Podcast 52: Success Secrets for Love and Business - Ask my Coach Dave Moreno

DO NOT MISS THIS EPISODE!

Hear a love story from a man's perspective. It will inspire, encourage and give you confidence on how to captivate the handsome, godly man of your dreams.

Falling in love happens in an instant.  It truly does not matter how long you are single because you'll be spending the entire rest of your life - not single. Your future husband is out there. You just need to meet him... and you will. 

I can help you meet the One God created just for you and show you how to have him crazy about you and dying to take you off the market. 

Come work with me in my private, 1:1 coaching program where you find the love you've always longed for. 

Use the link below to make an appointment for a conversation with me to see if my program is the perfect match to start YOUR love story.

Let's get you married, Sis!

www.thechristiandatingcoach.com

Transcript

Michelle Joiner (00:01.966)
Hey, hey, Dave, how's it going? Good. How are you? Good. I'm so excited for this interview. I, you know, you're one of my favorite coaches. I've had a lot of coaches over the years. I always keep coming back to you. Good. I always keep coming back to you. And I knew that like you're such a unique, um, force in the coaching industry. And I was like, this is going to be like a really like

valuable interview for my audience because of how you are. So we're going to talk about a couple of things. We're going to talk about what it's like being a husband and a father and running a business. My clients, a lot of my clients do, they want to start their own businesses. They want to break the pattern of corporate work and busy work outside of the home. And they want to bring their businesses inside the home. And I want to talk to you about your business, what's needed to start a business.

So it's gonna be like a lot of that. And then also too, you are a guy. So we do need to hear from you. Like, all right, tell us the juicy details. What do you guys really think? So it's gonna be like a combination of all of that. Does that sound good? I'm up for anything. I always love talking with you. So I'm up for it. Can you just introduce yourself first? Like tell us who you are. Tell us how many kids you have, like what your business is like. Just tell us all the things.

All right, so my name is Dave Brenno. I am married to my high school sweetheart. We met in high school. I've been together. She's my second girlfriend and we've been together ever since. We have four wonderful kids, three dogs, very busy life, but we love it. That's what we signed up for. And I am a business coach. I work with entrepreneurs and help them scale their life and business together. So finding the balance between both, not just growing their business and hating their life, not just growing their life and hating their business, finding the balance to build both.

and truly build what we call success, is success everywhere, right? Family balance, relationships, health, wealth, and business, making sure that's all balanced out. That's what I focus on now, and I absolutely love it. Yeah, awesome. Well, we'll get back to you more about your business, but right now, I want to talk to you about your family life. So you said you met your wife in high school. Yeah. What was that like? Did you feel like the luckiest guy in the world? Like, what was it like, like knowing right away this is the one?

Michelle Joiner (02:20.354)
Yeah, I did. I was dating her best friend and, and, think my second date with her best friend was to a skating competition that my then girlfriend was in. And, I didn't want to go alone. And so my girlfriend at the time said, well, you can sit with my friend, Laura. And I was like, okay, I'll sit with your friend, Laura. So I never met this girl before sat in the stands with her, watched the skating thing. And over the brief period of time we sat together, it just, there was a seed planted that.

I don't know why, I don't know how, but this is the girl I just want to spend all my living days with. And, uh, and so, you know, you go home and you try to figure out how do you, how do you navigate this? Cause this is very awkward. have a new relationship and then I have this person I just met. And so it took about a year, um, a year of, you know, obviously broke up with my then girlfriend probably within about 24 to 48 hours. Um, and then

Being in high school, there's all kinds of things that happened. Like Laura has to be loyal to her friend and can't really talk to me right now and do this. And we kept connected and just knew with each other. We, it's funny, we would have conversations where we knew with each other that we would somehow come back together. We don't know how, and it took about a year. and then we started dating and that was it. I knew from the moment we started dating that this is what it's going to be like for the rest of our life. She had a good suspicion of it too.

And, think it was within about five years of that, we got married, had our first kid right away and then had three other kids after that. And now have a busy, busy life. I've been telling my clients that like you're just a few days away from falling in love. Like when it happens, it happens so fast. It's so clear. It's like a few texts messages, a few texts messages that get away from falling in love. Yeah.

It's, it's, it's funny. I joke with Laura and she swears this never happened, but I have my own memory of it. And so I swear it did happen. after the skating thing, we went back to my house, all of us to just kind of have some pizza and hang out, you know, we're high school kids. And I remember making Laura laugh and she was drinking chocolate milk and it came out her nose cause she snorted when she laughed. And I could swear that that was the exact moment that I was like, that's a hundred percent love and that's what I'm looking for. And it was, yeah, it was incredible.

Michelle Joiner (04:43.51)
Okay, so what is your advice for the single woman who hasn't met her person yet? She's kind of worried. Like here's one specific question I get a lot that if you're not a guy's type, which they don't define what a type is, but like they're just saying, I'm not it. I'm not the guy's type. That's what they all think. I'm not his type. Like, what would you tell her? Like, do you think that guys have a type?

No guys don't have a type at all. First of all, guys don't know what they want. Right? So guys can't have a type guys have needs, not types. And so the typical masculine needs and are these masculine and feminine needs are not inclusive to male and female, but they're generally what females have and what males have the masculine needs are to be, are to be needed to be admired and to be free. And this is the problem with men.

They want to be needed, admired, and free. Those are contradictory needs. Like I want you to need me. I want you to admire me, but I also want you to leave me alone. And so it's, this is why men are so screwed up because our needs are contradictory, which means if you can find a way to meet a man's needs, you are his type. That's, that's what men's types are who can meet my needs. And so as soon as you meet, like if you meet one need for a person,

They become interested in you. When you meet two needs for a person, they become infatuated with you. When you become three needs to a person, they become addicted to you. And that addiction to you is what makes relationships last. So for instance, look, in high school, I promised you this. I was overweight. I had horrible teeth. I had two sets of braces after I met Laura. I had horrible teeth. had long hair, but it was also losing my hair at the same time. I was a mess. Okay.

And so when I met Laura, I'm like, listen, I was not this like football players stud that I think I walked around thinking I was, I was, you know, going through it. Here's what I realized when I met Laura, Laura has three of the feminine needs. need to be understood. They need to be seen and they need to be safe. Those are the three needs of the feminine. What I did with Laura is I made her laugh like that night that we fell in love. made her laugh. Chocolate milk and butter knows I made her laugh.

Michelle Joiner (07:05.054)
And I always made sure that she felt safe wherever we went. You know, I was a bigger guy. I would always stand right next to her. I would always open the door for her. I would always do things that made her feel like I was always there. I always had her back and everything we did. So here's what I realized that I didn't know back then. I met her three needs and she became addicted to me and want to spend time with me. It didn't matter what my type was. It didn't matter if she liked guys with dark hair, guys with shaved head. She, if they like guys who are sporty.

Doesn't matter what she liked in the past. Like she was, she was into surfing. She loved her whole childhood bedroom was, Roxy posters and surfers and Kelly Slater and all these things. I was the furthest thing from a California surfer dude that you can imagine. But if I looked and said, her type of surfer guys or skater guys, I'd never would have pursued her. But I realized I just dropped. is no type meeting needs is what makes people fall in love with you.

Cause that addiction side is love. That's what it is. When someone becomes addicted, they are in love. So you just got to learn how to meet needs, identify what their needs are and meet them and how you do that. There's only six needs, three or male, three or female. And so if you pick the three male needs, which are admired, needed and free, try those out on a guy and watch how he'll fall in love. And if he, if all three of those needs don't seem right, he may have one of the feminine needs like

I only have two masculine needs and one feminine need. I don't have the need to be free. I don't feel that I like attachment. like being with people. so I like being understood. So I like being admired, needed and understood more understands now my needs. And she just, she wakes up in the morning and goes, how do I meet his needs? And here's the thing. If you meet someone else's needs, they will become addicted to you. And what happens is they look to meet your needs back. And so it's this giving relationship, not taking a relationship.

And that's what has made us really successful. Just before we understood this, I didn't understand about human needs, probably until, you know, 12 years into our marriage. So I was working them. just didn't understand them. Yeah. Yeah. No, I think that like everybody that is together has become the source of incredible amounts of pleasure for their person. have become the source of, of just this good feeling.

Michelle Joiner (09:30.574)
and they know that they're not gonna get what that particular person gives from anyone else. So if you can do that, like if you can become the source, like you said, of meeting their needs, then they're not gonna be able to let you go. So good, so, so good. And as a husband, have one particular question that I think would be very useful to ask.

How do you silence the voice of insecurity? Like, does Sheila really love me? Does she really love me? Does she really love Will she really stay with me? Like, have you ever had, or can you imagine having that voice of insecurity where you're constantly like, I don't know if he really loves me. First 10 years of our marriage, that voice was very prevalent. All the time. I needed to be validated constantly by her. I was always worried that

You know, I always say like, she was a 10 when I married her and she still is. And I was like a five, maybe a six. And I'm like, so my, my thought was always, yes, I can make her laugh. Yes, I can make her feel safe, but what if she changes her type? What if she changes her needs? What if she's looking for someone who's really fit or really successful or really rich or whatever that I couldn't provide at those times in our marriage? And I would worry constantly. So I'd always look for validation. I'd always

You know, if I said, love you, I only said it because I wanted to hear it back. And if I didn't hear it back at the moment, I would question what was going on. And I wasn't saying it because it's what I felt. I was saying it because it's what I wanted, but I did something nice for her. It's because I wanted her to do something nice for me when I bought her something. It's because maybe then she would buy me something and then I would feel validated in this. And so I always worried, you know, are we going to stay together? Are we going to do this? And what shifted for me was what I call a commitment conversation.

And so a commitment conversation is something we did probably around the 10 year mark in our marriage when we really sat down and said, like, really opened up communication. It's when I started to learn more about relationships and I wanted to have communication with her. And I really shared with her, like we have a, um, we have a public, a public life and a private life. then a secret life, the public life is what we'll show anybody who we are, our personality. We'll show it to someone who we meet on the street. We don't care what they know about us and the public side.

Michelle Joiner (11:47.16)
Then we have the private side that we only share with our most intimate partner, like your wife or a husband. And then we have the secret side of all the things we think in our head, but don't say out loud. And that secret side is what we had the commitment conversation about is like, I'm fully committed to you. want to tell you, like, sometimes I worry that like, you're not that interested in me when like you go to bed early and don't even say good night to me. Or sometimes when we argue and we don't figure it out at night or we had all these things that were in her head and in my head and in her head, it was like,

I really worry that I don't know enough about like money and where it's at. And if anything ever happened to you, I would, I would not know what to do. I couldn't even survive on my own. Like I worry that like, I'm too reliant on you for information. And so we had this commitment conversation where we're like, okay, we're going to talk about this, but are we fully in? Are we a hundred percent? We've been together 10 years now. We know everything we need to know about each other. You know, all my ugly things that I do when we live together. I know that, you know,

You know, I leave my socks on the floor and I know that you hate to cook now. Like we know this stuff about us. Are we still all in? If we had to get married now, what did we do it? And we were like, yeah, there's no, there's never been a thought about divorce, separation, nothing. It's we're in it for the long haul. Good or bad. We'll figure it out. And that commitment conversation really opened up the lines of communication. I would say over the last six, seven years since that conversation, we have been so open about communicating.

That there's no more secret life. There's no more anything that we don't say to each other. If I feel, if I'm like, Hey, you seem really bothered with me today. Did I do something? I don't sit and think about it be like, Oh, she must not love me anymore. I'm just like, what'd do today? Cause you seem off. She's like, ah, wasn't you, here's what happened. And that voice has now been gone, gone for years where I never questioned if we're going to stay together. never questioned. I questioned what I can do more of what I've done too much of where I can, where I can show up better. But I never questioned.

If I just, I question how, how am I going to do better? Not if I need to, or if we're going to stay together. So it's that you have to one form that commitment and then to build communication from that. this, there's this horrible thing that happens in relationships called secret conversations. It's when you have a conversation in your mind with your partner, but you don't have it out loud. And you do it long enough in your mind. Like, I was watching a tick tock the other day and it was funny cause it was talking about, when your wife asked you.

Michelle Joiner (14:10.946)
When you get a minute, would you mind taking the garbage out? And the guy's like, yeah, understand this. If you say sure, and then don't move right away, she'll just do it because she's had a conversation in her mind. She's passed the garbage seven times today. Saw it was full and she's asked you in her mind seven times. My husband will do it. My husband will do it. My husband will do it. So when she says, when you get a minute, can you do it? She means do it now because she's already asked you seven times and you would, and you just weren't aware. She's asked you seven times.

Those are all secret conversations that happen. So by the time something comes out, like in an argument, when you just blurt something out in the motion, it's because you've had a secret conversation about it for the last three months or three weeks or three days. And by the time you say it, it's like you've said it for the hundredth time, but your partner's only hearing it for the first time. When you constantly communicate, you eliminate secrets. Do you think that you can communicate and have this competent like commitment conversation while you're still dating? Yeah.

Commitment is not about marriage. Commitment is about focus. And so the way I look at commitment is it doesn't matter if Laura and I were married or not married. It's are we focused on each other more than anybody else? And so when you start dating and get to a certain point, you have to have that conversation. Are you a hundred percent focused on me or do you put about 80 % focus on me and 20 % on other women you see on the street just in case. Like where's your focus at? And if your focus is a hundred percent me, there's no chance that you ever like, trust me, I

I meet all kinds of women as I travel and go around. My focus is never, this woman someone I should spend more time with? Just doesn't cross my mind. My mind is always a hundred percent Laura. In fact, whenever I meet anybody, typically talk about Laura within the first two minutes because it's just, she's such a big part of my life. I'm a hundred percent focused on Laura. has nothing to do with our marriage. It's just where my focus is at. So commitment is about focus, not about, you know, a ceremony or a certificate or a license or anything like that.

You can have that focus when you're dating. I can tell you when I was dating Laura, I was a hundred percent focused on her. And that's how we built the relationship. So that commitment's always been in there. I was just, I never knew it was there on her side too. That had my own insecurities. I had nothing to do with her. She didn't do anything to tell me that I had insecurities. So I thought she must not be as focused on me. There's a reason I'm focused on her. She's gorgeous. Why is she's focused on me? I don't know. I'm so insecure that that's what drove a lot of that.

Michelle Joiner (16:36.504)
Dave, tell us this, tell us this. What do you say to the woman that meets a guy and he's just not like, this is the reverse of what I said. He's just not her type. He's great. He loves the Lord. He's saving himself. Like we, a Christian data coach, they're saving themselves for marriage. They're not going to have sex outside of marriage. They take care of their families. They love their families. They...

They mentor little kids, they meet these guys, but he's just not my type. Like he's not exciting. He's not as handsome as I want him to be. I mean, I'm just curious. Like, what would you, what's your take on that as a, as a guy, what's your take on that? I'm just curious. Well, you got, you gotta have, if you're going into any type of relationship, be it a relationship with a new client, a relationship with a, a spouse or a partner that you want to

form a marriage with at some point, you got to have a thing called landmines. Landmines are these things that will blow it up. And so if you meet someone, don't worry about a failure type physically or anything like that. Do you see a landmine? If there was a landmine, some people call them red flags. Some people call them deal breakers. I call them landmines because they should immediately blow up the relationship. So for instance, if you're a Christian woman,

Who says, you know, I'm saving myself from marriage. I'm doing this and you meet this guy out at a concert and he's not into religion or faith in any way. And, you know, he's had many girlfriends in the past and you just get a feeling and you go landmine. If he doesn't have the same faith as me, that's a landmine. No matter what type he is, it will never work. And so there, you have to first assess what are my landmines so that when you go out there, you're not going.

I just got a feeling like he's not my type. No, no, no. Forget the feeling. We can't always trust our feelings. Our emotions are crazy when we're in love. They go up, down, sideways, backwards, everywhere. We can't trust emotion alone. We have to have these concrete landmines that you go, this is a thing that will blow up the relationship immediately. It doesn't matter if it happens on the first time you meet them or six months in. If you hit a landmine that's already predefined, you have to trust that.

Michelle Joiner (18:53.292)
And that should be your guiding factor. there are no landmines, then give it a try. Yeah. You never know. I would, I would not have said, the second I met Laura, just, know, that she was my type. The second I met her, I would be like, no, I wouldn't suspect she would be my type, but man, like within a couple of hours, I was like, I don't even think I had a type because whatever my type is, is gone. her now. What I teach people is to create chemistry.

So like create that juicy feeling of electricity and sizzle so that you are falling in love too. And I think what happens is we go into relationships and we talk to people as though they're our coworkers. So then we have the excuse of saying, I'm just not feeling it because you're not feeling it. You're not, you've done nothing to create those feelings. So for me, for me, I'm like, did you put any effort into creating chemistry? Because if you do that, I actually watched

a client I watched her heart open up, like as she was starting to send text messages that were more flirty, and he was like, giving it back and like, then she gave it back and then he and she was just like, I literally saw her just give this shy smile. And I was like, the flip, the the switch has flipped. And so I love what you're saying, like if we if we stop like counting on our feelings, which actually can like

We can work on that. We can get those feelings coming if we change how we talk to a person and then decide, like you're saying, yeah, but is there really any deal-breakers here or am I just being sort of superficial? Yeah, because you and I know thoughts create feelings, right? That's a basic concept we learn in coaching. And so if I see someone and go, they're not my type, I'm literally going to create feelings where there's no connection.

If I meet someone and say, I don't have a type, I wonder, I wonder if we're compatible. All of you open yourself up to creating different feelings. Remember chemistry is simple. Chemistry is reactions. If you mix vinegar and vinegar, there's no reaction. And that's what happens when some people meet. They mix something that's very similar to them, but nothing happens. What we need to do is we need to create reaction. That's all chemistry is about. And so if I mix vinegar and then I put baking soda in,

Michelle Joiner (21:15.394)
There's going to be a reaction. It's either going to be bad and make a mess, or it's to be really cool. And it's what I was hoping for. You have to look for reactions. Don't just, cause I watch people do this in relationships too. They show up and they try to be who they think the other person wants them to be. And that's vinegar and vinegar. You're never going to get the reaction show up as yourself, be a hundred percent. You figure out who you are. Show up as that. And you're either going to get a spark or you're going to get nothing. And then got to trust that. Don't worry about the type.

It's so funny when people say they have a type, it's just, it's such BS because there's, there is no such thing. You have a connection and what you're looking for is how do I connect with someone? Well, I connect through faith. I connect through goals. I connect through hobbies, those type of things that it really like through love and, and relationships have nothing to do with the format of a type.

what someone looks like, what their haircuts like, what color eyes they have, what color hair they have, how tall they are. None of that matters when it comes to like the matters of the heart. It's just completely blind to that. It's so interesting how we get so out of touch. Like we're so far away from falling in love that we forget what falling in love is. Because we think falling in love is what every TV show and movie shows us. And

30 years ago, the idea of love on screen was very different. Like you have that poster breakfast at Tiffany's, the theory of love and breakfast at Tiffany's is very different than love today. When you watch love is blind on Netflix or paradise Island on Netflix, that's it. It shifted culture's feeling of what love and relationships is. And it's like, listen, it's, it is completely about compatibility and reactions. When I met Laura, I had a reaction to her. Like I've never laughed so much.

I never, I never had such an easy conversation with people. could, I could sit here all night. It didn't even matter what type she was. The reaction I got, what I felt my feelings is what I trusted because I had no barrier. didn't, I didn't meet her going, is she my type or is she not my type? Because she was my friends, my girlfriend's best friend. I never even thought this was going to be a thing. And then all of sudden just talking with her and being myself and her being herself without any pressures, trying to create a relationship. actually were able to have.

Michelle Joiner (23:34.254)
incredible chemistry and reaction from that. Well, this is such gold. Thank you so much. Like my clients are just going to love this conversation. Okay, let's just switch just a little bit. Like let's just shift just a little bit. Obviously you are very wise and have a lot of wisdom to give us. So you could talk about anything and we'd benefit. But I want you to talk about business. Like, can you give us like an idea of what you're like, how long you've been in business?

what your business made last year, and the only reason why I'm asking that is so that we can hear the possibilities. Sure. So I've been a serial entrepreneur for the last 22 years in some way, or form, opening and selling and growing different businesses. I've been in my coaching business now for, I'm coming up on eight years in my coaching business, my eighth year in coaching.

and to show you possibilities in my first two years, I did work a corporate job still while I did coaching. made $9,000 a first year, $12,000 a second year. Then, I went full time into my business. made 180,000 and then I crossed the million dollar mark, the next year. And we've been hovering right around the high six figures to early seven figures for the last two years. just depending on the year and what events we do, whether it goes up or down.

the balance of life that I'm trying to choose. So that's where I'm at. The high, the high six figures. That's all just a million, just a million dollars. Money is, money is such a small part of life that, it, at some point it becomes like monopoly. When you really get into a business that you love and you learn how to make impact, the money is such a small part of the return of the business. For me, my return is about impact. I'm like,

You know what I measure every year? How much money all of my clients made combined versus last year. That's actually my success factor in business. If last year, my clients made, uh, you know, 42 million combined. And this year, my clients have made 67 million combined. I'm like, we just grew by $15 million. It's amazing. That's, that's my success. Yeah.

Michelle Joiner (25:44.334)
Yeah, but there's like a lot of my clients aren't making some of them. Some of them are, but some of them aren't. They aren't making the money that they want to make. Like they're working their tails off and they're like, there's jobs, mean better way. Yeah. They're in jobs. Like they're doing these jobs or working their tails off. They're not feeling fulfilled. And they're like, there's gotta be a better way to live my life where I'm not like, you know, kind of like fighting for these scraps.

these scraps kind of. Yeah, I learned I learned early on in life that you you can either work for someone else and your entire day spent making somebody else rich or you can work for yourself and spend your entire day trying to make you rich. Now, they both take a lot of work. They both take a lot of effort. There is no certainty with a job. People are like, I have a job. It's a certain paycheck every two weeks to get paid. Look, I've been fired before. There is no certainty in corporate work. I don't care how good you are.

someone is actually less certainty in a job than there is an entrepreneurship because someone else somewhere in the world can just decide for a minute that you're no longer employed for whatever reason they want. And they get to terminate your paycheck. When you're an entrepreneur, here's the thing about entrepreneurship. Yes, it's hard. Yes. There's uncertainty. Yes. Sometimes you make money. Sometimes you don't. Yes. You're going to have some sleepless nights trying to figure stuff out. Yes. You're going to need coaching and support and perspective to get to the level of success you want, but

You are in complete control of your future. A hundred percent responsibility. The only people in this world that truly have a hundred percent responsibility for their life and their future are the people who create every dollar they make. Entrepreneurship is the ultimate source of control. If you feel out of control in any way in life, start thinking about business. I mean, entrepreneurship has been crazy over the last 20 years, 30 years, the amount of people that have jumped into entrepreneurship and we've, we benefit so much from it.

because people are able to actually go out and do what they love and what they want to do and break molds and try new things. But it's scary to think about to do. have a family member right now who's considering leaving a job and going into entrepreneurship. And they ask me my advice. And I say, if you have a runway, if you have a little bit of money aside that you can invest in, you know, putting into a few months of actually developing your business and that's, or you're not so need income right away. When you start a hundred percent do it.

Michelle Joiner (28:08.366)
Or if you can do your job, if you can keep your job for six months while you start building your business, then do it because that's the most comfortable way to do it. And that's what people want is comfort. But I would never, I retired from my corporate life. Seven years ago now, six, six and a half years ago, I said I retired from corporate at 35 years old. And I literally had a retirement party and everything. They had retirement balloons in my office when I left, because I'm like, I am like literally retiring. I'm never coming back.

And it's the same thing. I just decided entrepreneurship and I'll never work for anyone else again. And there are days when I think about it and I'm like, man, a job would be easier than figuring all this out. But then like two minutes later, my brain's like, are you creating me? Like you would trade everything you do, all the impact, all the freedom you have, the fact that you can choose when you work, choose how many clients you make, choose how much money you want to make this year. You'll give all that up for a paycheck. Yeah, it just, it does not make sense. No, I got

Every once in a while I get a picture from a client of her in a wedding dress. I'm like, like her in a wedding dress, her husband in a tuxedo or whatever. I'm like, I never think about going back to being an engineer. mean, like I asked my husband once the other day, I said, have you ever heard me say I want to quit? And he's like, no, I've never heard you say you want to quit. It's just too rewarding and too like, it just feels so powerful.

One of the things that I actually, it's funny that you say this Dave, but one of the things about the dating life just as a correlation, once you realize that you are in the driver's seat and take responsibility for everything, for finding those men that you're compatible with, for creating chemistry, for inspiring them to commit, once you realize that it's your responsibility and your opportunity, like that's when the game changer happens. So if you are feeling that same way, like,

I want my life to be my own, then yes, entrepreneurship is for you. So just have two last quick questions for you right now. How is it being a dad? How can you be a dad and like such a hardworking business person, entrepreneur? Well, it's funny. As I was growing my business, I think I was less of a dad I wanted to be, right? And that's when I realized

Michelle Joiner (30:33.9)
I'd have to give up some money probably to be more of the dad I want to be. And that's why I say we range from high six figures into the seven figures. And I think that directly correlates to the type of dad and husband I want to be. I haven't figured out how to earn highly in the business I want to run, which is one-on-one. I love my one-on-one business. I don't want to give it up. I haven't learned how to earn that highly, but still be the father and husband I want to be be available for them, be at, you know, coach their soccer teams, coach their football teams. I can't do that if I'm seeing 15 clients a day.

And so at the beginning of my business, I could tell you that it was pretty hard and I probably chose more business than I did family. and in my brain, I was doing it for a better future for my family. I quickly learned that's a lot of BS because there's no way out of that. There's no future where you just stop working in and so all of a sudden start enjoying your family because you've harmed their relationships. Like if I did that for 10 years, my kids would be like, and I just stopped all of sudden I'm like, Hey, you guys want to go to a movie? They're like, go to a movie with you. Like I don't

We don't do that. That's awkward. That's weird. What's going on? Are you dying? They'd be like, what's happening? Right. And I realized, no, relationships are formed over time. So now, I have healthy boundaries where I go, look, this is how many clients I know I can see a day and how many hours I can work a day and still be, still have the energy and the enthusiasm to be the father and be the husband that I want to be still support my family. Me and my wife start every week. We have this, we each have this little calendar. It's a week long calendar that we both use.

And we start every week on a Sunday or a Saturday, depending on our schedule where we sit down. We ask one question. How can I support you this week? We don't say what we need. We don't say what our plans are. It's a blank sheet calendar. We're not allowed to write anything on it before we ask that question. And so for instance, Sunday, Laura and I sat down and Laura was like, I have, I have some appointments on Wednesday. I'm to be out all day. I need our son taken to football and picked up on Wednesday and I need meals made for the kids on Wednesday. And I'm like,

All right, let me look at my schedule. I see here's how I can do it. We're going to have lunch early. I'm going to pre-make it, meal prep it, put it in the fridge. And as long as my son can wait an extra 10 minutes at football, I can pick him up. No problem. So I wrote that down. That's what Laura asked. And then Laura turns to me and says, how can I support you this week? And I'll give her a couple of things that I need support on. And we plan our week around that. That's me putting a priority on my family. When I talked about focus earlier, are you a focused father? Are you a focused husband? Or are you just a husband and just a father?

Michelle Joiner (32:57.496)
Focused means you're willing to be present. You're willing to put them first. There are times, yes, I have to work and my kids will learn that. Like if I say, Hey guys, I'm getting on a call. My kids know, he's on a call. He's got a client. Like we do that. But if my kid was like fell down the stairs and hurt his leg and I had a call coming up, I would 100 % move that call and take care of my son, take him to the hospital or whatever he needed. And that's happened before. And so at the beginning, it wasn't so easy, but now it's much easier to understand that there's a balance and choice.

It's literally a choice for every father to make. You think that there's a better opportunity as an entrepreneur for showing up as the kind of dad you want to show up, then there would have been if you had stayed in a corporate job. Do you think there's a better opportunity? 100 % I work corporate most of the time raising my first two kids. you know, there are 16 and 14 right now, my daughter and my son and me and my wife, openly talk about this. we think that

Our first two kids grew up with us and our last two kids were raised by us. And we can see the difference in them. We can see how, you know, our kids learn lessons the hard way, our first two with us, because we weren't as available for them. And I worked corporate the entire time they were growing up. I traveled, I was at an office all day. I wasn't able to leave and pick them up or do anything. Were they in daycare at that time or was it just Laura? no, they were in, both of them went to daycare. Yeah.

Our second two kids weren't in daycare. stayed home with them. By then we were both entrepreneurs. And so we were home and so we could fair our schedule around having the kids at home. Laura and I can go back and forth into the business based on what the kids needed. And that's where we learned that entrepreneurship gives you the freedom to be the parent you want to be. A job gives you the ability to provide for your family, but not the freedom to be the parent you want to be. Huge difference. Yeah, totally.

All right, lastly, what is the one character trait you think you or the one thing inside of you that you need in order to start and maintain those? Because right now you're maintaining multiple six, like high six figures and million dollars. Like you're kind of further along, but like my clients would be at the very beginning. So like, what would they need to have the

Michelle Joiner (35:23.864)
grit to, like, kind of think it's a grit, like it's a grit and a responsibility, like to start and maintain a new fledgling entrepreneurship business. Like, what do you think? What's the character trait you think they need? There's two, we already talked about one of them, personal responsibility. When you take personal responsibility, everything that happens in life is your fault, the good and the bad. When you take personal responsibility, you become the ultimate human. You can really develop anything you want. So if you start a business,

Don't blame the marketing. Don't blame social media. Don't blame your clients for not showing up. Don't blame people for not paying you. Personal responsibility. Everything's your fault. If everything's your fault, you can change it. If it's not your fault, you have no control over it. So personal responsibility is one, you got to take it. And the second one is patience. Everyone is in such a rush to do things and people don't understand it takes time. It's really easy for me to talk about business now and be like, yeah, I make high six figures. know, business is good. I can find balance to being a father. I've been in my business for eight years.

Right? I did not, was not able to say that in year one, two, three, or four. I made a little bit of money, but it took me about four years of my business to get a path of where my business really ran and I could really be that balance. So at the beginning, personal responsibility and patience. Be willing to put the time in because nothing happens overnight. And if it does happen fast, it doesn't last. You do not want business to happen fast. It will not last for you. You want to build solid foundation. takes time. Yeah. Yeah. No.

My business was really fun. It started off, I made $6,000 the first year, then I made $15,000. That was when I started working with you. I made $15,000, then the next year I made $30,000, then the next year I made $60,000. And my goal this year, this is the last year, is to make $120,000. And I'm well on my way to do that. But like, yeah, I started at $6,000. And I had my years at $6,000 and $15,000. And someone told me like, I don't know if I could do that.

I don't know if I could go from being an engineer and making a hundred K to going down to a six K year or a 15 K or a 30 K year. And I was like, Hey, it's not for everyone. But if you're listening to this call and you're like thinking like, wow, that sounds intriguing. Like the kind of lifestyle that you get, the kind of ownership and responsibility you get that like give it a shot. Like I would say, I would say if it's sounding intriguing to you, if something is resonating with you, listen to that voice because

Michelle Joiner (37:48.288)
It does take, I know one thing we haven't talked about yet is courage. The kind of courage that you need to leave the quote unquote safety of a job. Yeah. It's going to take courage for sure. I'm sure. thing that here's the thing about courage that I believe just my hallucination, but I like to share with people. Okay. People don't, when you tell people that they need to have courage or bravery to do it, the truth is courage is what you get from doing it.

What you really need is faith. So if you have faith, like everyone should have faith in this world. And I'm not someone who says you have to believe a certain religion. I call it magic. If you don't have faith in magic, be God being magic, anything, anything in the world, the universe being magic. If you don't have faith in that there's something beyond you that helps us out in this universe, in this world. If you don't have faith, entrepreneurship is going to be really, really hard because it's so lonely. And if you really like, I have God.

So I can talk to God whenever I feel lonely. And I'm like, this business is hard. I just, I wish I knew what to do. I'm going to try some things. Like I can talk to someone. If I didn't have faith and didn't think that there was anyone I could talk to the universe or God or whatever, holy man, this would be lonely and I'd be lost. Right. And so you have to have faith. If you have faith in you and faith that this world, this universe, this God will take care of you and provide for you. Going to entrepreneurship, what you end up with is courage at the end because you did something and it worked.

and now you have courage that you're able to do it. Courage and confidence come together. so faith has gone to that number one step. And so if you are a person of faith already, you can lean on that faith and do entrepreneurship easier. Nice. Dave, we could talk to you for like hours because like you have so much wisdom to give us, but thank you so much for your time. Like, okay, so you never mentioned the name of your business. How can my audience like find you and like, even just like listen to more of what you have to say.

Yeah. they can go to Dave Moreno.ca D A V E O R E N O.ca and proudly Canadian. So it's.ca not.com. they can go there. They can check out my podcast, which is free. There's 200 and some odd episodes on there. It's called next level business. I have the next level Academy, which people can come in and work with me once a week, every Friday and ask questions or be part of a great community. And then I still offer one-on-one at my level. There's not many coaches who do it. I love one-on-one because I love relationships.

Michelle Joiner (40:12.226)
I love connection and I get the most of that in the one-on-one business. So the website is where you can find everything on Instagram. It's at Dave Moreno coaching. Awesome. Yeah, Dave, I really appreciate you. Like I loved having you as a one-on-one coach. I love being in your Academy with these people. Like the Academy is so rich because there's so many powerful and successful entrepreneurs in there that we learn from when they get coached, when they ask questions, when they, give a feedback and stuff like that. And

Having you as a one-on-one coach was such a blessing and having you today on this conversation. I'm grateful. It was such a great conversation. Thank you so much. You're welcome. Thank you. All right. Have a good day.