In starting out the episode, I mention that I just ordered a Rexing dash cam. I ordered a VP2 Pro with a GPS attachment. I am an affiliate, so I do get some commission for sales. You can order at Rexing.com. If you order during Prime Days (October 13 and 14) use the coupon code RexingPD30 for 30% off.
How do you feel about going out and delivering? I always thought I was a bit of a nutcase for enjoying it so much, however I've run into several who feel the same way. I play a couple clips from previous podcast episodes - Kevin Ha from FinancialPanther.com was on Episode 84 and Mike Bisceglia from the Mike Delivers podcast was on Episode 78.
A lot of the stressors with traditional jobs are gone. That can make it easier to enjoy the work. There's still a lot of garbage out there we deal with. But we can choose how we let that impact us.
We offer six suggestions for how to better enjoy your work in your delivery business.
1. Remember your why (See episode 3)
2. Balance your work with your why
3. Create a great work environment
4. Dwell on the good stuff
5. Gamify it.
6. Take advantage of your time out on the road.
More about the EntreCourier
You can get more tips and ideas at our website, Entrecourier.com
Our Podcast page is at DeliverOnYourBusiness.com
Sign up for our weekly Courier Nation Motivation email
Get in touch with us
Follow us on Facebook
Folow us on Twitter
Connect with us on Linkedin
Follow us on Instagram
And now we're on Pinterest
In starting out the episode, I mention that I just ordered a Rexing dash cam. I ordered a VP2 Pro with a GPS attachment. I am an affiliate, so I do get some commission for sales. You can order at Rexing.com. If you order during Prime Days (October 13 and 14) use the coupon code RexingPD30 for 30% off.
How do you feel about going out and delivering? I always thought I was a bit of a nutcase for enjoying it so much, however I've run into several who feel the same way. I play a couple clips from previous podcast episodes - Kevin Ha from FinancialPanther.com was on Episode 84 and Mike Bisceglia from the Mike Delivers podcast was on Episode 78.
A lot of the stressors with traditional jobs are gone. That can make it easier to enjoy the work. There's still a lot of garbage out there we deal with. But we can choose how we let that impact us.
We offer six suggestions for how to better enjoy your work in your delivery business.
1. Remember your why (See episode 3)
2. Balance your work with your why
3. Create a great work environment
4. Dwell on the good stuff
5. Gamify it.
6. Take advantage of your time out on the road.
More about the EntreCourier
You can get more tips and ideas at our website, Entrecourier.com
Our Podcast page is at DeliverOnYourBusiness.com
Sign up for our weekly Courier Nation Motivation email
Get in touch with us
Follow us on Facebook
Folow us on Twitter
Connect with us on Linkedin
Follow us on Instagram
And now we're on Pinterest
Hello, Courier Nation. Welcome to the Deliver on your business podcast, where you are the boss. Each week we talk about how to make the most of your business as an independent contractor, as a courier delivery for gig economy apps like Grubhub, DoorDash, Postmates, Uber Eats and so many others. Well, hello, Courier Nation, welcome back for another week. It is good to have you back and it is great to be back, and I'm looking forward to another week here on the Deliver on Your Business podcast. Now, before we dive into this, tell you about a little bit coming up here in the next couple of weeks. I always want to make sure that I've got everything already, you know, recorded or something like that if I'm going to announce a guest. But I am looking at a couple of episodes talking about protecting yourself. And I think especially if you're paying much attention, there are a lot of people getting deactivated, just left and right, and a lot of times it's for things that they didn't do. A lot of times it is for things that they're not even told what what it was, that they were deactivated for it. They just they'll throw out this term fraud, you know, and I've written a couple of things about these deactivation, but because it's happening so much, I want to start talking about What can you do if you get deactivated? What can you do to avoid getting deactivated? And so we'll be talking with some people here in the next couple of weeks over some different things that you can do and hopefully want to get something set up with a lawyer, maybe with somebody that's a couple of places that have some options for you. And so that's just to give you an idea of what's coming up. Kind of in light of that, today is the 13th of October and the 13th and the 14th are part of, I think, Prime Days with Amazon, but you know, a lot of retailers are doing stuff as well. I've got one place that I've got an affiliate relationship with. It's called rexing. They make dash cams and they're doing a 30 percent sale. So I just took advantage of it. I just place the order today, myself for a dash cam. So if you're listening to this today or tomorrow, the 13th or the 14th of October 2020. And just in case you one of these people kind of binge listening later on when you found this podcast, right? You know, make sure I get the year in there, too. During those on the 13th and the 14th, they are offering 30 percent off and I'll have a link in the show notes. It is an affiliate link. I do get a commission if you buy anything from them, but if you go there, if they've got a wide variety of different dash cams, I bought one that's got like a dual camera thing and it's got a it's got a little swivel lens so that I can kind of point that out the side, different things like that. So when I'm dropping off food, it'll record. If I need it to, then you just all sorts of things like that. And I think it's it's getting more and more to the point where I'm not so worried about any of the customers, but it's the companies that you work with that. It's not a bad idea to kind of document what you're doing. Something I've said no times is just document, document, document, so you can go check them out. And like I said, the 13th and the 14th. If you use a coupon code remixing PD three zero wrecking RTX Inji. PD, as in Prime Day and 30 and just all that all one word there is your coupon code and you can get 30 percent off there. So I really recommend you go, you know, check them out, at least if you're thinking about doing something. This is a good time to do it because you're not going to quite a bit off the price. All right. Enough of that. Let's get into today's topic. Courier Nation, I want to ask you a question. Do you have fun doing delivery, you enjoy doing your delivery stuff. How do you feel about going out and doing delivery? I'm going to guess if you listen to a podcast about delivery, maybe you might kind of feel a little something about it. I don't know. You know, I just it's an interesting thing when you talk about anything that you do to make a living or to subsidize your living, you know, whatever it is that I think it's really important that you get into a situation that you can enjoy it and especially that you avoid a situation that feels toxic. And I think there are probably some people that will feel like delivery is kind of one of those toxic situations. And if that's the case, you had to get out of that. But at the same time, I don't know. You don't. It really is so important that that you're able to get into something that you can enjoy as something that you can enjoy doing. And and maybe this is it. And maybe this is a stopgap. Or maybe this is something you can enjoy while you look for something that you enjoy even more. But, you know, I just saw somebody posting on a Facebook page. He talked about how much his blood pressure had dropped after leaving a toxic job situation he just loved doing. I think it was DoorDash that he was talking about just love doing DoorDash, especially compared to what it was in this other job situation. And I want to ask you, you know, have you ever had a situation where you just hated your job so much that the stress levels were like through the roof, you know, were the worst you ever felt was like on Sunday night and Monday morning because, you know, you had to go to work. And guys, I've been there and I pray that I've never got to go back to that life is just it's too short to be miserable at the things that you do. So what about doing delivery for Grubhub and DoorDash, Uber Eats, any of these gig apps, you know? How does that work? Is it something that you can enjoy? How does all the crap that happens on your delivery app? How does that fit into this situation, is it possible to enjoy being couriers in the gig economy? And the big question I want to ask is, do you love what you do? You know, it's interesting I was answering a tax question somewhere. And if somebody then commented and said, Hey, you're definitely in the long wrong line of work if you're doing delivery. And I'm not sure if she meant that I should be going on and doing taxes for people. That's something I would not enjoy doing. Not. Not for long periods of time, anyway, but. You know, the funny thing is, is I personally, I'm trying to remember a time when I've ever felt so much like I was in the right line of work. Now some of that is doing delivery, and some of that is doing this website in this podcast, and it's that combination of things. And some of it is some of the things that are really important to me, but it is like, I'm doing what I want to do and I am doing what I enjoy doing. And I really hope. I really, really hope that you're you're getting into that kind of a situation yourself and is is delivery something that you could say that about and or is delivery putting you in a position for something that you could say that about, you know? I'm coming up now, it's been three years or almost three years since I've ever gotten to this point where I've ever felt that question of man, do I really have to go out and do this today? I think I'd rather stay home. I really enjoyed what I did before. I do have to say that I love the people that I worked with, and I loved what they did. But the thing is, is it, you know, since I've started just going out on my own, I just I feel so lucky because every day I get to do stuff that I enjoy the heck out of. And I get to make a living at it. And it's not going to be something that's going to make me rich, but I really don't care, you know, I'm I'm getting enough. And maybe I should walk that back a little bit because you know what, folks? My friends, there's so many ways. Sometimes we don't have a clue how rich we really are. You know, we we sit there and we compare to the people with the six figure, you know, the, you know, million dollar houses or something like that. But. My gosh, folks, I think I look back at times when I was just barely scraping by. I look back at times where I was just, you know, desperate. I think I would say financially and, you know, just never sure where that next paycheck was coming from or what happens if you know, I've been at rock bottom. But I look back even then, and I think my life was pretty luxurious even then compared with so many people I have around the world. And so. I don't know. A little bit of a rabbit hole, I went down, I guess, but all that is, I guess, just to say, you know, rich rich is kind of a matter of perspective, isn't it? And here's the other thing I think doing loving what you do is a matter of perspective. It really is. And so Scott, I want to talk about some of that because I'd love for you to be in that same kind of situation where you just kind of enjoy what you're doing. And and if it can be do in this delivery stuff and everything, that's awesome. And if doing this delivery work puts you in a position to do what you really love to do, that's even more awesome, you know? I noticed a big difference, though, when I started, you know, I mentioned that, you know, I worked for this little non-profit or maybe I didn't mention, I've mentioned it a lot of other times for you to work for this nonprofit as a business manager. And like I said, I enjoyed what I did. There are great people. They had a great cause. And but I was also at a point where I was wanting to launch some projects myself. I wanted to do some things that. I wanted to be able to dive into that, and it's not as easy to do around a nine to five work schedule. And so that's that's when I moved on from that and I picked up the delivery work and I figured, OK, I could tolerate it for a little while, you know, and maybe eventually I'll pick something else up. Well, now it's been. I mean, we're getting close to three years, more than two and a half years now that I've been doing this and it's been a whole lot more than tolerating, you know, I'm kind of amazed that it's actually been kind of enjoyable. And I don't know, maybe it's just because I don't know if it's just me. I've talked to some others, so it's not just me, but. But how much of it is, I don't know, just just my own personality. I've kind of got this mixture that there's enough of me that's an extrovert and there's enough of me, there's an introvert. And something about this delivery thing is it's like a perfect fit, you know? I mean, I get enough contact with people, but it's very short contact and it's not too much. And it just seems perfect for me. But here's the thing that I never thought about, though, when I started doing this was that I could go out, I could deliver for hours on end and I don't come home uptight. I don't come home really even worn out that much. It was not hard to go out for 12 hours or more and. I wouldn't go to bed stewing over whatever it happened through the day or worried about whatever was coming up and and it wasn't like what I was at before was a super stressful job, but there were just enough things sometimes that, you know, you're still always kind of thinking about, you know, where's the money going to come from for the projects that we're trying to do and just some of the different things like that that it was like there was still some of that. And the beauty of doing this delivery work was I could go home and not take it home with me. And like I said, I don't think I'm alone in the past and I've got, you know, like a couple of guests that I had on the podcast, they kind of had said some, some of the same things. I want to play a couple clips for you, hear from what we've had in past podcasts because like I said, I don't. I'm finding out I'm not alone feeling this way. On episode 84, we had Kevin Hart, who runs a website, Financial Panther dot com, and Kevin has some great stuff about finances in particular. But he also talks quite a bit about doing, you know, side hustles and gig work, and he paid off a huge amount of debt. Kevin was a lawyer for a long time and eventually kind of walked away from that and. You know, here he went, you know, from something that was paying so much money, and he's kind of moved into something now that it really gets into doing the stuff you enjoy. And on episode 84, he was a guest on the air and he was talking about using his bike for deliveries. And he's, you know, he's been hitting 40 bucks an hour, sometimes doing bike deliveries. But he talked, you know, here that I'll play this clip for you about how he feels about doing delivery work. You know, for me, the delivery stuff is just always been so fun because it's like it kind of gamified my life like it turns everything I'm out doing kind of little missions. I like how it's a really task based. So, you know, it's like, you know, exactly you need to get this done and then you're done with that. And you know, compared to like practicing law where basically it never ended, it was just always going and going. And you know, you finish one thing, there's always more to do. And that always bothered me because I just like being able to finish something and be done with it. Yeah. You know, and then of course, for me, I am a huge biker. I like biking a lot. And so the fact that I could do all my deliveries on a bike really worked out very well for me and maybe enjoyed a lot because essentially it was like I was getting paid to do something that I was already doing anyway. You know, I was already biking around getting exercise, and this is like, I'm getting paid to do this. So that's why I really liked about doing these deliveries. And then earlier on episode 78, we had Mike Bisceglia, who is who he has the Mike Delivers podcast, and I always enjoyed my podcast because, you know, Mike brings out the humor he brings out just, I think, some of the joy in doing delivery work. And he's just he's fun to listen to when he talks about his story, you know, tales from the road and just some of his observations and all that stuff, he got to go look up. Mike delivers again because if if you enjoy this podcast, well, I think you might enjoy his even better. And so I asked him, though, to pick one thing that he enjoys the most about delivery work. What would you say if you were to pick one thing that you just really enjoy the most about the delivery? What would you say it is? My answer would be, I like that when I do it, my sole focus is on the deliveries and doing the job that in a good way, I sort of forget about all the crap that's going on in my life, and I get so focused and zeroed in on making sure that I can pick up this burrito and take it to said customer. And then I figure out the route, and it just kind of puts me at ease and relaxes me whenever I felt that I was, like in an anxious state. What doing these deliveries? Maybe I'm putting on some sports radio, I like listening to another podcast that I enjoy and I'm just picking up orders and I it seems to calm me down. And then when I'm done, I look and I go, Oh, OK, there's one hundred and seventy two seventy two dollars in my account. That's pretty cool. But more than anything, it just I was surprised with how much it relaxed me. Now, granted, of course, there's going to be times where I'm double parking in places. I'm running out and you know, there's there's cars honking behind me. The person's at the door, not answering the car, and it's a one way street. And I'm trying to, you know, I'm trying to figure out how to how to get them the food and not piss off the person behind me. So I'm not saying like, it's like, Oh, oh, this is so I'm at a spa getting a massage with, you know, champagne. But it just it puts me in a good mental place. And I think more than anything, I like that distraction that it gave me and it gives me. And every time I'm usually finished with the day, I have some a sense of accomplishment and I really enjoy that. So more than anything, just how it kind of puts my mindset in a good spot. I really enjoyed talking to both of those guys. And, you know, it's been the thing. I've talked with a lot of guys about delivery and kind of come up with some of the same types of things that a lot of them have just been like, Oh, this is so different than anything else that they've done. And, you know, at the same time, you know, the reality is, I think there's a lot to enjoy about what we do. But it also, you know, you got to realize delivery is not always the easiest thing. And I kind of like the way Mike said it. You know, he he talked about, well, that, you know, it's not like, how did he say it? Like you said, like it's not like I'm at a spa getting a massage with champagne or something like that. But you know, there are things about this that it can be stressful, it can be challenging, you know, you get there and the restaurant takes forever. The folks at the restaurant are rude. The customer is hard to find the customer's rude. The customer doesn't tip or they don't tip very well. They give terrible directions. Grubhub and DoorDash and Uber Eats are just being Grubhub, DoorDash and Uber Eats. You know that they're deactivating people for ridiculous reasons or for no reason at all. And or, you know, they play these games to try and control you. Their support is terrible. They they don't speak the language. They don't know what they're talking about. I mean, you could just go on and on and on about some of the stuff that can just drive you nuts about doing this right? And so, yeah, is it possible, I guess when you think of all those different things to enjoy what you do? And here's the thing, I guess in my mind is that. You know, I do see a lot of really miserable Dashers and Grubhub and Uber Eats couriers out there. And I don't know, you know, is it the work or is it they're just miserable people to begin with, you know? And so this can be sometimes maybe as stressful for folks as what some other jobs are for some others of us, you know? So I don't know. But I did did want to talk about just some things we can do because I think here's my feeling is that there's a lot about. Being a delivery contractor. That we've got control over how we feel about it. And we've got we've got more control over our ability to enjoy this than maybe a lot of people do that are in a traditional job. Now, if you've been listening long, you knew a few weeks ago I was talking about starting a 31 day courier MBA course, and we just wrap that up not that long ago and it was enjoyable and I'm looking forward to kind of launching that again. But as I got to the end of the course, we talked about employee relations. And about how any business has got a responsibility to take care of their employees, and of course, you're sitting there saying, Wait, wait, wait a minute, wait a minute, I don't have employees. Well, I'm going to say your employee relationship might be the greatest such responsibility, because here's the thing, I'm sure you know where I'm going with this as an independent contractor, you consider to be self-employed, right? Well, so who's your employee, you are? OK. Take good care of your employee and and I think one of the best ways to do that is to create a great work environment to create this environment where you can enjoy the work that you do and you've got a lot of control over that. And I know, I know, I know, I know that, you know, schlepping food from the restaurant to the customer probably doesn't sound like the most glamorous thing that you could do. It's probably not the kind of thing that one day you woke up and you said, This is what I want to do with my life. But I do think that any profession can be awesome for some folks, and it can be awful for others. And I do think that a lot of things that make a lot of the traditional jobs feel awful have been taken away from us that we don't have to worry about a lot of those things that we don't have that bosses micromanaging. Sometimes the apps can feel like it, but that can be a matter of perspective as well, you know, because the thing is is when the apps are managing us, we realize that there are customer, not our boss. And when you can look at it that way, I think that changes your perspective, you know? But you don't have, you know, you don't have those meetings coming up. You don't have that performance review coming up. You don't. You have a lot of ways for this work doesn't have to follow you home. And so what I wanted to do is I wanted to just go over six things that I suggested in the course six ways to keep the work atmosphere awesome for your employee. Number one is remember your why? You know, I think the one episode that I recommend more than I do for anybody else is in episode three. And you can go to entrecourier.com/3 to get the associated blog post, or there's a little track player where you can play the episode as well. And in that, though, we talked about understanding your why it's all about kind of getting a grasp on what it is you're doing this for, because I think if you can focus on your why and and really make that kind of a central thing for you, it makes a huge difference in how you feel about doing all this stuff. This is this is central not just to being a delivery contractor, but I think anything that you could do, whether it be a career or a hobby or any of that stuff is when you get down to what is your why, why are you doing this? And what I really recommend you do is you dig into that. Don't just say, Oh, OK, yeah, I need to make the money, right? Take a look at the reason. When you look at why are you doing delivery, you know, take a look at the reason that you give for doing that and then ask yourself the question, OK, why is that important to you? And then take the answer that you give to that and ask the same thing. Why does that matter? Keep asking, keep asking. Keep drilling down and you start getting into the stuff that really matters. You know, maybe you started with money. I'm doing this because I can make some money. Well, why is the money important to you? Well, because I've got to pay the bills. Why is that important to you? Well, because if I take, if I pay the bills my family is taking care of. And you see what happened now, you went from just your y being money to it really being your family, and you could probably dig even deeper to that. If this is a full time or significant gig for you, you're probably going to dig into some very much bigger picture type things. Maybe if this is a side hustle that this you're doing this to save up for something or to pay down some debt. Different things like that, you know, ask yourself, what are you going to do when the debt is paid down and why is that important? Why do you want to do that? You know, keep asking yourself those kinds of questions. Why is that important? Because what you're doing is you're getting out to what really matters to you. And when you get to what really matters to you. Then you can focus on the fact that that's what you're doing now that you just taken delivery out to some guy across town, you know, focus on the why more than the what the number two step or tip that I would suggest for you is to let your why balance what you do.'Cause when I started out, I got into kind of a trap myself because it was easy and I could do this for hours on end. I've I've had some 14 hour days and I didn't feel tired at the end of it, you know, and I just it's nuts, but it was easy to do. You know, not God, not not too bad, I guess, for for a guy in his 50s, right? Especially a guy with arthritic knees and a bad ankle and all that stuff. But the thing was it was easy to do and I could go out and I could make money and I could make it easily. And. And it was tempting to pour a lot of hours into this and it. Now, I'll say, when I was when I was a business manager, I could spend a lot of hours doing that as well. So I'm not sure if I was ever doing, you know, putting more hours into delivery than what I was in business and stuff, but it was still a lot of hours. And but the thing I was, I started to realize that, you know what? The reason that I'm doing this is to be able to do some things that I'm passionate about. And I'm not putting that much time into that. And, you know, the other thing that is so important to me is family, but now if you know, birthdays are just different things with family holidays. If I'm going out there delivering during these times that are really important for everybody else. I'm defeating the purpose a little bit. You know, it's kind of like if I'm going out there, if I've chosen to be a gig economy courier. So that I could do these different things and because of flexibility so that I give time to my family. But then I don't do those things and I don't put the time into my family. It gets a little bit out of kilter, doesn't it? And once it kind of figured that out, though, and I started cutting back on and setting boundaries on the times that I was out delivering, that was huge for me. And when I made that decision, I found I was enjoying the delivery part. I think even more. It really was kind of interesting. So that's that's the one thing I would really recommend that you do is once you kind of get into your why and you really dig into what that is. Make sure that that why balances out what you do, that it keeps things in perspective. OK. A third thing I would really recommend is you want to create a great work environment. Which for most of us, that's your car, you know, and make it make it a place that you can enjoy spending your time. And you folks, I was here. After I started out, you know, I had I had just bought not that long before his 20 year old Buick, and it didn't get real great gas mileage. I really started thinking about getting a smart car. I've always been kind of intrigued by those things, and there are great on gas. They're easier to park. I thought, OK, well, that'd be awesome. I'd spend less money and everything like that. You ever seen a six foot five guy try to squeeze himself into a smart car? I kind of figured out, OK, that's probably not a great idea, and I look to add a couple of hybrids and a couple of things like that. And for me, they weren't that comfortable. It's not easy and especially for a big guy like me and you got to get in and out of those cars a whole bunch of times. And it's one of the reasons I eventually trade it up from my Buick to my equinox is. It's just it was even easier to get in and out of the Equinox, even though the gas mileage didn't get a whole lot better. You think I've learned my lesson with gas mileage? And after almost two years of delivering, but to me, it was more about being able to spend the time in something that I could spend the time in if I've got to fit myself around. The petals in the dash and everything in a little hybrid for so many hours a day, I can't keep doing that. I'd be miserable if I'm not comfortable in that car. I'm not going to be able to put in the hours that I want to put in. It's going to be too easy to just say, OK, I'm done and go home. And I've stated this a lot of times here that I've had a couple of articles and things like that where I said, What's the most important thing about a car that you get? And the most important thing is going to be reliability and your ability to enjoy spending several hours in that thing. Gas mileage to me is not at the top of the list. I know for a lot of people that's just that's right up at the first, you know, so you don't have to spend as much on gas. I'm going to tell you this. If you're tired of driving because you don't like getting in and out of that car, you're not going to put as many hours in and you're going to lose more money by doing that than what you ever spend on gas. So given the choice between a fuel efficient car and a car, you enjoy driving. I want to really recommend you go with the one that you enjoy driving if you can find something that does both. And it fits within what you're ready to pay or willing to pay and able to pay, then that's awesome. But getting a car that you're not comfortable in is going to cost you so much more than what you save in gas or what you spend in gas. Honestly, because you're not going to go out and deliver as much. And you're not going to be able to find yourself, I think, staying as motivated and everything. So I would say, you know. When I got my equinox, first thing that I did was I went out and I got an Android compatible stereo to put into it. I wanted something that I could tap into with, you know, with all of my podcasts and audio books in the streaming and everything like that. It's got a backup camera, you know, not a lot of 2009 equinoxes have a backup camera, right? But it was all just to make it easier to spend the time in the car because it really was a huge thing as a big deal to me. So I really recommend, you know, pay attention to, you know, what can you do to make your car comfortable? Is it something that you can enjoy spending time in if it's not? Maybe it's time to look for something different, but make create an environment, a place where you can enjoy being out doing deliveries. And you know, when I I did an episode a couple of weeks ago about doing e-bike deliveries, and I'd been looking at some buying just brand new e-bikes themselves, and so many of them were one size fits all. And are you going to spend a lot of hours on the thing? You got to find something that you can be comfortable on and usually one size fits all on a bicycle does not fit that category. And so I made the decision instead to upgrade my bike to an e-bike because it was something that I was already able to spend the time on, you know, to find a way to make that time mature, you're out delivering a little more enjoyable. This next one, I think, is a big one, and that's dwell on the good stuff. Choose to focus on the good stuff. Let me ask you this question is your gas tank half empty or is it half full? You see what I did there. I'm going to tell you that my car, my equinox, one thing about my equinox is it is an optimist. It's a half full kind of talk car because the deal is that the tank could be only a quarter fill and that car is telling me that that tank is half full. So you know what I've said? All right. But the thing is, you can choose what you pay your attention to. You can choose what you focus on. You've got the power to make those decisions. Now, say that you get a delivery that it pays, you know, okay, this looks like a pretty good paying delivery and you take it and you deliver it and you're happy with it. It all went well and everything like that, except for when you get done with the delivery, that's when you find out. What do you mean? The customer didn't tip? You mean this whole thing was paid by DoorDash or by Grubhub? As real easy to get up in your feelings about that, you know, but but what I want to tell you to do is you want to dwell on the bottom line, and it is that if this delivery was good enough to take, then it was good enough to take. And if because the thing is, you know what? The guy's a jerk if he didn't give you a tip. All right. That's just what it is. But. Why, why do you want to give him that power over you to to have that kind of emotion over that, you know, you get to choose where your emotional energy goes. One of the greatest lessons I ever learned was, and I remember, I think first that kind of. Coming through to me when reading seven habits of highly effective people and one of the greatest lessons, though, that I think I ever learned from anything was this idea to put your focus, put your energy into the things that you could control, not on the things that you can't control. And there's a lot of crap out here that can frustrate us, the restaurants and support and all these different things. And I'd get done with the delivery and I'd get in to pick up an order. And the restaurant is running way far behind and I'm stuck waiting and I'm steaming. I am so ticked off because it shouldn't take this long, right? And at some point I just figured I don't like feeling that way. And I realized, OK, you know what, I walk into that situation and I've got two choices I can move on. Or I can make good use of my time doing something else. And the thing was when when all of a sudden I realized I got to make that choice. And that was all the difference in the world. It changed my attitude completely. Because here's the thing, if I choose to move on, OK, I've made a productive choice. It's not worth waiting. That's OK. You can decide, OK, I'm going to move on to something else or. I could decide I'm going to stay, and at that point, I've made that decision and okay, you know what, if I don't make enough money? Well, now that's my fault. It's not their fault and I'm not going to get steamed at myself. It's not worth it either that way. And so the thing is is I can't do anything about how fast the restaurant gets the food ready. I can't do anything about that stuff. I can't do anything about the customer that doesn't tip. But I don't have to be at their mercy, either. I don't have to have my mood and my feelings rely so heavily on stuff that I can't control. You get to choose the things that you put your energy into and the things that you focus on. Choose, well, my friends, because it makes all the difference in the world. Here's another tip that I had, and actually I could maybe say with steal. We stole it from Kevin with his clip that we played earlier. And and that is to gamify it. I love the way that he said it in the clip, you said. He talked about how he could gamify it, how he could break it up into challenges in different things. And OK, I was too lazy to go back and look it up for sure, but I was pretty sure I thought I remembered, you know, that there was one guy that went out and he made eighty three hundred dollars in a month. He just he went out to see how much he could make and basically was $100000 a year pace. Now that's before expenses, I know that, but still that's a good amount of money. But it was a lot of time he put in 12 hours a day for a whole month. How do you do that? And I was pretty sure he talked about one of the things he did. One of his secrets was to gamify it. You know, so, so here I am here from a couple of places. It fits for me, I'm a geek, I keep a spreadsheet every day, I've got a spreadsheet that I've got a record of every delivery and how long it took and how far I drove for it and what my profit per hour was for that delivery. You give me a day in a time and I can tell you how much I made per hour on that delivery, and I could tell you how much I made per hour for that day. And for me, it's fun. You know, some people like a Yeah, I don't think I want to bother with that. But for me, it was fun. It's part of making a game out of it. And it was like, it's this thing that I, you know, set that up and I just put the stuff in and then I see, Oh, you know what? I'm at $18 an hour. I'd like it to be a little bit better or, Oh man, this is awesome. I'm at $30 an hour, you know? And so you can kind of do stuff like that. You can set challenges, you can set goals. And I'll do that sometimes where I'll go out and I'll just say, I'm going, I don't care about how much I make per hour. I'm going out to make 30 deliveries today. Can I do it? And you know, and you do a countdown with that or I've had times where I just say, You know what? I'm just going to try this for fun. I'm going to go out and I'm going to accept every order from this company. And you just sometimes you mix it up, you do some different things. You set some goals, you create challenges, find ways to make a game out of it and to make it fun. The last tip that I would give you. Is. Take advantage of your time. You know, I mentioned earlier, I get the stereo for my car, and for me, I would call that the best investment ever. OK. Since I did the upgrade on my e-bike and I've been enjoying doing deliveries on that that might be taking over is my best investment ever. But honestly, that stereo was a huge thing for me and it was because of how many hours that I put into delivery. And the thing is, it has to do with the amount of time that I spend in the car and especially, you know, what she almost call dead time. But it's, you know, you're getting paid, you're doing the delivery, so you're driving to the restaurant, pick up the food and then from the restaurant to the customer. But that takes time, and there's nothing much that you're doing besides driving, right? Well. I've got my stereo that I can tie in, and I've got my podcasts and I choose podcasts that I can learn from and learn how to do different things. I've got audio books that I listen to and and I learned a lot about how to create a podcast and how to do a website and all these different things in that time that I'm spending out delivering. And so, you know, that's the thing is you've got time in there, and if you can find ways to make the best of that time, you can develop yourself as a person. You can learn you can grow with the podcast, with the audio books. And even sometimes when you just want to enjoy your music, then there you go. And it really makes it that much more enjoyable. And you know, the funny thing was, you know, when the pandemic hit and when they really started locking down, and during that time, I decided I'm going to take some time off. So for a few weeks, I took time off and just didn't do deliveries and I took it is OK. It's a great opportunity to work on some other things and stuff, and it was great for that. But I also found that I really, really, really missed my delivery time. I missed it so much, but I think it came to figure out that it wasn't so much that I missed the deliveries. I've missed my audio books, I missed my podcasts because when I'm working on stuff at home, I'm just not as likely to turn those on in the background. I'm doing too many other things that. It's just not as effective then. But when I'm driving, you know that that can get pretty much all my attention other than, you know, making sure I'm watching out what's going on on the road. But the thing about it is, you know, I find that I'm getting paid to learn stuff that I can put to work, and it's awesome. So, you know, find ways to to really get productive with that time that you're out on the road because it really does make a difference. The bottom line, my friends, is make your delivery business an enjoyable one. And if you can't. Then it's probably time to move on. Don't life's too short to be miserable at what you're doing, whether it's delivery, whether it's a regular job, whatever it is. Find ways to enjoy what you're doing. And I just feel I think I said this before, but I feel like delivery is just one of those things where we've got more control over what we can enjoy our ability to enjoy it because a lot of the stresses in a lot of the problems and a lot of that stuff that goes with the boss and all those different things that go with their traditional job, we don't have to deal with those. So most of the stuff that we do have to deal with. We've got more control over how we choose to look at those things. Yeah, sometimes some of the stuff we put up with is crap, but we've got control over how we look at it and what we do with it. That stuff does not have to control you, my friends. And that's part of being the boss. You get to choose what you want to dwell on. And it's a perfect place to wrap this up, especially if you're familiar with how I wrap these podcasts up anyway. You know, my friends, if you know anybody that can benefit from anything from this podcast, can you spread the word? Let them know about us so that we can help them out as well. But more than anything, let's just go back to that being the boss. You can control so much about what you do, and you can control an awful lot about how you look at things. That's up to you. So do that. Choose how you're going to feel about what you're doing and be the boss.