Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

128: Are You Trying to Be a Fish When Actually You’re a Cat?

Are you identifying and playing to your strengths while delegating or outsourcing tasks that align with your weaknesses? 

In this episode Carl discusses the importance of playing to your strengths rather than trying to force yourself into areas you are weak at. He uses the analogy of being a fish (excelling at swimming but failing at climbing a tree) versus being a cat (struggling with swimming but excelling at climbing a tree). 

Stop trying to be a “fish” if we are naturally more of a “cat.” He suggested leveraging tools like voice-to-text on phones or AI tools like ChatGPT’s voice mode to dictate content rather than writing it out. The key is identifying your natural strengths and weaknesses, doubling down on the strengths, and finding ways to delegate or outsource the areas you struggle with.

While there are times you may need to push yourself out of your comfort zone for personal growth, Carl cautions against constantly trying to improve major weaknesses. Instead, focus on honing and maximising the skills you’re already talented at. Surround yourself with team members who complement your weaknesses so you can lean into your core strengths. Trying to force yourself to be something you’re not may only lead to frustration.

Personal growth often requires stepping outside of your comfort zone. However, continually attempting to improve upon significant weaknesses could also be leading to unnecessary pressure . Instead try focusing your energy on refining and maximising the skills and talents that come naturally to you. To create a well-rounded team, surround yourself with individuals whose strengths complement your weaknesses, allowing you to fully embrace and leverage your core competencies. Attempting to force yourself into a role that doesn’t align with your inherent abilities may ultimately lead to frustration and suboptimal performance.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • The phenomenon of forcing yourself to be a fish, when you’re actually a cat (00:24)
  • The value of leveraging and growing your strengths and delegating tasks you find challenging (02:28)
  • What you can do if you’re more of a speaker than a writer: record audio messages, use voice-to-text features, Chat GPT (03:13)
  • The difference between stepping out of your comfort zone to grow and forcing yourself to do things you’re really weak at (05:20)

QUOTES

  • “If you judge a fish by its ability to do something that a cat could do easily, it’s going to fail. Just like if you judge a cat by its ability to swim, it’s going to fail compared to the fish. And so what we’re talking about here is finding your strengths.” – Carl Taylor
  • “There’s a delicate balance. There are times where perceived weaknesses may just be, you need to push through some stuff … but I’m gonna say the majority of the time, you just want to find your strengths, play to your strengths, grow those strengths, and then delegate, outsource, find other ways to find people who are really good at that thing that you suck at.” – Carl Taylor
  • “There are certain elements where you might have to do some things that are out of your comfort zone to grow. But that’s a different thing to try to force yourself to do something that you’re really weak at, rather than maximising your strengths.” – Carl Taylor

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

Carl Taylor: Are you trying to be a fish when actually you’re a cat?

Hey, and welcome to another episode of Dadpreneurs Rising. This is the podcast for you. If you are a dad in business and you’re maybe struggling with how do you balance being the entrepreneur, the dad, the husband, the lover, and a man in today’s society? I’m, your host, Carl Taylor.

And in today’s episode, we are going to talk about a really interesting phenomenon of are you forcing yourself to be a fish when maybe you’re actually a cat?

Let me lay some context. This comes from a conversation from within the king’s council. It’s a coaching and community programme that, dadpreneur.com, where we run. And the king’s council is really for men who are looking to get support in balancing the worlds of dad, entrepreneurship, health, relationships, the whole gamut. Being a man in today’s society.

One of our members said that he was trying really hard to do these things. Like, he found it really hard, but he was trying to do it, like writing things down, making plans really challenging. Like, at the time, he’s like, I’m trying to, trying to create this one page marketing plan, and he was really getting quite stressed out about it. Writing emails, replying to things, even inside of our community, writing things was challenging for him. And I just stopped him and said, hold on a second. What I’m hearing from you is writing is really, really hard for you. He’s like, yep. I was like, okay, what’s easy for you? He said, talking. He’s really good with people. I said, great. I know people just like that. I’ve got a really good friend who’s probably very similar. He’s not a bad writer, but he definitely is amazing at speaking and talking to people.

And so I said, okay, what if you stop trying to force yourself to be a fish? And I use the analogy, I’m sure you’ve heard this story before. The idea of, like, if you judge a fish success, by its ability to climb a tree, it would fail, right? It’s all about the context of it. There’s nothing wrong with being a fish. Nothing wrong with being a cat. But if you judge a fish by its ability to do something that a cat could do easily, it’s going to fail. Just like if you judged a cat by its ability to swim, it’s going to fail compared to the fish.

And so what we’re talking about here is finding your strengths. There’s a lot of people in the personal development space, at least that are like, overcome your weaknesses, grow, grow, grow.

There’s a delicate balance. There are times where perceived weaknesses may just be, you need to push through some stuff. There are a few times, but I’m going to say the majority of the time, you just want to find your strengths, play to your strengths, grow those strengths, and then delegate, outsource. Find other ways to find people who are really good at that thing that you suck at. Don’t try to make yourself good at something you’re weak at. Make yourself better at the things you already naturally have talent and good at. Grow that, expand that, and leverage the other people who are really good at the stuff that you suck at.

And so with this particular guy, I said, okay, well, within our community, you don’t need to write text messages. Like, you can access it on your phone and every phone, whether you got iPhone, Android, whatever, you’ve, got the option to press a little button and speak and it will take what you say and turn it into text. So I said, if you need to write an email, a couple of options. One, you could record an audio message and just send them the audio. Or you can do a voice to text feature that’s built into your phone. You can send emails, you can write posts on Facebook, you can write, comments within side of a community. So if you are like this particular member who you suck at or struggle to write, and maybe that’s why you’re listening to an audio thing, you like listening to things, then play to your strengths. Use those voice to text. in particular, he was talking about struggling to use chat GPT because we talk a bit about how do you use tools like Chat GPT in your business to get an edge? And he was struggling with using Chat GPT. I said, well, did you know it’s got an audio version on your phone? You can speak to it, it can speak back, but even what it speaks back, you could then copy and paste that text because it gives you the text, and then you could then send that to someone else to write the email, or it can have written the email for you.

So there’s so much tools available to you today, even that one idea of like, hey, you struggle to say what you want to say in an email, fire up chat GPT, start the voice mode and say, hey, I, want to write an email. This is in general what I want it to say. Can you write me one and then have it write the email and then give it its feedback all via audio. And then when it’s finished, you go, great, you go into the text mode of the app, copy and paste the message. And then you can just paste that into your email and click send. Mind blowing for him. Allows him to be a fish in water, not a fish in a tree.

And I really want you to think about where in your life and your business are, you maybe trying to force yourself to be a fish when actually you’re a cat, right? Where are you judging yourself or pushing yourself into areas that you suck at and you know you suck at? Now, as I said at the beginning, there are certain parts, relationships, for example, if you just accept, well, I’m just sucking at relationships. So therefore, this is just how I am. I’ve found from my own experience that is a false belief system that is keeping you trapped and maybe stopping you from getting what you want. There’s, a lot of personal growth that can come and usually it’s to do with healing of our past experiences. So, there are certain elements where you might have to do some things that are out of your comfort zone to grow, but that’s a different thing to trying to force yourself to do something that you’re really weak at rather than maximising your strength. So that’s it for today. Till next time, keep up the journey.

Hey fellow dadpreneurs, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes over at rising show. That’s show not so. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need.

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

127: Your Automation Rate: The Key to Buying Back Your Time

If you think by doing everything in your business yourself makes financial sense, then this episode was made just for you! Listen in and discover how you can step back from your business, buy back your time, and start enjoying the lifestyle you’ve always wanted, all while ensuring your business thrives and grows. 

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl Taylor discusses the importance of your automation rate, how it’s calculated and the potential it could be having on your business. Carl also breaks down the formula to establish just how much you can afford to pay to buy back an hour of your time. 

Carl emphasises that the mentality of “It’s too expensive to hire someone” is flawed and that being willing to invest in a team or technology at your calculated automation rate to free up your time. The key is determining what you can realistically afford to pay someone else to handle parts of your business operations.

Remember, if your automation rate is too low, it signals that you need to first increase your business revenues before hiring support makes financial sense. However, once you can afford to buy back your time at a viable rate, Carl stresses not to keep doing lower-level tasks yourself. Doing so prevents you from working on higher-value activities to grow your business and spending time on other important priorities, such as enjoying life with your family and pursuing personal growth.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Is hiring someone too expensive that you’re better off doing all tasks yourself? (00:35)
  • What is an automation rate? (01:27)
  • How do you determine your automation rate (03:40)

QUOTES

  • “Your automation rate is effectively how much you can afford to spend to buy an hour of your time back.” – Carl Taylor
  • “The bottom line is you get really clear on what can you afford to pay. And then find the person to do it … So you can start to buy your time back. Spend more time with the kids, the family, and on you as a man … finding what else lights you up and helping you grow.” – Carl Taylor

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

Hiring someone is too expensive, I should just do it myself.

Hey, you’re listening to Dadpreneurs Rising. And I’m your host, Carl Taylor. And in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about just that. This was a conversation that came out from inside our Kings Council program. If you want to learn more about that you can check us out at dadpreneur.com. Reach out, have a conversation with myself or the team about what we do and whether it might be right for you. So if you’re a dad in business, check that out.

Now, this particular conversation came up on one of the coaching calls, and a particular king, a member of the program, he was struggling with this issue of there’s a key component of his business that was taking up a fair amount of time every week. But he had this thought process that he couldn’t get past that, you know, it seems too expensive to hire someone to fill this role. So he’s better off doing it himself. Well, I’m not going to share all the ins and outs of what I shared with him. But I want you to get the key takeaway. If you are in a similar position, or you’ve ever been in a similar position, this thinking is flawed. And it’s why we have a process that we do inside the program.

One of the first things anyone does when they first sign up is we figure out what your automation rate is. So what is your automation rate? Your automation rate is effectively how much you can afford to spend to buy an hour of your time back. Right. And so whether you use this money on, you know, technology tools, software subscriptions, or whether you’re employing someone part time, casually, full time doesn’t really matter. This helps you figure it out, at what dollar value can you afford to spend to buy an hour of your time back. And so I got him on the call to do this process. I was like, alright, well, you should have already gone through the training. But let’s, if you haven’t already, like, let’s go through it. And he figured out his automation rate. And I think from memory, it worked out around $65. And then I said, Great.

So if you could free up an hour for 65 bucks, how much do you think you’d have to pay someone to do a call like this? And instantly he started to go into the head of oh, Well, you know, actually, many of these calls don’t take an hour, they only take 15 minutes. So for that $65 I could probably get three calls put in there. And he’s right. But I said to him, Well look, you know, I guess you could try to load as many as you could into that one hour. But you’re not talking about a full time role. Here, you’re talking about someone who’s more part time, casual, on demand basis. So while that will be beneficial to you financially, it’s also going to be beneficial to them financially. Is this person going to want for $65, who have made three calls? And his answer was probably not. I was like, great. But you’re saying that often, even if you’re saying it doesn’t always take up an hour, if you didn’t have to know that, because let’s be honest, right, guys, if you have a 15 minute call, I know this is true in my life, if I have a 15 minute call in my calendar, realistically, that’s taken a whole hour chunk out of my day. Because there’s a bit of prep time for the call, there’s once you get off the call, maybe writing notes, or even just switching your brain into whatever other thing you are going to focus on knowing a call’s coming. Or when you’ve just finished a call, it takes time to get back into it.

So really, even if it’s a 15 minute call, it’s taken up an hour of your mental capacity to deliver that call. So I said if you paid 65 bucks, and you got that time back, would that be okay? He said yes. And so I’m going to ask the same thing to you. I want you to figure out your automation rate. If you want to know how to do that in great detail, we have a whole training on that. You can reach out to us, you can buy just that training. Or if you want to join the whole community and get access to all our resources, it’s one of the resources but let me give you the high level. You want to take how much you make from your business in a year. And when I’m talking about how much you make, I’m talking about the cash you take out of the business, plus any extra things. So if you’re Australian, superannuation, you might not get that cash in hand. But that’s money that business is effectively paying you for your future. For the Americans listing that’s a four, effectively like a 401 K, forced from the government out of our businesses.

So if you’re paying yourself super, you take the money that you’re paying yourself. Plus, there’s, if you’re like most small business owners, you got stuff personally going through the business, right? You might have mobile phones or internet providers, cars, various things through the business. So you want to put all of that together and figure out what is your package that you take away from the business. And then you’re going to divide that dollar amount by two numbers. You’re going to put brackets around to figure it out. So you’ve kind of got your dollar amount. Now here’s another formula you need to figure out is how many hours do you work in a week on average? And how many weeks do you work in a year? So for example, most guys inside King’s Council, when they come to us, at least, are working more than 40 hours a week. Many of them are 50, 60 or more. But if 40 hours a week, let’s let’s go conservative, let’s say you put in 40 hours a week in your business right now. And most guys are probably doing 45 to 50 weeks a year, many of them are doing 50 weeks, you know, they’re lucky to even take the two weeks off in a year. So if you take like two weeks off over Christmas, you’re doing 50 weeks in a year.

Personally, I do around 40 weeks a year, and I definitely not doing 40 hour weeks, I can tell you that much. So you figure out that number, how many hours you’re working per week times by the number of weeks you work per year, that’s gonna give you a number, whatever that number is, is that what you’re gonna divide your dollar figure by, so effectively taking the amount you earn in a year divided by the amount that you, the hours that you work in a year. And that’s gonna give you your owner’s hourly rate, how much money you as the owner take out of your business, your owner’s hourly rate. Once you get your owners hourly rate to find your automation rate, you need to divide it by a multiple because we don’t want to just like if I make what’s for simple numbers fact. So like, say, let’s say I make $100 an hour as an owner. I don’t want to pay someone $100 to get my time back because then I’m not ahead, right, I’m just swapping. Like, yeah, I got some time back, but I didn’t make any money. If I’m making $100 an hour, I’d happily pay someone $25. Right. If I pay someone $25, that means I’m still making 75 bucks, and I got my hour back, that’s a win. So that’s what we’re looking at, what we’re looking for between 75 to $50. In that scenario, if you’re making 100 bucks, you want to be making 50 to $75 and get your time back. And so you’re going to divide it either by two or by four, I got a few different rules around that. If your hourly rate is over, if your owner’s hourly rate is over $50, then divide by four, if your owner’s hourly rate is under $50 then divided by two, because if you’re making $50 an hour or less, to divide it by four, it’s not going to be a realistic number. So if you can get at least a two times return, that’s good. But once you start getting into the bigger, bigger numbers, you want to be trying to get a four times return. But if the four times return doesn’t allow you to do what you want, you can always at least look at what if it was a two times return? And are you willing to pay that?

The bottom line is you get really clear on what can you afford to pay. And then find the person to do it. Ask them, ask yourself, can you realistically do it. If your number is too small, then it means you’ve got some work to do in your business to get your owner’s hourly rate up before we can start investing in getting your time down and buying that time back. If not, like if you’re like this guy who’s in the King’s Council, who’s just got the mentality of Oh, it’s too expensive, I should do it myself. Then it’s time to start investing in team and technology to get you out of the weeds of the business.

So you can start to buy your time back. Spend more time with the kids, the family and on you as a man, you know finding what else lights you up and helping you grow. So, hope that’s been helpful. Until next time, keep up the journey.

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

126: Building Your Dream Team: Hiring and Managing the Right People

Building the right team is crucial for entrepreneurs seeking to scale their business so they can eventually step away from the day-to-day operations. Regular evaluation and being willing to make tough and quick decisions is required.

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl Taylor discusses the importance of having the right team in place to build a business that can operate without you being involved in every aspect. He emphasises that you can’t achieve this without assembling a synergistic, efficient team. 

Carl advises taking a close look at your current team members and evaluating their performance. Some may be high performers you want to keep, while others may be underperforming and need either additional training and support or eventual replacement.

When someone is underperforming, Carl suggests first taking responsibility and examining how you may have failed to provide them with the necessary tools, clarity, direction, or support for them to succeed in their role. However, he cautions against letting this process drag on indefinitely. The saying “Be slow to hire, but fast to fire” reminds us that a negative team member can quickly impact the entire team’s performance.

If additional support doesn’t lead to improved performance, Carl advises making a quick decision to replace that person. The logistics of whether to hire their replacement first or let them go immediately depends on the situation. The key is to act swiftly once the decision is made.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Why forming an efficient team is essential to building a business that works without you (00:38)
  • The different people you might find in a team (01:04)
  • The key to replacing someone in the team: make fast decisions and actions (03:10)
  • A simple activity for business owners for building efficient teams (04:00)

QUOTES

  • “If you want to be out to build a business that works without you, a business that you own and not operate, to do that you must have a team. You can’t achieve it without a team.” – Carl Taylor
  • “If you let something drag out, if you have a rotten apple, it’s not long before that rotten apple can infect all the other apples.” – Carl Taylor

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPT

Carl Taylor  0:00  

You have the right people on your team.

Carl Taylor  0:14

Hey, Carl Taylor, your host here at Dadpreneurs Rising. And this is the show for you, if you’re a dad who runs your own business and you’re struggling or just maybe looking to improve the way you balance being an entrepreneur, being a husband and lover, being a father, and ultimately running a successful business, while not losing yourself as a man in the process. Now, today, I want to talk about your team. Because if you want to be out to build a business that works without you, which is a big thing that we do at the King’s Council and Dadpreneur Program that we put together, we help you become the owner of your business, right a business that you own and not operate. To do that you must have a team, you can’t achieve it without a team. Now, you may already have a team. And what I want to ask you is are they performing at the level you truly need? I find that when you build a team, you typically have a few different people, you have people who are performing and doing really, really well and you want to continue to bring them along the journey, everything you can you want to keep those people around. Then you have the people who are underperforming. And there’s usually two options. One is they need to be replaced, let go and find someone who can do a better job. Or they need to be upskilled. Now I personally am of the view that if I’m looking to replace someone, I first ask myself, How have I failed them? I take full responsibility and go if they’re not performing at the level I want them to perform that then maybe I haven’t provided them the tools, I haven’t provided them the support, and provided them the clarity or the direction or so they know what success looks like in their role. So I take full responsibility to go, How have I failed them? That is the first step. Don’t get into it. They’re just lazy. They’re just useless. Because that’s not setting them up or you up for success, take full responsibility and go, How have I failed them? How can I perform? How can I give them better support? How can I give them better tools? How can I give them better clarity? So take that step first and go Alright, can we get them where we need them to be? However, here’s the however, don’t let this process go on for periods of time, there’s a saying be slow to hire, be fast to fire. And so there was a reason for this, if you let something drag out, if you have a rotten apple, it’s not long before that rotten apple can infect all the other apples. And the same thing can happen in your business. If you have someone who’s not performing, or they’re in a really bad negative state that can very quickly start to impact even your top performance and send your business into a real mess. So you want to be quick to jump on saying, Hey, you’re not quite performing where I need you to be. Let’s get on a call and see how we can fix it. What’s going on, what’s going on in your life? What do you need? What have I not given you the systems take responsibility and go, How can you fix it? Then whatever they’ve said, do that, give them that support, do whatever you can to give them what they need. And if you see no improvement, then you got to make the quick decision to say hey, I actually am going to need to replace this person. Now there’s logistics around how do you replace someone? Do you just get rid of them and then go and try and find someone else. Do you try and find the new person so that you’re not completely left? That comes down to a real situation by situation. There’s no right or wrong. But there’s a preferred answer. But there’s no right way to do it. Because I’ve been in multiple situations, I’ve been in the situation where I’ve let someone go. And then all of a sudden, there’s a big gap, we didn’t have anyone to fill that role and became a mess. I’ve also been in the situation where I’ve tried to bring someone else in and get them ready and then let them go. And that can have its own challenges and misses too. So there’s no real right way to do it. The key thing is make a fast decision, and then make fast actions towards whatever it is. So whether that be putting the job out for the new person, whether that be getting rid of that person who needs replacing whatever it is, take a fast action. But if you have a team right now, and if you don’t have a team, I’ll give you something to do too. But if you have a team right now I want you to write up, get a sheet of paper and write them all out and just put a little tick or a cross, tick if you’re like, you know what, if I was done starting this business all over again, I would love them in my corner, I want them with me, tick, they’re your high performance, if it’s across? Or if it’s a question mark, you’re struggling to find an answer. It’s still ultimately across. So anyone who’s not a tick, they’re the people that you need to ask them and yourself, how have you found them? How have you let them down? What else do they need to perform? And once you’ve figured all that out, if they are still not performing, it’s time to replace them. Or maybe the replacement can be with technology and not another team member. It’s going to depend on the role. I’ll leave that with you. If you do not have a team. What I want you to do is list out all the things you currently do, everything you do, and I want you to go like if I was starting my business all again, would I want to be doing this, tick or cross, and everything you have a cross next to is who you need to hire to fill that role? You need to find someone who will do that task so you can focus on the stuff you love, which is the ticks. If you need help doing any of this, you can all obviously reach out to us over at dadpreneur.com. Until next time, keep up the journey. 

Hey fellow dadpreneur. Thanks for tuning into today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links, and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes over at rising dot show. That’s dot show not .com So head over to rising dot show to get all the information that you need.

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

125: Focus Wins: Why Dadpreneurs Need to Simplify to Magnify Success

Are you feeling overwhelmed juggling multiple roles and responsibilities? Do your businesses feel like they’re all just competing for your attention? If you’re nodding emphatically, then listen in for some practical insights into the benefits if simplifying.

In this episode of the Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl discusses the importance of focus for dadpreneurs juggling the demands of entrepreneurship, fatherhood, and personal life. From Carl’s own experience of juggling multiple businesses early on, he emphasises the mistake of spreading yourself too thin.

Carl stresses that if your primary business hasn’t reached at least $1 million in revenue with a comfortable 20-30% profit margin, you should avoid the distraction of starting additional ventures. He stresses that humans can only truly focus on one thing at a time, and multitasking is really just task-switching. As dads juggling entrepreneurship, fatherhood, husband duties, and personal roles, avoiding distractions is crucial.

Don’t chase multiple rabbits — put all your energy into maximising one business before diversifying. Cutting out distractions and maintaining a laser focus on one primary business is pivotal to your success as a dadpreneur.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Why focus is crucial in business as a Dadpreneur (01:12)
  • Carl’s own experience in the value of “single focus” in business, plus the benefit of systemizing (03:11)
  • What is the multitasking/task switching trap? (07:41)

QUOTES

  • “You can only truly focus on one thing. Multitasking is not a thing. It’s called task switching.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

Dadpreneur Kings Council

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

124: From Burnout to Balance: My Lessons from Jordan De Jong

In this reflection episode, Carl debriefs from his recent conversation with Jordan de Jong, founder of Australia’s largest online property portfolio mapping software, Gameplans. He reflects on the impressive transformation Jordan has undergone in a relatively short period. 

Carl emphasises Jordan’s ability to shift his business and work-life balance drastically, moving from 12-hour workdays to dedicating only three hours a day to work. Jordan’s journey is a testament to the power of personal transformation, highlighting how one can make substantial changes in various aspects of life with the proper guidance and commitment.

Carl also delves into practical business insights, discussing the concept of 10x thinking, inspired by Dan Sullivan’s book. He touches on the idea that building a million-dollar business versus a billion-dollar business requires the same effort but different levels of thinking. 

The episode concludes with Jordan’s message to his younger self, encouraging listeners to embrace life fully. You will be challenged to consider your own goals, determine the level of effort required to achieve them, and commit to playing the best game you can possibly play. 

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • The early days of Jordan de Jong’s business and how he was able to shift his mindset towards work life integration (00:22)
  • Biggest takeaways from Jordan’s episode: the power of personal transformation if you choose to work on it (02:35)
  • How to 10x rather than 2x (04:01)
  • How entrepreneurship often takes a toll on one’s personal life (05:15)
  • The biggest message from Jordan: Play the best game you can possibly play (07:21)
  • What Jordan’s property modelling software company, Gameplans, is all about (08:39)

QUOTES

  • “The level of thinking that gets you to a million dollar a year business or a $2 million a year business is very different to what’s going to be required to get you to a 10, 20, 100 million dollar, billion dollar business.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

10x Is Easier Than 2x

Gameplans

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

When you’re feeling fearful, when you’re feeling scared, when you’re feeling stuck, to just go, hey, okay, if I was to play flat, if I was going to really go for something, what would this look like? And for some, that’s wealth, success, for others, that’s serving and giving back to community. There are so many different ways. And for others, if you understand things, you can make a lot of money and you can give back and you can do that all together in one.

Welcome to another episode of the show. In this episode, I am debriefing from our great conversation earlier the week with Jordan de Jong. I don’t know if I pronounced that right. I know I just was speaking to him, but I’ve already kind of forgotten. I know the J is silent. 

This is the guy that I’ve known for less than a year, probably six months, really. But in that time, he has really thoroughly impressed me on numerous fronts. On the way he’s been able to show up and shift his business, and how he shows up in business, like how easily he takes on feedback and changes things and implements them for him to have gone from when he started his business, we talked about how he was spending twelve hour days in the business. And then the fact that was then impacting, he realised, while he and his wife weren’t fighting, he realised that, oh, I don’t really have that connection with my wife in the way that I used to, and I don’t really know my daughter because I’ve just been so engrossed in work. And so how he was able, he’s been able to shift things now. 

And now he’s really crafted a life and business, what I call work life integration, 3 hours, really a day now is what he puts into his work. And he’s got plenty of time to spend with his wife, with kids, and to go and make sure he works out and does other things that bring him joy. It’s just a huge hats off to him. And then realising that he’d put on all this weight from sitting there working and he’s gone and lost weight. He’s just a real inspirational dude in terms of showing what’s possible for a man or a dad to go, hey, I can see that what I’m doing is no longer working and I’m going to change it and I’m going to listen to the people who can support me through that journey. 

And I’m very grateful and lucky that I get to be one of those people who has helped him a little bit in his journey. Do not take credit. He’s the one who’s done the work. He’s the one that asked questions, and I just got to be a very small part of that. But it’s so incredible. So if you haven’t listened to the episode, it’s really us unpacking his journey of what led him to start his business, which was actually the birth of his child, how he went through that and everything that’s unfolded, it’s just a really great, natural conversation. 

The other thing that I really respect about Jordan is his heart. He’s a real, genuine dude. He shows up wanting to serve, wanting to help, and genuinely wants to connect with people. And it’s funny. Like, he loves having a chitchat. And yet, by his own admission in the episode, he said that he is an introvert. And it’s just an interesting, fascinating dynamic that he is an amazing man. 

So what were some of my biggest takeaways from our conversation? Well, apart from the fact that it just being absolute proof of what a man can do in a short period of time, when he gets the right advice and has a willingness to execute and makes the commitment to himself to change what he’s been able to do in a short period of time, at least from changing his hours. I mean, he’s had an incredible growth journey from business as well in that time as well. But being able to shift the amount of hours he’s working, the weight he’s been able to lose, getting himself healthy, reconnecting with his wife, and, getting to know his daughter, I think that is just a testament of the power of personal transformation that is possible for you, listener, watcher, if you are a dad as well, maybe in a situation similar to how he started, if you’re there going like, I just don’t know if I can change. You can. He’s a poster boy of showing just how much of a short time things can change if you choose to put in the work to do it. And so for me, that’s very rewarding in terms of what we’re doing at Dadpreneur, where we’re helping men with those key areas, right? We’re helping them with their business and getting them to work less hours. We’re helping them in their relationships and rekindling the passion and bringing back that connection and also being there for their kids and actually being a role model for their kids and then their health and losing weight and getting fit and healthy and getting their energy back and then ultimately building wealth, a couple of things that really stood out, though. 

If we get in practical business mode for a second, the idea of going, how do I. Ten x rather than two x. We talked about a book, 10x is better than 2x, which is by Dan Sullivan. And the general principle here is like, for him, he’s like, well, instead of going, hey, I’m getting ten leads a week right now, how do I get them to 20? He’s going, all right, if I’m getting ten leads a week, what would really have to happen for me to like ten x? It’s to be getting hundreds of leads a week. What would make me completely transform this industry? And so he’s got him thinking on a bigger level. one of the quotes he said, he said, he didn’t remember who said it, but it’s like building a million dollar business, and building a billion dollar business requires the same amount of effort. It’s just a different level of thinking that gets you there. Now, I don’t have a billion dollar business, so I can’t speak to that and to how true that is. I have a million dollar business. And I do wonder if that’s entirely, if that statement is entirely true. But I like what it points to, whether it’s actually true or not. What it points to is that there is a different level of thinking, right. The level of thinking that gets you to a million dollar a year business or a $2 million a year business is very different to what’s going to be required to get you to attend 2100 million dollar, billion dollar business. 

Many years ago, I had a conversation with a friend. Many entrepreneurs, we idolise the idea of the Steve Jobs and, Richard Branton’s and the people of this world, the Elon Musk. I want to be like them. I want to change the world the way they have. And we talked about how often for those men, they sacrificed their life to make those changes for the world. They sacrificed their life for the world, right. Usually their relationships are terrible. They’re not what you want to model in terms of home life. They might be these amazing business people. I mean, even Warren Buffett. I remember watching a documentary on a plane once about Warren Buffett, and it was interviews with his kids and his wife, or ex wife, technically, and, you know, them talking about their experience of living with Warren Buffett. If you don’t know who Warren Buffett is, he’s probably well known as probably the smartest investor of all time. One of the wealthiest men in the world. Berkshire Hathaway is the company that he has that he invests and he manages a lot of money. He’s just idolised in his ability to make money. And yet these interviews with these kids were like, they don’t know their kids, they don’t know their dad. It was not a happy look at him as a man for his whole life. But what it’s pointing to here is what his quote of it, the same effort required to make a million dollar business or a billion dollar business. It’s about deciding what you want. I think better would be like the same effort to build $100,000 business, to build a million dollar business. I think there’s a lot of truth in that. I’m sure there could be truth to the billion dollar side of things, too. Although at the billion dollar side, you’re probably. My belief system is you would be sacrificing more of your life than I’m personally prepared to do. But time will tell. Maybe I’m wrong. So that was another really cool takeaway that was shared. I thought it was interesting, too. He touched on that. He does the carnival diet and he eats only once a day. We didn’t delve into it. I probably wish I had delved a little deeper into it to understand why he does that. But it just, again goes to show there’s so many different ways you can kind of skin a cat, if you like, to achieve your goals. 

Ultimately, the biggest message that he left, I asked him at the end, what would you whisper to that earlier version of Jordan, who had his daughter just there in his arms, and he’s thinking about, should he start a business? What should he do? He said he would whisper, just do it. And he talked about how Jordan Peterson has this thing of like, we’re all in, in this life, we’re here, we’re going to die. This life is going to kill us. We are going to die one day. So you may as well play full out play and know play the best game you can possibly play while you’re here, because you’re going to die anyway. It’s going to happen. And I think there’s a poetry in that concept, but it really is a great way when you’re feeling fearful, when you’re feeling scared, when you’re feeling stuck, to just go, hey, okay, if I was to play flat, if I was going to really go for something, what would this look like? And for some, that’s wealth, success, for others, that’s serving and giving back to community. There are so many different ways. And for others, if you understand things, you can make a lot of money and you can give back and you can do that all together in one. 

So that’s a bit of a rundown of my biggest takeaways from my conversation with Jordan. If you want to learn more about Jordan, you can find his socials in the show notes and you can also find his company that he runs. So while we had this great conversation about his entrepreneurial journey, he does run an amazing company called gameplans.com au. It is a property modelling software, if you like, for planning out your property portfolio. So if you own multiple investment properties and you want to build an investment portfolio, I do recommend taking a look at gameplans.com. Au because you can sign up, create an account and you can plan out and model different scenarios. I personally use his software. It’s allowed me to plan out and decide which property strategy I personally want to use to achieve my goals. At the time, I was in this conundrum of like, do I go negatively geared? Which for the Americans that basically means properties that lose money but have a tax benefit, which is the majority of the Australian property market in residential, just so you know, at the time of recording. Or do I go for the lower priced, higher yield cash flow properties? They don’t, generally get the same amount of capital growth, but they do have cash flow. Or do I go commercial only? Do I do a mix of it all? And so I was able to run all these different scenarios and I think I ended up modelling about six different scenarios over the next 30 years with the different strategies at play so I could make a decision as to which one was going to be easiest for me to execute, going to have the biggest impact to my net worth and my ongoing cash flow for passive income. Ongoing. And I wouldn’t have been able to achieve that in just a conversation. I wouldn’t have been able to achieve that just by myself. I was only able to achieve that by using jordansoftwaregameplans.com. So do recommend checking that out. All right, I’m going to wrap this episode here and I’ll see you on the next one. Bye. 

Hey fellow Dadpreneurs, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes over at rising show. That’s show not so. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need.

Like this episode? Have topics that you would like us to discuss?  We’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Let us know by leaving a comment below. 

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

123: The Mindset Needed for 10X Growth with Jordan de Jong

Do you feel that your business takes up too much of your time every day? Are you craving the freedom that lets you focus on self-care, mental health, and relationships? 

If so, stick around because this episode offers practical tips on how you can be the true King of your business — not just its operator. 

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl interviews Jordan de Jong, a property investment advisor and founder of Australia’s largest online property portfolio mapping software, Gameplans.

Jordan shares how becoming a new dad was the catalyst for him to leave his corporate job and start his own business despite not yet knowing what he wanted to do. He began by contracting for various emerging buyer’s agencies and using his tech and data analytics background to help solve their problems, specifically in mapping out and systematising investment property portfolios.

The rapid growth of his business was a pat on the back for Jordan, but it also meant working 12+ hour days in the early stages, which he admits negatively impacted his relationship at home. After being encouraged to delegate tasks, Jordan now follows the “automation rate” principle to run the numbers on hiring the support he needs.

Being an entrepreneur may be extremely rewarding, but it can take a toll on your personal life. This episode will expose you to the value of the mindset shift from grinding “in” your business to strategic plays that can help you 10X “on” your business. It will encourage you to boldly pursue your passions and purpose.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Who is Jordan de Jong? (00:30)
  • Jordan’s backstory (02:57)
  • The origins story of Gameplan (05:52)
  • How Jordan’s business impacted his relationship (14:06)
  • How Jordan prioritises work life integration today (19:03)
  • What is an automation rate? (21:44)
  • What a typical day for Jordan looks like (23:13)
  • Important things that started to shift in Jordan’s perspective (26:16)
  • The four key areas of the Dadpreneur Program (30:45)
  • The advice “now” Jordan would give young Jordan (34:09)
  • How to get in touch with Jordan (36:18)

QUOTES

“The best thing I ever did was learn about sales and marketing.  Follow up emails and sequences and everything else like that.  Ultimately, that’s what has really generated and created my business over the years.” – Jordan de Jong

“You can create any sort of business that you want to create. But if you think about things the right way, and the strategic way and think much bigger than just like, how do I get the next sale or the next lead, you can generate a whole lot more income for the same amount of effort and get there over a little while.” – Jordan de Jong

“If you want to be the king of your business, you need to be the owner, not the operator.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

The Lean Product Playbook

10x Is Easier Than 2x

Jordan Peterson

About Jordan de Jong

Jordan de Jong is a Qualified Property Investment Advisor, who continually works with some of the most renowned property experts in Australia to build out strategies and review existing property portfolios for their clients.

Jordan has seen over 3,000+ property portfolio’s, his passion is educating clients on the powers of residential property and has built Australia’s largest online property portfolio mapping software called Gameplans, which allows investors to build out their scaleable property portfolios.

Get In Touch With Jordan de Jong

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

Jordan de Jong: The cool thing about being with these guys that had been in business for maybe two to three years now is they were kind of that one next level ahead of me in business. And so I got to learn from them as they were going through their different stages. And that’s when I got to read some different books and got some recommendations about what I should be doing.

Carl Taylor: Hello and welcome, everyone, to another episode. I am your host, Carl Taylor, and today we have another great conversation episode. It’s not just me sharing some stuff, but we’ve got an amazing guest and I, actually should have asked him this before I hit record, but how do I pronounce your last name, Jordan?

Jordan de Jong: It’s de Jong. It’s a silent J Diong.

Carl Taylor: All right, so it’s Jordan de Jong. And, let me tell you a little bit about Jordan. Firstly, I first met Jordan last year at a snow retreat. Well, technically we weren’t in the snow yet, but it was the first night dinner of a snow retreat and we were just having a great chat on that first night walking from the hotel down to dinner. And Jordan was just kind of sharing his journey of what he’s done. And that’s what we’re going to unpack a little bit more on today’s show. Jordan is a qualified property investment advisor who continuously works with some of the most renowned property experts here in Australia to build out strategies and review existing property portfolios for their clients. So he’s all about property. What he doesn’t say here in his bio is he’s also all about software and tech. Jordan, on the property side of things, has seen over 3000 plus property portfolios and his passion is in educating clients on the power of residential property, in particular here in Australia. And he’s built Australia’s largest online property portfolio mapping software. I’ve actually used this software. It’s called game plans and it allows you to build out scenarios, model different scenarios. And I was able to use this software, game plans. Personally, I was sitting in this conundrum of which route did I want to go. Negatively geared, positive cash flow, commercial property mix of the above. And I was able to map all those different scenarios over the next 2030 years of different acquisitions I might make, following different strategies to see the end result in cash flow, in capital growth, in everything. And it’s just a really great tool. So kudos to you. So welcome, dude. Thanks for coming on the show.

Jordan de Jong: Thank you. What a wrap. And yes, I do reminisce about that, discussion we were having late one evening walking down the pathway. But it was really, really good. I got to learn a lot about you and what you’re up to and what you’re doing and love your journey as well, but, yeah. Keen to unpack it all today.

Carl Taylor: Thanks, man. Well, yeah, look, as you know, I’ve taken a keen interest since I became a dad, and I know you’re not that long into being a dad either. For me, there was a big aha of being an entrepreneur for 20 something years before becoming a dad and then becoming a dad. There was this big aha of what changes and what’s different once you become a dad. So that was my journey. I had been in business for most of my life, since I was 15 before becoming a dad, but I know for you it was different. So let’s maybe start there. Just start sharing that story.

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, 100%. So backstory. Went to school, finished year twelve, went to uni, studied a bachelor of construction management, and slotted into my first corporate job at 19, I think. And I think I was earning like 20 grand a year or something.

Carl Taylor: Crazy.

Jordan de Jong: I was only doing one or two days and just getting paid nothing. But, it was a typical growing up experience. And I suppose what equated from that was me spending ten years on the corporate ladder. And I loved it. I grew my way up the ladder. I ended up getting my income to above six figures and grew my way up through the hierarchy of the business. But I, ah, had the complete opposite story. So for me, we ended up having our daughter, summer. I think I was about 29, and I remember once we had her, I was holding her in my arms and I looked at her and I go, oh, my God, this was me 29 years ago. Like, how flipping short is life? And at the same time, I had my dad come to visit me not too before then. And I could start to see, hm, him getting a little bit older, like he was 60. Now he’s starting to deteriorate. He wasn’t as quick and snappy as he always had been. And I was like, man, another 30, years, I’m going to be there. Like, how flipping short is life? And so in the back of my head, I always knew I wanted to start a business and I knew that I would do it someday. I just had no freaking idea what I was going to do. But that was ultimately the moment for me to go, wow, life is way too short. And if I don’t pull the trigger and make a move now, I don’t think I’ll ever do it and I’ll get too comfortable, and I’ll have this really nice automatic income that comes through from a normal job, and I’ll never pull the trigger to actually step out and make a decision to start the business.

Carl Taylor: if not now, when kind of thought process and I couldn’t relate. I’m sure many others listening can of seeing your parents now, I’m in my late 30s, but, like, seeing your parents and you see them as older, you just see how old they’ve not old, but how much older they’ve gotten. And it is, you kind of go, oh, okay. My time with them is limited. And as you said, I’m not that far from becoming that. That’s only another 2030 years away. So, yeah, dude, it’s so crazy.

Jordan de Jong: And then you think about their parents and how they’re nearly getting to, some of them are passing away, they’re really getting old and injuring themselves. And it’s just like that. I just really had this moment of like. And it was almost like overnight. It was really weird. It’s kind of like I had matured and then kind of looked at everything and just went, wow, this is such a short life. So, yeah, 100%.

Carl Taylor: So when you chose to start a business, did you just throw in the towel corporate world and go, I’m in business. Or did you kind of stagger it? Or how did you actually go about the mechanics of. Because you said, what am I going to start? How did you land on what you’re doing?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, well, I like to tell people that I just said that I quit and left, which I kind of really did. One day I was like, I’ve had enough. I’m out of here. Here’s my four weeks. And I really had no idea what I was going to do. That’s the honest truth. But there is a little bit of a backstory. So five years prior, I started a property podcast, and I would have been like 23, 24 at the time. It was all about younger people getting into the property market. And through that podcast over two or three years, I met heaps of really cool people. I met people that were my age who had property portfolios. And funnily enough, behind the scenes, there was this industry called the buyer’s agent, which is kind of a new industry in Australia, very big in UK and America, but that was really growing behind the scenes. And so all these guys that I was getting on the podcast actually ended up becoming buyer’s agents. And so when I stepped off the corporate ladder, I had no idea what I was going to do. But what I did have is a whole bunch of 25 to 35 year old young dudes who are all starting businesses and super, super hungry. And I know we’ll probably get into this a little bit later on, but I kind of saw that as a bit of an opportunity and I thought, this is a new industry with young people who are keen that understand technology. I studied construction management, but I ended up getting into data and databases and analytics, ended up becoming a data science at the company that I was at. So I had these tech skills behind the scenes that I had building, and so I was like, okay, well, there’s got to be some sort of tech that I can build for these young guys in a new industry that’s going to help them and solve their problem. So for me, what I did was I ended up just calling up five or six of them that I was really, really close with. And I said, look, I’m leaving my corporate job. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but can I contract for you guys and do some things and sort of see how your business is going to roll? Now, I could have become a buyer’s agent, but I don’t really, like, I’m an introvert. Like a massive introvert. It’s funny, Carl talking about the story of our snow trip. Like, we went away for four or five days with 16 people, and by the end of the trip, I was like in the corner eating my lunch by myself because it was just too much long. so buyers agency wasn’t for me, but I was really good at the tech side of things. And so let me contract out to you guys. Let me kind of just see what I might like to do within your business. And so I was working for like four to six different companies at any one point in time. And I wanted to go through every different stage, like, see where their biggest problems were and where the commonalities between their problems were. And there’s a few. Like, there were some CRM issues, there was some report issues, there was some getting data and analytics on the property market around Australia, which was really, really cool. But the one thing that was such a big problem that came up for everyone is every client comes to us wanting to build out, an investment portfolio. But we were spending, or they were spending two to 4 hours per, lead. So they weren’t even a client yet, showing them how to build a portfolio just to give the client the confidence that they could go out and build them an investment portfolio that would ultimately get them to their goals of worth. Of passive income. And so this two to 4 hours per lead was actually really taking up a lot, a lot of time for them. And so this is what I focused on. I just doubled down. I said, everyone is having the same problem. Let me run the sessions, let me understand what actually is going in behind the scenes. I had built my property portfolios on the corporate ladder, and I had built like this massive spreadsheet that would tell me when I would be able to retire. So I’m very analytical, and this is something that was already kind of running in the background, but I was like, well, how do I take this spreadsheet and help other people do it? And I really fell in love because I have that analytical background with building out the whole strategy side of things. So I identified the problem. I just wanted to completely understand the problem. So I contracted out these guys for about six months, built this ginormous freaking Excel spreadsheet that would solve every single problem and deal with all the issues and really get them towards their goal. So I solved the problem for them. The secondary problem that would come up to that is if you send an Excel spreadsheet to someone, they’re going to tamper around with some calculations, they’re going to edit some things, they’re going to put some data in incorrectly, and generally you get this ensemble of things back that doesn’t make sense and add up. So given the tech background, I just said to everyone, look, give me six months, I’m going to go away, I’m going to go build this software in the background and then I’ll bring it to market once it’s ready. So I went away, did that, brought it to market, essentially turned the Excel spreadsheet that I had into this platform. And they loved it, everyone loved it. All six of those companies implemented it straight away. We got a really good market validation because clients now had the ability to have a portal that they could log in and it felt like it was the business’s portal. We were able to white label it. It felt like a more ingrained process altogether. I was then able to scale from giving my time to doing these sessions, to giving people the power to do it themselves, essentially, with also having someone to back and teach them and learn how to use it. I was able to take away from my time, which wasn’t scalable, teach other people how to do it so they can do it in their own time. But then we ended up going from six businesses. I think in the first three months we were at about 20 or so. First year we’re probably at about 50, which was crazy. And now we’re two and a half years in and have over 150 businesses that we work with across Australia.

Carl Taylor: Love it.

Jordan de Jong: Yeah. identifying that problem at the start.

Carl Taylor: And one of the things I’m curious about is all of those things you did, the kind of the data validation, digging in, finding your initial clients, was any of that strategically planned because you’d read books about the lean product playbook? Because that’s kind of effectively what you follow, the lean product playbook right there. But did you do that consciously or did it just seem to happen?

Jordan de Jong: The funny thing is I hadn’t read like a tech book beforehand or like any sort of business book. I didn’t even have any business experience. And I think the best thing that I did for, someone listening who hasn’t started a business yet or might be in the early stages of the business, two of those contracting jobs that I did actually included sales. And so I would do the sales for these businesses and then I would provide a strategy for their client as well. And that was honestly the best thing I ever did was learn about sales and marketing and follow up emails and sequences and everything else like that. Ultimately, that’s what has really generated and created my business over the years. So I, I hadn’t read anything. I hadn’t learned anything. And so I was just kind of learning as I was going. Not being on the corporate ladder, you don’t learn any of that stuff. So I was learning as I was going. And then the cool thing about being with these guys that had been in business for maybe two to three years now is they were kind of that one next level ahead of me in business. And so I got to learn from them as they were going through their different stages. And that’s when I got to read some different books and got some recommendations about what I should be doing, get to meet people like you. And actually, my favourite book ever is ten x is easier than two x. And you were the one who, told me to read that, good book. Yeah, it’s amazing. So, yeah, it wasn’t probably until I just went hard. I was spending 12 hours a day, minimum working. Whether I was on a call building the product, talking to people, talking to clients, I was literally learning as I was going. And it probably wasn’t until maybe twelve months in where I slowed down a bit and said, okay, the business has proven. How do I actually build a business now?

Carl Taylor: Well, let’s go there for a moment because that’s an interesting place for you to bring up because obviously you’re a new dad and here you are spending twelve hour plus days on your business. Firstly, how did that impact your relationship?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, it’s a really good question. This was in the middle of COVID and so it’s a bit of a journey, so I’ll take you through it. This was kind of in the middle of COVID and my wife is italian and we often used to live in Melbourne. Now we live in Gold coast and we’d often go for dinner there maybe once or twice a week. We really got on with the family. We’d all have this really nice family get together and dinners and everything else like that. And so in the middle of COVID where we couldn’t catch up to each other, Melbourne was completely locked down and everything else like that. My wife and I decided that we would get, a really large house and we’d all move in together. Now, it wasn’t the whole family. It was just my wife’s parents and us. And we had summer at the time, which is our daughter. And so that’s what gave me the flexibility and a little bit of a mental cheque just to go. Okay, well, we’ve got four people in the house. The grandparents are around. My wife’s amazing. Like, she’s the best mum in the world. But she also had support from her parents and her mum whenever she needed it as well. Which was really great for summer because she got all of this support. But it wasn’t the best for mine and someone’s relationship because I’ll get there next.

Carl Taylor: Yeah.

Jordan de Jong: Because I was just super focused on the business and I wasn’t spending as much time as I should with her. And same for Renee as well. My wife, she was spending all the time with summer that she needed to. And then to get her steam off, she was kind of talking to her parents and I was just in the room coding something or on the phone or something. So I wasn’t spending a lot of time with her as well. And look, we have a really great relationship. It didn’t impact us in terms of we were fighting or she was upset that we weren’t getting time together. And you really couldn’t see it at a surface, level. But it wasn’t until we actually moved to the gold coast and it became just me, her and summer again, where I realised we’ve actually lost a fair bit of our relationship that we had when we were just together. And it was just us two. And I was spending the nights working like I’d still be working at six or 07:00 where renee had summer all day and she was exhausted and she just wanted to be relieved. And I was just kind of like, oh, no, I’ve always just worked and I didn’t really have that. It took me a little while to go back and, like, renee needs help after work. I need to stop working and spend time with my daughter and my wife and just get to know them. So I was blessed in the fact that renee had support around her, which was really handy to help me allow me to continue to build the business. But if I had my time again and we didn’t have that, like, it’s something that I would change completely. It’s time that I would never get. Look, you know, she was a baby and she’s not going to remember it as such, but for me, I felt like I’d lost a bit of time with her in her early days. It’s been great because we got a really good relationship now, but definitely did have an impact, for sure.

Carl Taylor: Yeah. It’s interesting because anyone who’s in business, you’re trying to balance this. It is like a baby, especially early days of the business. It’s very needy baby, just like a real baby. And then as they get older and you set things up, they don’t have to need you as much. Right? Like, my business needs me 4 hours a month. That’s very different to the early stages. So you had this new baby of, a business, and you had a new baby. And so you’ve done what frankly, many men do is all the energy and focus goes on the business baby, and the home life gets a little bit left. And as you said, what you’re saying of like, oh, it wasn’t like we had more fights and stuff. That’s quite normal, too, for many men, I find. But it’s that when you finally go, hey, actually, when you come up for air, you go, hold on, we don’t have the relationship, we don’t have the connection we used to have. I don’t know my kids, my kids don’t know me. And so, the fact that I know you’ve, in a very short period of time, what you have done is amazing, and in my experience, quite rare in the speed of which you’ve been able to have the success you’ve had, which is amazing. You had all this background that’s allowed you and paid off to allow to create what you’ve created. Not everyone listening to this had that for their own journey. I definitely didn’t have that for my journey. And if you’re listening to this going, oh, cool, I’ll be able to do it. Absolutely. The fact that Jordan’s done it shows it’s possible. I just want to set that context, though, that in my experience, it’s not the norm. That in a short period of time you were able to get to a point where now you can step back a little bit. I remember we had this conversation, I think it was late last year, and you were like, yeah, there’s not many people who can relate to it, but you were kind of like, well, I’ve kind of got a lot of money and I’ve got flexibility. What do I do with that? So let’s fast forward, I guess, to right now. What does your time look like? You were spending 12 hours then. What’s it like now in terms of business relationship, spending time with work life balance? I like to think work life integration, but what’s that look like now?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah. And honestly, if you’re listening to this, you’re at a good place because Carl’s had a massive impact on that whole philosophy for me. So I remember on the way up to Ozcon, I don’t know if it was you, but someone was grilling me on, like, why don’t you hire someone? Why don’t you get someone to do something else? Because I was just wearing all hats, right? That’s all. I’d never known I’d learnt sales, I learned marketing, I knew how to code, I, was understanding business and so I just felt like I could continue to do it all forever. And so, yeah, I just went through this season of, there was another guy on the trip called Jack who runs quite, a large software company over in America. And he said, go cheque out this website, you’ll be able to find some developers, they can help you out with some stuff. And I was like, I don’t know. And then I think you or will were talking about looking at getting a VA and having some VA do some help around that sort of stuff. And so I kind of tested the water a little bit and dabbled my feet. It was funny, I was saying like, oh, I’d love to get, a developer to help me do X, Y and Z with the platform, help with some authentication or stuff, stuff that I just don’t enjoy. Like I like working on the modelling, not like the login process. And I was like, oh, I’d love to just test the waters with that. And he goes, mate, you’ll test the waters and then you’ll think of something else that they can do, and then you’ll think of something else you do. And then you’ll realise that actually there’s a full time role here. And then you’ll realise that actually full.

Carl Taylor: Time roles, all three of them, actually.

Jordan de Jong: Doing things all the time. And so for me, it was such a valuable trip and just an understanding and just getting a different context on how it all works. And there’s this methodology in ten x is better than two x, which is essentially just writing down everything that you do and then highlighting the 80% of things that are taking up most of your time and highlighting the 20% of things that are progressing you or moving you forward or moving the needle for you. And so I just went through this really big process of saying, like, I love coding. There’s nothing more in the bottom of my heart. I love just switching off for the day, headphones on, and just coding for 12 hours. Like, that’s my dream day. But it also takes up all of my time. And so I had to plate that back down. Sales, I had to move on. Actually doing the strategies, like one on one with clients, I had to stop doing. And these are all things, these are all hats that I was wearing forever. But I really highlighted and I went, well, those 12 hours are actually consumed by all these things that I can actually just pay someone else to do. And I think you were actually talking about running the number on your automation number or whatever it might be.

Carl Taylor: Automation rate?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah. Do you want to give us just a gist of that so I don’t.

Carl Taylor: Yeah. In general, your automation rate is effectively what you can afford to pay someone to free up an hour of your time. Right. And I think there’s a previous episode where we’ve gone through this already, but in a nutshell, you’re looking at taking your owner’s hourly rate. So you figure out, what’s your salary, how much are you taking out of the business? Right. That’s everything. Profit, salary, business expenses. Dividing that by the number of hours you work per week and the weeks you work per year, that’ll give you your owner’s hourly rate. That’s how much you earn for your time. That’s what you’re putting in time for money. Then to get your automation rate, you divide that by a multiple of either two or four to figure out what’s the return, because you don’t want to just go, cool, I’ve paid someone the same amount as me. You haven’t made any return. You want to actually get a return on your investment as you would in any investment. So you’re looking for either a two to a four times return on your time. And so let’s say you got an hourly rate of $100, and you were, looking for a four times return. That means you can afford to pay $25 an hour to someone to free up that hour of your time. And when I say an hour, I’m not saying, like, you can pay that person $25 an hour and they take 3 hours to do something. You can do it in an hour. I’m saying you can pay $25 to get an hour of your time back. And so if they take 3 hours to do it, but it frees up your time, it would be that 25 divided by three is effectively the hourly rate they should be earning. So that’s in a nutshell. I think we’ve got some other episodes, but that’s the general journey of it.

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, 100%. So that was just a really big breakthrough for me because I ran the math and I was like, I’m so silly not to pay someone 25 hours, even if it does take them longer to take this off my hand. And so I slowly chunked off those things one at a time. And now my day generally looks like I get up at three or four in the morning just because I naturally get, up with the sun. That’s a thing that I enjoy to do. I’ll work between maybe like, three and six in the morning, and that’s like, my really good working time because everyone in the house is asleep, no one’s calling me, no one’s sending me email. I was like, it’s just really efficient working time. And then between 66 37, 38, I’ll spend with my daughter. So get her up, give her breakfast, take her to daycare, whatever we need to do. 830, I’ll go to gym. 930, I’ll go to the beach, get home at like 1010 30. Have I, eat once a day now? I’m still on the carnivore diet, but I’ll eat once a day. So generally after I eat, it’s like 1111 30, and I feel like the day is done pretty much. But after, say, 11, 11 30, between then and maybe four, that’s kind of when I do any of phone calls that I need to do or follow up with the team and make sure that they’re all running things efficiently, answer any questions that I need to do, have podcasts like this. Essentially any communication sort of thing will happen in the afternoon. And then after four, I’ll pick daughter up from daycare and spend the rest of the day with her. So, yeah, 12 hours is essentially condensed down to, like, three really solid working hours, and then the businessy, phone cally, podcasty stuff I’ll do in the afternoon, which I generally don’t. I mean, it is work, but I love having a bit of a yarn to people anyway.

Carl Taylor: And there’s a difference between working in a business and on the business, right? Like doing things like podcasts, strategic partnerships, those sorts of things can be a lot more on the business work as opposed to in the nuts and bolts of the delivery, the customer support, all of those kinds of things. So, yeah, it’s amazing what you’ve been able to do to go from that in such a short period of time and to have that balance now between spending time. You can see the distinction in what you’ve described there. I personally do not want to wake up the time you do, but the way you’ve crafted your day, it gives you a lot of flexibility to be there for family, to actually have some white space. And so it’s just huge. Hats off to you for what you’ve done there. What I’m most curious, I guess, is going, okay, now that you’re at this point where the business doesn’t need you as much, how are you finding the hunger, to move to the next level? And is your focus purely on business now, or have some things started to shift? Because I know with my own journey that when I finally kind of got a chance to step out of business, it’s almost like light bulbs turn on and you start to see there’s a lot more in the world than just business. Has that been your experience?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, definitely. So apart from doing the 12 hours and then having that lesser of a relationship with my daughter and wife, when you sit down behind a computer for 12 hours a day, you start to put on a little bit of weight. And so I’ve always kind of been a bit of a gym guy. Like, I’ve always gone to the gym, but I was still going through the gym. I was kind of in and out. Like, I’d be going for half an hour or 45 minutes. It was just to get in and out of the gym, but also, well, two things, actually, which is pretty crazy. But I did end up putting on a bit of weight. So when we moved to the Gold Coast, I think I was about 108 kilos or something like that. Not huge, huge, but I started to really get there. And the second thing is, in the middle of COVID especially when I was on the phone for more than like 10 hours a day, I would get off the phone and I would just be so mentally exhausted. I’d feel like a drink to just help me decompress and get through the season. So during COVID I got to a point where I was drinking like, yeah, I mean, like two bottles of gin a week. It was crazy. I’m not much of a drinker. I don’t really drink. I don’t get drunk and I wasn’t really getting drunk of it, but I really was drinking a lot just because it was affecting my mental state and I recognised that I was doing it to get me through the rest of the day and to get me ready for the next day just so I could mentally completely zone out. And so there are two things that I really identified when I started to come out of it as like, this needs to change. I didn’t feel great about it. I felt sluggish and overweight and I didn’t feel great. And so, yeah, after I had a little bit more of my time back, I reflected back on where I was in the weight. I’ve completely stopped drinking now. I don’t drink alcohol. Maybe on occasion, on a special occasion or something like that, but I have no desire to drink. We don’t drink at home or anything, which has been awesome. But also really got back into the gym and as I mentioned, sort of on the carnivore diet and really been dieting. So now I’m back down to 94 kgs. So lost about 14 kilos or something like that. And that has predominantly become my main focus of a day. Yeah, work is important. If something stuffs up at work, I want to get on top of it. But that will never come in between getting to the gym or going for a walk or eating healthy. Just because I feel like regardless if you have wealth or success or friends or family come and go within your life, your body is what stays with you regardless. Right. And so that should become first because not only do I physically feel better, not only do I mentally feel better, but I just feel more prepared and more excited and more energised every single day to focus on what I need to focus. And so it’s helped me really think about not working in the business and working on the business. So, yeah, for me now it’s more less about the cogs of internal the business. It’s just making sure that I’m always in the best mental state and physical state that I can possibly be for every day. What I’m thinking about when I am working is just like, how do we ten x this? Instead of going, oh, we did ten leads this week, we need to do 20 leads a week on average next year. When you’re setting your goals, it’s like, actually, what are the things I can do in this marketplace that are just going to completely revolutionise the business? What are the big plays that I can make that, yeah, it might cost me some equity, yeah, it might cost me a significant amount of return, but it’s such a big play that it’s going to have a ten x return. So that someone said this, I can’t remember who it was, but essentially creating, a billion dollar business and creating a million dollar business is exactly the same effort. It’s just thinking about things differently and that’s really impacted me, where you can create any sort of business that you want to create, but if you think about things the right way and the strategic way and think much bigger than just like how do I get the next sale or the next lead, you can generate a whole lot more income for the same amount of effort and get there over a little while. So a big focus for me is family, health, and just thinking a little bit more outside the box with business rather than grinding in the business.

Carl Taylor: I love it, man. And what I love about it is I shared with you just before we hit recording that as part of our Dadpreneur programme, we focus on four key areas, right? You got business, and so how do you be the owner, not the operator, of your business, right? like, if you want to be the king of your business, you need to be the owner, not the operator. And I can see the mental shifts for you in such a short period of time have allowed you to start to see like that, act like that. And it’s showing up in the amount of time you now have available and how you think about business. And then in relationship, it’s about how do you lead, not follow? How do you actually step up as the man to lead the relationship? Relieve your family, lead your kids, to give them the promised land, to give them a better life that they deserve? And then in the health side of things, how do you command your mind, your body, your emotions, rather than yield to them? Like the fact that you were needing your vices of. And we’ve all got them, we’ve all got our vices, right? For some men, it’s pornography, for some men it’s gaming, for other men, it’s business itself, right? We’ve all got it, whether it’s alcohol, weed, whatever. And so you got to be able to overcome those and command it. And they can see that, that you got to the point where you’re like, no, this has got to change. I need to do this. And then finally, in wealth, which is the place that your business actually sits in, which for us, we talk about, you need to protect and not risk, because you’re already taking so much risk in business. Business is a highly strong, powerful return, and in some ways, the risk can be mitigated the smarter you get or the more educated you get and the people you have around you. But it’s still probably one of the highest risk assets you can own, but you have a lot more control over. So you want to make sure that outside of business, that you’re focusing on things that protect your family, protect you. And I know we didn’t touch on it, but you already have a, property portfolio as well. You’ve got all these pieces in place, and we haven’t personally known each other a long time, but knowing your journey and the conversations we’ve had, I really am, hats, off to you for what you’ve created. And I love where you’re at, and I love the problem that you’re solving. You found a true need that people have. And so while you’re solving it for the buyer’s agents, which are the people who value it, this is a need that anyone who’s trying to build a property portfolio truly is like, how do I plan this? Once you’ve bought your first, maybe your second. Once you get past two properties, you start to go, okay, well, as long as you got the cash flow to keep you going, what do I do with it? How do I actually continue this journey in a way that’s sustainable and that’s exactly what your software does, obviously, for people want to find that. Gameplans.com au is the website. Before we kind of wrap things up, though, I would love to go, I guess, a little bit on the practical. You’ve mentioned a lot about ten x is better than two x book. You’ve, mentioned about how you started hiring people. But if you were to go back and give advice to that Jordan, who was just, he’s just got his daughter in his arms, and he’s looking at her and going, wow, I was like this. And remembering that your dad’s looking a lot older, and you’re like, oh, I’m only 30 od years away from that. If you could go back to that moment and you could whisper something in Jordan’s ear. what would you tell him? What would that advice be that you would give to that version of Jordan?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, I think if it was just one little whisper, it would, like, just go do it. As you said, it’s risky in business. You are taking steps out. You are getting, you know, jordan Peterson’s got this really good quote, and I can’t remember it off the top of my head, but it’s something about, like, the thing about life that’s so interesting is that you’re all in. No matter what you do, no matter where you’re at, you’re all in on this thing. This life is going to kill you one day. So why not just play the most magnificent game while you’re here? And I’m getting, like, I’m, choking up about this because it’s like, I get really emotional about it, and it’s such a strong statement. It’s like, we’re here. This life’s going to kill us. Why not, just do the best that we possibly can while we’re here? Because we’re just going to die one day anyway. I would much rather. I have been a gamer in the past. I’ve played of World of Warcraft for 18 hours a day. You think 12 hours a day is bad? Go back and watch me playing World of Warcraft. I’ve been there. I’ve done that journey. But if you can just turn that energy and turn that time and turn that concentration into building a business that you love and enjoy and you thrive in, it’s got such a better outcome than wasting time and playing video games and stuff like that. Don’t get me wrong. Occasionally I’ll play a video game on a weekend just to debrief. But, yeah, man, we’ve only got one life. It’s super short. It’s going to kill us. Why not just play the best game while we’re here?

Carl Taylor: That’s a really good piece of advice. And it’s true, right? We are in this one life you, mentioned before. We have this one body. Like, how we show up controls whether or not our relationships stay with us, but we can’t control whether they pass away and all those things. But you’re right. As long as we’re alive, that body’s there, and we’re in this moment, no matter what. I, like that. It’s a really cool way of putting it. So I think this is a good place to wrap, man. Like, I love your journey. If people want to connect with you, obviously we’ve mentioned gameplans.com au. Where else can they find you? Do you have know what’s the connection?

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, probably super active on LinkedIn and Facebook. So you’ll be able to find me there.

Carl Taylor: I’ll give you my show.

Jordan de Jong: Yeah, so just Jordan Diong. or you can shoot me an email if you want to. Just [email protected]. Au happy to, just mention the podcast and we have a bit of a chat and catch up. But yeah, all social media outlets, I love it.

Carl Taylor: All right, well, thank you for tuning in, listeners. I hope you’ve enjoyed this conversation as much as I have. Huge thank you to Jordan for his wisdom and sharing his journey. If you want to get the know, if we said something and you’re like, I can’t remember that. What were those different things that were mentioned? You can find a transcript, you can find links, you can find basically a whole summary of this episode over at the show. Notes which are at rising show. Rising show. And if you’ve been listening to this for a while and you haven’t left us a review yet on Spotify, just click us the star rating. I’d love it to be a five star, but if it’s not worth five stars, that’s okay. Just give us whatever you need. And if you’re on Apple, you can leave a little comment. That would be amazing. But most importantly, if there was someone who came to mind while you were listening to this or watching this on YouTube, and you’re like, my friend needs to hear this, or my brother or my dad or whoever, someone came to mind is like, they need to hear this. Grab the little link, shoot it to them. Because one of the best gifts you can give them is expanding their mind by exposing them to this stuff. It’s going to help them. It’s going to help me build the show. And ultimately, you’ll probably get some credit too, for helping expose them to their stuff. So if you haven’t already, think of that person and go and grab the link and send it to them now. All right, until next time, keep up the journey. Hey, fellow dadpreneurs, thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links, and other notes from today’s episode, as well as to all other episodes over at rising show. That’s show not. So. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need. Close.

Like this episode? Have topics that you would like us to discuss?  We’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Let us know by leaving a comment below. 

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

122: Investing for Your Kids

How soon should you start investing for your kids?  When should you start teaching your children the concept of investing? If you’ve been wondering if you should start now or wait a bit longer, stick around to gain some insights on this topic.

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl Taylor tackles the dilemma of whether or not parents should invest money for their children’s futures. He shares that he sets aside a monthly amount that gets invested into ETFs and shares for his daughter. Her portfolio is kept separate, so the funds are earmarked for her. 

Carl believes it’s important to give kids a financial foundation, even through small, regular contributions. There is danger in simply handing money over to your kids without inculcating a mindset on how they should handle their funds. So his plan is to start teaching his daughter to invest the money alongside him to help her develop financial skills and perspective before she’s allowed access to the capital as a young adult.

The key is to not simply build assets but impart money-related knowledge and provide your children with an investing portfolio to learn with. 

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Ideas on how to invest on behalf of your children via ETFs and shares (00:47)
  • When should you give your children control over their investments? (01:48)
  • The benefits of giving your children their own bucket of money (03:24)
  • The Jar System (04:00)

QUOTES

  • “If you just give your kids money, but you don’t teach them how to handle money, you don’t teach them how to look after money, you don’t teach them how to think about money, then you give them a pot of gold that they can go and just spend.” – Carl Taylor
  • “Give a mindset, a skill set, an understanding of where money fits in society.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

Dadpreneur Program

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, and welcome to another episode of Dadpreneurs Rising. I’m your host, Carl Taylor.

This is the show for you if you are a dad, who runs your own business, and you’re looking to better balance business, home life, being a father, being a husband, all of the shebang that come with being a dadpreneur.

Now, in today’s episode, we’re going to talk about an interesting topic, which is, should I be investing for my kids? You know, it’s an interesting dilemma that many parents, but as dads who are, you know, success- oriented, usually, if we’re running our own business, we’re very goal-oriented, and we’re success oriented, and we like the idea of building investments for ourselves, should we be investing on behalf of our children too, as well? And I think this is a very personal decision, however, I will share some of my takes on what I do.

So I invest a amount every single month for my daughter, that amount gets dollar cost averaged into a bunch of ETFs and shares. And the way you structure that there are so many different ways to structure that. You can structure that where you put it in your child’s name, and there can be tax implications to that, you can put it within a structure.

For us, I have it inside of a company that also does other investments for the family, but it has its own separate portfolio. So it’s very clear that this is my daughter’s share portfolio, this is her investments, just happens to be owned within a company entity that we use for investing. So I believe it’s important to start them off if you can afford it, even if it’s small amounts to give them a foundation. But the interesting thing that always comes up is if you’ve been building wealth, at what point do you give them control? So while I’m not at that point, yet, I can share a little bit of what I’ve been thinking and the current plan.

So the current plan is that around 16 years old, if she’s showing interest, I will give her an opportunity to start investing the money alongside me. So she won’t be able to cash it out, she won’t be able to do anything with that money, except to use it to make more money. And this is really a key part of you know, if you just give your kids money, but you don’t teach them how to handle money, you don’t teach them how to look after money, you don’t teach them how to think about money, then you really, you give them a pot of gold that they can go and just spend. My hope is to give a mindset, a skill set, an understanding of where money fits in society, rather than just a bunch of money.

So around the 16 year old range, maybe early if she shows serious interest, but probably around that point, we’ll start to go, Hey, we’re going to invest this money together, we’re going to make some decisions, walk through it, and really help kind of guide her while also letting her make decisions and see what happens. Around the 18 year old mark is when I’ll probably start to go okay, well, now, you can get a small dividend or something, taking it, you can’t access the capital, but you can start to live off the eggs if you choose to, you can start to take them out rather than reinvest them.

Hopefully between 16 and 18, I’ve taught her the value of reinvesting those dividends, so she won’t want to but I’ll give that to her as a choice. And then probably, a lot, a bit later in life around the 25 year old, maybe even 30 year old mark, depends on whether I’m still here, is when I would actually go okay, now you can do whatever you want with that capital. So that’s currently my plan. So in terms of should you invest for your kids, I think you should.

Obviously, the more kids you have, the more challenging it becomes. I think it is worth giving them their own bucket of money, it doesn’t have to be huge amounts, but just small little investments that you can make on a regular basis. That gives them a portfolio, it gives them a place to get started. Because then you can have that conversation of like, look what I’ve created for you. Let’s keep the ball rolling before I actually give it to you. But as I said, this is a personal decision for you to make. And, but if you can afford it, even just small amounts, $5 a month, it can be all you need to get started.

Obviously, if you can put more then go for it. But if you’ve got a bunch of kids, you put $5 a month, I think that’s a really good thing to start with. Another area you can start with too is, you know, teaching them, we’ve talked about in previous episodes on the podcast, the Jar System, teaching them how to take the money that they do receive either from a job or if you pay them an allowance, and how to make that, you had a budget that money into different jars and allocate it for different purposes, that will also have a really powerful impact over and above just giving them a bunch of money that you’ve invested over the years.

So that’s where I’m at. I’m focusing on shares at some point, we might invest in a property for her as well. But that, you know, we’ll leave that down the sides for the future to see what happens. But right now we’re just keeping a pool of money in shares for her.

So I hope you found that interesting. I’d love to hear from you. If you’ve done something differently, shoot us an email. We’d love to hear from you. You can find us at rising dot show, you can make contact, and it would be great to hear your approach to this. Until next time, keep up the journey.

Like this episode? Have topics that you would like us to discuss?  We’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Let us know by leaving a comment below. 

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

121: Is Work Your Mission or Your Escape?

Some entrepreneurs see work as a means through which they can enjoy life more with their families, while others see it as an excuse to escape the chaos at home. Which one are you? 

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl poses an important question — Do you see your work as a meaningful mission or an escape from reality? For dadpreneurs, it’s critical to assess this honestly.

Many business owners immerse themselves and seek refuge in work to avoid facing difficult situations at home. While providing a temporary distraction, this neglect will not resolve underlying relationship or family dynamic issues.

Carl reminds us that the first step is acknowledging when you are escaping into work to numb challenges on the home front. Next, you must summon the courage to explore what specifically needs attention there, and how to address it. 

On the other hand, if you have a healthy home life and wholeheartedly view your business as fulfilling your true life purpose — that is tremendous news. Still, be mindful that your family helps sustain this success, so be sure to value and connect with them as you fulfil your mission.

Support is available if you need help navigating this critical phase in your entrepreneurial journey, and Dadpreneurs Rising could very well be the ally you’ve been searching for.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Do you see work as a mission, a deep soul calling or an escape from reality? (00:22)
  • What you can do once you become aware that you’re using work as an escape (01:48)
  • Who you should never forget if you’re at the stage where you see work as a mission (02:26)

QUOTES

  • “The good news is, awareness is the first step. As soon as you have that awareness to thinking I’m escaping, you can start to change it.” – Carl Taylor
  • “Don’t forget about the people who are supporting you at home. Don’t forget about your kids, don’t forget about your wife … it’s easy to get so consumed in your mission that they feel neglected.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

Dadpreneur Program

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

Carl Taylor: Are you someone who sees your work as a mission? What you do in your business? Is this a mission, a deep soul calling? Or is it actually your escape? 

Hey, everyone, this is Carl Taylor. I’m, your host here at Dadpreneurs Rising. Welcome. This is the show for you. If you’re a dad in business and you’re struggling to balance being a dad, an entrepreneur, a husband and a man in general. Now, I want to talk about a really interesting question. Are you someone who sees your work as a mission? Like what you do in your business? Is this a mission, a deep soul calling? Or is it actually your escape? Are you escaping from reality? 

See, a lot of people, they know that people watch tv or scroll social media, or drink alcohol or do drugs as a form of escaping from their reality. Not enough people are aware that you can do the same thing in work, in business. And so if you are an entrepreneur and many dadpreneurs suffer from this, where home life maybe not quite the way you want it to be, whether it’s you don’t feel appreciated enough, or whether it’s you actually just get irritated all the time, or you feel like you’re being nagged or whatever’s going on in home life, that it’s easier to go to work and to try and get more sales or to put out the fire and deal with the stress and the drama in work life, because that’s something you know and you have full control over, rather than facing the mess that’s waiting for you back home. so if you are a man who’s going, you know what, yeah, I am escaping into work. 

The good news is awareness is the first step. As soon as you have that awareness to go, ah, I’m escaping, you can start to change it, because all you need to do if you’re realising you’re escaping is shift your attention now back to home. What’s going on at home that has you wanting to escape? Putting your head in the sand and forgetting about and ignoring it will not make that problem go away. Be a man, step up and look at it head on. What is going on? What needs addressing? Then if you need support and you need help on how to address those things, well, you can reach out to us at dadpreneur.com and see whether or not we’re the right fit to help you navigate those challenges. 

But the first thing is you might need to identify what’s going on for you at home that’s making you want to avoid home and go and spend more time working now on the other side, if you’re going, no, you know what? Home life is amazing. I’ve got this great balance, and business is really the thing that fuels my soul. It’s my core mission, my purpose on this planet. Then that is amazing. But even still, ask yourself, is that deeply true? Are you convincing yourself that’s true, or is it really true? And if it is amazing, I applaud you. Keep doing what you’re doing. But don’t forget about the people who are supporting you at home. Don’t forget about your kids. Don’t forget about your wife. They’re there supporting you. And it’s easy to get so consumed in your mission that they feel neglected. And if they feel neglected, sometimes they do things that aren’t the best for keeping your family together. I’m going to leave it there. Until next time, keep up the journey. 

Hey, fellow dadpreneurs.  Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links, and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes us over at rising show that’s show not so. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need.

Like this episode? Have topics that you would like us to discuss?  We’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Let us know by leaving a comment below. 

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

120: The Only People Who Will Remember You Worked Late

If you’ve been stuck in hustle mode for years, yet stagnated personally and professionally, maybe it’s time to shake things up. Doing the same things will net the same results. It’s time to evaluate if your business fuels or drains your life!

In this episode of Dadpreneurs Rising, Carl Taylor reveals a blunt truth — the only people who will remember you worked late nights and weekends are your wife and kids. 

This wake-up call urges business dads to rethink their priorities and make some drastic changes, if necessary, in how they manage their time.

While demanding clients and critical projects may feel pressing at the moment, your family bears the real impact of absent presence in the long run. Prioritising work over nourishing connections inflicts a quiet and lasting pain.

With care and some boundaries, Carl reminds us that we can have a flourishing professional life alongside a thriving home life. It starts with taking responsibility for the environment you’re creating and taking courageous steps towards change.

Remember, what truly matters most in life are people and experiences, not accomplishments and assets. If business eclipses these priorities, it’s time to face this tough reality head-on and correct mistakes before regret sets in. Bear in mind — your wife and kids are the only people who will remember.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • What dads in business really need to hear (00:38)
  • Why you should start thinking about your work-life balance (02:46)

QUOTES

  • “The only people who will remember that you worked late are your wife and your kids.” – Carl Taylor
  • “If you set things up correctly, and you have the right approach to how you think about where business fits in your overall kingdom, your overall life, then business can be a thing that fuels your life rather than takes you away from the things that are really going to matter most.” – Carl Taylor
  • “Ultimately, it comes down to the decision of am I going to let this business run my life or am I going to let business be a component that fuels my life? The difference between living to work versus working to live.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

Dadpreneur Program

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

Hey, welcome to Dadpreneurs Rising. This is our very first episode under the new branding. So, welcome. So great to have you here. I’m your host, Carl Taylor. If you’ve not listened to previous episodes when we had a different name, then I’m a business owner, I’m a dad, and I also happen to be financially free. And I run a coaching program called dadpreneur.com, where I help other dads who are in this business journey to balance business and home life to ultimately step into being the king of the four key arenas of their kingdom, which are business, health, wealth, relationships.

So today’s episode, I want to talk about something that when I first heard this, really smacked me in the face, and when I’ve shared this same comment to many other dads in business, it’s a bit of a gut punch, but it’s something you need to hear and hear.

Here it is. The only people who will remember that you worked late are your wife and your kids. Just let that sink in. I’ll say it again, the only people who will remember 20 years from now, 10 years from now that you worked late, your wife and your kids. The important client, those team members that you know, whatever the key project, and the reason you tell yourself that you got to work, you got to work, you got to work, you got to work, you got to hustle, the only people that are going to remember that you weren’t home for dinner, the only people going to remember that you weren’t available to play, that you weren’t available to connect, that you felt distant, are your wife and your kids.

Now it doesn’t have to be this way. Yes, business is like another baby, it takes a lot of attention. However, if you set things up rightly, and you have the right approach in how you think about where business fits in your overall kingdom, your overall life, then business can be a thing that fuels your life rather than takes you away from the things that are really going to matter most. I mean, there have been so many studies and discussions with people on their deathbed, that usually they’re not saying, hey, I really wish I made more money, hey, I really wish I started that business. Well, that might be true. Some people might say, I wish I’d started that business because they stayed safe. But that’s not you, you’re already in business. Usually they’re saying I wish I’d taken that chance with, you know, that love or I wish I’d spent more time when my kids or it’s usually about relationships and experiences that they truly care about on their deathbed, not that, you know, I wish I’d spent another five hours working so I could try to win that client.

Now I’m not taking away from the hustle required in business. I’ve had my share of that in my 20 odd years in business. But there is a different way that you can go about it. And so I encourage you to really think about it right now. If you’re spending hours working, if you’re telling yourself, I got to keep working, I got to keep working. And you know that things are suffering at home, that your relationship with the kids, not where you want it to be. You’re not spending the time with them that you’d like to, you haven’t been able to be there, you haven’t been able to be the person they can lean on because you’ve been so busy at work, or things are really strained between your wife, maybe they’re not terrible, right? Maybe your relationships, okay. And you’re happy, you’re happy. But you know that she’s happy? If she’s sitting there, you know, grinning but inside feeling neglected. I don’t know, I don’t know your personal situation, but many women, that’s their situation. Many women who are in relationship with entrepreneurs. So, really ask yourself, is it worth it? The answer might be yes, in this phase. But if you’ve been doing that, for a sustained period of time, if you’ve just been only in this hustle mode for about a month, that’s probably fine. But if you’ve been in this hustle and grind mode for a few years, and you feel like you’re just kind of moving in quicksand, you’re not actually going anywhere, you’re just spinning wheels in sand. And then it’s probably time for a whole different approach.

Don’t keep doing the same thing because you’re gonna keep getting the same results. Change things up. If you want some help, you can find us over at dadpreneur.com Reach out, love to see if we can help you. But ultimately, it comes down to the decision of am I going to let this business run my life or am I going to let business be a component that fuels my life? The difference between living to work versus working to live. I’ll leave you with that. Till next time. Keep up the journey.

Hey, fellow dadpreneurs.  Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. If you’ve missed something said on today’s episode, you can find transcripts, links, and other notes from today’s episode, as well as all other episodes us over at rising show that’s show not so. Head over to rising show to get all the information that you need.

Like this episode? Have topics that you would like us to discuss?  We’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Let us know by leaving a comment below. 

Categories
Business Growth Entrepreneurship Personal Development

119: Introducing Dadpreneurs Rising

Carl Taylor marks this episode with an exciting announcement — rebranding this podcast from Entrepreneurs Rising to Dadpreneurs Rising. While subtle, this shift signifies a new focus on serving entrepreneurial dads specifically.

Originally launched to chronicle entrepreneurs rising the tide together, over time, Carl pivoted to support men navigating business ownership alongside being a dad and a loving partner. His community revealed how fellow dads hungered for content tackling this precarious balance.

With an insider understanding of the unique challenges dads face, Carl enthusiastically leans into targeted topics to equip his niche audience. Dadpreneurs Rising aligns the podcast to directly help entrepreneurial fathers better juggle priorities, grow wealth, overcome addictions, optimise fitness, strengthen relationships, and many more.

However, the podcast remains open and valuable for all entrepreneurs seeking business insights and personal development. While repositioning to serve dadpreneurs explicitly, the show’s wealth-building business wisdom and relevant, enlightening guests carries on as the cornerstones for this podcast.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL DISCOVER…

  • Rebranding announcement (00:11)
  • A look behind the podcast’s new name: Dadpreneurs Rising (01:00)

QUOTES

  • “We want to work with you, dads, because I see you.  If you’re a dad listening to this, and you run your own business, I know what you’re going through. I am a dad too. “ – Carl Taylor 
  • “It’s a community for fellow dads who run their own business, who want to better balance those roles of being the entrepreneur, the father, the husband, and the man.” – Carl Taylor

RESOURCES

Dadpreneur Program

WHERE YOU CAN FIND CARL TAYLOR
Automation Agency
CarlTaylor.com.au
LinkedIn
Facebook
Twitter

TRANSCRIPTION

We’ve got exciting news here on the podcast.

Hey, Carl Taylor here. I’m your host. And I’m excited to announce that we are officially rebranding this podcast. It is a very subtle shift in name, but it’s a major shift in context around how we’ll be proceeding with the podcast moving forward. So what is the new name?

Well, currently, or the previous name was Entrepreneurs Rising. And we always loved that name, because it was about, as entrepreneurs, we want to rise the tide, to lift all boats so that we can all succeed. And we started as sharing our journeys, myself and my original co host, Peter, sharing our journeys of entrepreneurship over the 20 odd years that we’ve been in business.

When the show went solo, I continued with the name Entrepreneurs Rising. But over the last six to 12 months, I have been making a shift towards working specifically with men who are dads running their own business. And so the shift in name, the new name is called … (drum roll) … Dadpreneurs Rising. We’re keeping the name pretty simple to make the rebrand simple, but also it still fits. Because all we’re doing is saying, we still want to rise the tide. But we’re specifically saying, hey, we want to work with you, dads, because I see you, if you’re a dad listening to this, and you run your own business, I know what you’re going through. I am a dad too. And not every entrepreneur knows the challenges, that is to be a man who is in business, a man who needs to lead his family, a man who needs to show up for his wife, or long-term lover depending on your situation.

And so as you may or may not know, if you’ve been listening for a while, is I founded dadpreneur.com specifically to work with men like this. And it’s a community for fellow dads who run their own business who want to better balance those roles of being the entrepreneur, the father, the husband, and the man. And so this new name and new brand of Dadpreneurs Rising allows us to take the content into some very specific arenas for men, around business, around addictions, around fitness, around mindset, and of course, around relationships with the kids and relationships with your wife and spouse. And, as always, the content will not change. I’m a big, passionate believer of building wealth outside of your business as well as inside your business. And so we’ll continue to delve deep down that path of how you build wealth outside your business too.

So while it’s not a major shift in name, we’ve gone from entrepreneurs to dadpreneurs. And it’s not even a major shift in content, some of this content I’ve already been starting to bring to the podcast, it will dramatically shift our context for all future episodes.

So if you’re listening to this, and you’re not a man, or you’re not a dad, but you are an entrepreneur, you are still welcome to keep listening. I’m not saying stop listening. If you’re getting value from this podcast and you continue to get value, then please show up, listen to my episodes and the guests that we bring on to the show. Just know that moving forward, we’re going to be targeting the content far more to the challenges and lifestyle of entrepreneurial dads. So, strap in. I’m excited for this new shift of the podcast and the topics that we’re going to be able to delve into. So I look forward to seeing you on the next episode.

Like this episode? Have topics that you would like us to discuss?  We’d love to hear your feedback and comments. Let us know by leaving a comment below.