Building a Business that Lasts

How to Find Work-Life Harmony & Live a Life You Love with JR Rivera

October 11, 2019 Jay Owen Season 1 Episode 60
Building a Business that Lasts
How to Find Work-Life Harmony & Live a Life You Love with JR Rivera
Show Notes Transcript

We all learn by trial and error. Jonathan Rivera is no exception. He grew up in a blue-collar home and was eventually told to get a job. So, after high school, he became an electrician. Nine years later, he decided to become a business owner himself as he bought and flipped properties. Unfortunately, he created a terrible job for himself that he hated. Fortunately, over time, he realized his mistakes and did something about them. Fast forward to today, Jonathan is happily running a real estate business and podcast business (The Podcast Factory). With his four pillars of purpose driving him — family, faith, fitness, and finances — he now focuses on work-life harmony and living a life he loves. If you want to do the same, you’ll be encouraged by this podcast! 



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spk_0:   0:01
Hi. Welcome to building a business that lasts. My name is Joo in, and I'm your host on a quest towards stories, tips and ideas that will help you grow a business without being stressed out, worn out and ready to quit. Each week, I'll interview other business owners who has successfully grown businesses of all types for many years. It's my hope that these conversations will help you build a business that lasts if you've ever wondered howto have a lifestyle business. How to enjoy life a little bit. Maur while still running a business. How to have a family first approach. This interview is for you. On today's episode, I talked to Jonathan Rivera, and I just love this talk because him and I are so aligned with regards to how we believe and think about things and yet in very different areas of work and do all kinds of different stuff. Jonathan has authored four books on podcast. He's hosted 11 different shows. He launched over 40 different shows and has had millions of downloads. So if you're interested in podcasting growing a business and especially in work, life balance and even though that's not the term that we talk

spk_1:   1:06
about in this show. I think you're gonna love this. In fact, he talks about his work, life, harmony. And I really loved that idea. Can't wait to

spk_0:   1:12
share this episode with Jonathan. Thanks for being on the show,

spk_1:   1:22
man. I I'm I'm so stoked to be here. I hope that, uh I hope that we go for 45 minutes today

spk_0:   1:28
way probably will. I'm a hard time keeping under that sometimes. But I want to pack as much value as we can into this episode for those were watching or listening to the podcast. And I'm really excited after having going through your topics list of things you like to talk about because I feel like we've got a lot of alignment and its energy. We never met before. We never talked before. We don't really know each other, but sometimes they're kind of the most fun conversations to jump into. So I'd like to kind of start this off a little bit different than some of the ones that I have in the past. And I'd love to hear from you just right off the bat. What? Some kind of major roadblock or struggle that you've had to overcome in business to get yourself to where you are today.

spk_1:   2:07
First of all, I want to say thank you. Like you said we had met before. You look at a sheet you invite me on to show. That's gracious of you. Thank you for that. And struggles. I've had a few, you know, actually, probably tons. Oh, struggles. But I mean, when I you know, I grew up blue collar and I was told to get a job, and that's what I did. I became Electrician's out of high school. So for nine years I did that. And then I jumped into business for myself. The problem was that I jumped into business for myself with a blue collar mentality, which meant that I created a job for myself and I was flipping properties. I was finding the properties, financing the properties. I was going in there putting on a tool belt and working on the properties. And then I'd come out of that and try to change my hat again to sell the property and negotiate the property to a buyer and that Ah, and this is one of things that was interesting in the conversation we had before we got on the air. You said some people out there might not have bread e myth, and I was doing the whole thing like I was doing that exact thing where I just created a terrible job for myself, which I hated, and and so that was a huge struggle. Then when I got smart, I I decided to hire, and I did what any smart person does. They over higher and then had cash flow issues. And I was drowning with too many too many outgoing debts, you know? Ah, and then and then the other part. And I think it's something that will explore today is just that after you go through those struggles and after you have those ups and downs and look, I was in real estate in 2008. I lost everything. He lost every single thing. My dad's house foreclosed, my house foreclosed, all the money gone, so that's the time where you start getting gun shy and doubting yourself. That was one of the biggest struggles was the self doubt and it took me a couple of years to get out of that self doubt and then the other problem with that self doubt. The thing that came with that was my inability to take big enough risks after that. And so for years I didn't take risks, and so my company didn't grow as it should. And so even though it looks like you're making forward progress internally as an entrepreneur, we know UPS downs. ABS flows back forth. That's life, baby. But if you're not prepared for that gold work at Starbucks,

spk_0:   4:20
well, I love that. I think there's one people out there that are probably listening, and maybe in some of those boats right now, I'm pretty sure that I've walked through all of those at some point in business as well. Let let's rewind to the very first unpack that a little bit. You talked about the idea that you had just created a job for yourself right before the show, we had talked about E myth a little bit, Amos listening. If you haven't read this book before, it's by a guy named Michael Gerber, and he talks about that idea. We start out doing a thing, and we think I could turn this into a business that's not really a business. It's just a job for myself where I'm probably working too much and not getting paid enough for the time that I'm actually putting in. That's where a lot of small business owners find themselves and they get so frustrated and so overwhelmed that, like I was saying, the show, I want people to build, run a business without being worn out, stressed out and ready to quit. And unfortunately, a lot of folks, I think everybody who's ever started business and lasted has felt that way at some point. So the question is, how did I get myself out of that? So when you found yourself there and you're like, Gosh, all I've done is created a job for myself here. I'm working way too many hours. I'm not getting enough return for that time. I don't the freedom that I want. As a result, you started to hire next. You said So what was that like? What did you learn? And you were first starting to build a team and higher because that's probably the next big struggle that most people deal with.

spk_1:   5:40
Yeah, I learned I was a terrible leader. I know it was a terrible employee, then I was a terrible leader. And so I was just learning everything I was terrible at. And if you don't have some thick skin, you're not gonna make it in business. And, well, I just overdid things like I wanted that whole idea not being stressed out not being worn out. I wanted to have that team. I wanted to have all the cool things that I read in a four hour work week. But I just didn't have the skills or the mindset or the ability yet do any of that. So, like, I'll give you one story. I was doing real estate and we would go out and do marketing. One of one of our our best pieces of marketing was banded signs, signs that you see out in the street corners where it says I buy houses, cash and so we put out a couple 100 signs. We get phone calls coming. I was cocky, like, Yeah, my phone's ringing a lot, but I'm always answering it, and I'm like, That's not what I should be doing. I'm acting like an employee here, so I go and I hire call center for like, 1000 1200 bucks a month and they're fielding calls. And when I hear the recordings, I'm embarrassed of how they're handling the calls. And I'm like, Oh, my God, I can't even or this Number one and number two, the calls that are coming in are being treated improperly and still I'm losing opportunity. And so this is something. And you know, this J Because you've been in business 20 years, you know that it's, Ah, you failed twice as much as you win. And so I went through different iterations of that where I was like All right, scale back on the call center. How do I control the calls? All right, get an assistant. How do I give the assistant the right work? And so it was just trial and error, trial and error, figuring out what worked and mostly what didn't work and just keeping the things that work, getting rid of the things that didn't work. But it was a struggle, and and the only thing was that I knew I was unemployable like I knew I couldn't go back to work. And that's the thing like they talk about in the e myth. Michael Gerber talks about in the MIT. The lady with the pie shop is sitting there baking the best pies ever. And she thinks, God, I'm making this This bakery rich with my pie making abilities. She goes out and starts her own pie shop and becomes a slave to the pie shop. Right? And so this is something that I think anybody, especially people like you who are like me who started blue collar. So you think anything I can do or anything you can do, I can do better. It's just that trap. And so there's a struggle there to grow. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give all your listeners a short cut right now that they may not be ready for and I'll tell you that right now if they're here with us listening there on the right track. But if they want better results, they should go out and hire you to help them, like, get the right people around you. The people that have the 20 years of experience, the people that have already been there, and then take the short cuts. That's what you should do. And that's what I did really, really much later. And now I'm prolific at this, but I took me a long time, and I wish I would have just done that from the beginning. Put out the money, hired a J O N and got t where I was going.

spk_0:   8:45
Quicker. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting to me because I know for my self when you talk about, like, finding the shortcuts and really just learning from other people and then also bringing in the other people that you need. Let's not my own weaknesses, really hold me back. For example. I'm a really slow reader, very slow reader. In fact, I've realized now because one of my Children is dyslexic. I made actually partially dyslexic or mildly dyslexic, I should say. And so I didn't read a lot. And there's so much value in books. Well, now I do a lot of audio books. While we should've done that 10 years earlier because now I've found how it works for me and my Maybe there's somebody else smells. My God can't listen in audio book. I can't pay attention. Fine. But for me, that's how I have to, like absorb that content. One thing that I want to narrow down on that you talked about was mindset, and you talked about almost expecting failure. Like, have you been in business long enough? You know it's gonna come, and I'm probably gonna come in 2 to 1 ratio over winning talk about mind set a little bit and how that's impacted you. Because that's been a big thing for me, too. And shifting that over time, I'm curious how that's impacted you and kind of what you've done to be able to put yourself in the right mindset so that you are able to grow and end up in success, whatever that may look like for you.

spk_1:   9:54
So I want to reframe what you just said, J. Because I think it puts the listeners right now on the wrong path. Is expecting failure when I want you guys to do is expect good things, affect triumphs, expects success, but no, that you're gonna fall on your face. Just know that, but expect that you're gonna get back up and tackled up because if you're in this for the right reasons and I'm in this for I've got my ah, my four Pillars Family, faith, fitness, finances like that's what matters to me. And so that's what I lean on, and those are my four pillars of purpose is those are the things that drive me. And so you gotta know what drives you, and when you know what drives you, then you can fill in the other pieces and mindset. I'm sure you've read this or at least listen to him. By the way, I love audio books. In fact, audiobooks is how I got into the business I'm in now. I learned a lot through audio books because I was a slow reader. And so I encourage anybody that if you're not reading every day and it's because you're a slow reader, you can only do a page or two. Try the audio book, then try the audio book on two times speed and you're in business because I do that daily. That's why I'm saying it. But I would recommend reading a book by Carol Dweck named Mindset, and in it she talks about the fixed mindset, which is what a lot of us grow up with. What we're programmed in schools toe toe, learn. What our parents even taught us is like fixed like. No, that's not possible. This is the way it's always been done. This is the way it iss like. That's the fixed mindset. There's no growth there. Then the growth mindset is Yeah, okay. I am not the CEO of a multi $1,000,000 company yet. Yeah, Okay. I'm not making $80,000 a month yet, and that growth mindset allows you to accumulate the pieces you need to get where you're going because it leaves the door open for that. And so I'm I'm a big advocate of the growth mindset, and I'm also a big advocate of audio books and reading every day.

spk_0:   11:58
A couple things. One. It's interesting. The whole fixed mindset, birth growth mindset. I've never heard that phrase that way, but I heard Simon Senate talk at an event recently, and he was talking about the way he phrase, which is kind of similar, as he calls it, the finite game versus the Infinite game. And that's his new book. It's about to come out. I'm ready yet, but the talk was really interesting on how you kind of think about certain things in life are within a certain time window and certain capacities in their finite and other things really are infinite as faras. The possibilities. Depending on where you go, I want to circle back a little bit because you talked about just briefly there, these four pillars that you have family, faith, fitness and finance. A lot of businesses talk about the mindset of having core values. It sounds like that's kind of what those are. Some extent, but it sounds like those air for you personally, and not even necessarily, like for the business. What you say. That's true.

spk_1:   12:50
I would say that that drives everything in my life. I don't think he hears in the way that I've developed my business is what we would call a lifestyle business. There's a reason that we're here talking and chilling, and I can do this is because I I designed a life where this is possible and so I don't look at my business right now, as in a as a separate organism, I look at it as an extension of me. Where does it fit in with my family? Where does it fit in with my faith? Finances? Fitness? You know, I balance ever or I don't even balance and we're gonna talk about this at some point. I don't even believe in balance, so I'll save that for later when we're gonna talk about it. But I look at it like those those 44 pillars form like a pyramid if you join them all up and it's the pyramid of purpose. And my life's purpose is based on family, faith, finances, fitness. And that's through my business through my relationships, through everything I do. It's my purpose in life. And that's what I'm living is my purpose every day.

spk_0:   13:51
So you talk about that idea of designing a life or a lifestyle business for people that maybe haven't heard that term aren't really familiar with kind of what you mean by that unpacked that a little bit for me. What do you mean by your designed A life and you created a lifestyle business versus some other kind of business. What does that mean to you? What does that look like on a day to day basis?

spk_1:   14:11
I think a lot of people would or could could fall into the trap up. I'm not making enough money, or I'm looking at that guy or that guy over there who is already doing the big numbers and comparing. And then they have a big team of 100 people and and, you know, and between us, between us here, we know that they have have all those people that probably got cash. Look, crunches. Anyways, that's the size of it as the size of point. It looks great on the outside. But I designed this and I'll tell you why. I designed us back in 2008 when I lost everything. Everything, everything was gone. I lost everything. Houses, pride. Ah, I just I fell apart and I was like, Huh, What am I gonna do? And, like I said, took me two years to dig out of that. And it was That was a mindset thing because I could have just flipped a switch and dug out of it right away. But I didn't have the ability. I didn't have the maturity to do that yet, which now is a different story, because I'm more aware of this kind of thing. But I created a second business, so I started rebuilding my real estate business. And right now I'm sitting in my real estate office where We have rentals out here and we collect rent. I rebuilt all of this so that we have good income here. And then I said, I'm not gonna let what happened to me last time happen again and built the second business. And that's when I started working online and generations later is what I'm doing today at the podcast factory. But it started out with me saying I need multiple streams of income. I'm not just gonna rely on this real estate thing. If I lose all of that, then what else do I have? And so I started designing the second business to be something that supported what we did, not where I had to go in and work, but what gave me the ability to do things that I want to do, Like I mean, if you I don't know anybody's gonna watch the video, you see a snowboard behind me, and I'm already thinking about getting on the mountain. We go. We go to Park City, Utah, for a month at a time. And snowboard couldn't do that if I had a business where I had to be. There were how to show my face where I had to be in the office. I designed this business to give me the lifestyle I want. And the thing was with second business, I had a great gauge. I looked at what we were making in real estate, and I said, I think this will be successful when I make the same amount of money in this other business without actually having to be anywhere. And that's where I was gonna measure success. And that's where we are now We're about to surpass the real estate business.

spk_0:   16:36
Yeah, I love that. I think the whole idea, first of all, of multiple revenue streams is just critical for people to understand. There's so many people that have lost in business most everything, like you said like you did because all the eggs, room, one basket and even within that basket there was no there. There wasn't enough diversity with regards to what was coming in or where it was coming in from. And me and I just can't emphasize that more is actually a section of my book where I talk about that and the need for multiple revenue streams, because otherwise you just get stuck, you know, and as things can happen in an industry like like you, like, happen to you. If the real estate industry as a whole collapsed, you couldn't control that. It didn't didn't matter how great your business, Waas. If you're caught in the wrong wrong cycle of that, you're like you're going out of business just the way that it is verses. If you had multiple other pieces, you might lose this one over here. But this one over here is still humming along. And as long as you're living within your means, I just love the idea of like designing a life that's more than just the business. I think so many people, so many business owners and I've have been guilty of this for sure focus so much on their business goals and like the and it's usually around revenue goals. Sometimes if they're smart, it's around profitability goals. But even then they leave out all these other things that are so important and cash. I wish I had been introduced the whole idea of a life plan many years earlier, but it's relatively new for me, and I just love that you're putting so much emphasis on it. So when you had to rebuild the real estate business, for example, one of things you talked about early on, there was self doubt. Um, I think this is a big thing for entrepreneurs at all stages. And gosh, it still is for me a lot of times, and I literally have been doing this since I was 17 years old. We've grown every single year for 20 years in a row, and there are many days where I still feel like I'm not sure I'm good enough. I'm not sure I can do this. I really have my own podcast. Like I really good enough to write a book. All these things float around in the back of your head. So as you started to work on overcoming those self doubt, you talked about risks that you wouldn't take. So what allowed you to push through that and rebuild that real estate business? Well, also, building the second stream of income through the podcast factory.

spk_1:   18:57
I'm gonna share something with everybody listening here. And I want you guys to take this to heart because it's super important. It's super necessary. And if you're hitting a plateau of your stuck if you're feeling helpless of your struggling. If you're stressed out, this thing is going to be crucial. And for me, it started with my wife. My real estate business fell up hard. I didn't have money to pay the mortgage. I didn't know how I was gonna just put groceries on the table. And somehow this beautiful woman just looked at me lovingly and always believed in me. And I like Right now I'm getting goose bumps thinking about how she looked at me and how I thought I can't let this woman down. This woman believes in me. And so what? This is called? What I've named it is borrowed belief. So maybe you don't believe in yourself today. Maybe you're feeling down. Maybe things were hard or tough. Maybe you're stressed out ready to quit. Borrowed belief. Who believes in you? For me? At that time, it was my wife and she believed in me. And so I borrowed her belief in me and rebuild. And I've been doing this for years now. So when I say go out and hire J or I don't know if you do masterminds, I know you participate, but I don't have you actually host? Um, go out and join a mastermind with other people, go out and work with J. Who will look at your business from different eyes and tell you I believe in you because of this. And this is what I've been doing for years. I paid for access to mastermind that paper access to people. A lot of times, they see what I don't see him myself, and I borrow their belief until it becomes reality. And so I've gotten better about that. And like I said now prolific, I love to spend money are in best money in myself because I know I'm gonna get another rely on it, you know? So I horribly, from people, uh, who are greater than me, who I look up to who are in a position further ahead than me. Because if they see something that I don't see, I borrow their belief, and I take that. That's faith. That's faith, right? That's another form of faith. And that's why he's one of my fillers. Gosh,

spk_0:   21:08
it is so fun at conversations like this because, well, I guess you know, I've never talked before yet There's so much alignment. One things. I always talked about it since I was four. People that everybody needs in their life needs somebody to look up to the cement or any people on their pure level. People to kind of share life with somebody is looking up to them by their teaching. And they need what I would call sometimes a cheerleader or to put it in your words. The borrower believes somebody who believes in them. That's the fourth person. And for me it's my life, too. There were there was a time early on in my business when I was making hardly any money at all, and I wasn't sure I could make it work. I wanted to raise a family, and I want my wife wanted to stay home. I wanted her to have that opportunity if she wanted to. And I mean, I feel like I had all this responsibility to do this my way. My parents were absent and there was no there was no backup plan, and the business wasn't doing that well. And so I started to work for my uncle in the insurance business, and, uh, I realized one. I learned a lot about working in business by working with another entrepreneur, and he was an amazing T shirt for me. But six months and I realized I hated the insurance business, and I always joke. Look, I came from a really creative world, and if you get too creative and insurance, you go to jail. I wasn't interested in that, but I came home one day. I was really upset, and I just took my wife. My look, I can do this, and I probably could make a lot of money at it, but I think I'm gonna be miserable every day. And she was like, So quit and do what you love And I was making the design extensions at that point was maybe making $20,000 a year. I mean, baby and I was 21 years old, just got married, and I wouldn't strike make work. I have enough work, keep me busy for the whole week, much less a whole team. And but that was the day that I was like, Okay, I could do this and I did not believe it, Like I personally don't believe it. I've never heard it put that way, but I love that idea. borrowed belief. That's exactly what happened. She believed I could do it because of that. I believe that I could, um, and 1/2 because of that. I mean, that's such a powerful, powerful thing like you need to write a book about that figure. The book. She written four books on podcasting. You posted 11 different shows. You've launched her 40 different shows. You've had millions of downloads. Um, so let's feel about podcasting a little bit. We haven't even talked about that. I think it's such a huge thing for businesses on all different levels, right there's, like the education side. And then actually, in your case, being on a podcast in this situation or, in my case, being a host, or in many times where it's kind of flip flop around the guest on somebody else's host talk about with the value of that is for business. How'd you even get into podcasting? Real estate to podcasting. How did that happen? And how do you see that as a value add for businesses today?

spk_1:   23:42
So I'm gonna start with the last question. What the value add? Because I like that when I was reading, I think it was in Investor's business daily, and I love this paper comes on Saturday and I'm so excited. It's like Christmas. I go, I go out, I open the door. Oh, there's my IBD. Get some coffee and sit down and read it and look at the stocks for next week and look for ideas. One of the things that they were talking about, they're always looking ahead, looking for what's going on. What Industries air are really exciting. What's up and coming? What's gonna pop soon where the opportunity is? And they had this really long article about scientists working on digitizing our brains, so being able to download our brain so that you could technically live forever as a computer and I'm like, that sounds fascinating. That is really interesting. And they don't have the technology. Yeah, they're trying to figure it out, and I'm like, I got the answer. Have a podcast. You'll live forever. Share your ideas. Share your thoughts. I'm downloading my beliefs and my thoughts to you right now. Some of that will be with you. This is digital, so it'll last forever. You can use it over and over again. It live beyond you right. And so I think we're already living in the future, and these people just don't know it. And so what? What advantages does that have is what we call in an hour. Business is indoctrination because J you know this. If you get on a call from a lead from Facebook ad or Google or something, you're gonna be doing a lot of singing and dancing and tap dancing. Hello, my baby. Hello. You know, like whatever I want to do that I can't stand to do that. What you wanted. Somebody show up asking, buying questions, asking How can I work with you already indoctrinated? And so that's what our system is. Over the years, I've designed a system which I call direct response podcasting, which is one of my books. And it's turning listeners into raving fans and into your best clients by predetermined journey by doing that from the beginning. And so if you've got sales calls, if you've got high ticket sales, if you've got resistance or education that you need to do, I believe it should all be done before somebody gets on the phone with you and the best medium that I know to do That is the one where Edison Research says people are spending five hours plus a week listening to podcasts. You're all up in the area. I mean, look, I got this year, but in right here, how much closer can I get to your brain than I am right now? You mean this is it? This is how you get that K l t baby. No, Like trust, speed, influence is what I call it. What are you gonna wait for years to be influential and be a trusted authority when you can do it in chunks of 10 15 2030 minutes at a time. That speed influence. And so how? How I got into it was totally by mistake, and it was a story of borrowed belief. Check this out. Yeah, Had to be 2014. 2015. I was coming off my 2nd 6 figure year online, where I'm like all right, I finally figured out something in business because before that, I wasn't making any money and I said, I got a level of I don't know howto level of how can I get around people so that I could level up I found this mastermind and it was, uh I was like, what it costs, how much And so it was Ah, something like a 12 or $15,000 investment. And to me, that was a lot of money on. And when I pitched it to cupcake, which is my name for my wife, I pitched it to cupcakes. She's like, Are you f ing nuts? Yes, yes, indeed I am. I am mapping nuts. But I smooth talked her into it. And in fact, it was cool because it was in Texas and we had some family there and they just had a baby. So we got toe develop a relationship when we go skiing with this family. Now, everything there are cousins, but that's ah byproduct of it. But inside that mastermind, I was working on my real estate training business. So I had this thing called making agents rich and me and a partner. We're doing real estate training, how to get listings, how to get buyers, had to get referrals, that sort of thing. And I would talk about that and everybody will build, you know, and nothing. But at the time I was doing podcasting with a couple of a couple really well known marketers that were friends of mine. And we're mentors of mine. And then I looked up to and on every break, people came up to me. Hey, hey, I heard you're working with Doberman. Dan. How did you do that? Hey, I heard you're working with Ben Settle. How'd you work that out? And they would keep coming up to me every time and six months into that mastermind. I'm like all these people love podcasting. Why the heck am I doing real estate training? So they were all really digging that the guy that was leading the mastermind was telling me that I should be doing podcasting as a business. So I wound down the real estate training business that year and borrowed some belief from the group and created the podcast factory. And that's really how I got into it.

spk_0:   28:39
That's so awesome. And one thing I think it's really important in that line of thought there that I wantto just emphasize that put an exclamation point on as you talked about the number of hours that people are investing in listing podcast really neat stats. The other day I'm a roll numbers. I'll probably watch it, but it's pretty close. And the reality is when we look at all these different mediums, whether it is watching a video on social media or even watching a video on YouTube the average time that somebody will watch like an individual thing. I got video on Facebook, like 15 seconds or something at best, and the YouTube might be a couple of minutes at best. You know, 123 minutes, but a podcast. The average list of time was like 30 minutes, and the idea that you can get it's like like you said that close to somebody's brain for 30 minutes is amazing. I mean, where else can you get that kind of access? And people always ask Michael, how many people download your podcasts and of traction. But look, here's what I'm going to do. Every two weeks, I'm gonna release new podcast, and I'm just going to keep doing that. And I've been doing that now for two years, and just every that was That's a good cadence, really. Everything else I have going on every two weeks, at least new podcast and now it's so crazy because I'll be like at a local Starbucks and somebody I don't have no idea who they are. I'm not a celebrity by any stretch of the imagination, but people have no anything. There are welcome here, you, Joo. And I'm like, Yeah, and like hands, dear Podcast straight now they haven't commented on the Social Post. They've not sent me an email. I don't know who they are, but they're listening. A man, if you can get people to listen, not just to me, but like I'm bringing in someone like you has all this other experience. And you know, I've never done your real estate. I don't know what that's like. You've got all this different diversity and all these ideas, and you're bringing in ideas like borrowed, belief in mind said and direct response Podcasting and the four pillars of family and faith, of fitness and finance and mindset. All this stuff, like if you're out there listening to this stuff like each one of these ideas is potentially worth a $1,000,000 or not even about the money. Some of it is just worth freedom and and the ability to just take a break and be able to go spend some time with your wife or with your kids or with your family. Because to me, like I've got five young kids, my last be my youngest to six and a man like they're getting their growing up and I always tell people, and I think you found this to be true. You can lose money, you could lose all of your money and then you can go get it back again. That's the beauty of living in the place where we get to live like we have so much opportunity. We can lose every single penny. And there are plenty of multi multi millionaires who lost it all and earned it all back again. But when we give up our time, when we lose our time, we don't get back, it's gone. So what are we going to do with that time that we have? So I love to train us and talk a little bit about that. You talk about this idea of a work optional lifestyle and work optional Taking a month long work optional vacation You mentioned going snowboarding for a month, so what does that mean to you? What's work? Optional look like and? And how do you keep the You have silver illicit business. You do have this podcast factory business. How do you keep those wheels turning while you're not physically in the presence of them all the time was that look like

spk_1:   31:55
systems and processes, baby systems and processes, having the right people on your team and setting the right expectations with everyone and that isn't always easy. But if you're designing your business to support your lifestyle, it is 100% necessary. And so when we talk about this real estate business where we have rentals, where we have residents where they have needs and we're toilets, break and sinks, leak and all that, yeah, you need people on the ground who are your people? And so I've already designed it. So we have a ticketing system where you call into a line 24 hours a day in no matter what and that will, on the back end, be opened up for a ticket. If it's the A C guy call goes out to the A C guy of its slumber call goes out to them, and then we have a handyman that stops by every two weeks, and we set the expectations when somebody moves in. Hey, listen, I had these kids come in the other day, right? We're just gonna be the first apartment they rent. And I'm playing Mr Tough guy like you guys aren't going to parties or any of that. Are you on that? So I'm walking into the apartment. I'm explaining that to them, we have the ticketing system and we have the handyman said, But if you call me and tell me that your life always out, I'm gonna tell you to just go to the store and get a new life. All I'm setting that expectation before they move in. Just I mean, use your brain and for the other business, a podcast factory business. It's a matter of getting ahead for clients, making sure that they're ahead. And if they fall behind when we're out of town and we can't help them, we let them know two or three months in advance like this is when we're going, we're gonna be limited working. And for me, when I go over there to Park City is like a I'm getting first tracks at nine, and I'm gonna be out there all day, and if I feel like working when I get home, it'll probably be between three and five, and that's that. And I'm not gonna do a lot of client calls I'm not gonna do. But I've got all my work taking care of. I've got my team delivering for them. But the expectation is, uh, he's on a ski trip. We know that and it happens every year, so they know it's coming. It's not like a surprise, and we still take care of them like we pride ourselves in taking the greatest care of our clients because we want them to be like a necks tension of our family. That's why I tell you that this the business is not separate. The business is part of me is part of my soul. It's part of my purpose, and I want to take care of all the folks I work with on their shepherd, right. I'm helping them meet more people. I'm helping them make a great an impact, and I know that's a big responsibility, but I'm gonna take some time off to and so setting the expectations, treating people right and letting them know what's going on and having good systems in place and good team players is how we do this.

spk_0:   34:38
That's awesome. I actually, for the very first time I've scheduled my first full month off, Um, next May, actually, and I've never taken that much time. I have taken two weeks. It's about longest I've taken. But I just read this book by, um, gosh, remember, the guy's name was called Clockwork, saying that profit first, few other books. And, um, he talks about taking a month off and figure out how to set up the systems and processes around that. So let's talk about systems and processes a little bit. Is that something that comes natural to you? Is this something you had to learn? Um, where where is that? On your gifting scale of you? No good to bad. It kind of

spk_1:   35:10
comes naturally to me. I got two gifts. Gift number one is that I'm naturally systematic. And if you take a strings finder, you can find out what you are. But in my strings finder, I am systematic. If you take Colby, which I love the Colby assessment, it says I'm systematic. I love building a system and maintaining a system S O. That is a gift which I have naturally. And it's just the way I think. And maybe it was because of construction and kind of engineer thinking we were building things. I think that came to me naturally. The other thing and this is really my gift is like I show up every day consistency, whether rain sleeps. No, it doesn't matter. I'm going to show up every day. It's what I do And you can see this in many areas of my life. Just flossing my teeth plus every night because I know it's better. I I I exercise twice a day. I just show up and I do what I have to do. So that consistency, along with the systems, allows me to build things that produce results for me and that comes in the way of my my work systems, or it comes in the way of I write a daily email. I write to my list every day, and it's like that consistency, along with having a system in place to deliver a result, actually comes naturally to me. So I feel lucky that I have. Then I don't think I got to design the life that I have if I didn't have that skill. Yeah, I love that. And what's interesting? That's very different for you and I. I am not systems driven it

spk_0:   36:44
all. I'm not very good with processes. They're very hard for me. I'm very good at visionary ideas and like figuring out what's next all those kind of things when it comes down to, like how to put that all in order and putting it all together. I actually really struggled with that, and I had to find the right resource is. So if your other listening and it's not natural for you, go find the resource is for me. It was a book called Traction by Guy named Gino Whitman. But if it's natural for you than doubled down on it and, like Jonathan just said, show up because a lot of times you might have these gifts. But if you're not using them, it doesn't matter. And the last thing on that last conversation you were talking about was setting the right expectations for customers. I always say that expectations are the number one thing that break all relationships, whether it is Ah, marriage or friendship or a client or a team member having the wrong expectations. I think you're going to do this. Do you think I'm going to do that? And there's a big gap in between. We have a problem. And so what I always say is that communication is the bridge that connects expectations. So what have you done to create more clarity in setting those expectations, Whether it's with a customer or a team member or bash even a family member? How have

spk_1:   37:49
you learned to get better at that over time? Wow, it's Ah, maturity, obviously. But I can give you a couple examples. One of the best ways I ever did this was I don't know. 13 14 years ago, when I I married Cupcake, I was rotund. I was at the highest weight. Remember? Been ad s O. The expectation was I was gonna be a little fatty forever. And now you know, 13 years later, I'm, like, £30 lighter. So I set the expectation was gonna be a fatty that I delivered ah, hard body around to do it at least cause if you're gonna show up with a hard body and then end up in the fatty. You might have a hard time, but you're right. You're right, because we had this experience. So I'm gonna tell you something right now and tell the listeners right now. Well, I've had this dream, and it's ever since I was 18. Like I told you, my parents told me to get a trade, get a job. I listened to them and I became an electrician's. And one of my first jobs was working at these condos in Pont Inlet Beach was a beautiful beach, Really Just beautiful, quiet beach over here in Volusia County. And I was working there for about $6 an hour building these condos that we're gonna be sold. They were luxury condos. And I sit there at lunch feet hanging off the edge, looking out at the ocean, saying one day I'm gonna own one of these and I don't know who gave me the right to say that $6 an hour worker, Construction boy. Nobody. But I said that, and I don't know why I said it, but I'm like, one day Yeah, I own one of these. Well, just yesterday, in fact, as we're talking right now. That was a dream of 20 years. And we just closed on a condom that isn't a beach condo because I realized later that was in the life I wanted were downtown in Orlando by Lake Eola Park, one of the hottest ZIP codes downtown. And we got the exact unit we wanted, and we paid the price we wanted to pay. And that that is 20 years of dreaming come true. And so I'm saying that to set up expectation. So we decided to get a mortgage on this property, and the guy that was doing the mortgage was referred by a friend. And we're like, Okay, we'll go with him. He came from a credible source. Eso We'll give him a shot and this guy would be like, Yeah, I'm gonna get that done tomorrow. Not done. Not done. Not done. Three weeks later, we're not prepared to close and he tells us he had a fire his processor because she did our file wrong. And he's always over promising and under delivering. So he's setting the wrong expectation. He's doing it in reverse of the fatty to the hard body, right? He's actually giving us this expectation that things were gonna get done and they're not, so we couldn't trust him. And so it was a very tumultuous two weeks of just railing back and forth to get this thing done. And so that's that's the idea of expectations. If you're gonna use them, use them correctly under promise and over deliver. And you'll always be on the right side of that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really just a huge thing. And it's

spk_0:   40:52
so cool for to hear those stories of having a vision like that. Here's what I'm gonna do in the future and then moving towards and executing that. And I think the beauty of one of the big things you talked about a lot, which is consistency. It's it's doing the right activities. I should say not just any actors, the right activities over time, consistently. That's what gets you towards that goal. If you just stayed there on that beach, just kept thinking that without actually doing anything about it, you would never have gotten Twitter where you are, you know, It'sjust at work. So I love that. Let's transition a little bit, but we're running out of time, which is good time. That means it's a good conversation. I always feel like let's talk about work, life, balance, hate that term. It's probably an entire another podcast episode, to be honest. But in brief, what does that even mean to you? Um, and how does that play out? We talked a little bit about kind of a work life or the work optional vacation things like that. But what is the whole work life balance mean to you, and why do you like or not like it?

spk_1:   41:46
Jay, I'm with you. I don't believe there's a such thing as work life balance thing. That's a myth that's being sold out there by productivity gurus to get you to buy more books and more programs and feel bad about yourself because you can't balance it. And if you look at a scale, I mean most scales, air never balanced. You have to do a really perfect job to get a scale balance, and so I don't believe in it. I don't believe in it. It's fake, It's a fraud. And what I what I believe in is something I call work life, harmony. There's going to be different notes in your life like I play four notes. Family, faith, finances, Fitness. There's four notes that you're playing beautiful music with its, ah, harmony. Sometimes you have more of one note than another. I'll give you an example. I specifically talked about this hard body thing because just last quarter, the quarter before this one, I was in a really low place. I was feeling so, so bad, you know, had a bunch of sales calls. It didn't close. I was overworked. I was stressed out and you think that I'd know better all these years in business. But that quarter I was like, I'm just going to say yes to everything, man. I'm just going to see where it takes me. And it took me right down to the ground, took me to my knees because I said just everything. I got a lot of cool things done. Ah, lot of cool relationships, but internally that didn't work for and it brought me down and I was terrible to be around. Cupcake will tell you she's like, you know, go Get out of here. Go go find something to do because you're driving me nuts with this bad attitude and So I joined another mastermind group and I invested about 30 K in this one to be around this group of guys. And I went over there to Ohio for the first meeting, and they told me about this thing called 75 hard Andy Fossella M F C E o. He's a little rough around the edges, but I love the challenge. It's a mental toughness challenge as well as a physical challenge. And I decided at that moment when I looked it up, I said, I've never done this in all the years I've been in business. But this quarter is gonna be about me. This quarter is gonna be about me taking care of myself physically. This quarter is about fitness, and this is something that we gotta tie back to. How do you create a lifestyle business when you can say this quarter is not about business and it's about fitness. You know, you've created a business that's surrounds your lifestyle, right? So I'm like, I'm like, Hey, this quarter is about fitness. I'm doing 75 hard and just to give you a rundown, it's no drinking alcohol to workout today. One of them has to be indoors. One of them has to be outdoors both for 45 minutes. You have to follow a meal plan. So I decided to Kato and cut out carbs. And let me tell you, that was a rough three weeks in the beginning, lest I was adjusting. You have to read 10 pages of a business book and you have to take a selfie every day. And I said, Look, this quarter is going to be about me taking care of my fitness because I know that I need something. I'm I've hit this plateau, hit this wall, and I need to do something totally different. And so I stopped journaling. I stopped planning. I was just doing the bare minimum of work and focused on my eating and my fitness. And let me tell you something this quarter, because we're coming up on the end of this quarter has been one of the best in this in my history of this business. Now, I've also lost £13. I lost 7% body fat, and you want to talk about reading. I realized that if you're doing to work out today, you have to integrate some other things. I integrated audio books at 1.75 and I've read, like, 17 books already. Jeff Bezos book. You know the everything Store, Elon Musk. All these other books, like I've been programming myself with all the best stuff every day. I mean 16 17 books in the last quarter. My body is doing better and my business is doing better. It's like That's harmony, though, because I said, Look, I'm not gonna work on the business so finances might get hurt. Look, I gotta focus on my fitness so family might take Ah, back seat. And I told my wife like This is the way it's gonna be because I need this. And so that's why I don't believe in balance. I believe in harmony. And then all of a sudden, all the notes are playing beautiful music, and I didn't even know it. Yeah, I mean, I think it's all about seasons of life

spk_0:   46:00
and where you're at that moment and knowing what that looks like, I think a lot of business owners feel selfish making choices like that. I don't think that's right, because the bottom line is, if you had stayed in that down depressed bottom state. You're not good for anybody. You're not good for your wife. You get for kids. You're not good for friends or not. Good for a team. Members not good for your company. And I just wanna love Michael. Hi. It talks about his order of priorities says God's my number one priority and I am my number two priority. And when he says that he's like a real family and faith kind of guy, people like, Whoa, what? I will shoot your wife, be number two, and then your Children number three, and then your friend and your you know, your last. He's like, No, because if I don't take care of myself, not feed myself, I'm not working out. I'm not feeding my mind, right? I'm not taking care of my own soul. I can't take care of anybody else. I can't do anything to do so. I absolutely love that. So last parting faults. I love to hear two things from you won anything else that you would just love to speak into an audience of business owners, trying to make it work and trying to find that freedom and dreaming and looking for and the last work and they find Joan Line. What's the best place for him to go? Look you up and learn more about you and what you do and how you might be able to help.

spk_1:   47:08
Yeah, if you're looking to scale up higher J like get the right people around you, whoever those people are, right, get the hire them higher, pay for access. I think too many people out there afraid to pay for access. And that's why I let you know the big number that I just paid for access to this group of guys to me. I don't to me that's like a drop in the bucket. I feel like I got my value just from switching my mindset to 75. Heartbeats has already been a good quarter. So look at the brightest and best investment you can make is the investment in yourself and getting around the right people like they say in the airplane. Put your oxygen mask on before anybody else is or you're gonna die, right? So think about that. Take care of yourself. It's not selfish. It's not selfish at all. If you're taking care of yourself so that you can take care of everybody else. And I think it talks about that in the Bible, where your cup must overflow, right? If it's overflowing, then you have enough to take care of other people. So that's the way I look at it, Um, and where some people find me, I would say that if you wanna listen to me, I mean, if I haven't scared you off yet, All right, Daddy's working is my podcast. Look it up. Ah, anywhere that you listen. Podcast. Daddy's working. And then my website is the podcast factory dot com, and you're thinking that you want to try to use podcasting or leverage podcasting pre sell people and get people indoctrinated before they get on calls with you. The podcast factory dot com Johnson

spk_0:   48:34
Thank you so much for taking the time out today for this conversation. It's been really valuable for me. You get me a lot of ideas. I think you're gonna be great. And I'm hoping those listening out there feeling exactly the same after getting through this conversation, I'd encourage something to go back and re listen to some of these things. Ideas like borrowed belief, having pillars of what you believe in the fixed mindset versus the growth mindset. The idea of multiple revenue streams so much value packed into this conversation that I know is gonna benefit me and my business. My family. So, Jonathan, thank you so much for taking the time to share those ideas with us today.

spk_1:   49:07
Thank you for having me on, Man. It was a blast. Everyone

spk_0:   49:12
hope this episode has given you some ideas or inspiration that will help you grow your business if you found it helpful and you know somebody else who might benefit from it as well. I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to share this with him, maybe on Facebook or Twitter were linked in, or even shoot an email over to a friend with a link to this podcast in it. And if you haven't already, make sure you sign up for email list at building a business that lasts dot com