Mike Moll: The Path To Financial Freedom | The Tyler Wagner Show #1045

All right everyone, welcome back to another episode. Today we have Mike Maul with us, so welcome to the show, man.

Hey, thanks so much for having me, Tyler Wagner.

Of course, grateful to have you on. Uh, if you can just start us off a little bit more about you and what you do.

Yeah, absolutely. So I've been in the marketing space for the past 9 years. Started off kind of e-commerce when e-commerce was easy. And then when e-commerce got difficult, we went, we moved into kind of more of a lead generation space. And we've been kind of fixated on that for the past 6 years. So first 3 e-com, last 6 lead generation. So we work with audiologists, certain businesses in medical, and then certain businesses in home service. And then about a year and a half ago, I started having conversations with friends of mine who were trying to build up and trying to build something similar to what I was doing and just realized how much information and wisdom I had acquired over that period of time. And so I've started offering coaching, specifically working with marketers the past year and a half, and it's turned into my passion. It's the thing I care about the most. But I like having the agency kind of running at the same time, so I don't— I like not having to make money in the coaching business. It makes me be able to choose the right person and choose like the right relationships to move forward with. So yeah, I run both of those simultaneously.

Gotcha. Okay. And yeah, it seems from what I could gather prior, it seems like kind of one of your main expertise is like automation. Is that accurate?

Yeah, yeah. I love— I am a complete software junkie. I demo and try everything under the sun. And as much as I can, yeah, I put in processes and specifically automated processes as much as I can to free up my time and energy to do other things, mostly because I suck at administrative tasks and my attention to detail is terrible. So those things help me a lot.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. And I think, you know, I could definitely see your website, like speaking to a lot of entrepreneurs that maybe their brain doesn't work in that way because, you know, at least I'll speak for myself, like the reason I became an entrepreneur was for the freedom of it. And then I think this happens to pretty much every entrepreneur at first. And then the question is, do you, you know, get yourself out of it or do you stay in it? And what that is, is you essentially create yourself a job without realizing it. And then from there, you can either, you know, fix it through software, hiring people and get yourself out of the business. Or some people stay in that spot, uh, forever, right? Because, you know, look, in that spot you can do 6, 7 figures, but you have essentially created yourself a job, and it's not really the freedom that you had, uh, seeked out in the beginning. Um, but, you know, that's kind of cool. So, like, because I saw on your website, one of the things is AppSumo. And I guess AppSumo, if I were to think of their model, it's— that's basically what it is, kind of what you said, is they try out all these, um, software things and then they present you deals on them. So just a question, like, what are some of your favorite softwares out there?

Great question. So the one I'm like addicted to right now, I'm actually like, I'm actually in the process of seeing if it's going to become another little side business is there's a program called SalesPipe, P-Y-P-E. That is, that has a tool called Lead Finder inside of it. And you can actually pull little neighborhoods of places in the United States, and they have somehow aggregated name, address, home value, email, phone number, income level, credit score. It's a terrifying amount of information. And we've actually validated the emails and phone numbers for accuracy. And it's about— phone numbers are 96% accurate and emails are 86% accurate. So I'm like, okay, why don't we just build this out for a bunch of different cities and sell it to mortgage brokers and real estate people? So this is like a toy I'm experimenting with. But in my core day-to-day, I'm obsessed with Calendly because I don't want to go back and forth having conversations about time.

I love Calendly.

Yeah. Yeah. We use Slack, but very lightly. I don't use a lot of integrations, but it's just quick and easy business communication. Loom. Loom is my absolute favorite. I hate getting on 15 to 30-minute meetings when you could just record a 5-minute explanation of what you want. Um, you know, Zoom is fine, but Zoom is pretty essential. Uh, you know, I'd say those are my go-to. And then I use— I've been using GetResponse, um, which is like, um, you know, an opt-in to a page, deliver a lead magnet, email drip, etc., etc. And it's been good, but I find a lot of the all-in-one tools that think they're amazing always fall short in one specific way that you really want them to actually work. And so we found a couple of flaws, but I've never found a product that does it all that I actually like. So we usually cobble together with Zapier or whatever integrations. It's, it's better to have something that does it exactly the way that you want, even if you've got to put 5 things together and Frankenstein it.

But yeah, no, no, Zapier is, is a lifesaver for sure. Dude, I'm a huge Loom fan. I saw every time I show people Loom, if they just like if they just try it and start using it, always like 2 weeks later, like a month later, they're like, dude, you changed my life with Loom. And I'm like, I know, dude, it makes things so much easier.

Yeah, we use it both for internal comms and external. So with our marketing company, what we do is every other week, each customer gets a 40-second to a minute and a half long Loom video with like in their dashboard, in their ad account being like, hey, just so you know, here's what we're seeing with this. We've made these tweaks and it like, they feel like they're getting like a live update from someone. They feel so integrated into a process. And it's actually been an amazing customer retention tool for us, just sending a biweekly video with like, hey, here's your stats, here's what we're working on. This is great. This is, you know, something we're trying to fix, et cetera. And people love, they feel so involved in their campaigns that way. It's been great.

Yeah, no, that makes sense. I do it. Yeah, I use it with clients internally as well. Outbound too. So I agree. And I'm curious if you've ever run into this. I'm just curious. So it's very rare, but with Calendly, sometimes when I send people, I have it like embedded into a— well, my whole team does— into like links on our core website. But when we send it, sometimes like people that are a little older, they'll respond back and they like take it as like kind of like insulting or something. They'll be like, just, do you have this available? And I, and I'm just like thinking to myself, I'm like, dude, just use the freaking link. Like what don't you get?

Yeah. I have, and I usually just like, I, so two answers to that. Like one, I have a, I've had a personal assistant for a very long time. It's not something I deal with. They deal with it. So, but for me it's like, just, just fuck off, adapt to the technology. And for me, I'm very fortunate. Like I have a very small team that works fully remote. We've always been fully remote for the past 9 years. I have a super small team. Like, I don't need a lot of clients. I don't need a lot of revenue. I'm like very comfortable, very happy. So if someone wants to be a pain in the ass, I'm just like, take it somewhere else, man. Fuck off.

Dude, I'm with you. No, I literally like, if it comes from a referral, like I'll always respond. So, 'cause like, I don't wanna damage that relationship, but if it's not, then like I have, I'll respond, but I'm just like, in a few instances I responded and just be like, hey, I don't think we're the right fit.

Yeah.

Like if you can't pick a time on a calendar, then like, I just, you know, I just don't know. We're probably not.

Yeah, that's it. Yeah. And it's bigger, bigger than like all of it. It's like, if you— it's not even to do with adaptation of technology. For me, it's like, I want you to get the best experience, the most convenient, the fastest, the best for you. And so if you can't do that one thing, imagine what it's going to be like when we're working together and we need to have like regular meetings and we have to send documents and we're trying to live edit shit on Google Docs. Like, none of it's going to work. Oh, you want me to like, oh, do you want me to like send it as a PDF? Is that how you'd like me to like, what? So yeah, I think it's like cutting off the people that aren't willing to adapt to technology more than it is anything else.

Yeah, no, definitely, man. I agree. And actually I'm thinking of one because our main thing is like books. So we had one guy and he actually wasn't even that old. I think he was just in his 40s. And which to me is not old at all, to be very clear. But regardless, he normally, you know, with a rough draft of a book that's ready for editing, you send it in like a Google Doc or a Word or Pages, whatever. He wanted to mail the like pages, like mail it. And I'm like, dude, no, like we're not. And then what am I going to do, like scan every page or are we going to like retype it? Like I was like, just send the— what did you type it on? Just send that. And he refused to do it. So I was like, all right, we're not. We can't work with you. I don't know what to say.

Yeah, that's crazy. I know.

I was like, I literally don't know what we'll do with those pieces of paper. Like, we're not going to retype this. That's crazy.

No, no.

So, um, so question for you, what is the, uh, in the beginning, let's start even before that actually. So it seems you have, before the coaching, you have maybe a main core business that's pretty automated, but before that, what were you doing before that then led you to the core business that kind of based on the way you've been talking, it seems that kind of handles— pays you enough for all of your basic needs and luxuries that you want in life. What was before that that led you to that company?

Yeah, misery and a nervous breakdown.

All right. Yeah, these are the stories.

So I, I was, I was a terrible student. The concept of me taking information in one place and regurgitating it somewhere else in an accurate way, just like never fit in my brain ever. I got through high school with almost like a D average. I went to college for one semester. It was a complete failure. And so I went into sales because I had already kind of been in sales and I had been somewhat entrepreneurial as a kid. But then I had this feeling like selling flooring for the rest of my life with the people that were around me, I'm like, this isn't me forever. So what does that look like? And I panicked because I didn't know, I didn't have entrepreneurs around me, I had no influence around me in that way. And I just thought I got an opportunity to work for an insurance company. I'm like, ooh, big kid job, like salary, vacation, stability, all that stuff, right? Benefits. And so I took a job in insurance and I like sped up the rungs. I worked there for almost 6 years, just under 6 years, and I kind of sped through position to position to position, raise, raise, raise, next level, next level, next level. Like it was almost kind of a game. I was like, oh, you just need to be super aggressive and better than everyone. Like if you work harder than everybody and then say like, pay me more than everyone else or I'll just go somewhere else. Like they just, they have to respond to it. So I did kind of manipulate my time there and, you know, I kind of felt like the king of the world, but there was this nagging feeling in me like, good, you're winning this losing game. Like you're not doing anything that you enjoy. And one morning I pulled into the office, just before I hit the 6-year mark, and I was making more money than I thought I could ever make, home office, company car, 4 weeks vacation, like the whole thing, right? Like the, you know, you made it kind of feeling. And I just started bawling and my body started like aggressively trembling. Like I couldn't even open my car door, I was shaking so hard. And it was just this huge sign of like, It's caught up. You're in a marriage that you hate. You're in a job that you hate. You feel stuck. You don't know where to go. And we're done. We're not doing it anymore. My body just reacted in a very violent way. And after that moment, I just knew I had to leave. And so I quit on the spot, even though my wife talked to my dad and my wife and everyone was like, no, no, find another job. You know, get something first before you make any drastic moves. And I just like, I was like, you know what, you guys are all right. And the moment I closed the car door, I'm like, I'm done. There's no way I'm staying here. So leave that job. 2 weeks later, I'm in my backyard with a friend of mine, and we start talking apps. So this is back 2012. So apps weren't like, it was like, you could make a business out of apps, still wasn't as saturated. And we came up with this concept and like, spun up a business, started developing it, started selling advertising space. And what we learned during that process is a couple of things. One, we have no idea how to run a software business. Number two, developers are extremely expensive when you hire them from Canada. And so we were selling advertising to basically feed the business so that we could keep building. And after about a year, we kind of all saw the writing on the wall of we couldn't build fast enough, it wasn't doing what we needed it to do. So I had started offering marketing because I had learned so much in that year of selling and spent a weekend on YouTube running Google Ads. I was like, seems easy enough. And back then it was that easy. It was so simple back then. And yeah, I kind of convinced all of the customers who wanted to buy ad space to let me do Google Ads. And 3 of those customers I had up until very recently. So like 8.5 years I had them for. So really successful right off the bat. And they bought in and believed in it. And we did really well and got them some good results. And so then I started building just the advertising business on its own.

Gotcha. Okay. And then, so the advertising business, that's like the core business. Okay. And that, what does it all encompass today?

Yeah, so now it's way simpler than it used to be. We used to, you know, we used to poke in and out of services and, hey, maybe we'll do content, maybe do email marketing, maybe we'll do social media. And I just, every time we brought on something that we're like, we can make more money by expanding our service, um, it all did the same thing. It all just kind of like slowed down the process, made us a little bit more miserable. Like, it just wasn't right. And so when we really, really, really bought in and said, okay, we're we're gonna use Google Ads, we're gonna use Facebook Ads, and we're gonna generate leads for these types of businesses and that's it. When we committed to that and went all in on that, it was just kind of like, you know, that's when I started generating real freedom for myself, 'cause it was like, here's the system, follow the system, get the project manager, get the ops person, get the media buyer, and then just like create dashboard. I mean, we just, we really oversimplified it. And now that we've just stuck to, those offerings, it's made the business an absolute pleasure to run.

Yeah, that's awesome. And what's it like? So I use Basecamp. Do you use a project management system, I'm assuming? Have you?

Yes. Yeah, I haven't logged into it, I don't think, in the last 2 years, but Asana is what we use.

Oh, okay. Yeah, that's the other name.

Yeah, I think it's pretty similar. And for us, because the service is so similar from business to business now, it's like, there's very little that actually goes into it other than if like, hey, we're launching this new customer or hey, we're launching like a completely separate campaign for an existing customer, then yeah, then there's those pieces. But otherwise it's like, you know, make a couple touchpoints with the customer, make sure they understand what's going on, monthly report, you know, quarterly personal check-in, and then kind of every 6 months do a business review. And outside of that, like they're just happy and they just keep paying. So it's been amazing.

Got it. And then if you don't want to dive deeper into it, you don't have to, but I did catch that you said with that breakdown, you said that it wasn't only the business, but it was the marriage too. So like, did that end as well, or what happened there?

Yeah, sure did. That was— so that relationship started off the tail end of a long-term relationship. I'm half convinced I decided to move to Vancouver from Toronto So I kind of told my company, I'm like, hey, you're going to transfer me here. And then they did. But I met her in a time where like I just didn't know myself. I was in my early 20s. I didn't know myself. I didn't even know how to think about who I was and what I wanted and what my preferences were. I was just on autopilot and I was drinking too much. I mean, I wouldn't say alcoholic, but I was like drinking on a regular basis and I just, I was letting life go, like just pass me by. And so met this girl and we hit it off and we fell pretty hard. And what should have been the first red flag was like, I was like, I don't want to live in Vancouver anymore. It was almost 2 years. I want to go back to Toronto. And she said, well, I want a bigger commitment before I would move. So we got engaged before we moved back, but we got engaged as a function of something that wasn't, you know what I mean? It was just like, oh, this is the next. And so everything beyond that was just like, oh, the next step is to to do this, and the next step is do that. And my brain was turned off at that time. I was not self-aware at all. And we ended up getting married, but within 6 months, we both had this realization of like, we're not in the right space. Maybe we shouldn't have done this. So we were both aware of it and it ended amicably. We figured it all out. But yeah, but it did it did go on for longer than it should have. So there was a lot of just like, you know, it was this like uncomfortable thing in the home. Um, I wouldn't even say we were— we weren't even really fighting. It was more just like we were completely straight. We were just strangers living in the same space.

That's why, like, not funny. I'm just saying. Yeah, no, no, kind of interesting to like think about that dynamic.

Yeah, and a lot of people go through the like, we're gonna fight about everything phase. We just like to the point where we just like didn't give a shit. And then we were just like existed in this space and like shared our revenue, but like there was nothing there for a long period of time. And so yeah, that kind of coincided with like, I was like right at the tail end of that when I was quitting. And so it was tough.

It was tough. Gotcha. Yeah, that's a lot in a short period. But no, I can actually, I mean, never been married, but with a girlfriend that I'm thinking of, where it just became a place where like everything was kind of passive-aggressive. Like we never confronted anything. And then what would happen is like 3 months down the road, like she would look in the silverware drawer and like the fork was in the spoon aisle and she would just be like, all right, enough, like I can't take it anymore.

Yeah.

And I was like, all right dude, it's not— come on, it's not the actual fork. Like there's other things, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Um, but um Oh, I wanted to tell you real quick, just because funny fact, I actually lived in Waterloo for 6 months, which I'm sure you're familiar with. So I am, when I dropped out of college, I interned up there, a guy named Jason Gaynard, he had a conference in Toronto called Mastermind Talks. I don't know if you've ever heard of it, but I, but yeah, I lived Waterloo for 6 months and that's why I live in Miami now because I experienced the winter in Canada, which is something I do not recommend for anyone.

100%. Yeah, I've been, I've been, I've been, I went the global citizen route and I've been, I've been out of country for 2 and a half years full-time. Yeah. So I don't, I don't do winters anymore either.

It's not— dude, I can't. And I have to say, I do— Toronto as a city, really cool. Um, there's kind of like, I remember we would go to a lot of these, I don't know if they're called speakeasies, but there's like a lot of like underground kind of like restaurants and club scene there. It was cool.

Yeah.

So, uh, what I wanted to ask, just as we're getting closer to the end here, is like any, um, and you don't have to share their names if you're not able, but I just find, uh, for a lot of the listeners, the feedback we've gotten is like stories of like people that were here and then they used your services or, uh, took your advice and then they had like a transformation. I just think stories really help people to like understand what's happening and what they can achieve. So is there any stories you could share of like clients, or even if it's just friends that you helped with what you're kind of a master at, let's say.

Yeah, you could share. Sure. Yeah, I just— I got one of the most heartwarming audio messages of all time about a month ago, so I'll share that. But I— and I texted her back and I'm like, I love you. If this was a video, I would love you more because I could use this on the website.

Oh dude, I'm the same way. Video.

But yeah, so I, you know, it's funny because I've got, you know, these lead magnets and I try and make them as like helpful and useful and robust as humanly possible. 'Cause I've had so many where you download it, you're like, this is a total piece of shit to get my email. Like, what was the point? So I'm like, how can I make real impact with these things? And it was so funny. So I'm on this, I'm on a marketing podcast. I share my lead magnet. My whole thesis is someone will hear it, hear my story, like resonate with how like they wanna run their businesses in the same way, which for me is a lot, is a lot about like the balance, right? Like, I don't want to work more than 60 hours a month. I do not want to do it, and I don't. Um, I want to make a certain amount of money and be comfortable. Like, I've, I've hit the thing that I've been trying to hit, and now it's like, how do I make it a little bit more profitable? But it's been, it's been really, really good for me. And so people that resonate with that approach and that story— and so this girl Daniela heard me on a podcast, downloaded my lead magnet, 2 days later booked a call with me. So I was like, oh, my funnel is perfect. You know, I will admit that like she did that and then it was like, you know, 45 days before the next one came through. I'm like, oh, they're just going to be flowing in now, you know, no other podcast then came in for like 2 months. But anyway, talk to her about where she was at. So she does SEO for the cannabis industry and she was kind of in that, you know, I'm making $14,000 a month now. I'm doing all the work myself and it's like, it's fine. I don't have a lot of overhead, but I don't have any time. And what, what her fear was and what she had experienced is if I were to bring on 3 customers tomorrow, I'd be buried. And I have no idea how I would service them and do a great job. So like, what do I need to do to be prepared to actually grow? Right. And that's kind of like my, my sweet spot. So what we did is we kind of worked on, you know, number 1 is usually how do you talk about your product? How do you price your product? Most people have no idea how to price their service. They do it based on their, you know, internal feelings about what they feel that they're valued at rather than like what the product can actually do for someone. So that's a huge problem for a lot of people. So, but it's like, you can't just double your price and go sell it because if you don't believe it, if you don't have the buy-in, if you don't understand why it's worth double the price, if you go to sell it, you're gonna fall flat. And so it's about like changing the frame of mind around like the, you know, how do I triple the price and believe that that should be the price? And how do I, how does that make sense going into a sales thing? Anyway, so we worked together for 6 months, kind of building the product, building lead flow. We were using video outreach on LinkedIn and that was getting her a bunch of meetings and stuff like that. And so anyway, I, we stopped working together after 6 months, 'cause she was like, you know, I've, gotten myself close to where I want to be. And I think I'm good to keep going on my own. And that's perfect. Like once you don't need your coach anymore, you move on to the next thing. Anyway, so about a month and a half after we stopped working together, I got this voice note being like, hey, just wanted to let you know, um, I'm not afraid of sales anymore. I went back cause I was, she was recording all her sales calls and then I would give her feedback on like, okay, here where you said this, try saying that, or like try to have this more prepared or try and And it was just basically like feedback after feedback, after feedback on her sales calls. And it was just this like, I'm not afraid of sales anymore because of like, we, I have a process. I'm comfortable in the price. People get the results. Like, I'm good. And she was like, you know, I just got to $40K recurring, hired 2 people working like a very small amount. And she's like, that was the thing that like, I didn't think I'd ever be able to do or be able to get to. And I was just like, it melted my heart, man. Like I, I was so, I was so, so, so happy to hear that. And for me, because I came from a place where I felt stuck, I felt like I have nowhere to go. I have no education. No one would take me on. Like, what am I going to do except for be miserable working in these big companies forever? To create the thing that I'm now teaching, like, I love it for me because I'm so much happier. I'm so much more of a complete human to be doing the thing I should be doing. Whether that's the coaching or the agency, both things are good for me. Um, and to be able to, you know, help people get to that was— it's just, I, I'm really passionate about it. I love it.

Yeah, dude, that's awesome. So, uh, so another question I want to ask, because we focused a lot on business, um, the feeling, uh, well, feeling plus just data collection from hearing you talk, it seems that, um, you, you're like very well-rounded. So like, it seems like you're not very um, like caught up in like more is better, right? So like you kind of had your goals and you, you could honestly probably be making more money right now, but it doesn't really matter to you because you've hit whatever you hit and it's good for you. So my ultimate question is like, what, what do you do outside of work? Because it actually seems like work is a kind of, uh, it's an impactful part of your life but an actual very small time part of your life.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I, I have an obnoxiously long morning routine. So coming from, you know, part partially my therapist, partially my business coach, like really helping me accelerate the like finding out about me and what I care about and what, like, what, not even what motivates me, but like, and not even purpose because that's a dangerous word too, but just like how I want to spend my energy and giving myself permission to spend my energy that way. Because I was always like, you have to work as much as humanly possible. I was stuck that way for so long. So, so I put so much of my self-worth in how many hours and how much money I could make for a long time. And I realized like, I don't actually care about it. And so morning routine is like, I get up around 5:30 with my cat. Her name's Taco. We sit out on the balcony and watch the bugs and look at the dogs. Um, have a coffee, stretch. Um, I read every morning, I journal every morning, I do math puzzles every morning. Um, I usually go out for coffee and listen to a podcast for a bit. I work out. That's like usually about 3 hours. Um, I work from 11 to 2 or 11 to 3. Lately it's been a bit more aggressive because I'm trying to build up some new things. So I'm actually like, ooh, these 6-hour workdays are killing me. But yeah, I mean, I think so working out and like just overall, like Maintaining health is really important to me. I've been training in jiu-jitsu, private jiu-jitsu lessons. I plan on living in kind of Latin America, so I take 4 hours of Spanish per week. I do jigsaw puzzles. I listen to a lot of ebooks. I write. When I was living at the beach, which I'm not right now, but I'm moving back to the beach soon, I used to just like go early in the morning and walk for an hour, hour and a half, and just like Feet in the sand, uh, you know, surfing. Uh, I was singing for a bit. I have like a lot of like random just skills that I pick up. Like I learned how to crochet, uh, like a lot, you know, just like dumb things that you like would never think that you'd ever learn, but I'm like, oh, and I don't participate in them. I just like learn them and I'm like, cool, now I know. I'm done. I kind of bounce, I bounce in and out of hobbies quite a bit, but it's fun. It's kind of, you learn things about yourself and you learn things about the world by doing things that aren't in the norm. And so I really like finding those things.

No, that's awesome, man. There's actually like, um, sometimes I'll just do something to just prove to myself that I can do it and there's no— I have no desire to compete with others on it or anything. It's just like, all right, cool, like I can sing. I just wanted to make sure that it's possible, you know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. A couple years ago I was like, I should know how to say the alphabet backwards. Let's figure that out. You can do it like really quick? It took 9 days to do it.

You don't have to do it right now, but I think—

I think it— I haven't done it in like a year and a half, but all I did is I wrote it out on a piece of like a Post-it thing, and I put it on my door of my apartment. And anytime I went outside, take out the garbage, go to the beach, anything, I read it. And literally within 9 days, I was like singing it down the street. I like knew it really well, but I Yeah, I can't remember if I know it now. I could probably get pretty close.

No worries. But no, and then the other thing too, I think, and you can probably relate to this, is with the walking. Like sometimes, like an hour walk is very typical for me, but sometimes on like a Saturday or Sunday, I'll literally go for like a 4-hour walk and I will just, I will walk like from like Brickell, the city of Miami, if you're familiar with it, to the beach. Like it's kind of a far walk. So regardless though, like, what happens on those walks, not only is it good for like physical health, but for mental health, man, I think it's actually like, if you're trying to solve a problem, sometimes it's best to just close the computer and just walk, and the literal answer, like, you'll— your brain will solve it itself. Like, it's crazy. So I guess I'm bringing it up, but I'm curious, like, what's your reason for the long walks? Is that something that happens for you you too, or?

100%. And I will often not take my phone with me.

Okay, gotcha.

So I will often just go in silence. Yeah, sometimes if I like— so there's two things. I like getting lost in cities. When I was living in Lisbon for a bit, I would just put on an ebook and go until my legs couldn't take me anymore. But I do like, especially when I have access to the beach, I leave my phone at home so that nobody— because the problem is, And you know this as an owner, as a whatever we call, whatever we're gonna call ourselves. I'm not a big label guy, but like, you know that there's always shit waiting for you to do no matter what, no matter how much you've built it up, how you're just managing it, or there's always decisions to be made, things to be done. Like you're, the idea of like you not ever having a job as a business owner, it's not possible. You can remove yourself from like the busy work of it, but like, it's always on your mind and there's always stuff going on. So I've been trying more and more, like now I would say that 75% of my day my phone is on do not disturb. It does not make noise, it does not put up alerts, it does not do anything. Um, and I've gotten to the point where, yeah, I tend to just like leave it at home for a couple hours at a time now. And it's been really nice.

Yeah, dude. So that we're similar there. And actually, but I'm going to beat you on this one. So my phone is 100% of the time on do not disturb, 100%. I don't mess with it. Like, and what I do is I just like pick pockets where I'll just check everything, right? And then if I have a missed call, I'll call the person back. And like, I have my mom, brother, and dad on like the, um, there's a way you can set it where they're emergency contacts so they can like get through. Um, but other than that, man, no lie, 100% of the time.

Amazing.

Because I just don't want to be like, I don't know, I just, it's too much. If you, if I didn't have it with all the apps, and I'm not saying I'm like popular or something, I'm just saying like my phone would go every couple minutes. Like, yeah, you include Facebook, Instagram, everything, dude, it would never end.

Yeah.

Um, so, um, oh, I was gonna say something else and I lost it. Dang it. That's all right. Um, I had one other thing I was gonna— what were we talking about right before I mentioned?

So the do not disturb and walking and the value of walking, and then I, I did—

I lost it. It's okay. If it comes back, I'll let you know. Um, so I'll leave it, I'll leave it to you. If it comes back, I'll ask it, but Was there anything that we didn't cover that you wanted to cover in the show?

No, I don't think so. I think, you know, I love conversations like this. I do, you know, a decent amount of shows, and I love like this open conversation, just kind of bouncing around. So it's been good.

No, no, I'm the same way, and I'm so glad I asked that because then I just thought of what it was. So Um, no, I was just going to bring up the point that like, uh, what you were saying where there's always something you can do. So it's interesting where it's like a blessing and a curse because I would kind of view myself mostly as like a marketer. Like, I, I just love like figuring out— I don't want to say hacks, but just more like things that it's like, how could I make this kind of like yourself, right? Like, how can I simplify, uh, something that is complicated or something? So regardless though, as a marketer, what draws me to it is that it's limitless. You know, like, there is— you can't really put a ceiling on marketing. Like, your company could always be bigger. It can all— you can always reach out to more people. You can always spend more money on ads. Like, it never ends. I love that. But then the downside is that my brain never stops because it just is always thinking, like, dude, I could DM a couple more people today, you know? Like, I could— and it just never ends. So there's like a balance that you have to find. And I would say it seems like you have, you know, found it, so that's awesome.

It took, it took a long time and a lot of self-discovery to find it, because when you, when your identity is wrapped up in how hard and how much money, like, you can't stop. Yeah. And when you can find, like, when you can actually detach and like see your value as a human being for just like being, and find like more fulfillment, and like, how can I How can I help other people? How can I, you know, when you, when you remove yourself from it, you realize, oh shit, there's like, as, as someone who's in a position of like, I'm living a 1% life. And I don't mean that from an income standpoint. I mean, like, I'm, I'm living an incredible life. So I'm like, I could either, you know, triple my income or find ways like, how do I support other people in it? How do I help other people get to it? You know, how can I help them ask the questions to find something like this? 'Cause I'm just so grateful and I'm just so content and happy. I'm like, more people need this. 'Cause I, you know, a lot of people that I know during COVID like my business got crushed during COVID but we survived. But like most people, I think it really, it unlocked for some people and I think it broke some people's brains like pretty, pretty far. And I'm like, I'm not a— it's not a savior thing. It's not like I'm, you know, I just like— I'm thinking now more about like, how can I help? And putting time and energy into that is more fulfilling than those extra 5 hours of working this week and making that extra, you know, $30,000 a year. Who cares? For sure.

No, agreed. And one last thing is I don't want to forget you— the word purpose came up and then you said that's a dangerous word. What do you mean by that?

Yeah. So I was obsessed with determining what my purpose was for a long time. And one of the exercises that my coach had me do, and it fucked my head up, he goes, who are 5 people that you like look up to and admire? And you write down what you think their purpose is. And then I want you to call them and I want you to ask them what they think their purpose is. And so I was like, okay, boom, you, this person, like Their purpose is this. They were designed for this. And I'm like, yo, what is your purpose? I'm like, I'm doing a bit of soul searching. I'm trying to figure some stuff out. And they're just like, I don't have a fucking clue, man. I just like do shit I like doing. I have no— I'm like, wait, what? Like nobody fucking knows. And it's just like pointless and endless journey towards something that doesn't actually mean anything. It doesn't mean anything. And so I think people get a little bit obsessed with it because they think That if they figure that out, they figure out what their purpose is, that there's some unlock or some magic thing that sustains forever and creates happiness, but it doesn't, it doesn't do anything like getting to the finish line. A, it's impossible. And B, I don't think anything happens when you get there. I think it's like self-awareness, experiment, find the things that you like and just do those things rather than be obsessed with like, what is the purpose? I don't think that's a, I don't think that's a complete thing. I think people think it is, but I don't think it's a thing.

Yeah, dude, I think you're so right. It's so crazy to think that like 99.9% of people are like living in a way of trying to discover that like one purpose, probably because that's what the kind of main self-help kind of thing is taught. And I think, um, the other thing that's interesting is it's like, um, what I've discovered in you is just kind of like once you people do think when you don't have money, you do think once you'll have it. And I don't think it's possible to not think it. Like when you don't have it, you think once you do that, everything is just going to be like just easy. You're set. And actually what I experienced, and maybe you experienced this too, for me, it was actually, it, it is better than not having money in my opinion, clear. But what happens though is, is, and with you too, especially when you free up your time so much, Um, I almost had like some sort of like crisis of like, holy shit, I don't have any hobbies. Like, I don't even know what to do. Like, and you actually have so much freedom. And then that's how wealthy people can actually become depressed. And when you're not wealthy, you, you think you're like, oh, he or she is rich, how could they be sad? And it's like, dude, because they don't have— they all they did is figure out like one pillar of life. Like, they didn't figure out like just— so maybe you can speak to that, but I just thought of bringing it up because Um, no, it's, it's 100%, right?

3 years ago, if you asked me like, what, who is Mike and what does Mike like? I wouldn't have had a fucking clue. I like marketing. I like business. I like the game of it. I like playing with it. I like experimenting. I like hacking. Like you were saying, like as a marketer, I'm like, oh, is it like this tool, this SalesPlay thing? I'm like, oh my God. I had a local kid, a local kid come here and I'm like, hey, I'm gonna pay you for 2 days. I want you to circle all these things. Pull them into spreadsheets, do this, do that. Like, I just wanted to know. And now it's like, I'm like, shit, this data is pretty good. Like, in my mind, what I'm going to do today when I go for a walk is I'm going to build that entire company end to end and see it sell and succeed. In my mind, like, that's all I think, you know?

So, um, I can relate to it.

So yeah, and it's funny because I'm not an executor. I— if I didn't have a great team and great operations and organized people, like, nothing would fucking get done. Yeah, I'm a dreamer, man. Like, I don't, I don't like doing any— I don't even like checking my email. I hate it. I like, I procrastinate with anything like that. But it's funny because, yeah, 3 years ago, other than doing that and thinking like, oh, it's a skill set, it's a talent that I possess, like, I— other than maybe playing sports, like, I wouldn't have known. I never spent any time with hobbies. I would have never bought a puzzle. I never would have learned to crochet, like these stupid things, but like really spending that time and like experimenting has opened up my mind. And now there's like, oh my God, there's like hundreds of thousands of things you could try. And then like to actually find those couple where you're like, ooh, this is a Mike thing. Like this is something that Mike likes and Mike will probably do forever. Like having not known that before, yeah, it wouldn't have mattered how much money and how much time freedom I would've had. I probably would have been miserable with it and probably would have spent the time working because that was the purpose.

100%, dude. Um, great, great interview, man. Um, so yeah, I want to leave it to you. Um, anything else you want to share, please do, but also let people know like how they can stay in contact, like social media, website, anything else you want to share.

Yeah, sounds good. So if you're an audiologist and you need advertising for your clinic, which probably nobody is, um audiologyadvertising.com. Super sexy marketing business, by the way. Um, I'm probably the most entertaining follow on Instagram because I'm usually doing fun things. I'm traveling around a lot. So, um, @themikemoll on Instagram. Um, and then if you are in the marketing space and you've, you've resonated with that, like I've been stuck at this like $10,000 to $25,000 a month in revenue kind of spot. And every time I grow my revenue, shit falls apart and you want to have a conversation about that. You can look up, it's mikemoll.co. I was gonna get the.com, but there's a guy in Vancouver who will not give it up.

So,.co. Yeah. Cool, man. Thank you again for coming on.

Yeah, man. Thanks a lot.