When You Should Not Grow Your Business

Hey, it's Mark Podolski, the land Geek with your favorite niche real estate website, www.thelandgeek.com. and I'm really excited for today's guest. We've been working hard to get him on the show and it's been a struggle, but now he's here. But before we talk to our guest, I'd remiss if I didn't properly introduce my co host, Scott Todd from Scott todd.net landmodo.com and most importantly, if you're not automating your Craigslist and Facebook postings, posting domination.com TheLand Geek Scott Todd. How are you, Mark?

I'm great. How are you?

Pulse is still normal. Respiration is fine. I'm excited to talk to our guests. Before we talk to our guests, I do want to remind everybody today's podcast is sponsored by posting domination.com TheLandgeek can always make more money, but you can't get more time. Automate it, baby. You like that, Scott?

I do. It's not just about automating. It's about breaking the algorithm that is holding you back from getting your ads to stick. So it's all in one.

It's all in one. It's all in one. Let's talk to Paul Jarvis. Paul Jarvis has shown people how to kick ass at the intersection of creativity and Commerce since 1999. Paul Jarvis is currently writing a book called Company of One, which is being published by Halton Mifflin Harcourt. He is the hardest working creative you'll meet. He's a designer, an author, a teacher, software creator and podcaster. He's written four books, built several software companies, and has taught over 10,000 students through his online courses, Creative Class, Chimp Essentials, and and grow your audience. He also hosts two podcasts, the Sunday Dispatches and Invisible Office Hours. As a trend buster and business strategist, Paul has collaborated with some awesome people and companies including Danielle, Danielle Laporte, Marie Forleo, Mercedes Benz, Microsoft, and Warner Music. His work has appeared in Fast Company, CNBC, Forbes, Newsweek, Buzzfeed, Lifehacker, and his writing reaches over 50,000 people every month. But finally, he is on a prestigious podcast, the Art of Passive Income Model podcast. Paul, you've made it. Congrats. How are you?

I'm good. Hey Mark. Hey Todd. Or hey Mark. Hey Scott. Sorry, sorry.

That happens all the time to him. That's what happens when you have two first names.

Yeah.

So Paul Jarvis, how do you become Paul Jarvis? Like, what happened?

Well, basically you become as unemployable as possible and just start to run lots of wacky experiments for yourself with your own income. And that's really like how it started. Like, I didn't want to be an entrepreneur. I didn't really want to work for myself. I just kind of lucked into it, I guess. I quit one job, I was going to find another job, and that didn't happen. And here we are, like almost 20 years later.

Well, you must love it though. I mean, you're so prolific.

It is pretty like, I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty awesome. Like, I really enjoy being able to sit in my underwear in my home office and get work done. It is a lot of hard work and it does. It can be obviously stressful. It can obviously be lonely as well. When you work for yourself and you work at home, you're by yourself. Like, I have my pet rats to keep me company. My wife when she's not working. But unless I actively work at relationships with people, I'm just sitting here by myself all day, every day.

Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about the books. Let's just talk about your current book company of one. What is that all about?

Sure. So I started out to rewind a little from that. I started out self publishing books. So I wrote, I don't remember, I think four. Whatever my bio said, I think I wrote four or five books and they did fairly well. I self published those. Then I decided, okay, I kind of. I get self publishing. Like, I don't know everything about self publishing, but I've sold like 70, 80,000 copies. It's been translated into lots of languages. I kind of got the gist of it and I felt like, what if I tried to traditionally publish a book which obviously has its pros and cons. So I found a literary agent, which I didn't even know what that was up until this year because I asked some friends who would publish books and they said, well, you need an agent. I was like, what's an agent? And then I learned and then I got a publishing deal with like you said, Hot and Miffle Harcourt probably about three weeks ago as of recording this. So now I'm basically writing a book with them. My editor, Rick Wolf, did Cal Newport's books, Altohanian's books, so he knows a ton about that. And really what the book is, the topic and the thesis is really, is growth always the best idea? And spoiler alert, it's not in business. So growing in all directions and always scaling everything from employees to expenses to infrastructure doesn't always make the most sense. And I'm kind of making a case for why that isn't the case, even though that's typically what business says.

But Paul, Scott, Todd and I love the 10x rule. We love Grant Cardone. We love Gary Vee. These guys are the religion of growth. They are the religion of big goals. Now you're coming on this podcast and you're stomping our ambition. Why? Why? Paul Jarvis?

Why?

So I think all those things are not bad goals to have, right? Like, all of those things are fine to have as long as they're questioned. Like, if you want to like 10x your revenue, but you don't necessarily want to have, like, the employees that it takes or you don't necessarily, maybe you don't want to spend the time that it requires on that. Maybe you want to spend. Maybe you want to have more balance, right? You, maybe you want to have more time with like, your wife and your kids or outside in the garden, as well as working and making money and hustling and doing all of the Gary, the Gary Vee things. But I think that there can be, there can be a balance and there can be almost like an enough. And I don't think that's talked about very often, especially not in the circles that you mentioned where, like, for me personally, like, I make enough money, so me making more money means I have to work harder, means I have to have more responsibility, means I have to do all of these things that I probably don't want to do. So I'm just not going to do it. Like, I already, I support myself. I have lots of things that I invest in. So I feel like there can be a question of, like, am I doing well enough to kind of not have to work twice in my 20s, like, I work 20 hours a week and it was, it was hard. Like, I had basically no light because I was just working. And then in my 30s, I, my body one, my body couldn't handle working that much. And as I'm almost 40, my body seriously can't handle, like, just sitting at a computer all day. And I wouldn't have any relationships. Like, I probably wouldn't be married if I didn't like, make, make time for my wife. It's funny how spouses want you to make time for them sometimes. So I think that there's a balance that needs to happen. Like, I think growth is fine as long as it's question, as long as it makes sense, like the checks and balances of growth, if that makes sense. To you, then grow in whichever means necessary. But if it doesn't, then maybe you can think like, okay, success might mean something different to me than it does to Gary or to Scott or to Mark kind of thing.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's, it's funny because, Paul, you are kind of preaching to the choir, at least, at least to me. But let's talk to Scott Todd, who is a massive Grant Cardone fan. Scott, is Paul Jarvis, you know, just a non. Not just, not just not ambitious. Like, what? Is this enough?

No, no, no. I do, I do think that. I do think there's, there's enough, right? Like, it, I think it all depends on what you want, okay? Like, if you, if you want the yacht, well, then you got to keep working towards the yacht, right? But if you're happy and content with what you've created, it markets the fisherman story, right? You know, like you, if you, if you're happy being a Mexican fisherman, going out in the water, catching a couple fish, feeding your family, enjoying life, there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with that at all. It doesn't make you, you know, it doesn't, it doesn't mean that you're like a terrible person, Paul. I would say too that the other thing is that, you know, just to grow, just to like, for growing for growth sake is in fact a bad idea. Especially if you don't have your numbers, right? You know, like if your business is out of whack. And I had that happen to me. So, like, Mark, I actually had a company that it was pretty large. I mean, you know, like it was self sustaining. It was. I wasn't working every single day. I was like that silent owner and people were running it for me. And I did well with one location. And then I opened up a second location and it's like the train, the train went off the tracks, right? The numbers on the back end weren't right and they were hidden from you on one location, but when you got to the second one, you really saw the imperfections in the model. Then it was like over. It brought the whole thing down, right? So just, just to grow, you know, just say, hey, I'm growing. I got another location. I think it's a terrible idea. You got to have your numbers right, too.

Yeah, I agree. And Paul Jarvis, you know, I think it's interesting that, you know, we do, you know, I think everybody kind of sort of understands that. We've seen the happiness studies, right? After 75,000 a year, incrementally Right. We don't get much happier. There is a law of diminishing returns with money. That being said, one of my favorite new shows now is Billions on Showtime. Right. So Paul, how, you know, and capitalism doesn't care about our happiness. Right. So Paul, how do we step back and actually dig deep and figure out individually what makes us happy, what is enough, and then go ahead and execute on it?

Yeah, I think that's a good question. And I think for what I've found, I've been doing a lot of research for this book and what I've found is that consistency is the best tool for truth that we have. Right. What I mean by that, and that's really the scientific method. So if we are unhappy at the size that our business is consistently, then something needs to change. If we're happy with the way that it's going, the way that is growing, the way that all the numbers are working out consistently, then things are, things are probably fine. So I think a lot of that comes down to just like, it's interesting because I think in Western society it's delegated to the realm of like hippies and new Agers with things like introspection. So actually thinking like, is this thing making me happy? Like, is this yacht, as Scott has 5,000 foot yacht, is this yacht making me happy? Do I need more yachts to do more fit? Like the story goes, like, do I need to hire more people to run the yachts for me? And then what I found as well is that in talking to people, a lot of times people are, they feel like they need to grow because that's what success means. And I think that there can, there can be a challenge there with introspection. So if I'm happy doing design, right, but and I grow my company and then I hire designers and then all I'm doing is managing designers, then I wasn't really introspective there because the thing that I like the most about my job was designing. And now I've grown my business to a place where I don't actually get to design because I have too much time spent managing designers or dealing with clients or talking to support and development. So I think that introspection is always the most important thing. And introspection comes from looking at consistency because that's where truth lies.

Well, what about the truth of suffering? Like for example, Scott Todd, when you first started land investing, right, There's a bit suffering involved with that. Do you remember? I remember it wasn't easy, right. You remember your first month and the yellow letters.

Yeah, it's brutal.

And then the feeling of, oh, my gosh, I've got so much. I've got a. I've got a timeline here where I'm going to be out of this job, right? I got to protect my family. There's a bit of anxiety, right, to protect your family. There is a huge. I mean, I wouldn't say a huge. But there is a learning curve. There's suffering involved. So what you come out of that suffering, and a good example is, you know, like, because we, you know, we're just coming off of Mother's Day, right? Every mother knows this. This feeling of I'm never having a child again, right? And then all of a sudden, the baby smiles and they forget all the pain and suffering they went through, right? And the swollen ankles and the hard nights and all that, because they just remember that last fact of love and affection and pure bliss of having this newborn baby. So are we discounting suffering in this process?

I think that's especially when you work for yourself and especially in the beginning, there's going to be suffering involved because you don't, like, hardly ever does somebody start out, like, instantly successful. Like, you don't open a shop and there's, like, lines of people. That's not really the norm. But I think what. And to bring this back to growth as well is I think that if you figure out a way to start the idea as small as possible and as quickly as possible, then you can kind of mitigate that suffering to just be a little bit like, if I was just starting out doing, like, if I was just starting a company, I wouldn't think about, like, okay, how am I gonna find. Like, I. Okay, I need to find office space. I need to buy a bunch of fax machines. Because this is, like 1989. I would think about, how can I help one person? Like, how can I find that first client and then help that person? I wouldn't care about infrastructure or even systems and processes in the beginning because that person would help kind of guide me into what it is that. That they need the most or what they value the most. Then I would get another customer, and then I would maybe buy a laptop after I've helped a couple people, and then I might, like, buy a desk to sit at, so I'm not sitting at my coffee table. So I think that there's. The way to mitigate that is to move somewhat quickly and just. Because I think a lot of people sit on ideas or they think that their idea has to be so big that they can't launch until it's big. Like, they can't. They need like 100k to launch their business. And I think that that also needs to be challenged, right? Like that. Like, maybe you can start smaller. Maybe you can start sooner if you start smaller, and maybe you can kind of build up as you go with that. So I don't know. Life is suffering. Like, really, life is suffering.

Life is suffering for sure.

And I can relate to that because, like, I, you know, like, I remember I was sitting in my office one day and I came up with this great idea, right? And it was. It was a big idea, right? Like, it was. It was big, okay? And I looked and I'm like, man, this is going to take a lot of effort. So I need, like, I started putting paper to it, right? Because I'm going to need. I'm going to need offices, I'm going to need people, how many computers. Like, I'm budging this whole thing out. Next thing you know, I need like a million dollars just. Just in infrastructure, just in, like, technology. And I'm like, well, how am I gonna get a million dollars? This isn't gonna work, right? And so it was an idea that was like, it went nowhere, okay? Like, because I killed it because of the million dollars. And now I'm thinking back, okay, so, like, let's replay that scenario. It didn't have to be that big. I didn't have to go that large. I could have done it in a different way and I could have, like you said, I could have gone to one company and solved that problem.

Applied.

My thesis or my thought process behind it, and then said, okay, well, did this work? If so, yes, and then I could expand it. But I think what happens is when you work for, like, in a company, you don't start off failing, right? Like, you don't start off small. You don't start off with this thing that says, I'm just going to try to solve this one problem because the company has already solved that problem.

Problem.

You're not having to start from scratch. And if you just give yourself permission to say, I just want to solve this one little problem and prove to myself this will work, then I can start the building of the snowball. But I wanted to scale, like, today, and it killed it.

Yeah. And Paul would say, why did you want to scale?

Right?

Because that's what you do, right? Like, that's. I mean, like, you know, all of a sudden, you know, you hear about this company and you've never heard about it before in your life. And Mark, I mean privately, before this call, I was telling you about this company that I read about, you know.

Like 30 year old billionaire Paul Jarvis.

It's Instacart, right? Like Instacart goes From foundation in 2012 to, you know, 2017, five years, their value is what, $3 billion? I mean in five years, 30 to 3 billion. Man, there are huge companies that are not like that. But you know what Mark, the thing is, is that the guy that created the company, it did read this. And it's to Paul's point, the guy that created the company because that's a shopping service, he went out and he bought groceries himself and delivered them himself. He didn't scale to having all these.

People do the work.

He went out, prove the concept and then start growing. And it's that foundation that he wanted that built that to a three billion dollar company.

Paul Jarvis, how do you reconcile all the, let's call it business porn that we read, right? So I pick up Fortune, I pick up Forbes, I pick up inc 500. And it is literally the religion of growth. Talking about how this 30 year old became a billionaire overnight, Instagram billionaire, you know, the valuation of Uber billionaire. And all of a sudden, you know, we start comparing ourselves to these guys or gals, right? Comparison is sort of like the thief of happiness. But we want to, you know, what was that phrase? Did you ever read Ernest Becker, the Denial of Death? Did you ever read that, Scott? I did not. I talked to immortality projects. We all have like these immortality projects, right? We want to leave something. How do you reconcile that, Paul?

Yeah, it's because we all want to have a legacy, I think, especially people that work for themselves. Especially because like I'm in software as well. Like especially with software you want to build that thing, right? There's also a lot of like with every story like that, there's this inherent survivorship bias where we're only ever going to read about or hear about the people that have done something exceptional, right? Like the Instacart story or the like Snapchat ipo, which then their stock, then it isn't doing that great. But like there's kind of this survivorship bias where we see all of these things and we're only shown positive affirmations of the goals that we have. So we only see like, oh, this person's made it. Well this person's made it because there are no websites or publications dedicated to the people who tried and failed. Whereas in our own lives we try and fail. Like pretty much everybody I know tries and fails all the time. I have launched so many projects that have gone nowhere. I've launched so many software services that didn't work out for the one that did work out kind of thing. So I think like you said, comparison is the thief of joy. And I think a lot of times we're comparing apples to elephants. Like, we're comparing one tiny speck of what we know about one person and their success to our entire lives. So we could be successful in some other way if somebody was looking in on us. And I think that it's important to kind of look at the, look at the difference between how we perceive ourselves versus how the outside world perceives us. Because typically it's incredibly different, right? So when we're looking at other people, how they. We might read like in Forbes that this person is a success, but maybe they've just gone through like a horrible divorce or maybe it took them 15 years to come up with Instacart after failing. Like, I don't know the guy's story, but like for anybody to get to that billion dollar, three billion dollar company, maybe they tried for 15 years. And a lot of times we think these successes are overnight successes. Like, oh, this person wasn't on my radar, hence they weren't trying anything. And then this person shows up on my radar because they're doing something exceptional. Therefore they just tried one thing and it succeeded. Therefore if I try one thing and it does not succeed, I'm a failure. And the logic isn't there. Our brains don't always have our best interests at heart to make. Like the worst mixed metaphor ever. Like our brains can talk us into some pretty screwed up stuff and it's not necessarily true. And I think that a lot of times we have to give ourselves little more credit or a little more time or be a little bit more resilient with failure.

Yeah, I agree. And a lot of times I think that's where a lot of unhappiness comes in, is just this sort of artificial timeline. Well, if I'm not this in 12 months, I'm quitting, right? Or I should be this. Or, you know, Scott Todd closed 197 deals last year, so I should close at least 90. Right? I'm doing the same thing as him. And then, you know, but you don't see all the other things. Like we take this handful of sand, we call it the desert, and it can make us miserable. Right. So how do we, how do we consciously reconcile the handful of sand calling it the desert sort of phenomenon where we can say to her, we can, we can lock out that, that voice in our head that, that's just beating us up and saying, you know, you should be better. You're not enough, you're, you're a failure. You know, your, your brother in law is a doctor. What's wrong with you? Right? Like, how do you, how do you block that out and be like, okay, this is good enough.

It's tough, like it's honest to God tough to do that. But for myself personally, the way that I kind of reconcile that is I'm a big systems and processes guy. Like, I'm really bad at setting goals for myself, but I'm really good at creating systems where I can, where I can. Like I said in the beginning, like, I can look for consistency, I can look for truth and consistency by running processes. So for example, writing, writing a book, right? Like I could think, okay, I'm not going to be a success until I'm on like the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Well, that is almost impossible to crack. And there are so many external factors to get to that outcome. So I think when we attach success to external outcomes which we don't have that much control over, it becomes a losing battle. Whereas if we focus instead of like the big, and I'm happy to dream big, but I don't want to tie my worth to that big dream. So if instead I start to think about, okay, what processes do I have control over that I can manage and run through? So in order to write a book, I have to write a proposal, I have to write an outline, I have to write it chapter by chapter. If I sit down and look at my to do list and it says write book, I'm going to be completely overwhelmed because I can't sit down and write a book. I can sit down and write a chapter outline, or I can sit down and write one chapter and then the next week write another chapter. And so if I follow a process, I basically win or I'm successful when I've completed that process outside of external outcome, outside of external anything, if I, if I set a process or a system for myself and I follow that, then I win. Whereas if I have this goal and I attach my work to this goal and it doesn't happen, I feel, I feel like a failure. Whereas, like, I could sell, say I don't make the New York Times bestseller list, but I sell like say 2,000 copies. And of those 2,000 copies, a couple hundred people read it and their lives are changed for the better. Or even if, like two or three people, their lives are changed for the better, then that kind of still feels like a win to me. So I think that we're, and this was from a yogic text, but we're basically, we're not entitled to the fruits of our labor. We're only entitled to the labor itself. So I think when we start to create, like, systems for ourselves that we can follow and then win by following them, then it removes this comparison trap or this thievery of joy idea that we have in our own minds.

Yeah, it's really sort of like this profound, almost like Zen, like, state that you're sort of espousing with the company of one. In a way, it's like for the Western mind, like, you can't determine, you can't control what happens externally. Right. But you can internally, right? You can certainly take a lot of joy and value in just the labor itself. And whether anyone buys company of One or a million people buy company of One, Paula Jarvis has no control of it, but you do have control of the process of sitting down, thinking about the book, adding value to the world. And even if it's just for Scott and I. Right, Great. Like, you'll send us a copy signed, hopefully see how I did that. Scott.

Yeah, it's good.

So good. So, Scott, like, how do we, how do we deal with the should factor? And I'll give you an example, right? This morning I woke up late, which I rarely do, but I slept in. And I thought to myself, I should be working out, right? I should be meditating and I should be, you know, doing this before, you know, I take the kids to school and I didn't do it and I felt badly about it. Right? How do you, how do we reconcile the should? Should. Should. I should be like Paul Jarvis, right? I should have. I should be writing a book and should have a hot Mifflin contractor all this. I'm already. Right. I have written a book, Paul. Right. But I don't have a literary agent. So how do we get over the should piece?

To me, that's, to me, that's where the goals come in, right?

Like the goal.

Writing down your goals and knowing where you want to go and then giving yourself the freedom to achieve them on your terms, right? Like, it's not necessarily someone else's standard, it's your standard. And if you have your goals in place and you know what you're trying to achieve, what does it matter if you do it first thing in the morning or if you do it whatever time you want it. You know, like you wanted to sleep in this morning or, you know, like you felt, you felt the desire to sleep in this morning. That's the freedom that you have bought yourself. You know, you've, you've purchased that right to do that through all your hard work. Right. It has nothing to do with what someone else's standard should be. In fact, you know, like, I'm, I'm, I wake up every morning, I'm like, man, I should work out before Mark does and doesn't happen.

Yeah. Yeah. So Paul, what's your should battle?

Pretty much everything. Like, I should be, I should be like, I should be pumping out more words per day. I should have, I should have reached a higher MRR for my software companies. Pretty much everything. Like, I am, I'm a weird mix of like, very ambitious, but also not very goal oriented, which kind of screws up my brain a little bit. But I think that it's interesting because, like, in looking at, I'm trying to remember the book. Oh, it was the Magic of Thinking Big by David Schwartz, who basically talks about like, successful people assume they're successful and go about proving themselves. Right. And I think that that's an easier mindset and it's a less harsh mindset than this, like, comparison trap. Like, if you just take care of you outside of other people. Like, if my software company is doing well to support myself and the developer, then like, what's the problem? If it's not like $500,000 mrr kind of thing? Like, if it's, if it's bringing us way more money than we're putting into it, then that kind of feels like we're succeeding. Or with the book. Like, I've already got paid a pretty big advance for that book. Obviously I still have to write it, but like, I've already kind of like I followed the steps that I laid out for myself with like getting an agent, her pitching it to publishers and stuff, and then getting an advance for it. So I obviously still want to make it good. I still want people to buy it. But like, the process thus far has been a success for me. And so it's just a. Yeah, it's just, it's weird. Like our brains don't always have our best interests.

Yeah. It's funny because my wife looked at me the other day and she's like, mark, why can't you just be. I'm like, because I'm always, I'm always, I'm always on to the my should task list. Right. I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna meditate. I'm going to try this new thing. But I have to be honest, I feel better when I do these things, actually. I don't feel. I feel badly when I miss a workout or I miss a meditation session. I feel anxious in a way. But I think she has a point. Like, I am a little hard on myself. Like, why can't I just be. Like, why can't I just sit in front of a Netflix movie and eat some Cheetos? I would never do that, by the way.

Well, my wife says that I'm really good at being on vacation for the first 10 minutes. The first 10 minutes, I'm really great at relaxing. And then after that, it's just a show.

So you can't be either?

No.

Can you be Scott? No.

In fact, like, my wife, Mark, at the last boot camp in Vegas, had spent some time there with my wife, and. And I was like, man, okay, I.

Got to do this.

I got. She's like, scott, what are you doing? Like, take.

Stop.

Like, I'm like, no, no, you don't understand. I got to do this. She's like, no, no, stop. I'm like, what do you mean? And she said, you know, it. It's okay. Like, you. You don't have to go do that. No one. No one says you have to. You're the one that says you have to. And I'm like, okay. She's like, you know. She's like, you know, you. You keep telling me, like, you want to go and get away, and then you go and you get away, and you're not getting away. And I'm like, okay, phone goes back in the pocket.

You know?

Like, it's like, it was good to have that accountability partner, if you will, that would call me out on that.

Yeah, my wife's my.

She calls you out, huh?

She calls me out all the time. And she's like, are you annoyed that I'm always calling you out on this stuff? I'm like, no, I need someone to call me out on this because I left my own devices. Won't call myself out on it. Right.

I went out on the boat the other day, Mark, and I was like, okay, I am going to not look at this stupid phone. It was Mother's Day, you know, like. And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to look at this phone at all. And then to make sure I didn't, I took off my glasses. That would help me to Read and to see, because I don't need them for distance. It's more close, a little bit of distance, but not. I can still drive the boat without them. And then I put on my sunglasses, which are not prescription. And then I couldn't see my phone. Right. Like, it was the greatest day ever. I couldn't read my phone. And if I needed to, I couldn't. I had my daughter and my wife with me. They could say, hey, go this way.

I find my best days are when I don't remember to look at my phone like I was two weeks ago. I took a helicopter up to some glaciers, and I didn't even think about. For the. For the helicopter ride there. I didn't even think that. I didn't even think about my phone. It was, like, sitting in my pocket, too. But I find that when I'm doing things that I'm really, really interested in or I'm just enjoying the moment or the present, then I don't. Like, I'm not even tempted because my wife does the same thing. Why are you looking at your phone? Like, why are you taking pictures of something all the time? Because I have a ton of camera gear. Just look at the thing. It still exists. If you don't take that picture and post it to Instagram.

Yeah. In a way, we, as people are losing the ability to focus. It's actually becoming a lost art, if you will, to sit and just read and just be. Because the phones are right there. You get that instant gratification to get that dopamine hit, and next thing you know, you're off the races and I'm looking at cat videos or whatever it is. So anyways, we're getting off topic here about Company of One and Paul Jarvis. So, Paul Jarvis, let's put you on the spot. You ready?

Yes.

Your mentorship. This. This podcast has been phenomenal. So I want to thank you. And, you know, I guess before we get to your tip of the week, is there any question we should have asked you that we didn't ask you?

That is a good question. I can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Okay. Maybe we have to come back. You know, you think of it. So tip of the week, website, resource book, something actionable where the art of passive income listeners can go right now, improve their businesses, improve their lives. What have you got?

So I didn't even mean to make this, like, the best segue in the entire world from the exact thing we were just talking about, because I had the tip before we started Recording. But the tip is Cal Newport's book Deep Work, and it's rules for focus success in a distracted world, which is exactly what we were just talking about. So I think that figuring out the. And I think that focus over a long period of time is like a muscle that you work out at the gym. So if you are addicted to social media or checking your phone all the time, you can't just will yourself into working for hours on end. You have to work at it. You have to kind of build yourself up to doing that. I think Cal's book does a really good job at showing why that's necessary, why that's valuable in any job, and how that can help set you apart in any job, because the more focused you are, the more efficient you can get. So I think that's probably, like, it's all the things that we were talking about, but written out in a really smart and. And good way. So. Cal Newport's Deep Work.

I read that book and it changed my life. I started checking email twice a day, and then I was really focused. And then I, you know, somehow I fell off the bandwagon and now I'm like, back to being my anxious, addicted self. And I go back and read the book again.

I gotta do.

Commencing shutdown. Yeah, I need to do it again. It was working for a while and now I'm a drug addict. I'm back.

There you go. Yeah, that's why I read it three times. Because it didn't. I loved it. And then it didn't stick for very long. And I was like, okay, this is like, there's no logic here. Like, I know this works and then I'm not doing it. So I had to read it again and then again.

Yeah, Scott, Todd, what's your tip of the week? Mark?

Maybe I'm blame this. Kept saying, like, look at your email. Look at the email. Okay, I'm not gonna take the blame.

Okay.

I got two tips, Mark. Two. Okay. But one of them is for Paul. Like, specifically because Paul said that, you know, no one gets to look over the mistakes. Right. And I did just see this website today. I just put it in chat too. It's startupgraveyard IO, Right? Like, they're keeping track of all the startups that have failed, basically. So maybe, like, learn from them. I don't know. Like, I just saw it come across, so I thought. I thought he might like that one. But my real tip of the week is. And I don't even know I can say this. Well, look, if you have kids, in the car. Turn it, turn down the radio. Turn, turn down however you're listening. If not, here you go.

It's.

It's automate that shit dot com. Mark, did you see this one?

I have.

Yeah, right.

Like, pretty cool.

It's little things that you, like, can do, like website screenshot, you know, just put in the URL and it takes the screenshot that you need and phone number and. And they're building more and more tools that will take things that you might need and automate it and just make it easier to automate your crap.

I love it. I love automation.

Me too.

You know what I find though? And see, I will talk about this. Another podcast is the reconciliation of process versus people. Right? Because sometimes I get so processes focused, I forget about the human beings involved. And that's. That's. Yeah, Paul Driver's just like, yeah, yeah, I.

That's why you have to swim, Lane.

Like, I teach well, I know. That's why I go to boot camp and learn all this stuff. All right, so my tip of the week is learn more about Paul Jarvis PJV. Wait, PJR. Pjrvs.com pjrvs.com Check them out. And you know, certainly pre order company of one. I know I am. Actually, I don't need to because he's gonna send it to me.

But signed as well.

And a signed copy as well. Because then I get to show my kids. I'm like, look what a big deal I am. I know the author. They're like, oh, dad, you're cool. So, dad, it's all about impressing my children at this point.

Hey, I went into. Because I guess I go into Wawa too often. The grocery store, Wawa, they know me. So now I walk in there with my kids and my wife and they're like, hey, Scott. Like, hey, how's it going? I'm like, you know, my daughter's like.

Oh, geez, Dad, I know. Scott's like known at first watch. They know his order. You gonna go with that egg white omelette again, sir?

I went there today, Mark, and I ordered and I ordered something different. They're like, wow, that's a change.

Yeah, it's bad when I order off the Drive Thru and Starbucks and they're like, so do you want that Americano too? Like, I'm always ordering my wife, like, they know the order. It's kind of cool. It's kind of creepy. All right, so I want to remind all the listeners the only way we're gonna get the quality of guests like a Paul Jarvis to come on the podcast is if you do three little favors. You gotta subscribe, got a rate. You gotta review the podcast. Send us a screenshot of the review to support@thelandgeek.com we're gonna send you for free the $97 passive income launch kit. Also, again, the podcast is sponsored by posting domination.com TheLandgeek Scott, you ready?

Let's go, Mark.

1, 2, 3. Let freedom ring Paul's face.

The whole time, he was like, what the heck is coming?

I thought it was gonna happen. Right?

Right.

Yeah.

Like, all of a sudden, we're gonna jump out in Paul's, like, computer. Hey, we're here.

I know. Paul's gonna call his agent. Never book me on that podcast again.

No signed book either.

Yeah, exactly.

I'll just sign Paul or Jarvis. Not the whole name.

You have to let, you know. Let freedom ring in there. All right, well, thanks, everybody, and we'll see everyone next time.