How To Share The Entrepreneurial Journey With Your Family

The Complete Entrepreneur – EP35

[00:00:00] 

Colin, I must admit once again, this is my favorite time of the week, and I couldn’t agree with you more, it really is incredible. The conflict there of your desire to see your business succeed often your family ends up on the altar of sacrifice.

And it’s a challenge. Look, it really is. It’s a big challenge. Like how do you balance both of those things? And when you’re so excited about something and say, happy in business and you come back home and around the meal table or something like that, and you share about, it’s an exciting thing.

And everyone looks at you with blank faces and yeah. But did you see the latest sports event or something like that? Or I just watched tick-tock and I saw this new thing. Hey guys, I just told you about this mind-blowing thing and I’m getting nothing here. I it’s a challenge. And then does that [00:01:00] mean you spend more time in your business?

And then less time still in your family. It’s look, Colin and Michelle. I must admit it’s one of the most challenging things I’ve had to wrestle with in all of my entrepreneurial career. And I got a few sort of strategies I’d like to share with the with everyone today and share with you guys and get your feedback on some of the things I did do help manage that.

But before we get stuck into things calling what’s going on with startup.club let me tell you this. This is not been a very good week for me, my partners and I, we started a company in 2003 called geeks for less. We have 800 programmers globally, and we have about 600 people in Ukraine and we still to this day have 300 people in Nikolov.

Ukraine and it really is the frontline. [00:02:00] And so we started a charity on Gibson. Go, if you just go to Gibson, go, we’re the number one charity right now on Gibson, go. And I’ll tell you why it’s important because we are actually able to get the money to the people on the street. Instantly. We have the system set up.

We have the people in the street, even though they are under attack. Let me tell you this. They have three sides of the city’s under attack. They’re shelling the city. I’m hope this is not the next miracle, but we are the, our office is about two miles from the front line. And we have this massive facility, 25, 30, 40,000 square foot office facility.

And it’s just it’s Harper. But I’ll tell you this. We can make a difference. We’ve already raised $140,000, $50, $20. If you can put a hundred dollars, anything you can put, we’ll go directly to the people and it will go this week. It’ll go. Literally tomorrow we [00:03:00] have bought a drone to S to for the city, a $30,000 drone, which what it does is identifies a potential military.

When they’re coming into the city to get the civilians out of the way we are supporting the hospital and the local city. If you’ve been watching CNN, the hospital been on CNN, that’s the hospital that we’re supporting. We have donated the company that I’m involved with and partially own has donated over a million dollars to this hospital.

And last eight years this is a time when everybody here in this audience and I, this is not what the show is about. I know that I’m just making the appeal, go to give sentenced. Click on, we stand with Ukraine and give 50 bucks and I’ll tell you what I’m going to do today. Michael, I’m going to match everything up to a thousand dollars.

So if you go crazy, I’m not going to go. I can’t, I don’t have that, but I’ll tell you this. If you donate $50, I’m going to match it. You don’t need a hundred, I’m going to match it. You donate $500. I’m going to match it up to a thousand dollars. So [00:04:00] if you can just go to that website and let’s raise some money and let’s not look back in history.

When we saw this war on TV, let’s look at it as at a time when we made a difference, when we actually put our money in and we actually spent spending a little bit of money, makes a big difference. And we’re the number one spot right now. I’d give, set and go. So even $10 helps keep us up there and everything’s appreciated.

So sorry, Michael, I went on a total tangent there. What was your question? I don’t even remember now. I’m just like, we are literally, I have hundreds of employees. We have brought hundreds of employees outside the country, but we still have about 300 people behind the behind enemy lines or near enemy lines, not behind near enemy lines.

And it’s hard to concentrate. Isn’t it? What was your question, Michael? No, that’s okay. I think that you gave an example of what this type, this topic today is all about, and it’s about family. And the fact that with that, with as [00:05:00] entrepreneurs, we actually have a broader definition of family. It’s not just the people at home.

They’re one family, they’re our immediate family, but there’s also the family in the office. There’s the family in your case in Ukraine Colin, which you’ve been working with for the past eight years, it’s people like that. They are family. When you look at work colleagues, they’re not just colleagues, they’re facing.

And when you look at you think about your business, people in your office, that they, yes, they’re employees, but you know what? I’ve yet to find an entrepreneur who doesn’t view them almost like family, and we need to care for them and we need to look after them and we need to respect them. And sometimes we need to risk youth.

Like I couldn’t imagine any worse than and I thank God for the fact that I don’t have staff in Ukraine or anything like that at this time. It’s a horrific situation there. But in your case, Colin, you have family [00:06:00] in Ukraine and you’re doing whatever you can to help them at and to get them out of the, and I just want to honor you for that and just say Well done for looking after your entrepreneurial family in that regard.

And you’re still here though at the complete entrepreneur. So thank you very, and I know this is not the topic, Michael, but I have to say there are tears in my eyes right now. There are people getting killed. There are programmers who are fighting a battle once. I don’t even think they should be fighting.

They shouldn’t have guns in their hands. And I’m just, yeah, it’s hard. It’s hard to watch. It’s hard to see. And let’s get on with the show though. Let’s get out of the show and please any, anyone who does a general donation today, I’m willing to match that donation. I’m watching them right now.

We’ve had one come in a few minutes ago. Anyone who doesn’t know initiative really appreciate it. Go to give Southern, go for your. Yeah. So we’re talking about you’re listening to the [00:07:00] complete entrepreneur. This is a show that it’s 5:00 PM Eastern time, every single Thursday. And it’s one that I must admit we’ve been doing for now nearly a year now.

And it’s a time of day. I really look forward to each week. And the reason why is because it’s not just about Michael, Colin, Michelle, up here talking to each other mumps ourselves about the topic, but it’s about hearing from you, the entrepreneurs and hearing real life experiences. And that’s a thing that I must’ve been I hunger for as you may be great to go to four 20 and Ted shortly on this, but just to give us the frame.

The entrepreneur is family. That’s the topic we’re looking at today and how do you juggle your family life and your business life, but also should you involve your family in your business? And if you do, then what’s the best way to do it. What strategies can you adopt that will help balance your personal business lot, like here, like [00:08:00] right now, what are some of the things that you can do to be able to do that?

Give me an idea. In one of my businesses, I have my best friend that I’ve known since grade four. He works for me and also my brother-in-law who works for me. And they’d be working with me for about 15 years. Yeah. And there’s various strategies that had to be put in place to manage. And I’m so happy that I have them have them working with me and it’s yes.

Are they employees technically? Yes, their family and their family in the truest sense of the word as well. Yeah. And so w what I actually do to put in place, but just before I jumped to that, because there are some strategies I had to put in place to be able to manage those relationships, both personally and professionally, what I’d like to be able to do is jump down to four 20, that four 20.

It is so good to hear from you. It’s been way too [00:09:00] long, man. Welcome to the complete.

I know it’s but George, welcome to the complete entrepreneur. We’d love to hear about hear from you on this topic, on the entrepreneurs, family. Go for George. Yeah. How you doing guys? I see you guys. Yeah you know this interesting topic. What I went through as an entrepreneur in the home and being the only bread winner and, just stepping out in faith, you could say, and just going for it.

And I’ve talked about this a couple of times in interviews in the past about how, me being an entrepreneur, how, a lot of people have a misconception of. Yeah, I’m going to start my own business. I’m going to have more free time and that’s a lie. First of all when you’re working a nine to five you’re 40 hours on the clock, you have more time for reels at, doing your regular job than being an [00:10:00] entrepreneur.

The beginning. Cause I know for me, I was paying like 80 hours a week, trying to get my business up and going and I didn’t really, go on vacations. I didn’t take trips because I was laser focus on trying to build something, something that I know that if I work hard now, I’ll be able to relax later, and enjoy life later. And it did effect, it did affect me and affect my marriage too. Believe it or not. We went through some stuff because of, because I was, spending more time on the business side and not spending time with my family and my kids. It’s not easy to be an entrepreneur man, but at the end, my wife supported my decision, but I wish I could have did more things.

I wish I was in position to tell the kids let’s go to Disneyland. I didn’t get to do none of that stuff. It was just, I was at home. I was working, I was taking care of the family. And it did bring some strife in the home with me and my partner, my wife, and,[00:11:00] cause she wanted me to spend more time with them.

It’s like I had a Company here where it was doing really well. And I was getting hammered with calls and then, back in 20 15, 20 16 so it was tough. It was tough guy that it really was, if I could turn the clock back I would’ve done a little some things differently to, spend time with more with my kid when they were younger.

Now they’re older now I regret it because now it’s like Mo most of them are married and, I don’t get to see them all the time, and I’m thinking, man, I lost a lot of time when they were young, when I had the opportunity to do things. When you’re building a company, it’s hard.

You don’t have the money coming in okay I’m going to stop for two weeks. I’m going to take everybody go somewhere. We didn’t get to do that stuff. My wife understands. You know where I was going with this and, and also too as an entrepreneur, once, once you do your first company, you want to do another company and it’s almost like it’s hard.

I don’t know how Colin does it. First of all. Cause calling like either genius, man. I [00:12:00] look up to him big time and even you, Michael and Michelle, you guys are great entrepreneurs, man. And like I said, you guys, we’ll build a company salad, build another company, and, but you guys have a good team.

I’m doing all this by myself. I don’t have a team around me. That’s the difference I think is I’m doing everything by myself. And like I said, now, I’ve ventured into another company, which is in the cannabis space. We built, we build out our first cannabis laboratory, state of California.

And that was that was probably the toughest challenge in my whole entrepreneurship, because it was rough, man. It’s you want this to open and it’s just obstacle after obstacle. And but like I said, if I could encourage anybody here, guys, if you guys.

I want to be an entrepreneur. Just be, remember, man, you’re going to spend a lot of time trying to build it. And also too, I wanted to say this. I think we talked about this last time, but also take care of your health man. Because as entrepreneurs we don’t eat, we’re busy, so busy working.

We don’t eat. And we’re not eating healthy either. This is a [00:13:00] great topic. I think a lot of people don’t want to talk about, their struggles and the situation that goes in their home. Every, pictures of people being happy all the time, but you don’t see behind the scenes, the struggle right.

Of an entrepreneur man. And like I said, I appreciate all the lessons that I’ve learned through this process. And I really appreciate my wife because she stuck it out with me, man. She really, she really believed in what I was doing and look, or, now we’re going to a different place.

So George, you talked about something very important. We talked about family, we talked about health and I don’t know the show. Michael’s not about health, but you’re, you went through a lot and you’re a very successful entrepreneur. You’ve done a lot of great things. And you do what all entrepreneurs do right or wrong is we get totally obsessed with it and we go put it all in.

And sometimes, there’s been other shows. We talked about that with health, but can you talk a little bit more about what actually happened? [00:14:00] Yeah, absolutely. I went through some health issues like around, I think around a year and a half ago. I don’t know. I’m trying to remember when it would happen, but I suffered a massive heart attack like a year and a half ago.

And two years ago, I think now going to be two years in November and. I don’t know, man, it really rock Iraq. Me of course, physically, but also spiritually you could say wow man, this could have been it, but I survived it miracle, and they did a quadruple bypass and I survived that and thank God that my heart was not damaged.

During that episode of that massive heart attack, my heart was not damaged at all. So I looked out, I’m not paralyzed and I still have some issues. I got numbness in my left foot in my hand. That’s part of the deal, I, if I could live with that. And, but yeah, I went through some really tough times with what I will w when I went through with my heart, man, it was unbelievable.

I just, I couldn’t believe it happened to me, but it happened. [00:15:00] So even in saying that calling, if you guys are listening to this and you’re 45 to 50 or 60, man, go get your heart check, man. Get, tell the doctor to check, to see if you have any plaquing your arteries. Because I didn’t know I had plaque in my arteries.

And you go to your doctor checkup any the heart, but he’s not, he don’t have an x-ray on it. So I just want to say that. I said it, I did a video wrapped in my heart attack on Facebook live. And I want to tell my friends, Hey, look, go get your hearts check.

And some of my friends didn’t listen and several of my passed away because of their heart. Unbelievable. And they sold the video, but sometimes we have to get the price all the way and get that checked out. I know I’m doing your job here, Michael, but just so George, your family, how did they play a role?

So you’re here though. You’re the bread winner. You say I’m an entrepreneur. I do what I do. [00:16:00] And then you’re eating like crap. You’re doing 80 hours a week. You have this heart attack and then your family come blacks back and help you to come back to help you. Can you talk a little bit about what they did?

Yeah. Really my wife, man. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here because she’s the one that identified that I was having a heart attack. I didn’t know I was having a hard thing. She said, you’re having, I say whatever, but eventually I knew something was happening, but my wife and my kids, man, they all rallied around me during that time.

I make a lot of them were, all my kids weren’t in shock because ever seen man, I found my dad was invincible. They were shocked that. That happened to me. They never thought it was something like that would happen to me. And then to see me in the condition I was, cause it was a rough surgery.

My family was really my wife’s the one that really stepped up and just, help me to get healthy again, to get back to where I need to get. And it really affected me as an entrepreneur, man. [00:17:00] It’s hard guys. I’m telling you, that’s why you gotta check your health because if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re the breadwinner, and if you go down and your finances go down, and that a lot of people don’t like to talk about that, everybody thinks we’re in biteable or we’re going to live another 20 years.

We don’t know, and that’s what happened to me, man. It just really, it hit us hard, like I said, my, my wife and my kids, they all rallied around me to help me. And like I said, it was just a blessing, man. I’m here today and I’m so happy to be here and be around you guys, and I know I have a lot more to do in my life, even though I’m 55 I still want to keep going, I like, I liked this entrepreneurship.

I like the challenge, I like, the things that come across your way because you actually learning as you’re going through the process. Yeah. Let me tell you, George it’s so good hearing your story. And cause it’s a great reminder to all of us here that it’s [00:18:00] why we doing what we’re doing and to look at yourselves and the journey.

I, myself, I get regular. The check for things all the time. Yeah. It’s just because I know that I’ve been an entrepreneur since I was 16 and basically I’ve never had a full-time job in my life. I’ve always built businesses and it takes a toll. And one of the people I listen to in my life is my wife.

We’ve been married now for 35 years this year. And I listened, I really listened to her and the things I’ve listened to her about is I, she says to me, things such as, Hey, you’ve been working too hard for. And she’ll just drop little sentences like that in there. And but she literally had a conversation with me this morning because we’ve just launching a new product in one of my companies.

And I was in the middle of that and she has, yeah, you need a foot [00:19:00] off the gas, you need to go low and just chill out. You need to go along and take some time at and the scene that’s got me through it is my family listening to loved ones. Yeah. Have you never had the time when you go to work, you lose your key employee, you lost a million dollar contract.

You the financing didn’t go through, you come home and your wife’s I think we should change the color of the kitchen or maybe do a renovation today. And yet you’re sitting there thinking, oh my gosh, you have no idea. You have no idea what I went through today, and that has happened to me many times in my life.

And I’m just curious maybe it’s a different relationship. Everybody’s got different relationships, but we go through so much and I’ve done my best to protect my spouse from my rollercoaster. Cause it’s been a roller coaster a lot of bankruptcies, a lot of big wins. It’s been too much.

And sometimes now I actually don’t. I actually go the other [00:20:00] way. I actually, I make a million dollar contract or something. I don’t necessarily tell her. No, I don’t always share the successes now because I know that she’s been through so much. There’s 25 years of a rollercoaster. I can’t imagine you said 35 years.

I can’t imagine anyway, I’m coming from a different perspective here that every one of us in the audience probably think that we go through this, all this chaos and then we come home and oh, what color do you want to make? And I don’t mean. Your wife or your husband, or it could be your kids, it could be your cousins.

It could be your mother. It could be whatever. And they’re always talking to you about these things. That almost seems so irrelevant, but they’re not, they’re extremely important. And I know that I recognize that. And maybe I didn’t recognize that when my kids were growing up, a little bit what you said, George, right?

It’s these were big things. Whether they had a great beer a or whatever. And by the way, I did want my kids to have good grades, but I’m just saying, whether they did this project or not that project, and yet you literally were, [00:21:00] you couldn’t even, there’ve been nights where I come home at dinner and I’m like, my gosh, I couldn’t even breathe.

Almost. I’ve been so stressed out. Things going so bad today or whatever, and you have no idea what happened. Look, what happened to me last week, the company that I started, my partners and I 800 employees and make a life. And they, literally, people are dying and people are, my employees are fighting a war and I come home and I’m sitting here.

I’m thinking, oh, I can be, I have to be nice. And I have to be like it’s hard. It’s I don’t know. I don’t know. I it’s a tough one. Oh, look, Colin. I’m actually in your cap, wholeness. You literally, I’ve been in situations where you’re surrounded by alligators, and some of them are knowing the way your leg.

And I come home and someone complains to me because th the garbage can in the trash can is too full. [00:22:00] I’m thinking you just take it out, then you have any idea what I’m dealing with, like seriously, or I remember I sat down with my two daughters at one stage, and I said to them, look, I’m going through a really tough time.

Can you guys just do the justice tonight rather than me, just something trivial like that. I just, I needed some mind space and they began to argue with me and it just did my head in. Yeah, it really did my head in and it was the thing I realized through this though after it did, my head in the, I realized was there’s certain things that entrepreneurs need to bear and certain things they can share.

And I find that with my family is that they don’t understand and I can’t expect them to understand it’s not their job to understand it’s their [00:23:00] job to actually bring me back to normality. That’s their job and they’re doing their job. The fact that they want to change them and wife wants to change the curtains or something like that.

Or she’s wants to go away on a vacation and Michael, can you organize that? Because I just can’t find a spot. Yeah. It’ll literally start in and I’m thinking I don’t give a stuff where the vacation is, as long as I can have a drink in my hand, sitting down next to a pool. Yeah. It’s a bit like that.

Like just to pick a place and the scope. But it’s important for them to do their job and their job is actually duty to bring you back to the ground. And there’s a certain amount of arrogance almost in expecting them to understand exactly how you feel. And in the end, one of my strategies has been, Hey, dad’s had a really tough day.

I all, I wanted to hug. I just want to. And that’s become almost like a signal[00:24:00] or they sometimes will just look at me and they’ll just come up and just give me a hug because they can’t understand, they got no idea what’s going on. You hear a story like George, he’s working itself to the bone, not looking after his health and all that sort of stuff and everything.

And yet his family still gathered around him at that critical health point. And yeah, when it really hits the road, what, who gives a fuck about the business seriously? Who gives a stuff about it? Because what’s important is when you’re about to go along and meet your maker, who’s really important.

Is that supplier, is that contract or is it your wife and your kid? The loved ones around you. Ultimately that’s, what’s really important. And we say that, yeah. And we go along and use all so [00:25:00] wonderful words and everything like that to say yes, of course. Of course. But how has your behavior during the week reflecting that, and I bet you, George, and I want to come back to you on this, George.

I bet you behave differently now to your family than you did before you had

that question. No, absolutely. I think so. Absolutely. I think I, and even the kids too, my kids act differently too, because they’re saying, man, they’re lucky that I’m still around right there. They tell me, go dad, I’m so happy. You’re still around. And me too, you could say, because like I said, I feel like I appreciate them more now, because of the close call And I appreciate everybody really around me there.

Cause I don’t really have too many friends. But like I said, the people that around me, man, I appreciate them all the time. And I have a sense of I don’t know. I just wanna get to the point where, you know, when I pass, that they’re taking care of them, that my kids are taken care of, so they won’t have to [00:26:00] go through the struggles I went through.

But yeah, you’re right. It did change. It did give me a different outlook of life. Believe me, Michael, it made me, made me think about a lot of things, of what, things I have to still change. Not only as a husband, as a father, but it also is an entrepreneur too. Okay.

Yeah. I agree with you and coming back to you, Colin. Yeah. The thing that I find in myself I go through is. You’re dealing with, like I said, the alligators and all the different issues and great big plans and yada. And then you come home, there’s some trivial issue and to trivialize the trivial for you, he is at height of arrogance.

And that’s where I found myself. And I have a say, I have a bad habit of doing that is that we’ll have a family function. Like we got one on Monday, for instance, from my son birthday all the family’s coming around and what’s your stuff. And unknown note the conversation, it’ll be like, [00:27:00] it’ll be everything from the weather to play this music.

Or you look at this particular thing on YouTube, it’s all that sort of stuff. And then I’ll be thinking, yeah, but they’re blowing the hell out of Ukraine right now. Isn’t that a bit more important to think about and yeah. It’s, there’s a great saying. If you get serious with life is going to get serious with you.

And the thing I’m finding more and more is and I think there’s some wisdom in this is that even amongst the true reality, there’s an enormous amount of love. And the fact that your family wants to be with you is because of that love. And if you’re in, if you’re all the time going to work and you’re constantly doing work, and they’re complaining about you being so much doing it as work stuff with everything.

The only reason why they complain is because they love you. The problem you’re going to have is when they stop complaining. [00:28:00] Yeah. When they stopped complaining, it means they’ve given up. And when they’ve given up, it’s like a game is over there and it makes you wonder, are you actually climbing the right ladder of success?

Colin, what are you going to say about.

Look I’m not the bright person to me, even in this club in this group, in this room because when it comes down to it, I probably don’t act like I should. I’m not, when there’s a crisis that hits I tend to isolate myself. So when pandemic hit, I’m invested in about now I’m invested in 15 companies at the time when the pandemic hit, but I was invested in about eight or nine companies and about three or four of them were in total chaos.

So I flew up to my home in Canada, isolated myself for a month on the phone for 18 hours a day, totally dealt with everything. And when we killed it, like we, cause when crisis hits, you [00:29:00] can make a dent. You can actually make a difference. When the war hit two weeks ago, same thing, total isolation working on.

There’s been, I’ve had, I’ve done nothing but focus on how do I help the people at my office to get out of the country and how do I get money to the people in that country and what can I do to help them? So I’ve been really focused. So there are times in my life when I totally separate from my family to focus.

And I don’t know if that’s an anomaly or if that’s normal, it’s probably not, this is not, I’m the right way to call it. This is probably the wrong way to do it, but I’m just telling you,

I’m gonna interrupt you here. I can act, I can actually say, I think that’s actually normal. That’s actually a normal behavior. Is that when a crisis hits, you’ve got to get really focused. And I view it this way. It’s like you got to trust account with your family and in [00:30:00] those crisis times you’re actually doing withdrawals.

What you don’t want to do is have your trust account, your family go into. And so it’s in those times when it’s not a crisis, you’re depositing into the account with your family and your family actually wants to carry you through those times. And they understand that you’ve got to go and solve some serious problems.

Yeah. It doesn’t mean they need to know the details. They just know you need to go away and solve those problems can be very focused. And one of the amazing things about a lot of really great entrepreneurs is they have the ability to do that. They have the ability to really focus in amongst all the crap that going on and then solve the problems.

It’s a bit like Michael, when you have a crisis, do you really pull your family through that crisis together? Do you face that together or do you separate? I separate federal. Absolutely. Because I find there now you got this is a curious [00:31:00] question. You’re in the audience now. You are running a company, you have the stress of running a company.

You’re an entrepreneur. Come on stage, raise your hand. Let’s have some fun here. Let’s just have an open dialogue. That’s what this is all about. Come on stage. It’ll be really fun to talk about this a little bit more and to get a little bit more deep, because most people would say, oh, we have to work together and work with their family.

I’m like, no, I don’t do that. That’s bull crap. I hate to say when you have a crisis hit, what you gotta do is actually focused on the crisis. And that’s when you withdrawing from the trust account with the family And the family needs to understand that. Yeah, there’s a crisis. What do you don’t want to have as a business where you are in perpetual crisis?

That’s not a good situation for your health, for your family, or if your own wellbeing at all, but when a crisis hits you focus and I separate myself from my family like the other day, because we’re launching a new user new product it’s in alpha at the moment out there, and we’re showing you some clients that and all that sort of [00:32:00] stuff.

And I was right in the middle of that. And I just said to them, I said, I’m working 14, 15 hours a day. And I’ll be doing that for the next week and a half. We can have two weeks. That’s all there is to it. It’s not really crisis as such, but it’s more case of, I just need to do what I need to do. And I had to explain to them at the end of that.

So my wife said, so what about, can we essentially see you? And I said, probably mid to late next week. And she has Yeah. And Zach Brandt and that’s just, what’s going to happen. Yeah. And I can go along and let’s bring in this loving, loving w family situation along, but you know what, they actually don’t need to see it, see that because all they’re gonna see is dad needs to go home and do what he needs to do.

And he is faking it with them during that time of crisis or whatever it is. Yeah. And you just, you can’t do that. It’s there’s times Colin, you just need to get on and get crapped on, it’s funny. I see [00:33:00] Kevin in the audience here and travel. It’s just made me think about travel like, and Michael, about that to traveling and as an entrepreneur and you.club, we just sold that to GoDaddy.

It’s a company that is sold and over 50 to a hundred countries around the world. Michelle. And I, we traveled to most of those countries, Kevin, in the audience he’s traveled to travel can have an impact on her family too. And I do know that there’s some techniques that some people have used when they travel to help support their family including, daily videos and those kinds of things.

I’m not a good example of that Kevin’s coming on. So hopefully he can shed some light on to this issue. Yeah. It’s an interesting question. Travel. I agree with you and I. Yeah. They used to do back in the old days before 2020. Remember? Yeah exactly. There’s what are the most [00:34:00] horrific things you could possibly do as an entrepreneur is look at the number of frequent miles you have, and then you think, oh my gosh.

And then you say yourself, how many of them were actually earned in coach? Because you’re trying to put aside money or whatever it is, a business class and all that sort of stuff. And it’s just it’s crushing like an airline rewards you so you can fly more. It’s one of those things, but anyway, you’re listening to the entrepreneur, the complete.

And we’re discussing the entrepreneurs family. And if you’re in the audience right now, and you’re saying, boy, if I got some stories to tell you ways, I blew it, the ways I really got it really did it well. And these are some of the things that I did help manage, let the family and the older relationships as I pursued my vision for my company to love to hear from you.

But I just of to jump down to Neil and then we’ll come across the Kevin Neil, welcome to the complete entrepreneur. You’ve got some thoughts to share on this [00:35:00] topic. I’d love to hear from you, Neil. Welcome to the stage. Hey, thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. Nice to meet you. Great to meet you as well. Yeah.

Thoughts on this topic passionate about entrepreneurialship and it’s I consider it to be like a gift from the Lord. The ability to co-create with the Lord. Is participating in the garden and it may be the 21st century. But it’s it’s still a garden and we’re still welcomed and we should be excited about a faith based approach to building out his kingdom through business.

My in regards to my family for whatever reason, they didn’t, they did not resonate with that perception. And, my, my biological family is what I ended up calling them because in times I needed to lean on them for help maintaining a focus on staying grounded [00:36:00] on a horizontal level person to person while the Lord was challenging me on a vertical level.

There, it was very much a just go work for the county. And every day is a good day at the county, and my heart breaks a little bit because, as an entrepreneur and, and seeing business as a as one of the fronts of God’s kingdom, right?

One of the front lines it takes the wind out of your sails when you dedicate your life to building business. And then, you try to lean back on family and they just take the wind out of you, it kinda, de-legitimized your vision. And that’s sorry if I interrupt you there, Neil, it’s interesting.

You say that it is that you obviously have a clear vision for your business and everything, and you’re traveling back a family. Yeah. And that’s the challenge. I is, do we have a right to lean on our family and do they have an obligation to, to support [00:37:00] us in those times? And clearly you have a a Christian background in, in your beliefs and that sort of stuff.

And one of the things I would encourage you is take, look at first Corinthians 13. Yeah. And that’s the essence of what we need to display for AF family, which is what the essence of love is. I noticed in your role at icon, there is faith hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. And how do you actually share that?

Like I use the example of a trust account before of deposited into a trust account with our family before we with. And one of the challenges is we’ve got to do it in that order. We get a deposit before we withdraw, because if you get into a overdraft situation, let me tell you the probably going to be running away a million miles before you actually go along and can get some support from it’s depositing.

And how do you deposit it in an appropriate manner? And then how do you share it appropriate manner, some of the struggles you’re going through [00:38:00] internally and mute yourself. It’s a really interesting question. You open up there, but thank you for your input on that. I was going to jump across to Kevin here.

Kevin, you’ve traveled all over the place and it’s more than just relationship with the family’s relationship. I call it with loved ones. How do you manage that being on the road and in those times, pre COVID, obviously because right now with COVID, it’s we’re traveling by zoom and by the way zoom is great, but as you’re sick, you visit.

So I’m actually going to use you Collin, Michelle and George, as an example right now, like we’ve become best friends in so many different situations around the world where we’ve met. COVID has obviously been really weird for that, but I live in Austin, Texas, and I have friends here, but I have Michael, I feel like I know you so well.

I’ve met your family, I’ve met your daughters, I’ve met your wife and we’ve celebrated things together. So [00:39:00] managing that now is a little bit where we’re connecting more, more like digitally Michelle, as soon as I popped into this room and she texted me about one of our other friends and I was like, yeah, please call me.

I want to connect about that. I think there’s dealing with a lot of things like that. Colony to your point of the registry thing, like domains and everything that brought us into this room is definitely right. Like the traveling, like you’ve done a lot of traveling how’s that affected your relationships.

Yeah. I had an ex I have an ex-wife. I got rid of her that’s done that, but our relationships, I think are still pretty strong. If we see each other, if I see you calling, if I see you, if I see anyone in this room, whatever the bridge, your family relationships, your girlfriends or wives, or ex-wives, it sounds like travel has had an impact.

I’m curious. Like I’m not trying to go G here. I’m just trying to like figure out is it really had an impact on you, your entrepreneurial career, the traveling. Okay. Thanks for, yeah, you’re bringing it back to the title of this room. I don’t think that with my ex [00:40:00] wife, that travel was the issue because that was flying 200,000 miles a year, roughly.

That Oregon and my current company and things like that. I don’t think that ever affected him. It was other stuff, but we made time for ourselves. Like we went and this is not to be any, anything weird, but we went and bought or hired a cleaning lady to come and clean our house. So that on Saturdays, when I was home, we would go and go do our own thing and go to a farmer’s market or go to a brunch or go to a movie, or like we’ve had our date times that we set aside for that.

I don’t think that, I think if you do it right, it doesn’t work out. But also I liked what you said Colin earlier about when something happens, like you go isolate yourself and I’m actually very similar to that. Like when something happens. I’m like, I’m going to, I’m going to leave my friends. I’m going to leave family, whatever, and I’m going to go do what I need to do to fix the problem or to go isolate to concentrate on something.

And I don’t think it’s isolated. I think it’s concentrated. And I think that’s the term [00:41:00] there that I would use. And I do the same thing where I’m like, I’m going to go concentrate on this problem or this situation or this, whatever I need to work on. And then if it’s a week, if it’s a month, if it’s a day, whatever it is I’m okay with that.

And everyone that knows me knows that okay, Kevin’s in his own little place. And now we’re like, when he comes back from that low place I’m not like a crazy person before that, but I’m just like, Hey, I need some time. I have somebody. I have to go concentrate on it and giving my full focus to that.

And now what actually popped into my brain just to keep talking just for two more seconds. Not two more seconds, but. I always wear a great t-shirt and jeans and boots. And I didn’t want to hear that knows me, knows that about me. I live in Texas, so I wear the boots thing. But I always, I remember reading a lot about Steve jobs.

He always wore his turtleneck and like jeans, whatever it was wearing, but he was like, I don’t want to you get into like decision fatigue if you’re waking up in the morning and you’re [00:42:00] making different decisions about what you’re doing, like towards the end of the day, it’s harder for you to make harder decisions.

So choosing like the same thing, like my closet looks, it’s all great. It’s all great. T-shirts some have different logos right now. I’m wearing a Harley Davidson logo. T-shirt but it’s a great t-shirt I don’t care. And that just that gets me through the I don’t care what I’m wearing.

Yeah, it’s funny. I do the same thing I wear the same. Start-up hold on. I wear the same startup club shirt everywhere. But since this story is a family, my wife gets so upset. I will wear it on the weekends. I don’t know. You got to change your shirt, go to a restaurant and you can’t have that shirt there.

We already have the car that says start-up club on it on the car and.club is a Tesla. I had some, 2015 everywhere in the city. We go, people see us where we’re going. And then she’s she’s already upset about that, but she gets so upset if I wear that t-shirt on the week. [00:43:00] Oh, God, I’m guilty as charged.

I have basically my drawer of black and right. T-shirts right now I lashed out and I’m now dressed by space X because I just bought a whole heap of more black and grace from space X. But yeah, it’s I am building that and you’re right. It’s decision fatigue, but coming back to the topic of family and that sort of stuff it’s an interesting challenge.

And one of the things that I said I outlined some strategies that I found have worked for me. Number one, strategy is listen to your loved ones and don’t just listen to the words, listen to their. And listen to them, what they’re expressing towards you and in amongst all the chaos of what it means to be an entrepreneur.

It’s actually really hard to do that, to stop and really listen. And sometimes my wife will sit down with me and she’ll say, you need to go away for a couple of days and get your head [00:44:00] straight. You’re becoming unbearable. I’ll say, what do you mean? I’m just quite normal. I’m what are you talking about?

Yeah. And the fact that he is, I just needed to get away for a couple of days because I had so many things racing around my head and I’ll just go away. And just myself, my laptop and all the dump, my brain out rearrange, essentially my life. And what’s going on. Everything is focused on things, all that sort of stuff.

Clear the decks is a whole lot of other things. And and after two or three days, I come back and I’m like a different person. But the only reason why I do that is because my wife said. You’re becoming our Daryl in a nice, loving way. She says that, and you just need to get away to get your head straight.

So that’s the number one thing is, listen, really listen to your loved ones because they’ll tell you things like no one else will tell you. The other thing I’ve learned is don’t always feel the home with business talk is really [00:45:00] listen to them. What’s the rules you’ve got two years and one math use them in those proportions.

So just listening to them and there was a guy, he was a negotiator for the FBI. I’ve watched his master class and he gave some great advice for conversations that you may be totally uninterested in. He said, all you do is repeat back the last sentence, the person talking to you. To show that you understand what they’re saying.

And so I did that around the meal table one time and and I got up and I left the meal table. My, my kids said to my wife and his adult kids now. Wow. That was amazing. Dad’s completely changed. All I did was just applied an FBI negotiating tactic at the meal table and they suddenly thought everything was great.

And you’re, there’s some skills you can learn that helped you solve with your family. So listen to your family rather than [00:46:00] talk and, but do discuss important topics at times, but don’t discuss them all the time. Like for instance, one of the things I did a lot of it as I taught my kids how to manage their finances and we did it around the tech and that, that really gave them a.

A better appreciation as they got older of what it means to be an entrepreneur, as they begin to understand things and that sort of stuff, because they had that grounding when they’re like there’s a 10, 11, 12, and that sort of stuff. Eh, as I began to share with them on managing finances the other thing I do is I have a physical signal to my family that when I’m home, cause I’ve worked from home and other physical signal and the physical signal is going to sound really stupid.

But I put my moccasins on when I put one moccasins on my family knows I’m actually at home [00:47:00] versus working. If I don’t put my moccasins on, they know I’m actually still in work mode, even though I may be wearing my runners, sneakers, whatever at the meal table and everything like that, they know I’m going to get back to work out.

But I see my moccasins wrong. They know that, Hey, he’s going to sit there and watch some TV or whatever with the family and that’s become a signal for them. And they understand that. And that’s been communicated across the years. I liked the moccasins, Michael. Yeah. I liked that. I like that. I have a question though.

It’s a physical signal. I have a question. I brought up earlier about this idea of sharing the success and the pain with your family. You come home and Michael, I want to know from you, George, Kevin, Neil, I’d like to understand you get, you have a big success. Great. You celebrate it with your family. Yes or no.[00:48:00] 

You have big issues like a war, or like we have here in Ukraine or the pandemic or whatever it is. Do you share that pain with your. Is everything shared. I’m just very curious what this is this is something, yeah, that’s an interesting question. That’s an interesting question. I can only share with you guys my perspective on that.

And that is the answer, is it depends. For instance, when the kids were younger, I would never share some of the things that they’re not th they’re not built to, to to handle that they don’t like I, this golden rule can they assist. And the biggest thing when your kids are young and it can do is just give you a hug.

And so why would sharing my pain across my ten-year-old or something like that when he was 10 years old? Why would that actually be a good thing to do? No, it’s not built for that on the other hand, my 28 year old. And I, [00:49:00] she and I, we went out for lunch and I was just sharing some struggles and everything like that.

And he began to give me some really good advice. And so it was a different conversation. Now I’m going to jump to my thanks, Michael. Like you went from 12 to 28, so there’s gotta be something in between. Yeah. The reason there is some stages in between. And I find it’s less about age as they get, as they do progress.

And it’s more about maturity. And I found that with my daughters and with my son, that was. It was a bit roundabout, the 21, 22 years old, I began to share more openly. And the reason why is because between about 16 and 21, they’re totally self-absorbed. They don’t really care in any way at all I’m going to do is share and get hurt myself.

So why would I do that? And yeah, that sort of age range and it’s different for all different kids. Now, let me jump to my wife [00:50:00] in the case of my wife. That’s an interesting one. I do. I share all the nitty gritty of what I’m going through. No, I don’t. Cause she can’t help. The only thing my wife can do is once again, give me a hug.

I’m not after advice. I’m not after her to solve my problems. I’m after there, after her just to put her arms around me, that’s really what I’m on. And I’ll sometimes say that, I’ll say I just need a hug. Yeah. That’s what I’m after. And my wife’s phone number is my wife’s phone number is nine, five, four.

You’re going to call her the same thing. I’m joking, but I’m serious. That’s brilliant. It just, that’s all you want, right? Yeah. So when you want, you could, you’re not caught solve your problems for you. So why involve them in solving the problems? You may be able to share some more superficial things like, Hey, we just lost a key person or lost a contract.

[00:51:00] And then down at the moment, I really doubt I’m trying to solve that. I was going to say something similar. Like you guys. Again, all three of you, Colin, Michael and George, you guys have met my ex-wife, but even in that, like we’re in a weird domain space. So whenever we had problems growing our businesses and stuff I will definitely say like my ex wife, I loved her for the reason why I loved her, but she never really understood what our business was or what we were doing.

So I wouldn’t ever give her the day-to-day of this is what happened, or this is why this is terrible, or this is why this is amazing. So we did celebrate wins and she would, she’ll be able to know that I was like stressed out or something like that. But Michael, to your point of I’m not like a touchy feely person and I’m pretty sure you know that about me already, but.

Like it wasn’t like, I need a hug right now. It was more of let me just talk a little bit, but I know that I don’t want to explain the domain industry to you, but yeah. Like we can get through this and I’m going to get through this, but having someone to talk to is really nice and having someone there.

[00:52:00] So yeah. Yeah. I agree with you on that. And Kevin, and the other thing I found is that, to answer your question calling from before is that as my kids got older, I can expose them to the industry I was in. I took them to conferences. In fact, my son actually manned a booth at one of the conferences from one of my companies.

He was on the booth. Yeah. And I brought my daughters along and my wife came along as well. So they can then interact with some of the people that I interact with. And that actually gave them a, because they, as I became older, gave them a fresh perspective. Of what actually, what dad actually did. I remember when my daughter was in kindergarten many years ago my middle daughter the kindergarten teacher said to the class what does your dad do?

Oh, he’s a fireman. What does your dad do? Oh, he’s a policeman or this one’s a teacher. And she finally came to [00:53:00] my daughter and said, so where’s your dad at duke? And she said, he sits on his computer and that’s all that was it because that’s what she understood. Yeah. That’s what she understood. Dad did the fact that he’s able to magic money out of his computer.

Didn’t even Dawn on her. She had no concept of that, but years down the track. I took her to some conferences as she began to understand that, Hey, you know what his, her dad actually does some pretty interesting stuff. And it’s not just magic and stuff out of a computer. Yeah. So it’s an interesting world.

We live in column a, this is a topic that we could go on and on about it. When I reflect on it and it’s one, we probably will come back on the complete entrepreneur and revisit it. But sadly the time is up and we need to be moving on and our different lives. And can I just say it’s been great.

My fellow moderators on the [00:54:00] stage with me and those people who’ve come up to the stage, Kevin, George, Neil. And who’ve come up here as well, just to share their experiences with their family. You’ve appreciated it so much. It’s been actually really great. And so we’re happy to share something with someone, not a problem.

And thank you for those in the audience as well. Really do appreciate that. So Colin, what’s going on with start up the club this week and what can we all look forward to? I know it start up the club is the biggest club on CapEx. Yeah, that’s actually really cool. We hit eighth or 820,000 members, but before I go there please look at the link above.

We just got another donor came in for $30. We hit $142,000. If you do it right now, I can call your name out. Just go to give Senco dot. We are the number one donation right now, forgive, sudden go. The [00:55:00] money that we are using, the company that we’re using for is for the hospital that I don’t know if you’ve seen CNN in the last couple of days, but they showed the soldiers that were hit and the actual hospital that’s taken care of them is the one that we’re funding here.

That’s our main focus of this charity. We have people on the ground. We are in Micallef Ukraine. We had about 700 employees. We now probably have about two or 300 that are still on the ground locally and they’re fighting the actual war and they’re also. Helping people in the city. So this is a very cool thing because we’re not going through a bureaucracy.

What we’re doing is we’re donating money directly and instantly, and it’s being deployed. Now, give, send, go.com. It’s on the top of the screen. Please give [00:56:00] it makes a difference. You can sit back, you can look back at the war and say, wow, that was interesting. Or you can actually make a difference by donating tomorrow.

At two o’clock Eastern, we have Mike Alden. Mike Alden is a best-selling author. He is I’m looking at his website right now. You go to Mike alden.com. He’s a TV personality best-selling author on his podcast. He’s also he’s runs a podcast. He said, grant Cardone, Kevin Harrington’s from the shark tank and tons of guests.

He is talking to us about why entrepreneurs need to create a brand. Think about that. Kevin, why does Kevin need to be a brand? Is the business not as good enough? Kevin are not this is all about creating a brand. So Mike Alden tomorrow, he’s the number one in the world at doing this two o’clock Eastern.

Every single business, every single [00:57:00] entrepreneur needs to create their own brand. And that’s the show for it. Yeah. That’s going to be a great show that’s for sure. And please give to the Gibson go.com. I know I did last week when it first posted it and it’s great to know that the money is going directly to to a fabulous cause.

Yeah. Anything we could possibly do to save lives on both sides of the conflict is good. So next week we’ll be taking a look on the complete entrepreneurs. Where are the opportunities like you’re trying to find a great idea. Where are those ideas coming from and what does it mean to generate great ideas for your business?

Or what’s going to be the next great idea. We’re going to be unpacking all of that. And it’s going to be a great time in the complete entrepreneur. I look forward to seeing you at 5:00 PM Eastern time next Thursday. And it’s great having you here. Take care. God bless everyone.[00:58:00]