Is There a Secret to Entrepreneurial Happiness?

The Complete Entrepreneur – EP37

[00:00:00] 

Taking a look at the secrets to a happy entrepreneurial life today, and we’re going to be exploring that now I need your help. That’s for sure. And the reason why I need your help is my fellow moderators have to be all at a conference and it’s going to be a very boring room if it’s just hearing my perspectives on this.

So if you have some thoughts on what it means to be a happy entrepreneur and what really lights your fire, the stick, your hand up, I’d love to invite you to the stage. And so we can get a discussion happening because one of the things I love is hearing from other entrepreneurs, like you and hearing about them and your perspectives and your journey of what it means to be an entrepreneur. Can I just share with you my views on this topic?

It said in the blurb at the beginnings of being an entrepreneur is one of the most restful jobs. Anyone can decide to press you, [00:01:00] how can you achieve success in both your personal and your business life? So you lead a happy life. And that’s a really interesting challenge, how can you actually balance both your personal and your business life and how can you have a vision or a sense of direction.

There’s a purpose for both of them. And it’s a very big challenge to be able to do that sort of thing. And particularly when there’s demands upon your life as an entrepreneur, not just in the business sense, but in the personal sense, like when you’re facing getting that really big deal, which is gonna take your business the next level, or you’re going to go to one of your kids’ ball games, which is going to be, and you end up having them.

Some challenging sacrifices at times. And and not all those sacrifices are are pleasant to me. I must admit, like when I look back at my own life as an entrepreneur for the last 40 something years it’s been a challenge. During that time [00:02:00] as I’ve faced like decisions about what do I do with my family, what do I do with my business, but there’s one thing for sure.

I love what I do. I get up at five 30 most mornings. And and I’m I just jumped out a bit, like I, I’m so excited because it’s a new day and there’s gonna be great things happening. And it’s a fantastic experience. It really is. I find just leaping out of bed and And I stopped her at about 7:00 PM each night.

So I go from 5:30 AM to 7:00 PM. And the reason why I do it is because I love it. I absolutely love it. There, there is nothing like being an entrepreneur and it was interesting. I had a conversation with some of my work colleagues of last few days and the question really revolved around what do we love?

Why do we do what we do? And I had the team to get it yesterday. [00:03:00] Actually, it just happened to be the zoom meeting. And we had that conversation of why is it that we do. And what really lights our far, what gets us going each day. And it was a fascinating conversation to hear the different perspectives and the way each person in the team viewed themselves and how, the way they viewed themselves contributed to the hall.

But it was like, they’re excited about exploring what they loved and each person would begin to do that. And, it brings a, an enormous amount of happiness. For me, just hearing my different team members, expressing their thoughts on this. But anyway, it’s like I said, I love what I do.

And I must say, I’m incredibly happy. My kids are much older now they’re in their mid to late twenties, most of them anyway. And and I’ve a great relationship with them. So what did I get. [00:04:00] Just before I do that, if you’re in the audience at some of what I’m talking about is beginning to resonate with you, please.

Don’t make it a one man show, put your hand up because I’d love to hear from you and get your thoughts. Maybe we can bounce some ideas around together and it’d be great to hear from you. Yeah. So anyway, so it was just a conversation with my team this week to find out why did they love what they do like to give you an idea?

Some of my team members have been with me now for 14, 15 years, and it really is a great privilege as an entrepreneur to have people with you for that length of time. But anyway, I’d like to be able to switch across to Yvonne. Tell us what is the secret to a happy entrepreneurial life for you? Or do you have any questions on this topic?

So Yvonne, welcome to the.

Nope. Yvonne is not on the stage.[00:05:00] There she is.

Yeah. Hi Michael. Hi everyone. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening. Wherever everyone is. Yeah, I hope you’ve all had a good day or having a good morning or having good afternoon. And and I think being the entrepreneurial happy life enjoying the entrepreneur entrepreneurship life, or, the thought of becoming an entrepreneur, wherever everyone is on their journeys.

So my background I’ve been a business and economics teacher for over 35 schools. I’ve taught 10 different types of schools in England, and I started an ed tech company. A couple of just under two years ago with with a co-founder who has a background in sales, selling into schools, university colleges, public sector [00:06:00] and it’s The business picked up.

We, we’ve built a prototype. We have we were having some really engaging conversations. It’s full-on give you an idea, Michael and I wake up, I used to wake up at five o’clock. I’m now waking up at it’s about four 30 in the morning just to to work on me. So I spent about an hour on me just loving myself.

So I’ll, read some thing or listen to some thing and then do a little bit of exercise just to, to love when may a little bit before the world. The world comes on. And then I’ll because I’m so working we’re bootstrapping. So I’ll then go into my full-time job, but then in between I’ll be arranging meetings after work.

I have lots of meetings, ongoing meetings today. I had a fantastic meeting with a lady. Who’s a big champion. She, she runs a big organization in London and her role is [00:07:00] literally just connecting people within within different sectors of business. So that’s the kind of thing, like lots of information, really productive, aligning everything out.

One of them, another meeting, for example with a really good big accelerator. So yeah, so there’s a lot going on top of that as well. I’ve got my two teenagers and, and then there’s the other side where, you’ve got to play there as a PA as well, and, and be the good partner.

So there’s a lot going on, but you will not believe this Michael, everybody else. I my partner say to me that I don’t know how you keep going. You always seem to have energy. I think when you just passionate about what you do, you take care of you, it just doesn’t feel that you’re doing a lot, everybody around you goes oh my God, you’ve taken on so much.

You’re doing so much. How do you do it? But you just don’t, you don’t feel it. You don’t see it. I don’t feel it. I don’t see it. And maybe that’s what it is. Maybe it’s just [00:08:00] loving on you. So that, your cup is full so that you can come you can, you can bring the best of you on to the table.

And like taking just a hundred, like literally a hundred percent responsibility of everything. No blame, no shame, no gaming. It’s all, on the table, everybody knows this is me. This is what I, you know what I’m about. No, no filters, no games. And it just makes everything so much simpler, so much easier, so much energy because the mental side is just so clear.

I think that’s what it is. For me I’d love to know what it is for other people. But to you, Michael, thank you so much for this opportunity. Not a problem, Yvonne. It’s great to hear from you. Yeah. I think there’s what you’re talking about. There is one of the things that really gets you excited and happy is the mental.

Oh, the mental challenge of running your own business. And it can be really challenging[00:09:00] quite often, like entrepreneurs had Jacqueline, so many bowls aren’t they like, do you find that’s your, for yourself there? Yvonne is it is the mental challenge of trying to go along and come to grips of what it means to run your own business.

Is that what it is for you that makes you really actually excited and happy and wanting to work so hard? Yes, a hundred percent Michael it’s knowing who I’m becoming through doing it and who I am in the doing it. I don’t know. Maybe let me explain that to a little bit. I want to know just how much better I can be as a person and through everything.

So if I come across something and within myself, I don’t feel like I have this this feeling where, oh my God why did that go wrong? Or, or I’m beating myself up, I’ll go into, okay, what is going on for me? There’s something I need to sort out. So yes, definitely. It’s the who I am, because I [00:10:00] always tell myself they speak dream.

You’ve got, because in the back of my mind is, the kind of size of business that that we want to build. And that what we want to achieve within education is so super huge. So I always say to myself you’re going to be running a business. You’re going to have the corner office at the top floor of a hundred floor building.

If you can’t handle this, how are you going to be able to handle that? And I’m always constantly saying to myself, yep. You’re learning this or that when this comes to it. So that’s gonna like my, every that’s my mantra. But then the other thing that keeps me going is before setting up this business, I went through a lot as a teacher.

Because what we don’t realize is just as teachers, we’re always dealing with so much. And then being a teacher, we taking on a lot because the thing with children, they’re precious, but children take a lot. Anyone here, who’s a parent. You’re always giving [00:11:00] more because that’s the role they need to take so that when they get older, they can give.

And when you’re surrounded by children all the time, your energy you’re constantly in giving more rides. And then you also have your own life as well. So when you’re training up as a teacher with all the extra added pressures it’s very difficult. So as a statistic, one in one in eight teachers get diagnosed with a mental health condition every year.

So I’ve gone through that. I know the way the education system is at the minute, it’s very archaic. It’s set up for the industrial era. Not a lot has changed and not ad tech products, best the best intentions, but a lot of the time to add on more because what they tend, what a lot of them tend to do is create more challenge.

So it’s like an extra thing just have to do. And I agree with you.[00:12:00] The education system is it made for entrepreneurs. No. And it’s all about the challenge, the mental challenge of running your own business. That it’s, I find it so exhilarating. It’s one of the things that I just love to be able to do is to be able to go and sit at my desk as they, wow.

What problems am I going to solve today? And that’s just an exciting thing. So can I just say, thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Yvonne, for your great input, just, and I really do appreciate that. I’m going to jump across the Latifa, the TFA waltz, and it’s great to hear from you and Yvonne don’t go away either, but we may bounce around a little bit, but as we explore this topic, but Latifa, what have you got to say about the secret to a happy entrepreneurial life?

I wanted to jump in on this conversation, but like I said, my name is Latifa Cooper. I am the founder of cheeky pineapple. It is a store that is opening in June, in Essex, [00:13:00] in culture, says Colchester Essex in the UK. But what brings me to where I am now with cheeky pineapple it’s right now at 35 years old, after having working in every industry under the sun, I was a makeup artist.

I sold EHS software. I worked in all types of offices. I did real estate and I’ve done all these roles. And what I did every day at work was spend my time looking at clothes. I was like, how can I find a way to, how can I just figure out how I can look at clothes all day? Because that’s what makes me so happy.

If this was the basis of my role, of my job, of what I was doing, how can I do that as well? I wanted. And I knew this back when I was 18 and I studied political science. I did all of these things around. What I truly loved doing is shopping is show showing people, amazing new clothing, giving them a great outfit, picking out great things to wear.

I loved working in retail, but I knew that it wasn’t a career path that I wanted for myself. I wanted to own the store. And for so many years, like people would tell me like, that’s [00:14:00] really cool. Oh my gosh, that’s great. But they didn’t talk about it as if it was a realistic thing. And now that I have all these different types of work experience, I’m able to dive into that now.

And what I want to say to somebody who’s thinking about becoming an entrepreneur, and you’re not sure what you want to do. If you find yourself doing something else at work. Do that make that your business find a way to make money from that because that’s going to, that’s, what’s going to keep you happy every day in what you’re doing.

And I know people say this to entrepreneurs, you’ve got to love what you do, and it’s not just loving what you do. It’s loving the industry and understanding that industry and how you can grow in that industry. If you’re, like I said, I wanted to, at first, I just want to look at Coles all day. Then I was like, I want to manufacture clothes, or I want to do that.

And I learned about as much of the fashion industry as I possibly can and buying and all sorts of things like that. And I took every, and looking back on it now, every single job that I’ve had, I’ve looked at it as a way of, let me kill more time and learn what I can from this to prepare me to be a great business owner.

How’s this going to prepare me in [00:15:00] running my own store or starting my own business. Make sure that if you are unsure of what it is that you want to do or how you want to go about it, choose a path, choose a role, choose a job that the next place that you’re looking to work before you become an entrepreneur, make sure that is in some way aligned with what it is that you want to do.

And if it’s not use that time, that you’re in there to pull from it, any type of information to prepare you to in your entrepreneurship journey, create relationships and things like that. That’s what keeps me going every day when I’m in front of the computer for 12 hours building a website, or or uploading inventory or looking for staff or growing.

Hundreds and hundreds of different sample pieces that I might want to put into my shop. This is what keeps me going, it’s taxing, but I know that all I know that I can’t go back to working. So that is something that keeps me grounded. Whereas frustrated as I am with technology or social media marketing or anything along those lines, I know that I want to show everyone these amazing [00:16:00] clothes.

I want to make sure that people are dressed nicely and have access to everything. And everyone doesn’t want to. Everyone doesn’t dress the same. And I do that by looking at clothes all day. So that’s my 2 cents. I hope everybody is able to take something from that and just keep in mind that don’t lose track of what you really want to do and what really makes you happy, because there is always a way to make money from something that you might.

Oh, let’s see if I, what a great story. The cheeky pineapple. I love it. Love it. Yeah. And your passion comes out and a lot of entrepreneurs, they actually quite often say the same thing. It’s their passion, which really gets them gets, becomes their happiness. And they’re so happy about what they’re doing, because they’re just so passionate about it at the same time.

Yeah. And you get someone like Yvonne, who’s up at four 30 in the morning and working light hours as well and everything. And why didn’t you do it? She’s so passionate about it. [00:17:00] And she loves the challenges and everything. And as you articulated Latifa, you said, you’re dealing with so many different things all the time and that sort of stuff.

And it’s a big challenge being an entrepreneur, but you know what, there’s nothing like it think there’s nothing like it there’s nothing. There’s nothing like it like that feeling of knowing that you’re the decision maker. You are the one who’s going to point this in the direction. Like every time you’ve criticized someone, oh, like myself, I would have laid my shop out differently and I would have done differently with my branding and I would’ve done my logo differently.

You can make all those comments, but not until you’re doing it. And you’re in the struggle with the rest of the entrepreneurs. Cause it’s a struggle and it’s very lonely. And then unless you’re in the struggle with them, you can’t really take that time to criticize anyone, find out how they did it and do the same thing.

And that’s going to continue to make you happy and cheer everyone else on onto that’s one thing I love doing. Oh, absolutely. Be grateful for what you have and cheer other people onwards. I think one of the, one of the keys to being a [00:18:00] successful entrepreneur is actually celebrating other people’s success.

And let their successes inspire you forward. And I must admit that’s something for myself. It is so important for me. I love seeing friends friends, frenemies competitors even doing well. Yeah, actually I, because it inspires me for it inspires me for it. Yeah. I think that the most incredible thing I’ve found over the years being an entrepreneur and the thing that I just love about it so much is it’s a whole life experience.

Like when you go to work quite often, not always, but when you go to work, you got your job nine to five or whatever it is, and you leave and you go home. I’m not every jobs like this, obviously. And so this is a generalization, but you can go to work and come home. And that. But entrepreneur it’s 24 7.

And even if you’re not at your place where you’re working with your store or whether it’s your [00:19:00] factory or whether you’re at your office or whatever it is, even if you’re not there, you’re still thinking about it. And you’re sitting there, you could be having dinner with friends or something like that.

And you’re thinking in the back of your mind about what you need to do on Monday and all that sort of stuff. What, why is that the case? Is it, is there a point of stress that could be in substance circumstances, but it’s also because it’s unbelievably fun. And I find for myself, the entrepreneurial journey is all about exploring life.

For me, you see the adventure of life is not how much money you finished with at the very end to me, the adventure of life is discovering who am. And the best way I’ve found to do that is to become an entrepreneur because being an entrepreneur, I’m going to be challenged in so many different areas of my life and quite often, simultaneously and every now and then you’ll hit a problem, which is insurmountable and you go, you go to work at like, [00:20:00] how do you deal with that?

How do you deal with that from a business perspective, but how do you deal with it from an emotional perspective, still with a smile on your face, because you know what the journey is so much more exciting. I remember seeing the movie parenthood many years ago and it’s a great movie. It’s an old movie now.

I think it was one of Canterbury’s his very first movies he did. It was a fabulous movie, but there’s this one scene with this elderly person. And she said, some people like the merry-go-round merry-go-round of life. I prefer the roller coaster. Yeah. And it’s sometimes I find if I’m on the merry-go-round, am I happy?

Yeah. Have a group of kids there when they were younger. Yeah. That was a bit, bit more fun obviously. But you know what, being with your kids in a roller coaster, or even if you just yourself or a roller coaster is next level. And I find that’s a great [00:21:00] illustration of the way I view life of next level.

I wouldn’t be on the rollercoaster. You’ll be, there’s going to be lots of ups and downs and stuff like that. But man, it’s going to be exciting and it’s going to be exhilarating. I’m going to have a great time, but anyway, you’re listening to the complete entrepreneur and we’re discussing the topic of the secret to a happy entrepreneurial life.

If you’re seeing the audience right now, and you’re saying, you know what, I’m just going to share this story. Or I ask this question or whatever. Please don’t leave me hanging. Stick your hand up. Love to hear from you likely food from Yvonne and and just stick your hand up and we’ll invite you to the stage.

And let’s have a really good discussion about this topic because it’s one thing to get stuff from say just a few people. It’s another thing to get it from the whole community entrepreneurs, because each one of us has a different story to tell don’t we move on. Yeah. My clothes going to ask, is it worth asking?

What does it mean to be happy? Because different people [00:22:00] have different ideas about happiness. I think it completely right. And the other question I ponder a lot is the difference between being happy versus being fulfilled can be quite different. Yeah. And try to explore those two things there.

And what is happiness is another really interesting question is happiness be having the biggest pile of cash, the biggest bank balance. And by the way, I’m not against earning money, like to be quite blunt with you. I think it’s very important that every business is profitable. Why? So they can be sustainable.

If you’re not profitable, eventually you’re going to be out in the back door. So if you want to be sustainable, you’ve got to be profitable to keep an eye on the bottom line.

Yeah, exactly. So it’s the question is then is that the source of your happiness? I mentioned something earlier on in the [00:23:00] conversation where I said that money is not, will not bring you happiness. And and the fact that money is an outcome of what you’re doing that is making you happy money is the outcome.

And by the way, money can also buy you some happiness. I can’t be wrong, but it’s not the reason why you’re doing it. And let me share with you the story I did with my team. We had a zoom conversation and I post this exercise. It was actually quite an interesting exercise. I said in a lot of tribal communities over the thousands of years and everything like that they would have a a totem would represent a person like I, it was a pit of mice in the movie dances with wolves where you had Kevin Costner’s character was his totem was a person who dances with wolves, or then you had stands with.

Was [00:24:00] another character and it was a totem. So I post to my team and it’s something you may want to do with your own team. I said, look, what is the totem that represents you? What is that total? And it was a really interesting conversation. So we had one of the developers said he was a giant Boulder and you just slowly rolls down a hill, crushing all the bugs and all that sort of stuff in the programs and just keeps on moving.

And another one said, another developer said I’ll pick a few of them off. And other developers said yeah, I’m just a ox. You can load me. And you point me in a direction and I’ll just keep on going to, yeah. It loaded me up with stuff to do. And another one said I’m an Eagle when he was in the sales area at a swoops down and grabs, grabs a new client and drops them in the nest.

And the first thing he does is leaves the nest to go find another one. Yeah. And [00:25:00] then another guy said I’m an Explorer. And what I’d like to do is been given a, like a paddock or a field to play in and be told, go and dig up some data on that particular issue. So he said I’d love exploring like spreadsheets and things like that.

And lots of numbers. And it was real. It was a very interesting conversation. And I related the fact that I viewed myself more as a pillar of fire it into the right direction. And everything was all consuming. An entrepreneur is, and there’s this dirty my way to the to the vision towards that vision.

But what are told showed us was the interactions between the different groups. She had the Eagles interacting with the boulders and they began to get some insights into why there could be friction there’s times, which is not very happy. And then suddenly everyone began to smile. They [00:26:00] realized some of the interactions.

And so we had a situation in our team, whether there’s a negative interaction and I highlight the tie, it wasn’t actually negative direction. You’re just being a bolder European or not. And you’re interacting with someone who say a pillar five and everyone began to smile and they began to understand that their contribution to their overall vision.

And that’s the thing I found was really interesting is that people are really happy when they understand their role in the greater picture. And as entrepreneurs. What about jobs is to actually eliminate. What the F what their role is. And it’s something that’s really fascinating to see the lot come on in each team member, as they begin to understand the role they’re playing the not in isolation, but they have [00:27:00] a significant role.

And through being is through being significant. And that understanding comes an incredible amount of joy and release that, you know what, there may be some friction between the boulders and the Eagles or something like that, but they now understand what that is. And they still have the conversations with a smile on their face, very simple exercise, but a very profound understanding and comfort.

And it comes down to the root of what makes individuals in your team happy. And as an entrepreneur, what makes you happy? So the question I have to ask you is this, what are you, what is your team. What is the thing that you really are as an entrepreneur? Are you also a pillar of fire? Are you a Boulder, an irresistible force?

Are you a laser? Are you a bear? Are you a line full of courage? [00:28:00] What is it that represents you? And you can only choose one. What is it that represents you? And in that process, my guess is you’re going to get a lot of insights about who you are as a person. And when you begin to understand who you are as a person, as an entrepreneur, I wouldn’t be surprised you discover what really makes you happy.

And that’s an exciting journey to go on to me. That’s what life is all about, but you’re listening to the complete entrepreneur and we’re discussing a real interesting topic, the secret to happy entrepreneurial life. If you’re in. And you want to go along and say, have a story to share, or you have some questions to ask or something like that.

Please. I really want to hear from you today. All my other moderators are at a conference. So it’s just me and Yvonne, which is great. And it’s wonderful to have Yvonne here. So you bought this while we wait for people. If they’re going to put up there, be [00:29:00] brave and put up their hands so we can invite them to the stage.

The question for you, what did your totem, oh, my totem. I think it’s the opportunity to live a legacy. I think my driving force is if I can show my children, what’s possible. I came to the UK with a hundred pounds in my. And it’s an a 6,000 pound debt. And so now I’m going to push you on this a little bit.

I don’t push it. If you could choose an object or an animal or something like that, what is the thing that represents who you are?

You’re sitting there and you’re going, ah, I don’t really know. Maybe it’s a flower. Maybe it’s a tree with deep roots. Maybe. What is it that encapsulates it? Cause when you begin to get that picture in your mind, [00:30:00] a lot of things come into place. Yeah. So I think being African, I don’t even need to think about it because when I was born, I was already given an animal.

So my animal is a monitor lizard. Oh my goodness. Yeah. So th that’s my home name that, yeah. So that’s the name my parents gave me. So you’re a monitor lizard. And what does that represent? Represent. So let me give you what the name is first. Are you brave enough?

Number low number. Yeah. So that’s my name? That’s my home name. And it was my grandmother’s home name. So it represents it’s legacy. First of all. The name that belonged [00:31:00] to my grandmother and therefore named after my grandmother. So I carried the torch of my family wherever I go. So that’s one thing first.

Yeah. So it’s in everything I do, there’s always that background behind me, it’s not just me, but I come from somewhere and the success that, that we would have, it’s a community success. The second thing I being a monitor lizard, I’m very comfortable near the water, meaning I can move with I can choose to move like a river if I if I find any difficulties, I go around like a river.

Yeah. So I can either go around the boat or. Take time and eventually I’ll be through and the stone will either break or it will wear down. That’s great. That’s great. I think it’s fabulous that you’ve got this picture in your mind [00:32:00] and what would be interesting to reflect on Yvonne? And I’d encourage you to do this in your own time, is how does that monitor blizzard reflect how you behave as an entrepreneur?

And I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a relationship between the two and it’s something which can be really exciting sport. So I just want to ask some more questions maybe of the audience and share some my experience with it, with these things. The question I have is where’s your happy place?

Where’s the place you go to be happy. And is the, is that. Or is that the sad place or is it at home or is it an Assam down the beach? Like where is your happy place? Where’s the place that you can go to and and say, you know what, I’m feeling really good about life right now. It’s just seems to, just to bring back like a whole lot of memories.

It could be a place from your childhood because I actually [00:33:00] find as an entrepreneur, I need my happy place. There’s times as an entrepreneur. And you’re hearing a whole lot of challenges one after another. And you, what you need to do is need to retreat to your happy place. So you can. And really spend some serious times thinking I do this on a periodic basis.

I my wife tells me I become unbearable to live with why? Because I’m like like a bear with a sore head. So I’m going from place to place. I’m grumpy and all that sort of stuff. She’s she says you need to get out of here and go to your happy place for a couple of days and get your hair.

And it’s amazing. Like when I go to my, one of my happy place, do I have my happy time and such, what I ended up doing is I had my laptop and I opened up a word document and a dumped pad into the word document, all of my stresses, [00:34:00] all of my frustrations. And I get them out of my system. And sometimes that can take a whole day, like I am typing furiously.

And just for the record, this is one document no one gets to see. Yeah. And I just get it out of my system and I find that in that process and I could come back to the same thoughts over and over again. I’m just getting all this negativity. I’m getting all that pain, all that. Like I said, frustration, I’m getting out of me.

And when I get all of that anger and stuff out of me, what’s left only the good stuff. And I take a deep breath and and I began to have a clear head I find. And in that process, I began to really think, and I think about what really makes me happy. And it’s a it’s actually incredibly therapeutic.

If you’re an entrepreneur right now and you’re in the [00:35:00] audience, you say, how do I become happy? I’ll tell you what. Sometimes you got to go away and dump out all the crap out of your life and dumped it into a word document, notepads, scream at the world at the sky. It doesn’t matter what it is, whatever it is.

You got to get it out of you because entrepreneurs carry enormous numbers of burdens in their life. And like, when I say enormous amount, You know what it’s like to be caring. Oh yeah. Like I’ve got to worry about making payroll this month. How am I going to make payroll? I’ve got to worry about dealing with that supply.

I’m going to worry about dealing with those particular clients. And they’re asking possible things to do. You know what it’s like to carry all those burdens to deal with the staff members complaining about there’s wrong sort of cookies and the tin in the teen routine room. You’ve got that fixed that.

Yeah. Otherwise they’re going to go along and get all upset. Like just crazy things you’re having [00:36:00] to deal with. And there’s one burden after another burden. And then you look at some other friend of yours, who’s an entrepreneur or they just don’t normal job. And they seem to be so successful.

And the frustration of your such circumstances, it builds up in you. You know what, if you let believe that there you’re going to become a bearable. And you’ve got to get it out of your system. And I can just share with you after let me think. 40 years of being an entrepreneur, what I do and I go away for the length of time.

I need to go away for, it could be two, could be three days could be even longer. And I just dump all the crap out of my mind. And initially I find, because I give myself permission to do this, that is gushes out and on my fingers to time, I’ve taught about 120 words a minute. So I could really talk.

And I, I just, I’m just flying [00:37:00] across the keyboard and just all oldest pours out. And it’s like a poison inside of you as an entrepreneur. And it gets all that. And when it’s. That’s when you can begin to really think and to think about what ultimately makes you happy. And I come back from those times and the they’re really, actually very special times for me and I come back and I’m at peace.

I’m at peace with myself and it’s entrepreneurs. The most underrated emotion is peace out of all the things that can make you happy is the number one thing for me. And I’m a piece of myself. My wife gives me a great big hug and my kids gather around because they’ve now got their dad back again. They don’t have this this monstrous freak [00:38:00] that is being almost like torture with all these things, racing through his head and everything like that.

Yeah. And. I’m at peace. And I find that I’m very centered around myself and I know exactly what I need to do in my business. I know exactly what I need to do in my personal life. I know all those things. And what, if you ever been in a situation in your life where you said, yeah, Michael, I just need to get that piece.

Then it could be that you’re running 5,000 miles an hour and you’ve got all this ritual inside of you. I just need to get an app and that’s the best thing I can ever do. And it’s a great thing. If this resonated, that story resonated with you, the please stick up your hand. I’d love to hear from you.

And some of the stories you have, how do you find happiness in your entrepreneurial journey? What is it that you do? [00:39:00] Yeah, it’s these sort of things which I find are a part of the adventure of life. And I talked about earlier is every time I go away and I come back, I’ve learnt something more about myself and that is the adventure.

And it’s one of the most exciting things I find I can do. And it’s one of the things that makes me ultimately the happiness, the happiest. And yeah. So where is your happy place? Oh, regularly. Do you find Michael? You’ve got to go away. I go, I typically go away about between one to two years.

It’s not. But it’s necessary. And it’s interesting when you talk to the, when you look in and you read other entrepreneurs like bill gates, Elon Musk, all these great entrepreneurs, they do exactly the same thing. They actually go away and they go away from the office. I think bill weeks [00:40:00] calls, if you study week or something like that, and it goes away and he just spends time reading and writing notes and things like that.

And and he’s been doing that since he very first started Microsoft. Yeah. And it’s a really important thing to do because it gets you more focused. If you want to become a really sad entrepreneur, it’s really simple go along and chase every single opportunity. Yeah. There’s a great saying.

The enemy of the best is. What it means is there’s going to be lots of good opportunities come across your desk as an entrepreneur. And you’ll get excited about all these. The question I asked you is what is the best opportunity when I go to conferences overseas and pre for COVID.

I used to do a lot of traveling, but when I come back on the plane [00:41:00] and I’ve got a, typically a 16 hour flight to head back home. I’m here down to Melbourne Australia. I come back on the plane and I would then write down all the opportunities and there’d be pages of them from the conference, amazing opportunities, like phenomenal opportunities.

And the thing I would do is I go through and I begin calling them because you know what? You, as an entrepreneur cannot do any everything. If you want to become a very sad entrepreneur, then try to do everything because you can’t. It’s impossible to do everything. So I go along call the list down to about five of these could be pages of opportunities of the five I go and send them through to my business partner.

My thoughts around those five. I didn’t want to waste his time with the other couple of pages. Here’s the five. And then by the time I’ve landed and we’ve come back and the next day we’ll discuss which ones we’re going to put, which [00:42:00] one we going to pursue. And we focus on that one opportunity. And then we focus on the next one.

Once that’s secure, you can’t really earn very much money from a half completed job. If anything is going to make you sad, that will. So focus is another thing I’ve found for my entrepreneurial journey, which makes me. Yeah, it’s, there’s nothing like that. And you get focused, you complete the job and you start to realize the gains, that economic gains from it, and you move on to the next one and then the next one and so forth like that.

And it’s I’ve also found that in my entrepreneurial journey that I can actually tackle between about 1.3, really big creative endeavors at a time, I’ll talk about really do them well. For instance a person [00:43:00] asked me recently, have I finished my second science fiction books? I’ve written a science fiction book.

And I said, no, I haven’t. And they said, why is that? And I said, that’s because I’m focused on developing this great big system is going to be doing lots of awesome things for clients like that. And I don’t have the mind space for this other creative activity, which is writing my second science fiction book.

Yeah. And you say why 1.3, because I know I can do more than one, but I can’t do more than 1.5. 1.3 is about in the middle there. It makes me happy when I’ve gone along and done something and I’ve completed it. So if you want to go along and become a very sad entrepreneur, it’s really simple.

Just try, do everything. Try to chase down every opportunity, go along, have awesome conversations that never resulted in. Go and[00:44:00] blow your brains out with trying to go and continuously chase that character, which never lands. Yeah. I remember S a M a really big international company come to me and they said, Hey, we’d like you to go along and kiss your domain traffic guy with us.

I meant it to mean traffic. And we’ve done this a few times before with them because they’re big and everything, and you hope for great things. And we found that our systems that blew them away in terms of performance. And this time I said to them not going to do that, not to do that, you can put your traffic with us.

And they said, but we’re really big. And we’re a multinational. Then you need to like, come and kiss our ring almost. And I said, no, I am not going to waste my time. I want to be focused and that’s a waste of time and I was very upfront with them about this. I’m not going to do it. [00:45:00] Yeah. And when you’re focused on as an entrepreneur, let me tell you, you get stuff done.

When you go along weed, out the tire kickers from the real opportunities. And then you focus on the real one. That’s going to give the maximum value for your business. You know what happens? You become happier. I’m happier. So all I’m going to ask you a question. When was the last time you fired a client?

I was running an ISP many years ago and we had obviously a help desk. Isn’t there. Isn’t the noughties. And We had this one particular client, a lady, she was absolutely painful to my supporting and rude and obnoxious as well. And so w one of the support people turned to me, so what do I do?

There’s almost like tears in her face and then give it to me. So I said to her, look, we’ve decided that we can’t [00:46:00] possibly meet all your objectives and what your, all your expectations, knowing that therefore here’s a list of certain brand competitors. We’d recommend you go to, and she said, straight away, I’m not going to get as good as service out of them as I am out of view.

And I said then shut up and listen to what we say. Yeah. Sometimes be really blunt. We ended up having having to years and years, and she became a joy to work. Sometimes you’ve gotta be upfront with people. And some of those people are clients. And you just going to say, no, this is the way it is.

I know you want everything for nothing, but it’s not going to happen. I had this another person who said to me which was questioning me that our pricing’s, that sort of stuff. And I said, I’m not ashamed to making a profit. I can tell you right now, I’m going to make a profit from from a relationship.

And I will continue to make a [00:47:00] profit from you because I’m not going to do this. And you actually don’t want me to do this work unless I do make a profit. Otherwise we’re going to short-term conversation and I’ll be out of business. And the person began to understand that. Yeah. And once again, we ended up having neckline and it was very upfront with them.

Maybe it’s a strange thing. And we’ve had this, that client.

We had another conversation with a client that I’m sorry, prospective client ended up meeting at a conference. And we normally take a percentage of the revenues, like a commission for the work we do. And they said to me, okay, so what percentages do you take? And I said, we take 90% and we pay you 10%.

And they said to me, damn, that’s crazy. Everyone else is doing the other way around. I said, yeah, but I didn’t forgot to tell you that we [00:48:00] increase your revenue line by a million percent. And I said, what you’re actually asking is not what the percentage is. What you’re asking is whether you’re going to earn.

By using our technology and the person’s smile, they said, yeah, you’re exactly right. And I say, and this is where as an entrepreneur is sometimes where the happiest thing you can do is cut to the chase, either with a client, with a prospect, I’d be up front with people and just say, simplify your life in that regard.

Yeah. I just changed where that find your happy place. Yeah. Be upfront with people. Yeah. What is your total? Is these the questions that constantly I’m asking about myself? What do you do when your conscience plagues? You, we all have a conscience and there’s an entrepreneur. What do you do?

How do you address that? [00:49:00] What do you do when you have conscious says you just did something wrong. And by the way, if you’ve never had that experience is maybe it’s because you’re possibly seed your conscience because you’re doing the wrong thing continuously, which is not necessarily a good thing.

Or the other side of the coin is you’re making sure you’re doing the right thing all the time, which is great. Yeah. But let me tell you a story. I am, I remember I was at a conference and we had major partner. They had a meeting with, at the end of it. I came way, am I conscious, said, what you said then could it be construed in a different way than what you thought you said and play me all night?

So the first thing that’s more of the conference I got up and I headed down and I went up to the guy and I said, look, I just want to just clarify the situation to make sure you clearly understand what I was saying. And he did. And you’re surprised. And to this day we still have that [00:50:00] partner we’ve done probably 30 or $40 million worth of business with them.

Yeah. It’s being upfront being open, honest, listening to your conscience. If you want to be happy, don’t have a conscience plaguing you as an entrepreneur. It’s very easy to be pushed around by circumstances. Another example, I remember I was running a business and we had a complete disaster for this.

And the disaster was, oh, we’re going to have to close this business. And I’m like, there was a series of that. And anyway, to cut a long story short, and then I had the opportunity and the two to rescue the whole business. And the opportunity was someone from the porn industry, pornography industry came up and said, we can use your technology, do some awesome stuff for [00:51:00] really bypassing a lot of the filters the parents have on their computers to be able to promote pornography, to, to teenagers and stuff.

And it was worth a fortune. They were prepared to put millions on the table and I had to walk. And you may say that, that would have been easily. I don’t know, you got 20 people in your office. They’re all trying to pay their mortgage and all that sort your stuff. And you’re about to tell them they’re all about to be unemployed, or you can go along and just bend it from my case, my moral stance in order to be able to rescue that situation, not a wat.

Just because I played it for the long-term. You want to be happy as an entrepreneur, think of the volunteer, the long-term implications,

another one. I was talking to a guy one time and he shared me a story [00:52:00] and something he managed to get away with. He said he was an entrepreneur and he got away with this. And he was so proud of himself yet. Cause he made some money, but he got away with doing the wrong thing. And I said, you didn’t get away with it.

And he said, what do you mean? He said, you didn’t get away with it. And you said, what are you talking about? I take it away. I said, no, you didn’t said someone always knows. And he goes, then you’d be, I looked at his face. You could see who found out. And I said, you knew, yeah, You say, when you end up doing something in a expeditious way as such, or you do something which is not strictly kosher or do something wrong, you always know.

And if you don’t want to damage yourself as a person, they just don’t do it. It’s not worth it for the [00:53:00] long journey. Remember, the adventure of life is discovering who you are. That’s my modus operandi. Yeah. And so it’s what is it? What is it? What is it that you’ve got you you’ve got to do, you’ve got to do the right thing.

And it’s very easy to say, but much harder in practice because I understand the stresses and strains of what it means to be an entree. And I’ve been on my soap box for the last little while. I hope you found this an enjoyable conversation. I’m hearing Michael Gilmore share about his life as an entrepreneur.

Yeah, but being happy is often the product of making good decisions in your life. I’ve only one thing to advise, choose wisely. So very Berry, easy to choose badly as an entrepreneur because the bank is on your back because even family can be on your back because of the [00:54:00] pressures of what it means to be running a business is just getting too much and you choose badly.

And then there’s times when you feel like you’re about to choose badly, go away, spend a couple of days, sorting your headache, get the vitriol out of your system. And come back at peace yourself and make the right decisions. And you’d be surprised what happens to your team in that process? Let me tell you, they’re going to be a rough day with you, and they’re going to see a difference in you rather than snapping at them.

You’re going to be rejoicing with them and you’ll be working on the problems and challenges together versus having antagonism in your team under the pressures of what it means to run an entrepreneurial venture. It helps you the culture as well. And as in there, oh,

I [00:55:00] had something today was I was listening to somebody and they say auto. When water is boiling when it’s 99 degrees it’s not yet stem and then it just takes one little degree. And when it gets to that extra degree, it then turns to steam. And then 80% of the world is powered by steam.

And I was like, wow. Wow. That is something just one degree makes such a big difference. And the person is Sayed. If you think about your life, oh, sorry. My sister’s quite loud.

So they, the person that insight if you’re thinking about achieving what you want because happiness is tied to that feeling of, what, I’ve done, something I’ve done my [00:56:00] best and Def achieved. And you know what’s that. Thing or an external thing. It’s that feeling, that whatever we’ve done, we’ve been the best that we can be.

And through doing that, then, that’s where we get that sense of peace. That sense of joy that, that sense of happiness. But it can only be consistently doing something just a little bit. And then eventually that little bit then gains momentum. And through that momentum, when we get to where we want to get to, and therefore we’re, we can then be happy in, entrepreneurial happy as a person, because if you’re happy as a person, then we can be an entrepreneur.

So I just you’re certified you’re so right. Let me tell you, you are so right. The other side of that is the one, one degree of not doing that thing consistently.[00:57:00] And it can just be just that little thing that we don’t do every day. And we think, oh, you know what, today I’m just gonna snooze my alarm clock.

And then it becomes a habit or, you know what, today I’m just going to tell a little white lie, nobody will know like USA and my cool, no one will know. And, because I’ve got away with it and then it becomes a little habit. And then before we know where it’s piled on, because happiness is just, a habit is just doing something on autopilot.

And so consistently going to as way, just by one degree and we just con constantly miss the mark of where we’re going to be. And then before we know it, we’re not happy. Yeah. So I just wanted to add that. That’s so true. What you’re saying. It’s no one ever plans to fail. No one ever says, yeah, I know what I’m gonna do.

I’m gonna file what it is one little step at a time, [00:58:00] one little step at a time. Likewise, no one plans, a relationship breakup. It’s one little step at a time, one little step at a time. Yeah. And it’s the accumulation of our small decisions, which then impact our big outcomes. It’s a cumulation of our small decisions we make as entrepreneurs we’ll then impact our outcomes.

I, for many years I wrote a blog and I was invited up onto the stage to be interviewed by, at a conference one time. And they said to me, the interviewer said, so we know you wrote this blog and it’d be very successful over many years. So what’s the secret of a successful. And I said she really wanted to not.

And he’s yeah, we really want to know, is it SEO? Is it social media? Is it, did you buy a whole lot of advertising in [00:59:00] particular way? Was your banner ads to promote it? What was it that actually made you a very successful job? And I said, sure, you want to know? And you can see the audience leaning forward.

Yeah. They didn’t really want to know what’s the success. And I said, it’s really simple. It’s unbelievably simple, but two to three articles a week for 10 years, I can see everyone just grown. Everyone wants a quick fix. They want a quick win. They want to want something that is like in done. It happens instantly for the business.

They want that quick success. Very few people. Want to go and put the work in the timing, what they don’t realize. They’re traveling along and ask some topic curve and they’re down the bottom and it’s going to getting feel like they’re getting no where they’re getting nowhere, but the very next step, the point, which they quit the very next step after is they begin to come up the curve, but they’ve quit.

[01:00:00] There was a study done an ad hoc study that this one was done of kids and in primary school, what do you want to become? And is there a fireman or policeman? No, they wanted to become YouTube. They wanted to become a YouTube tube stars. And the th the big difference between a successful YouTube staff and a not successful one the successful ones don’t give up.

Then I give up, they just keep on going, like you said that Yvonne said a few minutes ago and don’t give up anyway. You’ve been listening to the complete entrepreneur. We’ve been talking about the secret to a happier entrepreneurial life and there’s lots of different ways and it’s unique for each one of us, but being happy is a product of making good decisions.

Next week at 5:00 PM Eastern time on the complete entrepreneur, we’re going to be taking a look at removing the stamp from the [01:01:00] gearbox, like the gearbox and the cast successful businesses have processes and procedures. But what happens if the gearbox gets filled up with sand, the Diastat grinding, how do you boil the gearbox and get the sand out of the gearbox so that your business can really far forward?

Yeah. What do you need to actually do to make this. And that’s what we’re going to explore. I hope you’ve enjoyed this week. If you’re around, if you’re in the audience there and you’re saying, Hey, look, I really enjoyed that. And on some of the things you said, just click on my image and you can follow me if you like.

I run this each week and I look forward to seeing you here. At the same time at 5:00 PM Eastern time, have a wonderful week yourself and may be immensely successful and happy in your own business called blessed.[01:02:00]