Actions are Greater Than Ideas

The Small business show episode 290 for Wednesday, August 19, 2020. Greetings, folks and welcome to or back to the Small Business Show. The show where we well, we small business and of course we, we welcome other people who. Small business. That's why we're all here. And here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Ha.

And out in the San Francisco Bay area, I'm Shannon Jean. I love. We're rocking it old school today. We are countdown to 300, Dave.

I know it's crazy.

300 coming up pretty soon.

Yep.

We have, we're have to do something special for that one.

Yeah, I think so. We have, we have two sponsors today. We'll talk more in detail about them. But direct mail Mac.comsbs and lino.comsbs today. Shannon, I want to have a jam session because I'm ready. Yeah. So I got a couple of topics, actually, I have three topics and we might as well tell everybody about the three topics and then we'll get to them. I want to talk about ideas for your business first. So we'll do that shortly here. I want to talk about our book and the level of success that we are having with our mistakes book and I'll, I'll leave it at that for now. And I want to talk about common sense because I think those, it's something that gets the value of common sense gets overlooked here in business. So. But the first thing is last week, two weeks ago, somewhere, wherever it was, I was fortunate enough to be able to go on vacation, despite the fact that it's coronavirus time. We just went one state over. We went to Vermont, which is at least certainly at the time was the state in the Union that had the least number of cases. And we were way up north in Vermont. We were about two miles from the New York border and less than that from the Canadian border. Of course, we couldn't cross into Canada, but that's a different story. You know, that's just how it goes these days. And we rented an Airbnb there and the, the, the guy who, it was a couple who owns the property and, and runs this Airbnb. And it was a fascinating business. I might even try to get the guy to come on the show with us. But I want to talk about this guy's history. I read a little bit about him. There were some articles about him. And he's someone that prioritizes running his own business over working for someone else. And I know we all say that we do that, but his story really was epitomized that he certainly had jobs for other people when he had to fill in the gaps between businesses or whatever. But the business that he ran for the longest period of time, I think for about 25 years, was a business cleaning shopping malls in the state of Vermont. And he had like 25 people working for him. And as soon as I read that, I thought, you know, like, we all talk about, oh man, we need to have a great idea for our business. No, you need to have a not terrible idea for your business. That's the bar. Anything that's not terrible, you can turn into a success. You just need to put in the work. Yeah.

And it doesn't have to be unique.

No.

Everybody's looking for a new mousetrap, and it's not. I think most people where we, we talk on the show here, it's that idea to implementation that is that crucial metamorphosis that a lot of people fail at. And, and that's where you get the folks that, you know, God bless them and that they talk about ideas, you know, could be their whole life about, oh, we, you know, this is a great idea. We should do this, we should do that. But it's the ones that really get out and do the work and learn and iterate and fail and make mistakes and come out. And you know, that, that, that is a great example because it's not a sexy business idea.

Right? It's not sexy in the least. I mean, if you told. Imagine going to a cocktail party. Right, right. And saying, what do you do? Oh, I, you know, I clean shopping malls. Like, well, wait a minute, this is a black tie affair. It's like, well, yeah, I didn't say I didn't make millions of dollars cleaning shopping malls. I said I did. That's what I'm saying is I'm sure he did. Given the property that he owns there, he made millions of dollars somewhere. Yeah. And I'm sure it was from that.

And I have, I have stopped over the years. I just, My business life got so complicated. Not for me, but just trying to explain it to people that finally I just say, oh, you know, what do you do? Oh, we own, we own businesses.

Oh, that's perfect.

And I just leave it at that. And then if they want to go more, because some people like, oh, okay. And a lot of people just, oh, that's awesome. And then let's talk about something else. And that's great too. But trying to explain, well, I have a business that does this, and then I have this new thing that does this, and I've wrote a book and I'm trying to start a publishing business that does this and I own some rental property. You know, it's just it, it's number one. It can sound pretentious.

Yeah, yeah.

Pompous pretentious.

Yeah.

When you're not trying to sound it. But that's just the way your life is, right? It's just the way it is. And if, and if you want to build a revenue stack that we talk about, you know, on the show all the time, you want those different revenue streams coming in because especially like we've recently experienced with this quarantine and lockdown, certain parts of your revenue stack may disappear.

So my revenue stack is so much different right now than it was six months ago. But I'm, I'm like cash flow wise, way up. And it's because like the sales business with ads and stuff, actually, I mean, it, it suffered hugely for a very short period of time, which was no great surprise. Right. The world just pumped the brakes. Okay. And then it slowly recovered and it was like down a little bit and now it's, it's up. Like, like things are, things are in good shape. Like, which is great there. It's not up like I would have wanted it to be up, but it's, you know, it's doing fine.

But despite everything, it's doing. Right.

Yeah, right. That's right. And it was because we made some smart decisions and we had some good relationships in place and leveraged all of that. But the business that I don't talk about here, where we publish a different kind of website, has been rocking. I mean, just huge. Yep. It's great. It's great. Yeah. And so it's all, you know, but that's the thing is you want to have all those different faucets going and because one of them can, you know, turn from a steady flow into a trickle and, and, or the other direction. And you kind of.

One of the things, you mentioned this frequently and I really like this, this phrase where you say, you know, don't, don't fall in love with ideas.

Yes.

Because it, in, in most cases it's not the idea that makes or breaks your success.

Right.

It's. And I would argue in most cases.

Yeah, rarely, if it's a terrible idea, I mean, probably that will lead to no success.

Yeah. Most of the time, those terrible ideas, if it turns out to be terrible, you're going to iterate, you're going to fail and you're going to go, wow, okay, how do we change this and maybe the guy that, you know became a millionaire or multimillionaire cleaning shopping malls or shopping centers. Maybe that. Maybe they didn't start out that way. Maybe he was mowing grass or I.

Think he did start out mowing grass. I think that's exactly right. Yep.

And, and then you look and see, oh, what the opportunities. Boy, if I buy one of these trucks, vacuums up the parking lot, I can charge this. I can do that. And, and so you, you iterate.

And, and, and don't let, don't let pride or your ego get in the way of what it is your business does. Let. If it's going to fuel you, and it's good for it to fuel you, you, but you have to use it as a tool. Don't let your ego run you. Use your ego to drive you.

Yes.

And, and, and focus it on. Okay, well, yeah, I'm cleaning up shopping malls. Like that sounds like, you know, okay, well, that's a fancy word for a janitor. Well, it's A, there's nothing wrong with being a janitor, and B, right. There's nothing wrong with cleaning shopping malls. And so what where, where you let your ego fuel you is into the success that you will have from doing that. And then you can go to that black tie cocktail party if you really want or not, and you're fine either way.

And you could also use that. I always want to be able to explain my business in an interesting way or something that sounds like, oh, wow, that's so cool. And a lot of it comes with how you tell the story, but also how you build the business. Like when I had a bunch of technicians and they were repairing everything, I was like, look, guys, everybody, you, when you become a tech level one, you get a lab coat because we run a lab here. We're not just, you know, slapping computers together, this kind of thing. And then ultimately, you know, for 10 years, we never dealt with the public. It was always in the back end. But when we did eventually get to dealing with consumers, I would tell them, hey, you're like a doctor when you walk out into that lobby or when you get on the phone with that, you know, customer that's running a school district with 15,000 iPads. You are a professional. You are, you know, you know what you're doing. You need to carry yourself that way and feel proud of what you're doing. So it's all in the way you, you build around that. And I would say my ego definitely drove that because I didn't Want to just speak? Oh, yeah, we fix computers.

Right?

Never, never say that ever.

Right.

I would say, well, we really, we run a logistics business and we do repairs for, you know, educational things all over the country. Or, you know, my favorite was when the laptop business really took off and a deal to put our box in every DHL truck in the United States.

Well, that sounds impressive when you say that.

It does sound impressive. And, and I could break it down into ways that you're like, oh, that's not that big of a deal. But I would never let on.

Why would you. Why would you ever do that? Right.

It was a great way when that was my sole business. At the time. I had another company too, but, but my big revenue earner, let's say back in a laptop day, they'd say, what do you do? And I'd say, oh, my business. You know, we. Anywhere in the US you, you call by two o', clock, we have a vehicle pick it up, same day, bring it in, we repair it overnight and send it back.

Yeah.

And then I would just be quiet and watch their face go, what? You know, that kind of thing.

What is. That's right.

Yeah. Now it's different. That story is not as exciting, but back then, you know, it was like, holy smokes, how did you get that set up? And yada, yada, yada. So it's all in the story that you build around.

And it's not just the story you tell to other people, it's the story you tell to yourself. That's, that's how you get your ego to be your tool as opposed to, you know, getting in your way. Yeah. So, yeah, I just, you know, I was, it was fascinating to me as I read about this kind of like, what a fascinating thing because I, I encountered him and I saw what his current business is, which is doing events and, and, you know, renting out this airbnb. I think he probably has a couple of others, you know, because that's how people like that are like us. But, but, you know, I knew about this one and I'm like, wait a minute. That was his big thing that he did for 20 plus years until he sold it. Like, that's so fascinating to me.

Right.

Yeah, it's just how it goes. Yeah.

It's that, you know, I don't know if you ever read the book the Millionaire Next Door. It's the quiet wealth that really drives this country.

It is.

Think about it. We see all these billionaires and, you know, whatever these people you see in the news and Everything else, but it's the people that are small businesses. You know, we. We hire the most, employ the most people in the country. And the accumulation of quiet wealth over the years is. It's happening all around you. And the fact that you're listening to the show means that it either has or hopefully is going to start happening to you. So you get to live that charmed life that we talk about on the show all the time.

Yep. It's true. It's great.

Thanks for sharing that.

Yeah, no, it was just one of those things where, you know, you can't. Yes, I was on vacation. You know, I use aircraft.

You're never on. Right, Yeah, I know, I know.

Like, as soon as it was like, wait a minute. And so I texted my family this article that I found about this guy and they're like, why are you researching this guy? Like, why? Like, have we met? Like, of course.

I do the same thing everywhere I go. I'm like, how does this place make.

How does it work? How did they get here? Right.

Yeah, I'm always interested.

Yup, yup. That's really great. Yeah, for sure. We have two other topics that I want to talk about, and I also want to tell you about our two sponsors, starting with Direct Mail for Mac. Look, email is a fantastic way to grow your business marketing that way. It's one of the best tools you can use because people still read their email. You know this because you still read your email. So, yes, there's other ways, but email is really, truly still one of the best. The problem is managing an email campaign can be kind of a mess. And if you're a Mac user, like me and like Shannon, I want to tell you about a great app, not a website. It's called Direct Mail. And people love Direct Mail for a few reasons. Right. It's built specifically for the Mac. You get your email marketing done in half the time because it takes advantage of all the great Apple tech that you already know and love. There's no more waiting for a slow web page to load while trying to design your email and fumbling with a web browser. Browsers have gotten great, but they're still not fantastic at this. Direct mail is. They've got really nice customizable templates that look great on all your devices. And they offer helpful customer service staffed by real humans, not chatbots. And I've used Direct Mail for Mac. It's fantastic. So easy, so customizable. And they've got a couple of different ways to go. There's two plans you can either pay as you go. Kind of like buying postage stamps. So, you know, if you're not sending emails out regularly, that is a great way to go because you just, you always have your, your credits that you go. Or if you're sending out regularly, you can buy a monthly subscription. So you can just send unlimited, but you can send your first email campaign today with a free download of Direct mail. And because you're a small business show listener, you save 10% off of all their full feature plans by going to direct mail Mac.com/sbs and that's where you can go to see how they can help your business go again. Directmailmac.com SBS and our thanks to Direct Mail for sponsoring this episode. I'd also like to thank linode@linode.com SBS for sponsoring this episode. And by going to linode.com SBS you get a $20 credit added to your account right out of the gate. No credit card required. And that's something to be thankful for too. You're gonna need a server. Right now is Covid time. You are locked down. Yeah, you're still running your business. Thank goodness for that. But it's a good time to do some experimenting to take on extra little projects. Well, most of those extra little projects are gonna need a server so that you can host them and show them to people and then launch them to your customers. Linode's the way to go. And with that $20 credit, you can spin up one of their lowest price servers called their Nanode server for just five bucks a month. And that way you get four months to play on this server and then you can keep going with it. And of course, you can scale up if you need more capabilities and you pay more for that. And then you can scale down if you need less. They just know what they're doing. And that's what you want. You want nerds running your servers. The folks at Linodes are your server nerds. They can take care of making sure your server is running smooth and clean all the time. So go check it out. Go to linode.com SBS get your $20 credit, start up a server and start experimenting. Start playing now. Linode.com SBS thanks to Linode for sponsoring this episode. All right, let's talk about our book, Shannon, shall we?

Let's do it. Let's talk about probably. Let me reframe it a little bit. Okay. Let's talk about the marketing and the selling of the book.

Yes, right.

That's true.

The book's already written. Yeah, that's Right.

The book is awesome. The reviews have been terrific. It's a unique look at mistakes that like we talk about every week. But I think you want to talk about our marketing and sales efforts. Yes.

Yeah, I want to talk about the mistakes of marketing mistakes. Yeah. This is going to be. We talk about stories here, Shannon. This is going to be a story where you are going to see a series of spectacular failures that ends in success because by golly, we are not going to repeat our mistakes over and over again.

Yeah, I think it was, you know, Winston Churchill said success consists of going from one failure or let me start over. Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. Right.

Yeah. And.

And I think that we're there and, and moving forward and learning every day and iterating, I think which is, which is the most.

Well, yeah, if we keep doing the same thing then we're. We only have ourselves to blame. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. It's. It's an interesting concept and some background on this. So. You know, a few years ago I did this experiment to see if I could start a company just on my phone and I started. I looked around for social platforms to sell on and I was just following the lead of some of our guests that some of these younger folks that were coming on and just like man, I am missing out on this social commerce platform. So I found a platform to sell on and as I did it, I needed some software, you know, to help me and, and to increase my productivity. So I partnered with someone, we were trying to build a company around it because of course I thought well if I need this software, certainly somebody else needs it too. And at, you know, I, I invested not insignificant amount of money in building this and as part of that build process I started creating content around my journey to, to build the story and credibility that I knew we would need.

Sure.

Software, right. To be think I wanted to be thought of as an expert. So I basically wrote an article or two a week for about a year, published those on the blog. Different, different social media platforms and about. Towards the end of that year the partnership I was working on fell apart. Things, you know, things always change. And this one of the reasons we wrote our next guide all about partnerships and our. In our working agreement that in this case as well really saved my ass.

Right.

And so I had all this content. I didn't know what to do with it. I was, I was trying to. How do I recoup this investment? I didn't want to move forward with this software. So I took all those articles and I packaged them up and I published my first book. I've always wanted to do it, but it always seemed so daunting. And after that, and it started selling, had some success. It's selling every day now, which is great. Dave and I started talking and we're like, boy, we have so much content. How do we get that out there to a different set of folks? As well as just having the guide on your desk for our listeners to refer to. And that's where we came up with our first one, which is mistakes.

Yeah, yeah, right. And then, and then we had some guests on the show and their name is escaping me and they told us they had. They decided to be best selling authors.

Yeah, I love that.

And you know, as soon as we finished the episode, before we let them go, we said it was Ann and Mark Lackey from Hire Smart virtual assistants show 277. And it was like, okay, wait a minute. You know, we were, I think both of us were like itching to wrap up the show so we could ask them, wait, how did you just decide this? Like that makes perfect sense to us. We, you know, we're always hacking our brains, but we can't hack other people's brains quite as easily, you know. And they said, oh, we, we, you know, we joined a mastermind group essentially that, that taught us some techniques and then also had some, some things that you do. And then, you know, you essentially figure out how to get your book into the right chart on, on Amazon and then it becomes a bestseller. And now you can say you are a best selling author and you, yeah, all that good stuff. And so we were like, we want to do that. And we looked into it and it wasn't all that expensive. It was a few thousand dollars or something. And so it was like, great, well let's do that. And I have no doubt that this system works. My, I, my, I am not yet questioning the efficacy of the system, but.

It hasn't worked for mistakes yet.

But it has not.

And I think the highest we've gotten to is number 13.

No, I have a screenshot of us at number six.

Yeah, number six. And that's impressive enough, you know, to say, wow, we were number six in.

This category on Amazon seller batch.

No, it doesn't.

It does not. It's right. That's right. So it's still a failure, but that's okay. But we like, but that's the thing is we saw what works and we, we, yeah, like we're Getting a taste of. Okay, here's how we do it differently, you know, for the next sort of push at this. The next push. The next push. And we will get it there because we're. We will driven jackasses. That's right, we will.

At some point in the future, you're going to hear our names and the words best selling author in together.

Yeah, absolutely.

There's no doubt about it. No, but we have to find the, the right, the, you know, combination of the right talent stack and technique.

We don't have the talent stack for this yet. That's the tr.

We. That's right, we do, but we're going to. And then let me tell you, I. This, this world of publishing, I believe, really opens up just tremendous opportunities based on the knowledge that we all have locked inside our heads.

Yes, it's true.

Yeah. And so as we put together this new. These new talents as part of our talent stack that Scott Adams always mentions, we're going to share it with you on the show as we see what, what works, what doesn't work. And I've started to think, Dave, that maybe even the title of the book might be holding us back a little bit.

It could be. Sure.

Yeah. Because we, I mean, we have a coach to share with our listeners. You know, we hired this coach. Come on, teachers. And you know, it's great because the first thing she looked at and said, oh, your covers, you know, gotta go. You know, and I. Right, wow. I designed that cover. We all loved it. But she's like, go look at the other best sellers in these categories. Them look like your book.

The answer was a very resounding no. Yeah.

Not at all.

Not even a little bit.

Yeah. So we had to learn about, you know, features and, and things that draw the eye and, and all this stuff that I had no idea. And I had no idea about keywords and advertising and categories and all this stuff that we've learned, you know, so much in the last few months. Yeah. That I'm excited about the future of. Of these, this series of guides because we have a tremendous amount of content in the pipeline. Our partnerships. Small business show guide goes live on September 1st.

Yeah.

And then we have one after that that's being. We're editing right now that's all about employee issues with the kind of a unique take on it. And that's going to be coming a month or so later than that.

So.

And we're going to keep going because we've got such great content here from, from the show.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, so we, we will, I, I, I will predict that we will have at least one more failure. I, I, I hate to say that because I, I don't like to, like to plan to fail, but I am allowing us at least one more failure before we hit that success. I mean, it may be six more failures before we hit that success.

Yeah, we're failing, but like I said earlier, we're failing upward.

We're failing upward. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And at the end, at the end.

It'S not going to look like we failed at all.

People are going to go look at our library, our body of work.

Yep.

Let me share one just critical thing that for folks that don't know about it, if you publish on Amazon, it just, let's stick with them because they own the self publishing market about 70% of it.

Yeah, yeah.

It, when you publish and you become an author up there, doesn't matter how you, you could publish a 10 page guide or PDF or you know, some sort of info sheet that you could, you could give away for free so people could download it. Well, you get to create an author page. So your name, next time somebody searches for it on Amazon or Google could come up right in there. Certainly if you search on Amazon and we talk about credibility all the time and that certainly adds some credibility to your name. And in addition, one of the secrets that I did not know about till after publishing my first book, you get to link your blog feed to Amazon. So if someone goes and looks at your, or either stumbles across you, searches for your book, searches for your name and brings it up, your blog is linked right to your author page up on Amazon and is updated anytime you post something new. So all this content that you're creating, because I know you are, is linked right there on Amazon. It's just, it, I think it's a, it really adds to your credibility.

Yeah.

And so it's, there's a lot of things that are ancillary benefits that we're getting out of this. So yeah, it's cool.

Yeah, no it's, it's great and yeah, cool. Yeah. But it's, it's, it is frustrating. I mean in the moment when it's like, you know, you're checking and you're like why is it going, going down again?

Crap.

Like, but, but it is also sort of fascinating because it's a new system we're learning about. And, and that's really what it is, is like, okay, how does this system work? Fine. Yeah, yeah.

And, and I keep telling Myself. You know, there's 4 million books, right? And in. In many categories. We're in the single or double digits of those, you know.

Pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

It's. No, it's cool. It's just not number one, Shannon. That's.

That's right now. Yeah, you're right. You're right.

This is how we keep each other honest. Because y. You know, because it is easy. And this is one of my favorite things to sort of tease the. The benefits of our next book. But one of my favorite things about having a business partner is someone to just drive you. Even those, like, these little, you know, barbs that we send back and forth at each other like it matters. It. You know, it's. Because it's so. It would be so easy to be like, all right, well, you know, I've tried this for a couple of weeks, and this isn't going anywhere, but I got this other part of my, you know, different business or the same business that's rocking. I gotta, like, pay attention to that, because otherwise, yeah, I'm out of business. You know.

That's right.

And then this thing, it's suddenly three months later, and you're like, oh, yeah, do I still have time on that. That membership to the Mastermind? Like, do I still have coaching credits left? Where are we with that? You know, And. And it's like, oh, I just wasted a few grand, which, trust me, I've wasted a few grand plenty of times. Yeah.

But what I. I. To that point about the partnership, I have been pushing this concept of. I mean, I could remember a few years ago driving down the freeway thinking, we need to write a book. You know, we need to write a book.

Yeah.

And. But at that time, you know, it was like, okay, the book. And it seems so daunting and all this kind of stuff, and. And we kept going back and forth over a number of years until finally, I think that the one term that we both really were happy with was when we started talk, thinking of them as guides.

Guides. Yes.

That is a different concept. And I think when you go out and purchase, you know, Mistakes, which is on sale for 99 cents right now at BusinessShow Co Guides or BusinessShow Co.

Mistakes, whatever you like.

Yeah, that's right. When you look at that, you'll see it is a guide. It is something that you can dip in and out of, whether you get the ebook, you know, for the. That or you. If you want the paperback sitting on your desk. And so that the concept and that partnership back and forth where we both had to be really fully into it and someone would bring something up and maybe it wouldn't go anywhere because the other person like, well, I don't know. I don't know if I have time this kind of thing. But the concept eventually formulated over time with that help of a partner. So it works out great.

Yep. Yep. Yeah. No, it is great. Yeah. That's really where it. It gets. It get where it's good. Yeah.

Yeah, that's awesome.

All right. You know, the, the last thing that I had on my list here and, and I don't really have a specific example only because my mind is. Is like fully focused on an example that's sort of confidential with a, A friend's business. It's not even my business, so I can't really share. But. But is the value of common sense. And you know, sometimes we say trusting your gut, but I find that every successful team and treat your business as a team, but your business might have several teams in it. And if a team is going to be successful, it has usually just one, but at least one person in there who is the. I'll call them the voice of reason. But. But that's, that's perhaps my perspective and bias reaching out. But it's the person with the common sense that says, wait a minute. Why in the world are we doing this? This doesn't make sense. Like, you know, you can get so far in the weeds with something that, for example, we were talking about doing this thing where we needed to pull data from a company's data stream. And it was like, you know, we're all talking and somebody's like, all right, well, you know, I guess I'll, I'll take the lead on this. I'll give them a call and buy into it and, you know, see what it's going to cost to get this data stream in real time so that we can have this for what we need to do for our customers. And somebody else just chimed in and they're like, you know, this company publishes an RSS feed that's, that has all that information in it. You know, just like taking a step back and not just looking at it from the top. And it often involves getting deep in the weeds to get to the point where you're like, this would be the best solution. That can take hours. But then in that moment, having the ability to sort of zoom all the way back out and say, okay, now that we know that this is what we want, is there an easy way to do this? Like, is it. Is This a solved problem. And it's really hard, much harder than you think to apply common sense in those scenarios and just to be able to quickly get out of the weeds and say, wait a minute, what are we doing here? Ah, okay, great. And just that reality check. You definitely want somebody on your team that is doing this. And if you don't have anybody, start training yourself to do it. Put stickies around, you know, zoom out. Common sense. What's the easiest path here? And before you make a decision, you don't want to slow everything down, but it's, you know, very quick. Just like take a minute, maybe even take a walk. Because that for me is where those common sense thoughts really start to come in. It's like, ah, wait, I'm out of the weeds. Because I love getting into the weeds and getting really nitpicky with things. I'm not always the person with the common sense in those scenarios, but often I find that I have to be. And so taking that break, taking that walk to just sort of process and be like, wait a minute, why aren't we looking at this the obvious way? Well, because it's not obvious when you're in it, you know.

Yeah, yeah, it's getting that distance from it and also sharing it with maybe your advisors. It could be your spouse. Also run it by, I mean, I would, I, you know, I call it dinner table talk. You know, when my kids were around 100 and, you know, being able to throw out different things and, and be like, oh, what would you think of this? And sometimes I'll even, you know, frame it as it's not even about me, because then they don't have their own inherent, you know, biases like we all have.

Yes.

And so you just want to, you know, get, get a, an outside view of, of the idea or what's going on or how you would solve that problem. And you know, sometimes it really drives me insane, but my wife can just cut through the BS like there's nothing else sometimes. And I'm just like, like, damn, you know, okay, that's a great thing.

So that's a great benefit from.

Yeah, I benefited from, from it all the time and looking at things. Simplification, really a great system to embrace.

Yeah.

When you can, for sure.

Yeah. Simplification. Yeah. Zooming out. Common sense, call it whatever you want. But you. Something where you have that, that big picture view and are objective about it. Like, did somebody think to check this? No. Okay. Well, you know, that just saved the business, you know, $10,000 a year. Cool. All right. Moving on. You know, but it is tough because you do need to get into the nitpicks and into the details to often get to the point where you realize what it is you need. And that's why it's hard, at least for me to zoom out quickly because I'm so deep in it, you know? But, yeah, and I think that.

That everything has kind of a shelf life. So if you're not getting to it, sometimes you do just have to kind of say, okay, well, I need to walk away. And for years, I used to give myself a hard time about it, Be like, gosh, you just don't want to deal with this. But what I've learned over time is that I am dealing with it. But sometimes I need to kind of, like, to your point, get around the edges of it, whether it's going for a walk, but sometimes I may need to leave it for a while, week, you know, or to just to think about it. And then somewhere, right on the edge of my consciousness, something will come up and go, oh, we should try this, or we should do this, or. Or maybe it's. We just don't do it at this time.

Right.

And leave it.

And.

And so you have to try different things, get some distance on it and. And do think about it and that, you know, try to simplify it with that common sense. I agree. I think.

Yeah.

Great. Really good.

It's just. It's an important. It's a. It's a super valuable skill, and it can really save you. So just don't forget to apply it. Make sure if you're like, go back to last week when we were talking to Adam about building the right team and being the smartest person in the room. That's a hard thing, certainly for me, but I think a lot of us entrepreneurs share that. You're used to being. You have to think that you're sometimes. Especially at the beginning when it's just you. Sometimes you have to think you're the smartest person in the room in order to believe that the idea and the implementation and. And that you can make it successful, because other people will tell you you can't. Yeah.

You have to ratchet it up and.

Down and down, like, everything. You gotta use it as a tool.

Yeah, that's right. It's just one more tool in your arsenal, and it gets you to a certain point, and then you have to.

Kind of step back and you gotta let it go. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly.

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Thank you, Dave.