DAVID FIRED THE MAN! – Goal Setting, Planning, and Execution of His Freedom Plan

/ Podcast Episodes /

Episode 60

It’s official. David has fired the man. In this episode, David will talk about his rollercoaster journey in the last four years and the satisfaction that comes with arriving at the destination. This is a must-listen for those still in the “grind stage” and those who have not started their journeys yet. 

This is coming from two normal guys who just wanted to support ourselves and our families. We were also uncomfortable at first, probably just like you are right now. But we never gave up. We trusted the process, and now we’re here. 

Let’s listen to David and learn how he fired the man!  

[00:01 – 02:22] Opening Segment

  • We introduce our topic for today
  • David has officially fired the man! 

[02:23 – 08:10] A Memorable 20,000+ Hours

  • What happened after David deleted his Outlook app
  • David’s thoughts on leaving the public accounting space
  • What excites David about going full-time in e-commerce?

[08:11 – 16:44] Living With The Discomfort

[16:45- 21:11] “The Juice is Worth The Squeeze”

  • We exchange insights about this “magical connection”
  • We talk about this life-changing call we had
  • Our advice for people in the “grind stage”

[21:12 – 23:11] Closing Segment 

  • Final words

Tweetable Quotes:

“We talk about ‘firing the man.’ If that’s your ultimate goal, consider changing who you work for if you feel you’re at a dead end job or you’re not learning anything.” – David Schomer

“Those of you in the grind stage, keep grinding. The juice is worth the squeeze. It is such a good feeling.” – David Schomer

“This is possible: to get your freedom, to take your freedom back and support yourself and your family…” – David Schomer

Resources Mentioned:

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David 0:00
It’s a leap of faith, like leaving your job and going out on your own. And maybe the discomfort will end at some point, but it has not for me, like, I’m still a little uncomfortable. And that’s okay. You always say like, if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing.

Ken 0:14
You know, if it’s too good to be true, then it’s been it probably is this, this doesn’t happen overnight. This is a long process, that it’s a grind, and it takes time. But if you continue to play it out, and you know, just continue to put in the work, it’ll be successful, it just takes time.

David 0:32
One had an MBA, and one had a really supportive girlfriend, or spouse, or boyfriend or whatever, that was constantly encouraging them and letting them know that they could do it like that they believed in them, I will take that person over the NBA every day. And you know, I give a lot of credit to my wife. She has been tremendously helpful here and has been very encouraging throughout this whole process.

Intro 0:56
Welcome, everyone, to the Firing The Man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you were capable of more than join us, this show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your host serial entrepreneurs David Schomer and Ken Wilson.

Ken 1:21
Welcome everyone to the firing the man podcast. On today’s episode, David has some really exciting news to share with everyone. It involves achieving a lifelong dream. And it’s so incredibly relevant to the mission of this podcast, you will not want to miss what comes next. David, welcome.

David 1:38
Thank you. Thank you happy to be here. Happy to be here. You know, we started this podcast, and we decided on the name Firing The Man. And that made me a little uncomfortable. I had a good job at a CPA firm, I’d spent a lot of time taking the CPA and CFA exam, and the thought of leaving that made me uncomfortable. But it was my ultimate goal. I’ve wanted to fire the man for about four years now. And so yesterday was my last day at the consulting firm that I’ve been working at for eight years. And so I have officially fired the man, can we have both officially fired man, which is super exciting. That’s

Ken 2:24
Yeah, that’s awesome. I’m super happy for you very proud of you been working hard. So how are you feeling today?

David 2:30
You know, it’s funny, I woke up. And usually I’ll grab my cell phone, I’m like, half awake, half asleep. And yesterday. So my company’s email was through outlook. And yesterday, I deleted my Outlook app. But this morning, I woke up in just, I’m a creature of habit, I was scrolling through my phone looking for the Outlook app, because I always check my email first thing in the morning, which is not a healthy way to start your day. But it’s what I’ve been doing. So it kind of hit me like I don’t I don’t have any emails to respond to, you know, no partners email me at midnight last night, and are going to be looking for a response early this morning. And so I’m feeling great. I’m feeling really good. You know, I will say I was there was a touch of sadness when I left, you know, I, the show’s called firing the man. But I don’t want that to be disingenuous towards the company that I worked for. I had great experiences, I worked with a lot of great people. And I’m, you know, leaving those people. And so you know, in public accounting you is a lot of turnover. And so I’ve had a lot of people that I’ve been friends with that if left and usually on their way out, they’ll say let’s stay in touch. And oftentimes you will stay in touch, but it’s not the same. Like your relationship changes. And I know that that’s gonna happen. And so, you know, when I broke the news to the firm, I s three partners that I’m really close with the managing partner and two others that I’ve worked with, and I got emotional, and it didn’t help them. My son was up like, all night the night before, but when I’m tired, man, I cry.

I like in that meeting. I could not keep my shit together. I like got teary and and yeah, I think it was genuine. You know, I Tom is one of the partners I told them. You know, I’ve talked to you every week for the last eight years. Like it’s hard for me to envision life after this. I don’t know I I know a lot about him. I consider him my friend and and I know that relationships gonna change. And so I was sad now. That sadness. I don’t want to make it go away by going back and working for the man. Like I’m very happy with the direction things are going. And so yes, it’s sadness, but it’s not something that I want to change. Like I’m really excited to be doing e commerce full time. And so but you know, kind of reflecting on my experiences can you were gracious enough to meet me on my way out yesterday, and I was thinking on my elevator ride. down, you know, I’d spent somewhere between 20 and 25,000 hours in that building, which it was a lot of early mornings, a lot of late nights, a couple all nighters. That’s just a lot of time to spend in one spot.

Ken 5:15
Yeah, that that is a lot. And, you know, I left my company, you know, that I worked for seven or eight months ago. And, and, and kind of going through that, it’s like, you’re closing down a chapter, and you’re opening a new one. So as you’re kind of going through these, and some people hate their job, some people really liked your job. So you really liked your job. And so it was a tougher thing for you to go through more emotional process, right. So as you woke up this morning, you had mentioned you were, you know, kind of flipping through your phone. And that was your instinct in your reaction. And so do you have any? So So Looking ahead, like that capacity? Do you have like that excitement? Like, are you thinking about what you’re going to fill your time with? And can you kind of go through that? Like,

David 6:02
yeah, absolutely. So, you know, Ken, to answer your question, I, the last four years, this has been my daily routine, I’ll wake up at 4am. And I’ll get into my office around 430. And from 430, to 734 30, to seven, I’ll work on my e commerce business. And then I go and work my full time job. And, you know, I would say, like, looking back in 2020, I’ll bet I worked 60 or 70% of the weekends, in but you know, Monday through Friday, nine to five, that was time that I was working at my full time job. And so there’s not a lot of business that gets done outside of nine to five, Monday through Friday, you know, in terms of like calls with suppliers or in so I had to adapt. And, you know, most of my communication was through email, you know, I would give people heads up, like, Hey, I’m not going to be available during the day, like, maybe we talk early in the morning or in the evening. And, and so, you know, that, that piece of it, I’m really excited is to just take that, that real estate in my mind that I was using for 40 or 50 hours a week, and my full time job and apply it to ecommerce, and you know, free up some time on the weekends. One thing I’m doing is taking a sabbatical and doing some traveling and I’m looking forward to unplug. I mean, it has been a grind and and you know, to all of our listeners that are working a full time job, it is a grind, like, but it’s doable. It’s doable, you need to make sacrifices. And you know, what I always told people was if they’d ever say like, how do you have time to do all this stuff. And I always respond like, I don’t watch love TV, I don’t spend a ton of time on social media. You know, if you look at, you can find two or three extra hours in your day by cutting out some Bs, and I feel like I’ve trimmed the fat and a lot of different areas. And so don’t get me wrong, I still like watching Netflix every so often. But you know, like Game of Thrones, that is a frickin commitment to watch seven seasons of that. And, and, you know, it’s a great show, but but it takes a lot of time. And so anyway, one thing I do want to circle back on is my time at this consulting firm, because, you know, you hear people wanting to fire the man and and there’s a different like sense of urgency behind it. And one reason that I didn’t have huge urgency to leave was I was learning. So in my role, I worked on mergers and acquisitions. I got to see like 50 companies be bought or sold. I worked on fraud and forensic projects, which was like digging into companies seeing what went wrong, was there any fraud, and then a bunch of other like, miscellaneous consulting projects. And so I would say in those eight years, I probably had exposure to 150 or 200 companies. And you know, as a consultant, we are telling the client what they should do. And so when I was running my own business, I basically just took all of that advice, and did it. It’s so you know, the reason that I bring this up is that, you know, we talk about firing demand, right? If that’s your ultimate goal, consider like changing who you work for, if you feel like you’re at a dead end job, or you’re not learning anything, you know, obviously, in the last eight years, I was compensated from that firm, but I’ll tell you, the biggest amount of compensation that I received was like, knowledge and exposure to companies like I learned about business. And so, you know, I was in the recruiting role at that firm, and a lot of kids coming out of school would say, you know, I’m thinking about getting my MBA, and I always said, you know, come and work here for five years, and you’ll have your PhD and how to run a business. And I truly feel that way. And so, I know we have some college students that tuned into this, you know, my background was in accounting and finance. And you know, I think a consulting firm at a public accounting firm, there is not a better place to learn. And obviously, you know, there are different skill sets you bring Get the table, right like you as a network engineer like you, you brought some of those skills in and apply them to ecommerce. And also, I’m way biased here, this has been my path. So obviously, I think it’s the best path to go. But you know, think about it, especially to any business majors, I think it’s a great way to get started. So

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Ken 11:10
Yeah, definitely want to circle back to that point of using, you know, your skill sets and developing them in a corporate environment, you learn so much, you know, like, nobody wants to work for someone else. But, but like you mentioned, you are learning you’re in the learning phase, right. And so someone else paid for your PhD because they you work for them and, and went through the process and, and learned all of this not on your dime. But they’re a dime, right? And so now, you’re able to translate those skills that you learned, you know, in the corporate environment to your own business, which is huge. That’s phenomenal. I’m so excited for this episode, you know, it’s pretty amazing to you know, I don’t think many people would get to do what, what you just did, I’d like to kind of expand on that and share with the audience, his listeners, maybe a high level plan of what you have. And you know, kind of how you executed it. And what were maybe the top two or three things along the way that you would recommend everybody doing what what was most powerful and helped you the most?

David 12:09
Yeah, absolutely. So let me start on day one of starting my e commerce company, I had not a great day at work and decided I wanted to do something different. And so when I launched my first e commerce brand, I intended on leaving after one year, it is four years later, and I just did it. And so, you know, good things take time, you know, I tried to tie my exit to where I won’t put my family in a pinch financially and, and was able to grow and reinvest my profits in my business. And it took four years. And so you know, I would say could you do it in a year? Yeah, you could. But I would say if you’re a year into this, and you’re starting to feel discouraged, like Keep going, keep going. And that’s something I guess I’m just too stubborn to quit. I don’t know. Like, I guess I’m just bullheaded, and I was bound and determined to make this work. And and it did. It does. I’m super excited about it. You know, one thing is, like I’ve been approaching this day, one thing that I’ll point out is, I didn’t necessarily like draw a line in the sand and say, when I achieve revenue and net income of this, I’m going to leave. And instead, I said, I’m going to wait until the discomfort leaves. Like right now, I don’t feel you know, six months ago, I was unsure about whether it would work. If I were to leave, could the company sustain itself, I was uncomfortable. So I didn’t do it. And what I realized is, it’s a leap of faith, like leaving your job and going out on your own. And maybe the discomfort will end at some point, but it has not for me, like I’m still a little uncomfortable. And that’s okay. You always say like, if you’re not uncomfortable, you’re not growing. And so that was something that I wish I would have done is I would you know, set a benchmark. And when I achieved it, I would leave. And so now, that said, let’s dive into the numbers a little bit. And we’ve talked about this on previous shows, but I think it’s worth rehashing is from a net income standpoint, you are not trying to replace your salary only, right? If you do that. And then you leave your job and you’re now drawing out the entire net income as a salary, you’ve got nothing left to reinvest into inventory and growth. And so what I did was my goal was to replace my income by a factor of three. I’ve heard some people say, by a factor of two, I’m very risk averse. So I went for a factor of three and what that allows me to do is draw a salary out of the business and continue to reinvest into new products and grow and scale my company. I like the size of my company now but boy what I love to five or 10 exit and that’s the goal right? And so that you know that that’s something that I did and so I would say the other thing was surrounding myself with like minded individuals and you know i in preparation for this episode, I went back I listened to the episode that you did when you fired the man. And that was something that you really placed a lot of emphasis on. And that’s huge. I mean, COVID has been an odd year in that, you know, going to networking events and whatnot is not as doable. But you know, you can, you’re a great example of somebody that’s been an inspiration to me, somebody that I can bounce ideas off of, you know, I’ve always kind of felt like, You’re one step ahead of me in a lot of different areas, and learning from you has been tremendous. And I feel like we’ve learned from each other. And so, you know, that’s been something that’s been really, really successful in helping me achieve this. You know, I would say the last thing that I’ll mention is having a supportive spouse in a supportive partner, supportive friend, whatever, if you were to take two individuals that were identical, say identical twins, like same brainpower, one had an MBA, and one had a really supportive girlfriend, or spouse, or boyfriend or whatever, that was constantly encouraging them, and in letting them know that they could do it like that they believed in them, I would take that person over the NBA every day. And, you know, I give a lot of credit to my wife, she has been tremendously helpful here, and has been very encouraging. throughout this whole process, it hasn’t been glamorous at times, like there have been times where we’re taking laundry baskets of products to the post office, and, you know, staying up till 2am, putting barcodes on products. And, you know, our basement has looked like a warehouse for the last two years. And there’s been a lot of sacrifice on her hand, and I really appreciate her, like reminding me What, what the goals are, and just being very supportive. And so, anyway, that’s long winded explanation, but there’s something about that.

Ken 16:44
Yeah, yeah, I I definitely agree. And, and think that’s a really, really powerful, you know, so if you’re listening out there and not say, go pick a different partner, but, you know, if you don’t have a partner, and you’re looking for one, try to find one that is super supportive, because I think that’s magical connection, or almost like a superpower, you know, you reach out and get that. One other thing I want to circle back to is you had mentioned, you know, it takes time, right? Like, you’ve this has been a four year process for you. And you’ve kind of thematically planned this out. And it’s like, almost anything that I have found in business, you know, if it’s too good to be true, then it’s then it probably is this, this doesn’t happen overnight. This is a long process, that it’s a grind, and it takes time. But if you continue to play it out, and you know, just continue to put in the work, it’ll be successful. It just takes time. I’ve seen that with my website traffic. I’ve seen that with my sales, I’ve said just about anything, you know, you just give it enough time, and it’ll work out.

David 17:47
So can we talking about when I was going to leave and I said march, march 2021 was kind of when I thought I would be leaving or like putting in my notice to leave. And I had a realization one day, and I kind of frantically called you may I sent you a Skype message. I felt like a kind of a crazy man that day. But I want to get like what was your reaction to that? And what how is it what was Tell me tell me about the call. Yeah, sure. So

Ken 18:15
you normally you know, don’t reach out frantic like that. And so I was like, Well, you know, something’s important. I don’t know what happened. And there’s emergency or something. So we connected. And you’re, you know, you’re like, did you have a minute? I’m like, Yeah, like what, what’s going on? And you know, you told me and I’m like, holy shit. And I’m like, I’m like, I can tell from our conversation and from how hyped you were like, you were so charged and energized. And I was like, excited and hot. You’re like I’m doing and I’m like hell yeah. So like, yo, super powerful when you had said that and the way you said it, like I knew like like David is gonna bust through these wall like he is gonna just hard charge through there. So yeah, it was it was a pretty exciting moment to have that call.

David 19:01
Definitely there was like a switch that flipped it and I was I told my wife and I was excited, you know? And then I was like, I gotta tell you, we have a podcast of firing the man. That’s what I’m doing. I got to tell him and so it was you know, from that point forward, I think the next day I put in my notice or got the ball in motion and it was just such a wonderful feeling. And so I’ve a lot of people to think I don’t mean to make this sound like I did this on my own. But there’s a lot of early mornings where no one was up and it was just me grinding away in my office and a lot of weekends and a lot of you know stuff that I’ve skipped and sacrifices I’ve made and got it just that the feeling satisfaction that I have right now. is wonderful and I don’t mean to say this to gloat it is to let our listeners know like those of you in the grind stage keep grinding. It is that the juice is worth the squeeze. It is such a good feeling and It is, it’s more like the type of satisfaction you just hold in your on the inside. Like, obviously, I was pretty pumped up the day I told you but like, most of the satisfaction, just you know, is on the inside. And it’s a wonderful feeling. And so for years, a lot of time, a lot of energy. But we did it, man, we get it.

Ken 20:19
Yeah, absolutely. You know, before I kick it back over to you to close out the show, I’d like to kind of mention one thing to the listeners and to the audience. You know, David and I are just two normal guys doing our thing, you know, and we’re just kind of documenting our journey. And, you know, just just a year ago, like this, none of this, you know, David and I still had jobs. And so we’re not smart. You know, I’m not smart all David’s. Dave is pretty damn smart. I’m not that smart. So if I can do it, anyone can do it. So we’re just two normal guys grinding away. And this this is possible for anyone. Absolutely. Anyone anyone listening to this, if you’re if you haven’t started yet, get going. And if you are, if you’re in the process, keep grinding, like David said, because this is possible to get your freedom to take your freedom back and support yourself and your family. And it’s amazing feeling. So I’m so excited this episode. Yeah, it’s it’s a pretty amazing. So you want to wrap up the show?

David 21:13
Yeah, absolutely. One last thought I have is is during the 2021 goals episode, I announced this, I announced that this year, I’m firing the man. And actually, when we did our 2020 goals episode, I had it written on my paper that I was gonna fire the man. But I was scared to say it. And I think as a result, I did not fire the man in 2020. And so if there’s something to this, just putting it out there and telling someone, this is my goal, it holds you accountable. And so to the listeners, if you want to establish gameplan and a roadmap for firing the man, or you simply just want to tell somebody, hey, this is my game plan. Go to firing demand.com click on the microphone and leave us a voicemail. And we’d love to follow up with you and you know, potentially help you with that game plan and roadmap. When Ken and I both started this podcast, we worked for the man. But you know we have successfully fired demand and are really excited for the next chapter. And so, but thanks for everyone for tuning in. And we’ll see you next week.

Thank you everyone for tuning in to today’s Firing The Man Podcast. If you like this episode, head on over to www.firingtheman.com And check out our resource library for exclusive firing demand discounts on popular e commerce subscription services that is www.firingtheman.com/resource. You can also find a comprehensive library of over 50 books books that Ken and I have read in the last few years that have made a meaningful impact on our business, or that head on over to www.firingtheman.com/library. Lastly, check us out on social media at Firing The Man on YouTube at Firing The Man for exclusive content. This is David Schomer and Ken Wilson. We’re out

Transcribed by https://otter.ai