David: (00:00)
I’ll tell ya, I have met this person. I’m going to describe a person and I want you to respond. So I met somebody that says, I have a wife, I have a husband, I have kids, I have a full time job. I have a boss that’s a Dick, that makes me work 60 hours a week. There’s no way. There is no way I could find time in my schedule to start a side hustle to start selling physical products online. What would you tell that person?
Intro: (00:30)
Welcome everyone to the firingtheman.com podcast. A show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and to 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: (00:54)
I would say, tell, tell me everything you do in your day. There’s 24 hours in a day. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Donald Trump, all three of those guys have and and you, all of us have the same thing in common. We have 24 hours in a day. So if you break that down, you know, most people need six to eight hours of sleep to function properly. You probably work a full time job of eight hours. You probably have a few hours of commute and you probably have a few hours of family time and there’s the other six to eight hours that go wasted, right. Whether you’re, you know, watching sitcoms or um, you know, whatever is the myriad of stuff that you do. I mean, I, I don’t think I’ve met anybody that has legitimately came to me and said, Hey, they showed me their schedule and they are completely maxed out. Everybody, I think everybody today has two hours.
Ken: (01:56)
They could chisel out, they could set aside time and they could work on a project. And uh, yeah, I think everybody has two hours. David.
David: (02:05)
I’ll tell you what, I, uh, this really forced me to get honest with myself, but I did an iPhone update the other day. I got a new app and I don’t know what it’s called, but it keeps track of how much time I spend on every app. And you can set time limits. And so I put a 30 minute time limit on Instagram thinking I don’t spend 30 minutes on Instagram. No freaking way. I only, you know, I would give it a couple of minutes a day sometimes. Uh, you know, if I’m sitting waiting on a meeting, but like that doesn’t add up to 30 minutes. Right. You know, I’ll tell you what, I downloaded that I said that 30 minute timer and I’ll bet you half the days I get the reminder you’ve been on Instagram for 30 minutes.
David: (02:49)
I’ll tell you what, if, if you think about the, you know, we’re talking about numbers here, right? How do you allocate your time? You got 48 of those, right? In a particular date you have 48 30 minute segments and I am on a regular basis throwing one away on some days. I don’t even remember. I’ll tell you what, someone told me this one time, they were like, if your Facebook feed or your Instagram feed or to be printed out as a hardback book, would you go to Barnes and noble and buy it? If he obviously answers you, fuck no, it’s just garbage. Like you are filling your brain with garbage. No one really remember, remembers it the next day. No one remembers it the the week later, the month later, right? Like this is not meaningful time. So I’ll tell you what, for any of you listening that are thinking, I don’t have enough time in my day to start a side hustle, I want you to go to the app store and I want you to download one of these time tracking apps.
David: (03:52)
And you don’t need to tell anybody. Honestly, when I looked at mine, I was embarrassed. I was embarrassed that I was spending, you know, 40 50 60 minutes a day on Instagram looking at bullshit. And this is an entirely different episode in and of itself, but there’s a book called digital minimalism. And I think if you’re struggling with an addiction to your cell phone and we should do an episode on this.
Ken: (04:17)
Yeah, I think so. I think we that that is huge. Like when we, when we talk about the topic of finding time to, you know, to build a business, build a brand two hours a day, that’s all you need, right? When we talk about finding time, you know, minimalism, efficiency, that’s a whole other episode. Sorry, go ahead.
David: (04:38)
No, and I would say like if you have a family, if you have a full time job, if you’re busy and you need to get scrappy, you need to find 30 minutes here and 40 minutes there.
David: (04:50)
You know there are some people that have it easier than others when it comes to time commitments and if you’re serious about it and you need to find two hours, man, that’s not a bad spot to start is where am I wasting my time? It’s my message there is if you’re struggling to find time, cell phone, are you addicted to it? And I’ll tell you what, it’s hard for me to admit but I don’t feel addicted. I really don’t. If you look at my habits, if you look at how many minutes or hours a day I spend on that son of a bitch, there’s probably someone out there that could make a pretty compelling case for, Oh yeah, you’re addicted. Maybe the last day you went without it. How fuck your hear man. What if, what if someone calls me, right? Like I need to have it. You have all these justifications, but you know, I never leave home without it. I’m starting to feel like I’m a bit of a prisoner.
Ken: (05:43)
That that’s a very, very relevant and deep because I think a lot of us would say, ah shit, you know, I don’t spend much time on myself. I don’t do Instagram. I don’t do this. I don’t do that. But you know, I think the, the latest update that I had, it’s kind of shows screen time and apps and all that and I didn’t even sign up for it, but it, it, it put it right in front of my face one day. And I looked at it and I was like, shit. I was like, it was like over an hour a day on YouTube. I was like, are you kidding me?
David: (06:14)
You know what it reminds me of, this really pissed me off when this happened, but when I started showing up to McDonald’s and I’ll tell you why, like I try to eat healthy, but I don’t know and I’ll tell you what, I love a big mac, but when they started putting calories on the fucking menu, it’s just like, I don’t want to see that shit go to enjoy it and I want to leave.
David: (06:37)
And so screen time on the iPhone, I mean that is, they just calorie counting for McDonald’s in my opinion.
Ken: (06:44)
I think it’s brilliant, I read a piece a while back from some guys. I think there were startups with Facebook. You know with Zucks (Mark Zuckerberg) and those guys and I and I, they left. They left the company. This is going to take a little bit of a left turn here in terms of like how the, the big tech companies are, are taking our time from us without us really knowing they’re, they’re actually, they’re smarter than we are, right? We don’t want to believe that they are, but they are. They, they study the, the data, the big data and they, they look at it and they share it with each other and they share what works. Right. And then they just, it’s like a funnel. They pour it in the funnel, right.
Ken: (07:24)
And we all drink it. They want to keep us on their platforms as long as they can. I think it’s dangerous. You know, it’s very dangerous and I think we’re at a point in time where we have to recognize that and we have to make changes. We have to optimize what’s good for us. So switching back a little bit to the right, whenever I, whenever I try to analyze something I think, okay, what value does this have for me? If I’m listening to a Gary V (Gary Vaynerchuk) episode on YouTube for let’s say 12 minutes or 17 minutes, I’m not going to listen to a Gary for an hour. Right? Gary V for me is like about 10 to 15 minutes. I need to, I need a little kick in the ass. Like, I need Gary V to say like, Ken, get your like, you know what? I’m a Russian immigrant and I had, I had shit growing up and I built my parents’ wine business and you know, I go out and hustle and I do this. And, and, and while laying in bed listening to that, I’m like, fuck, I gotta get, I gotta get up and do something. This God damn Gary V man, he’s out there hustling at fucking yard sales and whatever else. And, and you know, selling wine and making YouTube videos in 1984 so 10 15 minutes of Gary V on YouTube. To me, that’s value added. Right? And on the other side of the spectrum, on the YouTube feed, when I look down, I see like thug life, Oh shit, what’s this? Let me, let me click on thug life. What’s this? I see some gangsters rolling up, like kicking chairs out from people getting tumbled over. And I see some people like just getting boxed up and I’m like, Oh yeah, this is good. And then 45 minutes later I’m like, what am I doing?
David: (09:07)
If you want to talk about good use of your time, there is something about waking up in the morning. You know, I’m an early morning guy. Everybody has that song, probably five songs that get him just fucking torqued to man. Just, you know, I’m going to, I’ll be honest with you, like Bon Jovi living on a prayer, Eminem, I mean absolutely classic and a good Charlotte man. But if we’re talking about good use of YouTube, time may have listened to one song in the morning, get yourself fricking woke up. I mean, people always, they don’t think twice about making a cup of coffee or popping an Adderall or doing, you know, doing whatever dirt deeds they need to do to wake up in the morning. But you must do a freaking song that gets you jacked, you know, keeps you excited to be alive. And everyone knows that. Like everyone knows that feeling, you know, you know, when you bring that into your life at four 30 in the morning and uh, you’re ready to fucking take on the world tangent.
Ken: (10:10)
Yeah. Now living on a prayer is an absolute classic. Another thing. You said dirty deeds Uh, you were born in the, in the 90s, David, 1990 I was born in the 70s and there’s a song from Motley crew called dirty deeds and it is a fucking slammer, so you’ll have to check it out.
David: (10:29)
I’ll tell you what to over listeners, if you have a song that just gets you Jack in the morning or the evening of really whenever.
Ken: (10:38)
Yeah, like working out. Just anything.
David: (10:39)
If you’re driving in the car and it comes on the radio and you’re just fully torqued and you roll down the window and you’re singing it on full blast post in the comments. I want to know. In fact, I will listen to every song in the comments cause I love this. I really do think this is an essential part of a good morning routine.
Ken: (11:00)
You know, you know what, David, I just had a great thought. I, I, you know what would be a, a really good show? All the listeners dial in and say, Hey, these are all of our songs that really Amp us up. We do a whole a whole episode on that. Just an entire episode on music that will get you lit up and fired up to create change and to generate passive income and work on things you want it to work on.
David: (11:25)
So Ken at our meetup, I hear a lot of people say there is so much stuff to learn. I am overwhelmed. There’s so much content on YouTube, there’s so many people throwing so many things at you that I just get overwhelmed and I stop and I don’t do anything. I’ve been trying to pick a product to sell an Amazon for for weeks, for months and I still haven’t done anything. I’m just overwhelmed and thing I’ve observed that you do and you have coined a phrase, I’ll let you share with our audience. But um, there’s a specific strategy that when you approach a learning, it’s very targeted and I think that’s going to add a lot of value to our audience. So Ken, when you’re, when you’re trying to tackle a task, describe your, your learning strategy.
Ken: (12:16)
Whenever we were talking about being overwhelmed with content and how much to learn and, and you know, when you look at someone that has an established business and they’re doing, they’re going full time. How did they get there? Oh, you know, and then you look at the, you know, 27 steps it takes to get there. It’s very overwhelming, you know, so early on, you know, a couple of years ago when I was building my business, I, you know, I would get so stressed out about how am I going to optimize my Facebook ads and then I would realize I don’t even have a product picked out how am I going to, and I was worried about optimizing Facebook ads that is so far down into the tunnel that I didn’t even have a product to sell. And then I think a lot of, you know, a lot of people suffer from this as is. It’s kind of, um, it’s overwhelming. There’s so much knowledge out there and there’s so many steps. I can’t remember where, where I read it. I, I absorbed some content at one point in time and uh, it’s called Just in time learning.
Ken: (13:22)
And what the concept behind this is, if there’s 50 steps to go and each step you have a learning process, you shouldn’t be reading about step 35 when you’re on step seven. So for me specifically me, I was always learning as much as I could, absorbing as much as I could on, you know, 50 steps and then I couldn’t get from step seven to step eight and I was like, what the hell? Like I already read that, I already know how to do that. Or you know, I’ve studied that but I, I forgot it cause I, you know, your brain can only hold so much content, right? So here I am spending all my time on step 43 and I need to get to step eight. So I had to, you know, I reevaluate everything and I thought, okay, from now on I’m going to do just in time learning, if I need to get to step eight then I need to read the content that I need for that, that step eight.
Ken: (14:14)
That’s it. Nothing else. I’m not going to read step 41 to 82. I’m going to read step eight and I’m going to take actions to get me from seven to eight when I’m on it. When I’m on step eight, I’m going to go to step nine. I’m going to study that. Uh, so yeah, that’s the Just in time learning and it’s been, it’s been literally a game changer for me to make progress in my business. I don’t worry about, you know, how to put the top on the building on when I don’t have a foundation. Right. So I worry about what concrete I’m going to use my foundation when I’m building foundation. So that, that, that’s kind of the, the backstory there. But yeah, Justin learning and that’s um, it’s been huge for sure.
David: (14:54)
Can you share an example with our listeners about some, some just in time learning that you’ve been doing recently? What suggested time learning that you’re working on this week?
Ken: (15:05)
Okay. So, so specifically this week, uh, I’ve been working on, um, optimizing my listings and with the split testing and you know, I studied it a few years ago and I, and I’m like, uh, so I’m now at the point now where okay, I need to dial in my, my listing optimization. So I went and found the resources to, to study that. And I specifically use Splitly, it’s a software. And so I got splitly resource guide out and I studied it and I put it to use and I’ve increased my listing optimization by 25%.
David: (15:44)
I think that’s a great strategy, you know, building a business, it’s so open-ended, having something to focus on during the day, focusing on what step you are in right now and learning as much about that as you can I think is so important.
David: (16:00)
You know, I remember, uh, PPC before I even had my first listing up on Amazon, I had a listen to a podcast about PPC, which for listeners stands for pay per click. It’s an advertising mechanism on Amazon. And I started getting all stressed out about long tail keywords. And, and how I was gonna run an optimal PPC strategy. I didn’t even have a listing. And I think that’s so important to, you know, stay in your lane, the contents out there. It’s just trying to sift through what’s the most relevant content, uh, for me at, at this point in my business.
Ken: (16:42)
So David, you know, on this episode we’ve been talking a lot about efficiency, time management, you know, everybody has 24 hours in the day and how do you spend it? Um, can you give us one, one example that the listeners can, can take with them and, and use,
David: (17:00)
I’ve got a good example for this. So a couple of years ago my wife and I had an opportunity to buy a farm on the outskirts of town and the tradeoff there was going to be an hour and 10 minute commute. We were really excited about this. I grew up on a farm. She grew up on a farm but an hour and 10 minute commute is daunting. And in the first few weeks that I made that commute, I hated it. I hated traffic. I hated, you know that two hours and 20 minutes of my day was gone non-productive. I hated it and I was angry. It was a bad way to start my day and it was a terrible way to end my day going back home. And that’s when I discovered podcasts. And if you’re listening to this, it likely means that you’re a fan of podcast too. And what I did was I decided, listen, I’ve got two hours and 20 minutes every day.
David: (17:58)
I can either enjoy it or I can be pissed everyday, but the outcome is going to be the same. I’m going to go into work and then I’m going to drive home, but I’ve got to spend this time. And so I decided to really immerse myself in podcasts and audio books and that has allowed me two hours and 20 minutes of learning that, you know, you think about people that get stuck in the day to day grind of running a business. And here I am forced to hit pause and learn for two hours and 20 minutes and I enjoy it. You know why? Because I’m making more money because it is leading me towards my, towards achieving a goal of, you know, working for myself, being my own boss, firing the man and that has turned my two hour and 20 minute commute from something that I dreaded.
David: (18:52)
It put me in a bad mental space when I got to the office and then also put me in a bad mental space when I got home. Uh, I’ve turned that into something that I enjoy. We talk a lot on this show about consuming content and there’s a lot of content out there, Firing The Man podcast, but there’s a gazillion other areas that you can learn. But even if it’s not in, this is my pro tip to people that have a long commute. If you can spend that time learning, do it. But if you have a job where you don’t, where you really have to concentrate a lot and you don’t want to always be learning, you’re always using your brain. Find some funny, find some new entertaining. You know, I’m a beekeeper, I listen to beekeeping podcast and that is a great way to unplug. Spend 10 minutes before your hour commute and find something that you enjoy and then that next hour will be better.
Ken: (19:52)
No that’s great. And um, you don’t have to look at your phone either while you’re driving.
David: (19:59)
No, not at all. I mean, it all syncs up. You can end one episode and tee up the next one on a playlist. It is so slick. Where do you get, where do you get your podcasts? And for purposes of full disclosure, I’m not affiliated with any of these, any of these platforms, but I’m a Stitcher guy. I started off with Apple podcasts, but Stitcher allows you to search keywords within episode descriptions and that’s been a game changer for me. You know, you talked about just in time learning, if I am wanting to learn about listing optimization, all I need to do is type in listing optimization, to Stitcher. And there’s some podcasts about that.
Ken: (20:40)
Nice. Now that’s huge and it’s really direct and specific. You can search for exactly what you want to learn. You know, like you said, Justin can learning. If you like today’s episode, please smash the subscribe button. Boom.