#52 - Living in the Present with Shane Sams

In this episode of the Morning Upgrade podcast I talk with Shane Sams about family time, time management, living in the present, his morning routine and more.

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Ryan  

Hey guys, it's Ryan real quick. So my mission with the Morning Upgrade blog and podcast is to raise the awareness of morning routines and personal development. And I now have two products that are also helped me with this mission. The first product helps you start a 20 minute morning routine. And the second product is a book that outlines how to use personal development to upgrade your life and business. You can get full details on both products over at morning upgrade.com. Thanks for letting me share and now on to the show.

Announcer  

Welcome to the Morning upgrade podcast with Ryan Cote where we feature casual conversations with entrepreneurs about personal development and growth.

Ryan  

Hey, Shane, welcome to the Morning Upgrade podcast. How are you?

Shane  

Ryan? What is going on man? Thanks for having me today.

Ryan  

Yeah, I'm excited to speak with you. Let's start off by you telling everyone who you are, what you do for a living, and what your hobbies are.

Shane  

Sure, man. My name is Shane Sams. I'm the host of the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast and the Shane Sam show. That is my other podcast. My wife Jocelyn, and I have a website called Fliplifestyle.com. We are former school teachers. She used to be an elementary librarian, and I used to be a social studies teacher. But about 10 years ago, we had some crazy things happen in our life that sent us down a different path. And now we have real families start to build and grow online businesses and memberships on the internet. Our motto is all you need 100 people to pay you $50 a month to make $60,000 a year and 200 to get you 120. So if you want to make a living online, memberships are where it's at. And that's what we teach people how to do.

Ryan 

Yeah, I love the concept of recurring revenue like that you get a bunch of members in keeping them in and the money comes in.

Shane  

Try not to sell as much.

Ryan  

Beautiful business model. Let's talk about your hobbies. What do you do for fun?

Shane  

Man, I tell you, this sounds so cliche, but doing podcasting and business is kind of my hobby. Just all I do all day is either spend time with my family, spend time with my friends, or podcast and talk to amazing people like you. When I was younger, I had a cousin who bullied me relentlessly. And he always used to call me mouth. And he really like stole my power. Like anytime I would talk he would go mouth, mouth, and like anytime I would get loud, he'd be like, You're so loud. And I kind of bucked back against that. And I said, Well, you know what, if that's gonna be what you're going to label me, I might as well make a living talking. So. So we have built my entire businessman to network and meet people like you and podcast and be guests on the podcast and, man, this is what I love. I love entrepreneurship. I love business. But in my free time, I like to play a little Xbox I and my son play Minecraft and I like to play fortnight, and my brother up in Cincinnati and I got a lake behind my house. So you know, I'm gonna be out there fishing all summer, too. So.

Ryan  

Yes, beautiful. And hey, the Mouth was a key character in The Goonies. So...

Shane 

no mouth, no Goonies that's following his footsteps. Right.

Ryan  

Exactly. You mentioned entrepreneurship and business. Let's start there. I want to hear about your morning routine. I'll come back to that. What have you had the most success within your business, in terms of either growing it or just dealing with the day-to-day challenges that entrepreneur entrepreneurship throws at us?

Shane  

Life gets more and more complicated as we get older. And without some kind of Good morning routine to get you started. The way you want to start every single day, you're going to get derailed before you know all the other chaos shows up. So for us, my life is very complicated. I got a 10-year-old and a 12-year-old, my wife and I were business partners and life partners we worked together every day. And then I have a membership community with hundreds of people from all over the world. So I'm constantly dealing with a bunch of noise, right? And I like to start my day by myself. I know a lot of people love to work out and a lot of people you know, have their meditation and their process and their miracle mornings and all that. But for me, it's just can I be alone with myself for about 30 minutes when I wake up. So whether it's in school or out of school, I always try to wake up and be totally by myself that looks different every morning. It could be playing some Xbox, it could be reading my Bible, it could be reading a book, whatever it is, but it's just me some coffee and whatever I want to do. So that requires me to get up about 30 minutes, 45 minutes before everybody else. And then man, there's something I've started doing in the last probably a few months that has been a game-changer for my family. I heard Richard Branson in an interview say that he starts every morning with breakfast with his family. And he didn't have an agenda. It wasn't like let me get in this wisdom. Let me get in this thing. Let me plan the day. It was just like no, we get food and work together. And I added that right at the end of the school year to my family's routine and it's been a game-changer, man. We just get up. I get the kids their cereal or their Pop-Tarts or whatever. I grab a cup of coffee. Jocelyn grabs her tea, and we just sit down and we hang out sometimes it's silent. Sometimes it's talking sometimes it's what are you doing today, but we never tried to bring anything to them. Trying to manufacture the moment. And it has just made my kids calmer. It's made them feel more loved, it's made us all feel more connected. And it was really cool because we just went to Disney World and universal. And we kept that going all week we get up and eat breakfast together. So that's been an amazing part of our routine. And then after that, it depends what time of year it is, if school is going on, we take our kids to school, if not, usually we divide and conquer throughout the day, but it's just a real simple routine man, some time for myself some time with my family. And man, it's just been so peaceful. Since we started doing that, I probably will never change it. Like I'm, I don't care what anybody tells me about working out in the morning, I'm not doing it. Whatever else you tell me, I'm getting up, I'm spending time with myself. And I'm spending time with my kids. And it just alleviates so much pressure in the day, man, because you've already got all the most important things happening first.

Ryan  

I love the idea. They're waking up early, 30 minutes early, and just being by yourself thinking time because you know, I, I've got a pretty intense morning routine, like a crazy person. And I'm, I'm not going to change because I like it, I love it. But the thought of waking up and then just pouring a cup of coffee and just thinking for 30 minutes in solitude, I think I would look forward to that greatly. So maybe I'll just tack that on to my current routine.

Shane  

I can lead into what you're doing now. Even 15 minutes, so just peace, and just enjoying the peace and life. And then you're ready for whatever comes next on your list, whether it's a different, another routine or part of your routine, or your kids or your wife or whatever it is.

Ryan  

So you mentioned that you have hundreds of members in your business. So I'm assuming that at any given moment, there are many people needing something from you. And I know it's not just you, you said you're running with your wife, I'm sure you have other people to help out. But how do you deal with that noise? I guess from a mindset, mindset perspective, how do you deal with that noise of an all and everyone wanting something from you on a daily basis?

Shane 

You have to batch things, you have to block off things that go in a certain area like one of the things that we do is in our membership community where we help people start these businesses, we have a forum. And that's where people can go and ask questions. So one, I do have a team that helps me have a community manager that goes in there and makes sure everybody's served and helped. And he gets what they need as fast as possible. But we've also built in the system of the community supports itself. So they get to talk to each other. But I do go in there and I do answer questions. And when I do that's always on the schedule for an hour or so like that. I don't go in those forums, I don't think about those forums. I mean, someone could come and say, Shane, there are 500 new people in there. That's okay, I'm not dealing with that until one o'clock. It's on my schedule, that's where it lives. I have a coaching program where we're using an app called boxer where people can, my coaching clients can send me messages, I don't check those except for certain times in the day. And I never open that app, unless it's time to do that. So by making the conscious decision to Hey, team meetings are this day, at this time, and we're not going to have any other meetings the rest of the week. Like if you need something else between now and the next meeting, bring it up in by saying, Hey, I'm going to serve my people at these times by saying, hey, you know, three to eight o'clock every day is me taking my kids to practice, that's just the way it is I'm not doing anything else. During those times, you kind of have to be relentless with your schedule, you kind of have to batch it and block it into chunks, or you'll go insane. If you wake up every day, and you're just at the whim of every other message, that notification that's coming into you. Your business isn't going to last very long, you can experience some success, and you can feel really accomplished for a while. But it's eventually, you know, going to kind of pile on so fast as you're going to be able to breathe. So that's how I handle it. I just know whatever I need to do. I choose the time on my schedule. I have 168 hours a week, I pick what happens in every one of those hours. And I don't let any outside influence dictate when it happened. There are no emergencies really unless someone did Nope, there's no emergency. Right. So anything else short of death is happening when I say it's happening on the calendar. So there's death that disrupts things we'll deal with when somebody is hurt or dead. We're going to stop for a minute and figure out what's going on. But other than that, no, it's on the calendar.

Ryan 

Yeah, I like the idea of batching it does, because it helps you see not thinking about it. If it's not within that time period, you're not thinking about it. Dammit.

Shane  

Like today, it was podcast day. So like the last four hours, it's all done podcast, like nothing else has been on my schedule in between podcasts, go in there and sit on my couch and sip on coffee and play Angry Birds or something. Like I'm just not going to try to squeeze anything in on this block of time because this block is for podcasting. And that's it.

Ryan 

Awesome. It sounds like you live a fun life. So what do you think the meaning of life is? In your opinion?

Shane  

I think you know, we're given one life. God puts us all here for reason. We're given one life and we have to maximize those minutes. Right. So I think the meaning of life is having control of the present, having control of your time right now. I don't get overly concerned with the future. I don't care if anyone's going to Remember Shane Sam's and 500 years, because it's probably not going to happen anyway, I just know that I'm here right now. And if I'm not organized and focused right now, I will miss whatever moment God has in store for me, for my family for my people today. So the present is my meaning man, like the past, can't change it. The future is just an imaginary dream. We don't know what it's exactly going to be. The man said right now, today, I'm talking to Ryan. And I'm going to enjoy this conversation and I'm going to get in my car and I'm going to go see my dogs and my kids here in about 15 minutes. And I'm going to enjoy that. And man, if you can enjoy the present, you can be content in the moment. You're gonna have a really, really good life.

Ryan 

Have you ever read the Daily Stoic?

Shane  

Oh, yeah, love all that stuff, man. I just finished my second read-through of Marcus Aurelius' meditations. And I love stoic philosophy. Absolutely love it.

Ryan 

I haven't read that one. It is easy to understand I wear like a daily stoic is that they have like, the original version, which is in like, just, at least for me, it's hard to understand it right?

Shane 

And all those other people that have this and that but if you get this one translation by Gregory Hayes it's written in. It's almost like the New Living Translation of the Bible. It's written in plain English, this isn't King James 1000 dies. It's really easy to read the book, don't agree with everything, the stoics you know, believe, of course, but just that concept of Memento Mori, like, you will die like your you get one life, it will be over, I believe will go to heaven. And other people believe other things. But I know right now on this earth, this is what we get. So I've been really grounded in the present by the stoic stuff by the Bible. And like, Man, this is it, man. Seize the day. You know, I love posting on my Instagram account every night. This is kind of a routine. Maybe not every night, but man, I have these beautiful sunsets. Anytime I see a sunset, I snap a picture. And I'm like, man, there's another one. We got one of the books may not wake up tonight. But we got one in the books, man. And I'm just so grateful for sunsets. And, man, if we get another sunrise tomorrow, we'll do it again. And just try to try to live in that moment, man.

Ryan  

Have you always been into personal growth and just living a good life, even when you were in your previous career as a teacher is a mindset you've always had?

Shane  

I think so I got into football coaching. I actually coached college football for a few years. And that was really overwhelming. And my wife had a corporate job and dominated all of her time. And we barely even saw each other the first year or two of our marriage. So that kind of sent us down a rabbit hole of well, like we need more time, we need to have more control over our time. So we both went into education, you know, the mythical spring break and summers off, right? Doesn't work that way. They make you work all summer. They don't tell you that. But especially when you're a football coach. But we've always been into maximizing our minutes maximizing our budgets, maximizing our time maximizing our life. And I think before I got into professional development, I would read books like Sun Tzu Art of War. And I would read books like that, that would give me an edge in football coaching, actually. And then as I started listening to other influencers, that were really into personal development, and taking control of your finances, taking control of your life, I just realized, man, we're just all a work in progress. Like we're all terrible at what we do, we all suck. Our goal is to suck less every day, let's be realistic. And I started realizing if you would learn from other people, you would suck less. So I started listening to Dave Ramsey, and I got I suck less at my budget, right? And I started listening to business leaders and I was getting better at business and, really, like ignited this process of progress in my life. And that's what sends me down the stoic rabbit holes and you know, Miracle Morning with however rod, listening to stuff like what you put out. So, you know, I mean, it's, it's definitely been a game-changer in our life, is just to try to get better every day, try to clean up our messes better. And maybe my kids can make a few fewer messes because they get to see dad doing it better on the back half of his life, you know?

Ryan  

Yeah, it's a good way to think of it. I try to do the same thing with my kids. Yeah, I'm definitely into the better every day, at least trying nothing's perfect. Of course, we all have our issues and things we need to work through.

Shane  

And, I got a great pro tip from a guy named Jeff McMahon. He's a buddy of mine down in Cincinnati. He's a great entrepreneur, and he, he's working in fitness. And he has a motto, he says live in the majority. I'm like, what does that mean? He's like, Look, if you're trying to get better at something, man, if you get it right, four out of seven days, you're gonna be all right. So whether it's working out, getting up early, not yelling at your kids late, yelling at your kids less, getting frustrated with your spouse, lead, whatever it is, like start out by just living in the majority. You don't gotta be perfect. It ain't got to be perfect. Four out of seven days, man that's gonna start stacking up, and sooner or later, it's five out of seven, and then six out of seven. And then occasionally you mess up. So…

Ryan  

Great advice. Yeah, great advice. Let's end with one more piece of advice. And then I'm going to ask you how people to find out more about you connect with you. So you went from a social studies teacher to your own business. So you jumped into entrepreneurship Let's say to someone listening that has a nine to five job and there but they want to become an entrepreneur. And one minute to give them some advice. What would you say to them?

Shane  

Yeah, I would ask him that simple question. What do you know that nobody knows? You know, everybody has a God-given talent, or experience or wisdom or something that they've been through that they can pass on to someone else and get paid for it. So if you can just look at yourself in the mirror and say, What do I know? That nobody knows? I know. And then you go out and you start telling people that you start creating content, you start building a business around this idea, this thing that, you know, once people hear about it, somebody will be drawn toward it. So ask yourself that question like, What do you know that nobody knows, you know, that you could go out and teach to somebody else? Go out and take that and turn that idea into a product, put it on the internet, you'll be shocked at what happens next.

Ryan 

That's awesome. The wheels are turning for people listening. I appreciate that. Awesome. So this is a great show and I really enjoy speaking with you. What's the best way that people can connect with you if they want to learn more about you?

Shane  

Oh man, I mean, they can check us out on the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. That's FL-IPP-Ed Lifestyle Podcast. And we have a podcast that comes out every Tuesday and Saturday where we help real people start building grow online businesses live on the show we let everybody else listen in. And also have the Shane Sam show where I interview experts, entrepreneurs, authors, people who are out there with influence to see how they got successful in the first place. And for your listeners, man if they'll go to Flipped Lifestyle comm slash morning. That's Flipped Lifestyle comm slash morning and they want to learn more about how they can take their idea. Turn it into a membership site, get 100 people to pay him $50 A month make $60,000 a year. We actually have a 30 day free trial for everybody listening to your show and they can come to see what we do firsthand kick the tires if it's not for them, no problem. Thanks for trying, but if it is they can stick around, and hopefully we can help them flip their life.

Ryan 

Great. Appreciate that Shane, great job today. I really, really enjoyed our conversation. Talk soon.

Ryan  

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