S5 E13 | The curse of the entrepreneur

What is really the importance of spending time with your family? Obviously, it sounds super easy, and it's the number one goal of everyone that both Brittany and myself work with. But why aren't people doing it more? And why are they doing such a poor job of it? We're going to address that and much more in this episode of Broke to Woke.

This episode. We do not have any kittens, but we wish we did.

Because the curse of the entrepreneur is that there's always so many things to do. There's so much shit in your life, it's terrible. But one of my sisters said to me, when she found out I was pregnant, she said, welcome to feeling guilty for the rest of your life. And I was like, oh, my gosh. Whoa. And as much of that is actually a word, curse to speak over somebody, it's the same thing in entrepreneurship. And she explained it and she said, well, you always feel like you're being a bad mom. You always could be doing more. You could always say, and I made up in my mind right then and there, all right, I do not accept that I'm going to define what being a good mother means to me, which does not mean that's the only thing I do in life. I'm going to still create as much global impact as I possibly can according to my calling, and I'm going to be a great mom. And obviously, being a mom is primary, but I want to extrapolate from that idea and try to apply it to the same thing as entrepreneurship. Because in entrepreneurship, is there always more you could be doing? Yeah. Yeah.

All the time.

Can you truly, let's be honest here. Maybe you can and I can't, but have you ever 100,000% really, really fully enjoyed your vacations in the last 10 years?

Oh, my gosh. Well.

I'm laughing because when you say fully enjoyed. Fully enjoyed, 100,000%, it's a big number.

The truth is, and I agree with you, the curse of the entrepreneur is when you're in the moment, you're on vacation. I mean, how long, really, are you not thinking about work for real, like.

Or feeling like you should be listening to something productive or filling out the new company report, or making the new contract with the milestones for your new.

Employee, or updating the slideshow for the.

Next week's team meeting, or at least posting strategically when.

Or updating your social media, trying to.

Find some kind of wisdom in that post on your vacation to make sure it applies to your business so that your employees aren't mad at you for taking a minute off or taking photos.

To prove the IRS that you actually were there.

How dare you be there.

How should you even be taking a vacation?

Why are you taking pictures?

Well, now you're actually decreasing your income because you gotta be working because no one else is paying your bills and you have so many bills that you have to pay hundreds of thousand dollars a month. And if you don't work and don't bring income, then no one gets paid.

Everybody's pissed that you haven't responded to your emails within two seconds.

We could do this for a while. The thing is, it's real and it is hard for me. My wife will tell you. When we did our. When we did our two month RV trip.

My company there was, imagine there was parts of my company I survived.

Even talking about it stressed me out. Can you imagine?

Oh my gosh, no. What a fun, uniquely cool trip. Because here was my schedule. So my wife and kids had a blast. They were just in heaven. Your boy got up at 3am every day because market opens at 6 on the West Coast. My company was in a little bit of a meltdown for June, July because there was a lot of changes and shifts and things happening and refunds. Yeah.

Why does it always happen on our vacation?

I don't know. I'm not sure. Everything is melting, right? Straight up Texas melt. And I'm eating and I'm eating it right and everything is crumbling. So I'm getting up at 3 every day. I have a class from 4 to 5. I have webinars from 5 to 6. Market opens at 6:30. And I'm doing all this work and then everyone wakes up at 8. So I get five hours to work. Oh, and I'm training for a full distance triathlon. Fun fact.

That's just too much. I don't know why you do this to yourself.

Me neither. So at 7pm when everyone's going to sleep, then I go train from 7 to 10. So for 3 hours, I get a full 5 hours of sleep in an RV. Fantastic. Try to be present as much as I can because that was the last episode. Right.

Sounds like it's going to interrupt sexy time. Not my business. Not my business.

Not my business. Oh man. I go right to sleep sometimes, like right to bed. I will say this. There's a book called the E. Myth. You've ever heard of it? Very popular book. And so it talks about like, this is the curse of an entrepreneur, meaning there are people's paychecks, there are livelihoods, there are family responsibilities. That are on your shoulders. And if you are owning and operating a business, no one gets paid unless you get paid. And so it is. It is a little stressful to go on an actual, actual, actual, actual vacation, which I haven't done in 10 years.

I didn't even do it after I was answering emails the hour after I gave birth.

I believe it. Yeah, I believe it. There have been. There have been full hours where I didn't work, though. Like, outside of sleep. Four to five hours, maybe six, 24. There's probably like a 48 hour stretch sometime in 2017 that I didn't, like, work at all.

Every year on my birthday, I'm like, today.

This is the day. Yeah. And that's why I literally designed the present summit around what I want. Yeah. I didn't do it for anybody else. No, no. I obviously want it for other people, but I was like, what do I need?

This is what I need. Yeah.

I need two days with no phone, no music, no interruptions, no polls on me.

Is it really good for you?

I need to eat healthy food. I need somebody to force me to work out. I need a massage. The massages are included.

Wow.

I need to just, like, be around girls. No makeup, robe, night, face masks on giggles and snacks.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. You guys got face masks?

Yeah, sorry, you're not invited.

Oh, my God.

I needed this. Yeah, this. I need to go pet a horse in silence. I just want to pet a horse.

Yes.

But that's why presence is important. It's a practice. And what Brittany and I are saying is we are working it out. We're figuring it out.

No, we're not there yet. No, we're sharing it as we go. So tell me about the end of this trip. So you did this. Did you get to.

I'm assuming you did not get to enjoy it. Fully. Fully, Fully, fully, fully. Of course it was fun.

A hundred thousand percent. No, there. There were sections of 12 to 10 hours where I didn't work, and that part was really awesome. And when I went on hikes, some of the hikes I did phone calls, Some of them I didn't. Some of them I was on my phone, some of them I wasn't. But there were definitely hours where I would turn my phone totally off and just be. And it is a practice. It is something that every entrepreneur should strive to be better at. And I'm pretty good at it when I'm intentional to do it. So my wife will tell you, when I'm with her, I am with her. And I will turn all the things off. Everything won't be away. And I can absolutely clear my mind. But it is portions of time. It's not days. I haven't gotten there yet.

And I think that's fine. You know, there is such a culture of the word balance. And if you work past 5. 00, you know that you're. If you work past 5 o', clock, then you are not balanced. And I think it's just important that we're creating a balanced life, not a balanced day. And a balanced life means I excel in my health.

Let's go.

I excel in my relationships. But sometimes things do require a lot more attention in order to build. And what we're trying to share with you is the curse of the entrepreneur and the curse of the investor. Similar is there's always the ability to do and be more. And so just like motherhood, you've got to define what success looks like to you. Where do I really want my business to be? I love that a lot of times people have their business to make money to then be able to be free. And so what does freedom look like for you? Elon Musk, for example, is just such a wild man because his businesses are all force for good businesses that are the vehicle for him to change the world. So no matter how much money he makes, he's trying to scale his impact, which I love. I love that. And so you can do that too. Which that's the only way he can keep working the hours that he works is because this is how he changed the world. Obviously, he financially could have retired quite a few years ago.

Yeah.

But he knew that his leadership, his drive and what makes him happy is fulfilling his destiny through the vehicle of his businesses.

Yeah.

So just taking some time to define. We're going to say this every day.

Yeah.

What does your real estate investing career need to look like? Because you can always flip more houses.

Yep.

And you're going to be essentially probably robbing Peter to pay Paul on some of those houses. And you're going to be flipping into the next one and the bigger one and the bigger one and the bigger one. There's just always more. So what are your goals? What are the finances required to hit those goals? You're only going to need to set them for the next five years because past that, you really can't think that much farther and just work the plan. You know, that's one of my favorite things that Warren Buffett teaches is your investing strategy needs to. All your investing decisions always have to be in alignment with your strategy, your long term strategy. What is my plan? If the world is. If you bought a house for $200,000 and your plan is to hold it for 10 years, then why does it matter to you if the market tanks for the next three years? As long as you hold it for 10 years and it's in a better position than where you bought it that day, you shouldn't be worried. You can't go with the highs and the lows that the news cycles carry. So the curse of the entrepreneur, don't let it be your curse. Take ownership of your life. Make these definitions. Sit with your life partner and strategize what your family needs to look like, feel like, and be like so that you know I am a better leader and I can create healthy boundaries with my staff. So those healthy boundaries are something really fun. My friend John taught me.

John.

John. John is traveling the world all the time, growing his businesses. And his kids used to cry and stomp and freak out a bad daddy whenever you leave. And so he put his kids in the car and he drove them to the hood and he said, daddy can be home a whole lot more. But we can't live in the house we live in. We can't enjoy that heated pool in the backyard. We can't have these toys if Daddy is only home all the time. So if you want us to move into this neighborhood versus the one we live in, I can travel less. You tell me what you prefer. Now, he's not gone 90% of the time. Obviously, he's just leaving it all. Some kids get really upset when daddy leaves at all and they feel abandoned. But when they had a shift of perspective, they start kissing him goodbye. Love you, Daddy. Call us when you're there. Like just empowering him to not feel like a bad parent by doing the business required to keep the family going. And I think that's a boundary we need to share with our staff. Again, I'm a better leader when I'm rested. Try to protect the entrepreneur, understand the weight they carry. Appreciate that this is not easy. Versus they need to have everything together.

Yeah.

Or else.

Yeah.

Why aren't they doing enough for me?

Sure.

And try to get entitlement out of your organization as fast as possible. For those who are listening to this, who are Mrs. And Mr. Demanding, just know nobody owes you freaking nothing. Nobody owes you nothing. And if you want to go somewhere else that you think would be better, go for it. But stop being a whiny brat.

Yeah. Yeah. Because the people that whine, they're they're whining about spending time, right? Spending their time, spending someone else's time. And I would like to talk about and ask the question to you. Like, when Bear gets older, there will be that moment that when you leave that house, he's going to start crying and you're going to be like, I'm.

Driving him straight to the hood. Get in the car, buddy. Let's go straight to the hood.

I love it. Bear, you're going to enjoy, you're going to enjoy the hood. It's a cool place, it's fun. You know, I've had moments where, yeah, when Jason starts crying because I usually work from home 95% of the time, so I'm like, what a gift. I'm just going downstairs, right? So I'm also then thinking, do I really have to go downstairs? This is kind of dumb. Like, can I just cancel this podcast? Like, do I have to really do it? Because there's that draw, there's that pull. And side note, a lot of the individuals listening to this, their number one goal in life when it comes to money is to spend more time with your family.

Yeah, right.

Here's the key. The time that you do spend, if you really, really want to spend more time with your family, do it. Yeah. Like intentionally. Right. So for example, last night, we're done at 6:30, we, we went all day essentially, right? 12 hours. So we're put in a 12 hour day. At 6:00, I go home, go to Publix, get some food for my wife because she's always hungry, right? Get her a bunch of tacos.

She should be as, she should be growing the future. Feed them, Jeromey, feed them.

Take her a bunch of tacos. So we eat some tacos with one of her friends who's here, and, and we all have tacos. Taco night. We're hanging out, phones down, not texting, not talking, not doing anything, play with Jason. We run around the couch for 15 minutes. Then we take him upstairs, we read him a story. Now I love what my wife said. She's always, she's such a nice person. But my wife said, I'm so happy we get to do this almost all the time because she knows, like I am, I'm not only her, she said we, it wasn't like, I'm glad you or I'm glad I was like, I'm glad we get to do this 90% of the time. And that's reading Jason 15 to 20 minutes worth of stories. And it's the Cutest because he can start memorizing the stories. He reads it back to you and it's the best. And we do like, there's no phones in there, obviously, and we're just tucking him in and we're there and we're present that 20 minutes is building his vocabulary, is building his memorization, his, you know, remembering capacities. And I truly enjoy it. And I do my absolute best if I am in the US and or Tennessee, to be there at around 7 to 7:30, so I can spend those last 30 to 40 minutes with him, tucking him in with my wife. And if she's not here, I'm definitely doing it right. And if I'm not here, she's definitely doing it. One of us is reading a story if we are both there, and if we're both not there, then someone else is going to do it. But again, if everyone who's listening really want to spend time with your family, do it.

Do it.

Carve it out.

Don't have to be there.

No schedule.

Quality is better than quantity. Yeah. I've met so many. There's a real mom guilt culture, which is really interesting. I have, I've experienced some fascinating.

Haiti haters on just everybody hating everybody for. You should bear street this long. You should not. You're wasting your time. You should do this. You should have no epidural. You should have an epidural. You should, like, dads don't do this. It's real weird.

Yeah.

Like, you need to be doing this. If not, your kids are like, whoa, whoa.

Dad. Life is so much more supportive.

Real. Yeah. This is not.

Yeah.

It's like they say be nicer. I don't know. It's very weird. And even if, like somebody says they're being, they're being supportive, a lot of times it's passive aggressive. Now, thankfully, I had the world's most amazing, beautiful baby shower. Thank you, Jenna. Mom, Demi. And for putting that on. That was freaking. I've never felt so loved by so many women in my life. It was really cool. And I thought I had mostly guy friends until I had that shower. And I was like, I have a lot of girlfriends.

Let's go, ladies.

They're amazing and they were so sweet and so loving to me. I have some friends who, you know, because of mom guilt, felt the only way to be a good mother is to be to quit their job and be a full time stay at home mom.

Right, Right.

Right. Now you go to their house, their kids aren't allowed to play because they've got Too many nice things like glass tables and she's on her phone the whole day or looking at magazines and the kids are watching tv. Why? Because it's exhausting to be around your kids that long. And she didn't even want to be a stay at home mom. She hated it.

It was just mom guilt.

Yeah. And instead of giving her kids laughing, book reading, park going, you know, little classes on all these fun things that they could learn, cooking together, climbing trees. Climbing trees, doing hair, doing nails, and just this focused, quality four hours a day, instead they're spending 12, 15 hours a day of like Zombieland.

Yeah.

And so the point is, know who you are. Know how you can give your greatest gift here. Kids create. I am of course thinking everybody should be with their kids. But create good systems around how to give your best to your wife, how to give your best to your kids, how to give your best to your team. And you've got to follow that system because flopping around like a dying fish based on guilt and shoulds is not a great strategy for being a wonderful anything.

You know what? It sounds like we're about to talk about parenting pro tips.

I have wrote that down.

Me too.

I have some good questions for you because you're just far enough ahead of me, I can mooch off your strategies.

We'll see you in the next episode.

Come on. Now. I know you are excited about investing into some deals with myself and your girl Brittany Faith Turner, if that sounds even remotely interesting to you. And you would like both myself and Brittany to kind of hand feed you some incredible opportunities. Pop over to broketowoke.com and fill out the form to let us know that you are someone who is interested in investing with both of us so that we can create more wealth together, make more money, make a larger impact, and enrich lives all over the world.

Sam.