43: Marriage and Entrepreneurship: How to Build a Thriving Work-Life Balance
Behind Their Success: Ep 43
Robert: [00:00:00] I think some business owners.
Robert: Are working a lot of hours, not because their business needs it, but because that's where they get the recognition. And so that's where I say, well, let's take care of some things at home. How do we do better at home?
Paden: Welcome to behind their success. This podcast is for people who are feeling stuck on their entrepreneur journey or in their careers. It's for people who want to scale and grow their businesses, learn about the power of mindset, or they just know there's more out there and they want to start making changes.
Paden: I'm Peyton Squires, the host of the podcast. I was never cut out to be an employee, and when I was an employee, I was bored out of my mind. So I made a plan. I studied and passed the CPA exam in eight months while working, all with the end goal in mind of quitting my job and starting my own business. I did that in 2014, and it has been an amazing wild ride since.
Paden: So now let's hear from other entrepreneurs, and what mindsets, and probably more important, what actions they have taken that have created and led to their success.
Paden: Hello everybody. [00:01:00] Welcome back to Behind Their Success podcast. I am Peyton Squires, the host. And today we have on Robert and Kay Lee Fukui They are the co-founders of I61 Inc specializing in helping married entrepreneurs achieve a harmonious work life balance. With a focus on scaling businesses while preserving valuable time for their marriages.
Paden: They offer expert guidance to ensure both personal and professional success. Good morning, guys. I appreciate you coming on so early and, out there on the West coast. good morning. Welcome.
Kay Lee: Good morning. Good morning, Paden.
Paden: Yeah. Looking forward to this.
Kay Lee: Yeah,
Paden: guys. it's honestly not super often. I have a team I'm interviewing or multiple people on the show.
Paden: I think I've done it once or twice before, but, So it looks like you guys work in business, as a team. So tell us, tell us a little bit about that. what exactly you guys do and, how you help people.
Robert: Yeah, it's a unique spin on basic business consulting. that's how it started eight years ago was just doing some business consulting for family business.
Robert: and because my experience has been in marketing [00:02:00] and sales and fortune 500 from Coca Cola to big pharma. That's what I was concentrating on. And so people would hire me for marketing, help increase their sales.but one of the things I found early on, with these family business, I, as I looked into the business, I would even I'm a unicorn of a marketing consultant because I will actually look at their PNLs, look at their balance sheets.
Robert: I wanted to see, with an increased workload and sales volume, are the number one going to be able to handle it? Also got me an insight into when you're looking at your sales channels and their PNL statements, it's okay, where should we be concentrate most of the time,where the high margin, opportunities and all that kind of stuff.
Robert: And so what I found was that they were working on such low margins, the average net profit margin for average business in America is I think 7. 7%, which is nice, but not really good enough. It's not really healthy, not enough to really continually be in reinvest into the business to grow healthy business.
Robert: Yeah. And so what I was saying as they're working such low margin that in order [00:03:00] to make up for the lack of profit margin, they would. Do use it with time. They would put more time into it, right? Cause you can't afford to hire more help,softwares, equipment, whatever, to make the business better.
Robert: And so then we saw that it was impacting their personal life. Cause as you get to know the clients, They start talking about the person life inevitably because you form a relationship and then we're finding that, that stress and tension that was happening in the business was affecting home life.
Robert: And then they weren't, like I said, they're spending more time in the business. They weren't spending the kind of quality time that what it would like at home. And that's why they started the business was to have more freedom. But then the next thing you know, they were more enslaved to their business than I was in a corporate environment.
Robert: I go, Hey, if you break this thing down hourly, how are you getting paid hourly and the amount of time you're putting in and how much you can actually getting paid by the business, you might as well get a nine to five
Robert: And so that's some six years ago. I looked at Kaylee and I said, Hey, there's an issue here. there's a work, [00:04:00] lack of balance in these entrepreneurs lives. And it's the crux of the issue is the business. But even so we had a couple of clients that even though the business was doing well financially, they just couldn't pull themselves away from the business to spend quality time at home.
Robert: So regardless of how well the business was doing or not, they were just having a lack of balance just because they didn't know how to, We'll be at home and spend time with family. And so that's when we added in the relational communication component. And so that they can really live a more fulfilled life.
Robert: Yeah, we'll help you scale and grow the business, but let's make sure that you're still prioritizing home, even as we're building this thing.
Kay Lee: Yeah.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. I felt like you were, talking right to me or describing or especially over the years and, you know, you go through seasons in business where times where, things are changing and you may need to focus a little more on it.
Paden: But, yeah, that, everything you described there, it's like, Oh [00:05:00] man, and in some ways in some of that myself right now where it's, yeah, it's tough, where you got a lot of things pulling you in business that you want to accomplish. But, You don't want that distracting
Robert: from home, right?
Robert: Exactly. Yeah. Because the top regrets of entrepreneurs as they get older and they get their sixties, is they didn't spend enough time with family and the relationships and themselves. it's interesting. There's a book out called the five, five top regrets of the dying written by Bonnie, where Bronnie where, and she was a palliative care nurse.
Robert: And all her patients are in the life. And so she just started just being curious, Hey, is there anything you to do different? And the top five regrets had to do with the inability of taking care of themselves and home life, their spouse, their kids, relationships, friendships.
Robert: So all top five regrets are all around how they took care of themselves and the relationships. And regardless of, where they're at [00:06:00] professionally, it wasn't about achievements. Okay. It was always about that.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. and that's what it comes down to is you start to realize like,when you're, you're young, you have time and no money, as you grow, become more successful, right?
Paden: Then you have money in no time. so that, that's, if you're not careful, if you're not intentional about that, you're going to chew up all your time and The regrets of the dying. Yeah. that's really interesting to take on. It's, it does show you that like relationships are like ultimately the only thing that really means anything.
Paden: at least that's my takeaway. money, the money and the stuff and that, that's all great. And you can do a lot of good with it, but,it's the people that the only thing
Robert: that really matters. even in business, it's really about a relationships.
Kay Lee: Yeah. We do business with people we like.
Paden: Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that's something I've really concentrated on myself. especially the last few years is my biggest criteria of working with somebody is like, how do you make me feel when I'm around you? it's truly, it's, are you qualified a good fit for our business model, but then also it's do we like [00:07:00] each other?
Paden: Like just, is it smooth? Is it easy? Is it not conflicting? Cause yeah, life's too short to, to deal and do with stuff, do stuff with people that. you guys, not that anybody's a bad person or anything. It's just that, just not a great fit.
Robert: Oh yeah, absolutely. we've turned down clients just cause it's not a good fit.
Robert: And, early on, it's like in business, early on, you're taking everybody. And then you realize you know what, we shouldn't take everybody because some of these people are just driving us nuts and it's not worth the money. Right. And so, yeah, we're kind of the same boat where we're like, just really want to pick our clients.
Robert: And it's God, we just really enjoy our work because really we enjoy the people. That's what makes it so it's
Kay Lee: all people we want to hang out with. If we weren't working with them, we'd still want to.
Paden: Yeah, that's yeah, that's the best type of client and stuff. And ultimately, that's on us as entrepreneurs, right?
Paden: If we're attracting people that aren't a good fit, it's because we're not telling a good enough story or qualifying enough or [00:08:00] explaining well enough of what we do, right? and how we work and setting expectations. You do all those things and you're willing to just walk away from dollars of stuff that doesn't fit.
Paden: Then yeah, you can build that, that really nice business where Man, all of your clients, like you love to hang out with them, right?
Kay Lee: Or if you don't know your target market, cause some people will ask who's your target market and there'll be everybody. that sounds great, but it's pretty hard to market everybody.
Kay Lee: And
Paden: it's hard to build processes about, providing services or products to everybody. Like how do you build processes around that? Or how do you get super efficient when your market is just. Whoever shows up, right? Exactly. when you get really niche and you really get specific, yeah, you can build processes.
Paden: You can get super efficient. You become an expert in whatever little tiny area you're working in. and by doing that, the value that the client gets is so much. Yeah. More, right? You're able to provide just a specific area of much more [00:09:00] massive value because you're such an expert and have such processes nailed
Robert: down and you do it faster and more efficient, so which means your margins grow, right?
Robert: If you're charging a flat rate. you probably have a lot of service based business out there and never get, I never say, charge hourly. That's kiss of death. You're just trading time for money, right? Flat fee. But then as we're talking about is when you're niche down, you become more efficient.
Robert: You get things done faster. So you keep the rate the same, right? But when you get things done faster, now all of a sudden your time to money margin just gets that much bigger. Huge. Yeah. And it allows you to be, have the luxury of spending a little bit of extra time with the client if they need it. Right?
Robert: Like we charge enough that we don't have to work on volume. We're not stressed on having to work on volume because we're not, We want to be available for the clients if they do have an emergency call or if they do just say, Hey, I got a quick question. I don't have to say, Oh, just schedule my calendar.
Robert: Three months, three months down the road. Yeah. I go, no, [00:10:00] Hey, I got a moment here in a couple of hours. Yeah, let's do it. But I've seen so many consultants and, coaches and stuff like that, Packer schedule so tight. That they don't have time for those one offs with a client. And I said, I don't know how to work like that.
Robert: And I don't think it's good value for the client.
Paden: Yeah.
Robert: Value just goes up.
Paden: Oh yeah. Yeah. Exponentially. And working in the tax kind of accounting CPA firm world, you're just nailing that industry, describing it perfectly. it's such a broken industry where. It's just volume, like the industry is built around volume and pumping out tax returns.
Paden: that's how you make more money. it's not, providing value to the client. So like the typical experience is just like, Oh, I show up, I give my CPA my stuff. we don't really even talk. And then he comes back and, I come back and he says, Hey, you owe X number of dollars. And that is the entire experience.
Paden: and it's just tax preparation. and while that needs to be done and is somewhat valuable, there's zero [00:11:00] strategy, it's just totally backwards compliance work. and that's the thing is I get a vast majority of my clients that come to me or. people that can't even get a CPA to respond to an email or call or anything.
Paden: and I'm not talking just like random small mom and pop clients. I'm talking significant clients that you would think ideally wow, why wouldn't,a CPA firm want to work with these people, but you're right, your schedule is so packed and they're just, Flying around and doing compliance work that no one sees is crazy.
Paden: Valuable.
Robert: Yeah, absolutely. Yep. I hear you.
Paden: Yeah. So guys tell me,you guys, I guess give us a little more color of the, the consulting you guys do, and how you go about it.
Robert: it's funny. It's still kind of a work in progress, first, essentially we kind of like to deconstruct their life and then build it back up.
Robert: Because in starting with their vision, what is your vision of how you want your life to be and how is the business supposed to fit into it?and suppose the [00:12:00] other way around with right now you're living your life with the business and you're trying to squeeze your life into it. And so in order for this to be successful, we've got to deconstruct everything that's starting by your long term vision.
Robert: And then even within that, then I say, okay, now let's bring it forward, bring it into the present and say, how can you live out? Thank you so much. Part of that best life now,we can't spend as much money on vacations or the lake house or whatever now, but you can take a break, right? You can go to the park.
Robert: You can take a drive. You can, schedule time away from business. and also, what does quality time look like for you and your spouse and the kids, right? when it comes, so that goes to setting healthy boundaries between work and home. And, the common excuse is I don't have time.
Robert: That's not true because you have time. It's just a matter of how you use the time, and at some point you do have to come home
Robert: And when you're home, how do we make it count? So let's just start with that, but without doing anything different in the business.[00:13:00]
Robert: When you're home, how do you make it count?
Kay Lee: Are you really home?
Robert: Yeah. Or are you on your phone still? Are you chasing calls and texts and emails and all that kind of stuff? Or you at the dinner table, but you're still on the phone. there's always thinking about what
Kay Lee: you need to do for tomorrow or
Paden: you guys are really attacking me here.
Robert: And so it's as entrepreneurs, we have this FOMO fear of missing out and we think we're going to miss out on every opportunity. But the reality, when you break it down, how many of those texts and all that were really that important that couldn't wait till the next business day, right? 99 percent of the time they could wait.
Robert: And but we're like, especially with the phones, right? We're like Pablo's dog, Bing, and then we got to check. Right. We got to check. So first thing we just suggest is just turn off the volume and put it away. our office at home, but I keep the phone in the office. And so the minute we step out, I'm transitioned, once we hit dinnertime, it's not business [00:14:00] anymore.
Robert: and so we just talk about, you know, what, how do you spend, make sure you have to spend quality time at home and it doesn't take a lot of time. It just takes a little bit of intentionality and set those boundaries. And then in business, the basic business, we look at their time, the money and the performance, how well are you using your time and your team's time?
Robert: Are they in the right position? Are you spending time in the right type of business activities? That's really important. Bring in the right return and the money, the same thing alluded to, do you have the proper margins? are you setting the right price?
Robert: And for most small businesses, they're priced way too low and that's impacting their bottom line. So the first thing we attack is price because, I'm just, I really just follow the profit and loss statement. Let's start at the top, revenue. So let's look at price, right? You got the right, are you just concentrating on marketing the right, product mix?
Robert: And the sales channel, right? Then in the operational, and expenses, it's okay, are you getting the right return for these dollars? Are these things necessary? Should you cut this out or should you change subscription? So a lower dollar amount, higher performing, [00:15:00] subscription.
Robert: are you even using your subscription to its benefit? Like I know one of the, there's a lot of CRMs out there and all that, that a lot of people use. A lot of high end ones that cost you thousands of dollars a month. And most of these, most of our clients I've seen, and even organization I've been on board of, they use those CRMs about 10 percent of it's what it can do.
Robert: And so I'm like, that's a waste of money in itself. You might as well just get Milchem,Or spend the money. To learn how to use it. And one of our recent clients, they're, dry cleaners and they have this great system and I was asking him, can I do this?
Robert: Can I do this? Can I do this? And they're like, I'm not sure. I'm like, let's find out. And they're like, Oh my gosh. And
Kay Lee: they're paying for it already. And so they went to the
Robert: conference, they went to the conference in Salt Lake city and learn more about it. And then they hired. consultant basically to teach them and to set things up and all that.
Robert: And now we've got this extremely powerful marketing tool that they weren't using. And so they're [00:16:00] spending so much money and weren't even using it. so that's a loss, right? So when we go to like cost cutting mode or cost cutting mode in the expenses, it's not about really cutting costs. It's about how do we increase the performance?
Robert: Of what you're spending your dollars in, right?
Paden: yeah. It's like finding that cost that's providing no value to the business, right? Yeah.
Robert: Yeah. And so we're just looking at every aspect of the business to increase the performance. And then of course, send those healthy boundaries in home and helping them live out their vision, even in the present.
Kay Lee: Because if the business is struggling financially, it really affects the family and then you have to come home and And it's it's tough on everybody.
Paden: Oh yeah, for sure. And you know, a couple, a of comments on some of the stuff there you talked about, yeah.
Paden: Generally, entrepreneurs, have a very hard time breaking away from the business because, just different. I don't know if you know the culture index is personality test, but in there and it measures like a person's patience, like how fast do they get things done? Or are [00:17:00] they more of like a deliberate pacing person?
Paden: And generally the entrepreneurs are super low C in that measurement and which means they. They're anxious, they wanna get things done, they wanna keep things moving. And that's, those phones are so addictive to that type of personality that it's just constantly move, move stuff forward. Move stuff forward.
Paden: and, I really appreciate your all's holistic approach, right? Like of you can't really go in and fix a business because a business is really just the person. especially small business, it's like, you know, all the bottlenecks are the leader and their capabilities and what they do and don't do, and that if you're just focused on business performance and not trying to help the person and all their issues, which we all have tons of issues, like you're not gonna be able to fix the business, right?
Paden: Without the person doing some real internal work and, becoming more and more self aware.
Kay Lee: And
Paden: then the comment on margins, my industry is the worst at that.I'll have CPAs with 25 years of [00:18:00] experience and the prices they do things at is just mind boggling because Once again, that's that internal work.
Paden: They don't think they're worth it. and so they'll do, they'll have 2000 clients doing 2000 tax returns at 150 a piece instead of, 20 percent of that amount of clients and making way more money at reasonable prices.yeah, that's across the board where Mark, people think, when you're starting your business, oh yeah, I can do things at low prices cause it's just me, no overhead, whatever.
Paden: But that is such a short term mindset that like. Your margins are going to absolutely cap the business. or it can't scale past a certain point because your margins are terrible.
Kay Lee: and then if you don't have enough in the margins, how are you going to hire somebody? Cause whoever, if you bring somebody on, they're going to want to be paid.
Kay Lee: Right. I mean,
Paden: yeah. and, when you have terrible margins, you just run into a wall or you're stuck, right? Like you, you can't really hire somebody because there's, you There's just not enough [00:19:00] leftover money there. So eventually it's going to become a problem that you're gonna have to break and fix the business regardless.
Paden: So yeah.
Robert: Yeah. And you're gonna have to increase your price at some point to be able to do that, to be able to afford that. And so I always give this nice illustration of, volume versus, volume versus margin is. let's say you have a retail store and you sell jeans, and then you have, there's one pair of jeans you buy at 99 wholesale.
Robert: And you sell it for a dollar retail or not dollar.
Robert: I'm sorry. A hundred dollars. We see the problem there, right? yeah, so 99 wholesale is what you purchased before you sell it for a hundred dollars. So it's 1 market. So how many pairs of jeans do you sell to make, a hundred dollars or 50 in profit, right? So 50. And so let's say you do, you mark it up 50 percent to 149.
Robert: And so now you're selling the jeans at 149. You're buying at 99. Now, how many pairs of jeans do you need to sell to make the 50? [00:20:00] Now, whenever I come up with the topic of raising your prices, I already always, we always get that fear, right? Because what I'm going to lose customers.in this illustration, how much harder is it to sell pair of jeans for one 49 versus a hundred?
Robert: You just need to get the right customer, right? Yeah. You get a fine right there. And you only need to win one versus 50 at a hundred. So is it easier to sell 50 pairs of jeans at a hundred or one at one 49? And then you take the rest of the day off once you pair that, sell that pair of jeans, right?
Paden: Then you don't have a hundred clients too, or 50 clients, 50 pair of jeans that you sold that, all have issues like, like you think it's just sell up front, right. and, but some portion of that, there's going to be refunds, there's going to be issues, there's going to be customer service. you'd much rather have one customer.
Paden: That has a problem or, the more volume to get, it's just the more service that you have to do is overhead and whatever, continuing expenses.
Robert: And then if we break it down a little bit [00:21:00] further, even when you're just selling one pair of jeans for 149 as for customer service, cause you're talking about customer service.
Robert: How do you think you would treat that customer as they're looking around? The next thing you know, what you're doing is, Oh, why don't you try these on? Here, let me find another pair. Oh, let's try this top. Oh,
Kay Lee: this blouse will look great with these pants. Let me go get that for you. And
Robert: much, much more of a white glove type service, right?
Robert: Yeah. And next thing you know, they're walking out with an outfit. And so they're not just buying one pair of jeans anymore, but when you're working on volume, you're so concerned about the transaction that you don't add the value that the customer deserves. And it actually short changes herself even further.
Robert: It's not even about the initial transaction of working on selling on low margin, but you miss a whole suite of opportunity for that client or that customer that you can't do because you don't have the time now.
Paden: Geez. yeah, that's great stuff there. Yeah. The,you don't have the time and it's just, Yeah.
Paden: You're not providing a great experience for the [00:22:00] client. that, that's one thing I like once again, I always go back to my industry because it frustrates me that it's like you don't have the time for the client at all. to give them any sort of value. and you're just giving them a, just a pure bad experience.
Paden: and then two, and then I'm part of groups that I see of just different people running tax firms and whatever. And you know what they all do is set there in them groups and complain constantly about how bad their clients are. Like, the frustrations and whatever around all that kind of stuff, which some of that's legitimate, but Who's responsibility is that, right? Like you were bringing in the clients because you're low prices. Like they're not there because of you or the value you bring in. You're just a means to an end. you see it as a transaction. So the client also sees it as a transaction and there's really no relationship there.
Paden: Absolutely. Yep. You nailed it. So guys, being in your consulting business, what do you think is like your all's best [00:23:00] skill? what, allows you guys to really come in and help people? What are you good at?
Robert: I think it's just the empathy. You know, we grew up in that environment. actually her dad was a entrepreneur, my dad was a pastor, but the experience is still the same because there's the focus was so much on building an organization that the family often took a back seat.
Robert: And so,growing up in that environment and, you could tell your experience, but
Kay Lee: yeah, I'm third generation entrepreneur and, my dad worked six days a week. And to this day, I don't know if he made it to my high school graduation. I don't think he did. So the business became the mistress and it was really tough and hard on the family.
Kay Lee: Cause you know, when you're a kid, you just want your dad to be home and playing with you, hanging out. It doesn't have to be anything big, but you know, you like to spend time with them.
Robert: And so when we started our business, it started falling in that same trap and I was working a lot. and that [00:24:00] transition when I was leaving my corporate job to building this consultancy business, I was working literally night and day because I had my day job and then at night I would do my consulting.
Robert: But, it's 2am bedtimes for pretty commonplace at a certain point. And I finally got, and plus I fell into this, trap or kind of bought into this notion that I had to be busy because and I always ask my friend, you know, when you run into your friends or whatever, you made it for coffee or something and you say, Hey, how are you doing?
Robert: Inevitably there, the number one response is busy. And so I started, it started getting him inside. Oh, maybe I'm not doing enough. maybe I'm not, maybe I'm not really achieving what I should be because I'm not busy. And so next thing I know, I just started feeling my plate. And then I would, I'd respond the same way.
Robert: Oh, I'm busy. I'm busy. And it's almost like, it was like a badge of honor. Oh, yeah. Right.
Kay Lee: So
Robert: I was sitting at 2 AM going, I'm busy, but am I really doing anything? And so I have to sit there and go, this is crazy. And I work at [00:25:00] 2 AM. By the time the weekend hits, even though I'm not working weekends, I was so spent emotionally and mentally and even physically that I wasn't there for Kaylee.
Robert: And then even though Kaylee growing up in an entrepreneurial environment, she was like, okay, this is just a transition period. And she's fine with it. But even then I was like, that's not fair. I'm off on weekends, but I can't even spend the weekends enjoying it because I'm out of it. Right.
Robert: And so I said, something's got to change. And so that's when I just sat down and go, okay. Where am I spending my time? And so the first thing we talked about boundaries earlier, and I said, okay, the first boundary is let's get to bed by 11. So that's a three hour, improvement, which you multiply that times five nights, right?
Robert: That's two nights of sleep. That's your two nights of sleep, right? that's huge. So I'm like, okay, and so basically what I did have to look at, and this is what we do with the clients too, this is what we do. ADE approach automate, delegate, eliminate. What are the things that on my plate? So I just basically audit [00:26:00] everything I do.
Robert: And I said, what can I automate to at least streamline to make it faster? Or if not get rid of it off my plate altogether, what can I delegate? So do I need to hire a virtual assistant or something like that? or hire some contractors, do some work. And what do I just eliminate? What do I just say no to now, or at least temporarily, because it's not that productive.
Robert: And so that's just that, so that's our own approach and our own experience and go, man, this is craziness. I can't, why am I building this thing? And I can't even enjoy life. So it showed us that number one for, we did it ourselves. It showed us that regardless of how busy your schedule can be, you can still have a life while you're building this thing.
Robert: And so we just have to have a more intentional approach of how we do life and business.
Paden: Yeah. I would follow up all those comments. Yeah, the I'm busy kind of thing. it, it is like a, a cultural thing, especially in the United States, the hustle, the grind, the [00:27:00] Puritan worth it, work ethic.
Paden: it's just built in the American kind of like a culture to agree. so it is, there is kind of pressure or a badge of honor of saying you're busy, but Busy doing what, Elon Musk, Bill Gates, they have the same amount of hours as us, but they, they figured out ways to use much more leverage, For the time and what they're doing. and the other thing, another comment I would say, and you talk about setting rules, right? Setting rules of 11 PM is my bedtime or whatever that is. I'm much more of a morning guy, so I stretch it in the morning to where I'm, three 30 or whatever, especially in busy seasons.
Paden: but. Those rules, people think when you set rules like that, it's limiting you or whatever, but it's really like the discipline and the hard rules actually create so much more freedom. if you actually follow that and live in that, the rules. Rules are there for a reason, actually. Discipline actually leads to more freedom.
Robert: Because if you leave your time open to work as much as you want to, then inevitably you're just going to waste a lot of time.
Paden: Yeah, [00:28:00] you're going to fill that with whatever is just kind of in front of you. if you're not focused, like,a meeting set for an hour. Guess what? The meeting is going to last an hour.
Paden: Regardless of what the content is, or even if it's, could have been said in three minutes and everybody walked out the door,
Kay Lee: right?
Paden: So it's, yeah, stuff like that. And then, I love your delegate eliminate, automate thing. it, the way I try to think about that is it takes time to go set up an automate something, or it takes time to, audit your day.
Paden: But really what you're doing there is investing in your future, right? taking the time to figure out how you can automate or delegate or just eliminate stuff. you're investing in future pay, there's a huge payoff to that. Yeah.
Kay Lee: and stats show that I think it's over 50 hours a week.
Kay Lee: How your productivity goes way down.
Paden: Yeah.
Kay Lee: Big time.
Paden: yeah, and I think it's, I think it's important too is also to know your personality type a little bit, and then you're almost your circadian rhythm, like, you know,Robert, you seem like you were, you're kind of more of a night guy, right?
Paden: [00:29:00] Me, I'm so much of a morning guy. my best work is done from like,when I'm super busy and I'm in the office at 5 a. m. by myself. from like 5 a. m. to 10 a. m., it's like if I can be no distractions, I'm getting amazing work done and cranking stuff out. By like 2 in the afternoon, I need to be doing less work.
Paden: Like strenuous, mental stuff, right? Because I, I'm not as good at that point. and just understanding that, knowing that you can optimize your schedule a whole lot.
Robert: Yeah, absolutely. And they, people, really poo, rest, and rest, not man, just sleep, but just getting away from work and, just, just being family or going for a walk or whatever.
Robert: You look at all the biological and performance research out there and the benefits of rest on performance is, yeah, if you think about it, growing up is your body literally grows in rest. It's not when you're out playing and then when you're working out, your muscles strengthen [00:30:00] when it's resting, right?
Robert: You can't keep working, you've got to rest. And then when you look at the, and your mental acuity, your creativity is much more vibrant when you're at periods of rest versus just working, and this has been around for a long time, but you know, Henry Ford, Basically discredited with the 40 hour work week because he did his own performance research and productivity research in his factory and found that he wasn't getting any more productivity when they were working over 40 hours a week.
Robert: And so you're thinking where the industry norm, at the time was working 60, 70 hours a week. And, as an entrepreneur, I'm losing money if I'm paying people for more hours, but I'm not getting more out of it. So what's the point.so then, that's where he will talk about automation.
Robert: He revolutionized the production, production line to create a little bit more automation to allow them to pump out more cars and less time, which brought down costs, So much. So about almost 80 percent brought down costs by almost 80%. So it allowed him to [00:31:00] even double the wages of its employees.
Robert: So then guess what? He's attracting the best of the best in the industry, right? And Detroit. And so it forced everybody else to follow suit. So anyways, it just that productivity aspect of it just has so many benefits. And so, you know, knowing that you just can't overwork because you don't add, productivity to it.
Robert: It's like, let's get productivity. Let's bring it down to how many hours it's necessary and then, we can add in the automation, all that just to really just boost productivity. And then next thing you're actually earning more with less work. And so, yeah, the benefits of rest is just all over the place.
Robert: You can, you see it out there. There's so much research out there on that. And, uh, people just don't. 'cause it's really about, it's really about not so much time management. It is about energy management. Yeah. And so when you're properly rested your mind, body, soul, and spirit is properly rested to be able to work at peak performance when you are working.
Paden: I fall into this trap, a lot, I think it's,that anxiously striving and working and all that kind of stuff, it's fear. [00:32:00] It is really what it's, yeah. Like your fear. and what that fear is a double edged sword, right?
Paden: Like it, it's this thing that's lit a fire under you, your whole life and driven you to do whatever you've done and my fear is okay, if I don't just continue to slide really hard, like it's all going to stop. Like I have to,my somewhat, anxious, I don't know. I wouldn't say I'm not like wildly anxious or anything, but I got this.
Paden: Striving, kind of things done. And that, it comes from childhood fears. And I feel like, okay, this has gotten me to my point so far. So how can I give it up? And it's knowing that, okay, you don't have to give all of that up, but let's, Optimize that better,
Robert: right? And so that's where the, that's the mindset has to shift.
Robert: Cause we both grew up the same way, right? It's performance. that's how society raises us is we get praised by what we achieve and very rarely are we praised by the health of our relationship and how well we take care of ourselves, right? the [00:33:00] accolades always come up based on what you've achieved and what you've done.
Robert: And so we had to break that shift the mindset a little bit to say, We can still succeed even while we're prioritizing the relationships and the things that matter most in life, it's just about it, but it goes back to how well you use the time in each of those areas. Right. And so a lot of times I think some business owners.
Robert: Are working a lot of hours, not because their business needs it, but because that's where they get the recognition. And so that's where I say, well, let's take care of some things at home. How do we do better at home? are you even recognizing your own spouse? Like you want recognition, but are you recognizing them?
Robert: Or are we always in to do modes? Here's what we got to do. Here's, we've got to pick up the kids, the groceries, this, that, and the other, there's a checklist, right? The to do list. And so how well do we just stay connect with each other? And so we have to have intentional time to do that, right?
Kay Lee: Well, to, and, have a vision for your family. What does that look like? And then look at it on a regular basis and put that in on your calendar. if it's [00:34:00] date nights, we do quarterly getaways. it can look different for each couple.
Paden: Yeah. and it really is. It's just first step.
Paden: What do you want? what do you want your day to look like day to day? and then, you're not going to get there overnight, but start moving towards it. Start moving pieces to design your life, that's the thing, and you guys, you don't talk about work life balance and stuff.
Paden: and it's. the way I think about it is I want to build a life that I don't necessarily need a vacation from, right? It's just building a life that my day to day is, I enjoy my work. but it's everything has its place and it's time. and build it how you, want it.
Paden: but most people don't even do the first step of like, what do you even want it to look like is the problem to even get to the point of starting to do something about it. They don't even know what it is. Yeah. So it's, it's a process and, yeah, for sure.
Robert: Yeah. we see that a lot with clients.
Robert: in the first part of the engagement is talking about this, what's your vision? What's your life? What do you want to do outside of business? And some of them just can't, I don't know what to do. [00:35:00] I don't know what to do besides work, And so that's the first part. Okay. We got some work to do here.
Robert: Just
Paden: get tasks done. That's what
Robert: I do.
Paden: Yeah. guys, this has been a great combo. I appreciate you coming on. so what's the best way people can connect with you? You know, interested in, uh, the business and kind of what you guys do. What's the best way they can connect with you?
Robert: Yeah. Just go to our website, married entrepreneur dot CEO slash B T S behind their success. so we have a special landing page just for your audience. And then in there, there's a free guide for better work life balance, and you can download. And of course we have our book as well. Yeah. Our book that we
Kay Lee: just came out with the audible.
Kay Lee: So we're excited about that.
Robert: Yeah. So tandem, tandem, the married entrepreneurs guide for work life balance for greater work life balance.
Paden: Guys. Yeah, that's awesome stuff. And yeah, stuff very well needed, especially in, in, the entrepreneur space that, and once again, I go back to the comment of I felt like you guys were attacking me the whole time.
Paden: I recognize everything you talk about and see it in my own lives. [00:36:00] And trying to adjust and I've been aware of this stuff for a while but it's trying to constantly make that better. It's never a finished project. And that's how you got to look
Robert: at it, right?
Robert: We're not looking for you to go from here to there overnight. It's a transition. So like even spending quality time, what does that look like? And even for yourself, start with spending five, 10 minutes of just quiet time and journaling or whatever taking a while, but Start slowly, start somewhere and then just build up because yes, we're all work in progress And we're never gonna get it perfect.
Robert: And so that's not about perfection But it's just at least it's about being intentional about doing these things and making it better.
Kay Lee: Yeah, and it's stuff We've all been through ourselves. So
Paden: yeah. that's great stuff guys listeners check them out. They got a lot of great resources for you there and we will catch you guys next time
Thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you found it valuable, please rate, review, and share it. That is the best way to help us build this and reach more people as we're trying to accomplish our goal of help creating more [00:37:00] healthy, wealthy, and wise entrepreneurs. You can follow us on social media by searching for me, Paden Squires, or going to www.padensquires.com On the website and social media, we're always sharing tips of personal growth, and there we can actually interact. I'm looking forward to it. Thanks guys.
