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Oct. 1, 2024

Unlearning Entrepreneurship with Kevin Palmieri: Genuine Relationships, Overcoming Perfectionism, Navigating Self-Proclaimed Experts, and Sustained Success Through Messy Action

Unlearning Entrepreneurship with Kevin Palmieri: Genuine Relationships, Overcoming Perfectionism, Navigating Self-Proclaimed Experts, and Sustained Success Through Messy Action
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What makes a podcast thrive while so many others fall by the wayside? Join me as I welcome seasoned entrepreneur and podcast host Kevin Palmieri to the UnlearnT Podcast. We dive into Kevin's remarkable seven-year journey in podcasting, inspired by his mission to be a guiding light during tough times and his dream of making podcasting a full-time endeavor. We'll unpack why genuine relationships and consistent follow-ups are game-changers for sustained success, both in podcasting and entrepreneurship. We scrutinize the rise of self-proclaimed experts since 2020, discussing the critical need for authentic experience and wisdom in true mentorship. Kevin and I share real-world stories to distinguish between fleeting passion and the grit needed for long-term perseverance. Plus, discover how value is context-dependent and why meaningful contributions and audience feedback are vital to maintaining momentum when initial excitement starts to wane.

Connect with Kevin!
Kevin@nextleveluniverse.com
IG: @neverquitkid
http://www.nextleveluniverse.com/
https://nextleveluniverse.com/podcast


🎙Listen to the show

https://open.spotify.com/show/0rgu2jIXzNrjQKMwjPGC7z?si=ef78d1b341c14f9b 

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-unlearnt-podcast/id1659687407


😀 Connect  with me:

Instagram: @theunlearntpodcast

Facebook: @theunlearntpodcast


GET IN TOUCH

🌍 My website - theunlearntpodcast.com

Chapters

00:05 - Building Relationships in Entrepreneurship

13:35 - Entrepreneurial Wisdom and Success

24:21 - Navigating Adding Value as an Entrepreneur

29:53 - Embracing Messy Action in Entrepreneurship

34:19 - Iterative Process of Messy Action

45:35 - Nurturing Successful Entrepreneurial Partnerships

52:37 - Unlearning Entrepreneurship Lessons

Transcript
WEBVTT

00:00:05.028 --> 00:00:09.737
Hello everybody and welcome once again to the Unlearned Podcast.

00:00:09.737 --> 00:00:27.289
I am your host, ruth Abigail aka RA, and this is the podcast that is helping you gain the courage to change your mind so that you can experience just a little bit more freedom, and I have my friend, mr Kevin Palmieri, on the podcast once again.

00:00:27.289 --> 00:00:27.931
How are you doing, kevin?

00:00:28.760 --> 00:00:31.408
All right, I'm living the dream, as you said, behind the scenes.

00:00:31.408 --> 00:00:34.026
I guess I'm taking your line, but I'm going to borrow it.

00:00:34.026 --> 00:00:35.170
I'm doing very well.

00:00:35.170 --> 00:00:36.115
I'm grateful to be back.

00:00:36.115 --> 00:00:40.862
I have nothing but love for you and what you're doing in the world, so I appreciate the opportunity to be a part of it.

00:00:41.262 --> 00:00:41.944
Man, that's awesome.

00:00:41.944 --> 00:00:44.945
And, Kevin, you've been an entrepreneur for how long now?

00:00:44.945 --> 00:00:46.627
Seven years, eight years, seven years.

00:00:46.686 --> 00:00:49.829
Yeah, seven years, man, that's seven years.

00:00:49.829 --> 00:00:55.514
So, like, talk to me about, and particularly, this podcast space, yes, right.

00:00:55.514 --> 00:01:06.480
So, like, this is and I'm just jumping in because I this podcast thing it's a very interesting.

00:01:06.480 --> 00:01:18.456
It's very interesting because you have a lot of people who are so excited about, you know, putting their voice out into the world, doing their thing, and they do it and then they don't like, they stop what like podcasts I have.

00:01:18.456 --> 00:01:30.929
I've had several people since we've started this podcast that have said I want to start a podcast, I want to start a podcast, I think I'm going to start some podcast, okay, and they'll be like and they'll ask me and first of all, I'm like, I mean, I've only been in it for almost a year and a half.

00:01:30.929 --> 00:01:49.203
It'll be two years in January and so I don't know that I'm the person to really ask but it seems like it's very easy to start.

00:01:49.222 --> 00:01:49.763
I said this a while ago.

00:01:49.763 --> 00:01:52.308
I said the lower the barrier to entry, the higher the failure rate.

00:01:52.308 --> 00:02:02.126
It just makes sense because anybody can just go start a podcast for relatively low amounts of money, so you don't necessarily have to be super committed to learning the craft.

00:02:02.126 --> 00:02:06.042
You don't have to go above and beyond to figure out like, how do I actually do this?

00:02:06.042 --> 00:02:11.122
The lower the barrier to entry, the more people will try it, which is wonderful, yeah, yeah.

00:02:11.122 --> 00:02:15.167
But unfortunately many people will not stick with it.

00:02:15.167 --> 00:02:18.294
And that is the planet fitness model.

00:02:18.294 --> 00:02:23.588
The planet fitness model is we'll charge you $5 a month, so the barrier to entry is super low.

00:02:23.588 --> 00:02:26.735
It's a bigger pain in the butt for you to come cancel than it is just to not come.

00:02:26.735 --> 00:02:28.938
So we're making $5 passively every month.

00:02:28.938 --> 00:02:31.123
I think the podcast thing is kind of the opposite of that.

00:02:31.384 --> 00:02:36.843
Yeah, man, and so the amount of people that I know, who have a plan to fitness bill, who have not been in the space.

00:02:37.305 --> 00:02:38.627
Yeah, it's their business.

00:02:38.627 --> 00:02:39.807
It's their business model it's.

00:02:39.807 --> 00:02:43.633
I'm not a fan of it, but I understand why they do it.

00:02:43.933 --> 00:02:46.883
Yeah, no, I think that's good when the barrier to entry is low.

00:02:46.883 --> 00:02:51.272
Then you're going to have a lot of people that start it but won't continue it.

00:02:51.272 --> 00:02:56.132
What has kept you in this?

00:02:56.132 --> 00:02:59.069
Why are you not that statistic?

00:02:59.941 --> 00:03:00.362
For me.

00:03:00.362 --> 00:03:02.490
I never started this to be a business owner.

00:03:02.490 --> 00:03:05.426
I didn't understand what.

00:03:05.426 --> 00:03:07.403
I was naive already in the beginning.

00:03:07.403 --> 00:03:13.432
I thought you pump out some episodes, you get a bunch of sponsors and you're making just life-changing money.

00:03:13.432 --> 00:03:15.562
You don't have to worry about any of the business stuff.

00:03:15.562 --> 00:03:16.264
Don't worry about it.

00:03:16.824 --> 00:03:21.222
For me, I genuinely aspire to be the person that I needed at my lowest point.

00:03:21.222 --> 00:03:28.366
That's why I show up the way I show up, hopefully with energy and positivity and motivation and relatability and vulnerability.

00:03:28.366 --> 00:03:33.066
So for me, the through line of everything I do is based on I'm trying to be the person that I needed.

00:03:33.066 --> 00:03:35.592
That's part one and part two.

00:03:35.592 --> 00:03:41.188
When I started this, it was literally my dream to be able to do it full time.

00:03:41.188 --> 00:03:53.713
So, yeah, it sucked and I was broke and there was a lot of challenges, but I was making progress towards doing this full time, albeit very slow, dark, challenging progress.

00:03:53.713 --> 00:04:03.972
So for me, I realized, if I get, if I can get to the place where I actually get to do this sustainably, I am quite literally living my dreams and that's what kept me going.

00:04:03.972 --> 00:04:05.621
That and the impact those are the two things.

00:04:06.564 --> 00:04:39.822
So one of the things that I, you and I have kind of talked offline a little bit you gave me some great coaching tips when I first started earlier on, and one of the things that you talked about was just the importance of being relational right, the importance of really not just it's you have to treat people like people, right, you have to follow up, you have to reach out, you have to, you know, ask about how people are doing all those things and and the work that I get to do every day, you know relationship is is also the currency, right, I work with young people, with families, in the nonprofit space.

00:04:39.822 --> 00:04:41.125
It's currency.

00:04:41.125 --> 00:04:42.930
If you don't have a relationship, you don't have a business.

00:04:42.930 --> 00:04:51.521
Like no, if nobody trusts you, you have nothing Right.

00:04:51.521 --> 00:04:53.487
Um, and not with not only within the podcast world, but also entrepreneurship period.

00:04:53.507 --> 00:04:58.043
Trust with the, with the consumer, trust with the people who are coming to engage you in that way is key.

00:04:58.043 --> 00:05:03.173
It seems like a simple thing, right To to to continue relationship.

00:05:03.173 --> 00:05:08.144
Like a simple thing, right To continue relationship.

00:05:08.144 --> 00:05:10.935
I have been so just encouraged by you following through on that, like you talked about it, but you also do it.

00:05:10.935 --> 00:05:15.170
Like you, you will message me things that you think are relevant to what we're doing.

00:05:15.170 --> 00:05:19.170
You will comment on stuff you reached out again to do beyond this podcast.

00:05:19.170 --> 00:05:25.432
Like you, you are naturally, like it matters to you, relationship matters to you, and you're good at doing that.

00:05:25.432 --> 00:05:30.310
How does one get good at maintaining relationships?

00:05:30.711 --> 00:05:35.269
Oh man, number one, I appreciate all the kind words and the compliments genuinely.

00:05:35.269 --> 00:05:41.971
You understand that that is the way.

00:05:41.971 --> 00:05:42.892
So it's a couple of things.

00:05:42.892 --> 00:05:45.108
One that's how you're going to be remembered.

00:05:45.108 --> 00:05:47.687
I am not going to be remembered on.

00:05:47.687 --> 00:05:50.829
Do you remember anything I said in the first episode?

00:05:50.829 --> 00:05:55.869
I don't, I don't remember anything, but I remember how positive you were.

00:05:55.869 --> 00:06:05.809
I remember your vibe and I remember getting off and thinking what a cool human I would, and this is the thought process I would love to spend more time around that person.

00:06:05.809 --> 00:06:07.105
What does that look like?

00:06:07.105 --> 00:06:08.572
I don't know For now.

00:06:08.572 --> 00:06:09.555
It's going to be in the DMs.

00:06:09.555 --> 00:06:10.721
Maybe it's an episode in the future.

00:06:10.740 --> 00:06:19.803
Whatever, I think it is the fact that people, when they feel like you care about them, they start to care about what you do.

00:06:19.803 --> 00:06:23.872
The benefit of that is super, super, super high.

00:06:23.872 --> 00:06:28.504
It's the benefit of that is super, super, super high.

00:06:28.504 --> 00:06:33.923
Second piece when I'm having conversations with people, I am quite literally learning what people are struggling with, so then I can actually add more value eventually.

00:06:33.923 --> 00:06:40.033
That's a big, big piece of it, and this is a kind of a big one for me.

00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:49.528
If you follow a business, or if you follow a brand, or if you follow a podcast, you follow a business, or if you follow a brand, or if you follow a podcast, you follow a content creator, and that's somebody that you look up to in some way, shape or form.

00:06:49.528 --> 00:06:53.927
If they reach out directly to you, you are never going to look at them the same.

00:06:53.927 --> 00:07:07.608
You are going to feel like such a special human because, oh my goodness, my favorite podcaster, my favorite content creator whatever they reached out or my favorite pizza shop, they actually reached out and said hey, thank you so much for being a valued customer.

00:07:07.608 --> 00:07:10.880
That goes a long, a long, a long way.

00:07:10.880 --> 00:07:23.601
So I think those are all really big pieces of it, and if you're somebody who values relationships, entrepreneurship can get lonely, so you having conversations with people is going to make you feel like you're less lonely.

00:07:23.601 --> 00:07:24.403
That's a big win, too.

00:07:24.403 --> 00:07:24.865
In my book.

00:07:25.264 --> 00:07:25.927
That's huge.

00:07:25.927 --> 00:07:26.507
No, that's, that's.

00:07:26.507 --> 00:07:27.389
At that.

00:07:27.389 --> 00:07:28.211
That I was.

00:07:28.211 --> 00:07:36.401
I literally um, a friend of mine on Facebook just put a post saying, basically, anybody out there want to have a conversation?

00:07:36.401 --> 00:07:42.084
Entrepreneurship gets lonely out here, like that was like a couple of days ago and, um, yeah, it is lonely.

00:07:42.084 --> 00:07:44.108
It's it's lonely when you are.

00:07:44.108 --> 00:07:45.490
You know it's what's.

00:07:45.490 --> 00:07:46.980
It's lonely at the top, right it's.

00:07:46.980 --> 00:07:48.303
It is like there aren't.

00:07:48.303 --> 00:07:56.899
There really aren't as many people as you think that can really identify with the things that you are having to handle and juggle and deal with every day.

00:07:56.899 --> 00:07:59.004
Like it's a real.

00:07:59.004 --> 00:08:00.528
It's a real.

00:08:00.528 --> 00:08:03.742
It's a special place to be, it's a rare place to be.

00:08:03.742 --> 00:08:09.334
You know, I mean, we've been talking about entrepreneurship and culturally I think, a lot in the last few years.

00:08:12.180 --> 00:08:13.824
But the truth of the matter is not a lot of people do it well.

00:08:13.824 --> 00:08:36.662
It's one of the things I've learned, and I don't this is a blanket statement, but I don't mean it that way but I've worked with a lot of individuals who have podcasts, brands, coaching stuff, businesses, and what nobody else on the planet would know is they have a wealthy partner behind the scenes that is paying for all the bills, so they don't really even have to win.

00:08:36.662 --> 00:08:38.465
I'm not making that wrong.

00:08:38.465 --> 00:08:52.586
Or and this is a weird thing I coach them on the thing that they coach other people on, because they can't figure out how to get anybody to coach with them.

00:08:53.427 --> 00:08:55.111
Again, I've been there.

00:08:55.111 --> 00:09:01.830
I know what it's like to struggle with that for sure, but that's it's weird, it's not.

00:09:01.830 --> 00:09:03.774
Entrepreneurship is like podcasting.

00:09:03.774 --> 00:09:10.966
You don't have to get an LLC, you can start a side hustle and the barrier to entry is relatively low.

00:09:10.966 --> 00:09:15.361
So the seriousness it takes to do it is just less than it's ever been.

00:09:15.361 --> 00:09:19.644
So there's a lot of people out there that look like they're winning at a high level and they're not.

00:09:19.644 --> 00:09:22.432
It's just they have other means that you just can't see.

00:09:23.201 --> 00:09:25.504
So let's talk about that for a minute because I think that's.

00:09:25.504 --> 00:10:02.043
Can you pull back the curtain a little bit more on that, like because you know, we see this lifestyle culture on social media that is promoting entrepreneurship because of the lifestyle, I think we kind of, on some level, all know some of that is very manufactured, right From your experience being in this game, especially for those that were in pre-COVID, I think after 2020, this kind of blew up and everybody's an entrepreneur and everybody's a podcaster and everybody's a coach and everybody's doing these things to make money that don't involve going outside into the world.

00:10:02.043 --> 00:10:06.773
So can you pull back the curtain for us on that?

00:10:06.773 --> 00:10:09.284
What's really happening here that you see?

00:10:11.168 --> 00:10:12.652
Man, yeah, people are really.

00:10:12.652 --> 00:10:20.484
People are far better at marketing than they are at sales converting people to clients and then adding meaningful value to those people.

00:10:20.484 --> 00:10:27.081
So it ultimately becomes this is always my analogy of those people.

00:10:27.081 --> 00:10:28.765
So it ultimately becomes this is always my analogy Okay, I go rent a really nice car.

00:10:28.765 --> 00:10:30.451
I post about that nice car all over my social media.

00:10:30.451 --> 00:10:34.883
Then I make a course on how to get a lot of social media followers.

00:10:34.883 --> 00:10:39.041
Then people are like well, you have a bunch of followers, you must know Cool.

00:10:39.041 --> 00:10:41.224
After a bunch of people buy that course.

00:10:41.224 --> 00:10:52.302
Then I make another course on how to make a ton of money from being a digital influencer and it becomes this ball and cup game, where I never added any value to anybody.

00:10:52.302 --> 00:10:56.822
I just moved the ball from cup to cup long enough until the cup got really big and then there was dollars inside of the ball.

00:10:56.822 --> 00:11:00.586
That is wildly common.

00:11:00.586 --> 00:11:04.951
Wow, that whole process is wildly common.

00:11:04.951 --> 00:11:05.971
That's one.

00:11:06.812 --> 00:11:16.783
Second one is I call them and again I don't mean this negatively, it's just something I've learned over the years I call it second life entrepreneurship.

00:11:16.783 --> 00:11:26.750
Somebody has a very, very successful business or company or job nine to five, whatever it is corporate gig.

00:11:26.750 --> 00:11:30.403
They make a ton of money, they save a ton of money.

00:11:30.403 --> 00:11:37.210
That money supports their lifestyle, and then they get to try the entrepreneurship thing and it just doesn't really matter whether they succeed or not.

00:11:37.210 --> 00:11:41.388
Nothing wrong with that, but that's a whole nother thing that's happening.

00:11:41.388 --> 00:11:46.188
And then I think people are really good at picking out.

00:11:46.188 --> 00:11:53.024
I'm going to go to this event and take a picture with this person, even though I don't know this person and it's not like we work together or anything.

00:11:53.927 --> 00:11:56.520
There's a psychological term called burging.

00:11:56.520 --> 00:11:58.144
It's basking in reflected glory.

00:11:58.144 --> 00:12:07.212
This is why, when your sports team is doing really well, you want to jump on the bandwagon Right, because there's significance attached to that thing.

00:12:07.212 --> 00:12:16.567
Anytime I see a post about anything that I know is a perception builder, I'm usually thinking there's something behind the scenes.

00:12:16.567 --> 00:12:17.770
I have a nice car.

00:12:17.770 --> 00:12:19.304
I should probably post my car more.

00:12:19.304 --> 00:12:23.048
I don't want to, because I understand the psychological effect it has.

00:12:23.048 --> 00:12:24.051
So I have to.

00:12:24.051 --> 00:12:27.826
If I have the awareness, I have to hold the responsibility of that too.

00:12:27.826 --> 00:12:31.365
So I don't know if that answers the question or if I went off on a completely different tangent.

00:12:31.565 --> 00:12:33.980
No, it answers the question a lot I want to go back to.

00:12:33.980 --> 00:12:49.166
I might want to drill down on all three of those, but let's go back to the first one, because that is would you classify the when you were talking about moving the cup and cup getting bigger until finally you find dollars under the ball?

00:12:49.166 --> 00:12:51.312
Yeah, would you classify that as a scam?

00:12:53.384 --> 00:12:54.868
yes, yeah, yeah.

00:12:54.868 --> 00:12:56.552
I had somebody asked me on a podcast recently.

00:12:56.552 --> 00:12:58.765
They said well, isn't that you have courses and stuff?

00:12:58.765 --> 00:12:59.469
Isn't that what you do?

00:12:59.469 --> 00:13:08.072
And I said everything that we've ever created is with the intention that after you do it, you don't need us, you don't need me more after you do it.

00:13:10.421 --> 00:13:11.361
That's not how it works.

00:13:11.361 --> 00:13:17.729
So my job is to help somebody raise their awareness so they become more profitable.

00:13:17.729 --> 00:13:20.373
So, whatever their relationships are better Other people.

00:13:20.373 --> 00:13:29.985
When you buy it, you're not getting your awareness raised, you're getting the wool pulled over your eyes.

00:13:29.985 --> 00:13:30.768
So, yes, I would say it is a scam.

00:13:30.788 --> 00:13:32.535
I think there are different levels of the scam, but, yes, I would say it's a scam.

00:13:32.556 --> 00:13:35.663
Yeah, Because, like you said, I mean it's really interesting how.

00:13:35.663 --> 00:14:05.471
So I listened to this one show and I really enjoy it, and there's a segment of the show where he interviews, you know, kind of startup entrepreneurs, like new entrepreneurs, and he is really it's called the hot seat and he is really kind of he's coaching them, but he's pretty hard on them and he asked some really good questions and it's really interesting how many experts are experts, have been experts since 2020.

00:14:05.471 --> 00:14:20.023
It's you know what I mean Like, it's like all right, and every time I listen to it, I'm, I'm, I'm hoping for yeah, I've been doing this for the last 10 years, or I've been doing this as 20, you know, 17 or whatever, and it's like uh, yeah, I started the company in 2021.

00:14:20.023 --> 00:14:46.758
Yeah, Well, all right, you know, so interesting how this culture of coaching and courses and these information culture right, when are people getting information from to be able to create these courses that I mean, how is it that people are able to do all this?

00:14:46.758 --> 00:14:46.999
You know?

00:14:47.019 --> 00:14:47.320
what I'm saying.

00:14:47.320 --> 00:15:03.494
Some of it is just common sense that so let's put it this way If you've never posted on social media before and I know how to post on social media and I know how to do hashtags and it's my story that's a big leap right.

00:15:03.494 --> 00:15:07.240
But I shouldn't sell that as how to make your first million dollars on social media.

00:15:07.240 --> 00:15:08.683
I should.

00:15:08.683 --> 00:15:09.345
That should be.

00:15:09.345 --> 00:15:13.673
That should be positioned as beginners social media 101.

00:15:13.673 --> 00:15:18.490
By the end of this course, you will understand this, this, this, this than this after that.

00:15:18.610 --> 00:15:21.222
I think it comes from it.

00:15:21.222 --> 00:15:27.692
It comes from the perception that they have and they hope that's enough value.

00:15:27.692 --> 00:15:30.969
Yeah, I mean, I've, I've seen some of the contents of.

00:15:30.969 --> 00:15:38.049
There's a really good youtube channel called coffee zilla and he essentially breaks down scams in all sorts of spaces.

00:15:38.049 --> 00:15:46.523
But there's been a lot of influencers and he'll go through their courses and he'll tell you like this is the biggest waste of $5,000 ever.

00:15:46.523 --> 00:15:54.548
There's just something about the fact that they think their aura and they think their momentum and they think their reputation will get them through.

00:15:54.548 --> 00:15:57.322
So a lot of it comes from other people.

00:15:57.863 --> 00:15:58.062
Yeah.

00:15:59.063 --> 00:16:05.072
I think a lot of it comes from how do I use my scam to help you scam people?

00:16:05.072 --> 00:16:07.096
That's a big one.

00:16:07.096 --> 00:16:09.427
I think the most valuable comes from.

00:16:09.427 --> 00:16:16.533
It comes from experience, perspective, practice and reflection.

00:16:16.533 --> 00:16:18.865
I think that's what wisdom is.

00:16:18.865 --> 00:16:20.205
That's what wisdom is.

00:16:20.205 --> 00:16:30.268
I've done this, I've sucked at it, I've gotten good at it, I've made all the mistakes and now I can look back and figure out what meant, what I think that's what everybody aspires to in the long run.

00:16:30.268 --> 00:16:34.124
Right, and that takes more than two to three years For most things.

00:16:34.124 --> 00:16:36.644
For most things, maybe not everything, right?

00:16:36.644 --> 00:16:41.070
Sure, if you have a child that's three years old, you know infinitely more than I do about parenting.

00:16:41.350 --> 00:16:41.692
That's fair.

00:16:48.552 --> 00:16:50.399
I've been doing this seven years.

00:16:50.399 --> 00:16:54.339
We have 1830 episodes on one podcast.

00:16:54.339 --> 00:16:55.481
I have another 120.

00:16:55.481 --> 00:16:56.934
I've been on 900 other podcasts.

00:16:56.934 --> 00:17:00.456
So there's been like I've coached hundreds of pockets, been a lot of time under tension.

00:17:00.456 --> 00:17:04.835
I'll talk to someone who is like I'm going to start coaching podcasters.

00:17:04.835 --> 00:17:17.861
It's like okay, just be very careful, because you might be a hundred episodes in, but if you haven't made any money and you don't really know, it's good.

00:17:17.861 --> 00:17:22.720
It's good to get 100 episodes in, but that's not necessarily the metric people are looking for.

00:17:22.720 --> 00:17:25.538
That's not the level of quote-unquote success they're aspiring to.

00:17:25.538 --> 00:17:29.196
So that's another piece of it too is you just have to know what the end consumer is looking for.

00:17:29.637 --> 00:17:35.855
Yeah, yeah, no, and I think there's so much homework that has to be done.

00:17:35.855 --> 00:17:39.550
I've been talking to all these entrepreneurs at different levels, doing different things, and it's been a really, really interesting conversation.

00:17:39.550 --> 00:17:50.037
One of the things that I've that they've been teaching me is the homework that has to be done right on on different levels.

00:17:50.037 --> 00:17:54.872
My last conversation was with a businessman out of a small town in Georgia.

00:17:54.872 --> 00:18:09.759
He's also the mayor of the town, he's a, but he has 11, 12 businesses in town and has been doing it for a long time, and the thing that he one of the things and I think it's been a pretty common theme it's like there are things you just have to learn.

00:18:09.759 --> 00:18:11.031
You have to know right.

00:18:11.031 --> 00:18:12.679
You got to know your numbers.

00:18:12.679 --> 00:18:13.682
You have to know right.

00:18:13.682 --> 00:18:15.730
You got to know your numbers.

00:18:15.730 --> 00:18:18.352
You got to know your audience.

00:18:18.352 --> 00:18:20.720
You got to know the details of certain things, the way certain industries work.

00:18:20.720 --> 00:18:21.142
All this stuff.

00:18:21.162 --> 00:18:25.432
You can't just go into it because your passion, like your passion, is only going to get you so far right.

00:18:25.432 --> 00:18:33.241
So, from your experience, what should people be looking to really?

00:18:33.241 --> 00:18:57.222
If you're wanting to be entrepreneurial and the way I look at it is like you can be entrepreneurial as a true entrepreneur, where you're working for yourself, you get an income from the thing you're trying to do, or you can be entrepreneurial within the context of a framework right, it's just like I get to try new things and somehow profit in some way off of the thing within the framework I have.

00:18:57.222 --> 00:18:57.830
Okay.

00:18:57.830 --> 00:19:08.790
So, whichever one of those categories, a lot of times, like you said, you started off doing this because you, you just wanted to be the person that somebody needed when you were in your darkest moment.

00:19:08.790 --> 00:19:12.419
That was a passion.

00:19:12.419 --> 00:19:14.123
I'm naming it that.

00:19:14.123 --> 00:19:17.175
But if it's something different, tell me, passions drove you to begin it.

00:19:18.318 --> 00:19:24.919
Um, when once passion leaves, right, what, what?

00:19:24.919 --> 00:19:25.901
What is the thing?

00:19:25.901 --> 00:19:29.113
Because I think that's where a lot of people stop.

00:19:29.113 --> 00:19:35.556
It's like when I'm not passionate about it anymore, right, I got into it for this and now, now it's not that anymore.

00:19:35.556 --> 00:19:36.719
Help people with that.

00:19:36.719 --> 00:19:37.582
Like, what do I do with that?

00:19:38.330 --> 00:19:47.598
I would say this One of the biggest scams, one of the biggest I call it self-improvement bumper stickers is if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.

00:19:47.920 --> 00:19:48.801
That is not accurate.

00:19:49.009 --> 00:19:49.892
That's not accurate.

00:19:49.892 --> 00:19:50.653
That is not accurate.

00:19:50.653 --> 00:19:53.300
A lot of stuff I do.

00:19:53.300 --> 00:19:54.550
I love podcasting.

00:19:54.550 --> 00:19:59.321
I don't always want to do episodes Yep, I very often do.

00:19:59.321 --> 00:20:00.550
I wake up and say there's no way.

00:20:00.550 --> 00:20:02.477
I want to do seven episodes today, not a chance.

00:20:02.477 --> 00:20:05.854
I'd rather do anything else, but I'm always grateful at the end of the night.

00:20:05.854 --> 00:20:14.313
Right it's, it's six, 30 on a Friday, and I'm I'm having the time of my life.

00:20:14.313 --> 00:20:14.693
This is awesome.

00:20:14.693 --> 00:20:17.325
But when I looked at my calendar today, I was like God, this could be a long one today.

00:20:17.345 --> 00:20:18.328
My goodness, but I'm glad I did it.

00:20:19.191 --> 00:20:21.115
I think there is okay.

00:20:21.115 --> 00:20:22.339
This would speak to me.

00:20:22.339 --> 00:20:29.759
I used to have guilt about the fact that I actually wanted to make money as an entrepreneur, because I am doing this to help people.

00:20:29.759 --> 00:20:39.334
I'm not doing this to get rich, but I do like money and I do like nice things and I do want to provide for my family and I do think we provide a valuable service.

00:20:39.334 --> 00:20:43.291
There's this blurring of the line when people say, well, I just started this because I loved it.

00:20:43.291 --> 00:20:49.553
Awesome, do you love it enough to make money so you can actually do it for long enough to have the meaningful impact that you want?

00:20:49.553 --> 00:20:51.696
All right, cool, let's go there.

00:20:52.759 --> 00:21:06.737
When passion gets you into it, I think it is systems, organization and then discipline that ultimately keeps you in it, and I didn't have any of that.

00:21:06.737 --> 00:21:09.276
I have a business partner.

00:21:09.276 --> 00:21:11.578
No, I didn't have any of that in the beginning.

00:21:11.578 --> 00:21:13.854
No, no, my business partner is a math genius and he's got a master's in business, so I'm very blessed to have a business partner.

00:21:13.854 --> 00:21:14.398
No, I didn't have any of that in the beginning.

00:21:14.398 --> 00:21:17.967
No, no, my business partner is a math genius and he's got a master's in business, so I'm very blessed to have a partner in the entrepreneurial journey.

00:21:17.967 --> 00:21:19.836
I had the passion.

00:21:19.836 --> 00:21:21.632
He had the systems.

00:21:21.632 --> 00:21:23.757
Okay, yeah, he knew the numbers.

00:21:23.757 --> 00:21:25.259
These are the numbers.

00:21:25.259 --> 00:21:26.762
This is the mark, this is what we have to make.

00:21:26.762 --> 00:21:36.536
This is you know that when we were hiring team he, he and I worked very closely to figure out what that would look like.

00:21:36.556 --> 00:21:41.904
So, yeah, I think it's probably the thing that you hate doing and that you're not really good at.

00:21:41.904 --> 00:21:47.334
Somebody asked me one time they said what advice would you give to somebody in this exposition?

00:21:47.334 --> 00:22:00.459
And I said it's very hard to ever give blanket statement advice, but this is what I would say do the thing that is hard, that sucks, that you don't want to do, because the thing that you're already really good at is not your weakness, that is your strength.

00:22:00.459 --> 00:22:08.714
If you're passionate about it, you're probably really good at getting other people to buy into the mission, but maybe you're not good at making money, maybe we need to learn sales.

00:22:08.714 --> 00:22:14.892
So it would be do the opposite of what you're already good at, because that's the weakness and that's the thing that's going to come bite you in the butt in a couple of years.

00:22:16.355 --> 00:22:16.737
One of my.

00:22:16.737 --> 00:22:18.140
So I do.

00:22:18.140 --> 00:22:20.948
You know my day to day.

00:22:20.948 --> 00:22:30.012
I'm a co-founder of a nonprofit and I lead it now right as executive director and my predecessor who's the founder and the former ED.

00:22:30.012 --> 00:22:37.551
One of the pieces of advice she told me was do the hardest thing when you first wake up in the morning, and then you don't have to worry about the rest of the day.

00:22:37.551 --> 00:22:46.431
She's like do the thing you don't want to do, send the emails to the donors, make the weird phone calls, do the things you have to do, and then the rest of your day is easy.

00:22:46.431 --> 00:22:48.452
And I'll never forget that.

00:22:48.452 --> 00:22:51.538
It was such great advice because, to your point, it has to get done.

00:22:52.179 --> 00:22:56.605
You know, I don't know, I don't, I don't want to make the phone call to a.

00:22:56.605 --> 00:22:57.425
Sometimes.

00:22:57.425 --> 00:22:59.316
Sometimes making phone calls to donors is great.

00:22:59.316 --> 00:23:06.375
Sometimes it can be awkward, right, you don't want to make the awkward phone call, so, um, it's like I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do it at nine, 30.

00:23:06.375 --> 00:23:10.941
I'm get it done, right and like, so I don't have to worry about it at three o'clock in the afternoon.

00:23:10.941 --> 00:23:18.051
And so I think you're too you're I love what you're saying Like, just the stuff you don't like, doing the hard thing.

00:23:18.051 --> 00:23:29.737
Do that like focus your energy on doing that Um, and then you know cause the other stuff you don't really need a whole lot of, you don't need much motivation to do that.

00:23:30.136 --> 00:23:30.617
You know what I mean?

00:23:30.617 --> 00:23:31.920
Well, it's the skill development.

00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:34.383
You're already really good at something.

00:23:34.383 --> 00:23:36.086
Exactly that's the point.

00:23:36.086 --> 00:23:37.855
I was really good at consistency.

00:23:37.855 --> 00:23:39.549
That's something I'm really good at.

00:23:39.549 --> 00:23:45.578
I'm very good at being consistent, but consistency without direction and or systems is just.

00:23:45.578 --> 00:23:47.583
I mean you could be consistent in a circle all day long.

00:23:47.583 --> 00:24:10.757
It doesn't necessarily mean we're getting anywhere, so it's almost like we need to figure out early on what are you really good at.

00:24:10.757 --> 00:24:11.278
I know some people that are just really good at sales.

00:24:11.278 --> 00:24:13.173
They will succeed anywhere they go because they can sell anything within alignment Awesome.

00:24:13.173 --> 00:24:14.246
But they probably need something else.

00:24:14.246 --> 00:24:15.278
Maybe they need somebody who's going to help them with marketing or whatever.

00:24:15.278 --> 00:24:15.808
So, yeah, that's something I wish I knew earlier.

00:24:15.808 --> 00:24:18.746
I just I didn't realize what my strengths were and I definitely didn't realize what my weaknesses were, and that's something I would have been.

00:24:18.746 --> 00:24:20.852
It would have been valuable for me to know that sooner.

00:24:21.955 --> 00:24:24.644
I want to talk about this word, value, for a second.

00:24:24.644 --> 00:24:26.971
You've used it a few times.

00:24:26.971 --> 00:24:30.134
You want to add value to people.

00:24:30.134 --> 00:24:31.476
How do you define value?

00:24:34.000 --> 00:24:36.782
It's contextual Right now.

00:24:36.782 --> 00:24:43.458
Value in this moment is creating something worth listening to.

00:24:43.458 --> 00:24:49.171
From my end, I want to make sure I'm adding value there To somebody else.

00:24:49.171 --> 00:24:51.255
It might be being a shoulder when they need one.

00:24:51.255 --> 00:24:52.717
To somebody else, it might be a being a shoulder when they need one.

00:24:52.717 --> 00:24:55.622
It's all I think of it is I think of it as a positive bid.

00:24:55.622 --> 00:25:07.854
Okay, After the bid, you leave saying I got more than I gave.

00:25:07.854 --> 00:25:08.335
I got more than I gave.

00:25:08.355 --> 00:25:08.957
I got more than I gave.

00:25:08.957 --> 00:25:09.758
That to me is is adding value.

00:25:09.758 --> 00:25:10.240
Yeah, I like that.

00:25:10.240 --> 00:25:11.021
I got more than I gave.

00:25:11.402 --> 00:25:13.446
Yeah, the other person saying that, not me.

00:25:13.829 --> 00:25:14.551
Correct Right, right, right.

00:25:14.612 --> 00:25:20.281
Okay, I'm taking value if I get out of here and say I got a lot there, I didn't do anything.

00:25:20.281 --> 00:25:21.170
That's awesome Good for me.

00:25:21.250 --> 00:25:22.070
No, no, no, no.

00:25:22.070 --> 00:25:22.730
You're not one of them.

00:25:22.730 --> 00:25:24.071
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.

00:25:24.071 --> 00:25:26.012
Okay, the person got more than they gave.

00:25:26.012 --> 00:25:27.054
I think that's great.

00:25:27.054 --> 00:25:30.355
Some people think they're adding value and they're not.

00:25:30.355 --> 00:25:37.340
How do you determine what value you're adding?

00:25:37.340 --> 00:25:44.246
How do you know that you're adding value as an entrepreneur, as somebody out in the world that's serving other people with something that they can help them?

00:25:44.246 --> 00:25:46.688
How do you know that that's adding value to them?

00:25:55.890 --> 00:25:55.910
I.

00:25:55.910 --> 00:25:59.803
Here's the interesting thing you might know that you're adding value and the other person might not know that you're adding value, so you might actually not be adding value in the moment.

00:25:59.803 --> 00:26:22.319
Okay, so let's say you and I, you need permission to add value, so you and I get off here and ra has a couple questions for me, literally, literally saying, hey, I'm giving you permission to try to add value into my life, versus we get off here and I say, hey, take it or leave it, just my two cents.

00:26:22.319 --> 00:26:23.313
This is kind of what.

00:26:23.313 --> 00:26:25.038
This is what I might do moving forward.

00:26:25.038 --> 00:26:29.642
That isn't valuable, unless you think it is because it's conceptual.

00:26:29.642 --> 00:26:30.775
You might say I can't believe.

00:26:30.815 --> 00:26:31.356
He said that to me.

00:26:31.356 --> 00:26:41.238
I offered up my platform and he still had constructive feedback for me at the end of it.

00:26:41.238 --> 00:26:41.598
So for me, it's.

00:26:41.598 --> 00:26:43.165
Does this person actually know they're that I'm trying to give them value?

00:26:43.165 --> 00:26:44.931
This is coming from a truly positive place.

00:26:44.931 --> 00:26:52.943
Do they know that I actually have the awareness or results that they're looking for?

00:26:52.943 --> 00:27:01.261
Okay, that is a huge component of this, because if, if, if I don't have any podcast episodes, I can't tell you anything about podcasting.

00:27:01.261 --> 00:27:02.310
Sure, it's not.

00:27:02.310 --> 00:27:02.551
I don't.

00:27:02.551 --> 00:27:03.977
I will never get the permission to do that.

00:27:03.977 --> 00:27:07.337
So that's a piece of it, and then I think it depends on the relationship.

00:27:07.337 --> 00:27:16.564
One of the things we've said for a long time is the level of feedback, the level of value that you can give to somebody, is directly connected to the level of relationship.

00:27:17.144 --> 00:27:17.265
Yeah.

00:27:17.630 --> 00:27:32.442
If I'm just meeting you for the first time, I'm not going to try to overpour for fear of intimidating you, offending you, whatever it is, yeah, but as you get to know someone, I will never treat you the same after this.

00:27:48.292 --> 00:27:49.615
This is the second time.

00:27:49.615 --> 00:27:50.297
It's different.

00:27:50.297 --> 00:27:52.623
Now it's like I will be looking out for you.

00:27:52.623 --> 00:27:58.338
The thing that I I I think is so important about entrepreneurship You've said it, you've said it a few times it is a service.

00:27:58.338 --> 00:28:00.413
I mean, at the end of the day, it's a service.

00:28:00.413 --> 00:28:03.039
Uh, I'm, you know I'm, I am a musician.

00:28:03.039 --> 00:28:04.323
I've studied music.

00:28:04.323 --> 00:28:09.656
I'm around a lot of musicians, a lot of creators, right, and creators love their own creations.

00:28:09.656 --> 00:28:12.099
You know what I'm saying.

00:28:12.099 --> 00:28:20.803
Like, they love their thing and it's like, oh my God, like this is exactly what I wanna do.

00:28:21.329 --> 00:28:24.240
And then you put it out in the world, and the world may not love it as much as you do.

00:28:24.240 --> 00:28:32.518
And there's tension, right, I mean and I'm using these between a lot of times, the creator and then the people who are receiving what they've created.

00:28:32.518 --> 00:28:38.262
And then the question is what am I more married to, my creation or the reception?

00:28:38.262 --> 00:28:40.574
And then, what am I willing?

00:28:40.574 --> 00:28:41.635
What do I do?

00:28:41.635 --> 00:28:44.182
Like which one matters to me most?

00:28:44.182 --> 00:28:47.217
And I think entrepreneurs, a lot of entrepreneurs, were ideas people.

00:28:47.217 --> 00:28:48.461
We come up with great ideas.

00:28:48.461 --> 00:28:50.113
Ideas are our creation.

00:28:50.113 --> 00:28:51.257
This is my idea.

00:28:51.257 --> 00:28:52.861
I want to put it into the world.

00:28:52.861 --> 00:28:55.939
You put it into the world, and the world has stuff to say.

00:28:55.939 --> 00:29:08.113
How do you live in the tension of what's in your head versus then what's out there, and honoring the idea but also recognizing if this is going to work.

00:29:08.113 --> 00:29:10.338
I got to have buy-in from people, right?

00:29:10.338 --> 00:29:11.441
Where's that tension?

00:29:11.441 --> 00:29:12.711
How do you work through that?

00:29:13.093 --> 00:29:14.134
Yeah, that's a great question.

00:29:14.134 --> 00:29:36.317
I don't know if I would have a truly valuable answer for that because I am very compartmentalized and essentially everything I do is speaking, coaching and podcasting at this point, and I happen to be in an industry of speakers, coaches and entrepreneurs and podcasters, so every idea I have, I already have kind of an active market to test it on.

00:29:36.317 --> 00:29:39.126
We had a new idea in terms of pricing and packages.

00:29:39.126 --> 00:29:44.711
I sent audio messages to like 10 people and just said hey, I know we've talked about some maybe working together in the past.

00:29:44.711 --> 00:29:48.991
I would just love feedback on what does this mean to you when you hear it Boom out the door?

00:29:48.991 --> 00:29:50.575
Awesome, let's see what happens.

00:29:50.575 --> 00:29:52.819
So, yeah, it's interesting.

00:29:52.819 --> 00:29:53.401
I'm not.

00:29:53.401 --> 00:30:01.875
I'm far more worried, from a place of judgment, about the content I create as opposed to like the products or services I create okay, talk about that.

00:30:01.955 --> 00:30:07.997
Okay, all right I almost don't worry at all about the products and services because I had a mentor.

00:30:07.997 --> 00:30:10.623
Evan carmichael, my friends and mentor, said this to me.

00:30:10.623 --> 00:30:15.820
He said I'm not worried about disappointing people because I know I can make it up to him.

00:30:15.820 --> 00:30:17.929
And I said what does that mean?

00:30:17.929 --> 00:30:25.557
He said if I know things are going to happen and I'm human and everybody's human, and when I make a mistake I just guarantee that I will make the mistake go away and I will make it better.

00:30:25.557 --> 00:30:31.560
I will just go above and beyond to make sure that the next experience is just the most positive experience possible.

00:30:31.580 --> 00:30:40.016
It's like interesting, okay, I can, I can work with that.

00:30:40.016 --> 00:30:40.215
It's.

00:30:40.215 --> 00:30:41.622
I think it's far easier.

00:30:41.622 --> 00:30:50.276
It's far easier for somebody to see a piece of content and judge it, say I can't believe you said that.

00:30:50.276 --> 00:30:52.140
How arrogant of you to say that, because you don't know the person.

00:30:52.140 --> 00:30:59.612
But when you have a product or a service, the feedback you get is based on I've used this and I know you and I know what you're like behind the scenes.

00:30:59.612 --> 00:31:11.674
And here's the other interesting thing oftentimes the feedback is true and more accurate, even when it sucks, and that there is a piece because now I know I can do something about that.

00:31:11.954 --> 00:31:15.837
I can't If RA comments and says, kev, you're the worst speaker of all time.

00:31:15.837 --> 00:31:18.900
I'm sorry, I'm sorry you didn't like my teaser clip.

00:31:18.900 --> 00:31:28.886
I'm trying my best, but if a client who is paying me X amount of dollars per month comes to me and says, hey, this ain't it, I now can talk directly to this person.

00:31:28.886 --> 00:31:31.655
I can say can I get feet?

00:31:31.655 --> 00:31:32.101
What isn't it?

00:31:32.101 --> 00:31:33.049
What, what is it about it?

00:31:33.049 --> 00:31:33.832
That didn't work out.

00:31:33.832 --> 00:31:39.993
And then I can say what can I do to make it up to you, and that becomes a beautiful experience.

00:31:39.993 --> 00:31:53.811
So I I am somebody who likes messy action and I like to take risks, but messy action also creates its own unique problems when that action lands and the results are still messy.

00:31:53.811 --> 00:31:55.657
So that's still something I'm working through to this day.

00:31:55.919 --> 00:31:56.651
But, but you know what?

00:31:56.651 --> 00:32:03.903
But I think that's, but you know that about yourself and I almost think, as entrepreneurs, you know, and I, I'm going to put myself in this.

00:32:03.903 --> 00:32:19.970
I don't often put myself in that category, but I'm going to do it, do it, I think, I think, I think I, I think I, that's probably who I really am, but, like, um, as entrepreneurs, it's like the risk factor is, is an important I mean, you gotta have to kind of have to have that right.

00:32:19.970 --> 00:32:22.258
I mean, like you have to be willing to risk some stuff.

00:32:22.258 --> 00:32:29.680
We just put on a, a first time event, a fundraising event, uh, for the organization I lead, and, um, it was a risky event.

00:32:29.680 --> 00:32:33.505
I, you know, I, we didn't know, I had no idea how it was going to turn out.

00:32:33.505 --> 00:32:39.762
It involved other like celebrities showing up and engaging.

00:32:39.762 --> 00:32:52.239
It was just like and I've never dealt with people on that level before and it was a little scary about six weeks out I was like, oh, I don't, you know, I don't know what's going to happen, but it was a risk we thought we were taking.

00:32:52.239 --> 00:32:54.057
It ended up being totally worth it.

00:32:54.057 --> 00:32:55.896
Amazing day, great day, everything like that.

00:32:56.530 --> 00:33:05.953
But you have to be willing to work through the, through that tension of I I'm going to put this out here, I don't know how it's going to land and then, like you said, the messiness on the backend.

00:33:05.953 --> 00:33:12.143
So I think that's that's something else I like to unlearning what, what, what are the?

00:33:12.143 --> 00:33:14.145
What is it you've had to unlearn about messy?

00:33:14.145 --> 00:33:23.358
I feel like we live in a culture where messy is something it's like, that's so um, people are so messy averse.

00:33:23.358 --> 00:33:29.856
You know, we, we want the perfect picture, the perfect uh caption, all the right emojis, the right time so we can get the right views right.

00:33:29.856 --> 00:33:31.279
I mean, we have our.

00:33:31.279 --> 00:33:33.064
Everything is curated.

00:33:33.064 --> 00:33:38.261
Messy is not something we're really interested in now, right, we can clean everything up.

00:33:38.261 --> 00:33:40.758
What do we need to unlearn?

00:33:40.758 --> 00:33:46.239
What would you tell people who are entrepreneurial is important to unlearn about messiness?

00:33:50.415 --> 00:33:58.170
Not having the desire or willingness to take messy action is quite literally holding you back from getting the desired results eventually.

00:33:58.170 --> 00:34:09.960
Mm, uh, if you think of anything a video game, an app, youtube is great now, but it wasn't in the beginning, it was not right, it wasn't.

00:34:09.960 --> 00:34:11.802
Tesla is a great company Now.

00:34:11.802 --> 00:34:13.010
It wasn't in the beginning.

00:34:13.010 --> 00:34:14.210
None of these companies.

00:34:14.210 --> 00:34:17.914
We're using a platform right now called Riverside Yep, it's pretty bad.

00:34:17.914 --> 00:34:19.775
Very few, not very few.

00:34:19.795 --> 00:34:22.356
Uh, the majority of places don't really need to have perfect action.

00:34:22.356 --> 00:34:43.539
If I'm getting on a plane, I don't really want there to be a ton of messy action like let's, let's ground it and fix the thing and I'll be late for whatever.

00:34:43.539 --> 00:34:45.025
I'm good with that, yes.

00:34:45.025 --> 00:34:46.309
Medicine, that's another one.

00:34:46.309 --> 00:34:53.552
We probably don't want a ton of messy action in medicine, yeah, but when it comes to your social media post, nobody's going to remember it a day from today.

00:34:53.552 --> 00:35:05.751
The consumer, especially if they're not purchasing something from you, has a very, very, very short attention span, and we're all, as content creators, complaining about that.

00:35:05.751 --> 00:35:07.298
So it is a fact, it's a reality.

00:35:07.298 --> 00:35:11.856
So if we're going to complain about it on one end, we also can use it to our advantage on the other end.

00:35:11.856 --> 00:35:18.646
That's one thought, and the second thought is almost nothing you do is going to be the final product.

00:35:18.666 --> 00:35:22.114
When you put it out, when you started, did you have this mic?

00:35:22.114 --> 00:35:24.780
Probably not, right, no Right.

00:35:24.780 --> 00:35:26.150
Were you doing video in the beginning?

00:35:26.150 --> 00:35:29.257
No, so would.

00:35:29.257 --> 00:35:33.592
Would you be where you are today if you didn't start where you were capable of starting?

00:35:33.592 --> 00:35:35.797
No, no it, it doesn't.

00:35:35.797 --> 00:35:41.451
You don't go from never making a song to being Taylor Swift.

00:35:41.451 --> 00:35:42.273
It doesn't happen.

00:35:42.273 --> 00:35:43.675
Yeah, it doesn't happen.

00:35:43.757 --> 00:35:53.503
So I think what we have to understand is if you can detach the feedback you get about something and not personalize it.

00:35:53.503 --> 00:35:54.936
It doesn't mean you're bad.

00:35:54.936 --> 00:35:56.463
It doesn't mean you're not valuable.

00:35:56.463 --> 00:36:00.155
It doesn't mean your podcast or business or brand isn't great.

00:36:00.155 --> 00:36:06.612
It just means somebody found it and they're having a bad day and they're going to try to share their bad day with you.

00:36:06.612 --> 00:36:10.914
But there's a bunch of people out there that are having a great day and they want to share their great day with you too.

00:36:10.914 --> 00:36:24.777
The reason I'll give you this I have worked with a bunch of podcasters who I work with and they say I can't tell you, I've been waiting three years to do this, why I?

00:36:24.777 --> 00:36:26.001
I don't know, because I I don't know.

00:36:26.001 --> 00:36:26.791
It just never felt.

00:36:26.791 --> 00:36:29.679
It never felt right, it never felt good enough, it never will.

00:36:30.141 --> 00:36:30.422
Yeah.

00:36:30.990 --> 00:36:34.639
I told somebody that the other day I said you are paying me to help you take messy action.

00:36:34.639 --> 00:36:37.291
That's all you're doing, that's it, and I'm going to be on you.

00:36:37.291 --> 00:36:42.918
I, like you, cannot improve something that does not exist in reality.

00:36:42.918 --> 00:36:47.425
And I think for a lot of us, especially if you're early as an entrepreneur, you need that proof.

00:36:47.425 --> 00:36:49.958
You need to put it out there and see what happens.

00:36:49.958 --> 00:36:51.612
Who knows what?

00:36:51.612 --> 00:36:57.155
You never know what's going to happen, you never will, and so you put it out there and that's that's messy action in a nutshell, and you can always clean it up later.

00:36:57.155 --> 00:37:13.632
Yeah, that's going to be the process is testing, getting results, shifting testing, that, getting results, shifting testing, getter.

00:37:13.632 --> 00:37:14.672
That's that's entrepreneurship in a.

00:37:14.672 --> 00:37:15.034
In a nutshell.

00:37:15.034 --> 00:37:17.297
What was one of the first things that you had to fix when you got into this?

00:37:17.297 --> 00:37:18.059
Geez, everything, audio quality.

00:37:18.059 --> 00:37:18.719
I was upset.

00:37:18.719 --> 00:37:21.704
The first episodes we recorded were just terrible.

00:37:21.704 --> 00:37:25.641
It sounded like I was in a tin can, and that became my obsession.

00:37:25.641 --> 00:37:28.635
It became my obsession.

00:37:28.775 --> 00:37:29.135
Really.

00:37:29.297 --> 00:37:30.219
I need to fix the audio.

00:37:30.219 --> 00:37:31.280
I need to make it better.

00:37:31.280 --> 00:37:37.780
What mics, what filters, what the room echoes, curtains, carpets make a big difference.

00:37:37.780 --> 00:37:41.655
Oh my gosh, I was so obsessed with making the audio quality good.

00:37:41.655 --> 00:37:43.460
I'll give you a recent one.

00:37:43.460 --> 00:37:48.913
We sunk thousands of dollars into an app.

00:37:48.913 --> 00:37:52.900
So we are a company that is all about self-improvement.

00:37:52.900 --> 00:37:55.063
I track habits every day.

00:37:55.063 --> 00:37:56.557
My business partner tracks habits every day.

00:37:56.557 --> 00:37:58.226
All of his clients track habits every day.

00:37:58.226 --> 00:37:59.891
Our entire team tracks habits every day.

00:37:59.891 --> 00:38:03.259
Logically, it would make sense for us to have a habit tracking app.

00:38:03.259 --> 00:38:03.920
Just make sense.

00:38:03.920 --> 00:38:07.315
Okay, the version one is garbage.

00:38:07.315 --> 00:38:09.079
It is.

00:38:09.079 --> 00:38:13.510
We don't even talk about it, uh-huh, and we took it off our website.

00:38:13.510 --> 00:38:18.559
Okay, because the I'm not saying it wasn't good to take messy action.

00:38:18.559 --> 00:38:26.878
Sure we're not willing to sink another five thousand dollars to get it up to version two yet, yeah when we are same thing's gonna happen.

00:38:27.699 --> 00:38:33.112
we're gonna do it and it's gonna be better than version one, yeah, but worse than version three.

00:38:33.112 --> 00:38:42.856
And eventually it will cross a chasm where I believe in it enough to say ra, we got this app, yeah, and I feel like you would benefit tremendously from it.

00:38:42.856 --> 00:38:45.079
Honestly, right now, I do not feel that way.

00:38:45.079 --> 00:38:48.003
Yeah, we're not there, and that's totally fine.

00:38:48.003 --> 00:38:51.532
This is the process of iteration.

00:38:51.532 --> 00:38:54.298
You iterate as you go.

00:38:54.298 --> 00:39:04.556
So, yeah, right now we're currently dealing with that exact thing and figuring out, like, how messy do we want this action to be before we lose credibility with the audience when they go into it?

00:39:04.556 --> 00:39:05.717
And it's it not good?

00:39:05.717 --> 00:39:07.561
I don't want to lose credibility, right?

00:39:07.561 --> 00:39:12.938
So that's that kind of that fine line I, I love, I love this messy action.

00:39:13.097 --> 00:39:13.639
I love that.

00:39:13.639 --> 00:39:16.652
First of all, like I love that term, I love I.

00:39:16.652 --> 00:39:21.068
That is so because people don't like to take action when it's messy way.

00:39:21.068 --> 00:39:22.570
You want to wait till it's the right time.

00:39:22.570 --> 00:39:23.793
It's never going to be the right time.

00:39:23.793 --> 00:39:26.619
It'll always be messy and I love that.

00:39:26.619 --> 00:39:32.315
And I, like you, know it's the, it's the iterative, it's the iterative process.

00:39:32.315 --> 00:39:32.936
Right, it is.

00:39:32.936 --> 00:39:34.018
It is.

00:39:34.018 --> 00:39:37.231
It is doing something, trying it, fixing it.

00:39:37.231 --> 00:39:40.360
Doing something, trying something, fixing it over and over and over again.

00:39:40.360 --> 00:39:44.331
Is there anything in your business that you felt like you've gotten right over again?

00:39:44.331 --> 00:39:45.351
Is there anything in your business?

00:39:45.371 --> 00:39:47.512
that you feel like you've gotten right.

00:39:47.512 --> 00:39:50.036
Our commitment to talking to the audience.

00:39:50.036 --> 00:39:55.021
Okay, yeah, We've definitely gotten that right.

00:39:55.021 --> 00:39:57.083
My business partner had this, not me.

00:39:57.083 --> 00:40:08.771
The thought process of if we just do more episodes than anybody else, we'll probably get pretty good at this.

00:40:08.771 --> 00:40:10.237
Just, I mean 27 or 2,800 episodes in total.

00:40:10.237 --> 00:40:11.199
I have to be somewhat reasonable at this by now.

00:40:11.199 --> 00:40:12.483
If not, I'm in the wrong business for sure.

00:40:12.483 --> 00:40:27.411
That just the process of small improvements Atomic Habits 101, that I would say yeah, it was based on what we did wrong when we were looking to bring on team members.

00:40:27.411 --> 00:40:33.884
We would look at accomplishments first, Accomplishments and competence.

00:40:33.884 --> 00:40:37.936
Okay, that bit us in the butt in the beginning.

00:40:37.936 --> 00:40:40.300
Now it is character.

00:40:41.362 --> 00:40:43.273
I don't care what you know, I don't care.

00:40:43.273 --> 00:40:43.735
We can teach you that.

00:40:43.735 --> 00:40:44.297
I cannot teach you humility.

00:40:44.297 --> 00:40:45.202
I don't care what you know, I don't care.

00:40:45.202 --> 00:40:45.847
I, we, we can teach you that.

00:40:45.847 --> 00:40:46.893
I cannot teach you humility.

00:40:46.893 --> 00:40:47.759
I don't know how to do it.

00:40:47.759 --> 00:40:49.027
I don't know how to teach somebody humility.

00:40:49.027 --> 00:40:50.693
If you don't have it, you don't have it.

00:40:50.693 --> 00:40:51.996
That it's.

00:40:51.996 --> 00:40:55.844
There's something about somebody that comes to you.

00:40:55.844 --> 00:41:00.811
One of one of the best examples we were talking to this gentleman who was interested in coming on the team.

00:41:00.811 --> 00:41:08.056
His name is Brandon and we did like an interview with him virtual interview and we said what are your skills, what are you really good at?

00:41:08.056 --> 00:41:36.442
And he said honestly, I'm I don't know, I'm not really good at anything, but I'll work really hard, I'm open to learning and, yeah, I believe in the mission Cool, because our team is just incredible in terms of what everybody is capable of, but just the culture we cry on our team calls.

00:41:36.501 --> 00:41:38.012
We are just there to support each other.

00:41:38.012 --> 00:41:40.476
Our team is just the best in the world.

00:41:40.476 --> 00:41:44.458
So I would say we've gotten that right in terms of saying this person would be really good.

00:41:44.458 --> 00:41:48.295
We've gotten that right, and that we've gotten that right in terms of saying this person would be really good.

00:41:48.295 --> 00:41:52.775
And then they got it right when they came on the team and grew and evolved and worked on themselves.

00:41:52.775 --> 00:41:57.793
Being on a on a team that is a company of self improvement is not easy.

00:41:57.793 --> 00:41:59.842
No, I bet it's not, cause it's.

00:41:59.842 --> 00:42:01.989
I want to help you in your relationship.

00:42:01.989 --> 00:42:03.653
I want to help you with your finances.

00:42:03.653 --> 00:42:06.481
I want to help you with your self-awareness all of that stuff.

00:42:06.481 --> 00:42:16.237
Our team calls and our team trainings are different, but a shout out to everybody on the team showing up and doing their own personal self-improvement.

00:42:16.237 --> 00:42:17.375
So that's on them, not on me.

00:42:18.731 --> 00:42:19.896
You said y'all track habits.

00:42:19.896 --> 00:42:21.139
What does that look like?

00:42:21.139 --> 00:42:23.541
What are some habits that people track like?

00:42:23.541 --> 00:42:25.170
How do you, how do you like?

00:42:25.170 --> 00:42:26.253
You know I'm saying what?

00:42:26.273 --> 00:42:31.411
how does that look like yeah, right now I think I track probably 25 habits or something.

00:42:31.411 --> 00:42:36.646
It's 30 minutes of exercise, 30 minutes of learning every day.

00:42:36.646 --> 00:42:38.371
I track our listens every day.

00:42:38.371 --> 00:42:39.554
I look at our bank account.

00:42:39.554 --> 00:42:50.318
That's kind of under like business, but I think if, if you, if you have KPIs and specific measurements in your business, you can cross those over to your love life and your finances.

00:42:50.318 --> 00:42:54.777
Talk to me how, every night before I go to bed, my wife and I play the gratitude game.

00:42:54.777 --> 00:42:57.735
Okay, so we say one thing we're grateful for about one another.

00:42:57.735 --> 00:43:02.536
I, I have something that I track and this is literally labeled kitchen Kev.

00:43:02.536 --> 00:43:07.996
So it's's my job, it's my responsibility in our household to make sure the kitchen is clean and the dishes are done.

00:43:07.996 --> 00:43:09.740
That's meat, that's kevin thing.

00:43:09.740 --> 00:43:12.398
If they're not done, it's on me, it's not anybody else, it's on me.

00:43:12.960 --> 00:43:22.391
The reason is because I dislike them less than my wife does yep and when there's a clean kitchen, the household it just runs better, there's less stress, there's less.

00:43:22.391 --> 00:43:25.617
You wouldn't have to poke at each other like, let's, let's take care of that.

00:43:25.617 --> 00:43:30.903
Yep, under health is like exercise every day.

00:43:30.903 --> 00:43:35.358
Meditate, that type of stuff, journal for people that on the team.

00:43:35.358 --> 00:43:48.393
It's different because some of it's like this is your department, this is what you're responsible for, but everybody has their own personal stuff in there yeah I can't tell you how many people on the team have fitness streaks of.

00:43:49.976 --> 00:43:53.503
Brandon has run a mile every day for the last two years straight.

00:43:53.503 --> 00:43:54.351
Hasn't missed a day.

00:43:54.351 --> 00:43:56.936
He is a very consistent human.

00:43:56.936 --> 00:44:00.043
Amy on the team has exercised every day for over a year.

00:44:00.043 --> 00:44:31.623
Wow, 30 minutes a day that type of stuff, because that that's what's going to help you grow as a the, the, the ceo of south, or the founder of southwest was famous for saying you hire for a fit, not skill, and it's essentially what you just said.

00:44:31.951 --> 00:44:33.072
You, you hired for skill.

00:44:33.072 --> 00:44:33.594
It didn't work.

00:44:33.594 --> 00:44:42.074
Like, isn't that crazy, like you wouldn't think that that would like, that's so, uh, that that's, that's that that doesn't make sense.

00:44:42.074 --> 00:44:55.920
Like, so, it's so, uh, paradoxical, like what you would think, that I, I'm gonna hire the person that fit, that feels like they could do the job at the best level, um, and that it's like, well, duh, check that box.

00:44:55.920 --> 00:44:56.902
That makes perfect sense.

00:44:56.902 --> 00:44:58.733
Look at the resume and all the stuff.

00:44:58.733 --> 00:45:35.503
Um, I, I feel you, I have, I have, I've been in a similar situation, right, I've been in similar situations where it's like yo, like, and it's not that they're not great, but I think also, um, and I think entrepreneurs and people that are entrepreneurial this is one thing that is important for uh to is important to think through is you have to think through all the layers of what you're doing, right, it's not just about what you do, especially when you start bringing on other people, it's about the whole, and you have to really think about that, and your brain can't just be on your own task.

00:45:35.583 --> 00:45:43.932
It's got to be on, you know, I got to figure out these things need to get done, but also like who's going to do them and what is the culture going to be like, and all these things.

00:45:43.932 --> 00:45:50.851
It gets really complicated when you start bringing on extra people quickly yeah, quickly, it's to your point.

00:45:50.871 --> 00:45:52.355
It's not about I can work with anybody.

00:45:52.355 --> 00:45:54.239
Whatever it's, I'll just grind it out.

00:45:54.239 --> 00:45:55.172
It's not that big of a deal.

00:45:55.172 --> 00:45:57.458
I'm more worried about the culture of the team.

00:45:57.458 --> 00:46:06.824
Yes, is this person gonna come in and are they going to rub people in the wrong way when we have a safe, a very, very safe team?

00:46:06.824 --> 00:46:08.836
I think that that's a very good point.

00:46:08.836 --> 00:46:10.034
It's not necessarily about me.

00:46:10.034 --> 00:46:12.436
I'm not really super worried about it.

00:46:12.436 --> 00:46:17.896
I'm more worried about the people that this person is going to be working directly around and what's that going to do?

00:46:18.329 --> 00:46:22.059
Yeah, that's huge, because they have to like where they are.

00:46:22.059 --> 00:46:23.835
They have to like where they are.

00:46:23.835 --> 00:46:25.092
They have to contribute where they are.

00:46:25.092 --> 00:46:26.516
They have to like where they are.

00:46:26.516 --> 00:46:27.458
They have to contribute where they are.

00:46:27.458 --> 00:46:29.402
The idea of them adding value is also important.

00:46:29.402 --> 00:46:32.777
So it's like how do you create that culture?

00:46:32.777 --> 00:46:36.952
I think that's another part of people who are entrepreneurs and who want to grow certain things.

00:46:36.952 --> 00:46:43.813
You get into it for one reason and then you have to continue to build skills.

00:46:43.813 --> 00:46:48.295
That's why I think you know a lot of these companies, especially these larger companies.

00:46:48.295 --> 00:47:01.454
The founders have a term limit because at some point you got to bring in somebody who understands how to manage the business and manage not just the business but the people right and lead people.

00:47:01.454 --> 00:47:02.911
And maybe that's not your strong suit.

00:47:02.911 --> 00:47:04.835
You are the creator, you're the ideas person.

00:47:04.835 --> 00:47:06.418
You got to get something off the ground.

00:47:06.980 --> 00:47:17.494
Let me ask you this as an entrepreneur how do you know when it's time for you to leave?

00:47:17.494 --> 00:47:20.840
Oh my goodness, I don't know, because I haven't and I don't plan on it, so I get.

00:47:20.840 --> 00:47:33.617
I would say when, when the goals are no longer aligned, when the process is no longer aligned, or when you realize you're doing more damage to the business than good, I would say those are probably.

00:47:33.617 --> 00:47:39.380
Everything is a matter, for me at least a matter of core beliefs, core values and core aspirations.

00:47:39.380 --> 00:47:45.463
So if your core beliefs have changed and it's like I don't, I don't want to do this anymore, all right, cool.

00:47:45.463 --> 00:47:51.648
If your core values have changed and it takes you away from the other stuff that you're starting to value more, all right, that's a conversation.

00:47:51.648 --> 00:48:01.257
And then, if your aspirations of the company have changed and you realize you're not going to be capable of getting the company to a place that you really want to get it to, or it's already there, yeah.

00:48:06.190 --> 00:48:08.755
Then it, it's already there, then it takes a lot of humility to say, well, yeah, this is probably it for me.

00:48:08.755 --> 00:48:18.559
I remember a couple, however many years ago, three or four years ago we were having the talks of who was going to be the CEO of our company and I was like Alan's going to be, it's not going to be me, I'm going to.

00:48:18.559 --> 00:48:19.731
I'll run this thing into the ground.

00:48:19.731 --> 00:48:21.775
I would absolutely run this thing into the ground.

00:48:21.775 --> 00:48:23.780
I'm a really good number two.

00:48:23.780 --> 00:48:26.574
I'm not a number one, I'm a really good number two.

00:48:26.574 --> 00:48:27.556
I'm a great operator.

00:48:27.556 --> 00:48:28.480
I'm very consistent.

00:48:28.480 --> 00:48:30.476
I am not a visionary.

00:48:30.476 --> 00:48:34.960
At the beginning of this, I could see what was directly in front of me and that was it.

00:48:35.090 --> 00:48:50.438
Now my time perspective is different, but I think humility is one of the most valuable things as an entrepreneur, For you to even say that right, I'm a, I'm a number two, I'm a great number two, not a non-number one man.

00:48:50.438 --> 00:48:51.501
That that right there.

00:48:51.501 --> 00:48:57.382
You just don't hear a lot of people that self-aware, like as knowing that you know.

00:48:57.402 --> 00:48:58.465
I mean, I want to win, ruth.

00:48:58.465 --> 00:48:59.467
I'm here to win.

00:48:59.467 --> 00:48:59.730
I don't.

00:48:59.730 --> 00:49:01.675
I'm here to add value, I'm here to change the world.

00:49:01.675 --> 00:49:08.476
I would rather be successful as a number two than not successful as a number one.

00:49:08.476 --> 00:49:11.882
I don't need the plaque on my door, I don't need that.

00:49:11.882 --> 00:49:16.096
Yeah, I want to live in reality.

00:49:16.096 --> 00:49:25.139
I want to live in reality and in reality, I am not as good as a business owner or a CEO as my business partner.

00:49:25.139 --> 00:49:26.891
He has a master's in business.

00:49:26.891 --> 00:49:29.737
What, in what world am I better for this?

00:49:29.737 --> 00:49:32.302
Why, there was a.

00:49:32.302 --> 00:49:37.197
There was some people that we we knew and we worked with, and I said they're in trouble.

00:49:37.197 --> 00:49:40.672
And and Alan and I were having a conversation, he said why?

00:49:40.672 --> 00:49:41.974
And I said cause they're co-CEOs.

00:49:41.974 --> 00:49:43.596
Why are you co-CEOs?

00:49:43.596 --> 00:49:44.958
You need one, you don't need two.

00:49:44.958 --> 00:49:46.440
That's an ego play.

00:49:46.440 --> 00:49:56.199
That's somebody didn't have the courage or the vulnerability to say yeah, honestly, I think you're probably better for this and I think that's a company that is potentially in trouble if that doesn't get sorted out.

00:49:57.851 --> 00:50:06.610
One of my mentors said two heads is a monster, yeah, and you can't.

00:50:06.610 --> 00:50:07.193
You cannot operate that way.

00:50:07.193 --> 00:50:09.561
Like, it just doesn't work that way, um, you think you think you could like, you want to think you can.

00:50:09.561 --> 00:50:11.851
It's like because we have such a great relationship and we have they.

00:50:11.851 --> 00:50:24.215
You know these strengths and these strengths and you know I was listening to somebody the other day, um, who said, at the end of the day, I want to, I want to, I want to be.

00:50:24.275 --> 00:50:30.416
The reason that I have the majority ownership in all my businesses is because I want to be the one.

00:50:30.416 --> 00:50:32.992
If there's a bad call, I want to be the one to make it right.

00:50:32.992 --> 00:50:41.139
Like there, there there's a level of ownership that he's willing to take, um, because he's like somebody has got to make the hard call, I'll do it.

00:50:41.139 --> 00:50:47.951
But in order to do that, I got to be the one on top.

00:50:47.951 --> 00:50:48.972
You know, um, and I loved that.

00:50:48.972 --> 00:50:54.362
I was like because, at the end of the day, that's really, I mean um, um, it's not all that.

00:50:54.362 --> 00:50:54.762
You.

00:50:54.762 --> 00:51:04.954
You know a CEO, somebody who is but that's a lot of it like I'm, I'm choosing to become the person who's got to do the thing nobody else wants to do.

00:51:05.335 --> 00:51:06.239
Yeah, that's huge.

00:51:06.239 --> 00:51:06.860
That's huge.

00:51:06.860 --> 00:51:09.077
Well, I had a conversation with Alan right before this.

00:51:09.077 --> 00:51:15.916
I said, dude, you're leading the charge, it is up to you, it's up to us, it's up to everybody, but you set the standard.

00:51:15.916 --> 00:51:20.074
Your standards are higher than mine, they just are.

00:51:20.074 --> 00:51:23.981
You're a more well-developed, well-rounded human than I am.

00:51:23.981 --> 00:51:24.822
That's no.

00:51:24.822 --> 00:51:25.804
I'm not talking bad about me.

00:51:25.804 --> 00:51:26.632
This is just the truth.

00:51:26.632 --> 00:51:31.050
You are setting the stage, you are setting the speed, you are setting the standard.

00:51:31.050 --> 00:51:39.530
That's an unfortunate yet powerful responsibility that you have, for sure, and he loves it.

00:51:39.530 --> 00:51:39.891
So it's.

00:51:39.891 --> 00:51:41.534
It works, right, it works.

00:51:41.534 --> 00:51:47.510
But I, I don't set the, the standard in some things I do in our production and that stuff.

00:51:47.510 --> 00:51:50.177
That's my thing cool, but not the entire business, not leadership.

00:51:50.197 --> 00:52:00.880
That's him so, yeah, and I, you know, as we, as we kind of wrap up, I, I would like you to talk a little bit about this partnership like because, um, you've you've mentioned alan several times.

00:52:00.900 --> 00:52:03.012
You obviously respect him as a leader, as a partner.

00:52:03.012 --> 00:52:04.675
You guys do work really well together.

00:52:04.675 --> 00:52:07.521
I mean, what are the challenges, though, of partnership?

00:52:07.521 --> 00:52:11.945
Because you know, like entrepreneurship, sometimes you do it solo, but you all have chosen to do it together.

00:52:11.945 --> 00:52:16.242
You've been in it together for seven years, which is longer than a lot of people last as partners.

00:52:16.242 --> 00:52:22.922
What's challenging about that, and what are some things that you all have had to?

00:52:22.942 --> 00:52:26.949
work through, um, and what are some things that you all have had to work through.

00:52:26.949 --> 00:52:31.715
So I'll start by saying it's the best and we're brothers and we very.

00:52:31.715 --> 00:52:34.043
We argue occasionally, but what we have is so unique and I'm I'm so blessed.

00:52:34.043 --> 00:52:36.659
We went to middle school together, high school together.

00:52:36.659 --> 00:52:39.277
He was the first guest on my podcast.

00:52:39.277 --> 00:53:19.849
I was the first guest on his YouTube channel, so it became and the one of our core wounds is both of us grew up without fathers, so we have something that just we used to spend Father's Day together every year when we started this and then we made a foundation and all this His extremely long time perspective is a challenge Because he'll do something now that won't pay off for 15 years and we've spent slash, wasted, slash invested a lot of money on stuff that just is not going to pay off.

00:53:19.951 --> 00:53:23.836
For a long time we did live events and it was pretty.

00:53:23.836 --> 00:53:30.960
It was pretty much seven to $10,000 every time and it was really hard to recoup that money.

00:53:30.960 --> 00:53:33.391
Like we lost money pretty often when we were doing live events.

00:53:33.391 --> 00:53:34.576
Like that sucks, yep.

00:53:34.576 --> 00:53:35.900
So it was the.

00:53:35.900 --> 00:53:39.650
It was that his extremely long time perspective.

00:53:39.650 --> 00:53:42.215
He requires very little certainty.

00:53:42.215 --> 00:53:46.663
If anything, he operates better from a place of scarcity.

00:53:46.663 --> 00:53:51.221
Oh man, it doesn't matter if there's a dollar in the bank or a million dollars in the bank.

00:53:51.221 --> 00:53:54.760
Honestly, if there's a dollar in the bank, he's more motivated Wow.

00:53:55.309 --> 00:53:58.289
So, I'm the opposite Give it a million.

00:53:58.791 --> 00:54:03.358
Yeah, I would rather have a million dollars in the bank and feel abundant, because that's not really good.

00:54:03.358 --> 00:54:04.639
I'm not going to take my foot off the gas.

00:54:04.639 --> 00:54:10.092
If anything, I might work harder because I know there's, I feel safe, I feel everything's good.

00:54:10.092 --> 00:54:11.576
So that we have.

00:54:11.576 --> 00:54:13.199
He's very risk.

00:54:13.199 --> 00:54:14.621
He's not.

00:54:14.621 --> 00:54:14.822
He's.

00:54:14.822 --> 00:54:16.170
Yeah, he's all about risk.

00:54:16.170 --> 00:54:17.130
I'm very risk averse.

00:54:17.971 --> 00:54:24.996
That for a long time he's an engineer, so he didn't understand what it was like to think emotionally.

00:54:24.996 --> 00:54:27.858
Everything was no, this is optimal.

00:54:27.858 --> 00:54:29.878
Like well, no, no, there's feelings involved too.

00:54:29.878 --> 00:54:32.840
It's only optimal if it feels optimal to someone too.

00:54:32.840 --> 00:54:33.722
You have to understand that.

00:54:33.722 --> 00:54:35.884
Yeah, so a lot of it has just been.

00:54:35.884 --> 00:54:41.166
He works seven days a week, probably 90 hours a week.

00:54:41.166 --> 00:54:42.088
Shoot, yep.

00:54:42.088 --> 00:54:46.355
I said Alan, I don't want to work 90 hours, I'll work 70.

00:54:46.355 --> 00:54:49.682
I'm fine with that, but he works all day Saturday.

00:54:49.682 --> 00:54:51.545
He takes Sunday off, but he doesn't.

00:54:51.545 --> 00:54:52.567
He works on Sundays.

00:54:52.567 --> 00:54:58.862
That was a big fear of mine that I was going to have to live my life the same exact way as he did.

00:54:58.862 --> 00:55:04.742
So I think one of the big things was me having the courage to be vulnerable enough to say so.

00:55:04.742 --> 00:55:07.289
I think one of the big things was me having the courage to be vulnerable enough to say.

00:55:10.393 --> 00:55:14.030
I know, for most of our business partnership I tried to be like you.

00:55:14.030 --> 00:55:22.483
Now I'm taking the amazing benefits and the amazing skills and your amazing strengths and then adding them on to me, instead of me chameleoning myself to you.

00:55:22.483 --> 00:55:24.675
That's good, and he's been all about that.

00:55:24.675 --> 00:55:26.577
I just was afraid I was going to get left behind.

00:55:26.577 --> 00:55:28.336
I have a terrible fear of not being good enough.

00:55:28.336 --> 00:55:36.420
So me bringing it up and saying, hey, I want to be more like me, but I want to be magnificent in all these things.

00:55:36.420 --> 00:55:38.097
That was one of the hardest things.

00:55:38.097 --> 00:55:42.114
A lot of the hard things have been the internal stuff, because we're so focused on self-improvement.

00:55:42.114 --> 00:55:49.597
It because we're so focused on self-improvement, it's like, yeah, sometimes the business stuff is the easy stuff, it's the hey man, I feel like I'm going to get left behind.

00:55:49.597 --> 00:55:51.869
Or hey, kev, I feel like I haven't been fully, authentically myself lately.

00:55:51.869 --> 00:55:54.117
Those have been a lot of the challenges.

00:55:56.773 --> 00:56:13.590
That's really good I want to do, because you've mentioned it several times I want to give you a chance to really just like lay out what you do and what you focus on okay um, I and then I'd love for you to just share um with folks out there that are interested in being entrepreneurs.

00:56:13.590 --> 00:56:14.655
Maybe they're currently entrepreneurs.

00:56:14.655 --> 00:56:16.260
I have an entrepreneurial mind or whatever.

00:56:16.260 --> 00:56:18.472
Just have an idea that they want to try what.

00:56:18.472 --> 00:56:19.092
What are some?

00:56:19.092 --> 00:56:22.976
What is a one or two key unlearnings that you have to have?

00:56:23.717 --> 00:56:33.594
Okay, so I am the host of Next Level University, a global top 100 podcast with 1,700 and 1,700 and no 1,800.

00:56:33.594 --> 00:56:34.416
I don't even know how many episodes.

00:56:34.416 --> 00:56:36.501
We have 1,830, I think.

00:56:36.501 --> 00:56:38.653
So we do an episode every day.

00:56:38.653 --> 00:56:41.679
So I'm doing predominantly podcasting.

00:56:42.641 --> 00:56:48.916
I work with podcasters, speakers and coaches who want to grow, scale and monetize their podcasts.

00:56:48.916 --> 00:56:52.820
I do a ton of that, Dozens and dozens.

00:56:52.820 --> 00:56:59.027
We have 50 clients right now, and then I also head our production company where we do audio editing and video editing for those clients.

00:56:59.027 --> 00:57:06.342
Majority of what I do is podcasting, which is genuinely a dream come true for me, because that's what I wanted in the beginning.

00:57:06.342 --> 00:57:12.275
And then I speak on podcasting and I coach on podcasting Couple things that I had to unlearn.

00:57:12.275 --> 00:57:17.724
Oh man, this one's going to suck In the beginning.

00:57:17.724 --> 00:57:20.494
The market dictates your pricing more than you do.

00:57:20.494 --> 00:57:24.382
I know we all want to charge $10,000 an hour than you do.

00:57:24.382 --> 00:57:26.023
I know we all want to charge $10,000 an hour.

00:57:26.023 --> 00:57:26.905
I know you can't.

00:57:26.905 --> 00:57:29.306
Until you have the right things.

00:57:29.306 --> 00:57:33.507
Nobody's going to pay you $10,000 an hour just because you want to charge $10,000 an hour.

00:57:33.507 --> 00:57:37.079
If you charge $10,000 an hour, you better add a million dollars worth of value.

00:57:38.050 --> 00:57:43.623
Man that is one in the beginning, and then the second one is if you build it, they will come.

00:57:43.623 --> 00:57:49.454
And then the second one is if you build it, they will come.

00:57:49.454 --> 00:57:49.775
No, ah, lies.

00:57:49.775 --> 00:57:52.219
It sounds good, but you can build it and you can have fun building it.

00:57:52.219 --> 00:57:53.702
It can be fulfilling building it, and they'll be.

00:57:53.702 --> 00:57:56.570
It'll be hard and it'll be challenging and it'll teach you things about yourself that you didn't know.

00:57:56.570 --> 00:57:57.293
You needed to know.

00:57:57.293 --> 00:58:02.518
But eventually you're gonna have to go out and find the people and bring them back to the wonderful creation that you've you've built.

00:58:02.518 --> 00:58:05.327
That is one that I just think.

00:58:05.327 --> 00:58:07.436
I was misled by a lot of the stuff I was seeing.

00:58:07.436 --> 00:58:09.947
It's like, yeah, just start a podcast and people will come.

00:58:09.947 --> 00:58:11.552
No, that that's not the way it works.

00:58:11.552 --> 00:58:17.161
And then, oh, this is my belief.

00:58:17.161 --> 00:58:19.184
There's no such thing as work-life balance.

00:58:19.184 --> 00:58:21.976
I don't believe in it, man.

00:58:21.976 --> 00:58:23.599
I think it's a juggling act.

00:58:23.599 --> 00:58:24.521
Agreed?

00:58:24.641 --> 00:58:25.023
I love that.

00:58:25.023 --> 00:58:26.585
See, I thought I might get some.

00:58:26.585 --> 00:58:26.929
You're not alone.

00:58:27.550 --> 00:58:33.081
I know, I know, but I don't want to be the guy who bursts the bubble.

00:58:33.081 --> 00:58:34.784
Burst it, burst it.

00:58:34.784 --> 00:58:36.835
I'm with RA right now.

00:58:36.835 --> 00:58:39.494
Okay, I'm not with my wife.

00:58:39.494 --> 00:58:42.536
I'm not making any money doing this.

00:58:42.536 --> 00:58:48.351
I am doing the craft of podcasting.

00:58:48.351 --> 00:58:48.831
I'm not at the gym.

00:58:48.831 --> 00:58:50.215
I'm not getting in any better shape doing this.

00:58:50.235 --> 00:58:51.538
This right now is business.

00:58:51.538 --> 00:58:54.043
It's 7 0 8.

00:58:54.043 --> 00:58:58.021
So when we finish up here whatever and that's not a time I don't care I'll stay as late as you want.

00:58:58.021 --> 00:59:04.039
When we finish up here, I will wrap up messages, make sure clients are taken care of, and then I'm going to go spend time with my wife.

00:59:04.039 --> 00:59:06.684
Yeah, the business is not growing when I'm spending time with my wife.

00:59:06.684 --> 00:59:08.677
Now, I understand.

00:59:08.677 --> 00:59:14.494
Well, kev, you're more fulfilled when you spend time with your wife and you're in better shape when you're at the gym, so it gives you more energy.

00:59:14.494 --> 00:59:21.681
Yes, yes, yes, but I have to be very, very particular about my priorities and I have to choose.

00:59:21.681 --> 00:59:26.771
If I want to get up at 5 am tomorrow, that'll give me more time to accomplish stuff.

00:59:26.771 --> 00:59:30.731
If I want to sleep till 8, I'm not going to be able to do as much, and that's okay.

00:59:30.731 --> 00:59:33.577
But I just want I wish I knew that earlier.

00:59:33.577 --> 00:59:35.360
It's not about balance, it's about juggling.

00:59:35.802 --> 00:59:36.382
That's good.

00:59:36.730 --> 00:59:37.952
Eventually you get better at juggling.

00:59:37.952 --> 00:59:41.039
So now I can juggle more.

00:59:41.039 --> 00:59:42.503
I can get more done in less time.

00:59:42.503 --> 00:59:46.570
I can multitask a little bit.

00:59:46.570 --> 00:59:50.360
I know what is required here is different than what is required here.

00:59:50.360 --> 00:59:52.043
I know there's seasons.

00:59:52.043 --> 00:59:56.440
I was out of shape for a minute because I wasn't focused on fitness, I was focused on business.

00:59:56.440 --> 00:59:57.853
All right, cool.

00:59:57.853 --> 00:59:58.675
How do we avoid that?

00:59:58.675 --> 01:00:07.563
So, yeah, I would say work-life balance is maybe something to desire, but in my experience it's more of a juggling act than anything.

01:00:09.411 --> 01:00:16.650
I heard it said don't try to achieve balance, Try to achieve harmony.

01:00:16.650 --> 01:00:37.467
And if your life is harmonious, if it works together well, which means there are going to be seasons of more work than family, more family than work, you know, um, you have to make I I think I'm so glad that I hear more and more people saying that that is one of the truest things.

01:00:37.467 --> 01:00:38.851
This work-life balance is a myth.

01:00:38.851 --> 01:00:39.813
It can't do it.

01:00:39.813 --> 01:00:42.097
Like it's never been able to be done.

01:00:42.097 --> 01:00:45.043
You know, even when the term was started, it was never that way.

01:00:45.043 --> 01:00:54.541
Like, yeah, I think that's so good and I think people need to hear that more, especially those of us who want to be our own boss.

01:00:54.541 --> 01:00:58.038
Like, well, good luck with balance there, yeah.

01:01:01.030 --> 01:01:06.601
I think one of the misconceptions is you can get all of the upsides of being an entrepreneur without any of the downsides.

01:01:06.601 --> 01:01:09.818
Come on, man, and I don't know in what world that exists.

01:01:09.818 --> 01:01:14.320
It's like if I'm going to be in better shape, I'm most likely going to be a little bit hungrier than I am right now.

01:01:14.320 --> 01:01:19.382
Yep, that's kind of I think that's just kind of the law of nature and the way it works.

01:01:19.382 --> 01:01:26.612
So I think expectations are a dangerous thing, not in a bad, not in a not a negative way.

01:01:26.612 --> 01:01:30.311
But if you expect that, yeah, I'll do this for a year and then I'll have just it'll, yeah, it'd be fine.

01:01:30.311 --> 01:01:32.237
Work-life balance, passive income that's another one.

01:01:32.237 --> 01:01:33.911
Don't even get me started on that.

01:01:33.911 --> 01:01:34.592
Those are the ones.

01:01:35.994 --> 01:01:37.215
I, uh, I love that.

01:01:37.215 --> 01:01:38.157
I, I, I just gotta.

01:01:38.157 --> 01:01:38.978
I just gotta add this one.

01:01:38.978 --> 01:01:41.780
I heard a preacher there's a preacher that I listened to.

01:01:41.780 --> 01:01:45.085
His name is Darius Daniels and he said two things that I just.

01:01:45.085 --> 01:01:51.592
It always sticks with me.

01:01:51.592 --> 01:01:53.018
He says, like you know, we ask for things, we ask God for things.

01:01:53.039 --> 01:01:53.983
We never think about the backside of a blessing.

01:01:53.983 --> 01:02:06.177
And then he says, like more of anything is more of everything, like you have to know that more money is more responsibility, right, more a relationship, more relationships, more time.

01:02:06.177 --> 01:02:08.655
Like you know, I got, I got friends that are single.

01:02:08.655 --> 01:02:09.317
I want to be married.

01:02:09.317 --> 01:02:12.231
Okay, yeah, and marriage is great.

01:02:12.231 --> 01:02:14.157
I've been married for almost just over a year.

01:02:14.157 --> 01:02:17.853
We're still fresh, but like it's, but it's different.

01:02:17.853 --> 01:02:24.514
I mean, okay, it's great, and there's a whole human that you're with in your house all the time.

01:02:24.514 --> 01:02:26.119
Like they're not going anywhere.

01:02:26.119 --> 01:02:30.201
I mean, you know, so that's just, that's the reality.

01:02:30.201 --> 01:02:33.489
So you know, more of anything is more of everything.

01:02:33.710 --> 01:02:37.742
And, to your point, you can't get the good stuff without the other stuff.

01:02:37.742 --> 01:02:40.878
And then it's always bad, but it's an adjustment.

01:02:40.878 --> 01:02:43.018
Like, are you, are you ready to adjust?

01:02:43.018 --> 01:02:48.715
And sometimes I don't know that a lot of people are ready to adjust.

01:02:48.715 --> 01:02:49.557
I love that.

01:02:49.557 --> 01:02:52.730
Um, that that's one of the things that you're saying.

01:02:52.730 --> 01:02:53.492
People have to unlearn.

01:02:53.492 --> 01:02:58.130
You got, you have to adjust to what comes with what you have always wanted.

01:02:58.130 --> 01:02:59.012
Yeah, of course.

01:02:59.152 --> 01:03:00.112
Yeah, yeah it's.

01:03:00.112 --> 01:03:03.237
It's not about uh, last thing, I promise it's.

01:03:03.237 --> 01:03:04.820
It's not about the goal.

01:03:04.820 --> 01:03:07.163
It's about what you're willing to do to accomplish the goal.

01:03:07.163 --> 01:03:08.143
The goal is awesome.

01:03:08.143 --> 01:03:09.146
Everybody loves the goal.

01:03:09.146 --> 01:03:11.539
Yeah, I want a million dollar, this billion dollar, that whatever.

01:03:11.539 --> 01:03:16.222
The reason we don't accomplish the goals is usually not because we wake up one day and say, ah, that ain't it.

01:03:16.222 --> 01:03:20.320
It's usually because we say this lifestyle is not sustainable with things that I value as a human.

01:03:25.110 --> 01:03:25.773
And that's okay, that's that's.

01:03:25.773 --> 01:03:26.135
That's okay.

01:03:26.135 --> 01:03:26.577
It's not a big deal.

01:03:26.577 --> 01:03:26.938
No, it's all right.

01:03:26.938 --> 01:03:28.827
Yeah, man, we could probably keep going on, because we could probably go back and forth.

01:03:28.827 --> 01:03:29.911
This has been great, kevin.

01:03:29.911 --> 01:03:31.795
Um, thank you for coming.

01:03:31.795 --> 01:03:34.791
Uh, tell us, tell people where they can find you, how they can connect with you.

01:03:34.831 --> 01:03:37.905
All that jazz uh, next level university is our podcast.

01:03:37.905 --> 01:03:45.679
If you're a podcaster, I have a podcast called podcast growth university, so that might be more beneficial to to somebody who is a business owner or a podcaster or whatever it is.

01:03:45.679 --> 01:03:49.003
And then my handle on Instagram is at Never Quit Kid.

01:03:49.003 --> 01:03:53.217
Questions, comments, concerns anything I can do to add value.

01:03:53.217 --> 01:03:54.420
Send me a message.

01:03:54.420 --> 01:03:55.463
I will get back to you.

01:03:55.463 --> 01:03:58.713
I do my own DM, so I'm just the message away always.

01:03:59.315 --> 01:04:01.297
It's true y'all, he does get back to you.

01:04:01.297 --> 01:04:02.880
He messages me.

01:04:02.880 --> 01:04:10.931
So, yeah, man, kev, thanks, thanks, this is great, my pleasure.

01:04:10.931 --> 01:04:12.577
Um, man, I look forward to continuing to partner with you.

01:04:12.577 --> 01:04:13.099
Have other conversations.

01:04:13.099 --> 01:04:13.981
You'll be back, for sure.

01:04:13.981 --> 01:04:14.644
Um, you just let me know.

01:04:14.644 --> 01:04:15.045
Uh, all right, guys.

01:04:15.045 --> 01:04:15.949
Thank y'all again.

01:04:15.949 --> 01:04:18.581
Thanks for listening to the unlearned podcast.

01:04:18.581 --> 01:04:22.916
Let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom.

01:04:22.916 --> 01:04:24.159
That's it.

01:04:24.159 --> 01:04:25.902
We'll see y'all later, peace.

01:04:25.902 --> 01:04:33.530
Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast.

01:04:33.530 --> 01:04:37.961
We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode.

01:04:37.961 --> 01:04:45.889
Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think.

01:04:45.889 --> 01:04:51.036
We're looking forward to the next time, when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom.

01:04:51.036 --> 01:04:51.978
See you then.