067 - Enjoying Your Hustle, Your Side-Hustle, and Your Life with Alex Sanfilippo

Everything starts off as a side hustle. If you're ever going to be that entrepreneur, most of us are in a place where we have to have the full time job and the side hustle. There's no shame in that. Honestly, the people that can successfully have a full time job and a side hustle, they are like the rock stars of the world. Because most people, they get home from just a nine to five job and they're beat. They are like, I am done with everything. I'm going to play video games. I'm going to watch Netflix. I'm going to put my kids to bed and that is it. But the people that can somehow carve out a little bit more, man, they are the ones that are just making things happen.

All right, everybody. Welcome. Today I've got an awesome guest, Alex Sanfellipo. I met him just a few weeks ago. And sometimes you meet somebody and they're doing awesome work and you realize, first of all, this person is going somewhere and second, maybe we can help each other out. We've already talked a couple of times. We're working on some things already together, and I'm excited to have him share with you some of his insights around making more impact, helping more people, working less, doing the work you love. Alex is the host of Creating a Brand, a top 20 entrepreneurship podcast where he interviews successful leaders and experts on topics that matter to entrepreneurs who want to grow faster, both personally and professionally while saving time and money in the process. Like I said, you can imagine when he reached out to me, he was like, Yeah, that's what we do here. So thank you for coming on the show, Alex. And what you do is just say hi and maybe just tell us a little bit about yourself and what made you interested in coming on to the show and what is it you really like to share with our audience today?

Yeah, Wade, first.

Off, it's an honor to be here. I'm really excited about it. We're both wearing the right shirts today. I might share a little more about that later because I'm going to call you out later. But anyway, I'm just going to do it now. He was totally wearing a different shirt and he's like, No, this is not happening. As soon as the video came on, he's like, I'm out of here. I'm going to go throw on a different shirt that matches the vibe. Dude, because.

What happens is it's the four day work week, which is really it's about the three day weekend. It's not about the four days. But if I say three day weekend and if you Google three day weekend, then there's all sorts of stuff where I might hurt myself like bungee jumping and stuff. I've got a wife and kids. I can't do that stuff. So I say four day work week, then sometimes if I show up and this people like, Okay, are we going bungee jumping? No, I got to work hard. So sometimes I get a little confused, but you came on ready, man. So for all the future podcast guests, let me know. In fact, I'm going to put that on the thing from now on. Are you going in or you're half doing it? You're going.

To wear a.

Suit, you're going to wear a Hawaiian tea. I'm learning too, man. I'm growing. So thank you.

That's good. Man, I'm excited to be here. What really intrigued me was the name of it, the Four Day Work Week. That was interesting to me. And just the cover art that you had was very clever. And I was like, man, I didn't even read anything about it before. I was like, I think I'm going to want to be on this. And then I started reading about it. You have a very intentional goal of what you're doing here in the way that you're helping people. And whenever I go on a podcast, I've been on a lot of them, I look for that. And when I see that, that's my first indication that that's where I want to be because I know I can actually add some value there. If you're just like, we're here for everybody. I can't help everybody. I'm sorry. I don't know anybody that can. You're a selfish booger. When I saw the focus, the intentionality of it, I was like, man, that's where I want to be because this is an area I'm passionate about. I believe that all of us can help each other. I hope to have some interaction with some of your audience members.

I know that you have some interaction with them directly. I'd love to be part of that because I think that all of us have a unique point of view and perspective on what a four day work week is going to look like for each of us. I definitely want to be part of that. I'm honored to be here. This can be a lot of fun.

Awesome. Thanks. And one of the things that I liked about what you submitted to me about why you wanted to speak, like you said, first of all, I didn't say, hey, I want to be on a podcast. I want to be famous. You actually gave reasons that were related to what we talk about. It's not that difficult, by the way. If you really even want to fake it. But as we talked, what I realized is something I find in some people, not all, sometimes as entrepreneurs, we have this sense of, Okay, well, I'm already in roughly, depending on if you look at world stats, it's about 10 % of people are entrepreneurs. Now, that includes everything. That's Rickshaw drivers, street vendors in third world countries. And that's not a knock on any of them because sometimes people say entrepreneur and they have this idea of a very specific, precise in a suit or that stuff. No, there's only 10 percent at least, last time I checked, that are even aspiring to that. And so sometimes as an entrepreneur, we say, well, gosh, I'm carrying this flag, whether I realize it's 10 % or not. And I don't want to get so specific now that I actually say I want to work less now.

I picked up the hustle and grind flag, right? And I've got to carry that all the way through. And the simplest way I put it is the same way many of us at some point said, we're going to make more money than we made when we had our first job. We might want to work less hours. And depending on your stage of life, you might have good reasons to want to do that, whether you have kids or not or just believe there's more going on in the world. And so tell me a little bit about some of your practices about how you get more present with life and how you connect with some of the stuff that's on the three days, because that's the thing I find that I'm listening to a book right now by a gentleman about the four day work week. And he said the same thing in this study in his business that the kicker was not always what the employee is doing their four days. It's what do I do now with Friday? And they're not as sure. How do you, as just an individual person, how do you do that?

And then as an entrepreneur, how do you bring that into what you do? Being more intentional, more purposeful, more present in life?

Yeah, you started off with a big question here, huh? Just going.

For it. Dude, you went for my shirt.

That's how we roll. That's good. Man, I actually love this question. I'm so excited to answer it, really. I think the best thing that all of us can do, and we have to figure out is on those four days you're working, even if it's five right now, if you're working five days right now, you've got two days off, you have one day off, some people only have that if you just have a few hours off, if you're just working like crazy, or if you've just got it all off right now. Whatever it might be, wherever you're at, the most important concept I believe that I've learned on this topic is to be where your feet are. What that means is wherever you are in that moment to actually be there. Many of us are that 10 %, that entrepreneur that we're talking about. We're thinking about those four days on the three days that we have off. So we could be talking to our spouse, to our kids, to just friends in our lives, and they can see it. And I've seen as many times of me doing it in other people, but you're having that conversation, they're looking at you, but you can tell they're looking past you.

They're looking at something deep in their mind. They're really just going back and forth on this idea. They're like, Am I going to do that on Monday? Is that really the best idea? What if that deal is going to go through? I've been working on it. I wonder if this is going to happen. I'm not somebody who's immune to this. This happens to me, too. It happens to all of us that are in this space. We think about the things that are happening in our lives and our businesses, but the problem is we're not where our feet are. So example, I love to play soccer. I know that you're a bit of an athlete yourself and you do volleyball and things like that, right? But for me, it's when I'm out in the soccer field talking to those guys, I can't have my mind somewhere else saying, Oh, man, wonder if that guy is going to get back to me. That was going to be a really big deal. We have to be where we are in that moment and our relationships will suffer so much and the longevity of our lives as well. When you look back in 20 years and be like, Man, I wish I would have been there with those people that mattered in that moment instead of thinking about something that I couldn't change anyway.

So I think the biggest point that I can bring to this is to be where your feet are. Wherever you are in that moment, be there. On the flip side, it's exactly the same when you're at work. Don't think about what you'll be doing that weekend. If you're in the middle of a big deal, focus on that big deal. Be there in that moment. I could stress this all day, but be where your feet are, I think is the most important thing we can do just to really grasp that concept will cause your life to improve overall.

Yeah, I think that's so huge in a couple of ways. And I also grew up playing soccer. My parents from the island. So it's funny, a couple of things. First of all, if you water ski, if you play soccer, if you snow ski, if you play basketball, part of even the presence of that is being over your feet. You're not leaning towards something because that'll throw you off balance. You're not leaning back. You're not leaning sideways. You're really just ready to go in any direction. And one of the other things that I find, a lot of people say, I'm hustling, I'm grinding, I'm this and I'm that. I like to say when I grew up, hustle and the grind were dances in the 70s. And they're both very positive things. They weren't negative things. There was nothing stressful about either of them whatsoever. And when you look at this concept, I tell people, look, I hustle for four days in my business. And then the other three days, I sometimes work hard, sometimes I detach, however you want to word that, from my work. But I work to create a really awesome personal life because I also committed.

I committed to my wife. I committed to my kids. When we decided to have kids, I'm going to be present and I'm going to be where I am. And I've done it. Sometimes you're talking, all of a sudden you realize that you haven't heard the last couple of words and your kid knows. They know that you missed, they totally know it. And sometimes if you're really off, they'll allow you to let it slide. And sometimes they won't. But something else that's interesting, you mentioned soccer. So when I grew up coaching my... Or my kids grew up, I was coaching their kids' teams and the four year olds. And I remember that I'd see two different types of coaches out there in this sense. All of them were parents that were willing to put out time for their kids. Awesome. But there was two main messages being conveyed. One message was that of those who knew the game. And I grew up playing soccer and I've taught certain things. So as somebody whose father taught him certain strategies, I knew the fundamentals to teach the kids to say, do this. Everybody, have a person 5 feet that way or eight feet that way, or 8 feet that way, 8 feet that way, and you move the ball.

And there were things that these kids were able to do that other teams couldn't. Not because I'm so brilliant. I listened. There's a certain system. I followed the system. That's how there's some basics and fundamentals of soccer. And so that worked. And so the kids would do some things that we didn't think they could do it for. And on the other hand, there were the coaches who, again, good people, but soccer wasn't their thing. And I've coached sports where it's not my thing. So I have a lot of empathy for that, too. But these people didn't know the game. So what did you hear from them? Run harder, hustle, work. Because they didn't know what to tell them. So their answer was, Well, then run faster? And there was almost a question mark at the end of it. And to a certain degree, of course, someone said, Well, they should have researched this, that. Hey, while the other parents were doing whatever. But long story short, a lot of this hustle grind mentality very often comes from people who don't know where they're going or what they're doing. And I know you and I both believe in mentors.

And this is the part my father always told me. He's like, Wait, if you want to be the best at something or really good at something, just find out who's good. Learn what they do and then do that. And yes, apply your hustle there, but don't just randomly hustle. That's foolish.

Yeah. It's something that Tony Robbins talks a lot about. He's like, If you want to be successful, just model those who've already done it. Model those who are already successful. If Tony Robbins is saying that, I have to believe that he's lived his life that way. He's a legend, right? He's a big deal in the space that he's in. I think it's such an important point that you bring up that we have to be thinking about, Okay, what is the reason that we're doing this? It comes back down to why. Actually, there's a quote by... I don't know if you follow this person, but Michael Hyatt has been a I don't know how to call him. He's not a direct mentor of mine. He is a digital mentor. I think he used to call himself that. But anyway, he says, When you know your why, you will know your way. I think for a lot of us, we have to think about why we're actually doing something because, yeah, you'll get caught up in the hustle and the mess of it. Super busy when you get into the job instead of working on what you're trying to create.

But many of us, we have the idea initially, and then we just dive headfirst into it, and then we're just going after it as hard and as quick as we can, like you're saying, to your point. And then we forget the reason why we were doing it. Right? Simon he says all organizations start with why, but only the great ones keep it clear year after year. And those are the companies that are actually the ones that are going places. If you look at Amazon, which them as an example, I know they're in the news right now, people are all mad about whatever with Amazon all the time. But anyway, whether you like it or not, they have a great business at the end of the day. And if you look at the letter to shareholders that Jeff Bezos does every year, he almost says the same thing over and over again. It can seem a little repetitive. At one point I was like, Man, why doesn't he share something new? And then I realized, I'm like, Oh, because he doesn't need to. That's the why they exist. He's not changing every year. He's been saying the same stuff for 20 years, and you can see what it's done to his business year over year.

So it's a really important point there that you're sharing. I couldn't agree more. Absolutely.

It's funny. So I've grown up... You know how they always supposed to say what companies you've worked with. Something happens when you get outside of a company, you're supposed to be anonymous. I worked for a Fortune, something. My dad's a state farm agent. I grew up working in State Farm. Awesome culture, great people, and similar thing. And they're about to be a hundred year old company. And I remember the letter to the policy holders and the shareholders, not shareholders, the policy holders to their own their mutual company, but also to the employees, our customer's needs will determine our path. And we would just say, okay, we know the speech now that how we executed it, of course, that was something. The tactics changed, but the reason why that part didn't change much, and when you look at to your point, whether it's a Tony Robbins and Michael Hyatt or different, all these different people, most of them, they'll tell you who their mentors were. So this is the thing that I know I... Gosh, I so fall trapped to this. So I'm one of those kids that was raised or grew up being told he was smart.

Now, today, every kid's taught that. Every kid's special. My wife said this, somebody came by and they're talking about their grandkid, and he's eight, and we're talking about Legos. Oh, he's good. He does these 10 year old Legos. Everybody's kid has to be. I think like Legos does what the clothing stores sometimes do with women dress sizes. They fudge them so you feel good. But anyway. You're going to cut that part out, right? Sorry?

You're going to cut that part out, right?

Yeah. So I basically did well intellectually. Social moron. At some point, I'll show pictures. Zipper cut, trombone braces, no social sense, but I was good in television. So I got used to being right. And then get in your business and get used to it, I'm usually the guy who knows the answer. And then that usually becomes okay. Well, then you know what? I have to do everything, or it's going to mess up, or it's going to stink. Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, insert whatever name here, Arianna Huffington, Oprah, if they had to do every single thing themselves, well, Bill Gates would be a really good tech support person right now. We've never heard of him. So it's one of those things where it's tough for us because we get the feedback, but the question becomes into your why conversation, what are you willing to let go of and what are you willing to share credit on? And I know there's this conversation I bring it up sometimes, people talk about, what would you do with... If you had, let's say, $100 million in the bank? For most people in the US, that would be enough money to do whatever the heck you want.

Yeah, that sounds like it. They'll say, Well, whatever you would do, that's your life purpose. And I said, No, that's not my life purpose. I've done that. That's my ideal dream lifestyle because I'd play a lot of volleyball, I'd go wakeboarding, I'd go snowboarding, I'd take my wife out, I'd go dancing. Almost none of those things involve service, and they don't have to. But that's my ideal lifestyle, perhaps. And even then, I'd still want to help. What I look at is, what is it that you do when you don't get paid for it? Will you wake up in the middle of the night to feed the kids? That's part of your soul work. And you might or might not get paid for that. So again, it's not necessary. You're going to do what you love and the money is going to follow, or it might not be the level you want. So there can be some of you like, well, my why has to be how I make money. Not necessarily. I know plenty of people that make lots of money and help people different ways. Again, Bill Gates, another person who's getting a lot of flak.

I don't understand the theories how he would make billions give it up so then he can put chips in people's heads so we can make more money. I don't understand that. But hey, maybe it's all possible. But you look at something where here's somebody who, what he's given, and if you haven't done the research, look up what he's done and how many hundreds of thousands of lives have been saved because the vaccines have been done. And yes, sometimes vaccines don't work out. And I'm not an anti Vaxxer or Vaxxer. I'm just Wade. I don't know well enough to have a good enough opinion. But long story short, he couldn't have done that with the money. So sometimes the money can be the vehicle. And money is just a multiplier. I know you've heard that before from the coaches you listen to. If you're a really happy and nice, generous person, you're going to be more of that. If you're an unhappy person and you're generally selfish or mean or ill spirited, well, then when you get more money, you're just going to do that more often. So I don't think that's the magic. But if there's some intentionality to what you're doing, I think that can make a difference.

And so sometimes I'll ask you to speak on a tension, one second. But right now, we have so much going on politically, and we have these conversations with our kids, and some of them say, Well, dad, are you for this or for that? I'm like, Well, first of all, I try to think and I try to engage each situation in intentionally, or based on what I learn and what I know. But I think people get caught in, well, those are good people or those are bad people. I said, I don't think there's good people or bad people. I'm not selling this. I believe there's a God. I believe we're divinely created. I might be wrong. It works for me to believe that. But as I tell my kids, but there are people who have different levels of intentions of what they're aiming for. Their aspirations are different. And so I know the people you and I, for the most part, aim to be around. It's not that we think that we're better than other people. There's other people that might be faster, smarter, more intellectual, pretty or more beautiful, whatever it is. But there's a certain intention, a certain aspirational line that certain people are aiming for.

And those are usually your people, if that makes sense, that it excites you to be around them. Where does intention show up for you and how do you use that in your business and your personal life?

Yeah. Before I dive into that, I want to mention what you're talking about there with the people that we surround ourselves with. You actually had a really great episode on this. It was 059 was your episode. It was just you talking for eight minutes or something like that. Fantastic on that. Thank you. Yeah. Anyone who's listening that hasn't heard that one, jump back to that after this one's done, of course. But yeah, that was some good work where you really dove heavily into that topic. It was really helpful. The other thing you're talking about there, I think that many of us, we look at this whole thing that we're doing, I think, because this is like the first misconception when it comes to being intentional is that we look at what we're doing as a destination, not as a journey. We have to stop longing for that destination and start just enjoying the journey every single day of it, knowing, okay, yeah, eventually I want to end up on a beachfront property. That's my dream. It really is. But I can't just say, okay, I got to get there. Here's everything I got to do to get there.

Some people will tell you that's a great way to be intentional, and it is. But if you're just focused on that end goal, which is very self serving at the end of the day, it really builds something wrong inside of you. And then your intention is for yourself, not for the service of others. And there's something that I say everywhere that I go, I say it on every podcast episode. I always say that I seek to be a person of value, not a person of profit. I just believe that profit will follow as I continue to serve the world around me. It's been so important in my life. And when it comes to intentionality, it's something that you have to decide that you're going to do. You have to start with your why, the reason that you're going to do something, and then you have to say, Okay, I'm going to be part of the journey. I have to be intentional toward different things to reach my destination and to serve people along the way, ultimately. And so for me, it really comes down to focus is the big thing. What is it that I'm doing and why?

Robert Kiyosaki, I think, says it best. He says, focus, he uses it. He breaks out into these five words here. Follow one course until successful. I love that, man. I'll tell you what, we live in the most distracted world ever. I could be like, okay, I'm going to focus on some work on this. What did you say? Yeah, exactly. I had to do that. You're like, Huh? Were you talking? No, but okay, I'm going to focus. And then we're like, oh, I got to text. There was something I wanted to look at the other day. I remember I posted on Instagram, one of everyone commented on it. Oh, I need some better music. I'm thirsty, I need to go to the bathroom. And that's our idea of focus right now. I very rarely see somebody who can even sit at a dinner table with a group of people and not pick up their phone every five minutes. I think that's a sad thing because we're just feeding this machine that we are to not focus. And when you're not focused, you can't be intentional. You have to actually sit down and say, Okay, here is what I'm going to do.

I'm going to be intentional by focusing to get myself closer to the goal that I have, which ultimately might be a beachfront house, but in the interim, it's all about serving the people in my life.

And I think part of it, too, is, and there's different ways to say it, the journey, the destination. I look at this concept, think of children. Some people will say, Oh, the kids this, kids that. Okay, why did you have kids then? Oh, well, you see, our relationship was doing horribly. We thought it'd be a great idea to have kids. That would bring us closer together.

It sure would.

Did you? No, that's an amplifier or a multiplier, too, and a stressor at times. And you look at things like, Okay, wait, so is the goal to get the kids out of the house? I remember I heard an article where a woman talked about she was talking with a... This is a psychology article I'd read where the counselor, the psychologist is talking to a client and the client is saying, Well, the carpets are always dirty and this and that and all this stuff, and the kids always get the carpet dirty. And the psychologist said, Well, let's look at your world view. That's their paradigm, their view of the world. That means that there's children running around your house. You said you wanted kids, your kids. And someday, carpets are going to be clean. It's going to be no feet on them. Oh, wow. Okay, different concept then, oh, my gosh, how quickly can I get... Here's the tablet. If you've had kids at some point, you've chancel or given your kid a tab, but say, okay, just watch this for a little bit. And to different levels, maybe that's not a big deal. But if it's too much, say, No, the kid might be missing out.

But you're missing out. So for me, this is not for me. This is not a moralistic thing like, you're a bad parent. No, you're missing out. Parenting is a beautiful thing. I've not yet watched a single interview with a single athlete that is at the top of their game when people ask them, what's the most important thing in life? Having kids, my family, something of that flavor. Or if they're single, it's the legacy they've lived and who they've given to. It's not one event. It's not one medal. It's not one race. It's not one destination. It's this process, this ongoing thing. And to your point, a lot of it, there's so many flavors. When you talk about a beachfront property, my biggest mistake financially I've made is I got impatient. I wanted my beachfront property earlier. So one of these online investing things where you line up the things and then you buy and this and that. So I said, okay, I just had left corporate world. I got like 60 something thousand in my 401 because I'm going to do it my way. I'm going to trade it myself. I'm not going to let the company do it because what are they going to do?

They know. 11 % per year. That's nonsense. Forget that I have a CLU and a CPCU that's like chartered life insurance underwriter, chartered property and couching. I'm a professional. I know this stuff. And because there's certain beach property I wanted, I started planning with maybe about 10 % of my portfolio with some smaller stocks, not the end of the world. Worst thing happens, I start getting some success. 40 % in a day trade in two or three days. Oh, I don't have to wait for the beach place. I'm putting more money in. And everybody who's done this knows the story. Within two weeks, I had like 90 % of my money gone. Got greedy, put it in because I couldn't wait to get the beach place. I'm going to get the beach place. Meanwhile, one of my friends who's a teacher, making half of what I make, was living a block and a half from Delray Beach in an apartment in a studio. I was single at the time. I could have been living wherever I wanted, but I was so obsessed with it. See, my name's got to be on the paper. I own that.

Oh, actually, the bank owns it, really. But my name next to the bank says it. It was just really this obsessive thing. And I missed the whole thing because I was so focused on what it looked like. And to your point, I think that's something I forget. I don't know if I asked you, do you have kids?

No, I don't.

Okay. But you're married, right?

I am, yes.

Okay. So again, that presence thing, it's so huge. Oh, yeah. And by the way, when you're ready and you're happy, great time to have kids. When you're not so ready, great time to, okay, not.

Ready yet. I'm not there yet.

That's huge to know. That'll mess with the four day work weeks a little bit, too.

Yeah. Actually, something you just mentioned I want to point on. This is actually from the Bible, which is a book that I live by. But there's a scripture that says an inheritance gained in haste will not be blessed in the end. And as entrepreneurs, I think we have to remind ourselves of that sometimes that forcing that destination sooner than you're actually ready for it won't be good for you anyway. I've tried that in relationships. They never work out when you're just like, Nope, we're ready to start dating. We don't need to get to know each other. And then they end up being a nightmare. Or maybe I ended up being a nightmare. Who knows at this point? But regardless, it's you forcing the end to be where you are now when you just have to learn to trust and enjoy the journey that you're on. Because at the end of the day, one day we're all going to pass away, man. We're all going to be gone one day. And if you just went from destination to destination and didn't enjoy the view along the way, you don't have a lot of great things to show for.

And I've seen this time and time again with people that have been in my family's life that just at the end of their lives, they're like, Man, I wish I would have slowed down a little bit. I wish I would have just enjoyed things a little bit more. I wish I'd been happy with what I had at times. These are the type of things that people say, and they always wish that they had more time with their family, with their friends. I think all of us have to take a step back sometimes and remember that the hustle and grind will always be there. It will always be there.

It's always open for business.

You just have to slow down and take a breath every now and then and just be like, Wow, I've come a long way. If I sit down and do some self reflection, which hopefully we get into today because I really want to talk about that. When I do that, I realize I'm like, man, I've done good things. I've really helped a lot of people and I'm enjoying my life. But if I just got my head down, like more, more, faster, come on, got to get more done, got to do more and never celebrating the little wins along the way, man, life is a lot less meaningful when you do that.

Well, yeah. And one of the things I think people forget is there's two main ways that you can look at people as being, let's say, multi dimensional versus one dimensional. One is a lot of people know, oh, if you only go after the money, you're missing something. So I'll go after the money, the fame and the power. Well, no, that's still the same genre, if you will. But as humans, you hear some people talk about we have a body, heart, mind and spirit. So there's that multi dimensional view. And then there's just the concept, you've seen this in coaching, tell me, how do you feel in these 10 areas of your life? And they're not always the same, but usually it's financially, spiritually, your home, your relationship with your family, your work, your career. So these just bottom line, however you look at it, multiple dimensions. And so if you say, let's say that there's 10 dimensions and you score a 10 out of 10 on financial, but you score a 2 out of 10 on everything else, it's not a very high score. But if you're at about a five or a six on everything, it doesn't sound like that high of a score because everybody wants to be a 9 or a 10.

So hold on, if I'm balanced enough, well, then I have the energy physically. I have the spiritually in the generic sense, the lowercase s, the why, the reason, the commitment to do something. I have the good relationships. Oh, and by the way, when you are more multi dimensional, you can actually talk to people at parties and get togethers and business functions because you can talk about 10 to 15 to 100 different things as opposed to more money, more money, more money. And a lot of the people that are only in that one area, it's not that they're bad people. It's not that they're even shallow people as that they're bad people. But it's almost like they're like this. They're missing this whole other view. And again, usually it's hurting them definitely and maybe the people around them. But the rest of the world just sidesteps them for the most part, especially now as we have such a connected world that people just sidestep. If you're just, okay, oh, you're really into... Okay, we'll leave you over there. We're not going to bother you. We're going to go over here because there is something more. And those are the parts that make the journey worth it.

Or if nothing more, at least have different things as opposed to, again, this one way pursuit, because one of the things I've been blessed to experience is have a father who's a lot of his friends did very well financially, much more than they ever dreamt they would. But I got to see that they handled it differently. Some were very happy, some were not. So I got to see very quickly, money was not the variable. It wasn't the happiness variable. I'm very clear. I was looking up. I want the money. I'm good. I'd rather have the money than not have the money. But at the same time, there's other pieces. And so tell me a little bit about what is it that you do to cultivate that presence? Do you have any practices, routines? What do you do to make sure... You mentioned being, gosh, grateful or appreciative of ourselves, which is so ironically for as vain as our world is today with all the kissy face selfies, if you actually say, Well, I actually did pretty well that, oh, you're so selfish. You're so self centered. Look at here. Look at my selfie. What do you do to cultivate that?

And that you would say is that you've done long enough that you'd say it's true, it works? Yeah.

First off, I want to mention that many of us, we need to redefine what success means, because when someone says success, most people initially say, Oh, he must have a nice car. He must have a really nice house. He must have really nice clothes, whatever it might be. And by the way, we both have great clothes on right now. The shirt, at least. My shorts do not match. But hey, this is the remote world.

We live in. This is the remote world.

But with that said, I actually went to dinner with a friend recently, and he meant very well by what he said. So don't take this out of context too much. But he's one of my friends I'd say is probably from a financial perspective, if not the most successful person I know. From a financial perspective, he's very close to it, multimillionaire. And he sat down, he goes, Alex, you're easily, if not the smartest person I know, one of the smartest people I've ever met in my life. He goes, Why are you not more successful? And that was his question. Legitimately his question. Again, he meant well by it. So we had a very good dialog, discussion. I'm like, Well, what does that mean to you? He's like, Well, I thought that you'd be making more money than I would be. He's like, But you don't make as much money as me. I was like, Well, that's not my definition of success. I was like, I have a very happy marriage. I have great friendships in my life. I enjoy every single day, not every moment, but every day I have something that I enjoy. We went into a really long conversation and his wheels were turning.

He's like, I don't really have all those things. I have a lot of money, but I don't really... He was being transparent as well. He's like, I don't really have the rest of that that you talked about. But for me, it's a holistic thing. Yes, I can grind harder and work harder and probably make more money, but be less happy. So I think the first thing we have to do is redefine success for ourselves. What does that really look like? The only way we can do this is through the act of self reflection, because it's going to mean something different for... Wait, you and me, we're similar. We're really similar, but I bet it looks different for us. If we wrote down a piece of paper, we would not know and be like, This doesn't match up. It's going to be different for each of us. Self reflection has been a very important part of my life. I started off doing this yearly, which I don't recommend. Then I was like, I'm going to do it quarterly, because I was like, I'm going to get real big here, quarterly. Then I got to monthly, and then I got to weekly.

More recently, I actually heard, and I thought weekly was like it, that was the spot to be with reflection. Then I heard Brendan Bruchard said, Those who reflect the most win the most. It really hit home with me. I'm like, Maybe I should be doing this every day? So I started busting on a journal every single morning. It takes me about maybe 10 minutes in the morning. But I really sit down and ask myself some set questions, but mostly it's just, how was yesterday? How did that go? What could I do different today to make it a more meaningful, more successful day based off how Alex Sanfellipo defined success. And I have a little page that I printed out that literally just says the things that matter to me in my life. This is what matters to Alex Sanfellipo. And I just reflect on those things. And am I matching up? Is my conduct the way that I carry myself every day, matching up with the things that I say are the most important to me. And some days they don't. Some days I get caught up in the grind of things. And sometimes you have to have those days.

But by reflecting every single day, I'm getting closer to realizing, okay, this is who I want to be. And that's how I've really lived a life of intentionality and focus is that daily reflection time. It's been so important for me.

That's cool, man. I followed Brendan for quite a while. Brendan's an awesome dude. Great work. Oh, my gosh. And also very willing to share who his teachers are and what he's learned. One of the things that it's funny you say that concept of reflecting. As somebody who's raised in a Christian tradition, my parents are Catholic, I was raised in that, I've also read up on a lot of different traditions. One of the things that started becoming apparent to me was a lot of the similarities. Whether it's as you think so shall you be, there's all these different quotes, whether it be in the Bible or different literature. It's spiritual based or whatnot. And one of the things that I started seeing was this pattern of the more you just get clear about what you want, the more likely you're able to connect to it. Not obsession, not like, Oh, my God. I have to have this. But almost like cultivating your filters, like, oh, okay, no, that's not it. And just not angry, not judging it. No, those people with the money there. Just okay, no, that's not it. Okay, it's more of that. And just adjusting into your point, the frequency, I started realizing, well, wait, the more often, to your same exact point, the more often you get connected to what's most important to you.

It's like you're course correcting more often. It's like the GPS that more quickly tells you, Hey, turn left here, or Proceed to the route, proceed to the route, whatever it is. And one of the things that I do as a practice, and it's funny because when you're an entrepreneur and you're brought in this Western culture that I've grown up in, everything is the main two dimensions is emotion, physical and intellectual. Be the smartest and be the strongest and look a certain way. Emotions, again, in these stereotypical... It's not the toxic masculinity, that's too strong of a word for that. Not that I don't believe in that, but I don't think it's... But this overly macho thing of feelings, those are the things you leveraged to get people to do buy in, so they'll do those physical and spiritual. Oh, that sounds great. And the closest word we ever used to use to spiritual was your mission. And even that was for a lot of people, they put it on a piece of paper because it would help you if you wanted venture capital. But it really wasn't what a lot of people did. Now you hear people talk about the why and life purpose, that stuff.

And one of the things in the work that I've done over the years, so much of the work or works that I've created are not for money. So I have books that humbly say the word written. I believe they're inspired. They might not be. And a lot of them are around from teachers I've learned from Wayne Dyer, definitely Jesus, Buddha, but lots of different teachers. And again, because to me, the overlap was so interesting, too, to see all these people saying, yeah, get present to what you want and move towards it with effort, but not with struggle, not with this desperation. So yes, Deepak Chope, I love the way he said it in an audio list. It was once he said, The lion wakes up in the morning hungry and works to get his... Oh, no, sorry. This was Stewart Wilde. He has a book called Life Was Never Meant to Be a Stroke. It's an awesome book. Y ou said, the lion doesn't spend all day obsessing about what he's going to do. He wakes up or she wakes up and they've got to catch their prey. But they don't think about him. Am I a good enough lion?

Do other lions like me? It doesn't have all that stuff, and they don't spend the whole day obsessing. They get up, they do. It takes effort, but it's this natural effort. And Deepak Chauvin would talk a lot about, are you in effort or are you in struggle? Because if you're in struggle, are you not in alignment with what's natural? So whether you like God, universe, nature, whatever it is, if are you not in alignment with that, well, then you're making it harder on yourself. You're working against what's natural. Like you say, timelines, my gosh, farming has a certain timeline. When we try to go too fast, then we just get at the very least food that's not nutritious and it gets way worse from there at times. So you have all these different things, whether it be the fad diet or different things. I just bring it back to business. Yeah, there's fundamental things that if you do increase the likelihood. People say, Well, you could eat really healthy and exercise and get hit by a truck. Yes, you could. But you could also not eat healthy, not exercise. And chances are I can tell you what that's going to look like.

And the percentages of that. And I'm a percentages guy. So I think so much of that self reflection, people sometimes confuse it with either vanity or... But I believe somewhere, and I don't go too deep into this, people going to look at some other stuff at wadegalt. Com and my other books on spirituality, because I try to be sensitive to the audience. People say, I didn't come here for this thing. But whether you call it your inner voice, your intuition, whether you say, You know what, Wade, I believe there are certain ancestors that I try to align with, Einstein or whoever it is, and I believe somehow that intuition, that voice inside that gives you guidance, that intuition, whether it's through meditation, reflection, prayer, to come close to that and be intentional, because if you're doing that, it doesn't sound like a productivity strategy, but you're weeding out all the other stuff you don't need to be doing, or at least as I tell my kids, as best as you know, because you're always going to find something later that you wish you could have done differently. But you do the best you can based on what you know.

To me, the worst thing as humans is when we know something and then we go against it and we get burned away. Gosh, I knew that. Like when I lost the money that would now be worth a good million in my retirement account, I went against fundamentals out of impatience and even a little bit of fear. Not aligned with and not patient enough to trust and say, Okay, I'm going to get there. And even funny you mentioned that self reflection of, had I realized, wait, everything has worked pretty much to this point to a certain level, why all of a sudden would it just go to hell in a hand basket? In working, you've been following tried and true methods. Why don't you just stay on that path, dude, rather than trying to rush things? So yeah, and I want to pivot a little bit. What you've done, there's a service that Alex is part of with a partner is created called PodMatch. And what I love about it is as somebody who's a podcaster of one of the roles I do, you mentioned at the beginning, people just say, Oh, I want to be on your podcast, this and that.

And I just love how well in the profiles as people communicate who they are, you asked people to say, What are the best five topics that you could speak on? And what are the 10 questions that somebody could ask? Which, by the way, makes it really easy to interview for those who are podcasters, ridiculously easy. But also just this sense of when I looked at those, those actually took me a while to answer. It's like, I fancy myself a pretty smart dude, but okay. It's like, well, what if you only had five? Five is plenty of topics. You can hit most things. Ten questions, dude, ten questions is plenty. And then the first were these very mechanical, and then they got deeper and better. And my best guests that are usually some of the more multi dimensionally successful people, they're also six figure earners, or maybe not, or close or whatever it is, but they're happy, they've got more than one dimension in their questions. They've got more than one dimension, and it's certainly not. Well, my whole thing is, here's how you do SEO, and there's nothing wrong with SEO, but SEO is a tactic.

There's philosophy behind it, but in and of itself, it's only a tactic. Even producing a podcast in and of itself, it's a tactic. And there's nothing wrong with tactics. But by themselves, if there's nothing to the message, there's not going to be much to it. Just in general, how do you bring then this intentionality into your work? How do you know you're doing that? And how does that help you just in general to be more effective? Because people also listen, it's like, wait, how do I make more money? How do I do this in less time? How does that pull together for you? And how does that make you a more effective business person?

Yeah. So going back to... This is a great question by the way. I'm excited we get to go into this. For me, my personal life and my professional life, they're really connected, like most of us today. That line is constantly being blurred. I think the days of we go to a job and then we come home and there's no connection. I mean, 20 years ago... Let's even go back 12 years ago. I didn't have a way to have my work email or phone at home. And now my work email and phone is everywhere. When I don't answer the phone at nine at night, if I'm in a corporate job now, the CEO is like, Why didn't you answer your phone? I'm like, Because it was my working hours. They're like, You're on salary. You work 24 7. And so it's more connected than before. And I don't think that's a bad thing. It goes back to whoever your feet are at that moment, be there. But for me, I just knew that if I wanted my life in business to both succeed, I had to model every day a certain way. So I had to actually intentionally build every single day.

Now, I think that one thing that a lot of us do, the reason we don't get a lot out of our lives or our businesses sometimes is because we just let our time run us and control us. It's not I'll tell you what, Wade, you like this topic, man. You're all about this. I'm telling you what, man, the world has a plan for you. If you live in America, especially, there's something called the American dream, and define it however you want. The American dream is go to school and then finish high school, buy a car, get your insurance, go to college, buy a house, get married, get a dog, have kids, retire, and then die. There's fill in the blank a little bit more there. I think Up did a great job of that. If you ever watched that movie. But regardless, I think that if you just follow that plan. That is what will happen with your time if you don't begin to own it. So for me, I said that's not going to work for me. I want something different than that. I want to eventually break that mold. And so I said, I need to actually intentionally control my time every single day.

So when I sat down to build a morning routine, an evening routine, and daily habits is when I really started excelling in this space. That has been the biggest difference maker for me than anything else. Is really sitting down and saying, Okay, here's how I operate in my morning. Here's what I do in the afternoon. Here's what I do in the evening. When I started doing that, things really started changing. It's been huge for me in my life is doing that. We can get into some of the specifics if you'd like to. If not, no worries.

Well, I'm going to jump in one quick thing there. And that's where people like me sometimes like, No, it's got to be fancier than that. It's got to be because it's got to be more. There's got to be more to it than, no, you just spend your time with the people you love. You do the work that you enjoy. And yeah, you figure out how to scale. But absolutely no, go deeper, please.

Yeah. So for me, I knew that I wanted to... Everything starts off as a side hustle, right? If you're ever going to be that entrepreneur, most of us are in a place where we have to have the full time job and the side hustle, right? And there's no shame in that. Honestly, the people that can successfully have a full time job and a side hustle, they are like the rock stars of the world. Because most people, they get home from just a nine to five job and they're beat. They are like, I am done with everything. I'm going to play video games. I'm going to watch Netflix. I'm going to put my kids to bed and that is it, right? But the people that can somehow carve out a little bit more, man, they are the ones that are just making things happen. And I knew at one point in my life that, okay, I wanted to start PodM atch. I knew I wanted to do that. I knew I wanted to launch the Creating a Brand Podcast. Those things take time. So I had to be able to be intentional with that. So for me, it all starts actually, it's funny, most people think you start with a morning routine.

I start with an evening routine because here's the deal. If I stay out late drinking with friends every night or going partying, it doesn't matter what on Earth I say my morning routine is. It makes no difference at all. So it all starts with what I'm doing the day before if I want to be successful. So in my evening routine, it's just so simple. It starts two hours... I call it a two, one, zero. And so two hours before bed, I stop eating. That's it. So I make sure I get one last meal because I like to eat a lot. I'm like you, I'm active. And if I go out and play volleyball at the beach, dude, I am hungry. I need to eat. So I make sure I get a good meal in at 8 PM because I go to bed at 10. So I make sure at 8 PM, I have a good meal. And then an hour before bed, I disconnect from everything. So my computer is off, my phone is put away, and people are like, Well, what on Earth are you doing for that last hour of your wake? I'm not sitting there watching TV.

I'm doing the rest of my evening routine, which is as simple for me as I lay out my clothes for the next day. I do a little bit of yoga, a little bit of stretching. I make sure that I hydrate before bed. That's really important to me. And then I just make sure that I'm actually getting everything ready for the next day. The idea behind that is I don't want to make decisions when I wake up that don't need to be made. So I even make my breakfast night before because there's such thing as decision fatigue. You can start making decisions the second you wake up, but why do that if you don't have to? My clothes are laid out, my food is ready. I even go as far if I'm going to drive somewhere, I back my car and so I don't even have to think about what's behind it. Sometimes when I leave the house, I virtually made zero decisions, and then I'm queued up ready to go to make some sweet decisions when it's time to do that. And then the last thing I do before bed, though, is I just express gratitude.

My wife and I, we go to bed together and we just mention a few things we're thankful for from that day. Like I said, we all have bad days, but you can always find something to be thankful for. At the very least, the fact that you're going to bed breathing, you're not in a hospital, right? I mean, there's something to be thankful for. And ending that way just reminds me every day like, man, tomorrow's another day. I get to have something else to be thankful for tomorrow. It puts you in this frame of mind that sets you up for a win as you sleep and as you wake up. If you dread the night when you're going to bed like, terrible day and tomorrow could probably be just as bad. You're not going to sleep as well because of that. It will affect your sleep. So that's my evening routine there. I know I went off on a little tangent.

Dude, that's great. Because here's the thing. I tell my kids this. I said, look, right now it's summer. If you're watching this later on in time, or I don't know, time caps, it's 100 years from now and you're listening to my time caps, why wouldn't you be?

You're listening to it on Mars with Elon Musk, then I hope you... We're talking for Earth today.

Exactly. Yeah. So my kids have this more free time right now. We're in summer and I'm very clear. Look, I'm in bed by nine, somewhere between nine and 10 each night, the night before Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday. Forty eight, I have a certain amount of energy that I can deal with. Now, in my case, to you, two things, the decision fatigue thing. I always thought Mark Zuckerberg was a wuss. Why is he wearing this gray shirt? What's this decision fatigue stuff? Wait, dude's a billionaire. Okay, that's not on my list. Okay, he's okay. But more than that, yes, just this humility of what you're going to do. And what it also allows is sometimes I will wake up at three in the morning with a great idea. And if I've gone to bed at 10, and again, I don't drink very often, but if I'm going to, it's definitely not going to be on a work night. Right. Me too. So just things like that where, like you say, you make these decisions ahead of time, and you've already made those decisions, very much so the simplest thing or closest thing I can liken it to, if you have a really solid habit, I don't have to be taught to look out for my kids, and I don't have to be taught that I'm going to stay faithful to my wife.

Now, it doesn't mean I'm a better person than everybody. That's a commitment I made. So you're not going to find me at happy hours with random people or other people. I have eyes. Other people might be attractive. You're not going to find me in the things that are going to lead to me going off my course. So I'm a sugar fiend. So you're not going to find me putting certain things in the fridge or the freezer. It's just that simple. But it sets up something, like you say, that's so tight in a good way and allows you to go about what you're doing without having to rethink every time, without having to reinvent the wheel. And if it's probably the one thing I would tell people, when you start getting good at something, by definition, it will start to become a little boring. So there's that whole thing of, Okay, wait, how do I work a four day work week? Well, you start a business and you get it up and going, you get to a certain point where it's steady enough and you have steady income. Okay, great. But then I get restless. Okay, well, hopefully your three days outside are good enough that you don't mind that too much.

But to your point about side hustle, for those of you all and the entrepreneurs listening, you're always usually considering some side hustle. I have a software company, it pays my bills. And I think in a good way, some people talk about this thing like a divine discontent, like this inspiration, like, okay, you can do more in a good way. Not like, oh, my God. But it's like, okay, well, I've got this other thing I want to work on, but I still have to take care of this thing. This pays my bills. It might not be what I want to give attention to every day. But so now that becomes my job. So when people say, oh, you're an entrepreneur, you don't work for anybody. I actually, I work for a lot more people. I used to work for one dude or one gal. Now I work for all my clients. So it's not if somebody's looking for an easier path, it's not an easier path. I think it's a higher quality path for me and what I'm looking for. But definitely that sense of, if you're clear about what you're doing and where you want to go, then all of a sudden so many of these routines, they're coming.

And again, we talked about it earlier. So many people go to bed early, wake up early, get stuff, going the way you want, reduce the decisions you don't need to do. So much of this stuff now, if you were to say, Well, who taught you that way? I don't know. I've heard it from at least 10 authors and coaches. They're all doing pretty well. So I'm going to assume that's a pretty good thing. So what I wanted to do was, and definitely we're going to have to have you on a different time. In fact, there's another podcast I'm going to be starting that I'm going to want you on too, that's more about spirituality and business. In general, if someone were to say to you, Okay, you've been an entrepreneur for a while. A person is trying to just be as effective as they can, be true to themselves, and yet still allow for that possible. There's a thing I once heard by an author. It's a book called Creative Visualization. This woman shocked you to go in. It was written 30, 40 years ago. She's one of the first people. It would be in the New Age section.

So it's about envisioning what you'd like to see happen. And at the end of it, there's affirmations and stuff. At the end of it, she'd say something like this, this or something better is now happening in natural and harmonious ways that serves the universe. Something that was basically like, okay, it's good for God, universe, whatever you like. It's good for me. But I'm also leaving this space that you know what, maybe there's something better and I'm open for that. And I think that's the difference between intentionality versus goals. I got to get this. And if I don't get this, I'm horrible, I stink, and that thing. Maybe how do you balance that with still wanting to make sure you're making money? Because ultimately we can be really floofy and out in the ethers and not make money. And well, that's a hobby. How do you bring those two together?

Yeah, first off, I think the best thing to talk about here is sticking to the basics, like the things that you know work, like where you're making money with your job, stick to that. And you have to be consistent with that. Jerry Rice says, Today I'll do what others won't, so tomorrow I can have what they can't. I think that many of us, we just have to be willing to do that. It takes a little bit of work, right? You've got to have those goals there and things like that that are actually going to work for you. It's key to making things happen. So for me, PodMatch and creating a brand, those are the side hustle feels right now. But as those both continue to grow, next year I have a plan to write a book. That will be my next fun project side hustle. Because all these things are fun when you start them, but eventually it grows and becomes okay, this is a job. I might be an entrepreneur, but this is something that it needs a CEO. There needs to be a team behind it, and we all want to get there.

But when we do, we're like, Oh, my gosh. This isn't as exciting as it was anymore because now it takes two weeks to do one little thing instead of 10 minutes when you're just like, Flip the switch here and flip the switch there. We're all going to get there. That's just part of the journey. But if you have that creative element, feel like you always need something, build those things in a way that they... Like Wade has done where it brings in the majority of his income so he can play around with these other things that he wants to do. And who knows, one might take off, he'll automate it, he'll do it again. And he'll just keep on replicating that whenever he has the opportunity to. But we have to be willing to do today what others won't, so tomorrow we can have what they can't. It takes that little bit of hustle, that grind that we have to do. The other thing I want to mention with this is having that optimistic attitude is so important. Something that I encourage people, whenever I speak, I always... I don't always, but I try to end with something along these lines of having people write this down in piece of paper, write down the words, Today, good things are supposed to happen to me.

Today, good things are supposed to happen to me. I think that no matter what it is that we're involved in that day, whether we know it's going to be a bad day or maybe a good one, when we think that way, that good things are supposed to happen to me, it does something inside of us. I truly believe that. Good things are supposed to happen to each and every one of us. It's a matter of us being in a place to receive that. I think that many of us, we get down and we just put our head down, like, I'm depressed, I'm upset, I'm this, I'm that, this isn't working. We just walk mosey along that way. But if you pick up your head and look around, you'll see the opportunity to serve somebody. When people serve, I'll tell you what, that's like a gateway. That opens the door to you being able to enjoy life more and more in whatever is it that you're doing. Wait, I don't know if that really answers your question there, but that was a little tangent one to go off.

On there. No, that does completely. I just think of good things are supposed to happen, and hopefully I'll see them because sometimes as we know, they're happening around us and we're not seeing them. I just find so many people sometimes who say, Okay, look, appreciate yourself, appreciate your circumstances. Again, not because you're supposed to. There's a thing Dan Sullivan, this gentleman has a company called Strategic Coach, one of the entrepreneurial coaches of a lot of the best coaches in the world. He's just not as more of a front facing public type of a guy as far as really trying to Instagram his way to success. But he's been doing this for decades. And he talks about the concept of appreciation being where you actually increase the value. Like the other meaning we're used to, like from the financial world, you appreciate how you see things and literally the value appreciates in those things. And then this confidence comes that, oh, I can do these things. And this whole different person shows up and then we take action. So, yeah, I think you and I could talk forever.

Yeah.

What I want to do is, first of all, thank you so much for coming out. I look forward to have more talks like this with you. And where can people go to learn about your work? Not just maybe your more steady work, but also the PodM atch, the different things. Where can they learn about your work? And of course, we'll put this stuff in the notes as well.

Yeah. So if someone's interested in being a guest or they are a host on podcast who's looking for guests, PodMatch. Com, it's a great resource, great place to go. It's free. And what we put it is there is a paid version, but for 90 % of podcasters, the free version is going to work. And that's our way of adding value. We want to be there to serve the community and people have problems finding guests and host. So this is a way to think online dating, basically for the podcast industry. That's what we've done there. So PodMatch. Com. Other than that, you can find the podcast, my blog, everything is at creating a Brand. Com. And because Wade is a friend of mine, I wanted to make sure I added some real value here. If anyone is interested in actually having a conversation with me or joining the Creating a Brand community, I have a very unique way I'd say that you can join completely for free. So if you'll text the word Connect to 1904299892, just shoot me a text with the word Connect, it'll automatically send you a free invitation link if you'd like to join.

I'm not trying to sell anything there. I'm just there to add value. If something here spoke to you or you want to talk to me or Wade won't respond to you, let me know and I'll beat him up a little bit. But yeah, that's where you can find me at creating a brand. Com. Do that text or PodMatch.

Awesome. Thank you so much. So yeah, and I love PodMatch already. And if you have questions about that, also, let me know. It's been so awesome what he's doing, what he's doing that I've been giving him feedback, and he's been adding some different things or adding some ideas to it. So I already love what he's doing there. So thank you again, Alex, for coming out. To rest of you all, if you have any questions on this, of course, connect with Alex, connect with me. And as always, look forward to helping you impact more people and make more money in less time. Do what you do best so you can better enjoy your family, your friends, and your life. Thanks for listening.