Episode 184 - Greg Johnson On Coaching Fellow Entrepreneurs On How To Unlock Their Full Potential

Hey, everyone. Welcome to the do the Thing podcast. This is your host, Stacy Lauren. Oh, my gosh. You guys. Okay, this is cool. I love doing things that get me out of my comfort zone and that scare me to death because I get to meet really cool people when I'm doing them, and then I get to bring them on my podcast and talk to them about who they are and their experience. And my next guest is someone that I met through a program I recently signed up for through Ryan Moran's Capitalism Incubator program. And this next guest is a coach inside that program. And so I've been getting to witness his brilliance every week through these amazing coaching sessions over zoom. And I felt pretty connected to him from the beginning. And I even asked for a private coaching session after that coaching, I just felt so empowered to be able to move forward into the new steps that I want to take. Do the Thing. And not only is he a coach inside the capitalism incubator, he also has several businesses and he even runs some with his wife as well. And so I'm just excited to hear about his whole story. So I am welcoming Greg Johnson to the show. Hey, Greg.

Hey, Stacey. I'm so happy to be here with you today.

Thank you. Yeah, I'm just so glad that you said yes and that we get to talk today.

Me too. This will be fun.

Yeah. So let's start off. I'd love to just have you share your story for the listeners.

Sure. I'll try to do the condensed version. What I do on a daily basis now is not at all what I thought I would be doing every day. Going through college, and I was focused on getting into the sciences because I had aptitude for it and it sounded impressive to me. It sounded like something important.

So when I got into the real world, the job market, I got a job in the sciences.

And.

And I think I was three weeks in when I realized I hate this so much. It was just not fulfilling. And I knew that very early on. And at the same time, I discovered people like Robert Kiyosaki and then later, four hour work week. So I always had this interest in entrepreneurship, but I didn't quite understand.

How to take the leap into that world. Right. So I spent about 10 years in the sciences doing science. I was pretty good at it, but I didn't enjoy it. Ten years in, though, I had an opportunity to start working with a very, very small company. And what they were doing was they were refurbishing and reselling very, very high end scientific lab equipment stuff that I'd been using for years as a chemist, but they were troubleshooting it, they were problem solving, fixing things and then selling it to clients for tens, even hundreds of thousands of dollars. So immediately there was kind of an appeal there, just financially that was substantially different than the life I was living in my job. So I started working with this company. I again, I had a really strong technical aptitude, so I was really good at what they did. And the business, it was a lot of fun. It was, you know, side benefit. It was only five minutes from my house, so I got to go home every day for lunch, have lunch with my wife and my little kids. And it was just a really fun couple of months because unfortunately the business owner had made some poor decisions a couple of years back. Financially, that kind of came to bite him when I was working there. So they ended up laying everybody off, going bankrupt just less than a year after I started, which was really a bummer. But the entrepreneurial bug had bit and I knew what a lucrative business model this was and I knew that I was good at it. And so I had another contact, kind of in this world, somebody who had been with the company early on in its existence and had gone to do other things that he and I met and he expressed interest in someday getting back in. But he had a non compete agreement with this company, right? So literally one hour after they laid me off and were getting ready to do the bankruptcy thing, I called this guy and said, hey, your non compete is about to not matter anymore. And so we just, we had about a two hour conversation on the phone, figured out what would it take for us to, to basically launch a similar business out of the ashes. And we pulled it off within a couple of days. It was crazy. We actually launched a new business out of my garage. He had basically the old customer list from the old business. He was in sales for years and years and so he knew who all of the big clients were. As the old business wound down, we noticed that they had neglected to do things like renew their website domain and their 800 number. So we got them and redirected all that traffic back to us. So we were able to hit the ground running. We had access to some money to be able to do inventory and all of that. And we just hustled for a couple of months. I had a part time job at another lab that I had picked up to kind of pay the bills in the interim after getting laid off. But I only worked four days a week at that other job. And so the fifth day A week I would build equipment in my garage that my partner was selling to people and we would pack it up and ship it. And I think the first full month that we were in business.

I personally made $12,000 in profit, which was a big difference from the lab chemist salary that I had been making before that. Right. So just very much, completely transformational step into business ownership. But of course there's always more to it than that, right? So what I can tell you is that within the first 12 months we had hit a seven figure run rate. Okay. And with that, I mean, the two of us couldn't do it ourselves. So we brought in, we actually ended up bringing in two other partners. We found some commercial space, had office space, warehouse space, got access to lines of credit from the bank, and we built a business around this whole concept and, and we did quite well for years. We worked together for years. But at the same time we were doing that, I wanted to learn, okay, if I'm going to be a business owner, if I'm going to be an entrepreneur, I need to know what the heck I'm doing. Because this was new world, right? I had read Robert Kiyosaki and I'd read Tim Ferriss and that was about the extent of my business ownership knowledge and everything else we were learning on the fly by making mistakes and failing. Luckily, my partner knew more than I did about this kind of thing, but I just needed knowledge, I needed to acquire skills quickly. So started listening to different podcasts really kind of around the E commerce space just because there were so many podcasts about that and that was interesting. So started kind of doing E commerce as just a side hustle, something that I had complete control over in addition to our full time business. And so through that discovered Ryan Moran, which is how you and I got introduced through his world. And I had a lot of sorting so many cool things about digital marketing and really how to build a business around a customer kind of in this online selling space. And, and I constantly tried to apply that to our quote unquote real business, right, that was doing seven figures a year. But my partners and I just didn't quite see eye to eye about how this business should be operated. We got up to a very comfortable run rate and then we just kind of stopped trying to grow because for them, they didn't want to take additional risk. They were completely happy to come to work every day, work 40, 50 hours in a job that they owned, and then just do that over and over. But listening to people like Ryan, I saw the value in being able to build a business that you directed but didn't necessarily work in. And so I was looking for ways to implement that kind of thing into our business and honestly, my partners just were not interested. So we kind of started to kind of part ways, dump diverge in what our goals were. So in 2019, we basically discussed an exit for me so I could kind of go do other things. 2020 accelerated this plan. We had a period in early 2020 where we hadn't had a customer in like four or five months, no revenue for four or five months, and we had a very expensive rent to pay on a facility. We had payroll, all of that. So things were getting very, very dicey. So, so I basically approached them and said, look, it makes no sense for me to spend eight hours a day here doing nothing when I could be doing this other stuff that's actually e commerce was j curving up in early 2020. So at that point I basically made the switch. My wife and I do a couple of different e commerce things. We have a subscription box business in addition to doing some things on Amazon. So we were able to basically band aid the loss in revenue to some extent. Just going full on into E commerce. And at the same time, I think without even knowing it, I kind of started doing this document your journey kind of thing. I started just talking more on social media about what I was doing in business. The things that I really liked to I guess put my attention on, which is really email marketing. I just, I don't know, I think it's because I really love to write. It is such a comfortable channel for me to communicate with people and I feel like I can have one on one conversations with people. But at scale, right, I can send an email to 20,000 people. And if I do it right, everybody who receives it feels like I'm talking directly to them. So as my interests and aptitude grew in digital marketing, I just started.

Helping other business owners, like helping other people, and was in thecapitalism.com paid communities as a student, but also acting as a resource for others. And long story short, for that piece, over the years my role has kind of been made official, I guess. So I am officially a coach inside of that community. That's how you know me. So really my passion is what I discovered I really love doing, is putting my skill set to work to help other people succeed. That is what I have the most fun doing. It is honestly easier for me to have a conversation like we did the other day. Like you mentioned, it is Easier for me to give some really good and insightful advice to somebody like yourself, who has passion, you have aptitude, you have a lot of momentum, and it's just a matter of kind of organizing it properly in your mind to see how it all fits together and then what the next course of action should be, what the eventual goal should be. That is more fun for me and easier than building my own thing, which is kind of. I don't know. It was frustrating early on, I think, but I think when I personally frame who I am and what I do as somebody who helps other business owners to, I think, form connections with their customers, but also with themselves. Right. That's basically what I do.

So, yeah, the coolest thing about that is from what you were saying from the beginning was that three weeks into the science career that you thought you really wanted, you realized you weren't fulfilled by that. And now I can see it in your face by you sort of just keep going one step and then another step and finding what you like. Now you're actually doing what really fulfills you, which is helping other people be able to form those connections. And I loved what you said because it's not only with their customers, but it is with themselves. Because when they can connect more to themselves, that's when they can connect even more to their customers.

Absolutely. And I kind of went over that. I said that quickly. But you're absolutely right. That is a critical piece that most people never even consider when they get into this entrepreneurship world. And anybody who's been in this game long enough will tell you that it is the most profound self development journey that they could ever imagine. But to be very good at being a business owner, you really need to understand yourself to a level that I think most people don't get to.

I love that you're speaking to that because as you know, I'm a little annoying about it. But I have the start of podcast challenge coming up and what I really am trying to tell people is by them going through a challenge like that, how this is when you're going to learn the most about yourself through being able to do the dares that I'm going to be giving them, and then that's going to help them really connect to themselves. So anyway, since you just brought it up, I just thought I would mention it is really why I'm so crazy about it, because it really is the best personal growth experience someone could go through as to be able to go through a process like that.

It is. And I love that you're doing a podcast challenge. Because I would say even if somebody doesn't envision doing a podcast for 10 years, right. The experience of doing a podcast for one year, I guarantee will change their life. So I know you don't believe me, but I consider myself an introvert. I did not turn on my webcam until 2018. I'm not kidding. I just. I was not comfortable with that. Speaking in public like this would have absolutely shut me down with terror. But just kind of as a. As a fun project with no expectation, I did a podcast with a friend in 2020. We just needed something to do, and it was just kind of this. We'd have cool guests on. It was like an interview format. And we were just.

Goofy as heck. We neither one of us knew what we were doing. It was just ridiculous banter, kind of sort of around helping other business owners overcome obstacles and roadblocks. And it completely changed my ability to do what I'm doing right now, to get in front of somebody who I haven't met before and have a very present conversation with them. I learned how to do that from just doing a podcast out of the blue, and that's a huge component of what I do every day now. I don't see how doing a podcast could not benefit you.

Yeah. And I love that you brought this up, because I think one of the things I noticed about you when we got to do that private session was just the attunement that you had for what I was doing. And you really, honestly have been one of the only people that have really gotten the core meat as to what's going on with me and why I'm either not doing certain things or why I am doing certain things. And I felt so. I think I told you at the end of it, I felt so seen by you during that session. And I learned a lot and then grew a lot. Know all that kind of good stuff. But I feel like the reason why, as we're talking now, I'm like, okay, I think I get why we were able to do that. It's because of you having this thing that you had to get over yourself. From not wanting to turn on your webcam to turning it on, having the skills, using a podcast, maybe as a practice for being able to do that. Now you can almost approach any situation, but because you had to overcome it yourself, now you're able to really see people in a whole nother way that maybe others can't, because it might be easy for them to do certain things.

Yes. Do you know what I think the. The trick is the magic bean. I don't know how to. How to do this, the right frame of mind, especially if you're coming into this terrified. Right. So somebody who is like, I don't even want to be the center of attention at my own dinner party. Right. I don't want to do a podcast or be on video and have this go out to hundreds or even thousands of people. The way that you step into this and end up not caring about that is find a way to be intensely interested in the other person. You need to care more about the other person that you are in the presence of than worrying about your own ego and what other people are going to think. You have to just set that aside. It doesn't necessarily go away. I think it does over time. I feel like that's gone for me now, but that was such a big problem when I started. When you're doing a video call with people, and this is embarrassing, I'm going to say this, but I'm sure I'm not the only one. But if you've ever been on a zoom call and you find yourself staring at yourself on the call instead of other people or the person that you're speaking to, it's because you care more about how you are perceived than about the other person in the conversation. And that is a recipe for disaster in a relationship.

Yeah. What's coming to my mind as you're saying that I actually was kind of like this, where I went to this authentic relating training, which is all about kind of getting deeper into connection with people in real life. And I remember we had to do this eye contact exercise where you had to look at the other person and. And not say anything. And I was so. This is before my podcast. It was so in my head about what they were thinking about me and whatever, all that kind of stuff. And then I remember you had to speak out loud to what that experience was like for you. And it was just a transformational moment. But anyway, it just made me think of how, I guess how far I came from not I no longer doing that, but I think it's so when you can get out of your head and lose those inhibitions and thoughts and self doubt and then it's able to just blood out of you, then that opens up your mind to do whatever it is that you want to do. And that's when the true world is there.

Yeah, absolutely. It's such a relief. It's so liberating when you realize that you don't need to Worry about what everybody's going to think and it's more fun. Right. What I'm saying is you don't have to necessarily work through all of that self doubt and self image stuff to be able to do this. All you need to do is just set that aside and to care about the person that you're speaking to right now. Put a hundred percent of your attention on them and what they're saying, trying to get into what they're ultimately, what they're thinking and react to that. Right. If it's in like a coaching call situation like we were in, then it's trying to make connections and offer insight, offer different perspectives. Right. But if it's just kind of an interview, let's say we were doing a podcast like we are at this very moment. My entire attention should be on you and the questions you're asking and just trying to authentically answer them and to share whatever I have that comes up out of this that's going to be of value to you, your listeners. And there's nothing of my ego that needs to be part of that.

Yeah, this is getting clipped, by the way. And I'm sure this with that, because so many people, it's so interesting. It's. The challenge hasn't even started yet and the group is already kind of talking and they're like, what about this? What about that? I'm sure you've seen it with the coaching that you do, all the questions people have and wanting to be perfect or wanting all these things and it's like.

Let it release. Just focus on the person and have a really true, genuine connection. And the beautiful part about it is the podcast actually brings the presence there. Right. Because there's no phone that can be on, there's no people that are walking by. You're able to really connect in a really beautiful, a beautiful way. And it actually helps you practice listening even more. I think too.

Yes, yes. And you just said practice. And that is important too. This doesn't just happen overnight. If it's a new thing. You have to practice listening because I don't think most of us do it. We're not good at listening because it's not how we operate. Right. How many times are we in a conversation with somebody and we're only half listening to what they say? The other half of our brain is formulating our reply right before they are even done speaking. We're thinking about the next thing we're going to say because we want to sound clever or whatever. Right. We want them to like Us. So it is. It is practice. It is practice.

What's your advice to people? And this is regardless what they're doing? Podcasts, new business, whatever that is, release that ego and that just desire to be perfect or to be perceived a certain way. How would you recommend people work through that?

What worked for me is to choose to care more about the people you're serving than about yourself. So if you are starting a business and you're worried about your landing page being perfect before you launch it, right. If your landing page is good enough, then launch it. Because if you delay, you are withholding your ability to help those people who need your help because of your ego, because you want it to be perfect. And there's no such thing as a perfect landing page. There's no such thing as a perfect offer or a perfect course or a perfect product.

This is the iPhone 12 or 14 or whatever. They didn't wait until they had the iPhone 14 before they released the iPhone. They just released the iPhone one. And it's changed a lot since then, right. It's gotten bigger and then they made a smaller one and then it's bigger again and they changed the. You know what I mean?

Yeah.

They just launched with something that they knew would be helpful and people loved it. And so then they iterated from there and just made it better and better and better. We can do that with anything.

Have you used that analogy before? Because I've never heard that before. That is.

No, I just made that up. My phone's sitting here next to me, so it is just top of mind, I guess so.

Good. No, it's such a good example of why that's so important, is just to get it out there. I actually had this happen. It was such a gift. I was doing the dating dare challenge, which actually came by accident when I had Covid. And all of a sudden I had the idea when I'm binge watching some TV show and all of a sudden I saw these dares. And that's how the dare idea sparked. And I put a few posts in one of the groups that I was in and people were interested and I had a hundred people before I even could blink, pretty much. So I'm like, okay, whatever. I'm going to start this thing with a hundred people. And I had asked them timing, and I'm like, great. I'm thinking. And it was, I think May or June. And I'm like, I think I'm going to do it in August. And then everyone's like, there was a lot of girls in the group at the time and they're like, no, we want our hot girl Summer. Do it sooner. And then I said, okay, I'll do it sooner, but I'm just gonna have to build it in public cuz I have no idea what I'm doing. It's just a beta challenge. And honestly that was probably the, the best thing that I could have done because then I did it sooner, probably two weeks later. It wasn't even created yet. It literally got built as I was doing the challenge. And actually that's how I do the majority of my challenges now, other than this podcast challenge. Cuz I have to be a little bit more specific with it. But it's really built in public. And I think that iPhone example is exactly, really a really good one for everyone to follow. Because when you're able to start something and then have it evolve and get better and better, then it's better than the people not having it at all.

Right. And it has to have some minimum level of utility, right?

Yeah.

If they had launched it and it didn't turn on, that's not helpful. So I think the question is, is it at the point right now where it is helpful? If the answer's yes, then launch it and then fix it later. Fix it as you go.

So if you're listening and you're sitting there and you're waiting for you to put out whatever that thing is, if it has some value and you're thinking it's good, then get it out there. Because whoever's on the other side of that is going to appreciate you doing it.

Yes. Here's a great podcast example. I don't know if anybody has listened to anything from Russell Brunson of ClickFunnels. I kind of occasionally sample his content. I like his books. That's pretty much it for me. But years ago I was looking to get more from him and I found a podcast that he had did I think it was called Marketing in youn Car. And he recorded just audio clips of just him brain dumping ideas while he was driving to pick his kids up from school, I think is the story. And he would just record it on his phone as he was driving and then upload that as a podcast. The audio was awful. I mean it was not good quality audio. And it's just Russell Brunson's random thoughts. And some of them were really cool and some of them were just rambling, you know what I mean? But he just did it and I mean uploaded hundreds of them and now they've got Like a whole podcast ecosystem. They have like multiple things now, I think. But he wasn't afraid to put something out there because he thought it would be helpful and he didn't care about how it made him look in terms of audio quality or lack of production quality, whatever. He's just like, I have this, this idea and I want to make sure people get it because this is going to help people.

Yeah. I think you're really speaking a lot to that ego. And it's funny you mentioned Russell Brunson. I just got his book a few weeks ago, Expert secrets. And what's crazy is the first chapter of the book is finding your voice, which that's the challenge that I did. And I just am listening to it now and I'm like, oh, my gosh, that's so cool. And then the marketing in your car. And that's one of the things. One of the weeks during the podcast challenge is going to be podcast anywhere. And so seeing that someone that built a billion dollar business started his career by just podcasting in his car as he's driving, like you said to. I didn't remember the specific. Picking up his kids. I just thought that was the coolest thing. But I do think a lot of it has to do with that release of ego and having it just be what it is, just to get it. The momentum going.

Right. Right. And I'm not saying to release crap into the world. I'm just saying make sure it's something helpful and then put it out there and have a desire to continuously improve it because it will better serve the customer, not because of how it makes you look.

Yeah. So I'd love to take it back to your story because you come from this, really. And I'm putting words in your mouth, but I'm just doing what the assumption is of what someone from the science background is kind of rigid and technical. Right. And then you're seeing immediately within the first few weeks that it's not for you. And you start reading these books and you're kind of opening yourself up to the entrepreneurial journey. But so did it take you 10 years before you ended up getting into that first business? Was it. Or was there something in between there.

That I kind of dabbled in various things. Right. So I didn't understand the concept of a business exists to help people, to solve a problem, to help them fulfill some desire. I couldn't figure out what that could be. Right. So I was more attracted to Robert Kiyosaki. He has some different things that he talks about. And advocates. And so I did a little bit of research into real estate, right? And when my wife and I bought our first house, we retained ownership of our condo to turn it into a rental property. Because I thought this is something that, that seems really smart. It's not a good idea to own a rental property when you're in the hole. 600amonth on it. That's not a good business. But that was my first business is a rental property that was 600amonth, $600 in the hole every month. So that didn't last long. We didn't maintain ownership of that for very long. That's not a great model. So I kind of dabbled just looking for opportunities here and there. The whole using the Internet as a money making tool happened during my lifetime, right? And so I had this awareness that people were using this new tool as a way to build a business. And I was fascinated by the idea. I had no idea how that was done. And then so maybe 2013, 2014, I kind of discovered the whole selling on Amazon world and early on what, basically what I was doing is arbitrage stuff, finding something at a lower price than it was selling for on Amazon, buying a bunch of them and then arbitraging them on Amazon. So I saw, I came into this by looking for opportunities, right? I think a lot of people do that. They see something flashy, something new. Crypto, ChatGPT.

Amazon private label in 2015, whatever it may be, right? There's oftentimes you can recognize an opportunity and then there's this desire or drive to immediately capitalize on it, right? But the thing is, is that usually when you recognize an opportunity as such, first movers are already in. And so if you want to do well there, you have to have some differentiation. But early on I didn't because I needed a cookbook. I needed a recipe of here's how you build a business and make money. So those are the kinds of things I was looking for, tried different things with varying levels of success, but there was really nothing that was sustainable until much later. And since then I've realized that if you want to be successful, you don't actually want to look for opportunities. You want to look for problems and then come up with solutions. Because if you identify a problem that you can come up with a solution for, then all the people who have that problem are going to pay you to solve it for them. And if it's a problem for them, that means that there might not be anybody else solving it yet.

You know what the Thing that's, I think, really cool about what you have done is by dabbling in these other things and losing the $600 a month and doing all that is that you didn't make it about you. Right. You took the lesson from it and then you were able to keep moving forward. What do you think got you to do that? Cause I think a lot of people might have stopped then and said, oh, this isn't for me. I'm go back to my science stuff and just been unhappy as you're doing it, you know?

Yeah, I wanted to figure it out. And initially, for the longest time, the desire the driver was I want to be able to just make as much money as I want to make. I don't want that to rely on what somebody else thinks my hourly value is. Right. So that was the driver. And so when something didn't work, it wasn't me throwing out my hands and saying, oh, well, making money outside of a job is impossible. It was more like, I understand why that works for some people and why it didn't work for me. And I understand how. Maybe I even see how that could work for me if I changed something and did xyz. And then it's like, that's. But that's not what I wanted to build. Right. So I have a fairly good idea of what it takes to be successful in rental real estate as a property manager or as a somebody who owns a bunch of rental properties. There's a couple different ways to make money in that industry. And honestly, I want nothing to do with. Doesn't interest me. None of those things are what I want to do every day. And so for me, it was see this opportunity. And then as I discover what's actually required to succeed, there's. Then there's a question of do you want to invest into this to succeed or not? And just for the longest time, the answer was, I don't want to invest because that's not what I want to do every day.

Yeah. So that's another really interesting thing about you is that ability to reflect on where you're at, even noticing it. Three weeks into that science job, from the very beginning, you noticed that it wasn't giving you the fulfillment that you wanted. And then through each thing, you're able to check in with yourself. But then you're also a high achiever. Where normally high achievers have this problem where they just keep moving through the fire, they're not able to look outside of it. How do you think you're able to do that?

I don't think I could reflect at that time like I can now. I can reflect back on it now and make it sound sensical. But at the time, that first job, for example, I looked around at the people who had been in that company for 20 years, and I knew that I didn't want to be them.

Yeah.

Right. It was very clear, how quickly can I get out of here? Because I don't want to end up like them. Right. They were disinterested, disgruntled, dead inside. I mean, it was one of those types of jobs. And it was very, very obvious to me very early on that there was no positive path forward for me there. Not something that would lead to fulfillment. None of those people were fulfilled. And so I just. I recognized it was just. There was not a lot of reflection there. It was just, I don't want this.

Yeah. You had a strong opposition to it, and that helped you kind of see what you wanted. Yeah.

Yes. I like that. And now I think having been on the journey I've gone on and looking back, that makes more sense to me. Now I know why that was so unappealing to me, and I know why I made the decision to get into it in the first place. It was just made from incorrect assumptions, from bad data, basically.

That's a science way to word it. No, just kidding.

It's funny. So in school, I'll tell you this, just because we're talking about academics.

Yeah.

When I did the college placement exams, like sat, act.

I don't say this to brag, but I feel like this helps people understand me. On the English sections, I got a perfect score.

Wow.

And then I got a pretty good score in science and math, but it wasn't perfect. So I've had this aptitude for language and writing and communication for my whole life. But I remember in high school thinking, well, how on earth do you make a living doing that? I know that trying to write novels is not a very high probability of success kind of thing. And so I just went. I knew I had aptitude for the technical stuff, and I assumed there was money to be made there. And that's why I went into it. But that's why I didn't like it at the very beginning. It was just kind of contrary to what I actually enjoy doing and what I'm really good at. And so if somebody had told me about copywriting when I was 18, I might have skipped the whole college track altogether and I might own an island at this point.

Right.

So it's just funny the data that we make decisions with. Why didn't anybody tell me about that? Maybe nobody knew. Maybe nobody in my sphere knew that you could actually make very, very good money doing nothing but writing.

Yeah, it's interesting when you say that because when I think of our time together and how you were able to, like I said earlier, see me, right. And what I was doing and, and kind of pull out of me what it was hard for me to verbalize and articulate. It's almost like you're doing that also when you're writing. You mentioned it in the beginning that that's what you like. You like that one on one connection with the email and how the person's able to see what you write and. But you're able to do it at a massive scale. So it's really interesting that that's a common thread with what you're doing now.

Turns out I'm an introvert that likes people.

Yeah, that's good. Well, it's good because you're getting to know yourself too and the things that you're able to do. I think we talked about this before because I'm an introvert too, but I. I need to have certain structure set up for me to really have my energy at a decent level. Otherwise it burns a lot if it's not. If it has no structure. And so I think it's important to really know that about yourself. Whereas some people might make it to me when they go to a party. Okay, I don't like parties. I'm not going to go to any more parties. Right. Instead of saying what didn't I like? What could maybe be different about it to make me like it more versus just shutting it down. Maybe keeping an open mind.

Yeah, exactly. It turns out I do like parties. As long as Everybody leaves by 8:30. There's my example.

That's good. I'd love to also talk about when you went and did that refurbishing laboratory equipment job, because I think a lot of people think when you are wanting to start a business or do something new, you have to burn the boats right away and do it full time. And I love that you kept that lab job part time because that at least helped you pay your bills while you're starting this new thing. So then you're not in this exhaustive state of needing to make it happen. I just, I'd love to have you just speak to that a little bit for people that might be wanting to do this, but they think they need to go all in and you really.

Don'T that's a great point. And I think that's a really, really important part of the story that I really glossed over. So right after the old company laid me off within 24 hours, I knew that this partner and I were going to try to start a new one. We needed some time to do that, we needed some space, but I also needed to keep paying my bills. I didn't know how long it would take to get this thing going. Right. And so the old business was in this business park and they shared a building with a laboratory company and we had even sold equipment to them. And so I knew the people in that company, we'd kind of just interacted a little bit and they offered me a job after I was laid off within I think two weeks. And part of me is tempted to just take it and forget this other thing. But I also knew from knowing the people in that company that that was not a long term plan for me. Again, I knew that I didn't want to be one of the people who'd been there for 20 years. Right. So, so they made me kind of a soft offer. And I went back and said, here's the deal. I don't want to be an employee. My partner and I are going to try to start another company out of the ashes of that one. So I fully intend to have that be. I'm going to put all of my effort into that. In the meantime, I know that you need help, and then you know that I can fulfill that role. So how about this? I'll come on as a 1099 contractor four days a week. You don't have to pay me any benefits. You don't have to pay my payroll taxes. However, here's my hourly wage and that is non negotiable. Right. And it was significantly higher.

So this is really interesting. People don't think to do this, but when companies hire W2 employees, they're taking on a ton of liability. It's hard to get rid of W2 employees if they're not working out. It's relatively easy to get rid of a 1099 contractor if you need to. So I was basically saying, look, we're just going to hang out together for a while. I'm going to do work that you need done. You're going to pay me a significantly higher wage than you would for an employee. However, my total cost to you is still less than if I was an employee. Right. So you kind of have to know the numbers there. But if you know roughly what they're Paying for health insurance and the 401k match and all that stuff. Right. Let's say that they just as an example, let's say they say, hey, we'll pay you $100,000 a year salary, all these benefits are added on payroll taxes is going to be another 7% on top of that. If you just come back and say, no, I don't want to be an employee, I'll just be a contractor, I'll work four hours a week and you pay me $120,000, no benefits. Most companies will take that. It's a better deal for them. Right. And it's actually more money in your pocket. You'll have to go get your own benefits and figure out all the tax stuff. There's stuff that you have to, that comes along with that. But that's the agreement I made with them. So I worked with them for five to seven months, I want to say. And then once our other business was going to the point where I had to get into it full time, I told the other guys, gave them my two weeks. They were sad to see me go, but I didn't try to deceive them either. It's not like I'm going to be here forever. It's like I will help you out for as long as I can, but you need to understand my main goal is to do this other thing.

I love that you didn't take the hundred percent security and you took the risk that you were willing to take and then you're also able to be honest to tell them what you needed. And so it just all pretty much worked out in the way that you needed it to because you were able to pretty much speak for your needs, but then also kind of COVID the risk in a way that made sense for you.

And I mean, to be fair, I also knew if the business startup had just completely fallen on its face, I probably could have renegotiated a full time salary deal. So that was always. I didn't want that option. I didn't want that to be an option, but I knew it was there if I needed it.

I'd love to hear what your number one piece of advice is for the listeners on doing the thing.

I think it's gonna have to be if you find somebody to do it for other than yourself. Sometimes that is the cheat code, right. If you're afraid to do it, but you're doing it for your family. Right. I'm doing this for my kids or I'm doing this for my, my spouse, my partner, for Some people, that is what's required. I think for other people, they need to say, I'm doing this for myself. It kind of depends on where you're coming from. But I will say if you have a ton of resistance, a ton of reluctance to just take the first step, try on doing it for somebody else that you deeply care about and make it for them. Right. You doing the thing is an act of service for somebody else and somehow that sometimes you'll trick yourself into doing things that you wouldn't necessarily do for yourself.

Yeah. And that's the ultimate external accountability, almost like a secret way of accountability. Because especially if you tell the person you're doing it for them too, then you're moving in that way. I think it's really. Even when I set a date for the challenges, it's like I know no matter what, I've got to do the date. And it's like this external accountability because I'm doing it for other people. I think there's some kind of, like you said, secret code to that too.

I think if you find yourself consistently breaking promises to yourself, that needs to be addressed, but a way around it is to make a promise to somebody else. Yeah. If you're less likely to break a promise to somebody else, then make the promise to them and do it for them.

To get started, please share with the listeners where they can learn all about you.

Okay. Certainly. I guess my current home base is emailmagic.com as you know, I do a lot of work inside of the capitalism.com communities as a coach. So many, many people know me from there. I also do a weekly newsletter and help people with marketing and mindset and stuff inside of email magic.

Well, thank you so much. This has been really wonderful. I love the way that your story has taken all of these turns and at any point you could have given up, but you kept going and to finding what worked for you and now ultimately finding what really fulfills you, which I think is really cool too.

Yeah. Thank you.

And for the listeners, do the thing, don't wait for opportunity, create it.