Barefoot Investor and Attracting Luck

Business brain episode 476 for Friday, August 18, 2023. Greetings, folks and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we get together, we dissect some topics to tune our business brains together and keep on living our charmed lives together. Sponsors for this episode include Pearl Diver IO where you can go and sign up for this cutting edge platform that provides information about the people who visit your websites and shopify.com businessbrain where you can sign up for a $1 per month trial period and take your business to the next level today. We'll talk more in depth about each of those in a little bit. For now here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton and I'm still out.

Here in Lafayette, California. I'm Shannon Jean. Happy to be here.

Yeah. Casual Friday. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We talked last week in episode 474 about helping your kids learn to tune their business brains. Right. Sharing your business brain with your kids. Listener Andrew from Australia says, I have no kids, but I uncle several. And our go to book is Barefoot Kids by Scott Pape who identifies himself as the Barefoot Investor. He says it's full of stories about Australian kids starting their own businesses and managing their money using things like reward stickers, negotiating with parents. It integrates well with the Barefoot Investor and the Barefoot for Families. I'd never heard of any of these books, Shannon, have you?

I have not. So I'm really happy that, you know, sent in the link. It's great. I think these are excellent tools to talk with your kids about money. Looking at this, you know, barefoot kids thing, it's the way, I guess the way that it's like a visual format.

Yeah.

Get them involved and, and teach them in a unique way. I think it's great. Any, anything you can do to get a book in a kid's hand.

Well, yeah.

Awesome.

Well. And then teaching them this stuff even better. Right. They say that there's stories from 45 kids and, and according to the book's description, kids will roll up their sleeves, get their hands dirty and learn the value of a buck the old fashioned way. And they say over six steps. The book teaches kids why they should help out around the house for free. How to set up their own money buckets. I like this. How to save for and get anything they want that their parents approve of. Of course. How to turbocharge their savings by running their own mini business. Why they should use their give bucket. So that must be one of these types of money buckets to make a real Difference to other people because he says kindness counts. I agree. And how to kick start a lifetime of compound interest by investing with as little as as $5. Okay, I'm into this. Cool. I want to rewind about 15 years and do this with my kids.

But yeah, I think that, well, especially like our kids, it was a little different because they saw it firsthand. Right. Working in the business, talking about it when you came home, all that kind of stuff. But especially if you don't have a background in business or something that you're thinking of. Wow. I'm still trying to get myself going, but this would be a great book to go over with my kids. And I guarantee there's probably lessons in here for all of us. Oh, presented in a certain way, I'm sure.

Yeah, yeah, for sure.

This is, it's, it's cool and I think it's just such a great topic and it's such an empowering thing. One of my comments I frequently make is I talk about the education system in schools all the time. And, you know, I think something that's lacking very frequently is the message that the future is bright. And when we were, when I was growing up, my mom particularly always told me that, hey, you're gonna have an amazing life, you're successful, your future's bright. And I see a lot of younger kids now, especially like high school and stuff, where they're just so worried about so many things. Not that I'm not saying you shouldn't be concerned and want to help the environment and social stuff. I think that's great, but not to the point where you get, you know, get overwhelmed by it. So these kinds of roll up your sleeve, get your hands dirty, learn something. It helps these kids remember that the future is bright for them.

Yeah, I love that. My, my, like yours. My kids obviously grew up, you know, in a household that was sort of entrenched in small business and, and we made them aware of it. We didn't try to hide it from them or anything. I don't know how we would have succeeded at that, but I guess some people could, I couldn't. But it's interesting watching what my kids are doing with their lives as they're in their early 20s and trying to figure things out for themselves and which is great and all of that. My daughter, you know, I always talk about my charmed life. Right. I mean, it's obviously, it's become like a watch, watch catchphrase of the show. My daughter said something to me. It's a catchphrase. She picked up from this show on Apple TV plus called Shrinking with Jason Segal and Harrison Ford. It's a great show.

Great soundtrack.

Yes, it's great in a lot of ways. And one of the great things is they have an attorney friend, I think he's an attorney who has his own catchphrase that my daughter has adopted. And it's very similar to this. You know, I lead a charmed life. I work hard to lead this charmed life. It's. There is luck involved, but there is also intention involved. Yeah. And she started saying, things always work out for me.

Oh, I like that.

Which this one, you know, sort of side character on the show says all the time. He's like, things always work out for me. It's going to be fine. Yeah. And, you know, saying that it doesn't magically change the universe. Well, let me say this. Well, I don't think it magically changes the universe, but it could magically.

But your.

Your universe, that's the thing is you. You. When you give yourself that perspective, it allows you to act in different ways. And. And so she's. And she's been going through a lot of stuff with, like, trying to, like, get residency and all this stuff because she lives, you know, out of the country and all this stuff. And she's like, yeah, I know. She's like, it's always crazy and I'm doing this and that. And she's like, but things always work out for me. It's going to be fine. And, you know, by and large, it turns out that's true. And so, yeah, I like this. So I've started saying that, too. Things.

I like it, too. It's kind of similar to this entrepreneurship mantra, which I've realized. I, you know, we've been saying for the last 25 years or so is, oh, we'll figure it out. We'll figure it out.

Figure it out. That's really what that means. Like, that's part of things always work out for me. It's not like I sit around and sleep all day and magically things work out. Maybe they would. I haven't tried this plant, so I can't really discount it, but it's more about things will work out. So I'm going to try. And that in and of itself. And not only is it I'm going to try, but it's how I wind up dealing with people and how I watch my daughter deal with people. She assumes that things are going to work out, so she doesn't enter what are stressful Conversations assuming failure. She enters these stressful conversations assuming success. It doesn't mean that they're easy and it doesn't mean she doesn't have to do some negotiating and some social engineering and all that stuff. But she assumes that her efforts are going to pay off. And if you're assuming your efforts are not going to pay off, why are you taking the effort in the first place?

Yeah, either way, you're right. You know, you are.

I mean, yes, that's it.

I mean, the future is bright because you get to make it.

All right. Earlier this year we had this idea with one of our other businesses to start selling merch like T shirts and hats and all kinds of things just to allow our users to engage with the brand. It builds a little more loyalty, all of that stuff. We found a vendor to make all of this stuff and make it like in real time. But their store was like not the best and didn't really work worldwide. It didn't do all the things we needed to do. And we're like, oh no, like what do we do? I'm like, well wait a minute, I know what to do. I know that we should use Shopify and we love it because that's the sound we hear every time there's a new sale on Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform revolutionizing millions of businesses worldwide. Whether you're a garage entrepreneur or IP already, Shopify is the only tool that you need to start run and grow your business without the struggle. Shopify puts you in control of every sales channel. So whether you're selling satin sheets from Shopify's in person POS system or offering organic olive oil on Shopify's all in one e commerce platform, you're covered. And once you've reached your audience, Shopify has the Internet's best converting checkout to help you turn them from browsers to to buyers. We've used this. It's fantastic. It's so cool that you know, you get the people get stuff in their car or they start looking at something, you can follow up with them and then get them to come back. It's really, it's amazingly well done and it just, it's so smooth. This is why Shopify powers 10% of all E commerce in the US and Shopify is truly a global force. Powering allbirds, Rothy's, Brooklyn and millions of other entrepreneurs of every size across over 170 countries. Plus Shopify's award winning help is there to support your success every step of the way. This is possibility powered by Shopify. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com businessbrain all lowercase go to shopify.com businessbrain to take your business to the next level today. Again, that's shopify.com/business brain. And thanks to Shopify for sponsoring this episode. And hey, do you still wonder who all those people are visiting your website but who never convert and then just disappear? You can discover the game changing tool that top professionals are raving about. Our sponsor, Pearl Diver. Pearl Diver is a cutting edge platform that provides in depth visitor identification enabling you to uncover valuable insights about your website's visitors. By uncovering the names, the emails, the company details and more, Pearl Diver empowers you to turn anonymous traffic into high quality leads. With Pearl Diver you'll supercharge your marketing and sales strategy. You don't have to settle for guesswork. Dive deep into your visitor data with Pearl Diver and revolutionize your customer acquisition game. Are you ready to make waves? With Pearl Diver you will see actual people visiting your website. You'll know their names, their emails, their phones, their titles and their company details. Never miss out on the opportunity to engage with your hottest leads. Pearl Diver matches your email interactions with identified website visitors, providing the insights you need to close your next deal. Visit Pearl Diver IO and try pearldiver today. Again, that's pearldiver IO and our thanks to Pearl Diver for sponsoring this episode. All right, over the weekend we got an email from David Dawson, who's been on the show and is a listener, of course. He says, just listen to the most recent episode and I had an observation at the beginning of each episode when Dave is doing the intro, it almost seems like he's struggling to explain the name Business Brain and why the podcast is called Business Brain. Each episode it's a little bit different. It could just be my perception may not be true, but if it was, I have an idea. Well, I will keep reading David's thoughts here, but you are correct. I have been struggling to find. As much as I love catchphrases, I haven't found the one right? And so you are 100% spot on. And if you've identified it, David, I know other people have too. He says, what if you took a few minutes to write out a brief description of exactly what the podcast is is and then start out by saying those exact words, essentially a script that can become a kind of branding marketing thing. He says, I listened to another show called Business Made simple and the host is a marketing guy. Every episode he introduces it exactly the same way. And he shared the script with us and it becomes kind of a thing that the listeners get used to. I totally get this and that's what I want here. So, you know, I've been struggling with this, but I only think about it when I'm in the moment, struggling with it. When we're finished recording the episode, I don't even, like, remember that I'm having this problem anymore. So. And I. I don't have time, I.

Don'T want to say it.

I don't have time. I don't have the opportunity in the moment that I'm recording to take a note and say, hey, go back and like, figure this out. So thank you for your email, David, which of course he sent to Feedback at Businessbrain show. And. And of course he and Andrew are entered into our drawing for a MacBook Air this year. But I did take the opportunity to start to dig into this and I've experimented for the two shows this week, Wednesday show, I was very short with it. I said something along the lines of business Brain is the show where we tune our business brains together. And I explained nothing about it. I just left it at that. Today I said a little bit more where we, you know, investigate topics to tune our business brains together to keep on living that charmed life. You know, just trying to get a feel for what rolls off better, what you folks like better. So, you know, I want you to let us know. I use Chat GPT, though, to workshop some of these things because it's great for that and, and it, you know, it's hard to use. Chat GPT is great for ideas. It can be great for drafting things. But trying to come up with a concise description in my voice, it's hard challenge. It's hard to get Chat GPT to do that, but it gave me some ideas and different ways to approach it, which I thought were helpful. I will share these, this ChatGPT link because you can share, like the whole thing so you folks can see what I went through. But, you know, it's great.

I think the place to start is why we do the show. Right. Yeah, I love the name Business Brain, but I find myself, I don't want people to think you and I are the business brains, even though we have more experience than other folks or whatever.

So.

So I'm always, I always follow up with, oh, the show is called Business Brain because we all work together to make our business brains, you know, more productive. That's why I came up the tune that's where I came up with this name. Hey, let's tune our business brains together. But I also think it would be good to identify, you know, an ideal listener. Like, who do we really. Who is this show really for? Right. And if you could identify and come up with them, we should do it maybe separately and then, you know, bring our notes together.

Yeah, yeah.

But, like, my ideal listener has always been the person that's kind of on the fence. Not sure they have what it takes to go out on their own. Perhaps they're still working a 9 to 5, a W2 job, and they. They don't come here to hear all these great success stories where everybody's killing it. We're making all this money. Because a lot of that stuff turns me, and I feel like it's not very authentic. And I'm not going to name any podcasts or any other accounts online, because that's great. It motivates a lot of people.

It does.

But I never got into this to make a lot of money. I turned out I did make a lot of money, but I got into it because I was just excited to do it and I didn't want to go work for someone else. And it's almost like I want this show to be permission to. This ideal listener to. To go out on your own and experiment and figure it out and see if it's for you. Because it made such a positive difference in my life when I did that. And I'd like to be able to explain that in about four words, but it's a challenge.

No, this is interesting. I was having lunch with a friend last week, and we hadn't seen each other since. The last time we had lunch in person. We've talked, of course, but the last time we had lunch in person was like, March 11th or 12th of 2020. Right. Like, he. He texted me. He's like, well, I hope having lunch, you know, on Thursday doesn't cause yet another, you know, global pandemic or whatever. And because, you know, we. We got together and then like, that night was when, you know, our. Our. Our powers that be were like, you shouldn't get together again. You know, it's like, ah, okay, great. So, yeah, but he was, you know, and lots of things have evolved since then. I've sold Mac Observer. I've done some other things. He's, you know, changed some parts of his career. And so we were just talking, you know, as friends do, and he's like, yeah, you've really kind of figured it out for yourself. He's like, you know, you've created this opportunity for so much flexibility, and it's amazing. And he's like, that's got to be really good for, you know, for your career. And I'm like, oh, no, Mike, you got to understand this whole thing exists so I can play my drums when I want. And he started laughing. And I'm like, you can laugh, but this is 100% true. I said what I did not plan for, but certainly took advantage of. I just didn't know that I would want this was. It also has given me the opportunity to be with my family as my kids were growing up. Right. Like, the same flexibility I was able, which for me was huge. Right. But the same flexibility that allows me to go and play gigs whenever I want. I can. I can assign that flexibility to whatever I want. That's the nature of flexibility. So there were. There were many periods of my life where I was like, well, I want to keep playing the drums, but I also am going to spend time with my family and. And sacrifice some time, you know, playing in bands or whatever. And that, like, all totally fine. Like, it was my choice, but it was because I set this up to be able to choose. And he's like, that's really what you did, isn't it? I'm like, yeah. It was never like you said, Shannon. It was never with the sole focus of making money. I knew that I needed to fund my life such that I had flexibility to do the things I cared about. It wasn't. And I don't.

I was shocked that people would send me money, you know, I was just shocked. I was like, I'm such a great time and I'm doing all this cool stuff. And so, you know, that's who I'm talking to.

Yeah.

But maybe I'm wrong. You know, maybe most of the people out there are well established and different things, so it'd be great if you could.

Yeah. Who are you?

Feedback Businessbrain Show. Just tell us. And you know, the newsletter has been getting a great upgrade. You know, we're using a new service now and I really like the format. I hope you do too. But there's a question at the bottom of it that asks you what type of person you are. That's reading it and as answering that would really help us and just, you know, email us. Love to hear from you.

Yeah, thanks, folks. This is. Yeah. Why do you listen and. And also why do you. What drove you down the path that you are heading down? Like, what? Because that would be fascinating to me to learn. So, yeah, feedbackusbrain show. Like Shannon said, thanks for listening. Thanks for checking out our sponsors. Shopify.com businessbrain Pearl Diver IO keep living that charmed life, eh? And we'll. We'll see you next week.