120. Effortless Success (Getting Paid for Being You) with Carlos Saba

That, for me, is about putting happiness at the core of your business, because ultimately, robots aren't happy. Processes don't get happy. Spreadsheets, don't get happy. It's the people who actually work with these things. Those are the people who experience that happiness. And that's always down to a feeling of purpose, meaning, and alignment.

Welcome, everybody. I'm so excited today to have Carlos Saba with us. He has so much to share that I think you're going to find really enlightening. He helps create spaces for people to discuss and define their role in the world before it's too late. He's a coach, speaker, podcaster and community builder who believes that we can all free ourselves to do the work we love if we allow ourselves the space and the time to create our own definition of success. Thank you so much for joining me, Carlos.

Yeah, you're welcome. I'm very excited to have this conversation and to throw around some ideas and maybe learn something. Share something awesome.

So one of the things that I really enjoyed, I got to meet you through a workshop you did on pricing. And that's such a interesting topic for entrepreneurs of how do you price in a way that's powerful. That's not predatory. That's not vanity like that's just so clear about what you deliver. And I learned so much from that. And one of the things you interest in that at least someone indirectly, was this sense of authenticity and being able to have it really feel that you're not trying to scam anybody, you're not trying to be a victim, you're trying to have it be clearly what you're worth when it comes to doing work that we love.

I think a lot of us run into all the stuff that goes on in our head about it being possible or not being possible in barriers, outer barriers. People tell us we're crazy. Whatever might be. What is it that you find, for the most part, stops people from doing the work they love? And how can they perhaps work on that?

Okay. There's a few, I would say, few hurdles, stroke terrains. I would say people would navigate on this journey to building a business based on doing stuff they love. So the first basic, simple one is, what is it I really love? And I think that's one of the deeper questions, the less easy ones to answer. It's very much to maybe put into context. I remember as a child at school, I used to be really jealous of kids. Usually you're quite smart kids who say I'm going to be a doctor or I'm going to be a lawyer.

I'm going to be an engineer and me thinking it's interesting, quite status, high status jobs, but none of them really interested me. I was not really interested in any of them. And so there's this feeling like, what is it I really want to do? I don't know. I don't really want to do. So there's that aspect of like, what is it I want to commit to because I think when you're not sure about what it is that you want to commit to the everything is a distraction because you're not sure what you're being distracted from.

So you kind of try everything, which is I think the thing to do is you then have to try everything and see what sticks and what helps. So that's one thing there's a question about how do I find what it is I really love and also that can get mixed up with I love watching football, or I love chilling out with my friends. Or I love baking cakes so that potentially could be a job mixed with. And within that there's potential gold around. I have a passion for or I really would love to create.

Or there are people I would love to work with and understanding that I think isn't just a a case of just introspection and thinking about what is it, what's my passion but also an exercise of just interacting with the world and doing things and seeing things and meeting people. So I would say, unless you're struck by lightning and there's like a love at first site with a job or calling, it just comes to you. It's a journey of experimentation. I think trying things out. And so the pressure to find or I need to do a job, do work, doing something I love.

Well, just like with any relationship, don't go too fast. Take your time. Lots of first dates. And I might go into how you do that.

So that's one aspect and I would jump in there real quick to you the whole time thing was dating. Just that just something simple. It's not high. I've met you. Our kids are going to be named blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's okay. And because there is that pressure that what if I don't figure it out. And as entrepreneurs were so big on lost opportunity, we know what that means. And what am I missing out on? Well, I've had a happy life. I'm 80. I see that.

But I didn't. Maybe you just had a happy life, so maybe it doesn't have to be that complex. So I didn't want to interrupt with him. But I thought that was just so brilliant because so many people I've done this for years. What if this is not the then love the one you win? I guess you know.

That'S an interesting point. There the whole when you're in a mindset that everything any decision you make becomes a potential lost opportunity because you missed on something else. If you take that with the relationships that it's like you ever going to stick with, have you ever going to meet? And so there I would say there's an element of trust, kind of trusting the you will make the right decision and trusting that if you do make a mistake, it's also rectifiable you will go down dead ends. And that's okay when we try and measure our progress against people who are much further advanced in their entrepreneurial or life journeys without understanding their context.

Because luck plays a part of this as much as anything else. Serendipity plays a part of this as much as anything else, as well as blood, sweat and tears and toil to to try and feel like there's a linear path to success and think that you just have to do A, B and C, and then you get to where you need to be. Then I think that can be a challenge. And it's a creative path. And the thing about creative paths that I've learned to understand is they're very, very messy to begin with and get messy again sometimes.

But there are moments where you stop at interesting places, and it's interesting. I remember a quote about art. Piece of art is never finished. It just stops at interesting places. And that for me, is if you can take that perspective on on life, which is a creative, and if you think of it as a creative journey of exploration, I think of entrepreneurship as a journey of self discovery. Then there's no, like end or there's no winning. And there's no like I'm done now, and it's finished.

It's just you're opening yourself up to stopping in interesting places.

And I love what you said. So two things, by the way, for those y'all listening or watching at the beginning. I know Carlos is like, wicked smart. And I said, okay, you're gonna do some stuff. And he did that whole British thing. Well, I'll see if I can say something useful, and he's just like dropping these things. So just so you know, that's the humility there. I think it's legit, but that's so profound. And it reminds me of something an author I read once said shotgun, and it was about similar concept related to spirituality, of people wanting to have or be these perfect, loving, unconditionally, accepting people.

And her take was luck. I don't know about what happens in the next life, if there's a next life or whatever. But maybe that's where you're going to be that. But here it's messy here on the human plane, it's messy and it's supposed to be messy. And I think with entrepreneurialism, with love, with finding your passion, it does go back to it. And I hate this quote. That the harder you work for something, the more you value. I hate it, but it's it's, for the most part, true.

As a parent, there's so much stuff I've done that I don't love doing that. I did because I love it. And I was thinking about that question, what would you do if you had $100 million in the bank? That's what your purpose and my understand. No, that's my ideal lifestyle, what I do with $100 million in the bank, my purpose or at least part of it is what I'll do. If you pay me nothing, I'll wake up in the middle of the night and feed the baby things like that.

And so so if we can get somewhere in the neighborhood of identifying what we love, what are the other obstacles? Because you and I talked in the pre interview a little bit about things, about all the voices in our head around the questions. What are they going to think? Is it going to work? What if I invest all this time? What do you find is the next thing that people run into? And how can they address that?

So that for me comes up to shrinks mind the word judgment. And so initially there's a self judgment. Am I allowed to do this? That's one big thing. And is this thing good? And then will other people judge me for doing it? And so I think this relates to again to that whole idea of who is the judge of this. Now, what is the measure of success around this? And there are if I'm thinking of the journey of a creative entrepreneur, there is value based on the experience of doing the thing for yourself, like, do you enjoy it?

Is it something you love? You find flow. Do you find meaning in this work? And then there's value in terms of will anyone pay you? Will anyone feel that they're going to get a benefit from what you do? And so there's intrinsic value based on what you feel is important. And then there's commercial value based on these metrics that people use, which is called money. And if you mix the two, then that can be a bit of a challenge. And so I think the next barrier for people when they're doing something they love is how do they communicate the value of what they do to other people?

And how do they understand who is they want to serve and what it is they want to achieve? Because if you can do that well, my belief is you can do quite a lot of things yourself that you love and make some money out of it. How much? Again, it's hard might not be in your control, but there is potential to make money out of all sorts of things. And we can see that on the Internet kind of stuff that people are able to make money off of.

That's actually, to us, maybe valueless completely valueless. But to someone out there, they'll pay ten hundred, maybe a $1,000 or something. The for us does not mean anything. And so I think there's that I think really tuning into that value is in the eye of the beholder. This is the thing I'm learning rather than value is something that I state. Value is only something that I sat in my eyes. And this is where sometimes a lot of people who are maybe they're crying or or doing something like performance, even like a coach, maybe even a podcast host, you create this thing and you say, okay, how many likes hits views do I get?

And that dictates the value? No, it just dictates how many people align with what you said and believe in what you say. The intrinsic value is something else. And so if I'm trying to clumsily say, is that don't get held back by the fact that everyone understands it. Oh, my God. You know, everyone's banging on my daughter to buy what I do or to watch why I'm creating, I think really focus on is who is it? I would really love to serve. Who is it that would really value the message that I'm trying to put out here or in the transformation I want to create?

And then how can I tell the right stories communicate in the right way? So I find more of those people and the people who I do find that want my thing really, really evaluate because it could be something that you do effortlessly is the most valuable thing, another person that we've seen.

Yeah, that reminds me so much of just my business journey as a 20 plus year entrepreneur. Still, the thing that pays the majority of my bills is something I never intended to create, a small software solution that a certain number of entrepreneurs find very valuable. It's not even truly my passion, but I'm really good at it. And it's one of those sort of blind talents and also gets back to what you said of the idea of what it's worth to the market. And that concept, I think, can be it can be manipulated and taken for Wade like, well, we sell our coaching for $10 million because and some people can run with that and be very persuasive.

And they leave in their trail a bunch of clients, they're dissatisfied. And the 31st day after the 31 back guarantee it's like, oh, gosh, why did I buy this? And I think for me that's at least the time has been a trigger. So I thought, I don't want to be that person. And I know that being in the conversation of I don't want to be blah or something is not a great place to be, because. Okay, what do I want to be? I want to be the person that's delivering something.

I want to be the person that is offering something. You mentioned another concept that's another buzzword in the last eight to ten years or so is story. And of course, the word has been around for so many years. But the idea of your story. And so again, you have all these courses now people telling their story. And some is more about how do I genuine tell story? And some is how do I tell a story in way, some way so I can sell you some stuff.

And that's okay too, depending on where you go with it. One of the things I find a lot of the audience members I have. And I imagine you might have a lot with the people you service again, wanting this to be genuine. So I feel good about what I'm selling that it really does feel like this this mix for this meeting of yes, I'm offering something that's truly valuable. And perhaps to your comment, not getting too caught up in what is the exact objectified value of this?

Because we'll never get that like the pet rock, the house that you value, or I don't value or whatever it is and whatever it sells at, how do you find that people who really do want to create value, they're what some people call heart center. They really want to make an impact. How can they get over? Well, first, what are the biggest challenges to selling the work that we're passionate about? And how do you tell people to start looking at those.

When you're talking? What sprang to mind is a lot of people who are in the space of kind of social impact and social entrepreneurs think that, for me, is quite specific case where there are people who are really driven by purpose and really driven by a need to serve. And maybe they're also doing it from a place of flow. And they have the skills. But it's a really hard thing to sell. If you are working with disadvantaged mothers trying to help them manage their finances or something, or trying to help them educate the kids, it becomes a challenge, right.

How do you sell that? And so you then have to think about creative ways to generate revenue from that to make that work. And I won't go into all the different ways you can do that. But it's a harder thing to kind of, yeah, come to terms with and how you match that. And then there are other aspects around. I think if there is, there is work that has some kind of immediate calculable value value. It's just a case of being able to have the right conversations with people to understand, help them understand the value of what you do.

And this is where the storytelling part, I think, comes very important because, for instance, we I was talking to someone today about running a course on resilience and avoiding burnout. It's not an easy one to do in terms of something that people want to buy. Firstly, who's going to admit, maybe more people these days, but it's going to emit most I'm burning out. And so I need to do a course on it. And Secondly, how do you put value on a course like that? What is the monetary value of a course that teaches you not to go get burnt out, particularly if people don't know when they burn out or don't know when they're just about to get burned out?

Because that's the thing about burner. You never know that you're actually burning out and SaaS on club house today, listening to a conversation some women talking about well being in business and what this woman says she spent five months trying to recover from burnout. So Wade me think if you could say, how much revenue did you lose in those five months of burnout, even if you $5,000 a month, that's conservative, for instance, it's 25 grand. How much is that worth avoiding that 25 grand missing missed opportunities to really be really crude.

But then at least then that starts to help people understand. If I spent $1,000 on this course, I could potentially avoid that. And then that starts to also then make you a bit clear about who you serve because you can't serve someone who's only earning $1,000 a month. They might think. I'm not sure. Not really. It's a bit more painful, but if they're earning $10,000 a month or whatever, that's a loss. And $1,000 is nothing compared to that loss. So there's a very crude way of just kind of helping people, because sometimes we do.

And this is the storytelling part, the selling part, the part that people might feel is inauthentic and a bit icky and used car salesman. But the storytelling is to help people understand the value for themselves. You don't have to. It's not about manipulating them is then giving them informed choice, because maybe they just don't have enough information to choose you.

Yeah, I come from the insurance background. So much of the insurance conversation is avoiding loss. Nobody wants, just like the burn out. Nobody wants to talk about it until something happens. And so usually the conversation is, well, look, here's your financial goals. We want these what happens if you can't work. And to your point, your income is X amount. What is it worth to protect that? And that happens to be called disability insurance. At least the United States, it is. And it's still not a sexy conversation.

It's not a fun conversation, but it can be a very meaningful conversation. And if you're somebody that's had your life impacted by that, all of a sudden, there's that passion that you mentioned. That's a huge part to it. And I know for me one of the things that I've looked at your pricing course, helping with, and even just some of the conversation around. It was also just remembering that to your point about the person that's losing a thousand a month versus 5000 a month versus 10,000 a month.

Again, that might even reflect different whether it's product levels or pricing levels. One might be your book, that's $10.01 might be your course. One might be your coaching, and that's taken me even. Still, sometimes it's hard for me to wrap my head around you. I've had some people say, Wait, if you're gonna help somebody make X percent more. Well, if they have three more zeroes after their income, it's worth more to them. And if they don't. And the part of this not almost feels like I'm stealing from people because I just gave it to go, well know, because usually also someone with three more zeroes, there's going to be more complexity.

It's not just going to be here's my ebook, that's 20 pages and all of a sudden boom, it happened. Usually there's going to be more going on there. But I think that's the part where, at least for me, one of the things is on my journey of getting my Masters degree in psychology. Then realizing that I ran to the same challenges with my coaching clients is that some implemented, some didn't some care, some I thought, okay, well, I can either make 30,000 a year or I can make a lot more than that.

And at that time, I happened have met the woman that became my wife. She's like, okay, I don't want to be living off in 30,000 a year. So that Wade, that really, really simple. Some practicality. And in that even world. And I was working at a place called Covenant House as runaway shelter. And there were kids there that had all sorts of things going on. Some were truly homeless, some were running away. Some was mom and dad won't let me do access until three in the morning and come in the house.

So they kicked me out. So again, different levels of what one might call homelessness. And even in that world, there was a small percentage rest. Maybe about one out of 20 kids would really just pull what was being offered, and the entire staff would move to support this kid because they thought, oh, wow, this person really gets it. They really want to improve their life. They really want to. And one of the things that reminded me with a lot of this with the pricing was, okay, look, I can always still have a scholarship, or I can always find that person.

I can always even just say, hey, because there is such a currency difference in the world was six out of seven. And the people in the world live off of what, less than $32 a day if the book Factfulness and the information that has Rosing is accurate. So I'm making a lot more than $32 a day. I still want to be able to help those people. And so I think there's ways we can do that. And yet the challenge then becomes, oh, gosh, Wade, now you're asking me to save the planet.

And it seems so huge. How then can you turn that into something where you're still achieving more, but either doing less or being reasonable with your time without trying to save the world as you talk with these social entrepeneurs and these causes that again, can pull on our heart strings so much that can make us become financially or make financially unwise decisions which then can hurt our family situation and do other things that aren't good. How do you balance that? And how can you perhaps work on leverage or leverage your passion in a way that allows you to still tap in areas but still have a balanced life in a happy life.

I'm assuming we're talking about how do we make money, do good and be happy at the same time? Yeah.

I figure you might know a couple of things about that.

All right. So the first thing is, there's no civil budget, there's no strategy or process that allows you to then find that perfect balance. But I think there's an awareness that we can have that can help us when we might beer too far one way and allow us to make a conscious decision because, you know, there are some massive issues in the world and big problems. And I think the difficulty it comes not from spending too much time on those missions and those objectives that impact and then maybe neglecting other parts of your life, whether it's money or happiness, not doing neglecting those things isn't the problem.

It's resisting and judging yourself for negating those things if you make a decision. So I'm going to spend my time, I don't know, driving a meal truck around so I can make sure all these old people can get their food and regular time. And that means I can't actually pick up my kids at a certain time. If you do that and beat yourself up every single day for doing it, then you need to think about it. But if you make a conscious decision, I'm going to put this in place in the right way.

My partner, we're going to make an agreement. They are going to do the child care, or we're going to paying money to help us. If you can do that and not be and face the judgment that people might have around that lifestyle. But you do that with integrity because you believe in what you're doing. You don't second guess yourself, then that's fine. This is the whole part about being able to be clear about the work we do and define or create our own definitions of success.

I think it all comes down to our own, aligning with our values and aligning with what we believe. Now, as a parent, I might think I don't know. Does that really help your kids if they don't see you as much as they could? That's my own perspective, though. And I think in the world where we are so easy to go black or white and really don't allow ourselves to dance with nuance and really understand that actually no one is truly right or truly wrong. We all live with our own context and our needs and are defined by the experiences and upbringings we've had.

Then we can be a bit more forgiving not only to others but to ourselves to then do the work that we need to do in the way that works best for us. I think the foundational part of all of this is really just being aware of what where happiness and meaning can come from and again without trying to be dogmatic. The thing that really helped me when I'm thinking about this is a dynamic equilibrium between being and doing and self and others. I think a lot of people, particularly in the space of impact of social impact, can find themselves in the space of doing for others.

And you can also people who are workaholics are essentially doing for others. You could argue that because of what they're trying to please their parents or please their peers by looking like they can do all of this work. And if you do that unconsciously, then I think that's where you can find yourself in challenging places emotionally. But if you can realize actually, I think I need to be on my own for a bit, or I think I need to just stop or I think I initially spent time with my family, or I think I need to learn and find other areas of your life that can compensate or bring you back into a bit more equilibrium.

Then I think then you have a better chance of making more conscious decisions where you're not basically running a hundred miles all the time, like there are peaks and troughs to all of this and to consciously slow down and speed up when it's needed or to make the hard decisions and say, okay, fine. I have to do this now. I'm sorry. I can't beat to bed kids. Yes. You're trying. Really sorry. I have to go away. Go. Go away for a week. Sorry, wife or husband mind.

But this is important to me being able to negotiate those challenges. Then I think we can be in a better place to do the work we love without hurting other people, still create value and not burn out.

Yeah. I think there's so much in that. I just think about just how ineffective and unproductive and unprofitable whatever word you want to use it is to be unhappy. And just if you think of all the different ways you mentioned the person that's trying to overcompensate the person, all these different situations, the person that's judging too much as a father with a fortune year on a twelve year old. I was so clear that because I was raised by a stay at home mom, that was the right way to do things.

And now my kids are 14 to him and I see the pros, and I see the cons and the pros and the cons actually have nothing to do with the mom staying at home or not? It has to do with other variables that are more about. Are we present when we talk to them? Can we be present? And yes, are we happy people? I remember reading the study that talked about that. There was a survey or study done that showed that a variable for parents and their kids happiness with the regulations with the parents was less impacted by what time the parents came home from work and more impacted by how present the parent was and how happy the parent reported their job.

So this was like they were looking for a and they found be truly like science, not an experiment, not we're looking to prove a and therefore we found a shocker. But they were thinking it was okay. What time did they come home? That's going to be the issue. But they had thank God taken a bunch of other data points, and one of the points was how satisfied is that parent with their job? And that was more of an indicator of the quality relationship with the child and the happiness of the self reported.

Again, also report of the child. And it reminds me of something that you said, which I love so much was the idea of and again, a balancing of thinking about the money, not worrying about it being in a place where, yes, we need to make that work, but it doesn't have to be the end. All be all. And I think about how that ties into also our embarrassment. Am I being responsible or irresponsible and all these different things? And I think so much of it is being humble enough to say, look, that's their path.

This is my path. And of course, if they're saying, hey, it's not working out. I need help. Of course, that's where we hopefully step in as professionals or point them to somebody who can help. But I know for me there's so much that goes on in my head. And at least the school system has told me I'm smart and I know so many different ways that I'm not very intelligent and just to see all the different ways that if we just get these ideas out of our head and all the drama that all the energy that spent making it right, make it wrong.

Why do they just Wade it and just do you have any energy to do your work when we get in that place, as opposed to just doing it and something you said, I would love you to expand on, if you don't mind, is just the basic concept is been said before. What are you going to do when you're on your death bed? What do you want to be able to say? You did not to impress somebody else, but for your own self? How does that tie in?

Do you think to how important it is for us to not necessarily get paid for the work we love, but somewhere in our life that if we have a passion to do it, I realized I didn't mean to turn that into leading question because that assumes that somebody doesn't have to make their money. My experience is you don't have to make your money in your passion. Maybe you're a violent player and you do it outside and then you wait tables reopen the question. What have you found?

Both in the sense of do the two have to be the same where it makes you money? And then how do you tie that into just your overall journey?

So we're talking about death, I think, and how that can well, the way I look at it, how that can give us a sense of perspective of what's important and what's not important. I think the challenge again, with people who don't necessarily do what they love or maybe get totally obsessed with one thing, and that's all they do. I think it's trying to put yourself in a place of not regretting, I think, and living from a place of clear intention. So when I think about that whole kind of death bed meditation or practice, one of the three questions that I've heard people so you can ask when you think about that is what have I learned?

What have I experienced? And how have I contributed to other people's lives and using those three questions as a way to create some focus as to where you want to spend your time? Because I love playing Fortnite on the PC, and I enjoy benching out on the Mandalorian on Netflix. Other streaming services are available.

But.

There are other distractions that come into our lives around opportunities for work or people to meet or podcast to be on. And I think is being able to instinctively and intuitively decide whether those are things you want to do or follow or things that you want to reject and ignore. And I think having that kind of image at the end of days, what is it I want to be able to say about the things that I've experienced in life are the things I've learned or the way I've helped.

And then what is the theme? If there are any that joins them, then it becomes easier to say, okay, I'm going to commit to this and I'm going to spend a year doing this, or I'm going to talk to Wade, or I'm going to spend half a day on club house exploring weird conversations. Like for me, learning is a very big part of a very core need for me. I always feel like I want to learn new things, and I always want to connect, particularly through conversation.

And so I'm very drawn and I'm allowing myself to then to follow those those opportunities. I am not. I don't like to feel like a sheep, like I'm just following other people. I'm just listening passively to things or being told what to do. I like to experience stuff. So I'm not going to go to a massive conference or I'm not going to go and listen to someone, just one person talk at me. And a lot of times I don't even want to read a book because it just feels it doesn't satisfy that need to engage and learn through engagement.

So it starts to help me by thinking about this. It's hard to help me how what things I want to commit to and what the things I want to do. I found the community building, coaching, learning, essentially learning how business works at a real kind of basic psychological level, more than everything else, understanding how that relates to our own happiness. That stuff fascinates me and enjoy it. And I enjoy it. And at the end of days to be able to say, wow, I met all these people.

I learned these things. I went to these places and I had these experiences. Okay. I think I'm starting to see how that fits into the way I want to behave and the choices I want to make.

Yeah. I love that so much. And it's something that I talked about was just checking in with what's mean for you right now. And that's something I remember hearing once in a detector audio. And it was just something where I said, Trust your instinct, whatever is the next right thing is usually going to service for you, just your intuition, whatever you want to call that. His point was about not judging your instincts. Obviously, we're assuming we're not talking about illegal things or things that harm other people.

But just that idea of, rather than getting so clear of what it's supposed to be, all this judgment makes it very difficult to get to what that thing is. And as you said, there's things we just can't understand as far as why we like certain things. Why? But we like to. And I like playing beach bubble. If you ask me to run from here ten yards, I have no desire to run if you put a ball in front of me in 90 degrees, and I will run for three, 5 hours, and that's in some rules that go figure.

So that's kind of the way I guess we are. And we try to understand that one of the other things we talked about in the preinterviews reframing your definition of success. And again, kind of taking ownership of that and making it your own. What would you say to that to that person? That's saying I'm struggling with even defining success. What is success? What would be good? What would you tell that person when we perhaps balance what might be things that sound like truth? Like, hey, enough people say, well, if you're doing what you love, that that's some sort of version of success.

Some would say money or this that versus. Oh, no, no. This is what tells me inside. How do you balance those?

So it depends. I think we consider success of final destination, and it relates to what we talked about before about actually, it's stopping interesting points or interesting places. And so if you are doing a road trip or if I was going to do a road trip around the US, is success reaching the West Coast or is success? Oh, I'm at the Yellowstone Park. Oh, now I'm watching looking over the Grand Canyon. Oh, oh, I'm in Portland and checking out the massive at Oregon River. My geography is really bad and I picked really bad analogy.

You're talking to somebody who lives in America. You're fine. There's no worries. Most of my audience at the moment is American North American, United States of America. You're good man.

What I'm doing this journey for is the experiences along the way and the success comes from the richness of those experiences. If success is the tangible numeric measurable thing, well then what happens when you've got that? What's next? I'm not saying a thousand followers or 10,000 followers or a certain amount of money in the bank or a number of houses or number of friends isn't success. It's just then what next? And so to define to be caught up. Alright. Success stops when you get to a certain place is potentially damaging and challenging.

And a desire to a number or something very tangible or physical can be challenging because ultimately it's a feeling. I think when we can feel successful, whether we achieve the goal or not, then I think that's a useful way to look at things. And then it's the case. What is that feeling? Where does that feeling come from? And the way I look at it, the way I understand it these days is we experience pleasant or unpleasant feelings depending on the needs that our core emotional needs that are being met or unmet.

So, for instance, I have a need for learning. And if I'm learning or engaging with people, I have real feeling joy of happiness aliveness. And so right now I'm feeling successful. This is like amazing. I'm talking to Wade across the Atlantic, you know, who would have known.

But.

Also on the flip side, if I feel down or feel low for our pleasant, I then know, actually, I'm not close to my metric of success and those metrics of success tie to needs and the beneficial feelings that you get from addressing those needs. And then I would say the journey is always tapping into what are these needs? How have they evolved? Where do they come from? And maybe what new needs? Do I start to cultivate because I become more sophisticated in understanding what success means to me?

Awesome. Thank you. So you have a community that you co lead with a friend of yours, a partner of yours who you've been in business with for years. It's called the Happy Startup Online community, and I want to just go to a couple of questions. Specifically, I just mentioned that also, people know the context because I don't think we mentioned at the beginning that's something you help people a lot with when people start to take this. And I know in my journey this was the case and they start saying, okay, I've got this idea.

I want to be passionate about something. I still have bills to pay. How can people make starting a business less scary. How can they anchor in things that are more grounded, like money and paying bills and making sure we can afford this? So that the person who says, Well, yeah. Wait. I have kids. I'm not single anymore living in my parents house where I can just drop 80 hours a week on something for the next eight years and hope something happens. I have these things, so I already have a pretty good life.

I don't want to give it all up. And yet I want to start something. How can people do it in a way that's practical and yet less scary so they can actually take action?

Okay. I like to answer that two levels, a deeper, more challenging level and maybe a more tactical strategic level. I'll start with a deeper, more challenging level. I feel that that question is always rooted in the idea of safety, safety and security. I think starting something new and not knowing whether you'll make the right money can challenge your own sense of security and safety. And if you have a responsibility to family their safety, potential safety and security and mixed in with that is all the judgment around the responsibility or irresponsibility of jeopardizing that safety and security.

The very simple answer is not giving a like, okay, kids, we might lose our house, but it's going to be a fun journey along the way. I still love you. We'll work it out some way. I might have to work in the burger van for the rest of my life, but there's this real interesting thing that we could do here, and it's going to benefit the world, and it's going to be really impactful. It's not an easy thing for people to do, but just a facetious way of thinking about it is very linked to what does it mean to be a responsible person?

And what does it mean to really to live a responsible adult life?

A.

Kind of tactical and strategic level, like, again, link to the safety is like, don't risk too much. Then what's your appetite for risk? What is the paradigm you're working? And how can you start something with spending as little money as possible? And one way to derisk anything is to know, actually, does anybody want the thing you want to create? And that involves storytelling. So why are you doing this thing in the first place? What is the change you're trying to make in people's lives so people can actually understand why you're doing it not what you're doing, why you're doing it, then engaging with people with that story.

So you understand, are the assumptions you make about the problems they're facing or the things they want in life? Is that a real thing or is that just in your head and just you think about it or where do these people hang out? Really? Are you trying to sell something? Are you trying to sell ice to Eskimos? And it's like we don't care about this here and then through that conversation, deeper connection, building the trust, building the community around you, building the audience, if you want to call it that as well.

And and being able to when we're going back to the pricing thing? No. What is the value of the outcome that you want to create for them? And what is the value of you taking away the obstacle or providing the service that helps them achieve the outcome or the feeling that they're looking for? And if you can do that without building anything, without spending too much money, essentially, if you can bootstrap it along the way where you're not seeking funding or investment or taking money from friends and family until you need to until, you know, actually, there's a good chance.

The thing that's blocking me isn't, is this a good idea or whether people want it just doesn't have enough money to build the stuff, saying, okay, you have a bad chance of transitioning from doing the nine to five. That's what you're doing at the time or running one business to then transition to another business. And that's very much our story. We used to run a very successful digital agency, and we just closed it down to do the Happy Startup score. It was a partially a leap of faith, but also Wade proven that there was a need.

There was a need for stuff that we could create, whether that Wade experiences coaching, training, and we had built a community around that. And we've evolved over the past six years doing lots of different things, but with the same people with the same values, with the same aspirations. And this has been like, nearly a ten year journey. And so we didn't just stop and start a new thing. There was a good overlap of a couple of years while we're testing the idea around and connecting with the right people?

Awesome. Thank you. Two more questions for you. Number one, what's the best way that you found to either tune out or address the fearful or negative voices from others where they come from within?

I wish I knew the answer to that. Then I'd be like, so happy. That's a really interesting one. I'm I'll take it a very personal level in terms of, you know, for me, who are the negative voices? I think for a while the negative voices were my parents voices in terms of, oh, you need to be better. Oh, that's not good enough. Look at what that person did. Can you be better than them kind of thing? Or maybe not even appreciating the hard work? So this is a sense of I need to if this isn't perfect, then I'm not going to do it.

Oh, my God. I'm scared if I do this and someone judges it. I don't think I can show it to anyone. And what help for me? I was just talking to my parents, not even like questioning directly, just understanding more about how they grew up and how they evolved in what context they were in. So in the broader level, I think it's really self knowledge, understanding where are these limiting where these fears actually coming from? And how can you accept them in my case and say, okay, cool.

They're part of me. I know when they're coming up, can I take a breath and respond differently rather than instinctively? Which is the interesting part when we talk about intuition and instinct when making decisions, but rather from unconsciously and using unconscious instinct in the react flight type mode to. Okay, I'm going to do this right now. I know I'm going to actually act this way because that's my habit. Is this the most useful thing to do? So I think there's mindfulness, there's being a community, there's talking it out with close entrepreneurs or friends or people that understand that journey and then through that, learning more about yourself and what triggers you and how you can overcome those triggers.

Awesome. Thank you. And then the last thing I just want to let the people listing, there's so much work you all are doing from the courses you all have the community and something that I just dabbled into a little bit and I really liked was your focus of putting happiness at the core of your business model. Can you explain a little bit about what that means, what that looks like?

So for me, it's about how do you create something that's not only financially but also energetically sustainable is very proven that people can make very successful, very financially lucrative businesses but feel completely burn out and feel completely unhappy. So my promise is really about if we can tune in to what happiness really means, not just the pleasant, fluffy feelings. It's for me, it's very linked to meaning, purpose and alignment. And when we are building businesses, checking in that this is really something that serves me as well as see other people, so that you're not doing building business because that's the way businesses are built, or that's what you expected to you.

That's how they do it. So I'm going to do it the same way, but more around, actually. How do I want to experience business? Do I want to be there for my friends and family? Do I want to be able to work remotely? Do I want to have a place that feels like a structure, a physical place where I can work and serve people, having those conscious needs met. And this is what we're going to get back to the needs and then designing the business around that rather than what's the business model?

What's the market opportunity? What's the customer who's the early adopter rather than just only focusing on the strategy and tactics of business, but also on the humans who are inhabiting and executing in that business? That, for me, is about putting happiness at the core of your business, because ultimately, robots aren't happy processes don't get happy spreadsheets, don't get happy. The people who actually work with these things, those are the people who experience that happiness. And that's always down to a feeling of purpose, meaning and alignment.

Wow. You just ended like that. Boom. That's so wow. I think of that quote, and I'm going to Butcher the quote, but the idea that change is dependent upon unreasonable people. And I forget the whole quote, but basically that all changes comes from unreasonable people. Therefore, like where the unreasonable people that say, no, I don't want to do what's rational. I don't want to do what's reasonable. I want to do what I want to do and not in some egotistic way, but in a way that says, yeah, this is my path.

This is what I'm doing. And again, as we've talked about, this is how I can serve and how it all connects. Thank you so much. You've shared so much. I think our audience is going to love. Where can people find out more about your work?

So our website is the Happy Startup School dot com. You'll find this on all social media channels under the username Happy Startups. So whether that's Instagram Twitter? I'm not sure if we got a tick Tock account, actually. But anyway, and yeah, if you want to listen to some of the people that are in our community and some of the ideas and thoughts they have, there's a podcast, the Happy Entrepreneur Podcast, and you can get to it by going to a happy one word dot link. So a happy dot link for a podcast and more stories from people who kind of were challenging ideas and different ways of looking at life and work.

Awesome. Thank you so much. And I'll get those links and we'll make sure we put those in. Thank you all so much. Again, I can suggest you all check out what, what he's doing, what they're doing really awesome work. I've experienced some of it and already made an impact on my business. So again, thank you for coming out and having this conversation. And as always, look forward to helping you all help more people 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.