079 - Be a Multi-Niche Solopreneur without Overworking with Flavia Berys

Yeah, I think for me and for anyone like you and I who have seen and sort of grown up watching people build businesses and sort of dictate their own path, I think there's a confidence and a belief that it's possible that really helps. Right. Because I know a lot of friends that I meet people at different events. And their biggest fear is, will it work? You know, is this really real? Can you actually start a business? Can it be as secure, as safe or as profitable as just being an employee and working for someone else's company and business?

Welcome, everybody. Today, I am really excited to have on my friend Flavia Berys, the host of the Lifestyle Solopreneur podcast. She is a fellow entrepreneur and a fellow lifestyle entrepreneur and now tell you a little bit about her and why I wanted her to come on today.

Flavia's is the host of the Lifestyle Solopreneur podcast, an attorney, marketing expert and founder of several online academies.

She's been featured in major media, including BBC World News, The Wall Street Journal, New York Post, ESPN Television, Cosmopolitan Magazine, Fox News and more. On her podcast. She features solopreneur business owners and entrepreneurs who make full time income from part time work and successfully avoid becoming miserable millionaires. She does this by helping them learn what to do to stay happy and balanced. Her guests teach how they earn smarter by working less, leaving time open for family, friends, travels and hobbies.

And just throughout her career, she's been an attorney, she's worked as a marketing consultant, she's been a professional cheerleader in the NFL. There's so many things she's done. And in all of this, she has, in my experience, some I'm that have run rather than jumping out, which many people do.

And there's not a knock on that. Some people I did. I was in the corporate world and I jumped out.

She's taking what she wanted to with her and still doing what she wants to do as a mom has a family and is doing so many awesome things. So, Flávia, thank you for joining us and thank you for what you contribute.

Thanks, Wade. You're one of my favorite people to talk about lifestyle and kind of that intersection between life and work. And I'm so happy to be on the show today.

Awesome. Thank you. So first thing I want to start out with this. Maybe just tell people a little bit. I did it a little bit with the bio, just a little bit about your journey. You know, sometimes I don't focus on people's journeys because there's a commonality to it. But what I really find interesting about your journey is a couple of things. One, that you are. Willing to adapt and a lot of people get really set of what it's going to look like and they kind of white knuckle it and assume it has to be a certain way.

Or they just outright give something up and it becomes a either or challenge, so maybe share a little bit, if you don't mind, about your path, your journey, and what led you to even consider doing this? Why is this important to you?

Sure. So I think it's important to back up to sort of my upbringing and what I saw in my world. Right. My dad was an entrepreneur. So I learned really early on that entrepreneurship is a thing like owning businesses and creating new companies and having big dreams is was normal in our household. So I think that's a start because not everybody has that advantage. Right, in that privilege, because a lot of people grow up with parents who work know kind of a grueling nine to five, and they just see that as like reality and hashtag adult thing.

Like that's what you eventually have to do. I knew that there was this other path and through school and in college, I was affiliated with all of these great entrepreneurs. I remember one of my first jobs in college. You know, you're always looking for these like part time jobs. Minimum wage was as a telemarketer for a family run maintenance company. And so this little maintenance company in my job was to get on the phone for ten bucks an hour and ask people if they needed any maintenance done on their commercial property, phone call after phone call.

I could learn a lot of things in that job. But the craziest thing I learned was when the family decided that they wanted to branch out from maintenance and actually start. It was like a computer business. So they they walked into the room like, we have this amazing idea. One of us in the family is really good with computers. So now we're going to start a computer business. So here, half of you in the room, we want you to start asking people if they need help with their computers.

When you call the business, the other half keep doing the maintenance thing. So this is creative family just like branched off in any direction. So for me, I always knew entrepreneurship was a thing. So even after I went to law school and then started my own kind of 90 hour sort of being in the corporate wheel and working at a big, big law firm where, you know, you're, you know, in a way kind of a little cog right in a big machine.

I knew in the back of my mind that there was always this other way to be. And and eventually I decided, hey, that other way to be is going to give me the flexibility and sort of ownership of my life and schedule that I that I need. And and so I jumped ship and have never looked back. That's awesome.

That's something that I tell people that I am too very blessed to as an entrepreneur. Parents are from the islands, from Trinidad and Tobago, and they could have stayed comfortable in Trinidad. They were in the upper class easily and they wanted something more. But in addition to that, they had that sense of wanting to shape their world, that they could do different things. And I sometimes tell people I just really am so grateful for what I've experienced. Like you said, it's normal.

Yeah. If you want to start a business, you you make something happen. I think most people are entrepreneurs. And I'll use a number in the United States. If you say to an entrepreneur who's been, let's say, an entrepreneur five to 10 years, you need to make a thousand dollars more this month. Most entrepreneurs that I know at least can think of. OK, here's how I could do that.

If you tell that to a person who has an hourly job, they either think that's not possible or how am I going to find the hours?

And so, like you said, just even having that as an opportunity, I find your set some of the mind. Like I knew in general what I was looking for. I had no idea what it would look like, and I'm still open to that. But there's that confidence. And for me, it sounds like you might have this, too. There's a flexibility I knew that I could take because I didn't feel like I had to get it from one job.

I didn't feel like the power was outside of me. I felt like, OK, this is something that's doable. How is that helped you that confidence without knowing or that just familiarity? How has that helped you have the confidence to jump from seemingly different ventures that have been enjoyable to you and yet you still keep coordinated or engaged in some way? Yeah, I think for me and for anyone like you and I who have seen and sort of grown up watching people build businesses and sort of dictate their own path, I think there's a confidence and a belief that it's possible that really helps.

Right. Because I know a lot of friends that I meet people at different events. And their biggest fear is, will it work? You know, is this really real? Can you actually start a business? Can it be as secure, as safe or as profitable as just being an employee and working for someone else's company and business? And that belief, first of all, if you think about it right, it's all a fallacy because an employee is never secure, at least in the United States.

Right. Most employees are at will. You can get laid off. You can get furloughed. We've you've seen that in the past. I mean, every single time there's a recession or a mini recession or the threat of a recession, it's because people are losing jobs. So there really isn't the kind of security that maybe there was decades ago where you were expected to work for a company and you stay there and you earn your retirement and you have a pension and it's just all very kind of linear.

Nowadays, people are hopping all over the place and changing jobs. Companies merge, there's layoffs, there's hiring, there's opportunity. And also the world is getting flatter. You can work for a company in Florida, but you live in Kentucky and there's just a lot more choice. And so I think for people like me and you who've seen all kinds of things work, there's a belief and confidence that other people may be lacking. But maybe listening to this episode will give people like that who are in that camp a little bit of encouragement and inspiration.

Absolutely. I think one of the things that sometimes is the hardest thing for me to help people understand, even with a basic concept, such as whether it's a 4-Day Work Week or whatever it might be, but being compensated or rewarded in a way that has more time, freedom. Is it just sad? People look at some point you made minimum wage, whatever that was. So when I was younger, I was like maybe five bucks, let's say, or whatever it might be.

And then you made 10 bucks an hour and you had an assumption you had almost this demand, this expectation that over time you're going to make more money. And if you aren't paid, that most people that I know will say, OK, I'm going to look somewhere else. Not everybody, but most at least have that sense of and you might even called entitlement. You can almost even go the other way. And yet with time, we have nothing like that as far as as an overall society, as if someone is doing us a favor.

And again, you know, if I do something and I know I do something of value and an employer doesn't pay me well, most people I know would say, oh no, I need to be paid more.

So they see it literally in currency. They can see it. But if you say the similar thing, you say, well, I allow my employer the opportunity to take time off because I'm so consistent for them.

I deliver for them and I allows them that freedom. But yeah, we don't say, well, therefore I should have an opportunity to in some way have freedom, not guaranteed freedom. And I know a lot of times people say Wade do you advocate a outright 4-Day Work Week where the employer now has to pay somebody for five days, a working for days? No, because I believe in math, but I think you can still say to somebody, look, if you want to work four days, it might be that you adjust your income expectations so you make the same hourly or it might be you say that you are worth more to your employer.

And that starts with, you know, asking your employer, what would it look like for me to be worth more? But these are questions as entrepreneurs we ask ourselves every day, because if we want to make an offer, sell a product, get coaching services that we offer, whatever it might be, consulting, that's part of where we come from. And so, again, it is almost like a language. I never thought of it this way.

But hearing you say and just realizing how normal it is for me, I guess if you're, you know, a professional athletes son, so many of the NBA basketball players, Dwayne Wade son, LeBron James son, Patrick Ewing son, they're all in the NBA. And part of it, I'm sure, is their support and there's wisdom there. But there's almost a bit of an expectation. Sure, they know the ropes and other people don't. So they're ahead of the game.

But I think there's something there. And like you said, so much of this that I try to tell people is trying to share with people what this can be like, because in my experience. When people have more free time, when people can choose to work more or less, and again, some people still want to work six days a week, wherever it might be, but it's easier and especially I know for me, a sensitive time is that the child stage of when you have children of a certain age, our children, my wife and I, there are 14, 11.

And so right now, being able to have time with them and be present, they just started high school and middle school and there's different things going on and being able to be present for that is huge. And so I'd be curious for you to comment on two things. One, how this is integrated with your family and to. The idea of embracing being a solopreneur, as opposed to, I think, a lot of people saying, well, if you're a solopreneur, you're not yet a full fledged entrepreneur, almost as if you said, well, you only have one spouse and you should have seven, you know, you need to move to Utah or to the Middle East.

And if you only have one when you're doing it wrong. No, no, I'm content being a solopreneur with some freelancers helping me and whatnot and outsource outsourced help.

What has it been like for you to be able to create time for your family? What kind of led to that and how does that allow you to live that solopreneur life in your life and for your family? Sure, so, I mean, kids, right, there's a sort of a limited time that a kid needs a parent in that kind of special, like full attention kind of way. Right. And it feels like forever when you're in it.

But I'm sure that people that are empty nesters can relate. It flies by to there's just a limited, you know, maybe a decade and a half where the kid needs you to be present in a way that they really won't when they're adults and they're on their own and they have their own lives to live. So I love the fact that being either a solopreneur, but also being a really practical employee like what you teach. Right. I mean, there's so many ways I personally know, for example, there's a friend of mine who was lucky to be able to start working remotely.

And the company is based in California Pacific Time Zone. But her passion in life is horse riding. So she was able to instead of, you know, on her salary, living in some tiny studio apartment in San Francisco, she's like, you know, I'm going to design my life. So she moved to a part of the country that has a lot of acreage that you can get for that same price. You pay for a tiny city, San Francisco, and has many horses, chickens.

I think there's a donkey involved, lots of different. And and it's in a different time zone. It's in a later time zone. So for her, she can ride horses and take care of her ranch all morning and still be online and ready to go. Pacific Time at 8:00 a.m. sharp, right. With everybody else. But she's able to just live that life that she wanted while still working the sort of, I guess, frenetic pace of a Bay Area technology company.

Right. So that's being strategic. And and again, the same I don't know if she's ever asked for a reduced schedule, but if you've done a good job as an employee of treating your employer like a client, you know, instead of just like a boss, like, I think we should all treat our bosses like clients like you. You do an amazing job. You make yourself super valuable, irreplaceable, and and just do your best to meet that goal.

Nobody is actually irreplaceable. But if you shoot for that, you're going to become very valuable. Right. And and then maybe you can call your shots and say, hey, look, I'll still work the 40 hours, but I want to split that between some different days, maybe just Monday through Thursday or Wednesdays off. You know, that reminds me of when my wife and I for a while we're living in Peru, so I when I started my own company, I started a little over 20 years ago and I just wanted to be that employee that worked four days a week.

And again, doesn't have to be four days. It could be five days where your kids are in school in less hours or whatever. Mine, just mine. For me it's four because I have that type a tendency that for me I need to kind of draw a line in the sand and I like doing it. But one of the things that was interesting is we decided we're going to go live in Peru for a while. We're moving back and forth in the U.S. because I worked from home and I remember, you know, now they use the word location independence.

I just called it being a geographical, which that never took off.

So I guess I missed that. But anyway, I just wanted to know that I could live forever.

One of the reasons I like it. Yeah. And and actually, at that time, I was coming out to San Diego a lot, doing a lot of growth retreats, Deepak Chopra, Debbie Ford, that sort of stuff. And so I just like that level of freedom. And when we lived in Peru, we had the advantage of the currency difference and just the concept that, yes, as this lifestyle entrepreneur and really solopreneur definitely at that point.

I was able to afford so much more.

We really did lift like the top one percent and I was not making the top one percent income and we were able to really enjoy that, not only just the experience of it. Now, in our case, the time zones, the line which made it really easy, but we were able to experience something different. And I've gotten to live four years and I really got to experience what it's like to live in a different culture. And I guess I did that in college, too, because I'm from Florida and I lived in North Carolina and Alabama.

That's a little bit different, but I really got to experience something different. And the driving force was not money. The driving force was her family's down there and especially as we started having kids. Then for our second, when we stayed down there for two years because we knew, OK, well, we're going to want to start kindergarten in the United States. And so we stayed down there for a long period of time and then came up and then we'd start going summerson and that sort of stuff.

But just being able to experience that the driving force was the lifestyle. And and yet and this is the part and you said a different way as far as how you treat your boss or the people you serve. There was never a sense of my clients owing me anything. There was never a sense of, well, you know, I'm done, I'm tired. I'm just going to live off of this. It was always clear that, OK, I need to earn this and sometimes I've slept.

Have not always been perfect, certainly. But at the same time, the expectation is, number one, that it could go at any moment if I'm if I don't take care of it like any client, any boss, any relationship for that matter. And there's a great sense of understanding the interplay between my trade offs of time for money, for lifestyle, and then how I spent my money and making different choices, whereas when I made a lot more money and was single, I would splurge on things that really it didn't hurt my income or my time off to do that, whereas now it might so.

You know, somewhere in your in your resume. I remember reading this thing you just mentioned the idea it used to work a lot of long hours. How did you pivot from that?

How did you make that leap? And what was that like? Was it one big jump? Was it baby steps? Because I know sometimes people are. Told that there's only one way to do it, and I've as I talked more with people, there's multiple ways of doing it. How did you do it? So for me, you know, life has its like stages and there's like a time for different things. And as like a newly minted lawyer fresh out of law school, I passed the bar, done everything right as a law student.

And so, you know, I got a great job and I actually had no problem working really long hours, working really hard. And I actually found a lot of. Pleasure and joy out of that lifestyle, and it was interesting and got to work on these amazing transactions, I wasn't a lot of people when they hear lawyer, they if they're not a lawyer themselves, they just picture all lawyers end up in the courtroom arguing and presenting these great statements.

I'm a transactional lawyer, so our biggest joy is probably like flipping through a two hundred page document and finding that one paragraph that needs to come out or that typos or something. So it's kind of a different thing. It's not like that kind of exciting. We don't see the inside of the courtroom, but we do get to like take part in these huge, amazing transactions. And I thought that was great for that time in my life. If I didn't have a family, I still found time for my hobbies, which at the time, believe it or not, I was learning how to do circus, kind of like trapeze and aerial silk, which is like these hanging.

It's like Cirque du Soleil type stuff. But at a very like elementary level. I mean, I was a beginner, but to me it was like really fun and fascinating to go to these gyms and get to do that stuff. And I had time for that. I had time to see my friends for one night nights. We did our like usually on a Wednesday night with a group of girlfriends. And so life was great, even though I was billing like 50, 60 hours probably.

But I you know, I passed through that time in my life and then I came into a different stage of my life where my family needed me more. And it was kind of a no brainer for me. It was like, OK, well, then this isn't for me anymore. My family needs me and I am going to be there for them. And the only way to be there for them is to make a big change and a big leap.

Like there's no way to reconcile this schedule with what I need to do with my time. I mean, we have limited time. That's our one resource where we are all pretty level. Right. And wealth, monetary terms. The other is the one percent, the top one percent. There's people who have a little people who have a lot. But as far as time, I mean, we pretty much all got the twenty four hours. So we have to learn to be very strategic and where we spend that time and what we do with it and you know, something like, well, I just don't sleep at all, I sleep less.

So I have longer days like well yeah but you might have a shorter life. So, you know, you got to be really strategic. And and so I for me, the decision wasn't hard. I did have like one epiphany moment where I was at the office and I still had probably two or three hours to go. People were waiting for me to do certain things, get them certain documents before the next morning. So I knew I was in it for at least a few more hours and somebody in my family called me.

It was like, I really need you. I could hear it in their voice and I wasn't able to just head out the door and go have dinner with them. I had work to do for strangers who could care less who I was if they knew my name. That's it. A few emails back and forth. It sounds like, you know, this isn't for me anymore. And so for me, it really it was that easy.

And that's how I tell people. When it comes to stages, at least in my experience, if you've done a stage while, you're ready. So watch my kids as they just went from fifth grade to sixth grade or eighth grade to ninth grade in a new school and those sort of things that in their case, they were almost a little ready a couple of months before. And some of the when I talked to people about having kids. Some people say one is a good time to have kids when you literally and it sounds weird the word and when you can't think of anything better to do.

And that doesn't mean in a bad way. It doesn't mean we're miserable.

Let's have kids get because that's not a good idea. It's you know, we've literally we've done everything we've traveled. If we want to travel. We've done this. We've done that. We've done enough salsa nights, whatever is like, OK, we want something different now and then. It's still work. It's still a lot of work, but it's a different experience when you feel, at least from my understanding, what I've told people I talk to that sometimes maybe weren't planning for it.

It's a different experience when you feel you've chosen it, and even if it doesn't tell exactly what you want, I mean, as entrepreneurs, we certainly have that. I know there's this sense that people have that will if you're an entrepreneur, you get to do whatever you want, when you want and almost a sort of teenager view of the world.

Now, it's not that there's certain freedoms we get that other people don't get. There's certain responsibilities we end up stuck with or whatever word you want to call that, whether just we've adopted that other people don't. And I think a lot of people and I encourage people who are listening to this to consider sometimes it is to be just an awesome employee that is irreplaceable, that somebody says, gosh, I would not want to lose you.

Employee turnover costs are brutal. But more than that, you're unique. You're irreplaceable. And so, yes, if your kids are in school, OK, your kids go to school 180 days a year and you want to work just 180 days, OK? You only want to work six hours. Well, so no, I have a choice. I can either take that roughly one thousand hours of your works or part time worth of work, or I can take nothing I can tell you nine times out of ten.

If you're that good, the answer is they're going to take what you'll give them. Not 20 years ago, not so much so. And so that is definitely changed. But especially if you just look at the more companies are more and more intentionally, of course, outsourcing talent. The idea I have a friend who's a profit coach and he says, you know, of course, people hire me on retainer to work with them for an hour or two every month to look at their because they basically need a CFO, but they can't afford a CFO.

And so he helps entrepreneurs and any sort of job. For goodness sake, when you go to the mall and you get food or you go to wherever it is a restaurant, you get food, you're outsourcing that and somebody cuts your lawn, you're outsourcing. That's a lot of people get kind of caught up in this. But I think it can be something that you can choose. And it doesn't have to be this crazy situation of overwork where you're trying to do everything by yourself.

What have you found has helped you? Get over not only the overwork, but just sort of that habit or almost perhaps that either addiction or the like. Yeah, I'm hustling. I'm grinding them and sometimes people have that. What helped you move beyond that or what do you find with the people you work with? Helps them kind of move beyond that to maybe something more if they really want a more balanced, fulfilling life? Well, for me, it was sort of like being thrown into a pool, and so I don't recommend this for anybody else, but I had a baby two months early, so I got seven months when you're not yet quite like ready.

I had a preemie, right. Like a premature baby. That was a surprise baby. And so I had to live in a hospital for almost a month actually living there. The hospital is really nice. They gave my mom and I a room in the hospital to just live out of power. And the wi fi reception in the hospital was horrible. So there was actually like no Internet access. So my life just completely changed. It was like being thrown in cold water.

Right. But in a good way, because, first of all, everything worked out great with my baby. She luckily is very healthy. And I mean, that's like the most important part of the story. But, you know, as a secondary blessing was it was just a way to learn to really prioritize what's important. Right. I was fine. The world didn't end because I couldn't check my emails daily and but the world for me got bigger when I was with my loved ones more.

And so, yes, it's not I can't tell people, why don't you just go and have a premature baby and this will happen for you, too. So I don't know how else I would have made that transition in such a like. Impactful way, and I mean, it was definitely a sudden thing and I had no real choice in that matter, I remember I had thought that I would not really need much of a maternity break and I was still going to work part time, first of all, because I was delusional, because I was a first time mom and I had no idea what the first few months of parenthood are like.

So I had all these plans in place that like would not have worked. But so I can't tell people to do this, but I can tell everybody there is probably a choice you can make and and a mindset shift you can accomplish. And hopefully you don't need to be thrown in the pool in the deep end the way I did, hopefully for you just listening to the story and kind of just thinking hypothetically, like, what would you do if you just needed to go to the moon for a month, like just completely disconnect from society?

What would be important to you? And you'd probably say, well, I want to make sure I could take my family with me in that little spaceship and that that little moon habitat had my favorite books. And, you know, these are the things I like to do. And this is the way I want to have a nice here's one of my pleasures in life. A lot of Peruvians are going to get this right, a long, leisurely breakfast, which is like a delicious coffee that somebody spent time like crafting and like a tray with like toasts and some jams and some cheeses and just some, like, little kind of a continental breakfast.

That sounds pretty simple, but without my family at that breakfast table, it would not be the same. So for me, that is like an excellent way to spend an hour and a half or two in a morning, kind of an extended brunch. And everybody needs to find those little things for themselves because that gives you motivation to find a way to do it right, to have time for these things, like first figure out what you love to do and then that's going to really inspire you to make changes in your life.

So you get to do those things. Absolutely, and I tell people it doesn't have to be always different. I know some people think it's got to be some creative thing. Let's go to the beach every Friday and play volleyball. It's really that simple when I don't get it with the pandemic, we took quite a while off that for about six or seven months, I wasn't doing that. Kids were inside. We were keeping them out of school and whatnot.

They were working, you know, starting from home and that sort of stuff. So I didn't want to be the guys like, oh, hey, you guys stay here. I'm going to play volleyball.

And when I missed that, the kids like, oh, yeah, we can tell when you haven't played because you're not as you're not as centered, you're not as happy, you're not as whatever it might be. But certainly I find a lot of people sometimes don't. It's a chicken and egg thing. Wait, I'm too busy so I never come up with a hobby. OK, yeah. So you you've got to create the time from it. And I think one of the other things you said that was so clear to me is I don't think.

You know, when you talk about the story of having your baby prematurely in that stuff, I don't think those situations changes as much as they reveal. My guess is you already knew family was important. You just, you know, somewhere thought, OK, I think, like you said, the the unaware parallel, I can make all this work together. I'm going to put this over here. And I'm because I've got a plan right here in three hours.

It's a three hour block for my kid. This is awesome. You can do all your stuff right there. And then we're going to put you over here. And of course, it doesn't work that way. But it sounds to me like you also had to let go of kind of. What either everybody else. Thought was good for you or what your ego or external the external forces and how do you how do you put your ego aside so you can choose what you want as opposed to what somebody else you know wants for you or thinks is best for you?

How have you been able to do that in your path? Because it sounds like you've you've done a lot of things, which, I mean, each one of them that people might say, OK, you've been an attorney, a hard attorney. You've done cheerleading on a professional level. You've you're a professor. You've done all these different things. And some people might get stuck on one for fear of losing or or the ego that comes with it.

How do you do a lot of those different things? And yet at the same time, allow yourself to choose what you want, whether it be for you or for your family? Wow, all right, that's the million dollar question, is ego like how much does it grip us? How do we sort of congregate or control our ego, right? Goes huge ego gets people into a lot of trouble like it?

It is ego might very well be that little like devils voice on our shoulder like that might actually be ego. For all I know, ego is like the evil part of our nature, because ego is when people put certain things really self-interest above. Everything above family, I know people whose ego forced them to keep and maintain a job or a lifestyle where they just don't even see their family at all. So, like, ego robbed them of their familial bonds of love.

So I don't know how do we how do we spart ego like how do we fight it off? Like, how do we guard against an overinflated ego? Because we have to have some ego. Right. So this becomes a balancing act because you also can't be absolutely completely selfless that those are the people that work themselves to death and and then like because they only do things for other people, they only look at what everyone else needs and then they themselves are no longer able to even be their family because they've become just like a shell of a person.

So, yeah, egos tricky. We've got to balance it like a it's like walking on a tightrope and like a tightrope. It's not like you can set it and forget it either. Right. I love that from the advocate end of the movie, The Devil's Everything, The Devil's Advocate a long time ago, or the C.I.A. thinks he's a spoiler. If you haven't seen the devil's advocate, it's a great movie and don't listen to the next 30 seconds.

But Chiaro finally gets his ego in check, and at the end he gets a compliment and then the ego gets going again. And just just like just like that. He's like right back on. And the Al Pacino's character, LCAC Vanity Works every time. And it just it's just that thing that we get so caught up in these things.

But something you said I want to jump in on real quick that I don't know. You said something about how when people you know, people and I've definitely seen this when people get so caught up in, you know, the ego, the vanity and, you know, don't see their family and stuff. And ironically, it seems to me that on one level, it's self-centered. And yet on another level, if you kind of take that concept of, you know, some people talk about, let's say you're your spiritual self, your higher self, your true self, whatever word, let's call that capital s like who you really are.

And then there's this. I need validation. I need Instagram followers. I need all these different things, that version of us, our personality or whatever it is the personality runs that. But the true self of what we really want, which most of us, from what I can tell, want to be loved and accepted and, you know, and creativity and a couple other things.

Actually, the true part of us actually gets robbed because we're so focused on the evil, the ego is so focused on what do they think, what will they say? How do I look to them? And like you say so. Meanwhile, the family. Doesn't even stand a chance if we're so concerned about that, and I know that's one of the things as certainly as a solopreneur I found can be tricky because have you listen to the War of Art by Steven Pressfield.

No, no, no, I haven't read or listen to it, but I know of it, and it's really I was just listening to part of it. And one of the things he talks about is the theme of the book. It's called The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. Awesome book. And he talks about how there's this creative side of us that just wants to make things happen. And then there's he just calls it resistance. So what do you want to call it?

Distraction and resistance takes so many forms, addiction problems from all these different things.

And he was just mentioning this idea that as we're moving towards something that's really awesome for us, then, you know, resistance becomes stronger, the distractions become strong. We really want to choose something. And all of a sudden other people say, well, that's not who you are or whatever it might be. And what's interesting for me is as a solopreneur very often it's this.

Even today, it's still this kind of interesting niche because only 10 percent of the people on the planet last time I checked stats are entrepreneurs, and that includes everything from rickshaw drivers, hotdog salespeople. And I'm not saying that that means we're better than them or anything, but just know it's only 10 percent of people are even trying to kind of do it on their own. And then you say, okay, so within that universe, that's still 10 percent OK.

And then that group you've got a group that are growing small businesses. They really want to grow something big and that's their understanding of what it would look like. Awesome. And in my case, I would sign that contract as much as I'm not a guarantee person, if you say can Wade, you can make X amount for whatever. You'll never make more. But you can help people. You can enjoy it. And I'll sign that contract. I'm that person.

So I kind of sometimes feel like I have almost that employee mindset. Or again, maybe that is what separates the lifestyle entrepreneur in some ways from the I don't know, the Dr. Evil want to take over the world entrepreneur that just wants to be huge and and everything is me and me.

And I guess when I look at that, for me, the freedom thing to create the freedom to be the freedom to honor who I am is more important than the money.

How do you balance those, you know, on the continuum?

Because, of course, as entrepreneurs, we're looking for more freedom. We're looking for more money. Obviously, everybody loved both of them and all of them. That'd be great. But it usually doesn't happen that way.

Usually there's some sort of trade off. How do you find that you did that?

And what do you find works with the people that you help if they don't have to have a premature baby come to that to come to that realization, recommend that one definitely don't plan for any health concerns, even though a lot of people it's a health concern.

It doesn't have to be a premature baby, but it could be a diagnosis of something that does change them, too. So health can be a big catalyst. I know someone that just started to have huge back pain, mysterious back pain that changed their life because they had to make changes, turns out, and doctors couldn't figure this out, but turns out it was just stress. And so it was actually the job. When you say, oh, you're a pain in the neck, like sometimes your job can actually be the pain in your neck or the pain in your back.

And crazy how stress can be so physical. But for me. I don't know the we were talking about ego, right, so let's go back to that for a second and how that plays into it. But ego is something we have to just get over. But it'll never be a done deal. It'll never be you'll never set it and forget it. There is always going to be the pull of ego and doing things for the M.E. or or seeing your name in lights or being excited to be interviewed for some big media thing.

And and then on the other hand, you have to say like but none of that's really real, right. Like we have to pull away from that. And then what you were saying about how do you make this leap like financially like how do you factor in the monetary aspect of all these different pathways? Personally, I did. This is long before the premiere incident. I didn't even have any kids or really even any plans to have any soon.

But I walked away from a very lucrative employee position. Right. Huge law firm with a related huge salary and just the annual bonuses at that kind of a law firm sort of dwarf what my previous entire year's salary would have been in my life, pre law school jobs. And so. You do have to get comfortable walking away from finances when it's not it's not a job that fits in with your life, you have to put a value on your life.

You really do. And when employers are paying you, they are paying you for your life like you are selling your time to them. Let's think about what that really means. Like you are selling them. You get a limited number of years on this planet. If all goes very well, maybe a hundred. Some of those. You're an infant, you don't know what's going on. And some on the other end, you're kind of an infant.

Again, don't really know what's going on. So, like, you're you're really the years where you have control over your life or even shorter than that. And that's if everything goes very well. And so when you have a job, you are taking some of that precious time that that sand in the hourglass and you are selling it to someone else. So let's get really. You know, and let's think about that, because some people have tons of money and literally no time to spend it and they don't have any time left to do anything with that money, it's really just kind of being put away.

So, I mean, everyone's going to have a different opinion on how to do this. I know my advice to a lot of people, especially people who have jobs, are in the rat race, particularly if they're well-paying jobs that I'm talking like the CPAs and the store managers and like the people who are very comfortable with their salary have benefits. I'm like, you know. Think of it instead of like, this is my job forever. I'm going to be in this rat race forever, set an expiration date on it, say five more years of this.

That's it. Five more years. And then what would happen if you gave yourself a pay cut to whatever you were making when you were just out of college or whatever you were making when you first got this job, before all the promotions, before all the, you know, increases in salary, let's say you have to live on 30 percent less. Can you do it? Yeah, and we probably all can. Right. Because people get pay cuts or people.

It's possible. And I think if you can set yourself up so you have a nest egg and you have some money to invest or earn some money to tide you over while you start a business, starting businesses usually need to run away like most people don't go from, like I just gave notice at my job and then they're starting to pull in like an equivalent salary in two weeks from their new entrepreneurial venture. It doesn't happen that way usually. So having a cushion and a nest egg is pretty important.

And I think that's something people can can strategize and it'll give you a lot of hope to see it on paper. And then you just follow the steps in the plan.

Absolutely. There's a couple of things you said. First of all, you said something. You said it very quickly. But I think it was the answer to the ego thing is you realized it wasn't real. That little bit of fame, the this, the that, because, again, genuinely, if I were to tell people, well, somebody has been an attorney, OK, that's in the American society at least, OK, there's a there's an ego thing, too, that you can you can be disparaging if you want to make a smart remark.

But the end of the day, it's not easy to become an attorney. It's not easy to be an entrepreneur. It's not easy to be an NFL cheerleader. They say. How do you walk away with that? Well, if it was real, if it really was the meaning of life, know that be very difficult, Wade. But no, it's doesn't mean it's not good. And like you said, you have to have some ego, otherwise you wouldn't go after it.

So it's not judging it. It's not knocking it, but it's kind of put in its place.

One of my mentors, Debbie Ford, used to talk about a quote, I believe it's from one of the Hebrew texts. I'm not sure. But you talk about you've got to be able to hold in one hand that you are everything and the other hand, that you are nothing. And if you can live somewhere in between there, like a whole universe was created for you and you're a speck of dust somewhere, if you can, like, live in between there, then then you're going to be fine.

And so much of what you said also about the idea of it takes a while. It takes a launching pad. I mean, it's still the case. My father always told me takes three to five years at least to start a business. Can you sell a fad on a on an online site? Sure. Can you sell an online course and make up a boxer? But a legitimate business takes a while. And certainly I see so many people that also get caught up in the ego.

Well, you know, one friend that even said to me is like we were working on three of us kind of mastermind once every other week or so. Then he got an opportunity to work in a firm doing work that he likes and paid a good amount. But he said, I think that I have to go back to being an employee. And he kind of and I still tell me about it. And there was flexibility.

There's all the different elements except his name being on the door. And I said, dude, you just got a budget. You just got room for mistakes, you've got a guaranteed salary and you still have time to work on your side project other than the name of it, you know, and people like people get caught up on whether they rent or they don't like. Well, the bank owns the house, actually, not you. So let's not get too caught up on that.

You know, we sometimes our egos again get so caught up on the specifics of what it's supposed to look like. And yet what blows my mind, going back to the other thing you said about how you invest your time, I look at people like my wife. My wife has been a social worker different times or stay at home mom for most time that I've known her, one of the two or some variation. And she just knows what she wants to do.

And she's open to different things. She has a master's in public administration. She could go do different things, but she knows her work. So if I were to say to her, you've just traded your your life for dollars should be more like, well, I didn't even realize I was getting dogs. That's awesome. I got dollars because I was already doing what I wanted to do. And that's not everybody's path because, you know, I don't always get to do what I love and the money doesn't always follow.

So that's certainly not the case. But to your point, being very cognizant about, OK, well, what is it that you're wanting to do and then add in the age variable? Well, as you get older, there's certain things you can't do. And just that sense of appreciating the life and being able to let go of your attachment to what other people think about you and being able to create what you want, I think is a big deal.

And still remembering that. Well, yeah, I still want to make money. You know, money gives you opportunities.

It allows you to to to make things happen a certain way, speak a little bit more, if you don't mind, on maybe for the people that are. Trying to start something, you know, because there's so many options, there's there's all these at least as presented, so many options, they all seem so shiny and dazzling of, you know, starting, of course, in addition to that. And some of them, at least in my experience, are more tried and true and more likely to succeed.

And then some of them are more flash in the pan or are, to be more precise, they're much lower percentage possibilities.

What would what advice would you give to somebody who says, look, I my job is not abusive? Like, again, the person said, let's say the five year plan. What would you tell that person? OK, I really don't love this, but I can handle five years. So what should I do with those five years, do I just show up five years from now and say, OK, what would what would you tell that person or what have you found that works for people?

Oh, I love, love, love this question. Let's talk about this. I literally just yesterday was talking to another lawyer. He's a criminal defense attorney and he's getting burned out, you know, and he's like, I know you have this podcast and you're doing your teaching and you're doing all these things like because we went to law school together. So we both started it like the same square one. Right. We were both sitting in the same row, NewBay lawyers to be and and we've diverged.

But he sees me and what I'm doing. And he he's like me, you know, I can't do this forever. I am burning out. I have to live with my phone in my ear. And someday I'm not going to be able to do this for my clients. A criminal laws, it's really emotionally taxing. It's very time consuming. It's always on call. It's it's a different world. And I got so excited. I'm like, OK, let's put time on my calendar.

Let's just sit and noodle and let's think this through, like. What could you do, what he's actually thinking of real estate, which is why he mentioned this to me, because he knows I'm very involved in real estate. So he's like a kind of toying with the idea of going into real estate. But I have no idea what that even means to go into real estate. I'm like, oh, let me just. It's there's no one way to do it, it is, you know, it's this ultimate like.

Buffet, it's like a dessert buffet when you've got so many different things that you can do and choose to do. So I love this question because I would tell anybody the same thing I told him, which is. The possibilities are endless, there are more endless than you think. Personally, I'm conservative in my, like, financial, you know, I'm I'm a lawyer, which means in some ways I'm I joke about this, but I'm kind of a professional pessimist.

Like, I'm paid to look at all the potential, worse outcomes. And professionally, I have to, like, help people guard against those. But the optimism you can have for free, I don't charge for optimism like I am an optimist at heart, but I'm a trained pessimist. And it's so I am conservative. And I like to tell people, if you're especially if you're thinking of leaving a steady job and your family needs the benefits and you know, you're taking a huge leap and you don't have much saved up to be a cushion, do something that's not as speculative, like high risk.

High reward is really not for you to do something that's more tried and true lower risk. And maybe the return is not as crazy and speculative and high, but at least you will hedge your bets as they say, like you're going to sort of be a little cautious. And for a lot of people, that would be a great start. And then once they're established and they have a foothold, my husband's in ice climbing. Right. Which I am not.

But so ice climbing is a thing where you are climbing up some. Ice wall. But the trick is you have to, like, put in your I don't know, it's call, he'd kill me if he sees this right. He's like, you don't even know what it's called.

It's like it's the little things in the I think they're called davits. I'm not sure. Maybe. Yeah, but it's like this thing and you hammer it into the ice and you hope it doesn't crack right now. I'm right in and you've made a foothold like people need that first foothold in entrepreneurship. So now they're getting income coming in before they go to that next level, which would be maybe being a little higher risk, high reward, more speculative, more like investing big for something that could pay back real big.

But again, it's like in Vegas, I would be like sending a first time gambler to like the low stakes tables. I don't think you should head over to like, the ones where you can lose a fortune in one bad hand.

Yeah, absolutely. I know one of the things I try to remind people of is to say, look, just because somebody becomes an entrepreneur doesn't mean they all of a sudden manage their money well or their time well or the relationships will focus on those things. While you're doing this spend time, I mean, whether you work six days a week or four or five, make sure you make the most of the time. You already have the money. You already have the relationships.

You already have learned to set boundaries, learn to cut out the relationships. You don't want to invest time, the ones you don't or you do. Excuse me. And then also going back to the trading hours for dollars. This is one of those areas where I find sometimes people get a little optimistic. And so you don't ever want to trade hours for dollars. So hold on. But you know, LeBron James, you traded dollars for hours.

He's a salary. He's doing OK there. You know, little messy hours for dollars doing OK. And I think a lot of this is. Understanding that if you're starting something new, there's so many, you know, we called moonlighting, you know, there's so many Side-hustler that you can do that don't threaten your job that have nothing to do with your job. So we're not talking about trying to steal your, you know, your company secrets and sell them somewhere else.

Just completely, totally honest. Good. Just a different thing. And you can just start saying, OK, well, could I as a freelancer, do web design, do accounting, bookkeeping?

I mean, there's so many things if you'd like to set up work or whatever might be and just start earning an income and literally just start doing that and then at the same time look to be irreplaceable to your boss and over time start creating a situation where maybe two years, three years, nine of those five years, you know, you could leave and then you start telling your employer maybe, let's say at the, you know, middle of year for say, look, just so you know, my plan is in six months to head out.

But if you can keep me in this amount of income per hour, I'd love to work. I love you to be my one of my first clients or whoever it is. And guess what? Now, you don't have to pay me a no just to make Máximo instead of you pay me 25 bucks an hour all the time. You can pay me 50 bucks an hour for literally a tenth of the time. And I need to find more clients.

But you'll have the results that I get at a much lower total cost to you.

And again, there's so many different ways do that. And yes, you can still be working on your book, your podcast. Certainly a podcast is a long game. You can be working on your online courses. But I see some people that they'll spend six months creating an online course and if it bombs. Then they just last six months, I've got so many online courses that have popped and I've got some that have really worked and the majority of them have been a combination of all.

I'll do some coaching for you like your friend, and I'll say, OK, I'm going to actually use this course to supplement what you're doing or, you know, or to kind of justify why I'm charging this hourly amount and then say, hey, do this in addition. And so, like you said, there's so many ways to do it, but definitely don't give up your day job if you like it, if it's something you believe in. And just again, notice what start studying entrepreneurs, seen what they do that works.

But definitely having the money there gives you choices as an entrepreneur. But it also gives you choices as an employee when you can say it's like the rock band that says, well, I'm going to be a rock star. OK, what's your plan? Well, I've saved up money. I saved up one years of income. And I'm going to play, you know, I don't know, 250 gigs. So five nights a week, I'm playing gigs and I'm either going to become a rock star or not.

OK, that's one approach. And other approaches. Say, what if you had a side job? You can be playing gigs for like seven to 10 years. And if you really love it and you, why didn't your chances of experiences and learning and you get more if you were to use a baseball term, you get more that's more opportunities. And then and you might even if you enjoy it. Yeah. You enjoy the process.

So I think a lot of people sometimes when they want that short thing, it can be some of the most harmful advice. And even if someone said but no Wade you just said, you know, we're probably just said that she's had a baby, but no, but you'd been doing so much of the work that put you in that position to then say, OK, now I can do this, as opposed to just randomly doing that. So. Well, this is so cool.

Thank you so much for all this, because, again, I just I feel like people are are missing some of the practical stuff. And you do need to start a course for Solopreneur or something, attorneys or something, because whatever you're onto for your friend that's doing that genuinely. Wow. So if you're an attorney and want to start a family life, definitely get in touch with Slavia because she might not be able to make you a cheerleader if you're a guy and you've got hairy legs and whatnot.

I can't can't vouch for that.

But but yeah. So overall, if you were to tell somebody the difference between what your life was like as a cause, I think and then you did such a good job as a positively enjoying being, you know, not the victim, not know they were working me. So I know enjoying Taipei, you know, doing enjoying the type. Right. I've enjoyed it before. It can be really fun. What's been the difference between that and what it feels like now to be not perhaps not as many shiny objects, not as many big cases, not as many perhaps ego boost to that person who actually can kind of make that choice but is kind of going back and forth?

What would be OK, let's let's turn your attorney said what would be the pros and cons? What did you like about the one or how would you compare those to so that if somebody is wondering, you know, what's the difference between that and again, how might they kind of start exploring that without having to give up everything, without having to be so, so dramatic? Well, one of the things that I'm just very thankful for is that I got to do both.

I mean, I got to do both. Like, I got to live that, you know. Big office building going in and feeling like I'm working on important things and fancy lunches with clients and, you know, like I got to live that, which was great, and then now I get to have just this different world of more self direction, more entrepreneurship, more creativity. I mean, you know, when you work for someone else, let's say you're an employee, you can't always come up with new products or solutions or I mean, you know, you don't have that much autonomy you can.

And in some cases, you really do. So it depends on how your job has evolved with you and what you offer to the company, because you could actually be put in a position where you get to help decide and call some of the shots, which is great. So for me, I've gotten to do both and I feel very, very blessed that I've gotten to live both things. And it's going to look different for everybody. For some people, being an employee is going to be the best way to live their best life.

And I know a lot of those people I've talked to a lot of those people, and we sort of debate the merits and like pros and cons of of being an employee, of not being an employee. And and there's people that are very happy in their jobs. Very. And they've found a way one person in particular I'm thinking of only works four days a week and has currently Mondays off. So Tuesday through Fridays, their work schedule. And they're like, can I just love it?

Because I realized I hated Mondays and now I don't have Mondays. And on Friday, everyone at work is such a good mood that it's a great day to be there. So I love being at work on Fridays, this particular job. And and in this case, she did take a pay cut. So she actually told her employer, I'm going to be working 20 percent less and I'll take a 20 percent pay cut. So she didn't increase for hours on the other day.

She just truly but for her, the 20 percent less in income that she's making has given her like such a return on investment. Right. Having three day weekends every weekend has just really made the difference. And so, yeah, no, I believe in what you teach when you teach about a four. And I get it, it's not that everyone's necessarily going to end up with like a 4-Day Work Week. It's not a set formula. It's just it's really a philosophy on finding ways to make your job optimized for you, for your life.

So I encourage everyone to just and we can all like even you, me, people who preach the stuff right. We can continue to fine tune and what work for us a year ago maybe doesn't work for us today. And then we have to keep shifting again. None of this is set it and forget it. None of it. All of it is a journey and a continual analysis and change and challenging ourselves and our beliefs, challenging each other right.

Getting coaching like looking at each other's decisions and seeing if there is a way that putting another head in the puddle is going to even optimize further. So now I'm so appreciative that you've had me on today and that we get to talk about this stuff. It's important topics.

And just to be real clear with people, yeah, I even like with covid. I've for the majority, what, roughly March to August, I took on the five day workweek just because my kids were working or at school on Fridays anyway. So it's like, OK, they're home, there's nowhere for them to go. And then there was another part of me that said, gosh, our first responders are working. And I really feel like, OK, I'm going to do what I can to just contribute more.

So I'm going to get to work. And and so it was something that it definitely was a shift, certainly at times. Also, the beaches were closed. So that was even part of the variable as well. And then it was like, OK, I don't even want to go out, but I think you've got all this creative energy by you just going to sit here and say, no, I only work for days now. It's an evolution.

All right. So we've already we've already established that if attorneys need help getting down for life, they need to contact Slavia. We've already clarified that. Where can people hear about your your podcast? Where can I connect with you? And what, if anything, do you have going on that maybe people can take advantage of? So my podcast website is w w w dot Lifestyle Solopreneur dot com, and that's where you can hear the latest episodes and there's also a contact form if you want to reach out.

And for my law firm and Freney, lawyers feel free to connect any time. I mean, I do love to talk to not just lawyers, but anyone who's in a job where they're like, this was great for a while, but I'm ready to move on. What can I do? And that is at my law firm website, probably the best way to get in touch with me. And there's a rule that's easy to remember, and it's lawyer in flip flops, dot com.

Just picture me and my sandals on the beach. Just go to lawyer and flip flops, dot com. It'll take you to my website. Funny story about that. I had someone from Australia say, oh, flip flops. We call those thongs. I'm like, no, no, no, no. That's not the URL, everybody. It's lawyer in flip flops dot com. Because here in the US, that's not we don't call those shoes and let's not go there.

But so lawyer in flip flops, dot com and yeah, that's, that's pretty much what I'm working on right now is just I continue to teach real estate online at landlord prep dotcom. So for anybody that wants to learn to manage their own rental properties, better come join me at Landlord Prep Dotcom and hope to see you there. And let's all keep working. Let's all keep making our lives better and better. Awesome.

Thank you so much for coming out. Thank you much for sharing all that you're doing. And for those people that think it's. It's impossible, it's work, but it's not impossible, and I think you'd agree. I don't have this life that is so much better than anybody else. I don't think you do. But there are certain things I get to do. There's certain choices I get to make. And for me, the worth the work has been worth the ability to influence my life has been worth it.

So if you can help reach out to Favia, reach out to me and ask for the help and you help more people make more money and less time doing the best. So you can better enjoy your family, your friends in your life. Thanks for listening, everybody.