Employee, Self-Employed or Entrepreneur – who makes the best partners? Small Business Show 132

The Small business show episode 132 for Wednesday, August 16th. Happy birthday, Shannon 2017. Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business Show. The show by, for and about small business owners here. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in San Francisco Bay area, I'm Shannon Jean. You know, man, it's kind of like you go to dinner on your birthday, you're like, nah, don't say anything. Don't say, I don't want the guys in the hats thing and clapping, coming over. But, you know, we just blew that right out of the water.

Right out of the water. So there's no way you were getting away with it. That's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

But, you know, I find myself at work today, which is where I love to be and be spend some time with my family tonight. So it's all good.

Perfect, man.

Yeah, you got it. I'm blessed to love what I do. So what's that old saying I tell my kids? I'm sure they're so tired of hearing me say that. I'm like, you know, love what you do and you'll never work a day in your life.

You know? It's true, man.

Yeah, it is. It is true.

Yeah.

I see a lot of people say, you know, find what you're passionate about and do it. But, you know, I find most of the people that say that are already wealthy and so true.

Isn't it easy? That's. That's selective memory, I think it is.

And yeah, you definitely are passionate. I mean, your passion. But we talked about it last week, like, passion versus discipline. And what do we do? Motivation and discipline, that's probably part of it too, you know, that passion to get something going or whatever it is or something you're in it that you love so much to get out there. But it's all related. And passion alone does not carry it. No, you want to be passionate about it, but you can be passionate about anything. It's like we're passionate about small business in general and the way it empowers people and helps you create a charmed life.

Right, right.

So it's, it's, it's kind of interesting, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Passion's not enough.

You know, it's a great springboard, and it also is a great way to lift yourself up when things are really not going the way that you want it to do, you know?

Totally.

And some of this probably optimism as well, that you can, you know, kind of carry yourself forward. But I think that passion alone is it's not enough.

No, no, it's not enough.

I know plenty of passionate guys that.

Are broke, you know, oh, listen, I'm a musician. I can't. I encounter passionate, broke people constantly who are officially self employed. So like two of the, two of the. Wow, that's gonna be fun with my audio today. Two of the three boxes checked and still not the. Not the goal. Right.

Well, that brings a good point. And we were talking about this last week, you know, that there are self employed people, there are employees and entrepreneurs and you know, everyone has kind of different traits. And I think you mentioned, you know, telltale signs of what type of person they are. And I think we should talk about it today.

Yeah. For.

And see, you know, what, what kind of things it's often, you know, you've mentioned a number of times in the show, you know, the Peter principle, right. Where you have an employee that does really well in one job and of course they prove themselves reliable and they do good and then you, you promote them right. To something else and you, they kind of get promoted until they reach a job they're not very good at. Right. Because then they stop. Then they stop. Which kind of defeats a purpose. But.

And you can Peter Principle your if you're self employed. I've definitely done that. You know, I put myself in a job. Now maybe there was no option, but certainly I've put myself in jobs where it's like, oh, I'm the wrong guy to be doing this. So I either have to figure out and like teach myself how to be the right guy to do it or hire the right person to do the job. Yeah, yeah.

Identifying those things are really important. And I may mention this book a couple times during the show, but, you know, the E myth allows you to really lay out a, an organizational chart even if your name is in every box. And I would really would encourage you to do it at whatever size your company is because you get to see quickly. I'm not good at this, this part. So I need help, I need help here. But I'm really good at this part, you know, And I mean, it doesn't matter what you're good at if. As long as you can kind of keep things together and bring in people that are going to help, you know, offset your weaknesses. I think that's, that's a good thing to figure out as early on as you possibly can.

As early on as you can. That's right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure.

Yeah. So, you know, I think a lot about this. I've had business partners, I've had good business partners and I am fortunate enough to be talking with one right now in you.

I like what.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I have had mediocre business partners and I have had awful business partners. And you know, perhaps that's a good place to start this because I think a lot of the traits that you're looking for might be. Might. I think they overlap. For me, a good business partner has two fundamental things. Number one, they are good at and interested in doing something that I am not right to fill that hole. Right. I mean it's like, okay, I could, like any of us could do, try and do everything for a business, but we might not be the best person for it. So you know, finding that person and then number two is actually willing to work or perhaps to, to, to, to con. To boil that down is a doer and not a delegator. Because being in small business, especially in a partnership with a delegator, if it's only two of you, well, guess what's going to happen.

That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, I've been through this a lot and you know, been approached over the years from many, many different people that wanted to kind of partner and do do things with us.

Yeah.

And I've had that very similar, you know, experiences where you, you kind of get things going and there's some folks that really pick up the mantle and kind of take where you leave off and, and it's, and if you're lucky, you know, you find that person that really, you know, like, like you said, is good at what you're not and helps motivate you to do your stuff. But one of the ways that I've come up with to try to find out who that person is is, is a very simple document that, that I've created over time, kind of. And I have a template for it and I can post it on the site. I just called the working agreement. And what, what I do is when someone comes in said, hey, we'd like to do this, I want to do this and I'm interested in this and you know, we want to partner with you. And either somehow it could be a brand new business, it could be something complimentary, complementary to an existing business, but the working agreement allows you to lay out what, what, what the goal is, what are you, what are you trying to achieve and who's going to do what. Which is probably the most important thing because I, I have flushed out so many people. When you get to that point of who's going to do what? Because they can't agree on what they're going to do. Yeah, it's like they bring this magic. Oh, I have this great idea. And we've talked about the value of ideas a number of times on this show.

They're worth whatever you write them on.

Yeah, that's right. And so then they think because you have, you know, a successful business or two, that you sprinkle some magic fairy dust on that idea, and all of a sudden it just takes off and everybody reaps the benefit. But it doesn't work that way. As we know, the. The most the secret sauce is. Is hard work, discipline, you know, motivation and passion. But you got to kind of have all of those things.

Yep.

So. So when you put it in writing, call it whatever you want, and you all have to go back and forth, first of all, can you even make it through the back and forth of deciding who's going to do what?

Yeah, that should. That should happen very quickly.

It's the first thing.

No, no, I don't mean it should happen first. I mean, if that process for some reason takes two weeks instead of two hours, it's the wrong relationship. I really feel that, like, it should be autumn almost automatic, that everybody's just like, oh, yeah, well, we have to do this, and okay, that great. Otherwise. And sometimes people are unable to do that, not because they're unwilling to do the work or incapable of doing the work, but they've never run a business before, they've never started a business before, and oftentimes that person is a bad partner, too. So there's. There's a whole. I started with the whole doer versus delegator thing because that's. That's. If I go through all my partner lessons, I feel like that's one that I've. I've. I haven't figured out how to. How to vet for yet. And I screw that up regularly. Again, I didn't screw it up with you, which is good.

Sure.

But. But we've been partners for a long time, you know, so there's other things on the list. Number one is financially in sync. You could both be broke. You could both be totally, you know, solvent. That's fine. But everybody needing the same financial burden from the business, same financial, you know, results from the business.

The outcome. What. What. Who needs.

What do you need a paycheck in two weeks versus, you know, can you wait until we sell this thing in two years? Right. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So. So that's one. The other Is, you know, are they, like I said the thing before, are they the, the right people and all that. But, but it's easy to suss out if somebody's financial needs don't match. Right? It's easy, relatively easy to suss out if the, the working agreement isn't. Isn't. Right. Like, if people are seeing things differently. I've gone through both of those things with partners and then gotten to the stage of, okay, we've decided how we're gonna do this now let's go do it. And very quickly it's like, hey, so you're doing all your stuff, and I've been thinking about my stuff, and here's what I need you to do for my stuff. It's like, whoa, no, no, no, no. And you point back at the working agreement.

Yep.

My feeling is, if you have to point back at the working agreement, that's the beginning of the end.

It's the beginning of the end.

Yeah. Like. Like also point back at it at the part that decides what divorce looks like. Right. You know? Yeah, because that should also be in there, you know, and maybe it's early on and you just say, you know what? I'm. I'm out like this. I'm good. Yeah, thanks.

And I think that people have the best intentions, right. They always want to try to, you know, bring things together. And I'm all for. I'm a yes person. I want to do lots of different things and be engaged. And I love partnering with people, you know, and usually it works out great. But if you can't make it through those initial parts of this thing, you really do need to step away quickly because that, those are not going away, those battles, they're just going to get worse and worse over time.

I mean, I suppose it's possible somebody could say, you know, like, you have the scenario that I described, and they, they start, you know, going into auto delegation mode and you stop them and you say, hey, that's actually on your list. I've got enough on mine. And we were all okay with that. And if they stop and say, oh, dude, so sorry, you know, I got into auto delegation mode. I've been running a different. A business from a different level for a while. Thanks for the reminder. I. I got it.

Yeah. And I have.

That can happen.

It does happen. And it's. It happens to me. And I, I have a guy that I've been in years and years and years with, with one of my companies, and he'll often start a conversation with, hey, I want to Run something by you. Do you think this is okay? And he'll, he's looking at things a little differently and sometimes I, and I'll say this in the best good natured way. He's a super guy and he's really had my back, my back for, you know, a decade.

You wouldn't, you wouldn't still be in business with him if those things weren't true, right?

That's right. But he often leans toward what I would call dou dipping, meaning like, hey, I'm going to do all this work to build the company. But, but I also want to bill this amount of money to the company and I want to do, you know, or I want to sell this piece of equipment I have to the company and this kind of thing. And so he'll, to your point, he'll ask me, hey, do you think this is okay? And I often will say, oh, no, it's not okay. And, but, and to his credit, he goes, okay, I just wanted to run up by you and be sure that I, you know, if I was thinking about this the wrong way and I'm, I, and I often say, yes, you know.

Yes, you were. Yeah.

Yes, you were. And thank you for asking me about it instead of just doing it and then me seeing an invoice going, hey, what's this?

Yeah. So sometimes I have been, I have been guilty of unintentionally double dipping.

Yeah.

Before. And I've had, I've had partners call me out on it because, yes. You know, you, it's not uncommon that you wind up running. If you wind up running several businesses, it makes sense that at least some of them would be complimentary.

And overlap. Right?

And overlap. Yeah. And then suddenly, you know, you're used to, you've got one that's cooking along and you're like, oh, well, this is how we deal with when someone needs this service from us. It's like, well, no, but you're getting equity instead. And you know, it's fine. I try to be really hyper aware of it, but it happens to all of us. So credit to your, your friend for like asking that.

Yeah, he's a good guy. And I think that it's, it's, it brings up a good point. It's not, oh, hey, one, if you have these problems, you got to run away as fast. But if you can't have an open dialogue about those things, and I often go back and modify the working agreement as things. It's a system. Right. It's not a goal. We're going to build this big thing. And here's the blueprint. It's not a business plan. It's a living document that allows us to modify things as we go along. And as long as everybody's happy with how those things are being modified, it. It's great. Yeah, it's all good. But, you know, those telltale signs, I mean, I had a case where I've been in the watch business for, you know, 15 years and wholesaling and doing some different things. And I had a guy that said, hey, I have this. This friend who's got this big retail establishment, and I think we could get the watches in there and we could do this and do that. And I said, great. And, you know, here's my template. Let's build a working agreement. Let's see. And it just. It just dragged on and on and on. And I kept telling him, hey, these guys are not interested. You know, we just need to walk away and do something else. It's fine. But, you know, he was just, oh, no, I know I can make it happen. It's going to be great. I know we can all make money. And sure enough, it just. Nothing ever came of it because we couldn't get any input from a party that was not interested, you know, so. So it's a good thing to be aware and be just ready to. You have to be. You can't be emotional about it at all.

No. And, you know, you said something in there that I want to highlight. You need to be able to have these conversations, and if you've got a partner, and I ran into this in a horrible way that is unwilling to have those tough conversations. They are not your partner. Like, you need, like, you know, you don't necessarily, like, want somebody coming into the conversation guns blazing and, you know, like, thoroughly pissed off, but sometimes that happens and you need to be able to have that conversation. Often it happens when you haven't been able to have that conversation. Sure. Then things boil up. But. But you really need to be open to someone pointing out, hey, man, I think you're double dipping. Let me explain why. Let's talk this out as opposed to, oh, no, you know, don't upset me. Okay. Whoa. All right, then this is.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. It's a challenge, you know, and. And that. I mean, I've even gone to, like, you know, partner, you know, therapy before. And because I had a good thing going and it was great. But, yeah, I had to tiptoe around, you know, this partner. And it's like a marriage, right?

Totally.

So if you can't have those discussions that, because you're worried that someone's going to get upset or you know, react in a really negative way or be super defensive and those kinds of things, that's it.

It's the super defensiveness that makes, that makes it impossible to actually be a partner. Okay, so let's, let's take this as the opportunity to transition, okay. Into the difference between, I'm going to say business owners and employees. And then maybe we'll talk about the difference between business owners and the difference between people who own a multi employee business and a single employee business. But you know, I have found that people, the key differentiator between someone who is of the employee. I don't want to say you are an employee, you are a business owner, because we can all learn and transition.

And all that and neither is a negative or a positive. No, it's not.

No. We need all of this. Right?

Of course, of course.

Yeah. But the, the employee mindset versus the business owner mindset can to me be summed up by looking at what, how someone starts their day. If you start your day waiting for someone else to tell you what to do, you are of the employee mindset. If you start your day deciding, looking at yourself to tell you what to do. I mean, we're all employees of our businesses, right? But, but it depends on who you look to. And, and really, perhaps an even better way is when things go wrong, do you say I should have done X, Y or Z now? I mean in look, we all learn from hindsight, that's fine. But if, if, you know, if you totally have things up, do you look back and say I did this wrong, I would do this differently next time, or do you say you didn't. No one told me to do anything differently, so it's not my fault.

Yeah. And I think that, and I heard this phrase years ago and I don't know who to assign it to or who to quote it from, but it was, you know, when you want to give praise, if you're the type that you're going to be a business owner, if you want to praise someone, look out the window. If you want to criticize or hold, you know, you need to look in the mirror. Because I think what it is, because one of the things I was just thinking of is like, well, you know, employees are often risk averse, this kind of thing. But that, that tone I believe is set by the business owner. How much risk your employees are allowed to, to take and how, how much accountability they're allowed to have. And I believe that in a strong health space you should be protecting your employees ability to take risk.

Yes.

And you know, encouraging that accountability. Now you're going to find people that will do one or the other or neither. And those folks have a spot, you know, in your, your org chart as well. But the ones that really, you know, become the best people that to run your business are not afraid of risk and they're not afraid of being accountable because they know you're going to have their back even if they make a mistake.

Yeah. Oh, I encourage my team to make mistakes and I praise them when they take a risk and it pays off.

Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. And I always try to say, hey, you know, I still may have a comment about it, but I. Or criticize it in a constructive manner. But I will always want you to make a decision even if it's the wrong one. Because when we stop making decisions in the organization, that's when everything gets stagnant.

Oh, you know, it ends.

Yeah. And if you like, well, I have to go talk to so and so because I can't. I don't want to make this decision about this situation or how to handle this kind of thing. Well, that, that's a cop out and either they. But it could be a cop out for the, the business owner that hasn't, you know, trained them or given them the tools to make decisions. You know, it's like the, what's the name of the hotel they've empowered, you know, every employee to spend like up to $1,000 to solve any problem for a customer. You know, any, any employee could be right. From the, the newest, lowest level of staff to the, you know, to the manager of the hotel. Anyone in.

Yeah, you should have a number amount that your employees are allowed to spend absolutely at their discretion to solve any one problem. That's right.

Yeah. Or else you're going to, you're going to get driven nuts and you will not be, you will not be able to. If that's what I'm looking for, to migrate to a different level of being a business owner, you will be stuck as being self employed because all the information, you will be the hub for it. And that's a common young person mistake which I have absolutely made and superhero complex where I'm the guy, everybody has to come to me. But that's a nightmare after a while. That's where you need to start creating systems and you know, and offloading that data and building knowledge bases and using tools and Automation and then empowering these people to go out and solve these problems and then have them come back to you and say, hey, here's how I fix this. Yeah.

Okay. So you've transitioned us already, and it's great. Your concept of the superhero complex is exactly the differentiator between solopreneur and business owner. Right. Because if. If you. And trust me, just like you, I have experienced the superhero complex in all the great ways and all the worst ways. Well, I mean, when I had my own consulting business, I was going out fixing people's computers. Like, yes, I made money. I actually made tons of money. But what drove me was I was the superhero.

Like, you're the man.

I could. I could walk in anywhere, and literally, people were like, couldn't work or couldn't do whatever they wanted to do. And I. I would lay my hands upon their computer and magically it was fixed. And then the money would flow in the right direction. And that. That's great. And I will tell you, if you've ever experienced that when you transition from being the superhero to being the business owner, you will miss that terribly and.

People will be upset.

And it. Right. Well, that's actually why I got out of the consulting business. Yeah. Because I knew. I tried it, and I couldn't get people that made my customers as happy as I made them. And it was because they were my customers. Like, the new customers that I brought in are like the people that I got had working for me. Totally. Because they were their customers used to it.

Right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But my customers were never happy, and it drove me crazy, so I got out of it. But even still, you will be the superhero occasionally when you are a business owner, but sure, far, far less often. Yeah.

You have to. Yeah. And so you have to look for other ways to get that feeling, you know, and hopefully it's the development of your team. Yes. And your staff. And you kind of, you know, you can mentor to them and. And people come and go, but, you know, you. The replacement for that is, I think, creating, you know, a culture that has longevity and allows people a career path. Even if that means up where they leave your company and go do something else, that's fine. You know, that's part of the process here. Unless, you know, if they've reached the ceiling of what they can do in your company, you should, you know, hey, I'll help you out as much as I can. Let's go. And, you know, one of the ways. And we didn't talk about this when we had Abby Vakil on the show a few weeks ago, but, you know, he did that so many times where people were leaving and leaving and leaving that he finally started, you know, offering to invest with them in their new business venture. And he's done, you know, really well with that because he's kept involved with them. He kept the best folks that, you know, which is often happens, you know, when you're on the baseball team and you're really good. Like if you play for the A's, eventually you're going to get, you know, probably make it to the Yankees if you're really good.

If you're that good. Right.

Yeah. Because the A's are going to make money on you. So it's simple.

And the one that's really making money is your manager. That makes you money on both teams. Right. So for Abbottie to do that, that's really. I knew he invested in a lot of very small startups. I didn't realize that was a part of his formula.

Yeah. And he said to me, he's like, you know, these guys all go. They all want to start their own companies. I've had the same thing happen here, and we've had guests on the show that used to work for me that have started companies.

I am just as proud of my good employees that me and gone on to do great things as I am of the people that are still that have been here for, you know, for a very long time and continue to work here. Yeah.

Yeah. And I think that is actually another level of, you know, and we've talked about this here before, too, but moving even from the business owner to becoming an investor, and I don't mean that just in a financial standpoint, but you're investing your time into people on all kinds of levels and developing these relationships with them and really helping them to achieve whatever it is they want. Because there are just some awesome people that may not have whatever secret sauce it is that the entrepreneur has and doesn't want to take maybe all that risk and the financial risks and things and be up all night worrying about it. But within a. A framework that you create with them, if you give them the autonomy that they really want, they can do unbelievable things.

Yeah.

And. And you'll be rewarded for it. And, and that's it. You're investing in them and, you know, you just got to give them the freedom. You just got to get out of their way. And, and you can't be the impediment to the success of your. Your employees and your business. And, and I see, I see so many small businesses that that's the way that, you know, you really look and say, who's really slowing things down around here?

Oh, and it's always the owner is.

So often the owner, where employees like, well, we tried to put these things into, you know, and I've gone out and done, you know, consulting and sat down with people and say, hey, you know, just simple things. I'm like, you know, nobody wants you to have your desk in the middle of where all your people are.

No, none of them do you.

You think it's great and it's this open thing. But you know what? You need to make an. You need to build yourself an office over there in the corner. Y.

Hide yourself from them.

Yes, they can be free. You know, they need to have autonomy. They need to be able to talk without you there. They need to be able to, you know, bitch and moan and complain about you. Because that is just a human condition. And it's part of the relief. Relief of stress, you know. And so, you know, you need to get out of the way. It's. It's a very important thing.

So this is interesting. I was having lunch actually yesterday with. And I am so very, very rarely jealous or wishful of returning to my youth, like so very rarely. But I ate. This guy's 29 years old and I had lunch with him yesterday. Friend of mine, he's a guitar player, but he was saying to me, he's like, you know, I wanna, I wanna actually. 28, he said, in two years, you know, by the time I'm 30, I wanna have a different life. I wanna change things. Like, oh, and that. And when he said that, that's when I had that, like, oh, that's so exciting. I wish I could rewind back to do it again.

Right?

To do it again. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So that was it. It was short. The envy, I suppose, was short lived, sure. But, you know, he was saying this and I told him something that I wanted to share here. And it's exactly what you're saying. I said, here's the thing. As soon as you make that decision and pursue that, you'll do fine. And you will realize at some point along the path, very early on, but not right away, you will see that you are the person that's limiting your own success.

Oh, for sure.

And you will feel like you have had the greatest revelation in your life. I said, and I can tell you this, and it'll be irrelevant because it will happen to you and you will see it and There will be something that feels tangible to you that sort of epitomizes this, and you'll feel like, finally, I've broken through. And I said, that's the greatest feeling in the world. Here's the worst feeling in the world five years later when you realize you're still doing it to yourself. You're still the one that's limiting you from going to the next level. And it's like, dang it, I already learned this lesson.

It's tough. And I think you evolve as you know, not to get too philosophical here, but my life has been a series of lifetimes.

Exactly.

You look at where you were as a young person in this or even where you were a few years ago, and each time you look back and go, wow, man, you know, if I'd have only known this or I'd have done this a little bit different way. But the underlying thing, you know, is true, you mentioned, is that we're totally, you know, what is that you hold your hands out and say, okay, you know, the only thing keeping you from point A to point B, and that's in the middle at your head. You know, what you think. And you look at extremely successful people, and, you know, they've gotten out of the way of that, out of themselves, and been able to embrace and take the risk and really put themselves out there. And especially as a small business. I've been talking about this a lot with my wife, Renee, because we're transitioning to a new company and a new way of, new lifestyle, all this kind of stuff after selling our business. And you have to be careful when you talk to people that are employees for years and years and years, because they look at that like, well, that's kind of flaky. That's kind of flighty. You're like, well, we have this going on, and we got this and doing this with our real estate, and we're doing this with this company we've invested this year where, you know, you and I, Dave, we'd have that conversation be like, oh, that's awesome.

Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. This exact same conversation, and people see it differently.

Yeah, yeah. So you want to have. You want to be careful as you move along this path that, you know, you're having those conversations with the right people.

Well, that's it. You know, as you were saying this and, you know, we're saying you got to get out of the. Out of your own way. Part of it is you need to get out of your parents way. And I say that we all have those People. For most of us, it's our parents, but not everybody but those people that sort of define the bar of success. Before you learn that, you can define that yourself. And some people never learn that you can define that. So if you're. If your parents or whoever's around you defines your success as x, getting to 2x not only is very difficult, but it's actually very scary.

Yeah.

Because it's now, whoa, what are those people gonna think of me? And I'll be honest. I mean, my dad has always been. He's done fine for himself, but he's never been in business for himself. And it wasn't until I started. I mean, I had already sort of broken that mold. And my. My parents, all the way through have always been supportive of me. I don't mean to say that they held me back, but there's just a mindset that is accepted. And it wasn't until I started doing consulting for people and wound up going to the homes of people that I would never have known because they were at a whole different socioeconomic level. And walking into these houses, first of all, you walk into some of these houses, and you're like, whoa, people in my town live like this. Holy crap.

What do you do? Well, that's it.

And then you start talking to them, and you realize, wow, the difference between you and me isn't far at all. And in fact, it's nothing. We are the same people. You just look at life a little bit differently, and it's that whole, you know, rich dad, poor dad.

I was just gonna say that.

Mentality.

Yeah, for sure.

For sure. And you need to, you know, if you want to go further, you need to break free of what you believe to be that bubble, because there's no bubble. And even the people that you wind up talking with, they're in a bubble that they might not even realize, you know, they're just at a different level than you, and it's okay. It's different.

And the thing that, like, you know, Steve Jobs said, you know, don't leave your life by someone else's dogma. And, you know, yeah, that's it.

Yeah.

You just owe it to yourself not to do that. And, you know, don't share all your crazy ideas with people that get a paycheck every two weeks because they're not going to appreciate it. You know, join an entrepreneur group or, you know, call us and email us, and we'll talk about you. But jump up on the small business support group and share your ideas there, and it'll be a totally different experience for you because you're talking to like minded people.

Yes.

And that is what you need to be encouraged and to, you know, be motivated and help you over time to move from that employee to being self employed to being a business owner and eventually becoming an investor and, you know, having a charmed life. So good, good, good stuff, man. It really is powerful. We, we talk about a lot of the same principles over time, but hopefully we're doing it in a little different way that makes them valuable.

We've never been this raw about it.

Yeah, yeah, that's true.

And you know, what Shannon said is true. If, if you want to have this conversation, shoot us an email. I bet at least one of the people that's talking on this podcast would happily get on the phone with you and just go. Because we love.

We do it.

It's why we do it. So. Yeah, really. And it's good for us too, you know, like, I finished lunch with Andy yesterday and he said thank you. And it was sort of an impromptu lunch. We didn't even plan it. We just sort of wound up together and we had burritos and that's what the conversation turned into. And he said, wow, thank you. And I'm like, you know what? Thank you. Because it really focuses me on this stuff and I don't get the opportunity other than this each week. It's good to talk about it. It's really good. Yeah, yeah.

It's powerful and it's rewarding and the roe. The return on your energy is tremendous and that helps you in so many other ways.

So many other ways.

Yeah.

Fun stuff, man. So how do you get in touch with him? Feedbackusinessshow co. Right. How else?

Got it. And jump over to our support group on Facebook. BusinessShow Co Facebook.

That's the way to find us. Yeah. There's other people like us. We're all crazy.

But that's good. That's right.

We all know how to live that charmed life. Or at least we try. Hey, happy birthday, man.

Thanks, man.