to want that training without the punches and kicks, which I get right. It’s not for everybody, right?

Not everybody’s a martial artist in a physical sense, but we definitely need, it feels like being a martial artist, living in, living in our society these days. We’re wrestling with so many issues.

Tim Melanson: Nice.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: is, there is that side of it, right? Um, yeah, those are, those are definitely the ways of, of getting in touch with me and just, um, I, [00:38:00] I want to thank you as well for putting me on the podcast.

It’s, it’s, it’s a wonderful way and for all the entrepreneurs listening, um, be adaptable. Find some authenticity. It’s not easy. I know it’s not. You’ve gotta sit quietly. You gotta go back into your history and look at what you did. Talk to your mother if you can. What did you do as a kid? How were you? Stay close to those things, right?

If I can do it as a martial artist, if I can literally play while I’m training, even when I’m fighting, because all of a sudden I’m very authentic. I’m not doing things I regret.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Because it’s, it’s like me to do everything I do. So please find a way. If I can do it in fighting, you can find it in your, in your business and in your personal life as well.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. One more question before I go. Who’s your favorite

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Yes. Oh man, you got so many. I rockstar. I, so I grew up in the eighties, so I listened to all kinds of music back then. It’s really hard. Uh, but I did watch the Rise of Rap [00:39:00] and I’m not a big rapper, but I watched it like NWA Public Enemy and I was like. What the hell is this? Like, it’s like you had Bon Jovi, you had, you had, uh, you know, Michael Jackson, you had you this, and then there was this thing that was like so different.

And then to watch the evolution of that music. And how it’s transformed. Um, I don’t think I, ’cause I can’t say saw that with country or blues or, I, I didn’t see that, but I was, you know, I was literally, that was exactly when I was a teenager and I still remember the people blaring some of that public enemy or, and it was like, what the, we were shocked.

That was like a, a very different type of music. So I think that one is the one that really sticks in my mind. It really, it’s, it’s, it’s really to watch something from the beginning and watch it.

Tim Melanson: Expand.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Expand, like, and, and the characters, and some of them are still around, which is, you know what I mean, like [00:40:00] Jay-Z and all these guys, they’re still around.

And to watch them mature, you know, same with Mike Tyson. I, I grew up boxing and, and he was the guy. And to watch him now what a, what a change. What a changed man, what a changed person, you know? Pretty awesome.

Tim Melanson: Love that. Well, thank you so much for rocking it with me today, Emmanuel. This has been a lot of fun.

Emmanuel Manolakakis: Man, been a lot of fun. Thank you so much, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you go to, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Today I’m talking to the CEO of Catalyst Growth Advisors, and what he does is he helps leaders take the guesswork outta growth. Excited to hear more about that. So we are rocking out today with Bill Flynn. Hey, Bill, you ready to rock?

Bill Flynn: Ready to rock.

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

Bill Flynn: Yeah, well, um, we do good and, and actually your good and your bad note are in the same story. So can I, can I do that?

Tim Melanson: they often are.

Bill Flynn: Okay. So, um, the reason I do what I do today is because of this story. I, uh, so I did, uh, I’ve, I’ve done 10 startups here in the Boston area over about 25 years, all in high tech and, um. Between start of five and six, I was asked by my then wife and daughter, do I need to do another one right away? ’cause they, you know, they take a lot of time and energy and, and things and, and I had done pretty well. I was, I [00:01:00] was, uh, I think four for five at that time. Uh, and. Uh, so I said, no, I don’t. I, so I, I took time off.

I spent a lot more time with my daughter. She was, um, like seven or eight, something like that. And, um, one I, but I was still known in the area and people heard that I was now free. And so I would get calls and can you come help me and do this and do that? So one of the calls was from an old, um, um, CFO friend of mine, and he was doing a fractional gig with a, with an email hosting company.

And he said, you really gotta help this guy. You know, he’s really struggling and whatever. So I met with him. I said, uh, yeah, I’m happy to help. Uh Uh I’m expensive and I only work Monday through Thursday between 10 and two. I said,

can you do that while I’m sort of off off? Right.

Uh. Because, you know, I wanna drop my daughter off at school, then I go work out, then I go pick her up and we do stuff and whatever.

So, so, uh, that was great. I did that. Um, he [00:02:00] eventually, he said, look, I wanna sell the company. I’ve been doing this for a whole bunch of years. I’m tired. Uh, I just wanna, can you help me? Make me look as big as you possibly can so I can get as much money outta this as I possibly can. So I’m like, great. So we. You know, hired a bunch of people, put together some, some strategy and, and some frameworks and stuff. And about a year later he got bought for a good amount of money, enough for him to never have to work again. Uh, and then I was asked to take over, uh, so this was 2008 and, uh, my first official day as what would be general manager, uh, was, uh, January 4th, 2009. And I like to describe it as the best and the worst day of my professional life, which is sort of the good, the good and the bad note

together. Uh, we didn’t deliver email to anyone for about two and a half days because the entire technical infrastructure that he had built, and I had been working with him and collapsed on itself due to the volume that it wasn’t ready to handle. [00:03:00] So the company that bought us knew that the system needed to be upgraded, et cetera, but you know, they didn’t realize it needed to be done that quickly. And so they were sort of taking care of that. But I had 60 people working for me, thousands of customers. Uh, so I’m like, you know, what do I need to do? I need to fix this and sort of help all these people. And, um, I, I had a bunch of good CEOs that I had worked with in the previous years. I’ve been a big fan of business anyway, I’ve been reading. For years, decades. And so I had all sort of these ideas, so I’m like, all right, well let’s give ’em a go. And so I basically cobbled together a system. And for those of you, and you may know this, Tim, uh, there’s a system out there called EOS. And, um, I basically made my own EOS because I wasn’t smart enough to know that it was already out there. So I made my own and it worked fabulously, uh. You, you can look at, you can look at my LinkedIn and see all the wonderful stats that I have up there. You know, we doubled the size of the business in about two years and I didn’t lose any of those [00:04:00] 60 people. Um, we increased the average order size. You know, we had customer stats scores that, you know, were, started off lousy of course, and then really good. But the best part was this, I sort of, um. I had a team and then I inherited a bunch of people and you know, none of us had been through this sort of disaster before, and some of them hadn’t really been leaders of anything before. Uh, so I said to them, look, uh, we need to figure this out. We have all these people relying on us. I said, look, I don’t, I’m technically adept, but I don’t know how to run a network infrastructure. I’ve never run customer support before. I’m not a finance guy said, but. You know, so I, you know, I need you guys and I can’t really tell you what to do ’cause I don’t know what to do.

But I can tell you sort of what I would like it to look like when we’re done and would love to discuss debate and decide that with you. And then I need each of you to then say, okay, if that’s sort of our ultimate goal, what’s your piece of it? And I need you to sort of draw me the map from where we are. To where, what you need to get to, where you [00:05:00] want to be, and then we’re gonna work together to, to do that. Um, and you know, as I said, it worked fabulously well. Uh, and so about 18 months later, I left to go do the next startup, which would’ve been startup six, I guess. And two of the guys came up to me and they kind of said the same thing to me when I was always leaving was, I just want you to know, bill, that thing you made me do that roadmap, you made me create, hated it.

It was really, really hard, but I’m so glad you made me do it because now I know how to do this right? It’s sort of like sort of a teach ’em to fish kind of thing. Um, so that really sprung me into what I do now, which is I, I now do that with other leaders. I teach them. How the best businesses in the world work, because by the way, they all work kind of the same way at a certain level. And so that’s sort of what I do and I love what I do. It’s a calling. I wish I, I wish I had been doing it longer. I’ve been doing about 10 years. It’s just a blast. Um, time flies when I work with my clients, you know, I, [00:06:00] it’s, uh, it pays really well. So it’s, uh, so that’s my good note and my bad note.

Tim Melanson: So what did you learn from the bad note, I guess?

Bill Flynn: Uh, uh, what I learned is that most leaders, uh, don’t know what they’re doing. It’s not their fault. Uh, they’re being taught the wrong things.

There’s a huge gap between what science knows and what business does. Um, we make lots of mistakes. We don’t make big, huge mistakes very often, but we make. Little ones that just add

up and it makes our lives so much harder than they really need to be.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, the compound effect, right?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, exactly.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. If it was a big mistake, you’d notice it right away.

Bill Flynn: Yeah.

Yeah. You know, you, you hire that one person that, you know, they looked good and then all of a sudden, you know, nobody likes ’em and they don’t work and then, and then you don’t do anything about it. And then they start hiring people. It’s like, it just becomes an issue. That’s just one [00:07:00] of many things that we do. Uh, and because, you know, we were taught to, you know, to hire for skill and knowledge, and that’s not the way you should hire a loan, right? You said yes, that’s important, but to be honest with you, it’s less important than hiring them for belief and, and fit,

uh, values. Uh, you can teach ’em skills and knowledge, but you can’t teach ’em how to be, how out of integrity or honesty or whatever.

Tim Melanson: I can’t agree more than that. That’s, that’s actually something that has come up many times on the, on the show where people will make hires based on the, you know, picking the best of the best and it just ends up not being a very good fit. Um, but like, what about friends? Should you hire friends?

Bill Flynn: Uh, you can, but you know, it’s gonna test your friendship. Especially if they work for you. Um, so what happens is I hire people and then, then they become friends,

and then I hire ’em again. Right. But, but we know, like the dynamic, right? We know that, you know, I [00:08:00] have certain style, I do certain things and you know, my style is basically to, to set direction and then. To say, Hey, great. Do, do what you do and then tell me if you need me.

Right? I’m gonna check on you every now and again. I, you know, I’ve been calling it eyes on, hands off leadership, right? Is, is, you know, I’m gonna keep an eye on things, making sure things are going well, but I’m gonna keep my hands out of it unless something happens and I need to, but, you know, uh, so so that works. But if you don’t set that up ahead of time, you know, there’s gonna be, it could be difficult.

Tim Melanson: So then what are some of the, I guess, processes that you put in place to avoid some of those mistakes that you know led to your bad note?

Bill Flynn: Yeah. Well, how long is your show?

Tim Melanson: So that’s a

whole course then.

Bill Flynn: yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So at, but at a high level, uh, the thing that I’ve learned over 30 years of, of, of research and business and really intensely in the last 10, you know, I, I might be the world expert in what I do. I don’t know, [00:09:00] uh, ’cause I’ve been studying business from multiple perspectives for about 10 years and. Uh, not only just, you know, business itself, but you know, neuroscience and behavioral and social psychology and all of these things that go along with running a great business because I found that there are three things that seem to be the, the biggest factors in whether you have not a business that survives, but a business that thrives. Uh, and there are few of them. There aren’t that many. Uh, there are outliers, but it’s doable. Uh, and it’s, and it’s been proven over and over again. So it’s, it’s not like we can’t do it, but as I said earlier, we just don’t. Um, and that is, uh, so, so there’s a, there’s a methodology called scaling Up. That I use as a foundation.

Some of your listeners may know what it is, and, and there are four decisions that they talk about, which are people, strategy, execution, and cash. And so people is the most important, but people is three different things. It’s the individual, it’s the team, and it’s the culture of those three [00:10:00] team is far more important than either of the other two

Tim Melanson: Okay.

Bill Flynn: because most people are on a team. And most people will stay in a horrible culture if they’re on a great team and actually will leave a great culture if they’re on a bad team. So the team is really the core of what you do and, and we never teach people how to be great team leaders. We put ’em in charge. But we don’t teach them how, you know, what it worked, how, how do you attract and, and dev and craft and then develop and exit people from a team. We don’t teach any of that. And that’s sort of what I do as well. So that’s one big factor is this team factor is huge. Then you have to have some sort of system, right. Um, running a business. Uh, so a business is a system, but it’s not just any kind of system. It’s what’s called a complex adaptive system like the human body or a city, uh, et cetera.

These are complex. There are so many factors that are involved that affect the system, and [00:11:00] there’s no way to just sort of say, this is it, and we’re done, because then something changes and then, you know, the system is affected. So you have to understand that, that this, you have to sort of run it like that, but you should have one. Right. You should run your business in a systematic way, which most people don’t. Um, they do the, they make the same decision over and over again. You know, they, they, they solve the problem and never say, well, what caused that problem? And we

should solve that so it

doesn’t happen. And go back to the root.

You know, there’s just so many things that we don’t do ’cause we’re busy and whatever. Um, so, so you have to have some sort of system. Uh, I, I teach a system. I call it the performance operating system. It’s to me, for me, the, I cobbled together the best parts of all the things that I’ve learned. Uh, and it seems relatively unique, but it’s really based on Drucker Deming, sche McGregor, Bennis, Porter Edmondson.

It’s, you know, all these management science people that have been around for a hundred years, really. Um, and then the last thing is, if you wanna measure how well you’re doing. [00:12:00] Revenue and profit are not your measurement. Cash is your measurement. If you wanna grow a business, cash is your primary financial metric. Why? Because it’s the only thing that won’t lie to you on your p and l or your balance sheet. You can, you know, certainly have revenue that is, you know, vanity, right? But it doesn’t mean you’re running a great business. Profit is great, but you can fool yourself on profit. You can move money around and seem profitable and whatever.

Or you can actually grow. In such a way that you grow broke, right? You’re growing and the profit’s there, but the profit, the cash is too far behind the growth. So you grow broke, uh, because you’ve grown so fast, you actually put yourself out of business, right? So those are the three things you need, team, some sort of system, and then cash.

If you focus on those three things and optimize those three things, you’re in the best possible position to have a thriving company.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that’s amazing. Wow. So much gold. So quickly. Well done. Uh, I have a question though about, ’cause you mentioned so many startups that you [00:13:00] started up and uh, you know, I know a lot of entrepreneurs kind of do a bunch of different things, but I think. Probably it’s more normal that they do a bunch of things because the fir, the, the first thing failed and then they go to something else and they go to something else.

Um, but I talk to more people more often that have that one business that they’ve been doing forever because now it works. Right. W when you go into those businesses, did you go into them initially with the intent that you were gonna be leaving at some point or. Did it just, you created these systems and then it was just easy to leave.

Like what? What was the mindset going into them?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so, um. You know, you hear, uh, these things like what’s your superpower or your zone of genius or whatever, right? And we have all these wonderful little phrases for stuff. Um, but to me it’s really the thing that lights you up or turns you on or whatever, you know, gets your juices, whatever that thing is.

Right? And for me it’s puzzles.

I just love [00:14:00] puzzles. Uh, I have a brain that just loves puzzles, right? And, and so I do puzzles all over. I mean, I, I have the New York Times. You know, crossword and, and app and I do all, all those things. You know, a startup is just a big puzzle. You know, I love Mensa questions and stuff like that really challenged me.

I love watching detective shows and trying to figure out, you know, as I go, like, what’s, what’s gonna happen? And I love it when I don’t, right? It’s even, uh, because it’s fun. It’s like, ah, I never, that’s a cool way to do it. Um, so, so that’s what got me into it. Um. And so what happens when you’re good at puzzles and you, and you’re good at startups, uh, the people who know that want you to do the another one.

Tim Melanson: Uh,

Bill Flynn: So like, so you like, you know, you get an

IPO or you get an acquisition and they’re like, you know, great. Now do this one, right? And, and can you make us some more money? And all that kind of stuff. So that’s sort of what happens is you get sort of into this thing. I don’t necessarily go into a thing, I’m gonna leave at any particular time, but. You know, when it becomes routine, it is, it’s, there’s less puzzle there, right? It’s

your, you know, there is some puzzle, there’s always a puzzle, you know, [00:15:00] people are puzzles. I mean, we’re crazy by default and, you know, and sort of all that. And I find that fascinating. Um, but I do like the figuring out parts.

So, um, now I get to do it. I’m not doing startups, but I’m, I’m sort of going into a company and I’m helping them figure it out,

right? So it’s a new thing every time with them. Uh, so that’s sort of. That’s sort of the, the, the, the way I’ve approached it so far.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I really like that. And you know, I think, oh, oh, well that’s the thing. Once you solve a puzzle, it’s solved. It’s not fun anymore. Right. Like quote unquote. And you know, I don’t know if this is too deep or not, but maybe what you said earlier about how most entrepreneurs or most business people don’t.

Look at why the problem happened. They just keep on solving the problem as they happen. Maybe that’s why maybe they don’t wanna solve the puzzle. Maybe they don’t wanna leave. Right? They want it. They want it to keep on living in that chaos,

Bill Flynn: Could be. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you

Tim Melanson: least subconsciously.

Bill Flynn: chaos. Yeah. Who knows? I mean, there are some, they love the drama, right. And, and whatever they feed off of that. Um, most [00:16:00] entrepreneurs I know don’t,

Tim Melanson: No. No.

Bill Flynn: they would, they would rather it be, you know, a, a little less hard

because, you know, it makes your life more difficult.

And, you know, you don’t, you don’t, you don’t want to have your, your work. Be your whole life, right? Is, is, you know, we talk about work-life balance and I don’t think that’s a thing at all. There’s no balance in work and life, right? It’s, it’s, you know, sometimes one pull thing pulls you in the other and you have to integrate them, right?

So the integration is important, um, but you’ll never have balance. Uh, and, but especially if you are, if you are sucked into what I call the, sort of the tyranny of the moment, right? This is a problem that most leaders have is they get sucked into the tyranny of the moment and there are lots of them, and they feed off of that, right?

Is is that actually they like being the solver and the decider and

whatever. But then they don’t create, you know, they don’t, I have this concept, uh, that, that’s in my next book, which is [00:17:00] sort of the, the, the hero trap, right? We have this trap that we like to be the hero. And, and by the way, you know, especially in western culture, individualism and all that is, it’s part of our thing, right?

Is the hero is, is all lauded. Um. But in a business it doesn’t work. ’cause, ’cause the hero doesn’t scale. At some point you run out of hours in a day or brain cells or whatever. Right? So, uh, this concept I’ve come up with is, you know, you have to sort of, sometimes it’s good to be a hero. You have to be the hero. You have a particular skill or there’s the house is on fire or whatever. You gotta go in and just do. Right? Um, but it, but if you just do and then go onto the next thing, then. The house will catch fire a different way, and then you’ll have to go do it again. So, you know, it’s like once you do that, you should then teach and say, okay, here are the people that need to know, here’s what I did, here’s how I fixed it, you know?

And so now they’re learning at least how you do it, right? So there’s this controller, which is the hero, then there’s builder, right? So the controller is [00:18:00] iol. The builder is I teach, and then the architect, which is really what you want to scale because that is infinite in scale, is, is I build systems that make me unnecessary for the running of the business. Uh, and that is what you drive towards. So this is Reed Hastings at Netflix. Um, uh, uh, this is um, Jeff Bezos at Amazon. You know, pick your. You know, company that has grown crazy in the last 10, 15, 20 years. These are architects. They’ve built systems that don’t need them for the day to day ’cause they’re looking out into the future.

And that’s what you should be doing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, and that is a superpower and that is something that I think is missing. Misunderstood by the majority of the population. You know, thinking that these guys make way too much money or whatever it is, and maybe they do, right? Uh,

do they need that many billions? I don’t know. But on the other hand, that is a superpower.

I mean, [00:19:00] they have been able to do something that very few people are able to do. Otherwise, everybody be doing it right.

Bill Flynn: Yeah. Yeah. And so very few people are architects, right. And, and you’re not, so it’s, it’s not like you’re one or the other. Some you have to don the, the identity, depending on what you need. Right? Sometimes Jeff Bezos had to go in and. Do something right. But, but he never stopped at that. He said, okay, you know what happened here?

And, and eventually, ’cause those of you know, like there’s 14 principles in the Amazon system. And now Jassy, who’s the new CEO, he runs like six Fortune 500 companies

on his own. How can you do that? I mean, they’re all worth billions and billions of dollars each, but he runs them as he’s the, he’s the CEO of all of them,

uh, because Bezos and the team and et cetera put all that in place over, you know, years and decades.

So he can, I.

Tim Melanson: It’s fascinating to think about it that way. Really. I mean, you, you’d almost think that in a way, these people are lazy [00:20:00] because they’re trying to figure out ways to make their company work without them. If they get pulled into something, they’re like, I need to figure out a way to not be pulled into this again.

And, and, uh, it’s

just, it’s just, interesting how that works. ’cause I mean, that’s probably why he’s able to run so many different companies because he doesn’t need to be pulled in very often. He is figured out how to, how, how to replace himself, right?

Bill Flynn: Exactly. Yeah. There’s, there’s a, there’s a Prussian General, and I can’t remember his name, Vaughn something or other, and he said, you know, what kind of offices do you look for? He says, I want lazy and clever officers. Right? ’cause I want them to, to be smart enough to know, you know, that, that their job is to not. Do a lot of stuff. Right. Uh, and that’s what you’re kinda looking for, right? That’s what a, a lazy and clever leader is probably the best kind of leader you want. ’cause they’re constantly, I, I was, it’s funny I did that with, I, I said that to once to a VC person and she said, you know, tell me about, you know, what you do.

And I said, well, I’m basically lazy. And she like, she looked at me and it’s like, you know, that’s a bad thing. And it’s like, no, no. I said, here’s why I’m late. I said, I don’t, you know, my job is to create an environment where I’m not necessary.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.[00:21:00]

Bill Flynn: Because if I’m a leader of the company, my job is not the running of the company.

It is at the beginning, but it’s to figure out, like whenever I started as a VP of sales, I would, I would be the sales guy, right? And I would do, but I’m learning, right? And I’m learning, you know, how does this work? And, and so what kind of salesperson do I need to hire to replace me? Uh, and then I can teach them like how I do sales and how I think, and all the, you know, ’cause I generally had an unusual way of doing sales, um, which really worked really well. Um, that’s why I would teach them when I do that, but then I’m like, you know, go, you know, let me know if you need me.

Tim Melanson: Love

Bill Flynn: Um, and, and they were all different. Like one was really relationship oriented. One was a, technically was a perfect technical salesperson, you know, I’m like, I don’t care how you do it. I have two rules.

Be honest and responsible. As long as you follow those rules, do it any way you want, you know? So

Tim Melanson: The world is changing really quickly right

now, and especially with something like AI coming in and, uh, that comes up quite often on the [00:22:00] show. Uh, I’m wondering, you know, how do you think that changes the role of the CEO or the business owner?

Bill Flynn: Yeah. So, uh, you bring this up. It’s interesting. So, um, there’s this term, uh, that we used to be in, which was called vuca, a VUCA environment. Are you familiar with this?

Tim Melanson: Nope.

Bill Flynn: Volatile, uncertain complex, and I forget what the A is. Um, and this was sort of like, hey, this was, came outta the war college here in the United States, you know, this is how leaders had to be thinking about this.

You know, the, the rules of war have changed.

You have to understand it, be adaptive and you know, et cetera. Um, and we’re no longer in that. And actually we’re moving from that to what’s called banney, which is a brittle, anxious, non-linear and incomprehensible.

And the, the poster child example of this is Silicon Valley Bank. I dunno if you’re familiar with what happened with Silicon Valley Bank, but, but $425 [00:23:00] billion was withdrawn in 24 hours

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bill Flynn: because the leader did what he always did. Like he, he shared with his, um, team and with the world, Hey, something’s happening. We’re fixing it. And he’d let everyone know. And then Peter Thiel didn’t like it. And so he said, I’m taking my money out and so should all of you. And because you could just get on your phone and just withdraw billions of dollars. They, you know, just, and he didn’t do anything differently than he hadn’t done for the previous 40 years. But all of a sudden, you know, people were anxious.

You know, he thought he had a system that worked, but it was brittle. And then the incomprehensible happened. You know, this one little thing, which could have been fixed in a basically two months, they would’ve fixed it sunk the bank.

Now they’re owned by some retail bank in North Carolina.

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bill Flynn: Yeah,

Tim Melanson: Wow.

Bill Flynn: crazy. And, and [00:24:00] actually, um, my partner works for Silicon Valley Bank and while we were in Mexico, all this was happening. So I got a first row seat to everything that was going on that first week. It was crazy.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Yeah, so this is probably a little alarming to to many people

that,

Bill Flynn: AI is just exacerbating it, right? AI is another factor in this. You know, like how, how can this, you know, all these things that it now can do, um, you know, how well or not is a whole other thing, but, you know, how do I incorporate it? You know, it’s just another factor. It’s just an accelerant. And so that’s why you have to build your systems and it’s not, you can’t really plan.

You can certainly plan. And have a plan, but know that your plan could change at any moment. So what you need to do is not rely on the plan, but rely on your ability to adapt quickly.

Those people will be the ones who survive, not the ones who are like, we got a plan, it’s five years, you know where we’re going and we’re just charging ahead and we’re just gonna put our blinders on, [00:25:00] and whatever. You know, that’s Blockbuster and Nokia and Kodak and you know, the dust, dust, spin of technology.

Tim Melanson: Well, and, and I, I see a lot of that right now because, I mean, as AI is making its way in, I, I don’t know what it’s gonna look like in a few years. I’m a tech guy and so I do follow this stuff, and who knows? I mean, there’s, there’s a lot of a alarming stuff. There’s a lot of exciting stuff, but whatever it is.

E Either way, it’s going to change how we do life in the next little while, just as drastically as how the internet has changed how we did life from then to, to when the internet came. Uh, however, the speed at which things change is going much, much quicker. And so I think that what I am seeing is I’m seeing this divide of people that are embracing.

And, you know, going full steam, maybe even too fast. [00:26:00] And then there is a group of people resisting. And I, I think probably the sweet spot is somewhere in the middle. If, if you totally dug, dug your head in the sand, you might end up being a blockbuster. That just didn’t

see that things were changing. Right.

Uh, however, if you, if you go too quickly, you, you might end up failing for the opposite reason. Now you’re actually letting AI run your business for you, which may not do a very good job. Right. Is that how you see it too, or?

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so I would say it is sort of like, like you’re crossing the street and you see that the signs is, is. Says go. And it’s like, oh, I trust that it’s always been right, et cetera. But you know what, sometimes someone doesn’t see the light and while you’re focused on the thing, you get run over.

Right. So, you know, I think putting your head in the sand is, is dumb.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: Right? It’s, you know, and, and you sort of catastrophize like it’s gonna take over and Terminator and all this kind of

stuff and, you know, is that a possibility? I guess so. [00:27:00] You know, but it’s, it’s, uh, it’s, it’s something, it’s not the reason to not do it. Right, because we, we have been in fear of so many things in the past that yes, they caused problems, you know, but we’ve, we found ways around them and we figured it out as a human, as a human being, you know, will we exterminate ourselves?

I don’t know. Right? But we haven’t so far, and so we know it, it has so many more useful ways of, of making our lives better and easier. And, you know, I gotta tell you, uh, I don’t like writing and I’m an, I’m a writer. And now I can write much better. ’cause I, I love editing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, me

Bill Flynn: So I say, you know, here’s all my writing that I’ve done for 10 years now I wanna write a book about this, this, and whatever.

So gimme some words and then I’ll change ’em, you know, make sure they look like me. And I’ve written six books in like six months. Uh, and I get the first one’s gonna get the, the next one is gonna get published in October. Right. And I, I, I never would’ve written a book ever again. If I didn’t have Claude or chat GPT or [00:28:00] whatever, you helping me. So it has so many wonderful things. It just makes, it just takes a lot of the, the, the the harder stuff that’s unnecessary, uh, and automates it. But it also augments, right? I mean, I have great debates with, and ai, you know, I’m talking about politics and religion and, you know, and I learned something about the brain.

I’m like, Hey, doesn’t this work? I just, today I’m on the way to a client. And I’m learning about how, uh, epigenetics causes our systems to, uh, for trauma to be, um, adopted by the next generation. And it’s physically a, a change in the genome of the genes, how they’re expressed in the next generation. So. You know, maybe that’s why they’re more anxious or have these other issues. And I’m like, well, how does that work with DNA and, and you know, and, and Darwinian Rev evolution and, you know, and, and you know, it’s, I get to like just ask a quick question and it’s like, and I learned all about, oh, it’s really not the same. It’s, you know, it’s, it’s similar but it generally dies out. You know, it’s certainly an issue, but [00:29:00] it’s, it doesn’t change your code. You know, I never would’ve been able to do that before. I did it in five minutes while I’m driving.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: I mean, that’s cool.

Tim Melanson: It is very cool. I, and I think that that part there, the voice activated stuff is the coolest of it all. ’cause I mean, I’m a, I’m a great researcher. I love using the internet. Uh, however. Can’t do that when you’re driving or when you’re taking on on a walk. You can’t bring your laptop with you everywhere you go.

But I mean, just to have a headset in or have it on your, on your car and just be driving around and having these conversations as though you have access to all the information ever is mind blowing to me. And

it definitely allows us to grow much, much quicker. Right.

Bill Flynn: It does, it does, you know,

but you gotta be careful, right? As I just say, I say, so I’ve got four tools that I use. I use Grok Chat, PT, uh, Claude, and, um, Gemini. And I actually use ’em against each other, right? I’m like, I heard this over here. I’m like, you know, tell me why this is wrong and uh, et cetera, you know?

Uh, but I describe it, it’s, you remember, it’s a [00:30:00] 14-year-old precocious boy who’s on drugs and hallucinates and lies on a regular basis.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Bill Flynn: You have to know that, and don’t just accept its first answer,

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Bill Flynn: but if you do challenge it, et cetera, it’s, you know, it, it, it has no, it has no emotion. Right? So you’re just like, you know, that’s not right.

You know? Or where did you come up with that? I’ve told that all I, I, I, I joke right regularly with it. I’m like, I, I’m, I say I’m writing a nonfiction series of books. Stop making things up, right? Because I’ll say, where’d you get that stat from? What do you mean? Like, can you, can you gimme the source? Oh, there’s no source.

I made it up. Like, no, that’s not how it works. But,

you know, this is honest. Right? It’s like I made it up. Like I said, stop doing that. Gimme, gimme some content that is not a lie. And we’ll, we’ll throw that in.

Tim Melanson: and we can’t hurt

his feelings, even though we’d like to sometimes

Bill Flynn: Oh, I’ve

sworn at it a couple times. Oh. One time I remember a clot, I was just getting totally frustrated ’cause it was coming up with the same thing.

I’m like, and it would say, I, [00:31:00] I would ask it, tell me what I need to tell you so I can get what I need and then I’ll tell it and it doesn’t do it anyway.

And then I had sworn enough times into it, it came up with a thing. Uh, it maybe we should take a break this box. I’m like, oh, hilarious. It’s like, there must be some code in there that says, okay, if they swear you three times in a row. Tell him to go get a sip cup of water and hang out for a minute.

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. Oh, I love it. So let’s talk a little bit about, uh, about getting fans. ’cause I mean, another part of the world has changed. I mean, social media’s taken over everything. I mean, everything is different now, and I’m, I’m actually wondering even just from your experience, how is it different getting fans now as opposed to maybe 10, 20 years ago?

Bill Flynn: So mechanically it’s different, but fundamentally it is not.

Tim Melanson: Perfect.

Bill Flynn: It’s exactly the same. So, um, [00:32:00] there’s a, uh, theory called Jobs to Be Done. Are you familiar with this?

Tim Melanson: Uh, no.

Bill Flynn: Okay. So it’s been around about 30, 35 years. You are familiar with it because you’ve seen it in action. Uh, have you seen the Snickers commercials?

Tim Melanson: I have.

Bill Flynn: That is a jobs to be done model. So, uh, one of the gentlemen who was the progenitor of jobs to be done was hired by the company who, who makes Snickers. And they said, look, you know, we’re, we’re just trying to grow the business, et cetera. And he said, okay, great, I’ll do some research. And he said, look, the, your, the people who buy Snickers the most don’t see Snickers the same as they see Milky Way. Milky Way is an indulgence to them. It’s like cups, cookies, and cupcakes and whatever. Snickers is a food substitute. That is why they buy it, for whatever reason. Right? Some irrational reason of all this. Sugar and candy, whatever is a food substitute,

but that’s how they see it. So that’s why they changed it [00:33:00] to satisfaction. Right. And they have tripled the sales of Snickers. Because they understand why someone buys the thing. Right? Um, and there’s another, there’s, uh, even more famous, uh, example. Uh, Clayton Christensen, who was a Harvard Business professor and is one of the, he’s the, the, the creator of the theory. He took the work and made it a theory.

So a theory is something that you can apply to anything

and it works, right? The Pareto principle is a theory, right? 80 20 rule, right? And you apply it to your closet, to your friends, to your food. It’s pretty much true, right? 80%. If you have a hundred friends, you see 20 of them, way more than you see the other 80.

Tim Melanson: Yep.

Bill Flynn: All the things you eat, the clothes you wear in your closet, you wear the same clothes most often,

right? So, uh, so this theory, uh, was applied to McDonald’s, right? So McDonald’s was, hi hired Clayton Christensen’s, um, consulting firm and said, look, we wanna sell more milkshakes, [00:34:00] you know, can you help us? We here, you might be able to help us.

He said, sure. What? Here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna observe for a day. And so they, they, they observed the whole whatever, 20 hours that this thing was open, and they said, here’s what we found out, that 80% of your milkshakes are purchased before 8:00 AM and between three and 5:00 PM. And they’re like, really?

Like, yeah. So they went the next morning and, and asked a bunch of people, what did you hire this milkshake to do for you? Right? Because that’s what we do. We hire products. And services to fulfill a job for us. And when they fulfill a job, we keep hiring them. And when they don’t, we fire ’em and hire something else.

So they found out that the ones in the morning said, I have a really long commute. It’s super boring and I’m not hungry when I wake up, but I know I’m gonna be hungry before I get to work. So I stop off, I get a milkshake and it, it’s super thick. It takes me like 20 minutes to [00:35:00] drink the whole thing. And I, by the time I get to work, I, you know, I can make it through to lunch.

Tim Melanson: Huh.

Bill Flynn: and they said, well, what else have you hired in the past to do this? They’re like, oh, you know, I hired a banana, but you know, the peel gets all over my hands and it gets, sticks on the wheel and tired. A bagel with cream cheese, but you know, it’s dangerous. And you know, the thing, crumbs go everywhere and I’m getting cream cheese in my pants, you know, and, and you know, some say like, hired a Snickers bar, you know, but I felt guilty. Because I was eating candy, you know, and I’m, and I’m thinking, you know, well, you’re eating milkshake. It’s the same thing.

Tim Melanson: Milkshake is candy too.

Bill Flynn: But, you know, again, we’re, we’re irrational as

human beings. So they said, great. Um, so they went back to this, this franchise owner and said, look, you know, when, when, when they first, they said, when you first tried to increase your sales, what did you do?

And they said, well, we talked to our clients and we asked ’em what they want. And they said they wanted a chunkier, you know, more chocolatey, you know, whatever. Um. Thicker, you know, whatever. And, and they, they made all the changes and the sales didn’t change at [00:36:00] all. So they didn’t really want that, and they didn’t value that.

What they valued was this thing. So they said, okay, so here’s what we’re gonna do. And this was a long time ago. Before, you know, um, apple Pay and all this kind of stuff. So what they did is they made a whole bunch of milkshakes in the morning and they put them out on the counter. ’cause one of the other complaints they had was they go through the drive-through, but it’s, everyone’s getting a milkshake and it’s long.

The line is really long. They said, look, you don’t have to sit in the line. We’re gonna put ’em on the counter. You don’t even have to talk to us. Just come grab your milkshake, swipe your credit card and go. And sales went up. Yeah. Now same product, three to five in the afternoon. This is now dad with his progeny, right?

And he wants to be the cool dad. And the kid says, can I get a milkshake and whatever? And they say, well, all right, what do we do? But don’t tell mom, you know? But you know, the milkshakes were in these horrible cups that, you know, kids who didn’t have motor skills yet with crushing this milkshake would go everywhere. You [00:37:00] know, it was, you know, there were all these other issues. The straw was too small, their muscles in their mouth weren’t good, so they changed how they delivered it. They made it smaller, so dad felt less guilty. They put it in a sippy cup basically with a big fat straw, and sales went up. Again.

They didn’t change the product at all.

They changed how they delivered it and how they packaged it. So that’s how people buy. We’ve been buying that way forever. But we don’t do it as, we don’t, we, we think we know what’s best, but we don’t ever really figure out what they want or what they value, really more than they want. So that’s the fundamental thing.

Now how we do it is, you know, we have social media, we have, we have, you know, events. All the things that we do have changed, but the fundamental reason why people buy is still the same.

Tim Melanson: Oh, I love that. Bill. It’s time for your guest solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business.

Bill Flynn: Yeah, so for me it’s, you know, it’s this stuff, you know, so [00:38:00] I, I, I love, so I, I’ve been studying this for, for so many years, and I just think it’s a shame that really good ideas, really good people, and really good businesses fail or struggle for completely preventable reasons. And now that I, I can sort of write about it and, and doesn’t. You know, just to stress me that I, it would take me forever to write a

book. Now I can write them really fast. I can now put them down and, and share them because I think, you know what, uh, we’re gonna see in the next five or 10 years if I’m, if I’m right. But I think even the, the management science that we have today is still not correct for the banning environment that we’re in. Right. So, like Michael Porter is seen as the father of strategy. Um, and he’s an HB HBS professor and he’s, you got the five forces and he said that operations shouldn’t be part of your strategy. And I think he’s wrong, and we’ve proven it because when you, you can, you can operate in a unique way that actually augments your strategy.

So I’m extending his thinking [00:39:00] there,

you know, so I’m, I’m, I think I’m extending thinking in a bunch of different areas and hopefully what I’m writing will help people. So that’s what excites me.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Well then how do we find out more then?

Bill Flynn: My website is catalyst growth advisors.com. Um, my current book, I dunno if this, this is video, but my current book is on there. You can actually download it for free if you want, if you wanna read a PDF or you can go to Amazon or, or um, audible or whatever to buy it. And

then my next book will be out, uh, hopefully in October. I’m actually, that was self-published. My other one, I actually have a real publisher now and I don’t know how it works. And so it’ll be, I’ll be in like airports and bookstores and whatever. Um, but mostly, uh, you can, you can find me there at Catalyst Growth Advisors, I write an article twice a month. I have a 50% plus open rate on my articles, so people seem to really like it. Um, all my stuff is there

Tim Melanson: That’s amazing. Well, right on. We’re gonna have to check that out. That book was called Further Faster, right?

Is that what

Bill Flynn: further, faster.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Right on. [00:40:00] So maybe the hardest question of the whole day, but who’s your favorite rockstar?

Bill Flynn: So it’s interesting, um, it used to be James Taylor,

but I, I’ve, and I still am because we talked about music. I play, I played acoustic guitar. I kind of sound a little like him as well. Uh, when I sing. Um, and I just love his, his fingering. I love his lyrics. I love his approach to things, but I’ve really gotten into Billy Joel these days ’cause

I watched his biopic and I just so much more appreciate his music and, and where he know, just like James Taylor.

James Taylor doesn’t read music and he, he actually, you know, learned incorrect how to. Play a guitar, but the way he plays it obviously works for him. And Billy Joel’s the same way. He’s a little tiny guy. He’s got tiny little hands, but man, he, he, he knows how to write a song. He knows how to, everything comes together.

His melody’s great. So he’s probably, right now, he’s currently my favorite. I, I listen to him, I listen to him on the way here from my, from my client thing [00:41:00] ’cause, and I’m just like screaming in the car because he’s got some great, great lyrics and

Tim Melanson: Oh, yeah. He’s such a great songwriter. I’ve got quite a few of his songs in my repertoire. Uh, but I, I did read once about him. He said he didn’t. He didn’t really wanna be a singer. He was trying to write these songs for other people, and he just kind of got thrust into it, and I find that amazing. Really.

Bill Flynn: Yeah. So yeah, if you, so have you seen the documentary?

Tim Melanson: I saw parts of it. I don’t think I saw the

Bill Flynn: Oh, I would see the whole, it, it is fascinating.

It, it. is really good. It’s, it’s like five or six hours long, but it’s so good and it goes through his whole life and. You can see how he transformed from what he was doing. So he really learned how to be a great songwriter.

You know, he, some of his early songs were okay, but he really got into it and, and he has synesthesia, so he is got an advantage over most creatives, you know, so he is, you know, my daughter is synesthesia, so that has helped him. But still, I mean, he, and he’s like, he just has a great work ethic and he, you know, he just went at it.

[00:42:00] And so, um, I would highly recommend, it’s just fascinating how he. He should have been so much better. But you know, he drank way too much and ruined all

these lives in his life. And my guess is he would still be married to Kristi Brinkley if he didn’t drink.

And who wouldn’t wanna be married to Kristi, Frank and Brinkley, even if she’s 60 years old or 70 years old, she’s still gorgeous.

Right. Um, anyway, so it’s, it’s, it’s just a fascinating human story as well, so.

Tim Melanson: Absolutely. Well, I’m gonna check that out for sure then. Thank you so much for rocking out with me today, bill. This has been a lot of fun.

Bill Flynn: Good. Yeah, me too.

Tim Melanson: Right on to the listeners. Make sure you, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time with the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to the co-founder and CEO of Viral Ideas or a marketing company. What they do is they provide video editing services, uh, for people who wanna boost their video presence to different social media channels. So I’m , super excited to be rocking out today with David Feinman. Hey, David, you ready to rock?

David Feinman: Tim, I’m ready to rock. Always ready to rock.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. Tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

David Feinman: Yeah, so I actually started my business around 11 years ago with $200 and a single client. Um, and me and my co-founder, like, like came from like very humble beginnings at the start of the business. Um, you know, we, we started right after college. And built it up to where it is today with 45 employees and, you know, hundreds of clients.

Um, so I, so I, I think, I think, you know, I, I know a lot of your audience is just starting their business or looking to start something or maybe just a little bit into it. And I think one of the most important things to do is, is [00:01:00] if you have an idea, you use to just start it right and, you know, not, not delay on it, right?

Like there’s, there’s so much success to be had out there and you know, you really can start with just a seed.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I think that’s funny that, uh, you know, a lot of people will spend a lot of time trying to iron out the perfect idea before they get started, right? And then what ends up happening is that it all changes once you get started, right?

David Feinman: Yeah. And, and the thing you’re doing starts to shift, shift the shape and, and get better over time, or at least it should. Right. You know, and I think. If you’re looking at, hey, you know, you wanna at, at the very basic, the basic, you want to make something and ship it. One, one of my favorite entrepreneurs, Sarah Blakely, talks about this all the time.

She’s like, in the beginning of her business, what she found at Spanx, like, all she did was make something, ship something, make something, ship something. And, and I think at the end of the day, that’s, that’s how you should start, right? Because you, you could start getting money in the door. Start getting customers, you start learning really [00:02:00] fast.

Like the rate of learning happens a lot faster when you’re actually working with real customers as opposed to just like thinking about something. So yeah, I think I, I think there’s a lot to that.

Tim Melanson: I wonder if, um, I, I mean this topic has come up before and I wonder if the reason why people kind of delay and try to like, get everything perfect before they get out the door. I wonder if it’s more because we were programmed that that’s what a business does, or do you think it’s more of a procrastination routine of just not getting out there?

What, what do you think it is?

David Feinman: I think it’s, I think it obviously depends on the person, but I, I think it’s all those things, right? I think one, one of the. One of the number one things I see with business owners and like I talk to a lot of ’em every single week,

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

David Feinman: I think that they don’t know what to actually work on that’s going to move the needle forward.

And at the end of the day, the thing to work on that will move the needle forward typically is, is the largest bottleneck in the business, right? So if you’re just starting, the largest [00:03:00] bottleneck in the business is not having a customer. Right. Like, like without that customer, you cannot, you cannot sell something.

You cannot make the product, you cannot ship the product, you cannot deliver the product. You cannot give customer service. So, you know, when you’re first starting, like you’re looking to solve for the bottlenecks in your, in your process. And I, what, one of my favorite books, I, I, I don’t know if you’ve ever read it, it’s called The Goal, um, it’s actually a required read for Jeff Bezos, uh, Jeff Bezos’s, uh, direct reports.

I think I have it. It’s called the Theory of Constraints, and it talks about this concept of, um, it talks about this concept of, of improving bottlenecks and, and working on where the business is most constrained. And I think, yes, it is a delay tactic, but I think a lot of times it’s like people don’t know what to work on because when you’re first starting, there’s a vast sea of things to work on.

You could work on a logo, you could build a website, you can make business cards. And when, when I first started my business, I, I did none of those [00:04:00] things. Found a customer and pitched off a PDF, um, like a Google Doc. So, yeah. I’m, I’m curious, what do you think? Like, ’cause ’cause that’s, you know, I, I see that a lot too with, with new founders is like, they’re always, they always seem to be working on the thing that is not going to actually move the needle forward.

Tim Melanson: Well, and I, I agree with you and, and I think that like my start in entrepreneurship was. I, I won’t call it accidental, but I’ve heard that word before and it’s closer to that than anything else. It was more or less just, oh, you know what? I, you know, ’cause I, I was working in high tech. I ended up, uh, getting laid off from that.

I, I had a little bit of a severance package. I was dabbling in business. I didn’t want to go get a job, so I just wanted to do something on the side just to make a few extra bucks. And that’s the beginning of my business was. Just going out there and doing something right, though it was getting a customer and, and then that sort of progressed into something else.

And I think that, you know, when I’m interviewing people on the show, a lot of people, that’s how they started [00:05:00] by just getting customers while they were, while they were doing a job. Right. And it wasn’t that they, you know, sat down and they wrote a big old business plan and, you know, went and get investors and all that stuff, which does happen sometimes, but it it, a lot of people that have.

You know, that have made it happen, have done it through just getting the customers first and then, you know, maybe when they were trying to expand or maybe when they’re trying to grow, then they started to get serious about it. But, but I think that that, um, that that is pretty normal. And, and I think that it’s more accidental.

Like you, like it was more or less I just got customers ’cause that’s what I needed to do. I wasn’t, I wasn’t trying to build a business, but I bet you if I was trying to build a business right from the start. I probably would’ve done that. I probably would’ve gone and done a business plan and made business cards and done all that stuff.

Right, because that’s what I, I, I think you’re supposed to do. Right.

David Feinman: At, at, at the end of the day, like you are the business plan, right? Like, like when you’re starting the business and you’re out there on your own, you don’t have a staff yet. [00:06:00] Like you are the business plan. And, um, I I, I recently watched this interview with, um, the founder of Nvidia and he was talking about that he, he.

Early on in the business, he had this contract with Sega and it was like a make or break contract for the business. And they, they were doing the whole thing. They were, they were like creating something, they were making something, they were ship something and they were, they were building the chips and the, and the, and the foundation for the gaming industry and, and Sega.

And there was this, there was this like pivotal moment for him where he, uh, called the founder of Sega and told them that they weren’t going to be able to deliver on their contract and. By not delivering on the contract. This was gonna put Nvidia out, basically it was gonna put Nvidia out of business, right?

They, they, this was like their only, this was like their only pitch that they had to, to swing at. So he called the founder of, of, of Sega and he said, Hey, listen, I, I have two, I have three things to tell you. They’re all bad news. The first thing is we’re not gonna be able to deliver on your contract. The [00:07:00] second thing is, is I, I need you to let me outta the contract.

And the third thing is I need you to take the remainder of the money, the $5 million that. You were going to invest into that, that you were gonna invest into this contract. And I, I need to, instead of you having the, having that contract, um, I, I need you to invest it in Nvidia. ’cause otherwise we’re gonna go out of business.

And, and the the fourth thing is, by the way, even if you invest this money, like I don’t think NVIDIA’s actually gonna survive, but this will at least give us a shot to build what we wanna build. And the, the interesting part of this story is the, the founder of, uh, the co, the CEO of Sega. Called back, the founder of Nvidia the next day and said, um, I’ll tell you what, we’re gonna invest the $5 million and put that into Nvidia stock.

Puts it in the Nvidia stock, and um, you know. Obviously flash forward a couple years. Like there, there’s a bunch of stories about how that, like how he stretched that money and created the new methodology to create chips [00:08:00] with that, with that, uh, with that five, with that $5 million, with that resource constraint.

But what ended up happening is that that 500, that $5 million was ended up being worth like 300, $300 million when the iPod, it was like one of the greatest, greatest investments of all time. Um, and had they kept it to today, um, it would’ve been worth probably close to a trillion dollars, which is insane.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I’d never heard that story story before. That’s amazing. Wow.

David Feinman: All, all to say like, to connect this back to like their, the original topic is like, uh. I heard this and I thought like, I kind of like, obviously I’m not like building chips or doing anything like as complicated, but like, wow. Like even the entrepreneurs that you like think have it all together are simply just making something and shipping something.

Right? And, and they’re just kind of figuring out too, right? Like they’re, they’re on the precipice of, of moving at the speed of what they understand and what they know.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Wow. Okay. Wow, that’s amazing. Alright, well let’s talk, talk a little bit about the bad note. ’cause I mean, there was a few [00:09:00] of them sprinkled into that story, I imagine too, because you know, like you say, I mean, things just don’t always go as planned and sometimes you have, you have some bad news. I’m wondering, was there something like a big, you know.

Failure, quote unquote, that you had on your journey that you can share with us and how you recovered.

David Feinman: I mean, there’s been so many, so many over the years, there’s been failed hires, there’s been failed moments. But the largest failure I think I’ve ever had, uh, was back around 2020. And, uh, we had, we had, we had the first blow in 2020 where we almost lost. We lost 80% of our revenue overnight. Uh, and then we had a second blow with a partnership that we entered into that ended up going wrong.

And we, we, we almost lost everything in our business, all our staff, all our, all our contracts and our, our business almost, almost went to zero. And I, I’d spent, at that time, I, I’d spent five, five years building the business and you know, I, I was sitting on a park bench with my business partner and, um, him and I looked at each other and I’m [00:10:00] like, like, what do we, what do we do?

Right? Like, like everything, every, like we, we, we, you know, we, we had this amazing business and now we don’t anymore. And, you know, we were doing, uh, like an amazing amount of revenue. And, and now we have none. We have six months of runway, right? Like we have six months of runway left. Um, like how do we figure this out and.

He’s like, he’s like, you know, we were looking at each other like, what would we do? And I, I, I said back to him, I was like, well, there’s two options here. We can quit that, that that’s an option. Or we could dig our heels in and, and keep going. And, um, I’m glad we chose the second path. ’cause you know, now that six employees, we have that and it turned into 45 and the, you know, four customers we had then have turned into 300.

And, you know, it’s, it’s, um. I, I think, I think those moments of failure are like the largest teaching moments that we’ll ever have. Um, you know, and I think I am, I, I can look, I can look you dead in the eye [00:11:00] now and tell you that like the, the, the partnership that led to that, I am so grateful for like, like from the bottom of my heart.

I’m so grateful that person did what they did to me because it has taught me so many lessons. Um, and it’s put me where I am right now. So.

Tim Melanson: Wow, amazing. And I think that that’s kind of the thing that a lot of people need to hear is that those really, really, really bad things. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s how you react to it, really what it comes down to, because I mean, stuff like that, when it happens to you, you can either. Be done. Right, and, and, and start complaining and maybe even litigating.

I mean, some people end up in these long battles with somebody that they think did something wrong to them when, I mean, you could go down that route or you could just let it go and move on and grow from it, right?

David Feinman: the, the thing with litigating right, and. I, I’m, I’m not a lawyer, I don’t think this is legal advice, is there’s a finite cap on the amount that you can earn from litigating and [00:12:00] you might not even collect on the amount that you litigated for. And there’s, there’s an infinite amount that the lawyers can charge you to, to, to solve the problem for you.

So at the end of the day. If there’s an infinite amount of money you can make by just digging your hands in and building versus, versus like, versus fighting. Like, like you could fight yourself to the death, like, like if, if you want to, or you can build yourself and like bring yourself back to life. So like, you know, I always thought I was talking to a buddy actually yesterday.

He was like, man, I have this client, I did all this work for them and they stiffed me outta $12,000. And like I, I’m sure, like, I’m sure like. Every entrepreneur listening to this, if they’ve been in business a long enough time, has been stiffed by a customer. Like, like, I’m, I’m sure you have stories to him, like, you know, and I said to him, I was like, listen, you just gotta let it go.

Like, like do one last Hail Mary send, send him a, I sent him like a template of what to say to the guy and I was like, I was like, just, just let it. If the day you let it go, it’s better for you. Like it, it’s better. It’s better for you. It’s better for, it’s, [00:13:00] it’s, it’s better for that other person, you know?

And at the end of the day, like you are going to learn more from just letting that 12 grand go and, you know, moving on and, and going and making $50,000.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think, I think my. My thought behind it too is that I, I, I think some people think that they’re getting stiffed because this person is this rich person who has all this money and they just don’t wanna give you any of it. But I think the more likely scenario is that they actually don’t have any money and they’re stiffing you because they’re actually struggling.

And I, I think that that’s like what you just said. If you go litigate that, sure you might win the case, but if they have no money. Then you’re, you’re not gonna get it right. It is just, you can’t squeeze wet juice out of a rock. Right.

David Feinman: Yeah. For, for the most part, what I’ve, what I’ve found, right, like with, you know, with stuff like this is, you know, the, the, the people that e even if someone, even if, even if the good business person is dissatisfied with something, which, [00:14:00] which over the years, like I’ve been dissatisfied with vendors in general, I’ll just pay the bill because it’s not, it’s not worth, it’s not worth my time.

To like, to squabble over, over something small. And you know, I, I found that most e even if most good business people are, don’t like something, they’ll just pay the bill because it’s, it’s just easier. And so like the, the person that you’d be fighting with to try to collect on something that, that you were, you know, wronged by, or like, like you’re trying, you’re, you’re bucking up the wrong tree.

Like, you know, you’re buck, you’re bucking up a bankrupt bank, you know, like there’s no money there.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Let’s talk a little bit about the band now. So, uh, you know, for you, I mean, you mentioned that you’ve got a, a, a pretty decent sized team. That’s, that’s awesome. So, uh, I’m wondering actually one thing. First, did you consider being a solopreneur ever, or did you all go into it saying, I’m gonna build a business with a team and I’m gonna, I’m gonna have employees or contractors?

David Feinman: We started out with. Contractors and interns and stuff like that. So like we, we started out, [00:15:00] you know, it was me and my business partner and like the first couple, the first couple months, the first year, we just kinda like, I would sell something, he would deliver it so that we use contract help and, and labor like that.

And then eventually, like it said, okay, like, like we, we have this one specific thing we’re selling over and over again. We keep using contractors. It’s inconsistent for us. It’s inconsistent for clients. So like, let’s, let’s start bringing on people full time to, to work in the business. So yeah, like when, when we started out, we, we.

We consciously decided to that, that it was gonna be more than, than me and my business partner.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Okay. And now what did you, what, who were the first hires, I guess, that you had, that you were bringing in? Were they, uh, like junior type people, or did you bring in experts right off the bat?

David Feinman: Yeah. The, the first hire I ever made was, was an intern. Um, and, and, and to be honest, I think, I think like everyone hires the wrong person first. Like, like if, if I was to go back in time and like. Look at myself and, and say, Dave, like the next person you should hire is like someone to optimize your time.

Right? Because like [00:16:00] at the end of the day, I think it’s harder to hire like the further up the food chain you go. Um, and, and Dan Martel actually talks about this a lot. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of his stuff, like the, the, the first hire you. Should do is like someone that handles the administrative work, not like someone to leave the work, or not someone to deliver the work, but like someone to take the administrative burden off of you.

And then you could take that time and you can, you could spend more time like selling or you could spend more time like delivering quality work and like, I, I, so, so I think you should almost optimize the business around your time versus, versus trying to like put the people in place to do the work. And like as you, the further, the further up the, the value chain you go, the further up.

The, for the higher dollar value it costs to like replace that amount of work. Like, um, so, so I, I think that’s the first hire that you should make. But it was not the first hire that I made.

Tim Melanson: And so the first hire you made was an intern to do the work like at the bottom then, right? Yeah.[00:17:00]

David Feinman: Correct,

Tim Melanson: And, and how did that, like, did you, uh, realize at some point that that was the wrong hire to make, or you just

David Feinman: No, no, because at the end of the day, the intern we hired, like, was good at doing the work. So like, like, like, like it did help us like the, like the, we were able to deliver with the intern. Um, but w was it the sequentially right. Order to hire people? Like No, like, it, it, it, like, we didn’t have processes in place for, for that person to follow.

And, and, you know, that person didn’t get like an, like an opportunity to like really thrive in the organization because they, they. We’re a little too early for me to hire that, that specific person, and there was, there was nowhere for them to grow into either.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think that that’s a, that was a realization that I had made too. I, I had made it higher a few years ago and realized really quickly that I didn’t have any process to give them the work. It was like I ended up having to work triple to figure out what to tell them what to do. Right. It was [00:18:00] just, it was just totally backwards.

Right.

David Feinman: Yeah, I think eventually like, like, like as, as our business scaled up, like everything becomes a process and the things you don’t think could become a process. Like, you know, even like two years ago I was like, oh, if there’s ever like a client that doesn’t like something or they’re angry, like I have to deal with it.

Like it’s, I’m the only one. I’m the only one that can handle your clients. And then like, we made a process for handling angry clients. That would be the same way that I would. And like, you know, we have a ton, just to be clear. We have tons of happy clients, but like, if you run a business for a long enough period of time, like you’re

Tim Melanson: Oh, someone’s gonna,

David Feinman: unhappy with, someone’s not gonna be happy with something.

So, so we just codified the way to handle it. Like we just created a, like a process and an escalations process that goes through like. Two or three layers before it hits me. And then like, you know, I only see the really bad stuff that’s like that, that, that needs it. And like, you know, we make, you know, 600 videos a week.

Like there’s gonna be one or two that people are like dissatisfied with, right? Like so, [00:19:00] um, so that you need to have a process for dealing with it and a process for your employees to follow. Otherwise, they’re. They’re just gonna throw their hands up in the air and go, I don’t know what to do with this.

You know? And you assume that people, you assume that people can do it, and a lot of times they can figure it out on their own and they are smart enough to figure it on their own. But if they have a guide to follow it, it makes it so much easier. Like, like it’s, it’s, it makes you move with so much speed and, and, and intensity in, in the process.

Tim Melanson: Agree. So what do you think it is that you can do or that you should be doing as a CEO, right? That nobody else in the organization could be doing? Like what? What’s your special role?

David Feinman: That’s a great question, and it’s, as the business has grown, it’s something I’ve wrestled with, right? Like, like I, I think depending on the stage of the business, like, and I’m, I’m curious your thoughts on this too. Like when I, when I was, when I was first starting the business. I had a title on my business card that said CEO, but, but it didn’t mean anything.

I, I just, I was just like an, [00:20:00] I was more of like a business owner. I would, I was doing everything right, like, um, and as the business has grown, like I have like, like my key responsibilities are like, you know, focusing on the, on the vision, like setting a roadmap for my team to follow of where we’re going next, right?

So it’s like looking into the future. Right. Seeing where I want to be in, in a month, in, in two weeks in, in a year, and giving my team the roadmap to execute that vision. Um, and then I, and then I also look at it as, uh, the, I, I am, I am, you know, I, I always view, I always like leading from, from, um, you know, the concept of servant leadership, right?

Like serving, serving the employees that, that work, work with me every single day. And, um, you know, I, I have my direct reports who then like. Everyone else in the company reports into. So, you know, my job is to empower them to do their best work and to coach them and to, and to help them do the best work they possibly can.

Um, so I, I, I really think, like, at the end of the day, like a, a [00:21:00] CEO’s role is to still lead the people, um, that lead the business. Um, and I think that a CEO’s role is to focus on growth. A CEO’s role is to, is to. Be a strong leader. And it’s also to make sure that they are not the blocker in the business.

Right. That they are not what’s holding the business back. ’cause a lot of times I think the, the ceiling of the business owner is the, is the growth. Blocker in the business. Like, like right, right now, like I’m trying to unlearn and relearn, unlearn, and relearn some new things because in order to get to the next level, like, uh, I don’t have enough of an ego to think that I am like almighty CEO, that can like, that can like, that knows how to do the next level to things.

Like I’m humble enough to know that like there’s someone better at me that could teach me how to do it and you know, I don’t need to like. Pay down ignorance tax at the level that I’m at, and I can, I can have, I can reach out to someone else to help me figure out how to get to that next level.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I think that’s, uh, I think that’s, that’s [00:22:00] exactly it. And, and I, I think you’re right that many people will take on that CEO role and it either means they do everything and they’re, and they’re just, you know, taking it on for whatever reason because they think that that’s. You know, they’re, they’re running the company, so they’re doing all the work.

But I think you’re right. If you look at some of the big, big companies and you sort of model after them that CEO is not flipping the burgers anymore, right? At, at some point maybe they did and, and maybe that’s how they got to that point, but. Uh, but the CEO, like you said, I think is the visionary. They’re the one with the, the bird’s eye view sitting on top of it all.

And they’re, they’re, they’re directing the ship. Um, and I think also the CEO is a culture setter too. They’re, they’re the one that’s sort of like setting the, the, the, the rules, I guess or the, or the, the roles of people in the organization. But I think you’re right in saying that. If the CEO is a bottleneck at any point in [00:23:00] the organization, well then you’re, you’re stuck, and, and that’s what you gotta get outta that role, right?

David Feinman: Yeah. And, and, uh, I, I remember last year I sat down and I, I was, I was talking to a, to a coach and I was like. I was like, I feel, I feel like I’m, I’m creating some friction in the business. And they’re like, well, like why, why are you creating friction? Well, you know, I feel like I’m getting involved in everything.

And they’re like, and, and, and, you know, I feel like my, my, I feel like it’s, it’s my staff. Like they’re not, they’re not getting involved in everything. They’re like, don’t ever say that again. I was like, what? Don’t ever say it’s your staff’s fault. I was like, it’s your fault. Right? Like, it, it’s, it’s your fault that.

That they’re not empowered in the right way and they don’t have the guardrails and they don’t have the processes and they don’t have the systems to execute what you want them to execute. So you gotta go spend the next three months and go build that next month to go build that. And I think a lot of leaders are hamstring by their own anxiety, their own, their own shortcomings.[00:24:00]

And I think I always like to just. Tell my employees like, Hey, this is what I’m stuck with. This is like why I am having trouble moving past this thing. And I think you’d be shocked at how your employees, like your employees believe in you more than you think. Otherwise they wouldn’t work there. Like there’s million places to work.

So I think you’d be shocked at how your employees are like, we will just like put their arm around you too as a leader and be like, Hey, like I got this part of the business. Like what do you, what do you need for me to. For what do you, what do you, what do you need to be comfortable with, with me doing this task so that you don’t have to butt your head in every five seconds, and I think your employees will, like, your employees will help you get there.

Right? Like, you know, I think it’s about changing your vernacular to like having someone work for you and having someone work with you, right? Like you’re working with them, you’re not, they’re not working for you, right? Like you’re, you guys are walking alongside like, you know, all pointing in the same direction.

That’s your job as the leader and you know, you’re, you’re trying to get somewhere.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. [00:25:00] Yeah. And I think, I think looking at, uh, organizations from the outside too, I think that there’s a lot of that, that’s where a lot of the negativity comes from in looking at CEOs and going, well, that CEO looks like they’re doing nothing. And you’re like, you’re like, that’s not fair. You know, they’re making all the money and they’re doing nothing.

They’re not doing nothing. Actually, if they look like they’re doing nothing, it means they’re probably really good at what they do. They’re, they’re being a good visionary. They’re being good at actually empowering their people, and that’s not, that’s not easy to do as, as you mentioned, right.

David Feinman: No, it, it, it requires, um. It requires an aggressive amount of personal self-development to be able to get to the point where you are a good leader. And I think it’s easy to look at some of the leaders of, of the largest business in the world try to tear them down because like they make too big of salary or they like, you know, and, or they, uh, you know, or, or they just had to go through like a round of layoffs.

Like all that stuff. I think you can like [00:26:00] look at. You can look at leaders and be like, oh, they’re, they’re, they’re a failure. But I think it’s, I think it’s hard because, you know, you’re sort of under a mic every move, every move as a leader, you know, especially as the larger the organization gets. Like every move is sort of like, is sort of clocked by everyone.

Like everyone’s sort of got their own little speedometer and they’re all watching you and they’re all like, you know, checking out. I think it requires you to be super, super, like in my opinion, I think it requires you to be, come from a mindset of ser servitude, right? Like serving the people that are.

That are working for you, and I think it also requires you to be super humble, like super, super honest about where you are.

Tim Melanson: I agreed. Tell me, where did you learn all this? Like are you, do you hire coaches? Like are you reader, like where does it all come from?

David Feinman: Yeah, I I, in the beginning, I paid down my ignorance with time.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.

David Feinman: I’ve always been a reader, right? So like I’ve, I’ve, I’m always reading something like some book. [00:27:00] Um, and you know, like on a bookshelf beyond here, I have like dozens on a bookshelf in front of me. I have hundreds of books that I’ve read over the years.

So that’s, that’s like one way. And then I, I also have, I have coaches, right? Like I have, um, I have coaches and I have mentors, right? So I have, uh, people that I’ll call for, for different things and like coaching calls that I’ll have, you know. I, I have two separate coaches that I’m working with now. One that’s more specific for my business, one that’s a general business coach.

And I think working with people like that and actually listening to what they say, right? Like a lot of times, you know, if you find a good mentor. The goal is to like, follow the roadmap. Like listen to what they say and execute it and like, just, just follow them, right? Like, you know, and, and follow what they have to say to help you get to that next level and you’ll see the results.

So, so I think that that is, that has been a huge unlock for me. It’s like, you know, any problem, I, I’m comfort in that, comforted in that any problem that I would have, my, either one of my mentors or one of my [00:28:00] coaches has already had that problem. And so there’s no problem that I can’t solve, and because I have coaches and mentors, there’s no problem that I can’t solve, uh, virtually within a week because, you know, or within a day or within a phone call, um, because the, the mentors and coaches can, can help me get to that next level.

Tim Melanson: Right on. No, and and I think that. I think that probably a lot of the, uh, struggle with people in, in the entrepreneurial role is that they’re used to being leaders, and when you say you hire this mentor and you have to follow them, it means that you technically have to be a good leader and a good follower in order to really have some good success.

Right.

David Feinman: I, I agree. I think, I think when I was, when I was early in my business, I, I had more of an ego that like I knew everything. And then I think the more you start to know, the less you realize people you do know. And I got to the point, um, where I’m like, okay, I just need to like get help and like listen to that help and, and be humble enough to know that like.

[00:29:00] Someone else can just get me there faster and like, you know, now it’s like, it’s amazing how fast you can move when you have the right help.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And that makes perfect sense. And all the, you know, all the greats all have coaches and they all have, you know, mentors, right? I mean, that’s just the way it works in the, you know, business world, the sports world, the music world.

David Feinman: my gosh. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Right. And, and it just is what it is. But then for some reason in the, you know, the regular employee world, it’s like we, we think we know, you know, it’s, it’s weird,

David Feinman: Yeah, I, I agree. And I think, I think, um, there, there, there’s this one great book called Trillion Dollar Coach. It’s about this coach, uh, bill Campbell. And he coached every single, like Silicon Valley. Great. Like he was, he was Eric Schmitz. Um, uh, one of the founder of Google’s, um, he was, he was Eric Schmidt’s executive coach.

Um, oh, I, a, sorry, Eric. Eric Schmidt’s like the, the C-E-O-C-E-O of, I don’t think Eric was the founder of Google. I could be wrong. Fact, check me

Tim Melanson: We’ll fact check that. Yep.

David Feinman: Um, [00:30:00] uh, he’s either the founder or the CEOI can, I can’t quite remember which one, um, but belong to that the, the founding team of Google had this, had this coach was really the glue for them, um, named, named Bill Campbell.

Um, and there’s a whole book about on how he sort of like, called people in, in the right way to, to help them, to help them get past things. And, um, it’s, it’s fascinating to see how. A lot of these hard moments were pushed through because of a neutral third party in the room and a and a party that, a party that kind of like, they’re not the visionary, they’re not the executor.

They are simply the person that’s guiding, guiding the person down the, down the right path. And I think that’s a really important and overlooked role in a business. Um, and no matter where you are, I think you should have like, like even someone who’s early on in business, like. You know, let’s say you’re starting and you have $0, remember five.

Find someone that has $10,000 in revenue and pay them a hundred dollars a session to [00:31:00] coach you like, like, you know, find someone that’s like a little bit ahead on the journey. Like you might not be able to afford the coach that’s $20,000 a year or $40,000 a year you can afford the coach. That’s, that’s.

Like, like $1,200 for the year. Like, like, and, and take that person’s advice and listen to their road back to get you the 10,000. And once you’ve gotten grown past that coach, find a coach that got to $50,000 a month and you know, listen to that coach and then, you know, follow teaching. And so on that line.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome advice. It really is. And you’re finding somebody that’s just slightly ahead of you. ’cause I think, I think that’s the thing is some people will spend way too much money on a coach that probably is way too far ahead of them, you know, and, and sometimes that actually can be.

An issue because this coach is not used to working with people that are just getting started. They’re used to working with people trying to break that, you know, 10 million barrier. Right? And that’s just not you right now. So the things that they’re gonna tell you might not be something that’s even applicable to you at [00:32:00] this point.

So you’re better off to find somebody who’s just slightly ahead of you, right?

David Feinman: Absolutely. And, and it’s also so important that like once you’ve hit some, some marginal level of success to turn around and send the elevator back down, right? Like it’s, it’s so important to, to help entrepreneurs help other people in the industry that are getting. Started started and help show them the roadmap that it took you to get to where you are.

Um, and I think when you do that, you’ll also find that you will learn and codify your, like the, the way you, you got to where you are. And I think it helps lock in the what, what you learn. So you know, just as much as you are sending the elevator down, helping someone else by doing that and being by, by being a good like steward of the world, like you are also.

Uh, teaching yourself, um, in a way and like reflecting on what you’ve learned?

Tim Melanson: Right on. All right, David, I’m excited to hear your solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

David Feinman: Yeah, we we’re, we’re in like crazy growth mode right now. Um, so, um, you know, business is [00:33:00] viral ideas. We do video editing for companies and, you know, we’ve, we’ve been around for 11 years. We’ve edited over over 50,000 videos and edit another couple hundred per week. Um, and. I think what, what I want to, I want to give to your audience is, is we’ve hired so many video editors, um, throughout the course of the course of time, right?

Like, and, you know, we have a, we have an insane hiring process and we have a, we have a process for doing that, that we’ve, we’ve locked into this. It’s into this document that we use internally called How to Hire Video Editors that Don’t Suck. And I would love to give your audience that, that, that gift. Um, and if you want, if you want it, the best way to get it is to just reach out to me on Instagram, my, my Instagram handle’s at David Feinman.

Um, and just shoot me, follow me, shoot me over dm, um, with Tim Podcast guide or something like that. And, you know, we’ll, we’ll reply back, right back and get you that, get you that guide on how to hire video editors. It won’t suck.

Tim Melanson: That’s brilliant. Right on. So what would be the, the type of business that would get the most outta working with you?

David Feinman: Uh, [00:34:00] we work with three main markets, so marketing agencies. So we, we work with other marketing agencies and partner with them to, uh, do editing. Um, uh, and the second one is healthcare companies. So we work with, uh, companies like McKesson, Johnson and Johnson, all the way down to like health tech startups.

Uh, and then we also work with, uh, lawyers in law firms, um, is another category of clients that we work with.

Tim Melanson: Very diverse group.

David Feinman: Yeah, the three main customer categories and you know, through our marketing agencies, we’ve actually worked with like a number of different, like, like clients over the years, but those are the main, main three, three customer segments.

We, we go after

Tim Melanson: And what’s the process that, that you go through with them to, to help them get started in, in, in building this

David Feinman: Yeah, so we ha we, we go through a couple different things, uh, when, when we start with a client and like, I think the hardest thing is figuring out, uh, what, what taste the client has. Like what, what do they like to see? Um, so we, we get aligned on taste and that’s, that’s part of the [00:35:00] first step of the process.

We have a really, um. Really amazing onboarding process where we bring clients in and, you know, and, and learn a bit about them so we can customize our, our productized experience to them. So like our, our experience is like, like, you know, I, I, I compare it a little bit to, um, you know. Sort of like going to, going to Starbucks, right?

Like there, there’s a menu of services that you can go and look at online and it’s, it’s productized. You can like click one and buy it, but when you go, you can, you can customize it to whatever you want, right? Like, like, we’re not gonna make the same video for everyone. And what’s interesting about our model is, is when, when.

If someone orders the videos from us, we have processes that do like hundreds of different video types. So like when you order from us, like you don’t know it like on the, on the front end, but like you’ll fill out a form for a video and on the back end we’ll say like, okay, you’re ordering a number 10. A number 10 should be built like this.

Um, and you know, yes, it’s, yes, the video is custom, [00:36:00] but it’s also we’re able to move with speed because we know, like we know what we’re making on the backend.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And that’s important when you, like you said, you’ve got these three different markets that you work with. You get really good at working with that market and you know what they want. Right?

David Feinman: exactly, exactly.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Well, that’s awesome. So how do we find out more then?

David Feinman: Uh, you can find out more. Our website is viral ideas marketing.com. Um, or reach out on my, uh, Instagram. I’m super active on there, always posting content at David Fineman.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Right on. So now I’ve got one more question for you. Might be the hardest one. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

David Feinman: Who’s my favorite rockstar? It was, it’s funny, I just, I just got my Spotify wrapped, uh, this year and I listened to a lot. Ed Sheeran, I think he’s like. I dunno if he’s underrated. ’cause I feel like I, like I haven’t met too many, too many fans in, in a while, but I, I feel like he’s just like a dude in a guitar and like, there’s nothing fancy about him.

He just like gets up there and sings. Um, what, what did I, I’m curious. Like, you, like, [00:37:00] I’m curious like, what’s yours?

Tim Melanson: Uh, well, so it, my overall favorite band is The Beatles. It’s

David Feinman: course. Yeah. Paul McCarty’s amazing live,

Tim Melanson: and everything.

David Feinman: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Uh, that’s how I really learned music is just through them. They were pioneers in just about everything. Um, but yeah, I, I, I, I actually also like, uh, ed Sheeran. He is, he is very good. He was, um, yeah, he’s kind of fallen off the radar for a little while, hasn’t he?

But he is still, he’s still excellent. Excellent

David Feinman: He is amazing. He’s amazing. Um, he, he, he’s incredible. Uh, have you seen Paul McCartney live, ever

Tim Melanson: I have seen Paul McCartney live. Yeah.

David Feinman: amazing experience, amazing experience.

Tim Melanson: the top show I’ve been to. It’s, it was so good. But I mean, a lot of it has to do with the, just the nostalgia of like, you know, everything that he’s accomplished and it’s of such a Beatles fan that it was so, such a great show. He’s so good. Yeah.

David Feinman: I agree.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Right on. Well, that’s awesome. Well, thank you so much for [00:38:00] rocking out with me today, Dave. David, this has been a lot of fun.

David Feinman: Tim, thanks for having me This.

Tim Melanson: Great. And to the listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information. We’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast. I.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar podcast I am talking to with an author of Life Switch. He’s also the co-founder and co-owner of Steele Financial Solutions. And what he does, uh, through his book is he entertains and inspires people with the messages and lessons from it.

And also as a financial advisor, he helps people with their finances and helps them prepare for retirement. So I’m super excited to be rocking out today with Joel Steele. Hey, Joel, you ready to rock?

Joel Steele: Ready to rock. Let’s do it.

Tim Melanson: to rock. Yeah. So we always start off here on a good note. So tell me a story of success that we can be inspired by.

Joel Steele: Yeah. Well for me, you know, my, the story and I, the book is, you know, the main platform for this, but I had a restaurant business I had a passion for, for fitness and, and having people eat healthy. And I tried to bring it to the world. And this restaurant started off very successful. I opened up several stores.

I had a small chain at 24 years old, and ultimately it crashed and burned. And, uh, I got unplugged and [00:01:00] the music was turned off and I did not have a chair to sit in. And that was the worst time in my life. And I felt like my life was over at 24. And I realized that, well, chronologically, I’ve got a lot more life left to go.

And so the good part of that story is that business failure is what led to me finding success in a different industry, the financial services industry. Where I co-founded my company back 22 years ago, and this has led to the life I live today. It’s been the hand that feeds everything. The sports teams that I own a part of.

It’s allowed me to be at every single sporting event or choir event for my kids. I mean, my kids are 17 and 15 and I’ve missed nothing. There’s not one event that I’ve ever missed that I look back and have regret about. Instead, I, I’m happy and I’m proud that I’ve been able to be present. While building my business over the years.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that is a huge success. I love to hear stuff like that because I mean, I, you know, you hear [00:02:00] people talking about success in terms of financial abundance and all that stuff, which is definitely success. But there’s also the success of being there for, and, and, and, you know, going through life and actually being prison for all the events that happen and not being at the end of it and going like, oh, I missed all the firsts.

Right. Um, I mean, that’s, that’s amazing. And, you know, to be able to have the ability to do it and also to have some financial successes, a big success, right?

Joel Steele: Absolutely. You know, I, I always talk to people, my clients, especially about the word rich. Rich means an abundance. It doesn’t necessarily mean of money, but that’s what everyone thinks about when they think of rich. And I have an abundance of love and memories and experiences. ’cause life, I think, is all about experiences.

Not how much money you have, but how much experience you’ve got out of this one life that you live. Uh, but it has been absolutely amazing to be able to have that time and the ability to do these things. And it’s interesting for, for me, and maybe anyone listening today, when I was younger, I was super ambitious and I still am, but I had this goal, like Isaac, like, I [00:03:00] don’t want to just make a million dollars.

I wanna make $10 million. I just had like, you know, my eyes were turning green. I just wanted to go out and kill it and crush the corporate world and start a business and, and make a ton of money. And you know, I didn’t know I was ignorant. I thought that meant success. I thought that was living a rich life.

And as I met my wife and eventually had kids, I realized that that was not at all what I wanted. Now sure, I wanted to be able to have enough, uh, financial means to be able to live, uh, and have a great life, but to go try to be filthy rich, you know, just to run up the score was completely empty and probably would’ve really destroyed all the things that were important to me.

I think some people. They keep scoring life based on money, and that’s not just the main scorecard. It’s like the only one, and that’s, that’s a losing game because you’re never gonna have the most money. Sorry to break it to you

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Now that’s, that’s a good point too. You’re never gonna have the, you’re always gonna be fighting with somebody else. I mean, even if you look at the leaderboards of the richest people in the world, they’re, they’re flipping around all the time. So, I mean, that’s a, that’s a [00:04:00] tough game to be playing, right?

Joel Steele: That’s right. Yeah. So people need to really understand what game they are playing. How do you win, right? What are the rules of the game, and and how do you keep track of that score? I, I say like in baseball, you can keep track of the number of hits all you want, but at the end of the day, what wins games are runs on the board.

You know, usually hits translate, hit translate to more runs, but not necessarily. And so you could have one big error. And that could blow the game. And in your life you could have an error. You can fumble or drop the ball with your family or something that’s important to you at least You said it was important.

But if you don’t actually live out and are, are not present and see or priorities in front of your face every day, then they might go in the back burner. And the back burner can be a dangerous, scary place to be.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, what you just said there, what you said was important is, is an important distinction. ’cause I think a lot of times people will say something and then not do it, and then have these excuses on why they didn’t do it. Which I, I mean, bottom line is you just [00:05:00] didn’t do it right. If you said you were gonna do it and you didn’t do it, then okay, fine.

Maybe there was some circumstances that came in the way, but then the next question I would have would be, okay, that’s fine. You know, sometimes things do happen, but what did you do to stop that from happening the next time? ’cause these things tend to repeat themselves over and over. Right?

Joel Steele: Oh, a hundred percent. Yeah. If you don’t, you know, hit the brakes, do a 180 or whatever you need to do a K turn, uh, yeah, you’re gonna keep going down the same path. It’s the same beginning. You picture being in your car. If you’re on a hill and you’re not hitting the brake, you’re gonna roll whichever way.

The hill is slanting. You have to take physical action. If you want a different result. And so I always say that if you want different results, you have to start thinking differently before you even start doing differently. Understand what you’re trying to do, what you’re trying to avoid. And I, I have a simple two step formula for success in, in all things personal and professional.

It’s step one, figure out what needs to be done. Step two is go out and do it. And most things in life I think are like that. They’re [00:06:00] simple. To, to say and comprehend, but they’re hard to actually do. But you need to physically apply that pressure and, and do the things that you know you need to do to get the results that you want to have.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So we already touched on the, on the bad note a little bit. I think, uh, there might be a few bad notes right along the way. Uh, but that’s, I mean, that tends to be the main fear of most people is that they don’t want to make a mistake. What happens if I fail? What happens if it doesn’t work out? Right?

All that kind of stuff. And I’m wondering like, what’s your, I mean, you know, having been there, what you know, was that the bad, the biggest bad note? I mean, is there another one you can share with us? But also, you know, what, what did you learn outta that?

Joel Steele: Yeah, well, you know that, I mean, I learned, I learned a ton out of, out of my restaurant business failing. But I’ll give you a couple other things and we’ll circle back, I’m sure to the restaurant later. ’cause that was the, you know, the most major turning point in my life. But there was other ones, you know, younger, uh, being younger as a young adult and a kid, I got caught up in the wrong crowd and I.[00:07:00]

Started to do some things, some petty crimes. I didn’t get arrested, but I was literally staring at a jail cell and the cop told me to pick which one I wanted to be in, and I just turned white. And, you know, thinking about my life was reduced to a choice of, you know, this jail cell or that jail cell, I’m thinking what, like, where did I go wrong?

But I had an opportunity to reform and change without getting a, you know, permanent smear on my record, fortunately. And it got me to understand a lot of things. That there’s a lot of good people out there that have gotten caught up in bad things, that if people are giving, given a second chance or an opportunity, they can excel and and give back to the world.

But it also got me to realize how much I not just enjoy helping people, but I need to do it. If I’m not helping people in some way, shape, or form, I feel almost like empty, like, like the life is getting sucked out of me. And I was able to take that, that love to help people, that passion and apply it to different things.

I, again, I tried to do it. I did it as a personal trainer, which went uh, [00:08:00] really poorly. Then I turned that around. Then it went well real well. Then I did it in the restaurant business for a while and that didn’t work out, but I just. Redirected that passion to help people to then helping them with their finance, helping them become financially independent and be able to retire to have the money, and more importantly, the time to do the things that they are passionate about and want to do in their life before the sand runs out of the hourglass.

So learning in that low moment at a younger age that I need to help people really transformed my professional career to make sure that I wasn’t just making money for me. But I was doing things to help people, and in the process of helping them become successful, I became successful.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I, I think that that mindset is very important too. ’cause I mean, business is all about solving problems. It’s all about helping people. And as long as you have that idea of, okay, my, my. Job here is to help people. I think people get caught up in what they do, right? And, and they end up like, I mean, imagine if you had just said, oh, you [00:09:00] know what?

This business failed in, in the restaurant business. I just need to push harder, or I need to open it up another business, like another restaurant. Like, and people will stick to it thinking that that’s their identity. But really what you want it to do is you want it to help people and so you can kind of flow into whatever the next thing is that’s gonna help people.

Right.

Joel Steele: Yeah, totally. And it’s funny you say that because I actually had a lease in my hand for a fourth store when the, the first three were kind of crumbling on a rocky foundation. I was, I was burning money. I mean, $20,000 a month. You are right outta the gate. Uh, and this was back in 2004, so that’s probably, you know, closer to $30,000 today.

But I just was so focused on this is gonna work. Uh, you know, I’m gonna be the next Howard Schultz, Ray Crock, you know, uh, Colonel Sanders. You know, Tim, Tim Morton’s. Right? Whatever. Uh, but I, I was thinking like that. I wasn’t thinking what could go wrong. I was thinking, what if this goes all right? And I would, my score I was keeping track of was not [00:10:00] profit and loss.

That was, that looked like Christmas, but mostly red. Not, not a lot of green. Um, but, but some days were good, but mostly it was red and I wasn’t keeping track of that score as much as I was keeping track of the number of scores I had. That to me was like, okay, that’s success. That’s what I’m focusing on.

But after a while I realized that, you know what? This is getting to a point where it’s, it’s just not gonna work. You know, it’s like digging for oil and, you know, you get, you know, a thousand feet in the ground. It’s like, do you really keep going at this point? Uh, and so I, I had to really take off my blinders and stop.

But then. It was looking at, well, what’s the big picture goal for me? And the big picture was always to, to have a good life, to enjoy it, to be a family man, to have a successful business. And just ’cause that business failed. Didn’t mean that I was a failure. It didn’t mean that I couldn’t find success in something else.

And that’s why I tell people, don’t be afraid of failure. Don’t be afraid of experiences. Start saying yes to things. There’s a funny movie with Jim Carrey from a number [00:11:00] of years ago called Yes Man, and after saying no to everything for years and living a sheltered life where it felt like the walls were closing in, he feared everything.

He started to say yes to everything, and he ended up creating an amazing life. Some things didn’t work out well, some did. Some were. Things you laugh about, but that’s what creates, you know, an interesting person. That’s what creates a, a rich life, is having things to talk about, to laugh about. You go out to the bar with your buddies to have a beer, you know, it’s, well, I went to work today and I went home.

Okay, how was your commute? Like, who cares? You know? It’s like, tell me something interesting that happened today. I asked my kids that, what was the funniest thing that happened today? You know, was anything, anything different happened in school this week? You know? We, we don’t like to do the same monotonous thing.

We like to mix it up. Our brains need to be stimulated. We have all this amazing wiring in here, and it wasn’t meant to be stuck living in a cubicle, going through the same hamster reel every single day. It, it leads to rot, you know, just completely like rotting away and wasting. I, I [00:12:00] say all the capabilities that we were blessed with the day we were born.

Tim Melanson: Agreed. Yeah, I agree. Well, and I, I mean, you and I are very similar in, in, in our outlook, right? Not looking at the bad, mostly looking at the good, very optimistic. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are in that boat where we’re not really, we don’t, we just don’t even, I wanna look at the bad, right.

Especially early on in the career. Right. I’m wondering though, because. Eventually that does catch up. Okay. He caught up to me too. So eventually you do have to look at that. Now, I’m wondering if you were speaking to like your 20-year-old self and going like, Hey, trying to give him advice, what would you say to that might actually get through to him to make him look at that, you know, bad side right of it?

Joel Steele: Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s such a. Tough question because I can honestly say if I would’ve known the challenges I would’ve had to go through for the restaurant business, I probably wouldn’t have done it. And it’s the same thing with my book. Everyone said like, I wrote the book, like I [00:13:00] just did it. You know?

I just kind of got everything off my chest and put it out there. And it ended up being like 310 pages of Microsoft Word, which is a mammoth document. I actually had to cut out about 25% of that, but reading books about how to write a book later on after that was saying, well, you need to do an outline. You have to do this, you have to do that.

I’m thinking like, oh, like, that’s not me. I don’t like to, you know, sort of sit down and, and put out my fork and my knife here and spread out my napkin. I just like started chowing down, you know, and so look at the book. I just started letting it rip. With a restaurant, it was kind of the same thing. It’s almost like, how do I deal with the negative and that kind of stuff, and, and the reality, sometimes I just don’t, because that’s the best way to go flying through those obstacles, is to just view them as like thin glass.

I’m just gonna bust through this. You know, like if you’re punching through an object, you don’t punch the object, you punch through it. And I guess I kind of view things like that. I was like, you know, whatever the challenges are, I don’t care. I’m gonna do that. I’m like, I, here’s my end goal and I’ll see you there and I’ll just figure [00:14:00] out a way to get through everything else.

So that’s, maybe it’s not unique, but I know not everybody thinks like that, but that’s led to all the success I’ve had in every different industry. When I, you know, people tell me, well, I sit down, I plan out the month, the day of the year. That’s great. But that’s not me. You know, I like with my financial company, especially in the first 10 years, I just.

Put in as much activ as I could possibly put in each day. I didn’t plan it. It was just every day let’s freestyle and have a jam session and go crazy and see how much activity I could generate. So I was kind of like, you know, some people might not do well with that, you know, ’cause it’s not structured.

But for me, I was like, I don’t wanna put a ceiling on my output, my activity. I want to see what I can do. So I wasn’t thinking about minimums or maximums. I was just trying to get out there and make it happen, you know, not waste any time in my mind.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, and, and I mean, when you do push through those things too, like you find out on the other side of it that you make the mistake, okay, I made the mistake, I learned a lesson from that one. And then you move on to the next one. Especially [00:15:00] with the edit, with that kind of attitude, you’re, you’re always just gonna move to the next thing, so you might as well just get going.

Right.

Joel Steele: Yeah. And I like to say too, you know, I tell people when I, I do, uh, some keynote speaking, uh, to different financial companies and other organizations, but, uh, whether it’s sales or financial companies, when I’m explaining to ’em, I say that. Bad activity is better than no activity because you never know.

Like, I’ve had some like award-winning terrible, like razzy style, like, uh, conversations on the phone where I’m like, like in my, in my head I’m like punching myself in the face. I mean, this is so bad. Like, what are you doing? And, and it’s, it still had success at times because I was able to at least satisfy some minimum requirements for the prospective clients, like presenting investment solutions, talking about retirement.

Even though I’m thinking to myself, you know, like, this is a terrible performance. You know what? Sometimes it was okay. It still, it still worked. And so bad activity is better than no activity. And think about this. If you’re a musician and you’re on your guitar or piano and you’re just messing [00:16:00] around hitting notes, like you might hit a note or put together a melody that you didn’t plan to do, and it might be like, well, hang on, wait, do that again, and boom, all of a sudden, there you go.

I mean, sometimes the best products, songs, thoughts, uh, come from accidents come from trying things, experimenting.

Tim Melanson: That is absolutely true. Right? And, uh, it’s, it is, it is interesting that when you speak to some, uh, some artists that, I mean, they, they do all often say that it just came outta nowhere. And, you know, sometimes, uh, when you, like you say, if you, you know, put your. Fork and spoon out, and you, you put everything out like out there and you try to do everything in a box.

It ends up not really being very creative, it’s just this cookie cutter sort of thing. And I think the same thing happens in business as well. I mean, if you, if you try to plan and plan and plan and plan, you’re just never gonna get out of the gate. You might as well get going because. Uh, I know with, uh, with music, especially, like so many things [00:17:00] can happen on a stage.

So many things, like someone could fall into you while you’re playing. Like literally if you’re in these little bars, like you can’t plan for that. Like, did you have that figured out what you were gonna do when someone falls on you so that you don’t mess up? Like, like, it’s just, there’s so much stuff that can happen.

You’re, you’re better off to just get out there instead of like overthinking everything. Right.

Joel Steele: Yeah. Yeah. And, and something happens. Again, it’s something you can laugh at, you can talk about later. You know, you see some of these shows, you see the, the clips online, you know, a musician fell on stage and you know, quite frankly, that gets more attention than if the show went on as planned. And that’s why you wanna embrace the good, bad, and the ugly, because sometimes.

The, these things are blessings in disguise, but very few things in life go according to script, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Tim Melanson: No, and people like to do business with people too, and the more human you appear through, you know, just being human and making mistakes. Sometimes the better that is. I mean, there are certain things. I mean, [00:18:00] you don’t want your doctor to be making a bunch of mistakes. But on the other hand, you know, in, in regular business, if you’re on a sales call with somebody and he’s sort of like, you know, dealing with, with his kid coming in, in the ho in the room, or there’s like weird things going on that you don’t think is professional, that might not necessarily hurt you, that might actually help you.

They might think, okay, well this guy’s just like me. He’s just got a lot more experience in this area that I’m looking to get into, and I like to talk to people that are normal, real people with more experience in that area. That’s what I’m looking for.

Joel Steele: Totally. Yeah. And like you said, people like to be with other people, especially today when everything’s, you know, technology based and AI and you know, 1-800-NUMBERS and, you know, virtual assistants answer the phone, Hey, no, I can help you. No, you can’t. And, uh, not only people like, you know, to work with people, but people like to work with interesting people, you know, that have, that are seasoned, that have been out there, that have interesting things to talk about, but also that are relatable.

You know, that the thing about my book that I think stands out versus other [00:19:00] personal growth. Or inspiring self-help books is, it’s super relatable. I’m not saying, well, I did this and, you know, when I climbed Mount Everest and, you know, after I got, you know, struck by lightning this happened. It’s, no, it’s all relatable stuff that anybody can really do when you view it the right way.

But that, I think people want that more than ever before and we’ll continue to find value in spending time with real people. Interesting, relatable people.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree. I agree. E especially the real people on the phone, like when you’re talking to a business and you know the robot answers, I, I imagine that we’re gonna get to a point probably very soon if we’re not already there, where there’ll be a lot. Lot of extra value if you are actually on the phone and talking to this person, rather than them having to go through, you know, the robot sequence to get to you.

Right?

Joel Steele: Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So, and, and those are the things that kind of like, it makes it, uh, a better playing field for the small guy, for the people just [00:20:00] getting started out. ’cause in the beginning, you’re probably not gonna have this mammoth organization, you’re just gonna be you. And that’ll actually give you a bit of an up of a leg up because you do have tools.

Now we do have lots of tools right now that can make us way more productive as individuals in business. And we can actually, you know, compete with some of the bigger businesses in a lot of ways as solopreneurs or as small businesses more than we could 20 years ago or, or, or longer than that. So, you know, that to me is exciting that that means that there’s a lot of room for new businesses to come on board right now because of this productivity that we have.

Yep.

Joel Steele: Yeah, I agree with you. You know, with the fact that what we just talked about, the human touch, you can utilize that to your advantage, but you can use technology to make you appear as if there’s more than one of you. And that can be some great technology to be able to hit people up, you know, through the phone, through email, uh, [00:21:00] through different kinds of, uh, media where it looks like there’s four or five of you when there’s really only one.

But again, you’re still giving that, that human touch and, you know, for, and knowing your, you know, business and everyone’s gonna be different. But for my financial company, I give my clients my cell phone. I tell ’em, call me anytime. But you know what they, they barely do it, but it’s like, they like to know that they can do it.

So I’m giving them my personal cell phone. I don’t give them my assistance phone number. Say, call me if you need anything. Anytime of day. If it’s a reasonable time of day, my phone will be on. And most people don’t do that because they don’t want ’em intrude, but they appreciate it. So even when you’re not actually there, you’re sort of there in the background.

And again, I think a lot of people like to know that you’re there because we talked about people. Don’t just like to be with other people, but they like to know that that person cares that they’re accessible and available. And again, that that is not only never going out of style, but I think it’s very stylish right now to be able to be accessible.

Someone calls you to not have a phone [00:22:00] prompt system that has, you know, 10 different options and it’s usually the, the one that the person’s calling for is not one of those options. Retaining clients happens when that client feels cared about. And um, and that’s just how you have to set it up. But again, there’s never been an easier time with technology to sort of wrap your arms around your clients to make sure they know that not only do you care and you’re there, but you can support them through the tools that you have.

Tim Melanson: I love that. Right on. So now you’ve been working from home for quite a while now, and I’m wondering, I mean there, there’s a lot of distractions at home. How do you set up your jam room, your home office, to a point where you. You, you’re, you’re actually productive.

Joel Steele: Yeah, it’s funny. My wife tells me that, she goes, you are oblivious. You know, you, you sit down and. She calls it, I have an island location, uh, but you might think Caribbean Islands or something like that, but it’s just the island in the middle of my kitchen. Uh, that’s my island location. And I’ll sit there surrounded by, you know, everyone’s glasses, you know, like, like drinking [00:23:00] glasses, you know, crumbs and you know, like pots and pans.

Like, I don’t care. I don’t even see that. Like I just see in my computer. What I’m working on, so I can work from anywhere. You know, I’ve worked, you know, in the car, you know, I’ve worked on planes like I’m sure a lot of people that are tuning in today have as well. But I have an office. Ironically, it gets the worst, uh, internet connection in the house.

So it’s sort of like for show purposes only. I do meet with some clients in there that’s a good physical space to meet with people. And it’s right when you come in the door, there’s a bathroom there and all that, which works well from a home office deductibility standpoint. Uh, you, you know, you, you can’t have a, you know, a sort of your dining room table and say, Hey, here’s my home office, Mr.

IRS auditor. I mean, you can try it, but it’s probably not gonna pass the smell test. Um, but I work in all different parts of the house. My favorite thing to do, working from home though. Is to be out around the neighborhood walking and talking. You know, I, I just more and more after 20 plus years, can’t [00:24:00] stand sitting here looking at a wall on the phone, just sitting here stationary.

You know, I like to move. I feel like I have a lot of energy. I need to get it out, but I’m not gonna just go for a, an hour walk in the middle of the day. There’s too many things to do, but I can walk and talk. I do a lot of client calls in the car. I call a lot of clients walking around the neighborhood.

And, uh, and they don’t know that. They don’t really need to know that. It doesn’t matter where I am, what matters is that I’m present to make sure that their needs are taken care of.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, I, I am the same way. I could work, I could work in a huge mess, no problem at all. But, uh, but some people need to have a very clean desk in order to work right.

Joel Steele: Yeah. Yeah, some people do, and that’s the thing, there’s nothing wrong with any of this stuff being stationary, having a set time. Some people, they work from home. If they’re not structured, they’re, they’re gonna be all over the place. They might be watching the prices, right? I assume that show’s still on.

You know, they’re probably gonna take the, the pets out for a walk. They might do personal calls. They might realize they need to organize their [00:25:00] closet and wrap their Christmas gifts or whatever time of year that it is. Uh, but you’re right. You have to know yourself. You have to really be honest with yourself.

How am I gonna make the most out of this day? And one of the things that I personally love to do. Is get my workout done first thing in the morning so the kids go off to school. I have a, a gym in my basement. It’s one of three gyms I’m, I’m a part of. I have two gyms outside. Uh, the house, one is close to my house, one is close to my office, but I like to mix it up.

But when I don’t have a lot of time in a day, I’ll run down and I’ll be like halfway done my workout before I even am awake and realize what I’m doing to myself. But then I get that done and it’s just like, check, I got something positive and productive off my list. Gives me more energy. I don’t have to think about if I’ll do my workout later ’cause it’s already done.

And then it lets me lock in and focus on all the other things that I have to do because each day goes quickly. So if you lay it out right and don’t procrastinate and, and don’t just kind of kick things around [00:26:00] until, oh, it’s four o’clock, I need to get work done till five. You know, when you do it the right way and you know yourself, you can be super productive.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. And knowing yourself is the important part. Um, now another thing might be just also recognizing that if you don’t work, you don’t get paid. So. You know, eventually that will catch up to you if you are doing a lot of like procrastinating. I wonder why people do procrastinate though, in their businesses.

Joel Steele: I, I think there’s a sense of two things, maybe. One is that there’s a sense of like, unlimited time. Like, I’ve got time, I’ll do it later, I’ll do it tomorrow. Uh, but at some point you, you know, I don’t think that’s the most productive way to live. I, I, I am a fan of get it while it’s hot, there’s a wave. Ride it while you can.

You never know if there’s another wave coming or not. But just get it done, get it off your list because you have your list of things that you have to do. Then you have your list of things that you want to do and the more you can sort of incinerate your to-do list, you can work on your, you know, you want to do list and, and that’s what I was [00:27:00] able to do with my financial business.

I would do all the things I had to do. Then I would sort of turn my hat around and become, be an author and then work on my book. So I would work on my book at night and weekends. I’d work on my book in the morning. I would, you know, put my hat back to becoming a financial advisor and work on that all day.

Squeeze time in and, and I made it work. So you have to think about that. It’s almost like putting hats on at different times of day, but if you don’t get done these things you have to do to pay the bills and put food on the table, your day job, then you can’t really start to get into the passion projects and the other things that you really want to do.

So it’s like I said before, figure out what you need to do and then get it done. And then once you get that done, now you’re onto the bonus lightning round where you can do whatever you want to do.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And then I guess maybe another thing is if the thing that you have to do is really that bad, then are you actually in the right business? Right. Because I mean, as you mentioned earlier, you’re in this business to help people and if it, if, if you [00:28:00] are helping people, then there’s some sort of satisfaction coming out of that.

There has to be like, I, okay, I get it. Not every part of my business is fun, right? It’s not all the stuff that I want to do, but there is sort of this urgency to do it because I, I, I want to get that result of helping people. Right. Do you, do you think maybe that might be it, maybe they’re just in the wrong business.

Maybe they should figure out how to make that want a business now?

Joel Steele: Yeah, that’s such a deep conversation and so when I talk about the life switch and being on or living on versus living off, living on is. You know, seeing clearly what you want to do and, and knowing your why, why do you want to do it? You know, your why is sort of like the premium octane fuel in your gas tank.

You know, if you have a why to do something, you’re gonna do it. If you don’t have a why, a real reason to get out of bed and go to work and you fire up the computer, you’re gonna struggle. You’re gonna procrastinate. But it’s, you know, this world, it’s like we grew up, went to school, it was like, okay, there’s business, there’s, you can be a doctor, you can be an accountant, you can be a lawyer.[00:29:00]

But there’s so many different areas within those spaces and around it that you wanna really take inventory of what you love doing, right, what your, what your passions are and what you’re really good at. But if you can spend your day doing things that you really enjoy doing and things you’re really good at, you are gonna have a great existence and you’ll probably make a lot of money.

But if you are doing something you’re great at, but you hate doing it, that’s not gonna work that well If you are doing something that you’re not that good at, but you love it. Again, you’re not gonna get paid that well. So you wanna marry those things together. And, and a big part of this, the starting point is to sort of shut out all the distractions and the noise.

You know, whether it’s in the car, shower, going to bed, waking up, going for a walk, really think about and tune in. What activities have you done in your life? And it can be back to when you were a kid, but what activities made you excited to wake up that next morning where you almost wanted to sleep on your clothes?

’cause you just were so excited to jump out of bed. And start to think about how can these things be applied [00:30:00] professionally, whether it’s your current job, industry, company, you name it. Because you know, they talk about getting on the right bus. You know you’re on the right bus or the right train. You know, but then are you in the right seat?

You know, you might be in the right company, wrong job. You might be in the right industry, wrong company. And so you have to be really honest with these things to ascertain am I where I, where I should be? Is there a a big change or a small change I need to make, and how can I maybe do that by trial to make sure?

Because you know, when you’re in your thirties, forties, and beyond, you can’t just quit your job because you feel it’s lacking passion. You do have to pay the bills, like you said, but. You. You really don’t want to cheat yourself by just, well, I’m doing this to get paid and one day when I retire, I’ll do the things I want to do.

I mean, that is taking years of your life and basically flushing it down the toilet. You know, you don’t wanna do that. Yes, you need to make money, but you can find a balance or at least a plan of, okay, I’m gonna do this job, but I’m gonna start to interject. Passion, I’m gonna start a business from home or, or [00:31:00] on, on the side.

But don’t just fast forward time and say, well, when I get to this point, I’ll do this, I’ll do that. And I can tell you, Tim, from experience I’ve had, so many of my clients retire and they have no idea what they wanna do because they forgot. It’s like Peter Pan who forgot, you know, when he was a a kid, right?

It’s like a lot of kids become hardened adults and they forget. What they said they were gonna do one day when they had all the time and the money in the world, they get to 65, 70 and they just, they wanna sit home. They wanna do things that are comfortable. They’ve forgotten how to have fun. They’ve forgotten what passions are and who they are, and they become defined by their name tag, which, which is sad.

You don’t want that to happen to you.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And I mean, I mean, just when you’re 65, it, it is just a different time. Like you can’t do all the same things at the same level as you could in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties. Right. It’s just is, is what it is. Um, but that’s, I mean, that’s extremely deep. And, and I think a lot of people probably fall into the category of they’re good at what they [00:32:00] do, but they don’t like it.

And you know, that that probably ends up being that they’re very well paid, they’re stuck in a lifestyle that now is dependent on that high pay. That is the thing that they love. Sorry, that they’re really, really good at. And, uh, but, but there are ways, I mean, you know, there are people out there, there’s lots of help that can help you figure out, because most people.

Have quite a bit of transferable skills, like especially if they’re very, very good at something, there’s a good chance that there’s some fundamentals that you’re, they’re applying that make them good at that. That could be applied at something else that might be a little bit more fun, a little bit more like alive for them.

Right?

Joel Steele: Yeah, totally. I think if you are a, you know, a musician or a dancer or you know, you’re, you, you are, or were an athlete, you j you know, at some point or another, you’re gonna reach the end of the road in that, right? If you’re in like a, a gymnast or a dancer. You know, I see all these [00:33:00] kids with like, these casts on, like, your body can only take so much of that, but it’s not, it’s not the skill, right?

It’s, I’m a huge basketball fan. You know, people like Steph Curry. Uh, it’s not that he is a great three point shooter. It’s the tendencies and things within him that made him a great three point shooter that helped him transcend and change the game of basketball. He, he didn’t come out of the womb able to shoot threes.

He had this burning desire. Uh, and his, his ability to work hard and be dedicated and determined and to think that, I don’t care how, you know, short, I might be, or small I am in stature. Like, here’s what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna set the world on fire, you know, by changing the game because that’s how I think I can do it.

And it should be. But you know, when Steph Curry retires someday. He’ll find success in other things if he can take those traits within him and apply them to other places. That’s something Kobe Bryant did. Kobe Bryant became a very successful. Film producer when he retired [00:34:00] because he was creative and great at telling stories.

You know, he wrote his own story at a BA as a basketball player. He was hero the the young teenager. Then he became a hated villain, and then he turns it around, became a beloved superstar. You know, he was in control of writing this story that he was aware. He was very good at writing stories. And so everyone’s got these traits and these talents and skills, and if you can think about how you can apply them again around your day job, if you can’t do it within there, that’s huge.

And I’ll give you a personal story. You know, I, I mentioned before I’ve been doing, uh, retirement planning for 22 years. I’ve gotta tell you, it, it’s very redundant and repetitive and, and I don’t like to do and say the same thing yet. I’m, I’m in a career where I do that all the time. You know, if I have a choice, I take different, uh, route in the car to get to different places, even if it takes me longer because I can’t stand doing the same thing again and again.

I’m not a guy who can do like an hour, two hour commute in the car and not even think [00:35:00] about it. I know some people that do that, like, that’s not me. My brain’s too active. I can’t sit still. But what I did was I started writing the books. I wanted to help people more than a one-on-one basis. I wanted to help people around the world, you know, uh, understand how much value they have, that everyone’s wired for success and fulfillment and they need to flip the power switch on.

So that’s why I started writing the book and I was able to do it around the financial business. But the interesting thing, and this is a really key takeaway, is. I spent so much time on that around my business, it actually re-energized me for the financial services business. It, it, I felt appre more appreciative of it because it put food on the table.

I’m, I’m good at it, right? I wasn’t loving it at times, but I, I actually appreciated it more because said, Hey, this is a really good business. I am helping a lot of people. People do find a lot of value. And, and what I say and what I do. So doing something else, diversifying my time and using my abilities actually [00:36:00] helped me appreciate and not mind keeping going with the financial business because at one point I thought Maybe I’ll retire, I’ll quit, sell the business, and then become an author.

But instead, it’s been much better to, to inject passion around it. And like I said, it’s got me reenergized for everything I’m doing.

Tim Melanson: Uh, love it. Uh, it’s the same strategy I use. I’ve got, uh, my businesses, I, I build websites, I do tech support. I’ve got that kind of it thing. But music is always there. I’m always playing multiple times in a week. And it you, you’re a hundred percent right. You’ve got this like energizer that just. Keeps your spirit happy, right?

And then, and then on the other hand, like you say, I mean, if your main business is helping people, and it really is, I mean it really is helping people, then there’s always that that payoff at the end of it, right? You might have to do some little monotonous work to get to that point, but you’re always happy when they come out of the call going like, wow, thank you so much.

Okay, I feel better now. Right? [00:37:00] So you’ve got that going, right? Yep.

Joel Steele: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, if you’re in a job where people say, Hey, thank you so much, I couldn’t do this without you, like, don’t take that for granted. That’s, it’s a big deal, you know, to be able to actually help people in whatever you help people with, that’s awesome. But if you have a job where you don’t get that, it’s a thankless job and you’re somebody who needs and wants that kind of gratification, then again, maybe that is the wrong position.

E everybody has experience, you know, even if it’s just not even, uh, professional something you went through personally, right? You can either say, well, that was terrible. I, I don’t want to ever go through that or yet an experience that went well, you can take that and apply it and there’s so many different kinds of counseling and consulting you can do.

You like, I find myself doing more counseling and consulting, consulting. Than managing money some days, because that’s just what it requires. And I have such a large bank of knowledge and experience helping so many people over years and years that that sharing that information is not, let me tell you about me or tell you what I know.

It’s, [00:38:00] let me share some information that I think might be helpful for you. So everybody has this bank of experience and knowledge. The question is, can you monetize it? Can you extract value from it? Going through a terrible experience. Doesn’t have to be all bad. There’s, there’s almost always value that can be extracted from anything.

And that’s even to this day, you know, it’s like 20 plus years later, I dug up the, the horror and trauma of my restaurant business, and I’m getting significant value out of it because I’m sharing it with other people. Things that I learned, things that worked, things that didn’t. And so now it’s becoming way more valuable than just being a, a dead business in the past.

Tim Melanson: Wow. Joel, I’m excited to hear about your solo. So tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Joel Steele: The most exciting thing is, is the book, which is called Life Switch. Uh, it, it, it’s exactly that idea it’s living on. As you can tell, I’m a high energy guy and I feel like much of the population in the world, they’re walking around off, they’re almost like zombies. Everyone’s glued with their phone. The [00:39:00] people have the, the earbuds in, like everybody is tuned out, uh, into other things.

And people aren’t tuning into themselves, and that’s where all the answers people are looking for are at. So I’m trying to like yank out the earbud, you know, turn off the reels and the Snapchat and all this other stuff and look in the mirror, tune into yourself just 15 minutes a day. And if you do that and you really understand how you’re wired.

You can get the most out of yourself, and the only way you’re gonna get the most out of the world around you is if you can get the most out of yourself. So I’m on this mission to help people do what I’ve done. That’s to flip the switch, live on thrive, not just survive, and realize that your potential. Is unlimited and you can do anything that you really focus on.

Figure out what you need to do. Go out and do it. Understand what your passions are, which is really interesting because everybody has different passions. And then purpose. We all should be working to define our purpose. And if you do that, like forget about your [00:40:00] job title. You know, and all that. Think about your purpose.

Like if you had a personal name badge on, what would it say? I like to help people like what it, whatever it is. There’s no wrong answer, but if people have a purpose and a why, people are gonna be happier, more fulfilled, they’re gonna be more successful, they’re gonna be rich in every sense of the world.

And I just think. This world would be such a happier, more amazing place if more people were living on and not just drifting around, living off. So that’s what’s going on for me. And so far the feedback’s been really positive. It’s been doing exactly what I’ve been hoping it would do, and that’s flip switches around the world to get people to live on and live for today and be excited about whatever could happen in each day.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that is an incredible mission. That’s very spiritual too, isn’t it?

Joel Steele: Yeah. You know, it is because it’s, it’s really like who you are. And for some people that’s, I mean, that’s deep. People haven’t looked in the mirror. They haven’t really been super honest with themselves. And if you’re, if you aren’t honest with yourself. At some point, like you can’t [00:41:00] outrun yourself. And this is why some people retire and they still don’t know what they wanna do because they never dealt with it.

I’ve got a friend, real quick story. I’ve got a friend, he is in my same industry. Uh, he’s got a huge book of business. He’s, he manages over a billion dollars. And he makes millions of dollars a year, and he’s been offered to sell his business for more money than he ever would need in his lifetime. And he keeps saying no because he doesn’t know what he’s gonna do with himself.

He doesn’t know who he is besides a financial advisor. And so some people, and I like to ask this question, if you had all the money in the world that you ever needed, what would you do with your day? And a lot of people they don’t know, but my next question is, well. Why can’t you do any of that today? If you don’t plan for it and know who you are, what you want to do, what makes you feel alive, you’re, you’re probably not gonna do any of this stuff.

So you’ve got to learn how you’re wired, what makes you excited, what gets you pumped up to get bed? And start to try to live a little bit each day with that passion, with that excitement, and you’ll [00:42:00] find yourself feeling almost like electrified, like just excited to be yourself. And that that is the ultimate destination, right?

They say life’s a journey, not a destination. But ultimately the destination that you’re trying to get to is that when you wake up and go to bed, that you don’t wanna live anyone else’s life. You just wanna live your own. You want to be the best version of yourself. And if and when you get to that point, it is the ultimate high.

And that’s the goal of living, is to get the most out of this life.

Tim Melanson: I agree with you a hundred percent. How do we find out more?

Joel Steele: You can go to my website, real simple. It’s book joel steele.com. You can also Google me. You can Google Joel Steele Life Switch. You’ll see other podcasts. I’ve done interviews and articles. You’ll see my, uh, financial website. You’ll see about the book. And also my speaking career. And again, this is all newer, you know, the book only came out, uh, a couple months ago, not even.

And I’ve been giving, uh, speeches and keynotes about it. All [00:43:00] these things we’re talking about today, like, I’m really trying to like, you know, almost like shock people into, like waking up to and tuning into themselves. Uh, but my, my website is probably the best place to go. You can get the book at Amazon, Barnes and Noble.

Most places where books are sold, it’s ebook, audiobook, and of course. Hard cover, uh, but book Joel Steel is the best place to go. And one final note is if Life Switch sells 1 million copies, I’m going to personally be donating $1 million to charities, and the readers are the ones who are going to pick the charities.

So at the website, my website, you can vote for your charity by the book. But that, that is something that I have in my mind as far as the destination, like I want to be sitting down. On camera live writing out these checks to charities because I just, like I said, love helping people and together we can help out a lot more people.

Tim Melanson: Wow. I can see you doing that too.

Joel Steele: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Right on. Well, thank you so. Much for rocking out with me today. Now I’ve got one more question. It’s probably the hardest [00:44:00] one though. Who’s your favorite rockstar?

Joel Steele: Favorite rockstar has gotta be Kurt Cobain. Uh, he, he just, you know, took something that wasn’t there and bought it to the world, and I remember it clearly. I remember watching MTV the first time ever. That smells like Teen Spirit was aired and I was just sitting there casually watching it and I was like, wow.

Like I wasn’t even like, really, you know, that into like hard, you know, metal or anything like that. And it just blew me away. And even to this day when I hear that the guitar riff in the beginning of that and just then the, the drums come in and still gets me fired up. So that, that’s, that’s my answer.

Tim Melanson: Love that. Right on. So thanks again for rocking out with you today. This has been a lot of fun. Thanks a lot, Joel.

Joel Steele: Thank you.

Tim Melanson: To listeners, make sure you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work At Home Rockstar Podcast. Rock Out.

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. I’m talking to another work at Home Rockstar that’s been working from home for more than 20 years. That is super cool. He’s got me beat. Uh, so he is the founder of Uplift 360, and what he does is he helps you turn your online presence into a growth engine using AI powered trust driven marketing systems.

Super excited to be rocking out today with Wes Towers. Hey, Wes, you ready to rock?

Wes Towers: Absolutely, Tim, that’s good to be with you.

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

Wes Towers: Sure. Well, I suppose success has changed. What I’ve, uh, thought success was, has changed over the years as I, I guess I’ve matured, but. The, the biggest success story, uh, right now, this year, uh, is, uh, bringing my son on board as part of the team. So, um,

as you, as your children grow up, you, you feel as though you might lose them and not see them ever again.

You know, being, being 20 and with a girlfriend and everything, and, uh, living with his [00:01:00] girlfriend and so on. Uh, there’s always the, the, the risk that you won’t see them again and that you’ll lose, you’ll lose them. But, um, to have him on board one day a week, um, and he’s helping with wealth, with, uh, social media and, and so on, and, um, create, creating some graphics and, and, and, and that type of thing.

He’s really creative, so to have him under my wing as well to help mentor him a little bit as well because he is got our visions of having his own business, uh, in the, in the future as well.

Tim Melanson: Wow, that is so awesome. Family business. I love it. That’s so cool. Yeah, I, I, I hope at some point my son ends up working with me as well. He’s off, off to university now. Take. In a me mechanical engineering degree, but, uh, but, uh, so it’s unlikely, but you never know. Right?

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wes Towers: Yeah, so they, and yeah, my other kids are not in similar paths to what I did as a career, but certainly I hope to be able to support them in, in their journeys. They’re a little, little younger, so, yeah.

Tim Melanson: My other kids [00:02:00] are, are, uh, one, one of them’s a server. I doubt she’ll ever work for me, but I have a feeling that she’ll be an entrepreneur at some point. She’ll start her own business and I’m, I’m actually hoping all three of them do.

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah.

Wes Towers: Well, I think that, I think ’cause you are modeling to them what life might look like and so many people are just not aware of what an entrepreneurial business could look like in a home-based business. And a, a business built around your lifestyle effectively is what you ideally want to want to create.

It can take some time to get there because it’s just so, it’s, it can be difficult, particularly at the start, but once you build something around your life, it’s, it’s powerful and, and a wonderful life.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I totally, I totally agree. It’s, and it’s, uh. It, it’s, uh, it’s not normal. Like, I mean, it’s starting to get a lot more normal now, but, uh, but I mean, I, I, I think that they would kind of look around at their other friends and go like, oh my goodness, like this is weird. You know? ’cause I, I know like my wife and I [00:03:00] actually work together in our business and we’re both working from home and we both got this massive flexibility.

But on the other hand. It also kind of seems like we’re working all the time too, in a way. So it’s like this weird kind of like, are you free? Are you not free? Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Yeah, I’ve heard it said that works. Being self-employed, you’re free to work any 80 hours a week you want to, so.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Now, on the other hand, I mean the flexibility. I mean, that was the reason why, I don’t know what your reason was, but that was my reason for, for doing this. I wanted to have that flexibility of being able to work later or, uh, you know, be able to go to those parent-teacher things during the day.

Like there was a lot of. Things that I was able to do that would’ve been a lot more challenging had I had to ask someone’s permission to do those things, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, a hundred percent that, that was the beauty of and for me too. So I was able to do just same. Many more dad things, um, as the kids were growing up and you know, kids, [00:04:00] you know, have the activities, the sports, and even just school drop off and pick up and all that kind of stuff. You can do, you can fit that into your day so

much more easily than having to ask a boss, Hey, I need to run out for, for an hour to do whatever it is.

Um, so it was, it was magnificent. Um, over the, over the years.

Tim Melanson: Yep. Now, on the other hand, I mean, there’s some things that don’t go super well, you know, on the path as well. I’m not sure if yours was, but I know mine, I, I, I didn’t make all the right decisions. And I’m wondering, uh, I like to normalize that a bit because as people are potentially thinking about starting a, a business or doing something like this.

Uh, a lot of people are a little bit worried about, oh, well what if I, what if I fail? Or what if I make a mistake or what’s gonna happen? And I like to make sure that people understand that, Hey, you know what, that’s part of the process and, you know, you can get, get through it. And so I’m wondering, can you share, you know, a big one that we can, we can learn

Wes Towers: Oh man, I’ve got, I’ve got so many stories that fit into that, uh, line of thinking and it feels as [00:05:00] though I’ve just stumbled and bumbled my way forward. Uh, through, through the business journey. I started completely naively so I had a skillset and similar to yours. Um, I was a graphic designer, web designer.

Um, always had a vision of starting my own business. And I suppose like most of us, we see what our, uh, employers charge us out at. And, uh, you see, oh wow, that’s a pretty enticing, they’re only paying me a, a small fraction of what that is. And so it’s, it’s, it’s pretty, uh, seducing, uh, I suppose just to see what the income might be.

But, so to start out in business. I had the skillset to, to do the work, but I’d never been. I’d been to a couple of client meetings but said nothing. Um, just attended with the salespeople, uh, didn’t know how to do, you know, the bookkeeping and the proposals and any of that stuff,

and all the, all the legal stuff you gotta get, uh, sorted out to, and the tax and.

Just so much. I had no idea, no concept. Um, I was pretty shy to, to show up at, [00:06:00] you know, I remember sweating, sweating so much, just going to the first couple of potential client meetings

and, and so on. And, but bumbled and stumbled my way through and, um, you know, just learned the hard way. That’s just the, that’s just the start.

It just feels as though. There’s always a lesson to be learned. Um, there’s always a challenge. There’s always an obstacle, but that’s human, human growth. Um, I enjoy it. I enjoy the, uh, the challenges that it presents.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Well, I mean, you learn really quickly why there’s a discrepancy from what they pay you and what they get paid for your per hour. They bill when they bill you out. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, a hundred percent. It’s, uh, you know, as a young guy, you could, you could, you know, I was pretty low income as a, as a, uh, as a junior. Um, and you see they’re charging a phenomenal fee for the hours you put in. But you, you, you not quite aware that how much it takes just to run the business side of things. Not [00:07:00] doing the, the, the billable work, but just the other stuff. It’s, it’s amazing.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well that, and that’s just it, right? I mean, you, you, uh, like, I I keep saying that you, when you start your business, you, you usually, like, you say, you had this skill. And oftentimes it is very similar to what you just said. I, I, I think it’s like you, you re, you recognize or you see how much they’re billing you out at, and you’re like, come on, they’re taking so much money from me, you know, and, uh, whatever it is.

And then you start your business and you realize that you’re doing like. 80% of what you do has nothing to do with that billable thing that you’re doing. It’s all this other stuff. So it’s like, oh, okay, now I get it. Why? Why I have to charge out so high? Right? And, and I mean, and then like. Even, uh, I found another, another interesting challenge to get around was even when you’re sort of like telling your clients what you charge out at, you know, sometimes it gets a little bit awkward ’cause [00:08:00] you know, you, you see the look on their face going like, really?

You charge that per hour? Like, that seems like a rip off. Right? And, and it’s like. It’s, it’s awkward, right? Like, ’cause you feel like, oh, well maybe I’ll give them a little bit of a break. But that, you know, that other time has to be spent. Some like, you do have to do those things, right? Or you have to hire somebody to do it.

Wes Towers: Yeah. And that’s, that’s why it can be incredibly difficult if your target market, I, I, I, it’s great to work with solo. Uh, it, it’s great to be a solo business or work from home and to have a small team and run a small, uh, small business, but it can be difficult to work with solo. Um, businesses, solo operator businesses as a, as a client, just because of those sort of mindset things they’re not kind of used to spending, spending money to, to get things done, or they can’t because they’re really starting out lean and mean.

We all start like that. So, um, I can, I can appreciate and understand where they’re coming from when they haven’t got a budget to do something properly, but you’ve just gotta start [00:09:00] where you’re at and, and grow.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Uh, I, that’s an interesting topic too, because I mean, when you’re speaking to like, uh, when you’re running your business and your, your clients are solopreneurs, like you say, or, or people that are just starting their business, they’ve got a job, they’re working on the side, they don’t really understand that.

The same way that you didn’t when you first got started, right? However, when you start to work with bigger size businesses, it seems like they don’t even blink an eye at, at some of the prices, but it’s because they, they get it right. They, they understand why the, why the hourly rate is so high. It’s not because.

The, you know, that that particular, like they, they could get a junior for sure. They could hire a junior to do that and hire them on as an employee, but now they have to pay their taxes. There’s a whole bunch of other things that come into play that a big business will understand, but the small businesses don’t necessarily understand that.

Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah. And the bigger guys, they just want a, a, a specialist who does the work really well and they, they want to be hands off and, and know that it’s just done. You know, they don’t wanna have to handhold a, a junior in the office. [00:10:00] Um, and I think that’s kind of the way work is going to have. Specialized freelancers in niched fields, I think is the way of the future, especially the, with the technology these days.

I mean, things have transformed

phenomenally over the years, but over the last few years it’s been crazy, uh, crazy exciting and and terrifying sometimes. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I remember, uh, when I was still working in the cubicle over 20 years ago, uh, the company that I was working for was a high tech company. It was during the, the, the burst of the bubble. And, uh, that company was already. Sort of transitioning out of hiring employees and trying to hire contractors instead.

And I remember that sort of trend that was happening and nowadays as being, it’s, it’s, it’s even easier to hire, to hire, uh, like a contractor instead of employee. Like, and I’m wondering, like for you, you know, either in your business or in some of your client’s businesses, do you see a benefit to hiring an employee versus a, a contractor?

[00:11:00] What, what do you do?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so I have, um, a team in India and Philippines, so they’re obviously remote to me.

And so, and it’s ’cause I’m a home-based business. I can’t have people here all the time. I mean, my son comes in to work here and that’s. That’s just so I can spend time with him. He could do it at home,

Tim Melanson: Absolutely.

Wes Towers: but I, I, uh, trick him into coming to the office and we have lunch once a week and all that kind of fun stuff.

So, um, yeah, but the, uh, everything’s digitalized. And, and I suppose that was the for, for what? For what I do. I mean, we’re making websites. We are doing SEO search engine optimization.

We call it Search Everywhere optimization. But that’s another story. Everything we do is behind a computer, so it makes practical sense that that people can work from anywhere really.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. And, uh, and so I, I mean, how do you, how do you run that? Like, I mean, there’s no water cooler anymore. Like, do, do you have regular meetings? Are they over zoom? Uh, how, how do, how do you keep everybody, you know, in line? I guess I.[00:12:00]

Wes Towers: Yeah, well, absolutely. It’s, it’s worthwhile in my view to have a, a weekly face-to-face zoom meeting that’s just booked in. Um. Even if you’ve got not much to talk about, it’s just business as usual because everything we, we, um, run all our projects in Clickup. There’s lots of different project management systems and so on, but find a little system that works for your entity and, and that everyone can collaborate on.

’cause it’s all about collaboration. Um, but I think it’s really worthwhile just to have that once a week call, even if. It’s just to see the person and, and just to remember they’re a real human, that it’s just not a, um, digitalization of everything. So, um, I mean, those meetings are very rarely anything much that we need to talk about at all because everything’s in, in the platforms that we’re using, so day to day.

So, um, but it, it is good to stay connected because people have issues as well. You know, you, you wanna know if someone’s got a ma massive. [00:13:00] Um, life circumstance that really might be affecting everything. You know, you, they should become your friends. You, you want people, you know, you wanna build that relationship.

So the downside of being remote to everybody is the relationships can be lost. So you’ve just gotta work a little harder, um, to maintain that.

Tim Melanson: You know, there was a guest a few episodes back that was talking about that, uh, that, you know, comment that people say, you know, you shouldn’t go into business with your friends and how maybe that might not be necessarily. Right. Or, or there. There, there could be a way around that. I’m wondering, ’cause you, you just mentioned you want them to be your friends.

Isn’t that sort of a contradiction, I guess?

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah. Well that’s an interesting, I I did hire a friend in the early days and that went horribly wrong. So,

um, I.

I, hired a graphic designer and yeah, so that. That. Yeah. So, um, a long story. [00:14:00] Um, but when I had my fir we had our first child and I was taking some time off and she was the only worker with me. Um, and at that time she chose to leave and take a suite of clients with her

Tim Melanson: Oh dear.

Wes Towers: was trying to have a couple of weeks off. So that was, uh, a lesson, another lesson learned the hard way and, and lose a friend over it as well, so that there’s. Yeah.

Think li life is, life is complicated and messy at times.

Um, but you just do the best to get through.

Tim Melanson: Well, I mean in, in that particular instance, was that really a friend? I mean,

Wes Towers: Yeah, I know, I know.

Tim Melanson: really treat each other that way? Right. I, I, I think.

Wes Towers: true, true.

Tim Melanson: think because I’d been thinking about that since that episode and, uh, ’cause some of the comments that, that, that the, the guest made, and I can’t remember, I can’t remember which one it was.

Uh, but it was sort of like, you know, around the lines of like, you, if, if you, you subscribe to the adage of like, you are the average of the five people that you spend the most time with, like your, your [00:15:00] friends should be. High integrity, you know, high functioning sort of people. And I, I, I do get that.

However, on the other hand, I don’t know if that’s where everybody starts, especially long-term friends. I mean, you, your friends tend to be the people that are around you, like, and, and chosen by somebody else. And you know, it’s just a matter of like, you’ve spent a lot of time with them, not necessarily that they align completely with your values.

And I think that’s probably a different scenario. Than maybe the later in life friends that you choose, uh, because they have the same values, you know?

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah. So if I think about my, I’m really fortunate to have a close friendship group, you know, well, there’s, I’ve got lots of friends. On the, like most of us do, but the at close core set of friends who are all, we’re all kind of similar

in that we run businesses and, um, we have the same [00:16:00] challenges.

So it’s kind of, it’s, it’s a, it’s a different. Path, the, the way we work and, you know, running businesses and small businesses and working from home and all that sort of stuff. And it presents different challenges and, uh, we’ve, we’ve all got our little quirks. Um, and it’s good to have a, a friendship group that can support you, um, through those, those journeys.

And even I feel as though my friends are smarter than me in, in, in their fields. Uh, you know, they’re running. Great businesses, so it’s always good to have them as almost like mentors as well as friends.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, totally. Oh, totally. Absolutely. And I, you know, I have definitely done a lot of business with my friends over the years. Uh, and, and you know, I, I think maybe the, I, I think probably the. The one thing that I would say that does happen is that I think sometimes your friends or you might take advantage of your friends or of the relationship, and you might actually make choices that are [00:17:00] low integrity because you’re thinking, well, my friend knows that I’m going through this right now and I need it type thing, which.

In my opinion, it’s still not a good excuse, but, but I, I could see how that might end up being something that would come, would come by. They’d, they’d be like, ah, they’ll bounce back type

Wes Towers: Yeah. Yeah.

Tim Melanson: But, uh, I, I think, I think that that, you know, kind of swings back to what you just said a few minutes ago, that if you are, you know, catching up with them quite often and you know what’s going on in their lives, well, then maybe you might be able to have that conversation instead of being blindsided by something that happens because they didn’t really tell you and you didn’t, you weren’t aware of what was going on in their personal life, right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, absolutely. And particularly with remote teams that I have, so I have people in the Philippines and India, Philippines. Um, they, they, they have the typhoon season and so it seems like nearly every year someone will be impacted to some [00:18:00] degree with that, you know, whether it be their extended family or whatnot.

But there’ll be, there’ll. Challenges that I, I’m just sort of aware that whe when that season comes and what that might mean for various team members and just, uh, to be aware of that. And that’s partially why I’ve got two te, like two locations of teams so that, um, because there can be some downtime obviously in those, in those seasons, uh, in the Philippines as well.

So some team members won’t, won’t be available.

Um. But the, the Indian, um, people will be able to take o over some of that workload as well. So building, building around, um, those sorts of challenges to, to make sure that, uh, things are stable, um, that you can continue to deliver what you need to do.

Tim Melanson: That’s smart. So let’s talk a little bit about, uh, getting fans. Hey, you’ve been doing this for 20 plus years. The world has changed drastically. Like,

Wes Towers: Yeah, man.

Tim Melanson: wondering actually if you can tell me [00:19:00] how have things. How are things different? Like how did you go out there and get your first few, uh, fans we’ll say, uh, in the very beginning versus what do you do now?

Wes Towers: Well, yes. As I said, starting the business, I was completely naive and I started way earlier than I thought I would, simply because an opportunity came up. There was another guy who, who I knew, I didn’t know him very well, but I knew him enough that he was running a, he was trying to run a a, a business similar, similar service.

To what I now do.

He said, he, he, he was just saying, I’ve had enough. I’m not making enough income. I’m throwing, throwing this in. I’m going to go get a real job. So just go work for somebody again. And I said, well, what are you gonna do with a few clients? You’ve still got left? And he said, we can have them. I thought, okay, well I will have them. And uh, so he handed them over to me. There wasn’t much. There was a little bit. And so it was a, a way to start with something. And so I didn’t start full-time in my own business. I just did his few clients in the [00:20:00] evenings, um, for a little while until I could drop my day job back, um, to a couple of days a week, and then eventually drop it completely and then go full-time and then. Get team, get team to support me as well. So, um, that’s the, that’s the, uh, transition, um, of how, how it all kind of transpired. So it’s probably different to some people. I had a little opportunity, but I think that’s true in a, in a, a way. For every business you’ll see an opportunity. But there’ll be reluctance to start because you’ll never feel quite ready.

Um, but I, I, I feel as though the things that we fear the most are the things we need to do the most. So whilst it might be fear, there might be some level of fear to step out and start your own business. I think figuring out ways where you can dip your toes into the water and just get started with some basic practical step first steps. I think that really worked for me, and I think that’s, uh, true of every, every business. [00:21:00] If you can start, start as small as you can, as, uh, as quickly as you can and build some form of momentum, um, to take you forward to the next level, I think that’s the way to do it. So, growing the business in the early days, I mean, a, to answer your question more clearly, like. So that was kind of the starting point, just taking on whatever I could get. Um, but as you grow, I sort of niched into the business, um, with, without the clients we wanted to target a bit better. So trades and construction businesses were, um, clearly our best clients for the most part. So there was other clients outside of that field, but started to niche in because I realized they were the ones that were the happiest, getting the best outcomes for.

So you kind of learn as you go and you evolve. I, I think that’s the way of, of doing it. Um, but yeah, business has changed. People expectations have changed as well. Obviously COVID disrupted everything, but the

beauty of it in the end was. People know about [00:22:00] Zoom, you know,

I mean, man, the amount of hours I used to spend driving around, all over the place, um, for a client meeting.

And so you, you factor that into your day. You, you just lose a whole heap of your day. Um, but now you just jump on a call and you’re in and out and you, um, can deal with things really quickly and it, uh, that’s the expectation. Everyone knows how to do that now, so it’s pretty cool.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I agree with that. The, the, I remember when I started my podcast, I started this podcast in, uh, what was it, 2015, so about 10. Years ago. And, uh, and, uh, the reason why I started in the first place actually, was because I wanted to, uh, have a, a, a basically teach people the things that I didn’t know when I first got started.

I wanted to be the resource that I would’ve been looking for. Right. And a lot of it kind of like stemmed around that 80% thing of like, man, there was a lot of stuff I didn’t know. Right. And, uh. But I just remember, uh, the, the, to me it seemed [00:23:00] logical that people would work from home. And I thought that it would grow over time.

I was like, you know what I mean? Give it a few years. I bet you, I bet you most people will be working from home if they can. And I did not expect something like lockdowns to start happening, and then all of a sudden people are forced to do it right. Uh. So it happened a lot more sudden than I had expected.

I thought it’d be a lot more gradual. But, but I mean, like you say, the, the, the silver lining of that is that. It has now afforded a lot of people that didn’t have that opportunity to, to do this. Right. And even in, in companies, I, I know that it, it just baffled me that so many companies were just anti working from home.

Like, they would not let their workforce work from home. It was just this, this, this, this very, very bizarre, uh, idea that they weren’t gonna be productive at all. And. I do kind of see that there are personalities that [00:24:00] some personalities work better in an office and some personalities work better at home.

I know for me, I work better at home. I don’t know about you, but I mean, you put me in any company, I will be far more productive at home than I will be sitting at in the office and getting interrupted by everybody every few minutes, right? So I think that there are some personality differences, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, for me there’s a bit of a balance. I mean, I, I love to work at home because I, when I’m working, I’m really working and

focused and don’t talk to me, don’t, like, don’t disrupt my

thinking at the time because, you know, I’m dial in. Um, so that’s the beauty of being at home and just focusing. Um, but I also. Chose to live in a, a spot, which is, we’re right in, in town, um, in kind of the business district. So if I go downstairs, we’re in an apartment, um. If I go downstairs, it’s the business world and community. So I still feel connected to people as well. Um, so for me that’s a great balance. I know not [00:25:00] everyone can just move, but it, uh, it’s about creating a balance that works for you.

And so, and there’s other ways to connect if you, if you have that craving for people and connection, I mean, there’s networking groups you can go to and there’s a whole bunch of other things you can do to have people. If you’re a people person and you, I am a people person, I like to connect, but I’m, when I’m focused, I work.

When I’m talking to people, I do that. I, uh, um, so yeah, just getting that balance right for the individual I think is important.

Tim Melanson: Um, I like to talk about practicing because I, I, I, I, I say this sometimes, you know, especially in music. Every great guitar player was once a very bad guitar player. Right. You know, it, it’s just there. You have to get to that point. And in every industry and every business, you know, you’re going to improve over time, uh, as long as you have some sort of practice.

And I’m wondering, do you have any practices or what practices do you have?

Wes Towers: Yeah, well, the, uh, it feels as though there’s always something new to learn, and so I, I feel like. It’s, it’s [00:26:00] kind of an industry as, you know, it’s kind of an industry where you never feel like you’ve arrived because something is new on the

horizon. And that’s, you know, increased with AI and transformation of how we, how we do things and, and get work done and, and all that.

So it’s just a matter of. Staying, uh, educated. And I, I watch a lot of YouTube. I listen to a lot of podcasts about the new, new and the latest tools. So I’m being educated, um, and even sort of dive a little bit divergent type of scenarios. I, I guess if you were to liken it to music, I don’t stick to just listening to my own.

Um. Style of music. I’m listening to other broader influences to keep me sharp and keep me. Unique in thinking about the world and what people might need, because we’re, at the end of the day, we’re producing marketing outcomes, so we need to understand the world in which we’re working and, and what, uh, might be influencing people, so [00:27:00] to stay connected.

Um, and, uh, to, that’s the beauty of things like, uh, YouTube and, and not the, I mean, just the mainstream media we used to live upon, uh, years ago, but now we can. Listen to really niched and specific, uh, things that we need to learn about. It might be software, um, different opportunities, you know, podcasting. I was, I plan to start my own podcast, uh, next year.

I’m just guesting on a lot at the moment. Um, and so just to be able to, uh, watch a whole bunch of different YouTubers on different podcasting platforms and the pros and cons and the um, and then just to try them, um, that’s kind of how I do life and do business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, it’s, uh, the, the information is a lot more on demand rather than just kind like broadcast it out to us nowadays. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, you

can find what you want when you want it right away. Uh, you can talk to your chat JBT and uh, use it as almost like a personal psychologist half the time,[00:28:00]

Tim Melanson: You,

Wes Towers: um, but a brainstorming tool. Yeah,

it’s, it’s it’s so powerful. Like, I’m driving around in a car oftentimes, um, when I have my ideas and so I don’t wanna lose those ideas.

So I, um, get the, get the chat GBT on, obviously hands free and have the conversation so I can at least brain dump some of the thoughts, um, that I have right then and, uh, have a conversation with, with the, um, with the ai. And by the time I get to wherever I’ve got, I’ve distilled down my thoughts into something.

It’s helped me distill my thoughts down into something that’s tangible that I can action. It might be a blog post, for example, or it might be, um, it’s something new that I need to integrate into the business to adjust things.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think the, the voice activated part of chatt PT is a, one of the biggest game changers of the whole thing. Because I don’t know about you. I’m a, I’m more of a, of an extrovert. Uh, which as I understand it, means that I, I think out loud, I, I need to speak it. Right. [00:29:00] Whereas, you know, a lot of introverts are the opposite.

They think it and then they say it. Right. So for me, uh, talking things out is how I get to a point. And. If I’m alone, it’s weird just, you know, speaking to myself. And so here I am, I’m speaking to my wife and she doesn’t quite understand what I’m trying to say. And so it’s confusing and then, and, but, but with this whole, you know, this machine that I could speak to and it speaks back to me and like you can get quite a bit of work done.

You can flesh those ideas out. I mean, sometimes they’re just terrible and, and it comes out pretty quickly. And you didn’t have to take anybody’s time in order to do that, right? It was, it was an actual machine that did it for you, right.

Wes Towers: It’s so powerful. It’s just, I think for those that are reluctant to start with AI and just not, not even started, it’s just overwhelming. I think just. Download chat, chip D on your phone, pay, pay the $20, whatever it is to get the better version. Um, and just [00:30:00] having start having a conversation with it, you’ll soon realize it’s pretty easy to use.

And the, the, the power of it is really, um, it could be a huge advantage to your business.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, I think so too. And I, you know, I’m, I’m starting to, uh. So I, I think chat GPT came out what, in 2023? Uh, you know, I adopted it pretty quickly, uh, as soon as it was available in Canada. And so I’ve been playing around with it quite a bit and it’s, it’s evolved quite a bit over time. It’s quite good right now.

It’s not where I, I think it will be, I mean, it’s gonna evolve a lot more. However, for the people that are afraid of. Of chat, uh, um, or of AI in general. I think the issue here is that it’s going to go no matter what we do. Like, it, it, it just, it is so, there are people that are pushing this forward and I think it’s actually more dangerous to not get informed on what it is because now, you know, [00:31:00] we’re basically just gonna be doing whatever the.

Six people and who are, you know, running the show are gonna be pushing us towards. And we won’t really have a whole lot of input because we won’t really have a whole lot of knowledge of what’s going on. But the more people that are. Understanding AI and understanding what it can do, what it can’t do, where it’s dangerous, where it’s super helpful.

I think that we’ll have more of an interesting conversation on where we want this to go, right? Because, uh, I think a lot of people look at the Terminator movies and think, oh my God. And, and you know what? That is totally possible. If, if we’re not careful, uh, however. You know, the Jetsons is also possible too, you know,

Wes Towers: Yeah.

Tim Melanson: so it’s

Wes Towers: Yeah. We still want our flying cars. When we getting those flying cars, we to have.

Tim Melanson: I know we’re supposed to have flying cars and we’re supposed to have robot butler and all those things, but, and, and I, I [00:32:00] do think that that stuff is also possible. However, we, I think we do need to get into this conversation. We need to understand what it’s doing, what it’s not doing. I mean, it, it doesn’t take you very long of using chat GBT to realize that it is.

Cool. But it’s also very dumb in a lot of ways too. I mean, it, it’ll, it’ll tell you the weirdest things like you, you really do have to direct it. It, it’s, it’s, it’s not just magic, right? So

Wes Towers: A hundred percent. You still need expertise in whatever it is you’re doing, but it can just help get you there faster. I mean, there’s trouble, it’s probably similar for what you are doing sometimes you, you get a, you’re building a website and, and the um, there’s some sort of bug in there and it

used to be like a needle in the haystack.

So we do WordPress websites. I’m not sure what your software

you use, but Yeah, So you use a, a set of plugins, so effectively different, um, pieces of software that do different things in the website and sometimes they don’t necessarily play [00:33:00] nicely together or something’s not supported or something breaks.

And so it can be like a needle in the haystack to figure out what. What’s causing this issue. But now you can troubleshoot and find that needle in a haystack super fast

just because you can run the, run the code through, um, AI and it’ll find it, uh, it’s just phenomenal. But you still need the skillset in which you need to understand what, you know, the plugins and the WordPress and, and all that kind of stuff.

Um,

it’s just that you find the, find the issue quicker because it’s helping you, um, do that.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah, I found the same thing. I found that I could find issues really quickly, but then I try to get the AI to fix it and it will not. I get into so such big arguments with it. ’cause it keeps on, like keeps on reverting back and doing stupid things and I’m like, ah, I thought you were just gonna do this for me.

And the it does

Wes Towers: yeah,

Tim Melanson: it for you.

Wes Towers: yeah. It’s, it’s true. Sometimes it, and it will tell you lies if it doesn’t know. It just makes something up, which is really annoying.

Tim Melanson: I know. And you, you have to go find that needle in a haystack too, of the, [00:34:00] the, the thing that it just made up, it just fills in blanks. Oh, well you didn’t tell me, so I just filled it in. I’m like, oh,

Wes Towers: just made it up. But it’s, yeah, so, so you still need to be an expert in the field that you work in, but the, um, when you can use it to an advantage and, and even with the systems and processes, we’ve adapted a fair bit too, uh, and some great ones for when you’re working at home. Particularly, particularly if you’re working by yourself. I mean, we’re, we’ve got, uh, AI receptionist now answering the phone, which is really cool. Um, there was, I had a little bit of a mixed feeling about it, so I just thought, we’ll, we’ll try it and quickly turn it off if it doesn’t work for us. But it’s, it’s been magic in that it just deals with the, the phone calls.

We were getting a lot of telemarketing calls, so it just filters out all that rubbish. Um, but it gets meetings booked into our calendar right away if that’s what people are. It’ll just have a really basic conversation with the person ringing, um, and figure out if they wanna book a meeting and it’ll [00:35:00] do that.

Um, or if they need to speak to someone, it’ll, it’ll, um, put them through directly to me as quickly

as, as, as I can. So if I, if I’m available, um, I’ll answer that right away and deal with it just like I ordinarily would.

So it’s just, yeah,

Tim Melanson: platform do you use for that then?

Wes Towers: that’s in go high level.

Um. Yeah. Yeah. So there’s, there’s, there’s more sophisticated ones out there.

I just went with the one because we’re already using go high level as a CRM and a whole bunch of other things in there. So do, do you have, do you have go high level or something similar?

Tim Melanson: Uh, I use, uh, HubSpot for the most part, for, for my CRM. Um,

Wes Towers: yeah.

Tim Melanson: I’ve used go high level several times with different clients and I, you know, so far I. Uh, I haven’t really liked it a whole lot, however, I think it’s improving quite drastically, especially with the white label type stuff, right?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so.

Tim Melanson: Hmm.[00:36:00]

Wes Towers: The problem with it is it’s just overwhelming and sometimes I feel as though they’re just adding more, more capabilities, but not really refining and polishing it as best as it could.

So I think that would be better served if they stopped adding new stuff and just got the stuff that they have

got working a bit better.

It’s a little bit clunky at times.

Tim Melanson: that frustrates me.

Wes Towers: yeah. Yeah. So. But yeah, it’s working, it’s working well for us. And

because we’re a bit techie as well, you know, we can, we can figure it out,

you know, we can figure out what the clunks are and work around them. So, but it might not be a great fit for, uh, other businesses who are, who are less tech savvy.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. So tell me, uh, it is time for your guest solo. What’s exciting in your business right now?

Wes Towers: Yeah, so the, um, well launching a podcast next year that’s super exciting

for us. But, um, just the changes that of the industry are really exciting. So, as I said, we’re, we’re calling it, we’re doing Search Everywhere optimization. We’ve done SEO Do you do SEO [00:37:00] as well as part of your service

Tim Melanson: I, I, I do some basic stuff, but I’m not an SEO expert.

Wes Towers: Yeah, so we’ve done that for many, many years. Um, and uh, so it’s kind of been a challenge in some ways recently because obviously SEO for people listening who might not know, understand search engine optimization,

it’s attempt to show up as highly as it can for as many keywords as you can. So keywords being something that people might search in Google and historically it might be service and location, so plumber, Melbourne, um, and people would search that hopefully. Show up number one or close to that, get traffic to the website, get a, get some business as a result of that. That was nice and simple and easy, and we would work on a number of keywords for clients and grow their traffic. And, um, get them more business. And it was super, super easy to demonstrate the value of it.

But then ai, uh, AI overviews comes on board and, and less traffic was coming to websites. And so all of a sudden clients were saying, Hey, you’ve worked with us so long [00:38:00] and you’ve always increased our traffic. Why is it going the opposite? Why are we getting less traffic now? So that was a difficult challenge to discuss with them, but to. To show them they were still getting the same return, same quality of leads coming through. It was just that less research based, um, traffic was getting to their website. So to adapt our service offering to facilitate the new, um. Search everywhere. Optimization’s not just about Google anymore, it’s about showing up in large language models.

So helping our clients show up in chat, GPT when people are searching for a service or a, a product that they offer. And, and particularly in the local region. I mean, we had a great story of a client just gave me a call and said, Hey, thanks so much for the work you’ve done. Um, we’ve just won $140,000 client as a, as a result of showing up on chat GBT.

So,

um. Yeah, that’s, that’s the beauty of what, that’s exciting. It keeps me on my toes because it’s obviously changing super fast. But the benefits of being [00:39:00] able to get those really solid successes for clients, uh, it keeps me, keeps me excited, um, uh, you know, day to day. So that’s what it is.

Tim Melanson: Amazing. So how do we find out more?

Wes Towers: Well, uh, yeah. Uplift three sixty.com au is is the business website, and you can book, book a strategy call with me there. And, uh, happy to, happy to discuss, um, how it might work for any individual.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Love that. So, hardest question of the day here. Who is your favorite rockstar?

Wes Towers: Oh, favorite rockstar. Wow. Yeah, that’s, uh, pretty cool. Um. I’m gonna, I’m gonna, I’m gonna go on a slightly different, um, I’m gonna choose a local, uh, I, I think a rock star. He, he sings at the, um, at the bar just near here. Um, so, uh, yeah, Luke Biskin is his name,

and so you will find he’s on Spotify and so on.

Um, but he’s my favorite, so I, I know him reasonably [00:40:00] well now. Um, just a local, local, um, muso.

Tim Melanson: Nice. It’s nice when you walk into a place and they know your name. Right.

Wes Towers: Yeah, that’s it. That’s it.

Tim Melanson: That’s awesome. Uh, right on. Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me today, Wes. This has been a lot of fun.

Wes Towers: Yeah. Great. I’ve really enjoyed it. Thanks, Tim.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you, you go to workathomerockstar.com for more information and we’ll see you next time on the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast.