My Corporate Job Paid Me to Be a Functioning Alcoholic

Sean Weisbrot: When I was doing my last company, the, the software company, there was a goal in mind and it was extremely lofty and it was gonna take tens of millions of dollars and, and years of building and growing to even get close to where we wanted to be. And while I enjoyed that. It was extremely stressful because it was too big. While I also could say that until now, I was enjoying the simple pleasures of just making money and having people come to me wanting a service and then being happy with that service, I also can understand the need to have a larger goal for it, where I don't really have a goal with this business, it's just how much passive income can I generate and how fast can I generate it? Because then I can do this and I can do that, and I can go here and I can go there and I don't have to worry about this thing. And so it's, it's like a, a, a numerical goal without a purpose. Skip Wilson is the founder of Draft Media Partners, a company which helps marketers productize and scale their businesses. I love this conversation with Skip because we talked about many different things like time management. And if you're interested in knowing more about the founder's journey as well as some of the psychology behind it, I know you're going to love this interview. So this is episode 214. Let's get to it. Before we started recording, we got into a conversation about time and. I was prompted by my birthday having happened a few days prior to this recording, and we were talking about how time is moving really fast, and I think it would be interesting to talk about how time relates to not only your life, but also your business. Because for example, August will be four years that I've been doing the podcast and. I feel like in that time I've become a completely different person in a good way and, and not in a good way. I think there's, there's positives and negatives that happen all over. Uh, how do you feel time works for you?

Skip Wilson: So I have, um, I have sort of a love hate relationship with time because I do think, I do think that one of my core skill sets is. Daily time management. Um, I, I feel like I'm really good at taking large, seemingly insurmountable task lists. And because I do what's called batching, so like I'll batch like, okay, I've got my campaign starts. I put all those, and you know, I block it off for like an hour for that. And so, you know, I, I, so I feel like I'm really good at. Doing tasks in a day. But then, yeah, when you look out over a longer time horizon beyond the day, that's when, uh, that's when time becomes, uh, becomes one of those more, more scary things. The, um, one of the things that, this might might be an apocryphal story, but I don't, I like to think that it actually happened, but, uh, one of the stories about Julius Caesar is that when he was a young man, he saw this statue of Alexander the Great. And Alexander the great, you know, conquered the pretty much entire world, you know, before, you know, before he was 30. And um, here was Julius Caesar at basically that same age, looking at the statue going, I. You know, I've done nothing. 'cause he really hadn't done much at that point, uh, in his life. And that was a big, uh, at least as far as the story goes, it was a big motivator for him to actually like finally get up and start doing things. And so I do think that there's, like, you have to, we have to have this like, healthy respect for the fact that like, like, you know, that bear's coming after all of us, right? Like, we gotta, so we should keep plowing forward. But, you know, yeah. It's. It's scary. Scary sometimes too.

Sean Weisbrot: Do you think we will figure out how to escape death in our century in this century?

Skip Wilson: Or are we just, I think it's, I think we'll definitely can extend it out a lot, a lot further. Um, because with things like, uh, with things like clean editing and then also with, uh, the advancements that have been made in terms of, uh, who is it that's doing the big research project right now on actually keeping like mitochondrial de like decay. There's somebody who's basically figured, trying to figure out and think, they have figured out a way to keep the, the mitochondria and, uh, and cells from decaying as rapidly, and those things, which would be, you know, prevent aging and things. So I would say the horizon's gonna be pushed out a lot further, but I don't know that it will ever be like a forever horizon. Unless you count like training in AI or something like that. Like unless you count like externalizing, you know, a brain and then, and then having it live on or something like that.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. I've been thinking about it for the last few days that. And I think it also happened, it, it, it happened that one of my close friends died recently. She was 95, so she had a great life, but I was very close to her for a long time. She was a, a, a close friend of my grandmother's, and because I was close with my grandmother, I got to know her as well. And, you know, I would, I'd call her when I would go for walks and we'd talk for an hour or two hours about stuff. She constantly read and knew what was happening in the world. And so she's very, very interesting woman to talk to. I mean. She became a lawyer in like the, the 1950s, you know, some, something that's like unheard of. Uh, you know, it was very rare. So she was, she was definitely a very tough woman from New York. Um, and she, she died like two weeks ago. And I think that combined with like my birthday is kind of got me down because I was thinking about mortality and I feel like. Emotions make life great, but also can make life really hard. So even if we had the technology to extend life. Emotionally, would it be worth it?

Skip Wilson: Right, exactly. 'cause then it becomes like, okay, well how do we pay for this thing? Can everyone afford it? It, you know, inevitably not everyone will be able to afford it, which means that there will be some that die and some that don't. And so it's like, yeah, you'd be racking up this, this longer list of like former people you knew, which is hard. Plus there's the. Brain decay in terms of, um, you know, in terms of like, you know, okay, we've gotta not only figure out how to make the body last longer, but then also, you know, you don't wanna just live 200 years, but the last hundred is with Alzheimer's, right? So, um, yeah, it's the, like, I wouldn't call that a win. I don't think anybody would, so. Um, so, you know, but the, uh, but yeah, I mean, those things happen, you know, I carry a coin often. It's actually, it's, it's, um, it's in the other room, so it's not, it's not worth getting. But the, uh, I have a, I have one of those coins that I actually got from, uh, from Ryan holidays. DA Daily, stoic. And, uh, it has, uh, Estee Moto on it, which means, um, or sorry, memento Maori, sorry, memento Maori on it. Uh, which means, uh, remember your death. And that is actually a common, stoic phrase. Not in a morbid way, but actually in the sense that. It helps us, I think, get our priorities in line when we remember that our time here is short and it helps us have a sense of urgency. I. When we remember that, you know, so it's, it gives us a sense of urgency to propel forward. It also helps us remember, like, okay, is it a huge deal that like, they're out of my, they're out of oat milk at my like local coffee place. Like, not really, like it's gonna be okay, right? Like, so it gives us a sort of sense of like what actually truly matters and then the ability to propel forward. Um. So I would say that your existential, uh, like sort of time crisis is, uh, is not a bad thing. I'd say that that's actually a, that's a, that's a good thing. I'm gonna wrestle with that and then figure out, okay, because I've got a limited time here, what are the things that are most important? And then, uh, start heading toward that mountain. You know, it's like, oh, I really care about that over there, so let me go do that thing.

Sean Weisbrot: Mm-hmm. Uh, just a, a note for you. I noticed that you look down a lot. Is your camera, like, is the screen beneath you?

Skip Wilson: That's just, I do that a lot just when I talk in general. So I think that's something I need to work on. It's actually one of the things that my, um, my business partners tried to coach me out of too. It's like, uh, because I'll do that in presentations and stuff too. Stuff. That's it.

Sean Weisbrot: I struggle with overconfidence. Uh, it, I laugh, but it's serious. Um, I've, I've encountered this a number of times where people mistake my confidence of arrogance, and I blame my mom for loving me too much and telling me too many times that I'm special and that I'm handsome and I'm smart, and I believed it. I still believe it. And, and a lot of people I've noticed as an adult did not have that kind of love from their families growing up. An alarming amount of people, and so I, I struggled to connect with them because they struggled to love themselves. If they don't love themselves, how can they love other people? And therefore, how can I have a good relationship with them, because we are not emotionally in the same playing field

Skip Wilson: abs. Absolutely. Yeah. That's, that's some I, you know, so I had, have you ever explored that? I had a little bit of a, a little bit of a different, I basically just grew up, like alone, more or less th through, through, through, through, throughout my, uh, throughout my childhood. So I don't know if that's where it comes from. I don't really know that, or if it's just coming from. Uh, I ha it's weird. I have this sort of high confidence in terms of my ability to achieve things. Like, in other words, like I am somebody who, you know, like, because I mean, even just business ownership in general, right? You have to have a certain amount of self-belief, right? Like you have to believe. I can do this thing like, oh, this super hard thing, this, you know, earning that, you know, earning, whether it's earning a high income or achieving some big thing, you have to have a certain amount of, yeah, that's possible. And I'm smart enough and good enough to do it. So it's like I'm area, I would say that I'm like. Confident in that way, but in a very like, real sense too. I do definitely struggle with the other side of the coin where it's like, you know, I have this constant, like, you know, no one likes me. No, no one's gonna, like what I'm saying, everything's bad. Like sort of train going up through my, uh, through my brain at all times. I think that's what causes me to like almost always talk like that, you know? Or like that's, so I need to work on that.

Sean Weisbrot: I used to do public speaking. When I was in China, I, I haven't really done it so much after I left, but, um, I actually trained about 50 people to do public speaking so that they could speak on my stage that I like. I organized my own event. Uh, so I'm, I'm quite used to people having different types of presentation styles and, uh, I've been very fortunate that. I feel like I'm good on the stage. I know that I could always improve, but one of the things that I struggle with is smiling and really like showing my emotions. Uh, I tend, I tend to have this like stoic kind of face, which I don't like because I feel things just like everybody else. I just don't always show them. And when I was younger, that wasn't the case. I used to smile all the time. And I think as I've gotten older, I've just smiled less and less and people, uh. Like I, I was playing board games the other night with friends and I was like, Hey, I'm gonna drink tonight. And they're like, what? 'cause I don't drink alcohol. Maybe like once every six months I'll have a glass of wine and they're like, uh, okay. What kind of a, of an alcohol? Not really alcohol, but like, what kind of a person are you under the influence of alcohol? And I was like, I Right. Like. Are you gonna get angry and start screaming at people? Right. Are you gonna like, curl up into a ball and start crying? Like, but no, I'm, I'm, I'm a fun drinker. And like, yeah, you know, you'll, you'll see. So I was like smiling and, and telling jokes and laughing and, and being more, uh, like touchy with people in a good way. You know, obviously sensible way, because these are people I know, right? They're friends, they're not just like strangers and they're like, we don't, we don't know who the hell this person is. And I, I feel like they would be happier with me as a human being if I drank more.

Skip Wilson: So that's when I was, um, you know, before I left the corporate world, when I was at iHeart, a big part of my responsibility was taking out and entertaining our larger clients. Right? And I am. Um, obviously since you know how I am in like a, uh, pres presentation sort of sense, I'm equally as un unconfident and quiet and stoic and, uh, in, in, in personal stuff too. And like you said, I, you know, I'm, I'm somebody who doesn't, you know, very similar to you. I don't like, I don't emote a lot or, or anything else. And so, but when I do drink, I become. Like you said, a lot more talkative, a lot more willing to like, share jokes and those types of things. And so I basically spent like a whole decade, like, you know, on the verge of tipsy, um, just 'cause that was my, was just my, my job. No, exactly.

Sean Weisbrot: That does not sound, no, thankfully

Skip Wilson: it was not, you know, not everyone's fortunate enough to be able to just stop doing that. Right. Thankfully for me, it wasn't a, uh, it wasn't like an addiction. It was purely, it was occupational rather than, uh, than, uh, than some sort of, uh, ingrained thing. But that was, uh, but yeah, I have to do, I have to do that same sort of thing. And even now, like if I know we're gonna have like several people over or something like that, it's like, I'm like, all right, well, I'm gonna have to have at least a few drinks.

Sean Weisbrot: I feel like you would maybe struggle with China and Japan if you had like, lived in those cultures because they, they drink until they black out there is like tipsy is like not acceptable.

Skip Wilson: I would, yeah. I would always try to, you reach a point where you just have that drink in your hand, right? So that you get the, so that you get the nod for having one, but then that you're making that one last for like.

Sean Weisbrot: There was only one time in China that I allowed myself to get there, and it was for some stupid reason. There was this huge dinner party. There was this huge guy, I don't remember who he was or like his position in the government or business or whatever, and I was the foreigner who could speak Chinese, who was, I don't even remember how I got invited to the dinner, but I did. And he like wanted to test the foreigner's ability to drink alcohol, which like, I don't drink alcohol. And I made that very clear and I somehow beat the guy. I think I had 20 shots. I don't know how I didn't die. And it it, and it wasn't like shots of beer. It was like vodka. And it wasn't just va, it wasn't like Russian vodka. It was Chinese vodka, which is disgusting and extremely, extremely strong. I somehow walked away from it. I definitely blacked out. I don't remember how I got home. I don't remember how I got into bed, but I did, and I will never do that again because it was just a bravado. It's just too, you know, proving, proving to someone that you can do something. But it, it didn't make me happy. The, the only thing that made me happy was beating the guy. That's it. But even then, although I was stupid and immature, childish, I have the

Skip Wilson: same sort of thing. I have very much am a like, uh, very competitive, uh, in terms of, uh. Basically almost actually everything. If there's some sort of competition or something like that, it's like, well, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lose this. That's whatev whatever. It's, um, and actually a similar, a similar sort of thing happened at, at Epcot of all places, Epcot, Disney World, um, where there's this thing called drinking around the world. And I, the, the actual way to drink around the world is you have a drink in each country as you go around and, uh, 'cause there's, you know, I think eight countries maybe, I think it's eight countries. You have a drink in each one as you go around. But I. We turned it into essentially, Hey, I wonder if we could get a one from like every restaurant. And there's, if you count the restaurants in stands, I don't know how many there are, but there's like a lot. And so it was the, um, so it became a very, uh, I, I don't know. I, I ended up actually like talking to the people at Ebco Paris about like. The homeless crisis in like in France and what their plans are and stuff. It's like, that was, that was the level of, the level of, uh, up there I got.

Sean Weisbrot: I think most Americans don't have an opinion on much, and, and I get, I get, uh, you know, I, I live in Portugal and I'm surrounded by people from all over the world, and it's really interesting to have that experience. Like last night I was playing board games. There was a woman from Turkey, a guy from Belarus, a woman from Ukraine, a woman from Romania, a guy from Ukraine, a few, uh, two Americans besides myself, and then a few Portuguese people, and they all have their own cultural understandings. The one kind of. Theme is that it's assumed Americans don't know anything about the world and don't like they're just Americans. And I can't tell you how many times in my life being outside the US I've had to go, yeah, I just, I might be American because I have a passport, but if you actually take a second and listen to my story, you'll know that I know more about the world than I do America.

Skip Wilson: I, I think that's, I think that's definitely one of the big, it's one of the biggest critiques that I think is a fair critique of most, most of our country is, you know, most, you know, me still being in America, um, is the lack of awareness of the rest of the world. And I think that's just such a bad, um, I think that that doesn't bode well for the future as, as we get even more connected, you know, is now, um. I think the workforce is gonna become even more diversified worldwide to where I think even like even, you know, right now, it's, you know, at first it was manufacturing jobs moving off. Sorry. I started looking down again that at first it was manufacturing jobs moving off. But now I think very much those mid tiers and even eventually, you know, mid-management is gonna, I think, move, uh, around the world as well. And I think not being aware of what's going on. It's just, I don't know. That doesn't, that doesn't, that doesn't bode well. I don't like isolationism. I don't think it works, as in, as an individual. I don't think it works. And I'm somebody who, my natural tendency would be to be in is like, you know, I would be somebody who I think if I was ever thrown in, like solitary confinement in jail or something, I think I would be just fine. Um, but as a. But I, even though I would personally be fine, I knew I wouldn't become the person I could be like if I wasn't right. And, um, the, and I think it's the same thing for a country. It's, there's no country that's ever like just shut off the rest of the world and then done better. It's always a sharp decline afterwards.

Sean Weisbrot: Well, I mean, there's one country, North Korea. Yeah. Oh, that's true. Doing

Skip Wilson: great. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Especially if you read any of their, any of their press releases or anything else, they're doing fantastic. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Um, so yeah, that's, that's, that is something that I think you can't shut out the rest of the world if you're knowledgeable, ofout the rest of the world. But if you don't know what's going on in the rest of the world, it becomes very easy to think, you know, oh, everyone else is crazy, so we should close our, you know, close our minds and everything to the rest of it. Just doesn't make sense.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, the, the issue that I see is not only are people mad that America doesn't really care about the rest of the world in that regard, but they are mad that they have to care about everything that happens with America because everything that happens with America affects their lives whether they like it or not.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's which I think is, which I think is, that's only makes it. Even more. That only makes it sting even worse when it's like, oh, and they don't even know that, uh, we exist. Maybe, you know, or that our country is a, is a thing, or that we are going through, you know, this massive natural event that just happened, or, oh, we're going through this, uh, you know, this political arrests or whatever. Um, it's, it's gotta, it can't make it feel good too if the, like, oh, our economy's depend on their economy and, uh, they don't know our economy exists.

Sean Weisbrot: Right. Yeah. They, they look at the upcoming election and they go, well, Trump becomes president. We're screwed. You know, NATO will be gone. The EU will probably collapse. The dollar will fall apart. It'll destroy all of our economies. You know, because the Federal Reserve makes its own decisions, not based on the global economy, but on what's happening in the us. And whatever happens in, you know, based on what the Federal Reserve says. It affects the treasuries and the, the economics of every other country because they're tied to the dollar and they're tied to the, the, the bonds and the stock market and all of their investments. You know, everyone, everyone invests in the US if they can because that's where there's a lot of opportunity for gains. Especially real estate, you know, so if like the US Federal Reserve cuts rates, then the Bank of Japan is probably gonna have to cut rates, or the Bank of China is probably gonna have to cut rates. So they're like, you know, how are we supposed to have our own economy and our own lives? If everything that happens is out of the hands of our government?

Skip Wilson: That's, um, that's, I mean, that's, that's definitely, I mean, that's definitely a big issue. And it'll be interesting, you know, next week is the, is the first debate. And I feel like the rest of the world's gonna be watching it going like, like why these two people, like, why, like, what happened? Like why is the, like, what's, what's, what's going on? Is there nobody younger in America?

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. I feel like people would probably vote for Michelle Obama.

Skip Wilson: That's that. I think if I think any sort of, well, right, I don't know any sort of person that can put a cogent sentence together, which is ironic that I struggled through that sentence. But any sort of person that can put through, put a cogent sentence together and like a strong path forward, I think, uh, we should step up like. Let's just go ahead and step up now, you know, form your third form a third party, but, uh, I don't even know if it's possible yet from right now, but, uh, you know, we need figure out something.

Sean Weisbrot: Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Winfrey, and Michelle Obama co.

Skip Wilson: We'll, uh, we'll nominate 'em now. Let's go ahead, let's go and get this. Let's go ahead and get that.

Sean Weisbrot: So let's think about time in terms of business, right? I feel like every business I get involved with, it takes a hell of a lot longer. And I know that's not a very descriptive amount of time, but Okay, let's, for example, last year I got involved with two companies, one 18 months ago, one 12 months ago. Neither of them is producing revenue yet.

Skip Wilson: Sure, yeah. Always. One. I think in terms when, when we break down goals, we break down everything into quarterly goals. Um, but I think having realistic quarterly expectations, anything beyond like 10% growth over where you're at right now is just not gonna happen. There's no way that that's gonna happen within a quarter. And that's a young startup. Um, you know, so after a few years, even 10% growth in a single quarter. Is likely gonna be a huge, you know, would, would be, um, a heavy lift. And so I think just being realistic about what those, you know, what is possible, um, is important. I like Ted, I think it was Ted Turner that said set huge goals. Because it causes you to reach further. And I think there's some wisdom in that. But I like to keep, I like to keep five year goals as like these super lofty numbers and have that be that like North Star, that thing that we're all working towards, you know, hey, we're working on like whether it's 10 Xing our business or whatever. And then, but on a quarter by quarter basis, being very much more realistic about, alright, this month we're here, we need to get there. Um, and if the trend line is going down. Then you can expect that at least for the next month, it's probably gonna go down, but it needs to be flattening off and then starting to go back up. So being realistic about what those expectations are. And then also too, the biggest thing I think is tracking it. 'cause we oftentimes don't, especially younger businesses, and when I say younger business, I mean really first five years, right? I mean, first five years of a business is still very much a. Well, you know, we probably don't have the standard operating procedures like as fit, as fit, put in stone as we should, you know, where they're constantly being rewritten, um, which is a good thing. They should be constantly being rewritten, I think at that stage, you know, whereas like Google Today should not be rewriting their standard operating procedures every week, every like, couple of months. Right? But like, that's for, for the rest of us. That's something we should be taking a look at constantly and, um. And so having those, you know, for, so for a younger business, being very strategically focused on the next three months, that's at least the way, that's the way I like to do it.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah, I, I think it's hard for young companies to think like that because they don't have enough things set in stone to be able to make goals.

Skip Wilson: Yeah. Well, so you want to, you have to sort take a, what I call, like swag, strategic, wild ass guess. Um, the, uh, you, you have to take your swag based on as much information as you have. But a lot of times you are sort of shooting in the dark, especially if you haven't been tracking stuff. Um, so in that case, guess as best as you can, you know, to make a smart guess. And then now that becomes the goal, and then now you can track and optimize towards that. And so you going the next three months without having a specific goal in mind and goals can mean a bunch of different things. Like, so like for, for, for my business for example, we, obviously, we have revenue goals, but. Those aren't the things I typically talk about that much with the team. Usually I'm talking with my sales, you know, with my, with the sales folks about, hey, how many, what we call CNAs or first client meetings, you know, um, which is client needs analysis. Hey, how many CNAs do we have? You know, because that's a very actionable thing, right? Like, we can control how many CNAs we had. We can't really control what the revenue is. 'cause sometimes, you know, sometimes an event gets moved to next quarter or whatever. And so, um. It doesn't have to be in business. We oftentimes think that a goal is only that big revenue number when really you could easily have a profitability goal, right? And, and your goal is to shrink expenses over the next month and not even grow revenue, and you're still growing the profitability of the business. So I think one, figuring out, um. Almost like we were talking about actually, for, for your own personal time crisis, you need to figure out which mountaintop you you want to go to, right? And then start heading that direction. Same thing with the business. It's like, all right, what does my business need right now? There's what I need. Let me set that as the, as the goal. And then in a month, where do I think I could be on that set that in the next month? Where do I think I could be set that? And then you're just tracking against that.

Sean Weisbrot: I'm gonna try that because honestly, my goals have always been I'm going to increase my revenue. Like I wanna make this much. And this is, it's, it's a, it's a silly ass number, but as you said, it's, it's important to have these crazy numbers. My goal is to make a million dollars a month. I am nowhere near close to that. I am closer to zero than I am to a million. Per month. But I also don't have something that is a service with a team that, you know, like it's what I do is connect people and so. I connect people on, you know, we've talked about this before, off, off air. My goal is to build something that's as passive as possible, meaning somebody else's. It's their business. They're providing the service, I'm bringing them, the clients doing marketing and sales. They're doing the, the customer service and support. And therefore, I get a recurring commission so I can easily stack my, my earnings pretty easily. But. I have never really looked at it as, okay, well this month I made this month, uh, this much and I increased by this many clients. Or I, I had this many churn. I could very easily do it 'cause the business is at a point where it's, it's not too difficult to do. Um, but yeah, I, so like I do yoga three days a week and I was in a yoga class today, and for the first time in a very long time, someone, uh, the instructor said. Let's take a minute and let's set your intention for today's yoga. I, I had never really heard someone say, set your intention for yoga. I had heard people say, set your intention for a magic mushroom trip. Now, I haven't done, uh, a trip myself. I do microdose mushrooms. My family has, uh, under my guidance done some, uh, macro doses and I told them to set their intentions, but I never thought to apply that idea to myself and business. So that I start a month or a, a quarter with a specific goal so that I only focus on that thing. It never really occurred to me.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, no, that's, I, I think that that is one of the most critical things. Um, I actually have, uh, this little sticky note that I put right on the screen before almost every meeting and before, uh, before I do almost anything that is, whatever my goal is for that call or whatever my goal is for that meeting or whatever my goal is, even for, you know, when I wake, when I do my like, um. And my plan for the day, it's like, what, what are my goals for the day? I think that's so important because, uh, I started doing that actually as a young salesperson when I was right after college. It's a long story, but right after college I was having to dial for dollars for, at this radio station I. And, um, I went from having my own business and being at CNN to now having to dial it up for dollars at a local radio station. Um, but it was actually good because it was that, that got me in with clear channel. Anyway, it's a long story, but there's this little brief period. 2008 was not the greatest year as you, as you may remember in the, uh, in the American economy, which was when I graduated. And so my, my division at where I was at Time Warner was that whole division was let go. So I was. Anyway, long story. So I was dialing for dollars and I couldn't, I wasn't getting appointments. And my sales manager, uh, was this old, one of those like old guys, like doesn't talk that much. And then, but then when he does say something, you're like, oh, wow, that's super smart. And he was like, he's like, you're trying to sell radio. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, you're. And he's like, no, no, you're trying to sell radio on these calls. That's not the goal. The goal of the call is to get the appointment. And I was like, oh yeah, you're right. Because what that would happen is I'd call up a local business and then they would say some version of, you know, oh, we've tried radio and it didn't work, or I'm not interested in that station, or whatever, and I would immediately start defending that station or saying, Hey, here's, well, you know, local radio still reaches blah, blah, blah. And um, I. That was, that's not the goal of those calls. Once I realized, oh, the goal is just to get an appointment, so when I call them up and they'd say, oh, we tried radio before and it didn't work, I would say, you know, oh really? That's interesting. Which station did you try? And they'd tell me and I'd be like, okay, I wonder, I think I might, I might be able to figure out why that didn't work. When's a good time for us to, to go over that, right. And that, 'cause my goal is not to convince them that radio's good. My goal at that time is to get the appointment. And so, and then I would get appointments and then of course end those appointments. Then my goal is to figure out, you know, what problems they've got in their business and how radio could solve it, right? So knowing what your intention is before you take any action, even though sometimes it can seem obvious, right? Like in that as a young seller, I was like, of course I'm trying to sell radio. What are you talking about? Why is that a bad thing? It is a bad thing. 'cause that wasn't what my goals should have been in those cold calls. And so, um, I dunno, taking a moment to think through what is the actual goal of this is, is profound and taking it out over a, over a three month, you know, horizon of here's how much revenue you've got this month, what can you do to get to next month? It will cause you to do things, especially as the month comes close to an end, and it looks like you're gonna miss that goal. You'll start to think, oh, you know what? I didn't reach out to so and so and she has always a, she always has a lot of referrals, so let me, let me reach out to her and it'll begin to sort of forces. It's almost like force panic. Yeah. I was somebody who always waited to like the night before a, an exam or something to study. Right. And it's um, it's that same sort of feeling when you have a time-based goal. It, it causes, uh, causes that same sort of panic in a good way.

Sean Weisbrot: Mm-hmm. So I do maintain a to-do list and I have like a today list and I have a, this needs to get done at some point, but like something's blocking it for some reason. So I've just gotta make sure I don't forget it. But, you know, try to. Would a little away. So there's a, there's an intention or there's a goal for each of those tasks, and I keep them in the order that I want to accomplish them on a daily basis. So on a, on a day-to-day basis, I wake up with a specific intention, but I never really considered extrapolating that out to a longer timeframe so that I was working every day towards the thing that would get. Meet to that goal rather than going through the day clearing out the tasks that were in front of me. 'cause some of those tasks may not have anything to do with getting to that goal. And so the thing then is, well, if you have this kind of three month goal or this one month goal, and then this task comes up. Is that task the thing that should be done first or is it the thing that can wait as long as you explain to whoever you have to deal with, why it's not getting done immediately? Um, you know, especially when you're in your own business and you have the flexibility to go, yeah, sorry, I'm just not gonna do it right now.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, right. You'd be like, yeah, we can miss the next month. And it's like, it'll be all right. Um, we're still gonna land here and I'm okay with that. That's why that's more treating those things as like, though they're hard and in stone. I think it's imperative because that's, I mean, that's one of the best reasons why, uh, having those. Three month accomplishment goals makes an actual difference is because it should cause you to, when you look at today's task, that thing like, you know, like for us it's like our, our own social media presence is horrible. Right? Which is ironic 'cause we're an ad agency. Um, and we we're, we're great at the paid execution side. We don't do organic posts. But, um, that's, that's not a part of our business model, but. Also too, we have like, I dunno, an embarrassingly low amount of follows and things because that's never been a goal for ours, right? Like we don't even usually work with clients directly. We're usually working through other agencies and things. And so, um, the, uh, that's one where it's like that, that task just could keep getting pushed off forever. 'cause you know, we're four years in business and it hasn't really mattered yet. So is it a big deal if we get our social media together this Friday versus next Friday? Well, yes and no. I mean, I could push it off forever, but because my goal this month is to begin to work on our social presence, then no, that can't get pushed off. My goals this time, I've already, and I, that's where I think announcing your goals to, to some sort of accountability group, like what I do. Um, and you may or may not be, this may or may not be helpful advice because you know, we, because I know we're, I know things are structured a little differently, but for, for me, I announced those goals of like at the beginning of the month of like, Hey team, this is what we're accomplishing this month. This is what we're doing, blah, blah, blah. And so I look like a. Like a, you know, like a failure to my team if I go back and say, oh yeah, we just didn't get to that this month. Um, so giving some sort of accountability I think is, uh, is good. Um, is good too. Yeah. Always. That I think is imperative. That's the whole, um, if you heard the, the two brick layers, two brick layers, one of them, you know, somebody asks one of them. And he's all sweaty and he looks like he's, you know, hating his job. And they go, what are you doing? And he goes, I'm laying bricks. And they, they asked the other guy and he seems more peppy and, uh, seems to be really invigorated about what he's doing. And they say, what are you doing? And he says, building a cathedral, right? Like, that's 'cause to him. That because one of them's got a sense of that long goal and the other one's just sort of doing it for the daily pay. Um, yeah, I think having, letting everyone know what that cathedral we're building is, is imperative. That helps with retention as well too, because, I mean, it just makes everybody feel like they're doing something that actually matters. Right. And, and it makes it more likely that it will actually matter too. Right. It's not that, that's just like a lip service thing. It also helps. You know, there's businesses with that cathedral in mind, and there's businesses without that cathedral in mind, and the ones without it in mind. I mean, it's not like it's just gonna happen. You're just gonna end up with really tall, like brick walls for no real reason.

Sean Weisbrot: When I was doing my last company, the, the software company, there was a goal in mind and it was extremely lofty and it was gonna take. Tens of millions of dollars and, and years of building and growing to even get close to where we wanted to be. And while I enjoyed that, it was extremely stressful because it was too big and. While I also could say that until now, I was enjoying the simple pleasures of just making money and having people come to me wanting a service and then being happy with that service. I also can understand the need to have a larger goal for it, where. I don't really have a goal with this business, it's just how much passive income can I generate and how fast can I generate it, because then I can do this and I can do that, and I can go here and I can go there and I don't have to worry about this thing. And so it's, it's like a, a, a numerical goal without a purpose other than just to make life a little bit less stressful, hopefully.

Skip Wilson: I would, I would encourage you to work on that purpose maybe a little bit, right? Because I mean, you're gonna want to do or accomplish things with that, that, um, so you can be your own like cathedral, right? Like I, I mean from on a personal level, I have my, my, my body is the temple. Yeah. Right? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Let's, uh, you know, and so you need to, uh, so the, you can be the thing you're working on and the thing you're building towards, um. I just recently, um, I, I ba I was very fit and active for a long, for a lot of my life and haven't been recently, um, for a number of years now, actually, basically since iHeart. So I mean, it's been now like I'm going on like 15 years of just what, letting what happens, happens, um, in terms of my, my physical fitness and, uh. It to me. I find it much easier. I've joined this, this, this group that is essentially a, like a, like MMA and boxing type thing, which is funny 'cause I'm a pacifist, but whatever the, um, the, but for pacifist to be part of a boxing group, it's kinda funny, but the, um, I find that much more, less like arduous than like just going to the gym because. I'm working towards like a goal, right? And, um, and I think you'll find the same thing like, in other words, so it doesn't have, it's not like it has to be that you want have like a Fortune 500 company or something like that. Um, it can definitely just be, I want to make this amount of income because I want to do this, this, and this amount life, and I can't do it without that. And that's, that's a perfectly acceptable goal. But as far as it feeling too arduous and far as it, in terms of it feeling too hard. That's where having that long-term goal and the like right now, like this month goal, that's why your this month goal should never be crazy or insane. Like I said, it should never be for a business. It shouldn't. I can't think of a reason why it should ever be 10% above where you're at right now. 'cause that's gonna be way too hard and for most businesses even that would be too hard. Because you, you will burn out. So you want to make your right now goal very realistic, but it's working towards that super far off goal, if that makes sense.

Sean Weisbrot: Hmm. Well, in, in the last few months, my goal was to get off of sugar and caffeine, which I've done, and then I joined the yoga studio again. Because I had done yoga last year and I was doing, I did it fasted six days a week for three months, and then I injured myself. But I lost so much fat from doing fasted yoga that I said, I'm gonna do it again, but I'm gonna do it three days a week, and I'm gonna find a physical therapist to help me heal. The thing that, that caused the problem, because it came back the first day I did yoga again. I, I didn't do yoga for like eight months and the first day I started again, it came back. I was like, damnit. Well, obviously that thing didn't heal. Because I do table tennis and, and golf and archery and a host of other things. I walk, you know, miles and miles and miles every day. No pain whatsoever from that thing, but I did yoga, which caused the injury, came back instantly. It's go. Okay. Well I need a physical therapist also. I'm, I'm spending too much on food. I'm eating everything out at a restaurant. It's not very healthy, even though I'm vegetarian, it's still like oil and a bunch of stuff that you can't control. Sure. So I started with the meal delivery service, which is vegetarian and, and sugar free. Um. And I'm saving probably like $450 a month right now, or $500 a month just by not eating at the restaurants. Um, and by, and then another like 200 a month by not having that sugar from the pastry shop or the coffee right from the coffee shop. So like, I think I, I'm probably down seven, $800 a month in expenses just from those things. Um. And so now I'm looking at, okay, well I wanna, my, my lease is up where I'm at right now, at the end of August. So I can either extend or I can find an apartment by myself. 'cause right now I'm sharing with a few people and I can't stand it. I'm almost 40 and I just don't wanna live with other people.

Skip Wilson: Sure.

Sean Weisbrot: And like when I lived in Asia, I lived alone unless I was with a girlfriend or my ex-wife, I lived with them. Otherwise I was alone. So like moving to Europe and having to share with other people because the cost of living is, is much higher, is just, it's unfair in a way. Um. Sure. But, but that's life. I chose to live in Europe. My life in Europe is better, but I need to spend a lot more, so I have to earn a lot more to be able to afford those things. So I'm looking at apartments right now, that's like a three month goal.

Skip Wilson: Sure. Um,

Sean Weisbrot: so like, yeah, I've got, I've got those goals and, and as the company is doing better and as I'm making more money, I feel more confident in making those changes so that I have the ability to live a better life. And so, yeah, I, I am investing in myself in that regard. And it's really important to, uh, to think about those things and, and I think doing boxing, like I'm also a pacifist, but I think boxing is a really great way to lose weight. If you look at some of those guys that are boxing, they're like crazy thin and like super. You know, super lean, super muscular. Um, I'd also suggest yoga or some sort of calisthenics because it helps you to build out like muscles, the smaller muscles that actually are functional. Sure. I was, uh, almost 200 pounds at my top and I'm, I'm only five six, so I'm not a, I don't have a big frame. Um, I, I'm a, I have a wide frame, but. Yeah, 200 pounds on a guy like me does not look good. So I'm like more healthy at one 50 and I'm about 1 65 right now.

Skip Wilson: Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: And like when you do, so like one of my problems was I couldn't lift myself up out of the pool and that was really, really annoying. And when I tried to lean down to tie my shoes, I couldn't catch my breath. Right. This is at 200.

Skip Wilson: Sure. Yeah.

Sean Weisbrot: It's, it's, it's, it's embarrassing,

Skip Wilson: right? Yeah, exactly. And so

Sean Weisbrot: I knew I had to do something about it because there was no way in hell that, that was healthy.

Skip Wilson: Sure. Right. Exactly.

Sean Weisbrot: And so doing calisthenics helped me to start to build and doing yoga helped me to start to build the smaller muscles so that I could. Become stronger and do those things. One of the issues with the gym, like people go, oh, you wanna lose weight? Go to the gym, build muscle. Sure fine. The more muscle, the more, uh, weight you have in muscles, the more calories you need. Something like extra, one extra pound of muscle is extra 50 calories a day. You need to maintain that muscle, so therefore you are more likely to burn the fat fine. But when you are fat. As I was, and you go to the gym and start building muscle, guess what? You look even fatter.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, right, exactly.

Sean Weisbrot: Because the, the muscle is growing underneath the fat I. Yep.

Skip Wilson: So

Sean Weisbrot: you end up looking worse and feeling worse.

Skip Wilson: That's right.

Sean Weisbrot: And you gain more weight because muscle weighs more than fat.

Skip Wilson: Yeah, exactly.

Sean Weisbrot: And so that, that's why people call it like bulking and cutting cycles. Like, okay, you bulk up and then you burn off the fat. Alright, fine. But like when you're fat, you don't wanna do that. You wanna, you want to thin down. And so I, I realized I was going to the gym six days a week. My ex-wife was training me, she was a gym trainer. I realized what I had to do was stop the gym and let the muscle die off. So I started, I cut my carbs, I cut the gym, and I started walking four hours a day. And after a few months, I had lost about 40 pounds because I lost the muscle weight and I burnt off the fat. I was starving myself. Basically, I was eating, but I was burning more calories than I was consuming. And so I would go to sleep hungry, like literally my stomach would be like growling at night when I went to bed. And I did that every night consistently, and I got rid of the bulk of that fat, and I still have fat. I'm, you know, I still have a way to go, but. I'm a lot healthier than I was before because I had had, um, appointments with, you know, the doctor in Vietnam, uh, where I was living, and he was like, look, you're, you're close to being pre-diabetic. He's like, you really need to make a change now. And I was like, damn it. Okay. Like, you know, and I, I. Because he said, you have visceral fat. He's like the fat that you have. He's like, if you look at me, I, I don't look that thick. I don't look that chunky because I have muscle. That muscle has been maintained throughout the years. I still have some fat on top of it. Fair enough. But like, I even saw this physical therapist recently to deal with the, the injury, and she's like, you're not like fat. She's like, it's not like flubbery. It's like solid. You know? It's like you, you're, you know, your fat is, it's like, uh, infl inflammation. It's like maybe a digestion issue, you know? She's like, you're, it's not unhealthy. You just like need to figure out what's going on to help you deal with digestion and all that. So. Um, hopefully that's helpful for you. Yeah,

Skip Wilson: no, that's incredible. That's in, that's incredibly helpful. Yeah, I would like, I need to do, I would like to do something like a yoga. Yoga in particular would be nice. 'cause I've never been, even at my fittest, I was playing football and things and, um, I was not very, I was never flexible. I mean, I, at no point in my life have I been particularly flexible. And so the, uh, that's one of the things that I think about yoga in particular, I think, uh, I would find interesting.

Sean Weisbrot: Yeah. Well, if you wanna have a longer health span, one of the biggest things that people don't realize is they don't mobilize their joints and they don't stretch. And because of that, they end up like this. Yeah. And they can't move. And they have aches and pains everywhere. So like the most important thing you can do in your life, if you have any time in the day, that you can devote to this, which you should, right, is mobilize your joints, stretch. Go for long walks and do some lightweight exercise or body weight exercises because gravity is stealing your, uh, your muscle every year. And, you know, not stretching tightens up your, your spine. It, it causes you to shrink as you get older. Your skeleton kind of, you know, strengths and right all of the space between your, um, uh, your spine, uh, the, the different, um, vertebrae. I can't think of it. Right. All of your different vertebrae, they, they compress and so you need to hang every day. You need to flex, you need to stretch, you need to mobilize, like all that stuff. If, if you do nothing else, if you want to not be absolutely miserable in your old age, you need to do all those things. That's right. Every day.

Skip Wilson: Which is gonna be and rush your teeth more important. And that's gonna be, yeah. Right. Exactly. And that's gonna be even more important if we do what, you know, what, uh, what we talked about at the beginning of this, which is, let's say we can increase lifespan to, uh, something more like one 50 to plus, then that's gonna become even more important. Now you're gonna have a hundred years of damage that people have to repair and stuff.

Sean Weisbrot: So what's the most important thing you've learned so far in your life?

Skip Wilson: Hmm. I think the most important thing I've learned in my, in my life is that, uh, because it applies to both business and family and everything, is that what we put. Out. In other words, helping others, helping others, putting into others is essentially, I think what I is, what I believe is the key to happiness. Like I think the more people that you can help, the more people you can do things for the happier you are in your life. I think that is, that I would say is a would, would be my, my number one lesson.