Designing Your Success: Greg Merrilees's Journey to Entrepreneurship and Finding Balance

I don't know if I want to mention this other client. Maybe, maybe I should just for credibility boost. But it's up to you can be polarizing. So you know how Trump did an NFT drop just recently?

Yep.

Well, we designed that that website.

No kidding. Hey, I'm Joe Fear and welcome to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. This is where we talk all about building businesses so they give you the freedom and fuel for your life. I'm not here to help you build a billion dollar business, but I am here to help you create with systems that work for you so you can make more money than you need just by working part time. You know, I was a chronic hustle mode kind of guy and I want to share my experiences and mentors I've met along the way to help you reframe things to be the most effective as an entrepreneur. I wish I had this guidance and insight when I was younger. So that's what I'm doing here for you. Please share and enjoy.

Hey, it's Joe Fear and this episode is with my friend and and owner of studio1design.com Greg Merrilies. And this guy, he's been on the podcast before and broke down all these different design principles for your website. They are timeless. So definitely go back. I'll link that in the show notes. And in this episode he does like a nice recap of how he got to where he is now. We go into some new design principles, his thoughts around AI and how to use that in design and copy and all this other stuff that's happening and why your presence is everything online. It is the reason why people find you. It's the social proof. It's the authority, the trust, the values that you display to the world. You can have that within your control. So Greg is a master at this with the design, but all the way into marketing principles, copywriting and just knowing the landscape in general. And then we get into some of the inner workings of his mind and when it comes to running his business, scaling his business to a healthy seven figure business, but also working part time about 20 hours a week, and how he can travel around skiing and driving his fast car on race tracks and all these other fun things with his family. And the mental game that goes behind all of that, that's really what this show is all about now, is discovering the entrepreneur behind the entrepreneur and how you can take some healthy habits and apply them to your own business and life so you're actually getting fulfilled and you're getting enough from your business. So let's break it down now with Greg. This guy's awesome. So let's get into it.

All right.

Well, Greg. Hey, we're back. This is round two. It's been a while since you've been on the show. This is a new version, of course, man.

And I'm excited about this new version. And since we're on, you know, on the last episode, we actually met up in person for the first time in San Diego, which was.

Thank you. Yeah, thanks for hosting. And, I mean, I've learned that's what you do, right? You bring people together really well in these little gatherings.

Yeah. I think it's really important in business to, you know, obviously, it's an online world these days, and most of our clients are all around the world and probably 50% more in the U.S. and so, obviously, before COVID you know, we were. We were traveling to the US for every major event, basically just to connect with clients and build those relationships, you know, and. And just put your name out there. And spoke a couple of times over there as well. Once for Ezra Firestone at his event, and that was the only time I spoke over there, but another time for Sramco here. But the point is, like, it's all about building relationships in business. And, yeah, that's. It's a long game as well, you know, So I just like to plant the seed with new people all the time and just let people know we exist.

Yeah, man. Well, that's what I love about your approach in your journey. I mean, you've been at this thing for 23 years. That's what. That's what LinkedIn says, at least. I don't know if it's probably longer than that.

It's actually years longer. But we had a brand name change. Yeah. Yeah, there you go.

Yeah. And that's where I know, like, you've just done it in a way that I've done some similar approaches where you give so much initially right off the bat. And I know James Schramko, our mutual friend, and I'm sure you're listening. Hey, James, thank you very much for everything, for both of us.

But, like, giving logos away and, you know, doing. Doing designs, you've done that for us as well. You know, Matt and I, when we had this show together and our brand and. And I have my. My hoodie still. I wear it all the time. It's in the closet right now. And that's from you. And I know that's opened so many doors for you along the way.

It has, indeed. Because, I mean, that was sort of my background T shirt design. And it was sort of the only skill set I had when we pivoted to website and branding. And I think it started sending Sramko, you know, a logo for his podcast. Cause they said that sucked and then, yeah, they ended up using ours and then it just sort of snowballed into designing for them and all their clients and, you know, you know, the rest is history. But yeah, it was just all about. I guess that's a lesson for, you know, the people listening is try not to just give away a standard PDF if you're going. If you're in a service business and you want to build relationships with partners and things like that, think about, you know, who else has your same customer and they may be before they come to you or after they come to you. Try and work out some relationship with those type of partners. But if to do that, don't just lead with a, here's a free ebook. Lead with something that's unique to your skillset that, that they're going to be wowed about, you know, and that's kind of what we did with the T shirt design. Yeah.

Oh yeah. And it's world class design too. And I'm not just blowing smoke because like you check out studio1designs.com Joe if.

You want to use that URL.

I mean, you're designing the new version of hustleandflowchart.com, which may or may not be live at the time of this recording, but either way, it's there very soon and it's blown me away. It's a design we've been working on for a while now. I know, and. But you've done this with so many other podcasters, Internet marketers, other businesses. But then also I was like, looking back and I didn't know this, but like Warner Brothers, Disney, there's, I mean, Looney Tunes. I saw, I was like, what? I grew up on these guys, so it's amazing, like what you've done and.

Yeah, go ahead. Thanks, man. Yeah, I mean, and that all stemmed from just, you know, doing T shirt designs. And like, realistically, I'm not even educated. Like, I Left school at 16, right. And I did that for a two week work experience at a screen printing factory. And I got to draw Looney Tunes characters. Right. That was back in the day when you could, before everything was super licensed and only, you know, style guides could create those characters. But I just love drawing. And, and so, yeah, from that, you know, we just designed T shirts for all these different brands. Disney, Warner Brothers, even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was a bit of a favorite back in the day. And that just led to other, like building relationships with other manufacturers that held the same licenses, like for consumer products and point of sale and things like. And we went into all the major retailers, stores in Australia, but a couple in the US as well, like Walmart and Costco and Target over there as well. And it's just incredible how these things just from one skill set can lead to all these opportunities. And I think it also, you know, doing that T shirt design for you guys and all these, it's just sticking to what you know best. And I find that if people try to pivot too much in business and we have had a pivot, we can talk about that, but, but really we had to pivot, right? But I find that if just stick to what you're really, really good at and don't try and offer everything to everyone, it can go a lot further. Like we do website design and branding now. We used to do T shirts, but we don't offer SEO, we don't offer, you know, Facebook ads or marketing, all that stuff. We just stick to the design aspect. We don't even mind if our customers or clients go to other developers to get their website built. We just love the design aspect, you know, so we just stick to the design and what we're really good at.

I think it's brilliant, man. And I know I've been, I've been guilty over the years of switching far too many times. Maybe it's a shiny object or it's just my interest some. Maybe I wrapped too much into the business and. Yeah. Has it always been that way for you where you've been so focused or have there been some of these derailments?

There was definitely, I mean, look, think crypto, that's a bit of a derail, right? But at the same time, I still believe in it and I still believe that, you know, there's a good purpose for crypto in the, in the future. And the whole web3 space is so many, you know, good aspects to that. It's just the markets imploded, you know, temporarily, but that'll come back. But that was a bit of a derailment, you know, just focusing on that. And we have designed like a website offer to, to cater to that market, but, you know, we've just kind of put that on ice for now. But the point is, I would say apart from just being derailed, like we, we, we got squeezed out of the marketplace. When we were doing T shirts 12 years into the business, when our clients were wholesalers, they got squeezed out by their clients, who are the retailers. They went vertical and all of a sudden they didn't need their wholesalers. And we designed for the wholesalers, so we kind of had no work, you know, so it was a big pivotal moment at that point. And that's when I found podcasts and did the logo design for James. And that's kind of what led to this now.

Yeah, yeah. Well, you bring up a great point. I love this, this point right here because I think about it often and I know I've been, like I mentioned, guilty of it, but there are times where you need to pivot your business because of market conditions, your partner, whatever it might be. In crypto. Yeah, it literally is the market conditions. And that's, it's done that for a lot of folks. But at the same time, it's like doing the work that, you know, is just working like, and it could be boring as hell, you know, that, that work. And it might not light you up, but there's, there's ways to that, you know, hey, if something's working, maybe I just double down, triple down, keep my head down. And so I'm curious of like, are there any ways that you've kept so focused over the years in the design space, this agency that you've had, where that you can maybe give some practical things?

Yeah, I think it is just sticking to what we love. And also, you know, I did hire James Schramko as my business coach back in the day, and he's still my coach today. Yeah, eight years later. Exactly. So he keeps you on track. You know, if I do have these other ideas and blah, blah, you know, all these ideas that kind of could potentially derail me Having a good business coach that's very matter of fact and very direct. Just says, no, I don't, I don't think that's going to work, you know, so it's up to me to make the decision. But I like to listen to experts that have been there, done that, and, you know, grown significant businesses. At one point I think he had 90 people on his team, but, you know, and now he's down to six and he's got a seven figure business and he surfs twice a day. And that's the type of coach that I want on my side, you know, and I listen to that type of person. So, yeah, look, I tend to not get too distracted apart from things like crypto. Because it's exciting. But really that's kind of the next stage of life anyway, where you go from, you know, a solo employer to a business owner to building a team to then becoming an investor. And that's kind of the stage where I'm at now. But yeah, I found just on that journey, there's little things that would tease me to be derailed. But I do find that staying on track and what we're good at has been the best path for me.

Totally agree. Hey, I'm going to pause this chat really fast with Greg and I and shout out something that he put together just for you. And also to let you know that he and his team at Studio One Design are the team that designed and built my website over@hustleandflowchart.com I absolutely love it and I've been getting a lot of feedback and people reaching out about who the heck did that for me. Well, that's Studio One Design they did.

It's Greg.

It's the guy you're listening to right now. So everything is super professional. They've been basically read my brain on how to even design this thing. I gave them some vision and then they just ran from there. Such a great team that Greg has put together and they just execute like crazy. So right now, if you are looking to improve stuff that you're doing on your own website or if you have something new coming up, you should go start off by taking their free quiz. They're actually giving away some bonuses as well. For people who take this quiz, go check it out at studio1design.com studio joe that is studio the number one design.com joe complete that quiz. It's seven different phases in this quiz and it's going to give you so many results on how to improve what you're doing over there in your website right now, from design all the way to optimizing conversion. So go take that quiz totally free@studio1design.com Joe. All right, back to the episode I want to get into. So with this episode, like I was talking about, so you have your business and it's definitely pivoted over, over the years and I'll probably dig into that a little bit further, but I really want to get into. Since you are such a design eye, I mean, you've, you've drawn so many things. I know you used to airbrush a bunch of stuff for folks. And so you say design is everywhere and there's trends and there's all these things happening.

Yeah.

What do you like? Do you Distill that into things that you can use on websites. And I'm curious of some of these trends that you're noticing and things that we can share with others here that apply.

Yeah, totally. So look, my wife's a fashion designer by trade, right. So she used to, before she's now in our business, she's our brand director. But before she did that, she would travel the world four times a year, go to trade shows and, you know, shopping centers and pretty much catwalk walks and just collect a whole heap of samples and bring it back and create ranges for our market, which is a slightly different market to everywhere else. But the beauty of being in Australia is that we're six months behind the rest of the world when it comes to fashion. So we just borrow ideas and then range around that. So the point is she was really good at ranging and doing color and composition and putting things together from collecting a whole bunch of ideas, you know, out there. But that was back in the day. Now you've got Pinterest, you've got, you know, a whole range of ideas and design reference out there. There's awards, which is like a, a website design award platform. Right. And so from all of these, Karen now is, you know, she does this and she teaches our other designs how to do this as well. But what she does is collects all those ideas and then we put it into a mood board. And the mood board has a multiple page PDF where we talk about the colors, the fonts and pretty much every design aspect, the images, the image treatment, the backgrounds, just the composition of the elements and things like that. And so then what we do is put that forward to clients as here's our idea for the brand moving forward. And then we send a walkthrough video, explain why we've done what we've done. It's all based on the brief, which is a very detailed process, as you know, with that pain in the ass question.

Super helpful too.

Yeah. And so then the mood board, once the client signs off of that, that then we'll turn it into the actual website design. But realistically, the trends come from, it depends on the actual brief and the business that we're designing for. We always look at competitors and make sure we don't want to be anything like their competitors. We want to zig where they're zagging and we want to use a color palette as well that's completely unique to their business. So having Karen's fashion background has really helped her identify what is the latest trend, the latest look. So every Time she's designing a new mood board for, you know, for a website then or a brand in general for our clients. Then she just starts fresh and looks for the latest trends. So the trends are really just visual as far as, you know, trends in website design over the years. I think it's come to a point now where the design aspect can be whatever you like. It can be completely custom. You know, websites are fast enough now and hosting an Internet on phones and all that sort of thing is fast enough to just design anything. And I guess the only trend that we haven't tapped into yet, but I'm sort of super excited about. Some designers and copywriters see it as a threat and that's AI, right?

Like, yeah, that's the next thing in my mind. My man. Yeah, let's go deeper, please.

Yeah, yeah. And so the way I see it is like. And I will be writing a blog post on this shortly because I find it absolutely fascinating. And there's the GPT3 at the moment, which is pretty smart, right? It's pretty incredible and impressive.

Chat GPT.

Yeah, yeah, exactly, totally. But there's still limitations when it comes to design, right? And you know, I've studied a lot of YouTube videos as well to figure out how good is this AI. And the way I see it is it's really good for coders of, you know, design coding websites. The design aspect, yes, it can get ideas from here, there and everywhere, but it's really only doing a copy of. And I think websites that are out there, apparently GPT4 is going to be able to say, you'll be able to say, hey, go to this website. I want a website like that, but for my industry and give it some bit more, you know, criteria, and it'll just design and build it for you. But I don't know how true that is. But if that happens, then we're going to use that as a tool in our business, as a starting point, but then still customize it to be unique, to bring our design aspect into what we offer to our clients. But yeah, I see it as a. I love that it's not a threat, but a tool.

Yeah, it's a tool. And that's exactly. I assumed you would see it that way. And I was going to pose the question about AI and all these. I mean, just over the last month or so, at the time of this recording, they've just been. So many different tools have been released around AI from, yeah, design, audio, video, text, written, you know, copywriting. And it got me thinking about you immediately actually because of so much of the custom work you guys do at Studio One Designs. And at the same time, it's not just designs though. You marry that you pair it up with marketing and principles. I mean, I see you have Ogilvy's book behind you on the bookshelf. I mean he's a master at advertising and copywriting. So like you have these principles that are in the structure, the bones of the website. And you know, it's apparent in the brief when I went through that whole multi page thing with Matt originally, like what are some of the principles of design and things that you incorporate in your sites? And I know landing page, landing pages offer this part too. Curious of what you got there.

Yeah, well, the way we design websites is we're very influenced from, from books like, you know, Robert Cialdini's Influence, for instance. Right. Which is the principles of persuasion. And so we put that into the website. But there's also another book, Spin Selling, which is by Neil Rackham, which is really a framework for copywriting. But it's also we, we kind of merge that with Spin selling, sorry, with influence. And what we find is that we're using psychological drivers from everything from, you know, social proof.

Authority boosting elements to things like scarcity. Now people think scarcity is like a limited amount of seats or limited time or whatever. Sure, that's part of it. But the way Robert Cialdini, you know, referenced that in his book is what is scarce about your offer that they can't really get anywhere else. Right. So that's the uniqueness that we try to get across, you know, obviously in the design, but also, and we don't offer copywriting, but we work with copywriting partners that, you know, have the same framework that we follow. And so yeah, if you think about what's unique about your business, if you can get that on your homepage at least, and all of your sales copy and all of your, you know, lead magnets to your, your overall messaging as a whole and then that's what you become known for, then that can work really well. And you know, to me that's something that's going to help you stand out from your competitors. So just. And part of it and with our process is we do have this, you know, questionnaire which has 40 odd questions. And the reason it's so detailed is because we want to know as much as we can to draw out your uniqueness and you know, even the look and feel like, let's say the website that we've Just designed for you. The look and feel doesn't look like any other podcast website out there. Yeah. And it's really unique to your personality and you know, what we drew out from know it just knowing you guys, you're fun loving guys that. And now it's just going to be you. But the point is, it's incredible, you know, that we've sort of created this look and feel that represents you, your brand, even your locations kind of thrown in there as well with you know, San Diego and palm trees. So that's what we try to do with uniqueness and then the copywriting as well. We want to let people know, you know, what's in it for them. They don't really give a shit about you initially. And so we just marry.

Yeah.

The copy and the design as one with all those psychological drivers and social proofs, a huge factor of that as well. So you know, obviously that could be testimonials, it could be reviews of a podcast or whatever. Or even just if like for you guys you've got some real super authorities that you've interviewed. Right. Like to me that's the type of thing that we want to showcase and let people know, oh wow, this podcast is the real deal. These guys interview the best out there. So it's all those things that we put into the website design. And yes, sales pages is kind of, it's the, it's that, but it's, you know, we want to just have one focus of a sales page, you know, one call to action. We remove all distractions. There's a lot of leakage points that we see when we go to people's websites or landing pages where they'll have a top navigation or a footer navigation. We want to remove all that stuff so that people don't pogo stick around the entire website. Even videos on web pages, they might have a YouTube video embedded on a page and people go click on the logo, they go to YouTube and they never come back. Right. So we just all the time. Yeah, so we recommend using Wistia or Vimeo for, you know, embedding videos on your sales pages. But yeah, all these things we do go into a little bit more detail on sales pages and you know, using spin selling. But you know, why choose us and all these other sections that are just going to help tell the story and keep people on that one page and give them that one thing to do.

Yeah, and yeah, you have, you have the, the principles down and yeah, like we've had Cialdini on the show here and talking about all of his principles and you nail them. And you mentioned the questionnaire, like when, when seeing it, at first it's daunting, but at the same time, oh my God, like that's exactly why you guys, how you can create that kind of thing all the way from the mood board design, but all the way to understanding what the actual business is, what the motivators are, the different social proof factors that can be put into their borrowed authority. Like in the fact of this website that we have, I have, but like we. In terms of all the collaboration of, you know, Matt, but yourself and all these guests that have come on and. Yeah, it's just, I feel like, and I think you mentioned it on Schramko's podcast is having this presence and being able to actually like this online presence and being able to control it. And if you don't have that as an entrepreneur and that's where like I didn't have my own presence for a long time. I had joe fear.com and all this stuff. But you know, when you, when you Google someone's name, you want to be able to actually have presence on there and have a say for the narrative that people are going to understand you by, because anyone could be looking you up, especially when you become a little bit more public. So I feel like that presence is key.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, spot on. And then we've talked about so far is like the design and the copy and all the psychological drivers. But then there's also the strategy behind it as well. Like, we like to understand what is the purpose of the website. You know, for instance, like with you guys, I mean, sure, you've got a podcast course and all that, but really, you know, your goal is a bit different because it's a podcast and you know, you want to like, I guess if you build an audience with that, you can take it anywhere, right? And that's kind of one of your number one goals, to build that audience. And you know, for other people it might be to, you know, sell e commerce products or to, to whatever, but we still like to take the approach of warming up the cold traffic first. So. And the way we do that, one of the best ways is to educate, which is what you guys do, right, with your podcast. And it's just building so much trust in your brand. And yeah, if you know a lot of businesses out there that they just try to sell off the bat, I feel like that's the wrong way. I call that selling on. Hello. And instead, if you respect your audience and Just deliver value and build trust in your brand first, then the rest can follow later. It's usually a slower process, but it's more longevity in the business model if you build that audience first. That's why I say it. Yeah.

Oh yeah. And you can take that audience with you, you know, with wherever you end up in business. Hopefully not too many pivots along the way, but yeah, having that connection, that trust with the folks that come for you and that's really what you want. And Greg, I want to kind of pivot a little bit to what is happening. So the design stuff, we've covered a lot of that and on the business front and I want to dive into, I was kind of mentioning to you with this evolution of hustle and flowchart and you've been such a big help in that we were chatting about this a couple weeks ago too is like showing business owners like cool, you have all these things. Yeah, you got to get a website, get something messaging, write your presence, know your, your, your business and maybe not pivot too much but really hone in on your, your skill sets, your love. But it's like there's an element outside of business of. All right, so when is like what are you fueled by you. Maybe there is a passion outside of business. Ideally there's something else outside of just the business itself that's, that's fueling you or motivating you. And, and also this question of like when, when is it enough like to do all this building, building, grinding, maybe hustle mode. So I'm kind of curious if, or like what, what is that outside of the business for you? Is there something that stands out that is your driver?

Totally. I do a lot of things outside of business, but one of them is family. You know, happily married with a 16 year old daughter and we love to travel. Now Covid kind of put a stop to that. Like we live in Melbourne and it's the world's most locked down city which is ridiculous. Like we had like throughout that two year period, two 150 odd days of lockdown which was just hell. Right. So yeah, before that we're traveling, you know, to New Zealand. Like we're snow skiing family. So we were at Canada just before the, before the lockdown and you know, that was our passion. And then all of a sudden we couldn't do that anymore. And then throughout Covid, you know, I kind of just went into a bit of a hole and because we couldn't do anything, it was really quite depressing to be honest. Although we coped well and business did really, really well because of the fact that everybody wanted to get online or improve their online. Losing my passion, my interest, you know, and I spoke to a couple of brokers and thought, I just want to sell this business. I've just lost, you know, lost the passion. Yeah. So it was a big moment where I just, I didn't do anything on social and I'm just starting to get back onto it now and I just completely withdrew from the business.

And so after speaking to the, you know, the brokers, they valued the business and it was quite an impressive number and it was quite appealing. And I thought, well, you know, should I do it, shouldn't do it. And I couldn't quite make the decision. And then it was like, I don't know, probably six months ago when I finally decided that I don't really want to sell the business. I do love the business. I was just probably working too much and just, you know, just because I couldn't escape being locked down, it was all I could do. It's all I could spend my time on. I didn't have anything else. But yeah, since we came out of the lockdown and I'm doing more things like you know, we had, we traveled again this year. We went to New Zealand, we went to the, you know, I went to the US and met you guys, did a couple of events there and all that. We obviously just had a week up at Queensland, you know, a few, Yeah. A couple of states away from where we live. And so we're traveling again. And so I've got that mojo back and I don't want to sell the business. You know, it's. Yeah, it's now I just want to, I don't want to grow it. And you ask Chris how much isn't enough. I don't want to grow it to like a $10 million business. It is a comfortable seven figure business, but I feel like that is enough, you know. And now we've, I've got an awesome. Like I actually, I had a personal assistant that upgraded. We went to our Christmas party last year and she, she got drunk, we were all having a few drinks which was awesome fun. And she upgraded herself to general manager. Right. And she has just been like the best general manager. Like she's doing all the things that I don't want to do, you know. And her name's Sally. Shout out to Sally. She's just awesome. Yeah. And so now I'm actually working 20 to 25 hours per week. I've Got my mojo back. I don't want to grow the business much, but, you know, at the same time, we are earning more than we did each year, you know, by about 10%, which is very slow, steady growth. But I'll still take that, you know.

Oh, yeah.

If I'm working less. If I was working more, it would be a problem. So now I just want to steadily grow the business. How much is enough? I would say, you know, if I did another 10, sorry, five years of 10% growth, then I'd probably sell at that point. And, you know, I'm 51 years old now, so that's another, you know, five years and I'd be close to retirement age anyway. So then I'll get more into, hopefully my investments are doing really well by then and, you know, we'll see what happens. Probably sell the business then.

There you go. Oh, I love it, man. And that's. So you've created time freedom for yourself, but also more, more revenue for the business via a general manager. Do you think you could have done that earlier or did you have versions of that leading up to this? You know, now you're 23 years into this thing.

Yeah, not at all. Like, I think it's just been like since I've hired, you know, James Franco as my coach, you know, we, we've had growth year on year, not, you know, without fail, but at the same time. And he taught me how to grow a team and you know, we've got like 28 people in the team currently and how to put systems in place and how to have marketing and do all these things. Right. Which has been fantastic. But yeah, the key thing that has been the biggest change has been having that personal system. She was essentially hired as an executive assistant, just dealing with me only. But then she just did such a good job and then, you know, she self promoted to general manager, which I.

Love, I love that approach.

Yeah. Now that she's doing absolutely everything, like, that's been the biggest game changer. I didn't actually see that coming, that it would be such a game changer. But yeah, I think that's been the critical, you know, shift in. Yeah. Being able to earn more and work less. Which is the name of Sramko's book.

It's a great book.

More. Right.

Yeah. Go get the book. Go get the book.

Yeah. And I hadn't really thought, you know, just things like, you know, speaking to James and whatever and saying, you know, look at increasing your prices. And when I was doing all of the calls and the Proposals and all that. I didn't really have the courage to increase our prices a lot. Sally's like, I'm just doing it right.

So it's like that third party. You need to have someone else to voice what is really in you and probably what you voice to her, but it's like she's just gonna do it for you.

That's right. Exactly. Without hesitation. And so that has been really good. I mean, we have still had to grow our team and take on more business, but at the same time, we are increasing our prices. It's not a lot, but it's just enough to make it, you know, a little bit more cream on the cake type of thing. Right.

Well, I think this is, I mean, this is a big thing. And why, I ask you, what is enough? And you know, for some people, it might be a money thing or it might be a time thing or whatever. Passion, fulfillment and you know, family. And I know family's huge for you as well as. As myself, but it really, at the end of the day, it's the burnout. Because if there's a burnout. Yeah. Part or like you're completely checked out, then everything else is going to start degrading. I mean, and you have team and clients and reputation, momentum of. It's a real thing in business.

And.

And because I've done this too, is step away or go silent for a while. And it's so tough to like get the gears in motion again and really get that.

Yeah.

So what you're saying is it's a great tool.

Yeah, yeah, totally. And. And it is those motivators like family and travel and, you know, a few other hobbies as well. Like for instance, my wife, she. I mean, she had the same struggle as me throughout Covid. Right. And. And then she decided to. She had a gut health issue and she decided to get that looked at. And it led to all this, like, working on her health and fitness and all that. And it was like a two year journey. And in that two years. Yeah, she just completely transformed her. Her health and her body shape and composition. All that. And she did it through strength training. Right. Which is incredible. Like three times a week. And, you know, we're in lockdown and at that time our local gyms were closed and she had to do the strength training in the car park of the local gym. Yeah.

Did they move all the equipment outside and everything?

Yes, they did.

Yeah, they did that here for a while. It was goofy, but hey, gotta do it.

Yeah. Yeah. And so. And it was pissing down with rain. And she would still go to these sessions, you know, three times a week. And anyway, it was incredible. And so two years later, as of July last year, if this comes out in January, then she. She did this competition for, you know, a fitness model, bodybuilding type of competition. And that was her goal, just to get to that stage, you know, to. And present on stage. And she did that and she, you know, she didn't win or anything, but she got placed. I think it was third or fourth in a couple of the different categories. And that was just incredibly inspirational for me. And so then now I've started doing that as well, a little bit of strength training and haven't been doing it for long, but, yeah, it's. It's so hard. But, you know, I think about. I want to ski until I'm 80 or 90 or whatever. I just want to ski forever. And to do that, you need to look after your body and your strength and things like that, so. And your health. So that's, yeah, a bit of a passion of mine. And so it's just, yeah. Healthy lifestyle. I used to drink nearly, you know, wet red wine or beer nearly every night. And since I've been doing this over the last. It's been four or five months now, but I might have a drink or two on the weekend and that's it. So just, I feel better. And yeah, that's, that's. That's a good driver.

I share, I share that thing with you with the, the lack of drinking because my wife and I never heavy. Heavy drinkers or anything, but, you know, it might be wine every night or, you know, whatever, a beer. I mean, honestly, cutting or cutting beer out has been massive for me and just honestly, my clarity. Yeah, yeah, clarity for sure, man. And then. And then the red wine, like, it's. I love it. I actually default to that more. But still it's. Yeah, a couple. Couple a week and.

Awesome.

Yeah, man. I think there's, you know, it's like you just kind of shed weight without trying, and that was never the intention. But yeah, for me it was mental state and. Yeah, totally.

Yeah. Such a huge benefit and it was like a. I didn't even see that coming. I just didn't feel like drinking, you know. Right. Because you just feel so healthy during the day and. Yeah, it's just.

That's cool.

You have a drink, you feel shit the next day. It's like, that's not worth it.

Well, you know what you're getting into at least. Right? Like, you're like, well, I'm paying for this tomorrow, tomorrow or whatever.

Yeah, that's true. Yup, yup, for sure, man.

And I want to ask you about like mental state and ways to keep your mind primed and ready for action, whatever that looks like. And I want to get like, are there practices or tools or routines that you are more or less like disciplined with in your life that keep you tip top shape when it comes to being an entrepreneur and also person outside of business?

I think it's just consistency. Like as far as like I've been in business so long, it's just a habit. Right. So. But I do wake up and I do wake up and I like to sleep. I like sleep. For me, I get nine hours of sleep every night, solid sleep. As soon as I hit the pillow, I'm asleep. Right. So. And it's even better that since I've stopped drinking. Right. So that's amazing. And so that's definitely number one. And then in the morning I like to walk my dog, you know, get up and have healthy breakfast and like an egg omelet with veggies. And then I go for a walk and I walk the dog. And you know, I just love that you just feel refreshed before you touch it. I don't even look at emails, you know what I mean? I just. Yeah. And then I come back and by then if it's like 9am, I take my daughter to school or whatever, come back by like 9am and then Sally's already handled all of my emails because she handles my inbox, you know, so.

Epic. That's so good.

Yeah. And that's kind of all I do for habits, you know, but as far as, you know, mindset in general, like I'm always quite, I've always been quite positive and happy, you know, my wife hates me for that. Sometimes I'm too happy.

You know, you and I both, my friend. Yeah, we'll get flack for it, but don't ever change.

Exactly, exactly. So I've never really had a problem with being motivated. Don't get me wrong. I've had times in life that, like I said, the COVID was really, really tough mentally to get through that. But yeah, generally speaking, most days, most weeks, most months, some. Yeah, quite motivated. And I just have that little routine and it just sets me up for the day.

Awesome. And I love the fact that it's such a tiny routine, like, and obviously it could be, you hear morning routines or whatever and, and, and that wasn't what I was asking, but it's like, that's what works for you in the mental state. And yeah, some people can drag it on for hours or try to overcomplicate it, but it's like, yeah, just get some sleep. Which has been a game changer for me. Wearing an iWatch. Our Apple Watch has actually helped me kind of stick with it. There you go. I have mine off right now, but yeah, that little reminder and tracking, I'm just like, oh, I'm ramping up my sleep and I feel the difference. Damn.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How good is the Apple watch really? I mean, even tracking steps and things like that. Because then you've got like a benchmark and you just want to beat that all the time.

There you go. It's the competitiveness in us, right, as entrepreneurs. Hell yeah. That's exactly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But yeah, and I am super competitive as well, you know, like, I mean, I, I've got a reasonably fast kind of, you know, race car type of thing.

Do you tell me.

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, well, it's my rides, my everyday car, but it's, it's so fast. Like it's the world's fastest four cylinder twin turbo car. It's a, you know, it's an AMG thing that's just nuts receiving. But it's so quick that I just get worried about, you know, getting booked, like getting fines for going too fast. So I have to do these race tracks days where I take it around the racetrack for a couple hours just to get that out of my system. And I absolutely love that. Yeah. So good is that.

I've done a track session once in Vegas, in Las Vegas. It was in an Aston Martin. My wife surprised me for my birthday and did it with me. And she didn't do it. She was scared shitless. But I was the one and I probably took it out. Like, I drove it slow, let's be honest, compared to like what you would do. But like, what's the deal? Are you out there often? That's like a stress reliever, I would assume, right?

Yeah, just going hamper I went this year. So, you know, not, not that often, but I love it. And it's something that I'm trying to book in like every couple of months moving forward because it's just so much fun. Yeah. And yeah, I don't know, like, I mean, I love Formula one as well. Speaking of Aston Martin, I think, you know, that's. Yeah, it's certainly a passion of mine to, I'd love to travel the world doing a few of Those, obviously, they're coming to Vegas next year, which I think would be amazing to see.

They have a lot. They at least have one out there. That's great, but probably more. Vegas is crazy like that. Yeah, totally, Totally.

I don't know. There's something about speed, you know, like, my first car was a sports car. Like, you know, I was 18 or whatever, and my nickname was Rocket because I used to drive crazy. So.

Okay, so you get it out on the track. Yeah, take. Take all that.

Exactly. And then I don't, you know, I'm not a threat to anybody.

That's fair, man. But I mean, that's a. I think that's a prime example, A perfect example of getting that adrenaline out or that whatever that release, you know, and, you know, it's. It's something out of business. That's what I'm on the hunt for in the show, too. Chatting with folks and just reflecting on is like, all right, some outlet. Like, there's always got to be an outlet. And I feel like that helps us stay on the course in business and keeps us even keel in life. Just, like, happy and present with people around us, too.

Couldn't agree more, man. And then if you got all these things outside of work, you really enjoy business a lot more.

Damn right. Yeah. And everything grows. People. People, you know, are supported because of it, too. So.

Yeah. Great.

Yeah, I think I'm stoked on this chat and I'm happy that. That you're one of the first guests that I'm bringing back in on the hustling Flowchart podcast in this new version, or whatever you want to call this thing. Let's shout out Studio One Design one more time. Studio one design dot com. Joe will. Will get you there, but, yeah, I guess give it. Give a quick, like 32nd or so, and we chatted about it, but, like, what people should expect or what they should do now.

Yeah, totally, man. Yeah. Look, I mean, look, we've designed for some pretty impressive, you know, people out there. We designed for Sylvester Stallone for his NFT drop, which is pretty cool.

That's cool.

I don't know if I want to mention this other client. Maybe. Maybe I should just for credibility boost, but it's up to. You can be polarizing. So you know how Trump did an NFT drop just recently?

Yep.

Well, we designed that. That website.

Kidding.

No, serious.

I think it's brilliant. And it's great that. I mean, yeah, it's polarizing, but that's perfect. Holy crap.

Yeah. Yeah, totally. So I guess if somebody reaches out and you can check it out, his website, collect trump cards dot com. But yeah, so there's no mention of us on there. Of course, we were white labeled through his marketing agency to design that. And they did say that it's not affiliated to his political position at all. So it was just for a little collection, you know, of. Yeah, trading cards, which is really NFTs. But, yeah, he calls them digital trading cards. But the point is, if somebody does want to reach out, at least they know they're in safe hands. Okay. We're designed for Trump, whether they love it or hate it.

But we've also designed polarizing. It's all good.

Stallone. Yeah. And, you know, a whole bunch of other online marketers. We've got a pretty good reputation. So the point is that they're in safe hands. And yeah, they can book a 15 minute chat with me or Sally just to figure out if we're a good fit and we can take it from there. And they go through our entire process to, you know, to go through, like, like I said, we have that website design questionnaire. We jump on a long call, we send them a ballpark quote before we do all this, just to make sure we're in the right, you know, right range. And then there's no commitment until that point. And then at that point, once we've got the full brief, we send them a full proposal and then they decide if they want to go ahead.

Yeah, I'm not blowing smoke, Greg. You do the best work out there. And I've been, you know, I've been in the game for 15 years or so in the online marketing space. Obviously, everybody needs a website in that space, so. And you've always been the go to. And of course, shirts and merch is kind of like icing on the cake for me. And yeah, I mean, you make it so cool. And you're such a great guy, man. Always been a great supporter of the show and us in general.

So I love your podcast.

Thank you.

Well, and I'm so stoked that you're always supported by Schramko as well, and vice versa. So, James, always a huge shout out, you know, and I know he's. He's been a motivator and mentor for both of us for a long time now, so.

Totally, man.

Yeah, man. Well, Greg, appreciate you so much, my man. And we'll of course do it again.

You bet, man. Thanks so much, Joe. Take care.

Hey, it's Joe. One more time before we sign off. I just want to thank you for listening to the episode in its completion and being with us again. And Greg, I just want to give him another shout out because, again, I'm not blowing smoke. I've said that before. This guy is a standup guy. You've noticed it now. And his design abilities and his team at Studio One Design are epic. So if you are in the market for a redesign of your current website, or if you have a new project or brand you're putting out there, we all need to have that presence and leading with the right foot. This is your first impression online, so make sure to go talk with him and talk with his team over@studio1design.com Joe that'll get you there and he'll know that I sent you. And trust me, you're gonna be in good hands. So don't look any further. Go to studioonedesign.com joe. All right, till next time, adios. All right, now I'm gonna play this outro thing to the podcast and cue that up now. All right? All right, that's what I got for you today. And remember, it's not all about living away work. It's all about working to live if you need to do the work. But you know, work can be fun and it should be feeling for your life. So if you enjoyed what you just heard, if you got some nuggets of wisdom that you want to share or you're just noodling on right now, please go tell others. The way that people find this show and how you can help others get their aha moments is through word of mouth. So if it is telling your friend, telling your family, send an email to your list writing a review or whatever it might be, everything helps. So thank you so much for listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast, and I will see you next time.