Escape the 9-to-5: The True Rewards of Entrepreneurial Freedom

Escape and Empower Podcast with David Greenberg and Peter Gilfillan

David Greenberg and Peter Gilfillan discuss the many lifestyle advantages of entrepreneurship. Sharing personal stories and practical advice, they dive into what makes the entrepreneurial journey rewarding, empowering, and life-changing.

In this episode, Dave and Pete discuss:

• The Entrepreneur’s Lifestyle
  Dave and Pete reflect on their transition from corporate executives to entrepreneurs, emphasizing the freedom, flexibility, and purpose that come with owning a business.
• Freedom and Flexibility
  Pete highlights how entrepreneurship allows him to attend his daughter’s soccer games and control his schedule, while Dave shares how he organizes his week to maintain a balance between work and personal priorities.
• Control Over Your Future
  Entrepreneurs drive their own success. Dave explains how taking control of his destiny removed the fear and unpredictability he faced in the corporate world.
• Financial Upside
  Unlike corporate roles with capped bonuses, entrepreneurship offers unlimited earning potential. Pete shares how he plans for growth and takes action to achieve financial goals.
• Personal Growth and Creativity
  Entrepreneurs face real-world challenges that foster continuous learning and innovation. Pete recounts a creative solution he implemented to improve the work environment for his salon suite tenants.
• Legacy and Community Impact
  Both hosts explore the lasting impact of entrepreneurship, from creating a legacy for their children to making meaningful contributions to their communities through jobs, services, and sponsorships.

Key Takeaways:

• Freedom Drives Fulfillment: Entrepreneurship provides the freedom to design a life that aligns with personal and professional values.
• Purpose Creates Meaning: Owning a business driven by purpose enriches both life and work.
• Balance Is Key: Entrepreneurs can prioritize what matters most, whether it’s family, hobbies, or personal growth.

"Entrepreneurship is hard work, but it’s rewarding work. You’re building wealth, creating freedom, and living life on your own terms." — Peter Gilfillan

CONNECT WITH PETER GILFILLAN:

Website: https://www.hireyourself.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petegilfillan/

CONNECT WITH DAVID GREENBERG:

Website: https://empoweredfranchisee.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-greenberg-entrepreneur/

Transcript

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Welcome to the Escape and Empower podcast. Escape from the corporate rat race to empowered franchise ownership. Are you ready to take control of your destiny, follow your dreams, and live life on your own terms? Join our host, Dave and Pete, for insights on how to break free from the corporate grind. Ditch the 9 to 5 and step into empowered franchise ownership.
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Good morning, Dave.
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Oh, Pete. It's so good to hear from you today. I always get filled with energy when we start this podcast.
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Oh, boy. You know, life is good. And, you know, you and I go back a long way as we've talked about before, our days at Ford and as executives. And, you know, it was always a good day when we're at Ford, but it's even a greater day as we are entrepreneurs. I mean, it's just I I I pinch myself every day with this idea that I get up in the morning and I don't have a boss. I don't have to have artificial objectives because somebody decided this is the market share we're gonna get this year. Right? I don't have to sit in senseless meetings that, you know, you could solve it in about 5 minutes, would you sit there and listen to people talk for 2 hours? I don't have 200 emails sitting in my inbox when I get back from a meeting that all are could catch you in some way, politically. I can focus all my time. I get up in the morning, and it's about making a difference in people's lives. Right? And I've got purpose and stuff like that. And so I thought maybe what we do is talk a little bit about that. What do you what do you think?
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I love it. You know, you're talking about the entrepreneurial's lifestyle. And, you know, we were we sacrifice quality of life for quantity of work. And, you know, I we did it we did it. We we made the leap,
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which is awesome. We should've done it earlier, although everything we learned at Ford contributed to what we Oh, great. I mean, a good we learned so much at the company. I mean, I am very thankful for my time at Ford, all the great people we work with, but you were you were trading time for dollars. Right. And now we're trading time for building wealth, but part of wealth can be,
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thought of not just as dollars, but you can think of I think I'd be dead if I were still in the corporate world, but you can think about it in the things that maybe drive a lifestyle. You know, we got a number of things to talk through today, but one of the you know, what are the advantage of being an entrepreneur and living an entrepreneur's life? And I don't know if, I bet our audience who is in the corporate world or who has a boss will think of what we call or what my wife calls Sunday night scaries. And, you know, while we're trying to enjoy the Sunday night football, you know, what are you doing on the side of your desk? You're thinking about your calendar for next week. You're getting weather to do's. It's almost like you start work on Sunday to get ready for Monday. And, you know, I like the whole back in the day when we were racing cars, you know, went on Sunday, sell on Monday. But the one thing, I love not having Sunday night scaries.
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Yeah. Yeah. No question about it. I mean, I think a little bit about this whole idea of, you know, this flexibility. Right? And so I traveled with my last corporate job. I traveled, like, 5, 6 days a week, and I was always gone. Right. And I missed events with my kids that I'll never get back. And one of the things why I became an entrepreneur is for that freedom and that flexibility of my schedule. Right? That have the ability to essentially if I wanted to go to my daughter's soccer game, I could. Right? Just means I got up earlier in the morning and worked or I worked when I got back, but I could control it. You can be more present for your family. And there's a great book out there and I think we've talked about it before. It's called 18 Summers. Right? You only have so much time with your kids. Right? You only have so much time with your spouse. And so you gotta take advantage of that. And certainly being an entrepreneur with that lifestyle is having that flexibility, that freedom.
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Right. Right. I absolutely love it. I call it being the captain of my own calendar. Right? And, you know, we talk about, you and I, you actually taught me how to color code my calendar, and you also taught me how to make sure I had time for myself. You know? I don't really work on anything until 1 o'clock on Monday because I get all my personal stuff on man done on Monday morning. That's why I enjoy my weekends. I don't have to run around going to the dry cleaner because I have other times I can do it. So it's that flexibility. And and, you know, those those events with your children, you know, they only happen once. So, you know, don't miss it. You and I both missed a lot of that stuff, but we we we we ended up okay. But there's no reason to because when you're an entrepreneur, you have that flexibility and freedom that you're talking about. The other thing I like, Pete, is, you know, talking about the control of your future. You know, I always think about this as fear in one way. Because when you're working when I was working in the corporate world, other people controlled my destiny destiny. So fear came from the unknown. Fear, am I gonna get laid off? Am I gonna get promoted? Am I gonna get a good review? Am I gonna get a bonus? Where am I gonna be on the options things? And then gonna move to Japan. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hello. You're moving to Japan. Hello. You're moving to California. By the way, once you get there, you gotta move back. And Well, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. I did that. Yeah. I know. I watched you do that. It was crazy, and I actually did it once too for California. Yeah. I was out there and I didn't even show up for the job, sold my house. They told me to move back. And I was like, I didn't move yet. So but control over your future as an entrepreneur. You're in the driver's seat. I feel you don't have to wait for that promotion or depend on someone else to dictate your success. You know, you're the one driving your opportunities. You're the one that decides to pivot. You're the one that decides to scale, and you're you're the one that decides to hire and fire and find that brilliant team that's gonna make it successful. So your future is what you deem. So going back to the fear comment, you know, fear in as an entrepreneur, and I wrote a blog about this in during a pandemic, is fear that you can control, which is way different than fear you can't control.
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Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, the the idea is that somebody can kinda control your future is is crazy, but we live that life. And now we're in complete control. Whatever we choose to do, whatever path we take, we we can do that. And that's that's so important. And it's very liberating. I mean, people say I wanna have independence or control my desk. You can use all the same term. It's really about being in control of where your life goes. Right.
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So you always talk about exchanging time for money, which is the w two world. And let's talk about the financial upside of of being an entrepreneur.
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Yeah. No question about it. I mean, when we when we work for a corporation, we we get a salary, and a lot of times you have a bonus. And the bonus is dependent on certain things. And, you know, I just read, you know, 4, they're gonna jack around with all the managers, bonuses by 65% cut if they don't hit their numbers. And and on quality and, like, if you're a sales and marketing, executive, you really can't control quality. Something else is doing that. And so you really don't have control of your financial upside. With being an entrepreneur, certainly you do. Right? There's no cap. We're not waiting for somebody to give us a bonus. If you go work hard, bottom line is you're rewarded for your hard work, and it's for you to determine how much money you're gonna make. And that is very liberating to me. Right. You know, it's funny. I had this conversation with my wife just yesterday.
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And, because right now we're like you, we've been trained. We're finishing our budgeting for next year. Right? Because we gotta at least be 2 months ahead of our planning so we can have the activities hit in January 1, which is all fun planning. And I just looked at her and said, you know, I wanna be 30% above. And she goes, you're nuts. How are you gonna do that? I said, well, I don't know yet. But on Monday, I'm gonna figure out because it's just real simple math when I start figuring it out, and I'll just build the activities and we're gonna do it. And she's like, okay. Let's go do it, but let's figure out what we need to get done. My point is is that you can plan for that increase, and then you can start acting on it. Right? And it just doesn't come without actions. And that's what I love about, you know, dictating whether or not you wanna drive a financial upside that is, you know, how big is big for you.
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Yeah. Absolutely.
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So the, the whole other thing is, you know, you have these corporate training programs and, you know, what do you think about the learning world as an entrepreneur?
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Well, the it's real world learning. Right? I mean, bottom line is I like it because you're always experiencing things that maybe you hadn't thought about. And you have to figure out problems. You have to learn whether it's the the way in which you market. Maybe it's tweaking your marketing a little bit by looking at your results and figuring out how do I make the response better for that digital marketing campaign or whatever it may be. But the idea is is that you're always learning. And and to me, you're either learning or you're going backwards. And so, I'm all about learning. And sometimes when you're in the corporate gig, you you are learning, but not to the same extent because you got a lot of guardrails. Right? There's not a lot of opportunities to kind of expand and go try some different things. And so I think that continuous learning is a huge advantage as an entrepreneur.
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I do too. I like also the freedom of expression. You know? Let's call it creative expression. You know, you get the ability to innovate innovate and build products or services. You get the ability to, you know, try new things without a a committee of 10 deciding whether what the priorities are. So, you know and plus it's kinda like, alright. This is your personal stamp. You know? This is what you do and you take your creative expression, put your face to the brand, and you get to really make an an an impact and an impression on your employees, your customers the way you want.
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Yeah. I I think about when you shared with me your salon suites. Right? And you realize a lot of the hairstylists and and colorists were having to take their towels home every night. Right? And wash them, dry them, fold them, or bring them back and which is a big pain point for them. Right. And so what did you use your creativity? You went out and bought a bunch of towels. You hired a tall masseuse, right, to collect those towels every night, wash them, dry them, fold them, put them back in their suites. You know, that was a very creative solution to a problem
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that, you know, people had that wasn't part of the business model, but you used your creativity to to create that. Yeah. It's cool that you remember it. And the other one that I just love, Pete, is is in the business, I learned very quickly that during the holiday season, this the the beauty and wellness professionals don't have time to to eat lunch because everyone's going for their appointments to look good for the holidays. And So the best thing that we could do was not give them something special for Christmas. They wanted to just be fed so they could continue to to to to jam on their business. And, and that was, you know, just a, you know, just a cool idea. We said, yeah. Let's do it. Let's put lunch in the break room, which, you know also, what about the, the thought of, you know, having your own purpose in life?
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You know, I think it's that's a big deal. Right? Purpose. We're driven by purpose. And if you have a mission, a purpose, with your business, that that's huge. I mean, it's one thing to be working in a corporation and you're buying into their purpose. But when you have your business and you have a specific purpose of how you want to take care of customers and how you want to take care of your employees and that a purpose driven life is a very rich life in my opinion.
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Right. Right. And, again, we're talking about the advantages of being an entrepreneur, not only at how you approach business, but how you approach your personal life. And so when you're thinking about it, yeah, you have all the in the corporate world, you got the training programs, the professional development programs. You know, thankfully, Ford paid for my graduate school at Duke. I loved it. It was a huge part of my personal growth. Thank you very much. But there's nothing like entrepreneurship to stretch your comfort zone because, you know, you're being resilient. You're facing challenges, but you're solving those problems. And like you said, you know, it's really the street smarts. It's really the activity that, you know, you're you're you're you're 1 on 1, that helps you become, I think, more confident in the way that you can approach business and deal with challenges and just knock things down, in a way that just doesn't create this stressful environment. It can't it kinda creates an empowering environment because you're making it happen. You know, there's a a new title that I like. It's called GSD, get shit done. You know? I'm the chief officer of get shit done. And that's the real personal growth that you you start to experience. And then beyond that, hiring the team and getting them to do that as well.
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Yeah. And I think you've brought up a great one as personal growth. Right? That's so huge. And, you know, one of the things I learned, from my mentor, Darren Hardy, is that you have to invest in yourself. You have to continue to be growing. So, one of the things he says is, hey. Listen. You need to invest about 10% of what you make into making yourself better. Right. Whether it's listening to audio tapes or attending business mastery classes, you always need to be working on on personal growth because it is so important, as a leader of a business.
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Right. There's 2 other things that we think will round out our top ten kind of thoughts on the advantages of being an entrepreneur, especially when it relates to lifestyle. This one I like because, you know, you created its legacy. And, Pete, you've you've given me some great examples of of the shadow you cast with your children having their own business cards and, you know, you created a legacy impression of of of how you approach your business and what you being an entrepreneur left them from a just a development standpoint. But literally, you can create a legacy so someone in the family can walk into it. Don't you think?
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Yeah. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to work in the business. Right? When we talk about a legacy, it's about the next generation setting them up financially so that they have something there. And so it can supercharge your retirement or it can set up your kids. Again, they don't have to necessarily work in it. But I do believe the younger generation, like my kids, we're living in a world that's much different. There is no loyalty left in the corporate side. Right. Right? And so at some point in time, our kids are gonna have to create their own opportunities. You know, we're we're in a gig economy. And so if you as a business owner can leverage that to expose your kids to being entrepreneurs, to give them some of those skills, exposure to it is huge because no doubt in their life, they're gonna have to use it and for sure. And I'll I'll just give you a quick example. I we've talked about this before. When I started my business, my kids were young, you know, 5 to 11 years old, my 4 kids. And my second youngest, she, I made her the chief motivational officer of my business. Right? And so she had a little business card, said chief motivational officer, 7 years old. I love it. And I exposed her to the business. And to this day, she still asked me if I hit my daily objectives. But I I give you the fast forward on this. She was in a, they were doing an interview of her. And they asked her, why would you want to be in business? What what's your driver? And she pulled out the business card that I gave her when she was 7 years old that said chief motivational officer. And said, you know, my dad gave me a real impact in regards to making, you know, being involved in business. And that to me is a legacy that that passes on both the understanding of being a business owner, but also an asset that could be passed on to future generations.
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Absolutely. And, you know, you can't put a price on that, Pete. That's just I love that story. I'll listen to it 10 times over. You know, the last or the top or the number one, the top of the 10, thoughts, about the advantages of being an entrepreneur and and the lifestyle advantages is work life balance. You know, often people wanna exit the 60 to 80 hour work week. You know, you can still work 60 to 80 hours if that's what you wanna do. But you don't have to. You get to choose. Entrepreneurship, I think, as you said, listen. You know, it's hard work. But it's hard work that you can design into a lifestyle, and you can design the balance that you want. And you don't have to work 60 or 80 hours. Right? If you're doing doing that, you're doing something wrong. But, you know, by choosing what you wanna work on, when you wanna work on it, what truly matters, how you prioritize that, whether that's family, friends, or passions outside of work, or really the the stuff you need to get done inside work. You know? I think work life balance is is the top for me.
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Yeah. It's one of the most important things. Right? And, sometimes when you're in the corporate world, it's hard to maintain that. It just you don't have the ability to do it. When you own your own business, you have control over that. Now I like working hard. Right? And so I will always be very involved in working really hard. But the idea is I control that balance. So, like, you know me, every Tuesday night, I go on a date with my wife. And no matter what happens at 5 o'clock, I am done. And by 5:30, we are on our date. Right? That is balanced to me. Right? Or Saturdays, you know, I never ever work on Saturdays. You'll find me doing the things that I enjoy. And it is about having that balance that works for you, but you're in control. And some corporation isn't saying, listen. You gotta travel to Milwaukee next week. Right? Bottom line is you're in control. You know, I think one other thing that we haven't talked about that I've noticed as a business owner is that you can be connected to your community. Right? And when you're a corporate executive, a lot of times you're not engaged in the community. But when we're a business owner, we can be engaged. We can make an impact in that community. It could be something as simple as creating jobs. It could be providing a a great service to, to customers, but it is also about being engaged in the Chamber of Commerce. We're sponsoring that little league baseball team or that girl's soccer team or whatever it may be. Bottom line is you can be involved in the community, engage in the community, and I think that's a huge advantage of being an entrepreneur.
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Right. Oh, I absolutely believe that. Absolutely believe that. And, you know, I think there's, there's kinda all the things we've talked about. You know, we talked about the 10 benefits. It comes down to one word, it's freedom. Yep. You know, you are free to do all sorts of things. You can you're free to create flexibility. You're free to take control of your future. You're free to chase the financial upside. You're free to learn. You're free to create your own world and expression and put a stamp on the business. You're you're gonna have a sense of purpose and you're free to create that. You know, you have this freedom about, okay. I'm gonna go out and build connections and build, some networking, not just work at the to do list every day because my boss is gonna ask me about it tomorrow or even by the close of business. You're free to kinda go find those personal growth opportunities. You're free to kinda think about how you create a legacy. And it's your choice and your freedom to create this work life balance. And I think that's why so many people say, okay. I'm gonna I I wanna take the entrepreneurial route and become an entrepreneur.
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No question about it. And the and the deal is we don't wanna make it sound like it's easy. It's a lot of hard work getting a business going and and and running a business. It's it's it's not easy, but it's very rewarding because if you can be in control of your destiny, to live life in your terms and you're building wealth, that is a great life. But it it takes work to do that. And and bottom line is that you you put the work in and you get all those great rewards. And you and I have experienced it since we've made the jump, and we encourage other people to take a look at that path of becoming an entrepreneur. It may or may not be for them, but you owe it to yourself to explore it. And both David and I work with people all the time to help them figure out, is it right? And it doesn't make a difference if you work with David or I. We're gonna take you through the same process of understanding what's important to you, what you'd want if you were to invest in a business and what you wanna accomplish. And then we go find franchises that align with those interests and then help you through the process to see if it's right for you. So it's a free service. You owe it to yourself to learn about the entrepreneur lifestyle.
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Thanks, Pete. Don't forget, everyone out there, if you wanna escape
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that corporate kind or if you wanna empower yourself to enjoy all the stuff that we've talked about, give us a call. We'd be happy to help you. Thanks, Dave. Thanks, Pete. Thanks for tuning in to the Escape and Empower podcast. We hope today's discussion has inspired you to consider franchise ownership as a path to living life on your own terms. Start your journey towards financial freedom and flexibility. Connect with dave@empoweredfranchisee.comorpete@hireyourself.com. Until next time.