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Freelance to Freedom (with Vincent Pugliese) · The Daily Writer

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, welcome to episode 95 of the Born to Create podcast.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Kent Sanders, and this is the show where we explore the mindset, habits, and skills to help you make a bigger impact in your creative work.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever wondered what true creative freedom looks like?
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: People may define freedom differently, but for many of us, freedom means being able to do what you want to do when you want to do it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: And my guest today, Vincent Puglisi, will break down what true freedom means as a creative entrepreneur and how freelancing can be a big part of that process.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent was a professional photojournalist for more than 23 years.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: He was assigned to photograph four U.S.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: presidents in nearly every major sporting event, including multiple Super Bowls, the World Series, the NHL Final, the NCAA Final Four, and everything in between.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent's work has been published in most major newspapers, magazines, and online publications throughout the world.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent now coaches and leads small business owners and freelancers toward a life of time, money, and location freedom.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: You can read his story in his excellent book, Freelance to Freedom.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: He is husband to Elizabeth, who works alongside him in their business and is a father to their boys.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the bio part of my introduction, but let me share how Vincent has impacted my life.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: A few months ago I joined his Total Life Freedom Community, and my monthly investment in that community is really, really small compared to the immense value that I feel I've received from that.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I can tell you firsthand that Vincent is not only a phenomenal business coach and a mentor, he's also one of the most generous and positive people that I know.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: I'd also recommend that you check out Vincent's podcast, which is called Total Life Freedom.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: It's a daily show and every episode is only a few minutes long.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're interested in building a business as a creative entrepreneur and you can only listen to one podcast, I'm going to suggest that you listen to his.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Even if that means abandoning my podcast.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, it's really that good.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're only going to listen to one show, listen to his.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now fortunately, his show's pretty short, so I hope that you'll listen to both of ours.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: So just a side note, whenever we recorded this episode, Vincent's podcast hadn't launched yet, but it's been live now for a little while, and there's over a hundred fantastic episodes.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: So this conversation is all about why it's important to work toward freedom in your life, and how freelancing can be the vehicle for helping you to get there.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to learn about the value of writing a book and how it brings you credibility.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to learn why it's important to be generous, how to properly build a network, and you're also going to learn some wise thoughts on how to choose your side gig whenever you're starting out a business.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: After you listen to the episode, be sure to check out the show notes at KentSanders.net slash zero nine five.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: All right, let's get to the conversation with my friend Vincent Puglisi.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Vincent, I've been really looking forward to this.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for making time to chat with me today.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's my pleasure.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So let's begin with the title of your book, which is Freelance to Freedom.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: First of all, it's a great title.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if that was if that was your doing or the publishers, but that was a genius title.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Um But what does exactly freelance to freedom mean?
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: Can you break that down for us?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for me, it it it was a title that just popped into my head um years ago.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_03: And what's funny is we never even got the domain, so there's other people doing stuff with freelance to freedom, so we don't even owe the domain for it, even though we have the book.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's such as life, and that's which is no problem for me.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it came about as it just popped into my head one day, and as as probably by any good ideas I have, they're just random.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_03: I just heard that title in my head, so I wrote it down, but I had no meaning to do anything with it.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_03: I had always wanted to write a book and I talked about it.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: So I did probably two years of notes, stories that I was writing without actually writing a book, and I would talk about it, and my wife would hear it, and then one day we were on a month-long vacation in in Texas, and she said to me, She goes, Okay, I'm taking the kids to the beach.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: I want you to go to the coffee stop, coffee shop and start writing the book.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_03: I'm tired of hearing you talk about it.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: Go write the book.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_03: That that's how it started.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: Her like basically saying, Shut up and go do it.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_03: So it it lingered for a while.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: So for everybody who's listening who has they have a book idea or maybe multiple book ideas, but they haven't yet written a book.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Their first what would you say that a book has done for you and what could a book do for someone else?
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_03: It's been absolutely amazing what it's come from it.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, the credibility, which I didn't anticipate, you know, because before you before you write a book, you have certain ways that you're approached, and then after you have a book, and just people coming to me for speaking engagements, people coming to me for coaching, people coming to me for advice, people just looking at like all of a sudden I'm an authority, and I'm like, you're ridiculous.
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_03: Like, don't look at me like on the authority.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_03: I just wrote I just wrote a book, but people look at you, they put you up on a higher level, and you know, I think you have to have the whole like be able to laugh about all that stuff because I don't take it very seriously, but right it really does elevate your business persona in a lot of people's eyes.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: There is still something magical.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, even with all of social media stuff that we have today and all the different things, blogs and podcasts and stuff, there's still something very magical about handing someone a print book.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_03: There's no doubt, and I think it's even more now than before because I think there's so many people doing so many different things that when I literally when I hand people a book, they hold it, they go, Well, this is real.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_03: Like you really wrote a book.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, yeah, it wasn't just it wasn't a blog post.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like, we did the whole thing, got a publisher, the whole thing.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_03: And I think, especially with that getting a publisher, people go, Oh, somebody else, because even Seth Godin, which is awesome, he endorsed the book.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: And one of his he said in a podcast with Tim Ferris that one of his uh criteria for reviewing a book is they have to have a publisher.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: And so even having the publisher elevated, even in terms of you know, influencers' eyes.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_03: So that really helped.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now you have kind of a uh, I'm not gonna say a contrarian point of view.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: Contrarian isn't the right word, but it's an unexpected point of view on giving your book away and just being very generous with that.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk about your perspective on that and what Seth Godin taught you about that?
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was I was at one of his Q ⁇ A's in New York City and um and I asked him a question.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: I said, before the book came out, I said, um, okay, so I have this book coming out and it's being published by Morgan James.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_03: What what I asked him, what am I what did I ask him?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_03: I said, what am I gonna know now?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_03: What am I gonna know in three years that I wish I knew now?
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: Is what I said.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_03: And he said something to the effect of, you will wish you didn't count on your publisher to market your book for you.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: So okay.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, and you will wish that you got the book into 10,000 people's hands any way you could.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: I said, okay, cool.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: Completely different advice than what I expected.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because everybody's going to be a New York Times bestseller, right?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or a bestseller.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I joke, I said, I think I'm I'm a non-best selling author because I think I'm the only one left, because everybody else is a best-selling author.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, because they sold 27 copies, right?
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_03: I'm a non-best selling author.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_03: So my claim to fame is I'm the only like non-best selling author in the world.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think, you know, among sort of people in our circles that that we know, you know, people who write a lot of books and who do blogging and podcasting and speaking, you know, sort of the creative slash entrepreneur community, people people tend to uh I think not take that bestseller title as seriously as they used to, because you know, you can have a bestseller in a really niche market on Amazon for an hour, and then you can literally call it a bestseller, but then you're like, okay, is it really a bestseller?
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_03: And it's taught that way, unfortunately.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_03: People are actually teaching how to do that.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: So you sold 29 books and I think it's kind of empty, right?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_03: It's like, yeah, I mean, that's fine.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not putting anybody down, but we just our approach was was a lot everything in terms of what Seth was saying to me, as opposed to what's what's a what's a quick hack to get some publicity or to get some label on my book.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't care about any of that stuff.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_03: So I did what Seth told me.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: I know I didn't give away 10,000 books, but I gave away a lot of books.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and I gave a lot of way, you know, e-copies and then physical books, and I still do because, you know, to going by those teachings, like you want the idea to spread.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not about making money off of selling a book.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_03: That's never been my purpose.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_03: It was about getting the word out.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, there's two reasons.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_03: You want the word to get out because you want people to read it.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if I give you the book, maybe you're gonna read it and and get something from it quicker than if you actually had to go buy it.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_03: And the other thing is the more that people talk about it, the more the idea is spread, which helps everything that we're doing.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_03: So that was the approach.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the strategies that you used for giving away the book?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, obviously you don't walk around with an armload of books and just going, hey, you want my book?
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, you want my book.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, you've you've thought this out some, and there are certain situations where you give it away and certain situations where maybe you you don't, but how do you figure out how to give your book away and get it into people's hands without being pushy or annoying?
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well, the first thing I did before the book came out, and I had a strategy with this before a year before the book came out, you know, I'm very one thing that I'm good at it's it's connection.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_03: It's reaching out to people, keeping in touch with people.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_03: I that's I consider that a big part of my business, more than just creating content.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_03: It's connection, it's relationship, it's helping other people, it's promoting other people's stuff.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_03: Like I just believe in that.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: And so when I was messaging with people all throughout this year, you know, invariably when you ask somebody how they're doing, if they're not, you know, just completely self-involved, they're also gonna ask you how you're doing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what kind of happened.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_03: People were like, oh, so what are you up to?
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_03: Or do that, or maybe they saw that I was writing a book.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_03: And we talked about it.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_03: And what I would say to anybody, hey, if you want to read it, let me know.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_03: I'll send you a I'll send you a PDF copy of it, like right now, even as it was being written.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: And what happened was over that year, I got so many responses back of like, oh, this is great.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_03: Or I had one guy, Sam Lynch, who actually became part of my mastermind.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_03: He said, You got this story in the book about your dad, and it's like buried in the second part of the book.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: He goes, if that was near the front of the book, that would be powerful.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: But I literally changed it upon his recommendation.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_03: And that story being in the front of the book has, you know, so many people said, like, that is when they got hooked into the book.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_03: So without giving it away for free, that wouldn't happen.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: So I gave away hundreds then, and also even when the book was published, we went on a thank you tour.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't go on a book tour.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: We drove around the country as a family and giving books to all the people that helped us.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's all the influential people that endorsed the book.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_03: So we gave away hundreds of books then.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: So just making a game of it, having fun with it.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about the content of the book, Freelance to Freedom.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Can you break that down for us?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean by freelance to freedom?
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: And give us kind of like a quick flips notes version of the book.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, what I mean by it was I was a I was never a good employee, but I kind of I don't know how it happened.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_03: I went from being a freelance photographer to being almost convinced that I should get a job because of security.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_03: So I got a newspaper job.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_03: That's where I met my wife.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_03: Actually, I met her at college and we got a job together at a newspaper in Indiana, and I found myself immediately being like, this is not for me.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_03: I am not an employee.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: I need to be on my own.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_03: But I was stuck.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_03: You know, then we got into debt, we bought a house, bought a car, the whole thing.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_03: And what happened was around the time I had just won International Sports Photographer of the year.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm like the top, I win the top award.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_03: And we have a baby on the way.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_03: Literally, Andrew's being, our first son is being born a month later.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: And everybody's like, oh, when you get, you know, when you get you know that that next raise, you're gonna they're gonna bump you up for salary.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I went into my office, I went into my boss's office, and he read off all of my wins for the year, and then he said, but we can only give you 3%.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, and I said, so no matter what I do, no matter how many awards I win, you know, no matter how much extra I work, and I just couldn't say anything else.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I literally got up and I was, I said to myself, I said, It's over.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_03: I said I have to quit.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I went home, I called my dad, and there's a reason behind the story.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: I called my dad because I was so frustrated, see if I could do some work for him because I needed money.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_03: We have a baby on the way, I'm not making enough money.
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_03: And he told me no.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_03: So even my dad's turning me down.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: I'm like, this is terrible.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: And but he said to me that something that changed my life.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_03: He said, Ben, you guys you have a skill, but you're not using it correctly.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_03: I said, What do you mean?
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_03: Now I'm listening.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: Finally listening to my dad.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: So what do you mean?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_03: And he said, You're you've become a really good photographer.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_03: You are, you know, but you're settling.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: You're settling for$32,000 a year in benefits.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_03: He goes, You could be shooting weddings, corporate work, you could do everything freelance on your own.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_03: You can make three times as much money and control your time.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, but I know nothing about business.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: So, like that day we started our photography business, and that was where the journey of freelance to freedom started.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_03: We used freelance work, and what we did was we lived off of my salary.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: Elizabeth left her job and we built the business up to where the money from the business paid off of our debt, including our house, and then three years later we quit our jobs, completely went out on our own freelance, and then we basically lived this life.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_03: The idea was to live a life of time and location and money freedom.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what almost immediately happened from that point on.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_03: So that's that's the gist of the of what the title is.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone's listening to this, well, this podcast is for creative entrepreneurs, people who self-identify with something in that you know, the creative space or entrepreneurship or something like that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: So most of the audience, I think, is predisposed to love what you're talking about and to really resonate with that.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: But if there's anybody who's listening who says, Man, I just I just don't think I want freedom in my life.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's not something I value.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: Is there anything that you would say to that person about the value of having time freedom and financial freedom in their life and the hope that they can have to get to that place?
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_03: If somebody told me tells me they don't want it, it's not my job to convince them.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_03: I don't worry about I don't worry about that at all.
• 13:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's you know, that's why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_03: Everybody's got something different.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_03: What I do is I talk to people that want that.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: And people are like, they're they're stuck.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_03: I want to like we just got back from a three-month road trip with our family.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_03: We have three boys, we homeschool, and that is of value to us is to be able to see the country with them.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_03: Second year in a row, we've done that.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, we live in Pittsburgh, we're actually we're we're moving, we're gonna move out west, but we want the ability to be able to take off when we want and explore as we want to do.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: Now, people that want a steady job, they want security, they want all the things that they, you know, they want a schedule, they want somebody telling them what to do.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: This is not for you.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_03: This is absolutely not for you.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_03: What this is for is for somebody that wants to control their own life.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I don't try to convince them at all.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that makes sense.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and that's I'm sure that's not the audience for the book anyway, and for your message.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's people who really want that and see the value of it.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_03: And and that's you know, it's a niche market.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's niche or whatever.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's there are certain personalities that knew in school that it wasn't for them.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: I was one of them.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_03: That was like, this is not, there's something, I don't know what it is, but there's something out there that's not this, and that's gonna be where I go, and that's where I line up.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, in the book, you have a chapter.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I believe the title of the chapter is called The Secret to Financial Freedom.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_00: Can you break that down for us?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is the secret to financial freedom and how can people begin to move in that direction?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_03: In a lot of ways, we we we focus, and I'm gonna change a little bit, we focus on financial freedom, but so often it comes down to time freedom.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_03: And time freedom is what if if somebody came to me, it's so much more about the time than it is about the money.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_03: And I think because when you have the time, it's easy to make the money.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_03: My best ideas, my most profitable ideas have come from time freedom, a three-hour walk, and then going and having an idea.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_03: Everything that's come from the book, the the mastermind, everything came from time freedom ideas.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_03: But the secret is people don't need as much as you think you do.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_03: And we and we break it down the book in terms of what actually is a need and a want.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, I think.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_03: I think when you see yeah, when you see what you you know, uh oh, I need 125 grand.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_03: No, you don't.
• 16:01
  SPEAKER_03: I hate to say it, but you don't need a hundred.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_03: You've made it so you need 125 grand.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_03: You've made it so your mortgage payment's higher.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: Most people don't.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_03: The average salary, the average income, household income is about$54,000 in the US.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_03: But everybody I talked to is I need$120,000.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_03: No, you want that to get by because of your current expenses.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_03: But when you realize you don't need that much, like I look back on college, I had no money, I was happy.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I didn't need that much.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_03: It's all stuff I took on after that that made it stressful.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the funny thing is that the more stuff that we accumulate, the more time it actually takes to upkeep, you know, the house and the multiple cars and you know, and all the people who have boats and all the other stuff.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, ironically, the things that we think are gonna give us happiness and joy actually can rob it from us if we're not careful.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's so true.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_03: And I think it's hard to t convince people of that, especially if you're in the consumer-driven lifestyle.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_03: Because the boats require repairs.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: So unless you have passive income everywhere, you gotta go work for that money to pay for those repairs and those taxes.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_03: That is every bit of that is time that comes away from your time freedom that allows you to do these other things.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: So your area is photography, you and your wife.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: What if there's it was we are right, but that's how you got your starting freelancing.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone's listening to this and and they say, Wow, my thing is not photography, but there's five other things that I can do that I can potentially make freelance income in, how do I know which one to pick?
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: What advice would you give to somebody who can do a bunch of things, but they don't know what thing to pick to freelance on?
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great question because I don't think when people talk about confusion and they talk about overwhelm, and we've we've been talking about this a lot in our groups.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_03: Overwhelm doesn't come from having too many ideas, it comes from not knowing what to do.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_03: It comes from not knowing what to do next, right?
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_03: We have we have more than enough to do right now.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_03: You could start a podcast, you could write a blog, you could you could do everything right now with social media that you couldn't have done 20 years ago.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, problem is everybody has so many things to do that they can't pick anything and they're overwhelmed.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I believe in eliminating about 95% of your options.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's what we've always done.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_03: Eliminate everything, get rid of the noise, pick something, become really good at it, and it's something that can help other people.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_03: Make sure there's value in it, and you need to get proof of concept from that.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's the type of thing where you have to pick something and go forward with it.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Don't tell me how you're doing all these different things, and then this one drops off a little bit, then you go to the next one.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: That's how you make no progress in a lot of areas.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_03: What we've always done is we've just put our head down, chose something, and became the best at it that we can be.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_03: And then once we achieved the optimal level of that business, it requires less time.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_03: We make more money, then we add the next thing on.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_03: And that's how we've built multiple businesses and multiple streams of income for them.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_03: But we each time we focused on one thing intently to get it to optimization.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: So if someone is choosing between several different things, how do they know which one to pick if they're confused or they need clarity?
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Is it a matter of almost just almost not close your eyes and pick something?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: But it it is it a case of pick the thing that is the easiest to make money in, the fastest so you can make quick progress.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's a hard question to answer without having an exact, you know, with no context.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, in a lot of ways, we do say like if if money is your problem, right?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_03: We always we we teach often fastest, easiest, most profitable.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_03: What's something that you do now that you're like, for instance, somebody in a job, we walk we walk a lot of people through their job that they hate, but they can do consulting with that.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_03: Same type of work, actually will make more money and have more time freedom.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_03: So that's a natural bridge where you can go, okay, step out of this, start doing this, make as much money, even less money, but you've cleared up time now.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: Most importantly, you've cleared up mental space.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_03: And when you clear up that mental space and there's not a money problem, you can now start working on the things you really love doing.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you can be more creative.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_03: And when you have money, freedom, and time freedom, there's no stopping you from doing anything.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: You can write the book you want the way you want to write it, not because it's gonna sell.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what's gonna get more people to.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't write this book to sell it.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's just honest.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and what happened is people say I relate to it.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_03: But if I did the seven steps to blah, blah, blah, it'd just be another business book.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: See, that's what I love about your book is I feel like it's honest and it's really, really practical.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you just lay the whole thing out, words and all, and you don't hide, you know, the there's there's parts in the book where I go, Oh, I can relate to that.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: That didn't go so well, or they had there was a bump in the road or something.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I I loved that because you just kind of lay it all out there in a really practical fashion.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_03: Well, my I guess my best bit of advice was I read I wrote the book expecting nobody to read it.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_03: That's a great way to write a book.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm like, my mom's gonna read it and my wife's gonna read it, but who else is gonna read it?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_03: And then when people actually started reading it, I was like, oh crap, like those stories are in there.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_03: I really had that moment where I was like, oh, I didn't actually expect people to start sharing this, I just wrote it.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: And I I I found it a great way to do it because there was no like, oh, I need to keep up with it, you know, a certain type of look that I have to be.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like I had I didn't worry about any of that.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I relate to your honesty in the book and your transparency and authenticity.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's a key element of it.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_03: I I I every time I I think of, you know, when people say that, like, I was I'm like, I don't know how people would expect it to be different, right?
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm not gonna be somebody I'm not, because when I see that stuff, all I can envision is like my friends in high school being like, who do you think you are?
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_03: Like pretend you're pretending to be something that you're not.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I have a really hard time ever doing it like that.
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: Can you talk a little bit about um the concept of a freelancer versus an entrepreneur and why those two things are different?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times we talk about those things interchange interchangeably, but they're not actually the same thing.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_03: They're not.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_03: And this is another thing that that Zet Godin taught me in terms of the freelancer, you know, you get paid when you work, you know, and when you Don't work, you don't get paid.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the thing.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_03: And so we, but a lot of freelancers actually think they're entrepreneurs and they're not.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_03: And when you can determine the fact, like, I was proudly a freelancer.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: Proudly.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_03: When I did the work, you know, I shot the pictures.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_03: We didn't bring people in to do it.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: When I wrote the book, like my name's in the book, I wrote it, type of thing.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_03: But when you're an entrepreneur, you're building something bigger than yourself.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: Right now, we're becoming entrepreneurs.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_03: We're building businesses bigger than ourselves that we can sell, right?
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_03: But when I'm a freelancer, and this is I almost echoing what Seth says about this, because I'm like, when I'm a freelancer, I'm a freelancer.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_03: When I'm, you know, when I'm writing a book, it's me.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_03: When I'm photographing an assignment, it's us.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's an intimate thing that we do that I have no problem with.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: But people, freelancers often get caught up thinking they're entrepreneurs.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: And the funniest part about it that he explains is the freelancer will always hire the cheapest freelancer.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the cheapest freelancer is always you.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_03: You will always do the editing.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: Three o'clock in the morning, you'll be the one doing everything.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: And that's thinking like a and that that will keep you down because you need to be able to outsource the things that you're not great at so that you can bring in people that can do that for the money that you would pay them, and you could do the things that you're great at.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_03: So really taking what do you do that you're great at and doing more of that and getting rid of the things that you're not like I don't do well with tech.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_03: You want to see me frustrated?
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_03: Let me try to figure out a website.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: You'll see me frustrated.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_03: I have to have other people do that stuff.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: I need to do what I do best, and I think a lot of freelancers don't do that.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: What was the first thing that you outsourced in your business?
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, probably the editing within the wedding photography business, doing some of the work within there.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: That was probably, but we had a hard time with it.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna be, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say this like, oh, I have this all figured out.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: I still want to do it.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because here's the thing nobody cares about my business as much as I do.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a hard thing to hand off create, especially creative tasks to.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_03: Even like nobody's gonna put the detail into it that I do.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_03: So that's held us back a lot in the past where I felt like I had to do, I still do it.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_03: I still don't outsource as well as I should.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_03: But you know, we keep learning.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there's an element, uh, I guess, to this where you have to figure out where 90% is good enough on some things, but on some things, 90% is not good enough.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I guess part of being an entrepreneur is figuring out which to delegate and which not to delegate, I suppose.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: It is.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, we go back to like Gay Hendricks and and um the big leap.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I love it.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_03: And you're figuring out your zone of genius.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_03: What I know at this point, a lot of areas of our zone of genius, and I know what I'm not good at.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: And I think the hardest part, you're talking about the beginner, they don't know.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: When you're starting out, you do everything, and you kind of have to, because you got to learn what you do well and what you don't.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_03: But with I can just tell when my blood pressure starts rising on things, that's generally a sense that I shouldn't be doing this work.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_03: I need to be doing the work that I'm excited about.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_03: Like this.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: I love doing this.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_03: I love talking to you, I love working on my content, I love coaching people, I love the conversations.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_03: I don't like doing the behind the scenes, I need to have other people do the dirty work on the computer or the detail stuff.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_03: That's not me.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_03: But in the past, I would do it all, and half my work would be frustrating, and I shouldn't be spending that time on these things.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_03: I should be having more conversations as opposed to that stuff.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: So, where does somebody start out?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm thinking of several people, literally, I'm picturing them in my minds.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: Obviously, I'm not gonna name who they are, but people in my immediate circle, uh both online and offline, who they're just at those beginning stages if they want to freelance, they want to start a business, they want to make that next step of starting their side hustle or their side gig, but they're just stuck, they don't know what to do next.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: What advice would you give somebody like that of of how this is your first one or two steps to get moving in the right direction?
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_03: Now, okay, give me a little more kind like picture one of these people you're talking about.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: What do you know what's stopping them?
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um No, I don't.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um not totally, I guess.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um they're all different situations.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_03: What what I've saw more than anything in terms of our world and in terms of people that I've talked to, people I've coached, people that never do it, it comes down to fear.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: There's a fear of something that they're gonna be missing out on or something that they don't think they can do.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_03: It so often comes from living beliefs, and unfortunately, it comes from things that we learned in our childhood.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, I don't, you know, I never thought I would have this kind of even two years ago I wouldn't have this conversation.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_03: But the more we dive into this every day, when you go deeper and deeper, it's something that your mother or your father said that you can't do.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because why would we think we couldn't do this?
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_03: We're creative people, and then we become non-creative people when we go to school, yeah, and then we come out of school and then we have doubts about why we can do this.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and the thing that holds us back is it sounds so cliche, but it's ourselves.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the best advice that I can give was I had nothing to lose.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_03: I dropped out of college five times.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody was ever looking at me for my academic experience, nobody ever expected anything from me.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_03: So I basically walked out with a blank slate, and I had nobody to prove, I had nobody to prove anything to.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_03: And I basically said at a early downtime, like, I'm gonna be a photographer because it sounds cool and I got nothing else to do.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_03: But the thing is, if I had expectations, I would have probably said, I can't spend two years making no money at photography.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_03: I need to go do this.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I think people have expectations on themselves put on them by other people that they say, Well, I can't devote this time to this.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_03: But imagine if you had nothing else to lose and you just had something that you wanted to do, and you could put your time and effort into it, those are the people that succeed.
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: And the people that don't, and maybe they're some of the people you're talking about, will pick and choose with five different things, and they'll never go full force into anything.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_03: And I think you just need to become a beginner and you need to become so curious about the thing that you're learning that you become just unique and awesome at that thing.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_03: And you will start building connections from that because they know you're that person and you'll start learning.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: But what I see the biggest thing holding people back is they don't go full speed at something, they kind of just dabble in a lot of different things.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, that is that is super great advice.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: So I hope everybody listening really keen in on what you said the last two or three minutes because that is that is really important.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of piggybacking off of that is a big part of what is holding people back.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: Just the idea of they're afraid to pick something, they're afraid they're gonna pick the wrong thing.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, I'm gonna get down the road a year or two years, and then I'm gonna look back and go, oh, I picked the wrong thing.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_00: But is there a sense in which as long as you have some some skill set for what you want to freelance in, there really is no wrong choice, is there?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_03: There's not because you're gonna keep learning and you're gonna learn new things and you're gonna learn new, you're gonna make new connections.
• 28:42
  SPEAKER_03: And if you go down a path that you're interested in, I think people look like, oh, this path is here, it stops.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_03: Then I have to come all the way back and start here.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: No, right.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's a constant pivot.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's like it's put a little, it's like going to the eye doctor.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: You know, when you guys the eye doctor, and they're like, you're going up and down, like, does the R look better here or here?
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, looks better here.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: And then they pivot again.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_03: Does it look better here or here?
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: That's exactly what this world is like.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: You're constantly picking the next clearest thing to go towards.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_03: It's not like you go towards one stop, turn back around, start over and start.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_03: Like five years later, you'll have so much more experience and connections that the next thing you want to start is going to be easier.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_03: And by not starting, you're holding yourself back.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: Boy, that is so true.
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: I've been doing client work for about three years now, and it's it's been ramping up the last six months or so.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: And what has been so intriguing to me is exactly what you're talking about.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: I've I've done several different types of client work, you know, from writing things to website design to editing and helping people self-publish their books and whatnot.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: And what I have found is that things that you learn in one niche are almost totally transferable to another niche.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the the skills might be different, but in terms of working with people and you know, helping other people be successful and have a serving mentality, it's like it's really all the same thing.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: It's all it's amazing how many things from a photography career have been transferred to a coaching career.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, who would have ever thought that?
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_03: Two completely different things, but relationship building, how to interact with people, how to over-deliver, right?
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: You learn how to how to make your clients happy.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: You learn what works and what doesn't work.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_03: And and and the more you go, you meet people, and then those people know people.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: And the best thing you can do is build up a great network.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: Because when you can build up a great network, all doors are open.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_03: Open doors for the people, doors get opened for you.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_03: And the more you sit in the sidelines not starting, the longer you go to build your network.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: So you have to move towards something.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_00: Do you have any practical tips for building a network?
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do you have a specific strategy that you use for that or something that you do on a daily or weekly basis to make that happen?
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I reach out, I do.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_03: I I reach out to people randomly every day.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_03: People within my network, people within my circle.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I I want to make a practice to promoting other people's stuff on purpose without asking for anything.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_03: Like when you know, you know, Nick Pavlit is a I I think you might know Nick.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not sure if you I do.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I interviewed him for my show uh a while back.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_03: Well, today I just you know a friend sent me an article and and his book was listed in top 10 books you should read before 30 on in Inc.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: magazine.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_03: And you know, immediately I'm like, put that out there for other people to see.
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_03: If more people did that, if more people promote, like your listeners, right?
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_03: This is a plug for you.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_03: You're listening to the show, promote the show for people that you like.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: It's amazing how often we don't promote the people that we believe in.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_03: Now, if you go and do that, you will start building a network.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_03: You want to know why?
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: Because you're giving without expectation.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: If if if somebody said to me, like, if I go to Facebook and all of a sudden somebody I don't know was like, oh, I read this book, Freelance to Freedom, and they and they posted in it and blah, blah, blah, and they tag it, I'll be like, holy crap, I would reach out to that person.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_03: I would say, thank you.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: They didn't do anything but just put something on their timeline.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_03: But most people are so consumed with what they need that they spend very little time on what other people need.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_03: And if you spend 90% of your time when you start focusing on the people building up the people around you, you will have everybody building up you at some point when you need it.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_03: But people don't do that.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_03: They worry about let me let me let me show you about my book, let me tell you about what I'm doing.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: Nobody really cares at that point.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: Help other people, and then they will come back, most likely if they're decent humans, at some point and help you out.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: I struggle with this, I confess, with this podcast in particular and with blog posts and that kind of a thing, because you know, you you spend all this time making something and you want to promote it, and obviously you're promoting the guests as well, um, and you're building a relationship with them and so forth.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I wrestle with that personally.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's like, you know, how much do I put my podcast stuff on social media or whatever?
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I always there's a part of me that always feels kind of bad for like posting my stuff because I think, well, it feels really self-promotional, but but then again, you kind of think, well, I made this and it is helping people, and I made it to help people, so I've never been able to balance that.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Don't don't get me wrong, I'm not I'm not saying don't post your stuff.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm bad about posting my own stuff.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: I I'm too bad about it.
• 33:13
  SPEAKER_03: Like I should I should do more.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_03: But what I'm saying, do that, but make it a habit of promoting other people's stuff.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_03: Yes, it's not one or the other.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_03: And and I I just think the world would change, the business world would change if people spent more time thinking, I just real authentically, who do I believe in that I can share with other people?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: Connecting.
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_03: That's another thing.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_03: I connect other people.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_03: That's a part of my daily habit of Kent is here, this person is here, I know them both, they don't.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: The only way they're gonna meet and they need each other is if I actually connect them.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_03: And that's a big part of what I try to do.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_03: And what happens is it takes two minutes and you become the hero because you brought these people together.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: And they oh they will elevate, you know, the way they think of you by you helping.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_03: And it's not to get it, don't get me wrong, this is to get anything.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_03: It is I'm a selfish person by nature, and I have to do these things to get out of my selfishness.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_03: I need to be able to help other people to be able to get myself out of that.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: So, what are some things at this point in your in your entrepreneurship and your business?
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: What are some things that right now you're learning?
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Things where you feel like, wow, this is an area where I'm really growing and learning in.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, I I there's so many things.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_03: In terms of where we're growing right now, it it really is, you know, in terms of specifics, task by I'm building this podcast now.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: It's a I've always said I'm not gonna do a podcast.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_03: If I ever do, it'll be called the last podcast ever made because that's what it would have been.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_03: But I finally came to the point where we've got this group that's going fantastic.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_03: We've got a mastermind group, and and and it's it's not been promoted.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_03: It's got a waiting list, it's and I for I'm finally at the point where I'm like, I can't share this anywhere but in here, so I need to get out there and get this out.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's not, I'm not doing the podcast to build business, I'm doing it because we have all this information to share.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: That I'm not getting anywhere except for 55 people.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_03: So that's really where I'm learning right now.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm studying how to do it.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_03: I'm studying um just the format of it.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_03: How it's just I love being a beginner in new areas.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_03: I love not being bored.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: So this is an area where I'm an absolute beginner in, and I get to study and just, you know, kind of learn like I'm just starting out.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_03: So that's where I'm at right now with that.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's cool.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm excited about your podcast launch.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh obviously, I love podcasts.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I wouldn't be doing one otherwise, but I just think it's a fantastic format.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm excited to see what you do with it and what kind of value that adds to other people.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_03: I I am so thank you so much.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_03: I I am as well.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: So, Vincent, what kind of things inspire you or give you creative energy?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_00: Any particular things that you interact with on a regular basis that you feel like, man, this really gives me some creative energy and gets me going.
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_03: I love deep focus time.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_03: I love time where I could just sit back and not bang out tasks, but I mean, it's crazy to say this, but a day at the library where I'm sitting there by myself with just a pad and a pen, I get my best ideas from that.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_03: And it sounds so passive, but that that excites me to do because every all the great ideas I I can come up with come from the quiet time.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_03: So that actually the quiet time energizes me because the hustle of what I do in terms of the calls and the coaching, that again, I mean, it ramps me up.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_03: I still have to come down for an hour after one of those calls because I get so excited during it.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_03: But it's the yin and the yang of having these conversations, which are so important to me, which is the other side of it.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_03: Like I would have conversations all day long if I could.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's what I love to do.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_03: So to have that and to balance that with just just extreme quiet time where I get to just get all my all my thoughts out.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_03: That balance is the two things that keep me balanced.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: Gotcha.
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: That that makes a lot of sense.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: So every podcast uh interview that I do, I do what's called a lightning round, which is uh sounds kind of cheesy, I know, but I grew up in the 80s, game shows, you know, that's just kind of who I am.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: So uh so these are seven rapid fire questions just to help us to get to know you a little bit better and what sparks your creative energy.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully we'll get some ideas from this as well.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, uh question number one is if you were stuck on a desert island with only one movie to watch on repeat, what movie would it be?
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, it depends.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_03: Am I stuck with my family or am I on my own?
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, because if it's my family, we're gonna be arguing.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let's say it's just yourself.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_03: I have your questions are great, by the way, because every one of the questions I'm like, I have no idea.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_03: Like you asked me this tomorrow, the question's gonna be different.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_03: But right now, I'm gonna say Shawshank Redemption.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_03: I could watch that movie over and over again.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_03: I love it.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and the reason I asked these questions is I think they they give us a little bit of insight into the person, especially when you talk about movies, because it's like there's something about that movie that we really connect to and respond.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: Connect with and respond to.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, Shawshank is such a phenomenal movie.
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: It was one of those movies that when when we actually watched TV and cable, every time it would come on, I just knew the next hour and a half were just toast for me because I could not do anything else.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's funny.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh number two, if you could meet anybody in history, dead or alive, who would you meet and why?
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_03: I told you, this is the one I struggle with.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_03: The there's two people that come to mind, and they might be just typical, but Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King are the first two.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: I I kept trying to think more and more, and those are the two names that I people I like.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_03: If I could just meet them and I mean, not just meet them, but talk to them.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_03: I I just think it would be so fascinating to talk to those two people.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, number three, what book helped change the way you think or see the world?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I know there's probably many answers to that, but if you could just pick one book, what would it be?
• 38:56
  SPEAKER_03: There's a lot, and again, you know, I could rattle them down, but right at the top of my head, because I'm reading this with my son, this is why I'm gonna pick it, is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_03: Reading that book, you know, that's more of a money book, but just teaching our kids entrepreneurship, teaching them, you know, if they could learn some of these lessons before they have the pain of what so many of us go through.
• 39:19
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's really he's 11 years old and he's he's so curious about that book because it's you know, when when I read it back in 2005, it was so crazy to read, and now it's become part of this culture that I think a lot of entrepreneurs have already read it and are kind of used to it.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: But for him to hear this stuff, um, it's great, it's a great reminder for me.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm gonna pick that book today.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_03: It'd be different tomorrow, if you ask me though.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: So, how did you just a follow-up question to that, how did you get your son interested in that?
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: Did you just say, hey, let's read this book together, or do you work on some kind of allowance system with reading, or how do you how do you do that?
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_03: He he wanted money, and I'm not gonna give him money.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_03: We we we tell we tell them, like, you you're gonna earn your own money, and then so when we were in Arizona, we were there for three months, like, let's start a business.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_03: And they went out and there's weeds in the yard, and so we went out pulling weeds for neighbors, and then our seven-year-old went out, got five dollars from a house, and came back home five dollars, and Nolan's like, what?
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm like, we can go so we went out and you know, pulling weeds, and they made one day on a Sunday afternoon, made$160 pulling weeds.
• 40:22
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, and so it's like, but I that's why we don't work any type of allowance, because if I give them money, that gives them no incentive to want to even learn how to earn it.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah so if you want stuff, you got like my son just came back with the Xbox with the money that he bought, literally as we're on the call, heard him come in, and you know that came from the money that they earned, but there's so many teachable lessons there.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_03: So when that came about, and we had that book with us, I kind of mentioned, I said, maybe you want we could read this together, and that's where the interest from that book came up.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 40:51
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 40:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, question number four is what does a perfect day look like for you?
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_03: Sunshin.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you that the sun's shining because having been in Arizona, then coming back to Pennsylvania, I don't think I realized how much I value just sunshine.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_03: So the sun's got to be shining.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm doing probably I'm I'm I'm waking up, I wake up every day without an alarm clock, but I'm waking up, I'm spending breakfast with my kids.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_03: I am it's a leisurely day having a cup of coffee, listening to some music, then I'm getting on a call, some type of call where I'm coaching or helping somebody.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_03: There's free time to then go write or create something, and then the rest of the day we're going out for a hike and spending time as a family and then ending it um just really kind of with my wife and just alone quiet while the kids are asleep.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's a great day for me.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: I love it.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Question number five What is one tool or creative resource that you could not live without?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: I don't have to I mean, I can't say that.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a tech person, but right now it's Evernote in terms of what I'm doing with creating the content that we're putting together today.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_03: It would be Evernote, but I am not a I am not a tech person that people have all these different you know things that they're working on.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I'm pretty simple.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you my, I'll show you.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_03: You want to see it?
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_03: It is my clipboard with one piece of paper.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_03: That's my week.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm not very I'm not very high tech when it comes to it, but that works perfectly.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, next question.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: If you could say thank you to one person who made a big difference in your life, who would it be?
• 42:20
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's my wife, Elizabeth.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_03: Um, she has I when we met, as we look back on it, I'm like, why did she marry me?
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_03: Why did she start dating me?
• 42:30
  SPEAKER_03: I was a high-strung, loudmouth New Yorker, and she was just a sweet Ohio girl from who we met in college.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_03: And to the point where when we met the first night that we met, we were at a party and we left, and her and my friend Shannon were leaving, and I was going one way, she was going the other way.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_03: She goes, What was your name?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I was like, Vinny.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_03: I said, and she looked at me, it's like two o'clock in the morning, she goes, Vinny, Vinny the jerk.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because that was the way I was being then.
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_03: And that was like that was how she that was the first night that we met.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so that's that's the impression that I make.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: And she has just allowed me, she's taught me how to be empathetic, generous, curious.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_03: Like I was just a bull in a China shop as a youth, you know, and as as we met, and she has just refined me in so many ways and helped me in so many ways.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_03: So she, hands down, it would be my wife.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's great.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, last lightning round question.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: What are you working on this year that you're really excited about?
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, it's it's it's gotta be the podcast.
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_03: Um, it's gotta be, I mean, the the business is going really well, the masterminds.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I'm I'm building up speaking that I love doing keynote speaking, but the podcast has become like this baby to me where I've outlined a year and a half of um themes for the month and then the the the podcast that come within it, and that's that's where I'm really just jazzed up about.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: Very cool.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Vincent, this has been a lot of fun.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you've shared a lot of wisdom.
• 43:53
  SPEAKER_00: This has been a very um not just informative, but really inspiring episode.
• 43:58
  SPEAKER_00: You've inspired me with your enthusiasm and Of course, I love your book, and that's has been so helpful.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: So, man, thanks for taking time out to do the show.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you so much.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_03: Appreciate it.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you mentioned that you have a resource for listeners, correct?
• 44:11
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I, you know, we talked about the book, and we talked about even in terms of how to be generous with it.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_03: So I want to be generous with you and generous with your audience.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_03: So we've recorded the audio book for it.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, I just recorded it myself, and I would love to give that away to any of your listeners if they're interested.
• 44:29
  SPEAKER_03: The page isn't even set up yet.
• 44:30
  SPEAKER_03: Hopefully, by the time we go live here, the page, because this is just an idea that we came up with, so they could email me at Vincent at freelance the freedombook.com if they want to get it personally.
• 44:39
  SPEAKER_03: But by the time this goes, we should have everything up and running for you.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I assume that's the best way to get in touch with you overall is your email address, Vincent at freelance to freedombook.com, correct?
• 44:49
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_03: The websites uh the website is Total Life Freedom.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_03: That's where all our information is at.
• 44:54
  SPEAKER_03: That's where we have a blog at and the podcast information, which by the way, we're going live with the podcast very soon.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: So if you want to check that out, Total Life Freedom.
• 45:02
  SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, I I respond to emails.
• 45:04
  SPEAKER_03: Anybody wants to email me with questions?
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_03: I love that.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_03: So um there's there's no limit on that.
• 45:09
  SPEAKER_00: Awesome.
• 45:10
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Vincent, thanks again so much for your inspiration and your wisdom.
• 45:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'm just so glad that we had the opportunity to do this, and I'm really excited about your success and all the cool ways that you're going to continue to inspire people.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_03: Ken, thank you so much.
• 45:22
  SPEAKER_03: I I really appreciate you having me on and for this time, and I'm just grateful to you.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
• 45:26
  SPEAKER_00: My pleasure.
• 45:27
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Vincent.
• 45:30
  SPEAKER_00: I know I took away a ton of things from this interview, and in fact, it was pretty hard to boil down just three major takeaways, but here they are.
• 45:38
  SPEAKER_00: So let's dive in.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number one writing a book will give you credibility and authority.
• 45:46
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever you write a book, it elevates your position in the eyes of other people.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_00: It positions you as an authority on your topic, it positions you as someone who knows what you're talking about, and frankly, because writing a book is so hard, a lot of people don't ever do it, even though they want to.
• 46:01
  SPEAKER_00: So the mere fact that you have written a book on a topic, just by definition, positions you as someone who has done the work, you've put in the effort, you've set aside the emotional energy and the time and the expense of actually writing a book.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_00: So even regardless of whether the book is any good, the fact that you have a book on a topic says something about you as a person.
• 46:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, uh the book should also be good.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: You know, don't make any mistake about that.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: We should put as much time and energy into crafting a great book as we possibly can.
• 46:33
  SPEAKER_00: But just the fact of having a book, that sets you apart as someone who has credibility and authority on your topic.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't written a book, I really want you to begin thinking about that and what a book can do for your business and your credibility and your life in general.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number two, when you're building your business on the side, pick one thing and stick with it.
• 46:56
  SPEAKER_00: No, I confess to you that over the past two or three years, this has been something I have really, really wrestled with.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_00: At different times I thought I would at different times I thought I should focus on consulting or speaking or editing or I should be providing podcasting, you know, production services to people, and three or four other things that I've kind of dabbled in.
• 47:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I've learned something from all of those things that I've dabbled in, but I confess to you that I have really struggled with picking one solid direction, and and uh a lot of it is due to Vincent's leadership and mentorship in my life that I have decided to focus on ghostwriting.
• 47:35
  SPEAKER_00: So he has really helped me in that regard.
• 47:37
  SPEAKER_00: Whenever we don't decide on a direction, we don't go full force in that direction, and we just kind of dabble in a bunch of different things.
• 47:45
  SPEAKER_00: So we don't make any major progress whenever we're just dabbling.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_00: We hold ourselves back and we don't start and we're indecisive and we get stuck and we feel paralyzed and all those things that keep us from success.
• 47:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, as Vincent mentioned, whenever you're building a business on the side, pick one specific thing, stick with it, and whenever that thing is successful, then you can branch out into other things.
• 48:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's where I am right now in my in my uh side business.
• 48:10
  SPEAKER_00: I've decided on ghostwriting and things that are related to ghostwriting, you know, content marketing and some some related things like that.
• 48:18
  SPEAKER_00: But that's gonna be my one thing, and I'm gonna stick with that for a while until that's successful.
• 48:23
  SPEAKER_00: Takeaway number three, build a great network by being generous and focusing on relationships.
• 48:29
  SPEAKER_00: Vincent has some great information in his book on what he calls the hour of giving.
• 48:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is a block of time that you set aside each day to just randomly reach out to people, or you could do it more systematically as well.
• 48:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're promoting people's stuff, you're leaving reviews for their podcasts and books, you're giving to them, you're boosting them up, you're uh commenting on their Facebook and social media posts, you're you're giving and you're encouraging.
• 48:54
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, Vincent says we should spend 90% of our time building up the people around us.
• 48:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that may seem like a really, really high part of our time, but the truth of it is that whenever we have these good relationships with people, they're reciprocal.
• 49:09
  SPEAKER_00: When we give first, then things come back to us, sometimes in really surprising and fun ways.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I would encourage you to take this.
• 49:17
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't take anything else away from this podcast, take this away from it.
• 49:21
  SPEAKER_00: Be generous, focus on building relationships and in giving to people.
• 49:24
  SPEAKER_00: I know Vincent has helped me a ton in this area, and I'm really, really grateful for that.
• 49:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, friends, those are my thoughts, but I'd love to hear what you think about this episode.
• 49:33
  SPEAKER_00: You can do that by heading over to Apple Podcasts and leaving a rating and a review, or you can leave a comment on this episode at kent sanders.net slash zero nine five, where you're also going to find the show notes.
• 49:45
  SPEAKER_00: Today's quote comes from one of my favorite creative people, Bob Ross, who said, We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.
• 49:54
  SPEAKER_00: Until next time, remember that you were born to create and designed to make a difference.