BFC #010 - How to Successfully Blend Quality Family Life and Business with Sean Soole

You're listening to the Business for Creators podcast where each week we uncover the secrets to balancing creativity and business all in the one place. With your host, me, Dan Lenny.

G' day guys and welcome to another episode of the Business for Creatives podcast. Today I am thrilled to have a good friend of mine, someone I've known and worked with for the last three years or so. Sean. So g' day Sean, how are you?

Good, Dan, how you going mate? Awesome.

Now I want to just introduce Shaun to give you a bit of a background. So Sean Sewell is an entrepreneur, angel investor, strategic advisor and business educator and lives his passion for helping people succeed. Now Sean holds equity in a number of businesses along with a place on the advisory boards. He supports some incredible business partners while not being involved in the day to day operations. And what's particularly interesting is in early 2018, pretty much on a whim, Shaun sold up everything and has been traveling Australia in a caravan with his family, whilst more than doubling his core business, his inner circle mastermind group, all while averaging less than 25 hours per week. And what I wanted to start with was Sean subscribes to, or he doesn't subscribe to the belief rather that you have to be hustling 247 to achieve success. Sean, great to have you finally on the show. Where are you currently?

Currently in Geraldton in Western Australia, so heading south towards Perth and spend Christmas in Margaret river, which will be fantastic.

Now I want to just start off by saying you're a pretty serious businessman, but you do have creativity absolutely at the core of who you are. I think what's really interesting and the story I want to explore today is that you are fundamentally a creative, but you love business. So tell me about how creativity has evolved in your life.

I guess early on I was of the view that I was a really analytical, I suppose, for want of a better term, analytical personality. This is what people rammed down my throat. It's what I was told. I did work experience not once but twice at an accounting practice during my school years. Two of the worst weeks of my life. Most boring thing ever. I was, oh, you're so good at nothing numbers, you're so good at systems, you should, you know, you should be doing this role, you should be that, you should be that. And so I started to think, well, this is what I'm good at, so it must mean that's who I am. And I guess my journey about, I guess it came to, it came to a head about eight years ago when I'd been racing A race car around in Queensland. And I had a quite a substantial accident in that race car. And I think my son was about 18 months old at that point in time. And I actually went and sought some support because it really shook me up. It really did. And I went and saw an NLP hypnotherapist. And that person helped to, in only a couple of sessions, helped to identify the fact that. Hey, Sean, are you actually an analytical person or are you a creative at your core? That's the question that got me because I, dead set, pretty much couldn't speak. We then did a hypnotherapy process and I couldn't even drive my car for about 90 minutes afterwards. It like she drugged me, you know. A dead set was the most joyfully content I'd been in my life. And I liken it to, you know, staggering around in some building and they switch the lights on and it's like a 7 11, you know, and it was pitch black before, you know, like, that isn't bright. That is the middle of the night, right? That suddenly I saw like my mask had been lifted and I saw myself for the first time. That despite the fact that I was good at things, despite the fact I was good at creating processes and getting things to happen and putting things in order and all the rest of it, that in my core I was actually a creative. Having come from a background of building cars and houses and singing in a band and dropping three at maths and physics at school and taking up woodwork to build a billiard table for my major project and things like that. There was always this conflict of creativity. And it's almost like creativity is the lower form. You know, intelligence and analytical nature is the. Is the higher form or the more valuable one in a job, you know, and that's kind of, I suppose, the progression that I took to really realize that I am a creative, you know, in my core.

So where are you at today in terms of your business, your life? You obviously been traveling around Australia with the family for the best part of a year.

How.

Well, before we get to how that's impacted you, because that's bound to be a great story. Where are you currently? How are you funding this project?

So effectively part of the decision to go on the road and actually sell up. We sold up a house a couple years ago trying to figure out what we wanted to do next. Tried living in different areas. Just didn't feel right. Energetically, it doesn't feel right. And then I was introduced to a good friend of Mine, who's been on the road now for three years with his family in a caravan. And he introduced it to me and started kind of. Well, I helped him position a few things first to get ready for that decision or that move of his. And they sold out the same thing. Anyway, I was at an event just over 12 months ago, nearly 18 months ago now, and we sit at the back of the room and he had, he said one line to me that finally got me to commit. And he said, he goes, sean.

It feels like I'm Neo from the Matrix and I've taken the red pill. And he had me as soon as he said the word Matrix. Because my personal company, Matrix Business Mentors is named after the Matrix movie, right? And because it's one of my favorites. That concept of there being, you know, us being exposed to a world that's actually not real. And I'm like, you've got me. And I think within four weeks I bought a four wheel drive. Never owned a four wheel drive before in my life. Two weeks later I owned a caravan. And a week after that we're out on their first test run. And it wasn't even what it was less than six months later that we exited everything and sold most of our possessions and got rid of just about everything and packed up and left. And I guess the, you know, that was, that was a very challenging decision. As I said, I have been historically a creature of habit. You know, having my stand up desk that I can, because of standing up I find is more creative for me when I'm on a call. And the things in business, I think business is creativity. You know, it's being strategically creative. It's being creative around problem solving, solutions, things like that. So I don't think creativity and I used to think creativity meant painting a picture or being a photographer. But I see creativity as, you know, you can apply it to any field. You can apply it in, as I say, in business, in life, in relationships, in everything. You know, it is part of who I am in a makeup. And ideally the people that are watching or listening to this episode are coming from that creative background and it does apply to life. And I've had a lot of creatives who are my clients who've said, oh, but I'm in a creative industry, I can't be very successful at that. I'm like, why not? Because I can't think strategically. I'm like, well, let's apply strategy and creativity together. And you get an outcome, you get a really, really positive outcome. And I guess I've applied those two together in that structure to allow myself to be creative in how I complete my sessions, where I complete my sessions from. So I can be sitting in my car looking out at the river. It's just as good a place as any to give value to somebody. I could be going for a walk and chatting with one of my existing clients. I wouldn't do that with a new client, but with an existing client, I could be going for a walk. They know that by me moving, they're getting better value because my energy is up and it's beneficial. So, yeah, it's definitely been a process to shift into that. And sometimes it's challenging with. You see my beds in the kids. Beds are in the background on the visual here. They're bugs. And sometimes it's hard to be in the same place and try and be on a call. I'll have to go outside, but it could be windy, and then people can't hear you. And so you've got to kind of be a bit creative. Go to the camp kitchen and kind of try and go from there as well and make sure I'm serving at the highest level.

I would imagine that, you know, when I want to be strategic, I drive to Palm Beach, I park the campervan up, and I sit in front of the ocean with a pad and a pen. Has there been a more intense experience for you as a business advisor, business coach, strategist, because you're putting yourself out in different environments every day? How has that impacted the way in which you perceive problems and come up with solutions?

I think it's had a massive, massive impact because the one thing that's created in me is space up here. Well, not only here, but head and heart space, because I don't have the noise that I used to have. As I said, we sold a house, we sold most of our belongings. I stepped out of multiple six figures of income. I let that go to focus on this opportunity for my family. At this point in time, my kids are 9 and 6. I think it's a really, really good time for them to experience it before my son gets to high school and that sort of stuff. And they're not too young to not remember it. So there was a whole lot of. I suppose there's a whole lot of thought process gone into.

What do I want to. Actually.

I'll rephrase that. What I did was I went through and I removed the things I didn't feel were serving me anymore. That's the best way of putting it. So I went and said, you know, really, really had to look at it. Is this serving me? You know, and it's like, oh, I really like it, yes. But is it actually serving me? Is it serving me right now? I've really liked it and it was serving me in the past, but right now it's like I could actually let that go and it's not going to have a detrimental effect. It's not something that I'm that's aligned as much with my purpose and my passion anymore. And a large part of doing this was to get me out of my comfort zone, was to metaphorically shake my cage and my wife's also, you know, for us to shake our own cages within our relationship, within ourselves, our relationship with our kids, and really shake things up. And I thought, I need, what I'm going to need is I'm going to need space. Because I didn't really know what I was doing when it came to towing a caravan and parking it up and setting it up and what when something goes wrong, you know, all sort of stuff. I had no bloody idea. So I thought, I'm going to need some headspace. So by unwinding from probably 60, 70% that involved exiting some businesses, that involved exiting some things I was working with and spending probably about 50% of my professional time in.

It meant that I really felt what are the absolute bare minimum of things I need to do? And that's where I narrow my folks. You mentioned it before, the mastermind, the inner circle mastermind that I run, which is my primary focus. I do have some peripheral things, advisory board roles and things that I sit on that I'm involved in. But my primary focus while on the road is to develop that and grow that, but also grow my value that I give and to directly answer that question. Now that I've given some context, what I found is the ability for me to.

Identify where somebody's struggling, particularly in themselves, as a person. Because I work on people, I don't work on businesses. The only reason a business isn't successful is the person isn't successful in their mind, they aren't a successful person. They need to be that to then do the actions that are required to have the outcome. And so by having this space, having these experiences, experiencing new things and having room to then go for a walk. And I've been going for a walk at 5:30 in the morning on the beach. I've never done it in my life. I couldn't probably have thought of anything worse. Now I'm really enjoying it because I'm actually waking up naturally by the birds at like 5, 5:15. I'll get up, the kids are still asleep. I'll sneak out of the caravan, I'll go for a walk for half an hour, maybe an hour. I might do a few social videos, some content to share that I think of, that I'm inspired by just while walking down the beach. But other things I do is I think of the problems and the challenges that my clients have been facing and these little nuggets, these epiphanies are just thrown up to me because I don't have the conscious noise anymore. I don't have people wanting a piece of me every five minutes. I don't have people around me, just in the environment. I'm out there walking on a beach at Monkey Mire the other day I was walking for an hour and a half, didn't see another person the entire time and the dolphins came past. So that was very special. So, yeah, so you, you know, it's, it's about creating a creative space, like you said, parking up the van, opening the back, sitting there, got your pad, let it flow, let it come in. And I've really learned how to, I suppose, tap into that universal creativity, that universal energy when being able to work strategically.

It's such an amazing story and so many elements of that resonate and especially the stepping into the fear, stepping into the confronting your own anxieties around me, perhaps breaking away from the tradition now. One thing that I wanted to touch on was some people might think you're just on this like year long holiday doing a bit of work on the side. But I love before you went on this journey, we spent some time time together and you framed it in a very different way. One that's actually been quite inspiring for me. Talk me through how you frame it differently from just, you know, being on holiday for a year or two.

Yep. So there's, I suppose, a couple of aspects. The first one is it's not actually a holiday, it's actually life on the road. Right. And that's a very big distinction because people see all the photos on Facebook on our kids account, you know, and Aston and Charlie's adventures, they put, we put posts up of them feeding the dolphins or, you know, riding a jet ski or doing whatever. But there's a massive reality behind that. The huge reality behind that is that one we've had to be our children's teachers. And that has been the most challenging part I found for both Nat and I. My wife and I has Been teaching miniature version. Miniature versions of ourselves. It's not the work itself. The work is easy, but it's like reflecting yourself when you were nine, when you had anxiety, when you were frustrated, when you didn't want to get things wrong. And I'm like, aston, my son is just mini me, right? And he's reflecting me back. He's pushing all these buttons. I'm having these really bad parenting moments. And what we did is we actually pushed through and got the entire rest, the whole of this term last term now done by the end of week four. We finished all 10 weeks of the fourth term, so we do not have to have schoolwork for three months, because it really was a challenge. But the whole, I suppose, purpose of it for me is again, going back to that. It was to get me outside my comfort zone. Because there's not many things nowadays that actually get me outside my comfort zone in a business sense, particularly when there's challenges come up, when things. I can deal with them. I've done a lot of work on myself over the last 30 years in being involved in businesses of some kind to be quite resilient and quite robust when it comes to that stuff. But this is like if I was 9 out of 10 on leadership in business and stuff, I was a negative nine when it came to teaching my kids. So I've had to learn a whole nother skill set. But that was the point, you know, the point was to help bring myself and my wife together, spend more time. I think I've spent more time with my kids, quality time in the last eight and a bit months than I have in the last eight years. And I guess from a business perspective, it really is out there to prove not only to myself, because I knew it was possible, but to prove to my clients that the phrase that I stand for is that I do not believe you have to hustle 247 to create success. There's a lot of people out there, I know that their intent is to mean, well, like Gary Vee. I do follow Gary Vee. I do rate him very highly. He's very much about getting in and doing it. But what a lot of people think is that he hustles 24 7. Now he doesn't. I had 20 minutes at the back of the room with him, you know, when I had the opportunity to be an event and speak on the same stage of him that I was talking to him and I asked him about his life and his family. And he's got two kids about the same age as mine. And it's a projection, right? It's to inspire. But he's not working 24, seven, seven days a week. He spends a lot of weekends with his kids, they go away on holidays. But you don't see it because it's not his brand. And I look at that and say, well, if you look deeper into his content, what he's not saying is you have to hustle 247 for your entire life is saying, hustle 24 7, get it done. And you'll have the opportunity to enjoy that success. And then leading on from success, it comes down to what is your definition of success, not what society tells us on our phones and Facebook, social media, the duck lip things, and someone going to some five star restaurant and making you feel less valuable and less self worthy. Success is what you define it as. And I now can honestly say I wake up every day and I feel successful. Have I achieved every goal I want to achieve? Absolutely not. But now I don't need to achieve something, have something or be something more than I am now to be successful every day. When I wake up, we still have crappy moments, we still have arguments. You know, one of the jokes is that, you know, it's, we have a little curtain on the other side behind the camera. Here is our bed and there's a curtain and it's like, I'm angry with you. It's like it kind of doesn't go bang like a door, right? You can't slam it and you can still hear the person breathing and see their silhouette. You know, it's like it doesn't have the same impact. So of course there's moments like that, but that doesn't take away from me feeling successful, you know, in the moment. And that's one of the things that I think so many people let society tell us that if we don't have the latest mobile phone, because we got the one from three weeks ago, now there's a new one, we're not worthy, we're not successful, we don't have the newest car, the flashest house, you know, whatever. And it's just a load of rubbish.

One of the things that I enjoy a lot about your content on Facebook, and there's been a lot of it recently, is you wrote a post saying, you know, stop worrying about where you feel you should be. You are where you are now and it's exactly where you need to be. And that was such a powerful statement. I feel that what's happening, Sean, is that there's a lot of people online that are pumping tactics or a bit of rah rah to kind of, you know, get you to buy a product or service. And when I speak to people I really trust and people who I know are quietly achieving massive success behind closed doors, they always reveal that, you know, it's all about the reality is that, you know, there is a lot of work and there can be a lot of work and there can be a lot of challenges. But I felt that that piece you wrote about you are exactly where you need to be. Just accept it, I thought was really powerful. Obviously you didn't start like that. What's your journey been to get to there?

Wow. Yeah. So I think I touched on it before I started my first business just before my 13th birthday. So I was still 12. So just for my 30th birthday I got my pocket money that I'd saved up. I bought some wood and some spray paint and I made some a frame signs and I started what I think was the first car wash cafe in Australia. So I was washing cars and I was about 4 foot tall. I was driving cars out of my parents driveway across the road into the park. Now imagine the council these days would have a bloody field day. But anyway, I was doing all right. I was generating like $200 on a Saturday, you know, this is 30 years ago. So I had the best remote control car, the most lollies, you know, I could buy whatever I wanted. It was my first for. But what I didn't realize for a long, long time, and not coming from a background where my parents knew anything about business, is that my dad's adage, which he got obviously from his upbringing and things, is if you want it done right, do it yourself because you'll do it better and it'll be cheaper. So I kind of had that mantra in my head and again I knew that that was well meaning, it was meant to serve me. But what I then by the time I got to my early 30s, I really started to realize that it actually wasn't serving me anymore. I actually need to start asking for help. So I went through that journey of struggling to do it all myself to working 60, 70, 80, 90, 100 hours a week. Work harder. The harder you work, the more success you create. And I kept doing that and I really started to see the change as soon as I made that choice to start asking for support and asking for help from again, from people that I trusted, not from someone who's, who's just putting content for the sake of selling a product, you know, and I put content for content sake because I know that's going to have an impact on somebody and I know that energetically I'm putting it out into the universe and people just find me. So far I haven't actually generated even though my social content has only been out now. I think at this point in time, about seven weeks since I started it, I've never done anything on social before that I'm talking with some people that are looking to potentially come in and I'm looking to potentially invite into my inner circle. But the whole entire growth of my business of more than doubling that business has come through people that knew me or know me or referrals or something. I think just because I'm sharing and I'm giving first, it's not. The giving isn't a means to an end. The giving is action in its own right. So I had to learn that. I had to learn that. You know, I used to be extremely selfish and self centered. Used to be all about me and how much money can I make and how much can I keep and I'll, you know, hold it, you know, everything I made. And I started to realize about that concept of well, you need to let it go for it to come. And I'm like, oh, I can't let it go, that's scary. That's not how I was brought up. That's not my beliefs. Then I started to realize they're not my beliefs, they're my parents and grandparents beliefs. I got shit, well what are my beliefs? You know. And then I started realizing that I am actually someone who is open to asking for help because I'm also someone who's willing to give help when people ask. So I started asking more people. I started building a network and one pivotal point that happened about it was about nine years ago, big pivotal point is when I finally made the decision to invest $20,000 in a six day course. Now it wasn't about the content of the course, it was more about the people that were going to be in the course. It was a boardroom style, 12 people there plus the presenter. Since going to that course, I've done business with six of those people, four of which I'm still in business with and the presenter that I'm in business with now. So I invested in his company and that decision literally opened up my entire network that I've had in the last nine or ten years since I did that course has effectively come from that decision of investing in myself and realizing that I don't know it all you know, I can't just do it on my own. I need to build something that's bigger than me and I've got a purpose that's bigger than me trying to do it on my own and just be that one man band, you know, Amazing.

And it's such an inspiring story.

And you know.

I have always involved myself in support groups and one of my current mentors who recently, until recently, was working with Jay Abraham said, you know, Jay Abraham, who's a very famous business coach, mentor, said, you know, you don't need to go outwards to grow your business, you need to go inwards. And by that I think he meant, firstly, yes, work on yourself, critically important. But secondly, he's got this phrase, get everything you can out of everything you've got, which is your existing network. And if you deploy value and give genuine value, kind of expecting nothing in return, but other than giving, I've always been incredibly amazed at how much comes back. Is that something you've discovered?

Absolutely, absolutely. Absolutely. As I said that the entire growth that I've experienced has been through the network that I have and through the impact that I'm having. And so, for example, since I started putting content out there and I said the content was for its own purpose, I feel I have a voice and it's about bloody time that I share it. You know, better late than never, as they say. But it became the right time to share it. And some of the stuff I was doing before, I felt it would have potentially created a conflict in the situation that I was in. And not that's a negative thing, it was just a thing. And I made a choice from, I suppose an integrity perspective or a moral perspective to protect and separate myself from that previous arrangement where it would have been seen as a conflict potentially with some clients. But as soon as I stepped away from that and got onto the road here, I started putting that content out. But what I'm noticing now is that the people I've worked with or am working with are now sharing that content with people or tagging people they know in that content. I then now get those people reaching directly out to me. Hey, John or Deb or Stu suggested I contacted them after seeing your content. I've been watching it. Sounds really interesting. I'd love to talk to you. So, yes, I know that from a marketing perspective there is a strategy behind how you market it, how you market the content, but the content isn't being delivered, as I said, for the sole purpose of making a sale. I think you can tell That I think anyone who's in tune a little bit can see that. That lack of authenticity that comes across when people are doing the content to for dollars rather than the content for people. Yeah.

You know, it was one thing you said to me about 18 months ago, and I was in a position where I was questioning one decision over the other. And. And you said to me, dan, you have an incredible gift at helping people in this particular field. Think of it this way. You reframed it. You said, would you ever consider the fact that you might be being selfish by keeping it to yourself, by not making sure you have this moral obligation to put your information in front of as many of the right people as possible? And that really stuck with me. And I've used that many times in my own coaching business. When someone is anxious about developing their craft, why is it, do you think, as a society, we're so scared to just put ourselves out there, step into our zone of genius, and actually help people achieve their goals?

I think it's conditioning. I absolutely think it's conditioning. And.

The expression that is, I guess, similar to what I mentioned to you is the concept of with great power comes great responsibility. And if we've got a special power, a gift, and we are holding it in, it is selfish. If you're not sharing it, it's like, well, I've got this gift, but you're not having any, you know, well, is that how it's meant to be? So if you. You're not going to get anything if you're holding it. That's that thing about opening up and letting it out, because what comes back will be greater. But.

Again, it took a long time for me to.

Become comfortable with that concept and to actually, I suppose, put it out there first.

And what I'd say to people who are struggling, I guess it comes down to that conditioning of. So let's say you observe any politician in Australia, right? They're the best thing in sliced bread until they get into a position of power and then they're smashed. They're given grief that they wear speedos or they ride a bike, or they said they accidentally made a mistake and said something wrong, and it's all over the media and all sorts of stuff. Or if you did something in a group of friends, then everyone would bag you out because you made a mistake or did this. It's like we're conditioned because if we stand out and someone doesn't like it or we make a mistake, that people come and chop our proverbial head off.

And I guess it's that thing, don't stick your head up because you might get it chopped off. And in Australia, which I think is diminishing a lot, which is great. The whole tall poppy thing is you think you're better than me because you put social content out there. There are people that still say that. There are people that still think that. You know, I've had remarks or comments from people that say that, you know, who do you think you are to be talking about this? I just say I think I'm myself and I'm just sharing my perspective. And there's no comeback for that, right? Because that's all it is. It's my perspective, it's my take. It's me standing on the shoulders of giants that have come before me, you know, by my take on a particular subject or a particular topic or a particular theme. It's not my theme. It's a mixture of, you know, maybe 10 or 15 variants of that theme that I've heard or read or listened to. And it's. It's sort of churned around inside myself and I'm now communicating in a way that I communicate it and that probably only I can communicate it, you know, And I guess that it does come down to that conditioning, but in the end.

What we put out is fleeting, so people won't remember that stuff. And it's like, don't try for perfection. Just start, you know, And I look at the first videos that I did a couple of years ago when I started doing some videos and doing them in some email nurture sequences. I look at them now and it makes me laugh. I used to cringe. Just makes me laugh now because I have to laugh with myself, not at myself, to go, man, I was trying my best, you know, at that time. I was doing my best. I know that. But I look at myself on video now versus myself on video then, and I'm inspired. I'm like, man, if in two years I can go from here to here, imagine the next two years. Imagine how I'm going to create this new version of myself and a more authentic version of myself, be it in this sort of platform or a social video or live from stage. It allows me to deliver my message stronger and stronger because I am more comfortable with just being me on camera, you know, and. And that's a learned. It's a learnt skill. Everyone who comes into my group are in a circle. Part of the inner circle thing and part of the, I suppose, baptism of fire for some of them, if not all of Them is they have to do a Facebook live into our private group video introduction of themselves. Now, some of them will procrastinate for two or three weeks with me still prompting them or poking them or supporting them. And they're losing sleep because they have to do a video. And it's like, it's just so foreign to so many of us. Not so much the younger generation. They're pretty much used to that. I know that, you know, when you and I were growing up, to see on Star Trek, that they had this phone where they could see the person and they're talking to them was sci fi.

It's mind blowing.

It's like we hold it in our hand now. You know what I mean? I could have 32 people on the phone at the same time now with FaceTime, you know, all videos going at the same. It's just insane. So. Whereas the younger generations, you know, they obviously are kind of used to that, but I think Anyone kind of 30 or older is still struggling with the concept of putting themselves out there. But in the end, it's fleeting. There's so much more people are exposed to that. Yours is something they might go, huh, that was a bit crap. And then they'll move on, they'll forget about it. But then they might see you in six months ago. That's a guy that, wow, he's pretty good. Now, this message he's got is really. It's great. It's really powerful, you know, So I don't know, it's get somebody to help you. Get someone to hold you accountable. Get someone to help you commit to just doing it. Because you know what? It's not going to kill you. You know, if anything, it will make you vastly stronger. It'll allow you to share that message to a much broader scale of people. I've got people following my page now from all different countries. I can see it. You know, I can see the country they live in and this. And they're commenting and they're like, oh, I really appreciate everything that you're putting out. Thank you. I didn't know this person from a bar of soap, but now I'm having an impact on their lives. It's such a powerful gift, 100%.

And now I want to just dial back to something you said there because a lot of the audience listening to this are in creative businesses. And one theme that comes up again and again is, oh, but I'm a perfectionist. And I wanted to dig into that a little bit because this perfectionism, I think, and I See, prevents a lot of people from starting. You have a lot of experience in business. How often have you come across this notion of perfectionism? Is it something that's particularly prevalent in creative businesses and how is it affecting people's ability to scale and grow?

Absolutely. So I know firsthand being a reformed perfectionist myself. So I went through being perfectionist, then recovering perfectionist, and then reformed. So I know the journey myself. It was. Everything was about. It had to be perfect. I'd do a take of a video and if it didn't wasn't dead set perfect, I'd do it 14 times until I got it to my version of perfect. And all that did was make me bloody tired and slow me down. As I said, I did some social videos the other day. Walking on the beach. I'm walking the things bouncing up and down a bit, my little gimbal thing. And there's a bit of wind in the south. But people don't actually care, you know what I mean? Like, this concept of affection absolutely is stopping people. And I was actually talking to someone who's interested in joining my group this morning before I came onto this recording. And.

He'S like, oh, you know, I'm a perfectionist and I do this and I am this and I am this. And obviously whatever follows an I am statement is the most powerful thing you can say. And I said, yep, you sure are that. And I said, you can continue being that. It's while you continue saying I am followed by a perfectionist.

Overcoming perfectionism is a much better way of framing it. I am overcoming perfectionism. Now, this person has a business, they're in the health space and they've got it completely set up. They bought all the equipment, they've got multiple rooms to have people in. They've got all the stuff. It's been sitting there for two years, hasn't used any of it. And I'm like. But he's like, oh, but I'm not quite ready because I haven't got this done and that. I'm like, that is a very extreme level of perfectionism because he won't even take a step forward. And that's why he's reached out to me. He said, I'm feeling ready, but I need somebody to kind of push me off the over the edge so I can start to fly. He said, because I know that I'm not gonna. I'm on the edge and I want to fly, but I'm not gonna be able to on my own. And, you know, coming back to that concept of perfectionism, particularly with creatives. Yes, absolutely. But it's my craft, it's my art form. It's all that sort of stuff. And I'm not diminishing that by any stretch of the imagination. And if your craft and your art form requires your perfectionism, the putting out of your skills and the marketing of yourself or the promotion of that to grow your ability to apply your art form to more people and deliver it to more people, you don't need to apply the same level of perfectionism there. What people don't want is. They don't want polished. I could be sitting here all polished, not saying a swear word, you know, not being overly animated or being myself. But how are you going to take me then? Are you going to take me seriously? Or you go, man, this guy's really controlled. They must be hiding something, you know? And in the end, people want to see the authentic you, right? And I know, particularly with strong creatives, strong creatives can be a little bit out there. My daughter is a very, very strong creative, and she's out there. She's way out there, which is just beautiful to watch. And what you got to think of is it's not about pleasing all the people. It's putting your voice out there, no matter how weird you think you are. Because we're all weird. We're just slightly differently weird, right? On a scale of weirdness, there's colors, not numbers, right? So one weirdness isn't better or worse than another. But what you got to do is find people who are equally on the same weird color scheme or same frequency as you, and they're the ones that will listen. They're the ones that become the raving fans. And it's about quality of people, not quantity of people. It's people who want to hear your next episode or see your next video or read your next blog post and go, wow. I just love reading their stuff because they're just so real, and it resonates with me. They're just aligned with me on the values in their life. What they're trying to achieve in life is the same. That's where perfectionism, I understand, in your craft, specifically, don't drop your standard. But when it comes to everything around that, become comfortable with 90%. Be comfortable with delivering it at 90%. There's a great book on that called essentialism by Greg McKeown. We saw him speak at one of our events that we were facilitating at one stage. Great guy, great content. And he's talking about not having to go to that level of perfectionism. There's also another one that is the Pursuit of Perfect. It's a book. I can't remember the author, but again, that helped me to go from being a recovering perfectionist to a reformed perfectionist once I understood that.

And books, I can tell you books, audio books for me, because being a very visual person, I think part of being mildly dyslexic doesn't help in reading. So I can read about 60 words a minute, which is like me talking at half my normal talking pace. So it bores me to tears. Ever since I found audiobooks about five years ago, I read about 30 to 50 a year, some of them multiple times. And so if you don't have the time or you're in the car or, you know, you don't find readings that great, get onto audiobooks. So I use audible.comau it's extremely beneficial because any of these things that are your blocks and resistance, particularly if you've got a small business or a micro business, just you or maybe you and one support, you want to learn and grow as fast as possible. And I can tell you one of the best things I ever did was get onto the audio books and start consuming them like a maniac, because my growth exponentially grew the more I read, the more I absorbed, the more I took on board. Now I generally listen to books about one and a half times their standard speed because that's the speed my brain functions at, and it allows me to really hone in on it and think. So in the car or if I'm, you know, even when we're driving six hours between places with the caravan, the kids will be reading a book or something or drawing a picture. I'll stick my earbuds in and I'll listen to some audiobook for an hour or something like that, you know, when I'm running those types of things, because that has been one of my best teachers, because it's available all the time. That and then podcasts as well. So a book is like someone talking to you. A podcast, I feel, is almost like somebody talking with you. So they're slightly different and in different moods. I'll listen to different ones. As to, I don't want someone talking to me. I want to talk someone talking with me. So you shift to a few different podcasts that I follow. So very, very beneficial to work on those things, get the resources and ask for support when you can. As to what resources could I get to overcome perfectionism or to learn how to create video content that's just good enough to, to just put myself out there so I start helping those people that need it, you know.

You know, there's never been more money in the world, there's never been more cash available, there's never been easier access to resources. Yet people still struggle to start a business and it's because in my humble opinion, they're not working enough for themselves. Now I wanted to just do a bit of a time travel fun part of the show here. I want to maybe dial back for sure, 10, maybe 15 years to Sean, still looking young actually, but even younger. Shaun, what advice would you give yourself? What would you be telling yourself based on what you know now about life and business that would have a dramatic impact on you? If you'd known 15 years ago, how would you have done things differently?

I suppose the, what I would say to myself is.

Trust, trust. Have faith in the outcome, have faith that you're on the right path, you know, despite how challenging it is, trust that this is the right path. And if I could have accepted that it was the right path, that probably would have accelerated it. Now I'm not going to say I'm going to go back and change it or I wouldn't, couldn't, shouldn't, whatever, because I know that that path has given me the tools and allowed me to hone my native genius and my craft to such a level that I have an incredible impact on people now. And it gives me a lot of soul food in the fact that I can do that. So I guess it's just trust that probably would have made the journey a bit easier for me to handle because I didn't have anyone else to tell me that, if you know what I mean. So yeah, to trust, trust the outcome, anyone on the right path.

I love that. Now we've got some quick fire questions. What's the best advice you've ever received? If you can pick one.

Every conversation is a negotiation.

Ah, that's a good one. I like that very much, very.

In all contexts. Kids, parents, business partners. Yeah, that's a very powerful one. Left a massive, massive, fabulous, fabulous.

What are some of your personal habits like? As in that you believe strongly contribute to your success.

Consistently learning like every day. So going in like a five year old and with, with my eyes open. So whether it's at an event that I've been to eight times, I still go in listening like my eye, like I'm a five year old, like I've never seen it before, you know, consuming content, listening to what my clients are saying because I learn something through every time I have a strategic session or a mentoring session with a client, I learn something every single time because I'm listening. I'm listening for a different perspective or another little. We've got a billion piece puzzle that we're in our lives filling in the little gaps in different sections at different times and gradually creating these pictures. And for me it's like adding another little tiny piece of that puzzle. So I would suggest that really being open to always receiving new information and context in life and in how to actually to do things.

Fabulous. I love that. And what do you think the creative world is missing? And this could be from a business standpoint, it can be from a personal standpoint.

But.

But what do you perceive the creative business owners are missing?

Belief. Belief. A lot of the time I've seen it probably 80% of the time is belief that they can take their creativity and make a living, a good living out of it. Create success. Be. Sorry, not create success. Be successful. And I'm talking themselves because you mentioned that we've mentioned before, for the be, do and have philosophy is you need to be successful first to do the actions required to have the outcome that you want. So absolutely, I feel that it is about belief. Belief that you can take your craft, your creative craft and.

Create a great living around that. There are people out there that want what you are doing. They want to be part of that, they want to support you. So for sure, fabulous.

And finally, what would be the one piece of advice you would give if you were to share with the world? What would that advice be?

Do the work. Right. Do the inner work. The journey from head to heart, as they say, is the hardest journey you can make. But it's also most rewarding having been stuck in my head, concreted in my head for so many years, and having to effectively chisel my way out with a teaspoon to actually get to heart, to get to vulnerability, that's been one of the most rewarding. I look at my definition of leadership or who I showed up as 15, 20 years ago, it was that $1 million more ha ha or powerful than almost like Dr. Evil. But now my definition is three simple words, humble, authentic and vulnerable. And that's absolutely heart centered for me because I've made far more impact coming from my heart than I ever have coming from my head.

What a beautiful summary of an amazing conversation. Shaun, how can people find out more about you and your inner circle?

Absolutely. So they can either go to my website, which is Sean Sewell.com, s E A N S double O L E dot com or just follow me on either Instagram or Facebook eansawell. So if you search, just look for my name. There's only one other Sean Sewell in the world so far on Facebook. But you'll see my content on my Facebook page and also my Instagram page. But feel free to follow the content as I put the content out regularly. I'm putting out two to three videos a week daily, daily quotes and things like that to help support people with a blog attached to it. It's not just a picture with a quote, it's actually my take on either a quote of my own or somebody else's. And I've found that people do get a lot of value from that because like, oh wow, I needed that today. Thanks. That's that little inspiration, that little thing to keep us going and keep our motivation up can make the big difference over the long term. So feel free to jump in and follow me. And I do have a link if you are in business or looking to start a business. I do have a link on my website to be able to book a 30 minute free strategy session. If you want to just have a discussion about, you know, some challenges you're going through or how do I take it to the next step. You know, I'm more than happy to offer that to you guys as well.

Epic. Well, we'll make sure we link everything beneath this. Sean, thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to bringing you on the show once again. Maybe when you've completed this journey, whenever that might be. But for today, thank you so much.

Absolute pleasure. I'll see you soon.

You've been listening to the Business for Creatives podcast with your host, me, Dan Lenny. If you're a creative business owner who is struggling to get your business performing at the level you want, then head on over to businessforcreatorspodcast.com to take a free business evaluation survey and discover where you can plug the holes in your business. You can also access a range of free training to help you build your business faster. Also, don't forget to rate the show over on itunes so we can get the message out there to more creators who need to hear it. Thanks for listening.