113: Pivoting from Breather to Practice While Setting Better Boundaries with Julien Smith

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I talk all the time about software. As my first employee, my number one delegatee.

Oh, wow. What a great phrase.

Yeah.

Oh my God. Wow. Oh, you just hit me really hard. Wow.

Wow.

Oh my God.

That's amazing.

I'm gonna use that. That is good.

I'm so glad you like it. Yeah, it's like that's my right hand, my buddy. All my software tools, they're kind of like they're my go to. My go to. Not that I don't love team members as well, but it's like software's the number one so I don't have to assign it out to everybody else to do busy work.

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Hello. Hello friends. Welcome back to Freetime. I am so excited to be here with Julian Smith today. Julian doesn't know this, but I had been following his work from his early days blogging. He is most recently the co founder and CEO of Practice, a business management platform for coaches. He was a co founder of Breather, a service that I used many times and followed since that inception of that company. And a New York Times best selling author of three books. He wrote Trust Agents and the Impact Equation with Chris Brogan and his third, the Flinch was published with Domino project in 2011. Julian, welcome to the show.

Hey, thanks so much for having me. You're like hijacking this thing. You're like. And I know all about your stuff and I'm gonna tell you about it right now. I'm excited to do this. It's great.

Yeah. What I highlighted was that I've been reading your blog. I started blogging in 2007. I added it to a website I started in 2005 and people listening who weren't part of the blog scene might not know that you were one of the big bloggers that everybody was following. And you always had these really incisive posts and, and you were just somebody that I think so many of us looked to of what was going on. And you're really skilled with trend forecasting and clear thinking and communication. And so when you launched Breather, I remember following your announcement and I thought, how cool. He's shifting. Pivoting from blogging to launching this drop in rent by the hour, essentially room rentals. And in New York City that comes in incredibly handy. I used it all the time. And, and I just have to say, I know you know this, but you were like 10 years early of what's happening right now and for real.

Sure.

Now with WeWork, you can drop in and do what Breather set up and enabled us all to do for so many years before they ever got into this space.

I actually, I had to come to grips with that a little bit.

Yeah, I wanted to ask you about that.

Yeah. Being too early for things. Right. While coming up with Breether, this happened in 2012, 2013. I had written three books, right? I was like, what am I, am I going to keep writing a book? Because people do this like Seth Godin does it and some other people do it, and they were writing books every year and they would just sell that talk and they would do the talk that they did, like for that year or for that couple years, and then a new book would come out and then they'd do it again. And I was like, I kind of feel like I have this idea though. And so I pursued it. And I had never raised money for it, raised money for anything before. But it turned out successful in terms of like being able to attract cash to it. And the business had legs, especially in New York and other places like San Francisco and London and so on. And we ended up raising 150/something million over time to work on it. But as I built this business, it's like I discovered the conservatism of people for almost like the first time. Because when you're blogging, you're in this weird universe where you could just talk about things. Maybe if they're 5 year, 10 year ahead of time, it kind of doesn't matter. It's like not really in the world of actual atoms. In the same way, when I discovered this, I was like, man, first of all, especially in startups, you could watch people exert a lot of energy, a lot of resources, a lot of employees working on One thing to change a single thing. And it takes like 10 years to do that. And I was in one of the craziest industries, which was tech and real estate, the wildest in New York, one of the most conservative industries in America, for sure. And so I was confronting this idea and I was like, man, it says a lot of things. Like, one of them is about focus. What you do, what you've got to do, you have to really care about it. You have to work at changing that thing for 10 years, maybe. Ish. And you don't get a lot of shots to really change the world if you're going to go after that kind of goal. And so it was really interesting to think about it now and knowing that I ultimately, I was really compelled by this idea of being able to put a lot of energy towards things. And I know how to raise money now, and I know how to do all these things. I'm like, okay, well, then who do I really care about and what do I really want to change? And I knew that I could help a lot of individuals, so I definitely.

Want to come back to that.

Yeah. So that's what I decided I really care about. But you don't have a lot of shots at that. And you realize being 10 years ahead of time is actually not useful. You could just be like five or like two.

Right.

And that'll work.

It's such a. I don't know, it's a conundrum, a catch. It's almost the punishment of when you're going first, you're taking something from zero to one and you're trying to rewrite how things are done with the buildings, the people renting, or who have leased those office spaces. I also am so curious about your experience. Going from a solo independent blogger type, I don't know what else you were doing, how else you were earning income, if it was just speaking and those types of things. But at its peak, I heard you tell our mutual friend Todd Henry that you had raised over a hundred, like 150 million for breather. You had 250 employees at its peak. Did you enjoy that? Like, that seems like a lot of pressure. And I'm sure you felt buoyed by the mission, which was awesome, and I was someone benefiting from it. But, oh, my goodness, that's such a sharp turn from what you had been doing. I'm just curious, your experience having such a huge organization under or what I consider huge.

You're totally right. And I had huge imposter syndrome. I actually. I had an Executive coach at that time. Right. And actually I was making money doing affiliate marketing to a degree and I was doing speaking gigs and I was getting paid to write books also. And so I was talking to my exec coach at the time about this and he's like, you might be one of those single people. There's not a lot of people that do it that go from talking about something and then going out and doing that thing afterwards. So typically they might go the other way. They'll go, they'll do some meaningful thing, whatever that is, and then they'll go write a book about it. But I'm one of the few people who had never done anything written somehow with successful books and then move almost backwards into the harder part. And so the answer is I discovered what my boundaries were. And something happens in venture and in tech where you end up working with the smartest people that you've ever met that are probably the most ambitious and that have the highest amount of leverage. And there's a density that you get there because of mission, because of cash. There's a lot of cash in tech when it works. And because of speed, you've got these people that are super, super compelling to work with. So I was like, man, this is super compelling. This is really exciting to do. And it also meant that in a different way than when I was doing public speaking, I would travel all over the place. But then the part that I didn't like is I didn't like this idea of going to offices. It's ironic. The Breather was a remote kind of office, remote real estate company, but it was run from a traditional office. When I started my next company, I was like, this has to be part time, remote. I can't do this. I really dislike this idea of being kind of like watched and observed in an office all the time, which is what happens when you're a founder and CEO. I was like, I don't work well this way. When I was blogging and I was writing books, I was really just doing it out of a cafe. And I returned to that because of the pandemic. And I would say that I'm way happier running this business than I was before. So you learn about yourself by hitting up again those boundaries. Right? You don't know until you really confront it. So I wrote a boundaries document when I started this business. And I look at that every couple months. Am I making mistakes here? Here are the things that I know that make me happy. There's another guy, Andy. It's one of the guys who started, I think it was the president of Wealthfront who recently did it, but for different reasons. For him, it's because he started having credible amounts of anxiety. He was like, I need to see a therapist, like, take meds, all these things. My career is doing super well in his case, what he's talking about. But I'm suffering from a mental health standpoint. And he said, I wrote I need a boundaries document. And so for me, I just discovered that I like, on an everyday basis, I needed. My happiness was more meaningful to me. And I think you can make a sacrifice for a while, but probably not forever.

I have so many questions. So specifically to the boundaries document, how many pages is it? And can you give us some examples of what's in there?

Everything that I write, I'm one of those people. I think Jack Dorsey is like this. I write everything inside of Apple Notes when I coach CEOs. Like, I put that in practice, for example, it's client notes. But everything else, I would probably write and start in an Apple Notes doc. And so it's just really clear. It's like, here are the people you'd like to work with. Here are the things that matter to you. Like, you need to have time to do this, and here are the things that rejuvenate you. And here are the things that you've encountered in other places that you really can't deal with anymore.

Give us like three can't deal with or like, can't stands.

One of them is I would never want to work in an office again. That was like, incredibly important to me. One is, if I didn't like the people that I worked with on an everyday basis, well, first of all, they're probably the wrong people by the company. But second of all, I was like, why would you ever do this? And then if I felt like the pressure of venture capital was too great. And it's interesting because I actually don't feel that today because the tech economy has kind of imploded in the past six months. But because I know how to execute on a business now, I don't feel the pressure.

I want to ask you about that because I know you have 10 million in funding for practice, and I can't wait to hear more about the nuts and bolts of the tool as you. And I love geeking out on because I hear such mixed things about getting venture funding where it can just become so many strings attached. And even if someone has invested 1% and owns 1% of your business, you suddenly have a boss again. You know Another kind of shackle of sorts. Hopefully they're adding more value than that. Was it a decision at all whether to get funding for practice or not? Or were you pretty clear, yes, you want to do this again. And even if there are downsides, the upside is worth it.

With Breather, when I started it, just to give you a sense of comparison, I was like, this is a big idea that requires a lot of money. And I knew it right away. So I knew I had to get onto a venture train and it was impossible to get the idea off the ground otherwise. But with practice, it definitely could have been a tool that started off in a homebrew kind of way with like three people that really cared about it. One of my superpowers that has. I keep calling it a red thread. My friend Tamsen McMahon wrote a book about this. It's like this common line through your life is this ability to communicate ideas and to get them heard and to have them resonate with people. I could just do that, it turns out, and I've been doing it for a long time and it seems to work. So. Okay, well, I know how to raise venture funding and I'm aware of what the trade offs are, and I'm conscious that the trade offs result in an ability to execute on something really massive and in a short period of time. And I also knew that I was more effective as a CEO than as a single contributor. Like, I've been a single contributor and I've been a CEO with 250 people under me. And I just know that I'm effective with a big team. I just know that I've learned how to do it. So it's true. Like, people freak out about venture. They kind of get into it because it feels sexy to raise money. And you hear, oh my God, this thing happened. But then you don't realize you have to execute on a business plan after that. Right? When you're conscious of it, though, something happens where you really kind of view it like a transaction. You're like, these people are investing in my company. Here is the rights that they have. We have business relationships. Like, we need to get into sort of this idea of everyone feels like they should be your boss, but you know what you're getting into. And so I was just extremely clear on what it was as a tool for like getting your thing to go faster, which now it has. Like, our business grows 20% or so like every single month, almost every month. Now when you get into this idea of having a boss, it's true, but it's true insofar as people are willing to respond to all these people that own 1% of the company. Like I had an exchange recently with an entity that owns 1% of practice and there was this back and forth. This entity has no specific board, there's no board of my company today because it's an early stage company. But they're like, you own 1% and they have no like information rights or anything like that. Although I do send monthly updates. This person was like, could you meet with this boss person to talk about the economy and all these things? And there was this weird exchange back and forth. It was kind of like a vague power trip. And so I was like, here is my scheduler, here are the times that I'm available. And the admin at this point responds back, we can't do any of those times. Could you do this time? And I'm like, no, I cannot. Here is the scheduler and it just ends there. I don't have to go and do a song and dance for a person that owns 1% of the company. So I think people feel that they must do it because someone dropped X, that they must have this conversation with this person. I think that what you really have to do inside of a venture backed business is you're just like, you gotta succeed. And it turns out that if you succeed, and I think you have seen this all the way up and they make TV shows about it, if you just succeed and you're a dick to everyone, not that I am, but if you are a dick to everyone, it actually turns out fine. And people like you more for some reason. So you know, you gotta set those boundaries.

I know, it's so wild. I was thinking about you. I was thinking about Breather and the difference between the megalith competitor, you know, and I've heard you talk about it on other shows too. But it's like, God, it's almost like watching a sliding doors of just what if you had that kind of personality? And then it's crazy in our society how it actually works. People wonder, you know, oh, how does charisma just get you elected to the presidency or to a trillion dollar company or billion dollars in venture funding. And it's like it just does in our society. Like the level of psychopathy and sociopathy at the top, the highest levels, because they don't care who they step on to get there.

Yeah, it really is. So first of all, it's like you've got to be this kind of alpha type. Whatever it is, whatever it means to that person. And if you fit into that mold, then it's like people are like, wow, he's a superstar. He just knows he's going to get it done and they will buy into that. Things are going to turn around over the past six months. Next year. A lot of companies will die for sure, but those that succeed will turn out to be the people that can execute. But there was a phase where you could just be that guy that often guy that just says shit and it's never going to become real. And if you want to lie, I think that there was an ecosystem to vaguely facilitate that, which is terrible. Right? But it's the truth.

We'll be right back just after this.

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Was it hard to watch these companies implement what you had already done with Breather? Was any of that. And then I want to still want to talk about practice, but I've been so curious because even before I knew we were going to have this conversation, as I watched people be able to like rent an office for an hour from your phone, I just thought about you every single time. And I just wonder if at any point you thought I was there first, you know and I know that you did the heavy lifting.

I came to grips a long time ago with this idea that you can't copyright ideas. That's happened many times. You write blog posts and then those blog posts become books that some other person wrote. Those things happen. When you have that happen once you actually get really upset about it. And I remember getting really upset back in the day in 2011. So it's been a long time now I just get low key upset. I'm like whatever. But the reality is out there, you just got to go out and get it and take it and earn it. And it's tough because you know, it would be one of the most common things that people would say to me at parties, strangely, is we'd be like, oh, yeah, I had that idea of being able to rent space. I didn't want to be that guy, to be like, oh, yeah, and I'm the dude that did that.

But you get a little bit of power from being able to say, oh, yeah, But I had that idea. It's not that special. They're trying to take power away from you. And I don't want to create a mythology of work ethic is all that matters, but turns out it really does help a lot if you just work super hard on something and focus on getting it done. It really helps if all these other things, like, you're networked. It helps if you're tall. Right? Kind of like all these other things, they just help. Right? But if you don't have anything else, the work ethic will get you a meaningful percentage of the way, and it's the only thing you can control. Right. And so, in short, when I see people like, oh, rent spaces for flexible time, I actually, like, I got really far with that idea, incredibly far, before we hired another CEO. Right. I feel okay. Like, I got my due and actually, like, it was my trial by fire to learn to be a CEO. And which is a funny thing. Like, CEOs are viewed not always poorly, but I think often, like, seen as. I don't know how to say it, like, just rich assholes maybe is kind of like the thing. Right? But I think most CEOs are actually not rich, first of all, and probably not assholes, although maybe to a degree they are. I don't know. And they're going out there and they're trying to make something happen that they care about. And it turns out I'm good at that job. I learned to be good at that job. But also, like, I had a natural aptitude for it. And I like giving power to people. It's one of the kind of amazing things about customers can just say, yes, absolutely, I want this, and you just make it for them. And that is so empowering to be able to do. Oh, my God, like, 100 people, 200 people, 500 people, 1,000, a million people. Like, I want this. You're like, okay, I'm going to do that with people. Like, that's so awesome to be able to do that with a small team of people.

We were talking about leverage and the power of software. And I love how you've described practice as trying to basically take everything that you can off at least your first cohort of communities, coaches and to automate as much as you possibly can and get it off their plate through software. So I'm curious, like, I have seen various tools for coaches and for a while there were masterminds coaching people on how to create software for coaches to get really meta. I don't know if you've heard of this, but having been in coaching for 10 years, the number of people who reached out and they're like, I'd love to create some software for you. Can we have a 30 minute chat? So I'm just really curious what gaps you saw in the space and let's just. Oh, I don't know. It makes my heart sing to hear about all the ways you're automating. So tell me a little bit about the software too.

First thing is my father was an exec and career coach, so I grew up in that space and I've had exec coaches, but also like just all kinds of coaches around me. Now obviously I know more coaches than part of my language, but like almost everybody, even before then, before I started the business, I still knew like a remarkable amount and I had this sense of this person. What's kind of amazing about coaches is you can just put up your shingle. Like we have these 22 year old, like I'm thinking of a specific person, a 22 year old customer who is a coach for influencers and they're 22 and they just did that. That's like pure will and energy and skill. Right? Like, that's awesome. So that's like the purest form of entrepreneurship that can exist. It's like up there with like starting to mow lawns. Nothing is required. Actually lawn mowing requires a lawnmower. Here it doesn't even require that. Like, that's so pure. And so I found that super interesting. But that means that you end up with these people that definitely don't have a business background, that they're often people that are a people person and oh man, I wish I did this. And they'll just say things spontaneously. And so we have this insane pile of requests for I wish it was simpler in this way. I wish it did this. It's crazy what the pile is. So today it's like it connects like files to appointments so that you can put people through a chain of appointments and then it'll count the appointments for you, which turns out is remarkably hard. Just piece by piece we connect like files to appointments, to payments, to forms. It just goes on and on and on, so that ideally they can go and start their first business right there, and it'll just do all of those things in a really simple way. Sometimes we joke around that it's like salesforce for one person because people want it to do so many things, but actually the reason that they want to do that is they. Like you said, you had a very powerful phrase that I think was remarkable. It was software. As your first employee, I think that's so empowering to hear this idea that software can be that powerful and that when it is, it's like having another person there doing a bunch of stuff for you automatically. Like, I love that. And so to me, I'm just one of those people who's high leverage and go out and do that. I find it incredibly empowering to be on a conversation and to have someone be like, oh, my God, you could feel the relief when you showed it to them because they're like, oh, my God, this is just going to take, like, hours of my wasted time and just give it back to me. And you make it really cheap as well. It's so cheap that they're like, what the hell?

That's the power of software. Because you can get it to a million people and that incremental millionth person costs you nothing to serve them. You can make it super cheap. It's like 25 bucks. They're like, whatever. It's great.

That's amazing. And it strikes me, too, what you were saying about the wish list that is accumulating. This is the really powerful thing that I have found through writing books, podcasting, speaking, what you were doing back in the day, that it's interesting because you only have to have the initial thesis. And then in the ensuing years after, let's say, a book comes out and speaking at a hundred different places, the audience asks certain questions and has challenges that then I find you kind of put yourself in the middle of the road. So my friend Lisa said, if you want to get hit by the luck truck, you have to stand in the middle of the road. But it's almost like you pick your idea, stand in the middle of that road, and then everybody starts to shape it and refine it. And you have a unique vantage point to get better ideas and refine it in a better way. And so it's kind of what you're doing. You're saying, yes, I want to create software for coaches and beyond. I'm going to stand in the middle of this road. And now they're all going to tell me what to build and how to make it better. And that's such an advantage.

That makes an enormous amount of sense. We started it going, I think this is going to be a thing. And we put up a landing page, and then people joined and we'd onboard them onto things that were, like, really skeletal. And then it'd be like, man, I wish I had, like, a timeline so I could see the timeline from the beginning of the relationship with the client all the way to the end. And so we built that, and now it just has that. And now it's like, okay. And I wish that I could see my emails, but just from my clients, you're like, okay, fine. And then so you integrate that. And so now when people come on, they're like, it does so much. You'll be like, yeah, we just listen to people over and over and over and over and over again. There's this Jeff Bezos quote. Jeff Bezos is not always great with quotes, but when he is, he says that what's amazing about the customer is that their bar is always rising. And it's totally right.

The moment we come out with a feature, the moment we come out with it, 10 people are like, oh, but does it do this other thing? And so you're like, okay, great. And so you just keep doing it and facilitating over and over and over again. Nobody focus on the single individual. I know it's weird, but it's like everyone's out there, like, selling to enterprise, and I get why they do it, but to me, like, this is a great way to live. It's very empowering. It's really rewarding to do. And especially because we also hire people like that. And it's all people that are like, wow, we just helped this one person.

I love how you're describing your role as facilitator and the way you're describing how you do what you do is really interesting. It's listening, facilitating, guiding traffic, directing that you in the CEO role is like, yes, you have a vision and you create the leverage. And I've never really heard venture funding described in this way, but you're gonna go get $10 million so that you can free 10 gajillion hours for people, and you're gonna kind of take that money, do something really good with it at scale, and then facilitate this conversation between your customers and the software. That's a virtuous circle that I would think keeps making it better. How do ideas go into the. Yeah, we'll definitely do that Bin. And then which ones are in The Chuck it bin. And I bet a lot of times customers ideas contradict too.

It's a great question because you do end up with such a big pile of ideas. So first of all, you need a set of people that hopefully have a long term product vision. And for us it's to serve all kinds of solopreneurs. Actually, even today when we did our round with Andreessen Horowitz, which to the listener, in case they're curious, is very good, super well respected investor in our space and they're watching me do a demo of this product and they're like, oh, this isn't even for coaches at all. I was like, exactly. It's actually, it is for coaches, but it's also for any class of solopreneur that is out there for us. We have a mission to serve coaches really, really well and then afterwards be like, go after another group of people that are just starting businesses, just people that are spontaneously starting businesses. And so we start with a gigantic pile of stuff. It's not always a customer that is going to recommend it, but often it is. It's like the biggest pile. And then we'll look at the long term vision and we say, okay, we're going to work up until this thing. So it has to kind of follow our long term vision in some cases. But in a lot of cases we just get ideas because people are like, oh man. They'll just spontaneously say something that isn't even on our roadmap. But because we have so many direct inputs, we have this thing that we do at our company, it's kind of an unusual process is everyone that onboards is onboarded partially by an engineer. We keep the engineering team really, really close to the customer so that that engineer is listening to a customer. My co founder Ben said it's so that engineers understand that their software is bad. Which is a funny thing to say. It gives you so much clarity when you're watching someone fail with what you built that you're like, oh my God, I got to make this better next time. We continuously follow the combination of mission and customer requests while. And the hardest part is when software does a lot, it's also got to be really, really simple. And it's especially got to be simple if it's on a mobile screen because we have an Android and iPhone Apple, so. So then it's like you got to make it simple on mobile while it does a bunch of stuff. It's a very complex job to serve one person well because the variety that they want is really vast and you've got to make it extra simple for people that are not sophisticated. In our class of customer is also like a 70 year old who has been running this business for 20 years, but who's never used software for it. Right. And you have to be able to serve that person well. So that's an incredible challenge. But like we're super up for it. We love that.

We'll be right back just after this.

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I can't even say co founded, but had a software company for two years creating a social meditation app before Headspace Owl at okay, obviously and all the other ones. And then we watch them get all this funding and go bonkers. Apps are so hard. I mean the level of bugs and for Android and iOS and then there's a software update and then oh my goodness, I just couldn't believe it. I probably invested 15 grand at that time and I go, cool. I just got a 15 grand MBA and I never want to create an app again. So I really admire what you're doing. What aspect of solopreneur life is still the hardest automation nut to crack? What are you currently struggling with or grappling with? That is just an open inquiry, like that edge where you haven't solved it yet.

The part that is difficult is when solopreneurs have often not one single source of income, but they have like three to five sources of income. And so they do courses and also group coaching and also one on one coaching for example, in our space. And so when one person, it's always one person has one set of income that's really very simple to Deal with that. Often people will go from one type and then they'll change their mind and then they'll try another type and then they'll get traction, that second type. So to be able to serve them as they change their business, which of course a solopreneur can do faster than anyone, that is the thing that's most challenging. I would say for sure that is the thing that we deal with. We're like, maybe one day we'll be able to solve all these. But primarily we aim towards one thing today just because we got to focus on one thing.

Yeah. And it's true beyond practice as well, because it's harder for the solopreneur to juggle all the process and team onboarding. Do you remember like back in the days of blogging, the Halicon days? Is that how you say it? I only read that word, halcyon. Oh, see, thank you. I only, I actually read the physical newspaper. I only read. I never say these things out loud. Yeah. Anyway, it was all the rage to have 10 streams of income. And ideally a lot of it's passive and it doesn't take active process management. But I kind of ballooned how much process I had in my business. And I still to this day work to stay streamlined because it's exponentially harder every time you have a new income stream. It actually it's a whole nother mini business that's operating under the same umbrella. I don't have to tell you that, but just acknowledging it, it's funny because.

Like it's actually the opposite. That advice, maybe it was for people that were like high performing, like super productivity experts and that worked because a lot of those people were bloggers then. But in reality, the more you go focused into something like, the more leverage you get doing it. It's like really ironic if you're a really good coach because I started a coaching business as a result of doing this and I coach first time CEOs now. And when you're really good at coaching first time CEOs, you can make a lot of money doing it. It turns out we actually have a blog post about this on our website if you want to look at it. And it gives you a real sense of being able to exert your energy in a really focused way. Gives you really disproportionate results. But people naturally go from thing to thing going, it didn't happen fast enough or like, I wish this would take off in this way. But like blogging and you know, you know, you got your book done, you Got there. You started blogging in 2007. I remember the same arc. It takes, like, years before your thing takes off, and most people will have quit by them.

I know. It's so interesting thinking about when to persevere and when to quit, when something's working, when it isn't. Like, even for me right now, trying to grow my two podcasts, there are moments where I'm Jim Carrey in Dumb and Dumber, where I'm like, you're saying there's a chance. Like, if 1% of hosts can earn a living, I'm gonna go for it. And then there are other moments where I just go, you're insane. Everyone else will say, it's not possible. Don't even try. You're competing with big media and celebrities, whatever. And it's not always easy to know in the moment. And everyone says, follow your bliss. And this is my bliss. And you're still not guaranteed to earn a living from your bliss. But I'm determined to try until I hit every wall of trying.

And then I'm coaching someone that I've known for a long time, specifically who runs that type of business. And that distraction, that ability to switch from thing to thing, has been a real detriment, I think, to him, where he's like, oh, we're trying this thing and this thing and this thing. In reality, he might have to end up cutting, like, 75% of those things. Like, the experimentation might be needed in order to get the one. Oh, wait, wait, I think this might work. So you might do 10 things before you might get one that says, oh, I think this might work. But then you got to kill the other nine things, focus on the one that might work, and then stick with it for way longer than you think.

That's it. That's it. That's it Is like, not to carry all the experiments in to actually cut them all. That's the moment.

Yeah. It's a tough thing to do.

Oh, my goodness. This is so fun. And can just really keep the conversation going. But we're almost at time, so I always end with the same question. If you could give small business owners permission to do something differently or drop something altogether, what would it be?

Obviously, the first thing is I would try to make software as good as I can to facilitate them opening up their life again and not focus on Drudge work would be the major thing. Then. The other thing is I have this reminder that I put in my calendar, which is a funny thing to put in. This is the exact question, have you Experienced the sacred recently. And the reason that I have that as a reminder is I might look at that every little while and I'm like, no, I haven't. It's like something greater than yourself that you need to get access to. I feel often business owners, I'm guilty of this. I'll be like day after day, I'll just be working, advancing our stuff. And you feel like you haven't looked up ever. And so whether that's spending more time with your kids or whether that's going into nature or surfing or whatever, the thing that connects you to something bigger than you is really valuable to give you context about why you're doing it and why it matters in the first place. So you end up working so hard as an entrepreneur for sure. And you got to remember that you're not doing it for its own sake, you're doing it because it's going to serve you. At some point, I think people lose track of that.

I love that, love that pause and reflect. Have you experienced the sacred lately? I also find when I'm really stuck, I have to do something similar. I have to almost pause and say I'm stuck. If you meant to do this universe, show me how or show me the next step or give me a sign or I almost have to kind of surrender the project and just say, if you want me to do this and earn abundantly at it so that I can keep serving in this way, I gotta get another clue. I need a new clue.

I'm stuck and I need to connect to the sacred to even be reaffirmed of how to keep going or what to do next.

Yeah, well, it also put you in that mindset, right? If you're like, I need a hint, hopefully it opens up your brain so that you will be able to see things in a new way.

Then you get to interview Julian Smith and you go, it's working.

My 15 year ago self would be like falling out of her chair. So is the today self.

Thank you, that's really nice of you.

Oh, tell us. You mentioned there's a blog post and I just want to make sure. I'll put it in the show notes. But what's it called or how do I search for it?

Oh yeah, there's a blog post on our website about the first 18 months of coaching that I did, how much I made. There's literally everything. It's completely dissected. And so if you go to our website, practice, do it literally is like how much I made coaching. It literally is like a huge complete dissection of 18 months of coaching and what it resulted in when I changed prices, how I charged people, like all this other stuff is in there and it literally exposes a whole coaching business. One of the things that I think happens in this space is nobody really knows how anyone else is running their business.

Yes.

And so because they don't, we'll do fireside chats. Like we do them like every month. And I bring up like pretty high level people to these things. But like 30 minutes in when we get to questions, people are like, but hold on, in your contract there's a clause for indemnity. How does it actually, what does it actually say? And I'm in the state of Pennsylvania or whatever. So people get really granular because they don't have that clarity and they don't have a lot of coaches around them. And so we try to like really expose as much as we can in a hugely transparent way. So it's on our website. You can look for it. Practice do blog.

Blog is great. I see you have mbs. He's a longtime friend to her and he's been interviewed on the bl. So all this in the show notes you mentioned julianpractice DO for people. If you want to go check out the software, you're on Twitter at, I.

Mean twitter.com Julian yeah OG and is.

There anywhere else you want to send people?

That works for me and I'm easily accessible. You can email me if you want. I'm@julianctice do. It's super simple to reach out to me for anything. When you work with projects on the Internet for like so long, you have this long history and it's really nice to talk to someone who's super, who's connected with various pieces of it throughout my kind of timeline.

It is cool. It's like these intersecting notes. I recently interviewed Brian Clark as well, which was another just different world. It was like a different world away from even where things are now. And I have a feeling, I don't know, I can't wait for your next book if you're going to write one again anytime soon. But I feel like this first time CEO transition is such a big one and I don't know if that'd be the topic or not, but I'll be curious if and when you do another book.

I think it's going to happen. The reason I thought I take a break from this is because I wasn't sure that I could write a better book than the books I had written. But now I'M confident that I know a lot more than I did.

Yeah.

And I have a voice that I've refined over time, so I think it will.

Yeah, can't wait. Well, thank you so much, Julian. This was such a joy. Big thanks to everybody who's here listening.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

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