139 : Entrepreneurship As a Spiritual Practice with Colm Dolan

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In this episode, you'll learn how his company pub came to be and how it all started from a conversation that he and I had seven years ago that kicked off his entrepreneurial and mindfulness journey. I've been blown away by what he's been able to achieve since then and I'm really excited to have him on the episode to share with you today.

In this episode Colm and I explore the idea that entrepreneurship is actually a spiritual path and that there's so much learning and growth to be had from the challenges and ups and downs that come with being an entrepreneur.

And Colm shares his thoughts on why it's so important to build structure into your day and why bookending his days with meditation is and finding moments of mindfulness throughout his day allow him to deal with the ups and downs and the challenges that come from being an entrepreneur and running a business. And we learn how Colm is able to build this structure in his life even while building a business and raising two boys and having a wife at home as well.

And we hear how Colm has brought these ideas of mindfulness and personal growth and improvement into everything he does at his company. And how he empowers his employees to learn, grow, have fun, and to become the best versions of themselves. Colm also shares his thoughts on financial independence. And how to be honest, he's not really that focused on financial independence, but rather focused on building a company where everyone can learn, grow, and have fun.

And Colum shares his top advice for those getting started with meditation and mindfulness. And he also shares his thoughts for those who pursuing financial independence. And you'll hear the advice that Colm would give to his younger self. I really enjoyed this episode with Colm and I hope that you enjoyed as well. Let's jump into today's episode.

And I always thought about having a startup or I knew it as a problem in the ecosystem, in the publisher ecosystem, but you always need a push sometimes and you push from some of your friends as well. So I've been working as an entrepreneur for nearly seven years now and built a successful business that is a global outreach and global audience. So I suppose it's.

Actually, the exact same time I started meditating, with your help as well, so I owe a depth of gratitude to you, and two things have quite intertwined over the last couple of years, that I really think an entrepreneurial journey is very much a spiritual journey as well, because it's a very hard route to go down, and it tests your mental resolve, tests your skills, you've a lot of ups and downs, You've a lot of downs, the ups are never as good and the downs are never as bad, but it's a very much

rollercoaster ride that you really need to have severe mental focus. And the thing about starting a business is that you not only do it for yourself, but you're doing it for a lot of other people. It's a big responsibility that a lot of my team have mortgages, they have young kids, and if you make bad decisions, it's going to impact on them. So there's a lot of constant worry and constant trying reinforcement that it's. going to all work out.

So all the attributes of meditation and mindfulness and being in the present moment and giving everything to your team is so crucial. And I feel really thankful and blessed that it's tested depth of my character, like no end. being an entrepreneur and it's a hard route to go down, but with a lot of problems, you create a lot of growth and a lot of learning about yourself.

And I think as well when you go down that journey, you get influenced by a lot of similar people that have gone down that journey. So it's like when you hear that quote, a lot of you are the average of the five people you hang around with. So if you started hanging around with other entrepreneurs or other people seeking financial freedom. That puts you on another stratosphere in terms of your questioning things a lot more. And you're questioning why are you on this planet?

Why are you on this earth? Like the way you have to, you do your mission statement. And all that kind of stuff in business. You also do mission statement nearly for yourself. What are your values? When you're doing values for a business, you're doing values on yourself. Where do you want to be in five years?

And sometimes when you work, when I work in a corporate life, I may not think about that because I'm just, Thinking about punching in numbers and going home and spend the time and you don't you shut off whereas having your own business You're always thinking about how can I have more impact? How can I have more impact on the customer? But how can I have more impact on myself as well and to the overall world? So yeah that's what I'm currently doing at the moment.

I'm really interested in having an impact on people's lives or really focusing on our customers as well and have an impact on their lives. And I suppose I'm really motivated by an obsession with self improvement to improve the life situation of myself. My team members to improve my consciousness, to improve every aspects of health and being, really, and to have just a happy, fruitful life, really.

And it's become, an award winning company, getting all sorts of awards for innovative companies, and the workplace that you've created. I'd love to hear just a little bit more about that journey, right? What was it like when you were first starting the business and as you progressed, like how did you lean on your mindfulness? practice to build it into what it is now.

Like Google, I spent a lot of time at Google and then another business in Australia, Telstra, and then I went to a startup and I really failed miserably. I couldn't sell to, to, to anyone what we were selling. It was a, an ad tech kind of product as well. And my mental resolve was gone. My confidence is at an all time low. I said to myself do I need to go back into the comforts of corporate?

So I went, I remember vividly going for interviews with Twitter, with Facebook, Criteo and I couldn't get an interview for love nor money. Like I couldn't get past that stage. Obviously I had good on my resume. It looked good that I worked for Google and that kind of stuff, but I just couldn't, I had no self confidence at the time. And I was literally about to just go, or maybe I'll just go home or I had got this new girlfriend at the time. And you came and said yeah, why don't you do this?

Because I had all this in the back of my mind of maybe starting something and you gave me the confidence to just give it a go. But I was at a low album and I just had nothing to lose. And that's the kind of key factor in anything of this. And I think as well, a lot of people that go starting businesses. It's very hard when you are in the comforts, you know it as well, in the comforts of Google, in the comforts of these corporate places, it makes you very hard to leave.

You have always got your stock plan vested next year, they might give you a few more, they might give you a promotion, and then you're thinking job security, all this kind of stuff. But and if I still had all that kind of things in place, maybe I wouldn't have made the leap. So it's very much a circumstance kind of stuff. But getting back to your question, then I just thought I'd give you a bit of background to what made me make that decision. It was tough.

The first six months were very tough because I was, you were in our apartment, we rented out a room in my apartment to my buddy and he came in and stayed with us for six to nine months. My wife had a good job at the time, so she was supporting us, but I maxed out my credit card six months. I remember having three clients for six months. I got one client and then snowballed to a second client and it I wouldn't say it was a long time taking off, but once. I started getting a bit of traction.

There was a problem that needed to be solved. And I got a lot of energy from that. And I got a lot of energy from maybe winning those couple of clients at the start, but it was looking back on an incredible time and incredible. Test of character, because you've got your family concerned about you going out and starting a business yourself. You've got your friends thinking, Oh this person has built up a good image. He's worked at Google and now he's just.

Doing the kind of startup and your character gets questioned. So you're, and you question yourself and you say, have I got the appetite for this at all? Do I have, what am I trying to really do here? And then you start getting a small bit of wins and a small bit of success. And then it's like, okay I think there's an opportunity to build something here to build the business. And then at that stage, later on in that.

Year. I had a really good relationship, but my business partner at this stage, but he was a friend of mine from Google back then he worked in the Dublin office with me and I reached out to him and actually met him in Bali in August of 2014, maybe at this stage. and I said, I've started this business in Australia. It's going pretty well, but I need you over here because I can't do this on my own.

I was good at sales and negotiation, but not very good from the technical aspect of what we needed to do. So once I got commitment from him, he moved over in March of the following year. So then I remember the Christmas time that before that I had about five or six or maybe even seven clients at that time. So there was a business model there. And there was, it could be successful if the right things went at that time.

And so all those, at all those times really, I think meditation and mindfulness, I'm not too sure at that time was I doing that much of it to be honest with you. It was all about keeping my head above water and you're so focused. about just building the business side of the business and making a financial model that would work without I was just about scrimping on, paying for daily activities and paying your rent and doing all that kind of stuff.

But after that, I think it's when Tobin came over, we hired our first employee, we, And that was around 2015 and I had been running the business myself and then we rebranded and came up the name Publift around August 2015. So that was a very exciting time when we had. I think about two, three other employees at the time, maybe two employees at the time. And it was around that time really that you started to say, Oh, what is this business about? What am I doing this for?

And you start to read about getting your mission statement and your values. And then I would say then the real spiritual journey for me started, in being an entrepreneur, because Reasons you become an entrepreneur is because you have a problem to solve. I think I was at desperation level, but a lot of entrepreneurs started a business because they're pissed off with something and they want a solution to it, and it could be a personal solution for something that.

It just really annoys them and you have to really be very annoyed before starting a business, especially getting away from the comforts, but then in, in starting the values of the business, why are you doing this? You have to share your vision to the rest of the team. You have to try and convince people to join your business. Why should I join your business rather than Canva down the road? that was, is given much more salary. So you have to say to them we want to build this platform.

We want to have this many clients. We want to help customers because they're in really in need of this at that journey. And then you start reading some business books and the business books are very much about come from a spiritual kind of landscape, I would say. And it's when you're reading those business books and then you're doing a bit of meditation on the side and you see the similarities and then You say what I realized then my goal in life was not about making money. Really.

I don't really care about making money. I'm more motivated by making an impact on people's lives. And then you look at some books and say, okay think about your, when you die, sounds kind of morbid, but when you die and you have your eulogy written out, what do you want to be known to be? And I suppose when I think about those kind of things, I want to be, I want to have a big impact on the world. I want a big impact on people's lives. I'm often referred to as a sponge.

I'll take stuff in, I learn, and then I regurgitate it and teach people a lot about what I've learned. So that's the biggest thing for young people in the business is I'll teach them more about what has worked for me. from experiences about, Oh, mindfulness has made a big impact in my life. This, I think it could really help you. Visualizations have made a big impact on my life. This is how I see it could help you. So all of those things have intertwined with starting the business really.

And that has led to the focus within the business and the culture within the business. And I suppose it stems as well from when I was working at. at Google or other corporates and that I knew what I didn't like and didn't want the business to be about. I wanted people to have autonomy to make decisions and a culture where people could grow and learn and could have fun as well. I think that was crucial. And that kind of was, influence.

Again, as I said earlier, you can start hanging around with people who are entrepreneurial, who you're getting advice from people on how to run businesses. And then you realize that some people have different goals than you and you just go I'm on my own kind of journey here in the business. And it's the same with life. You're on your own kind of journey. Something that works for someone else has not necessarily worked for you.

But it's having the balls to make those decisions as well to just go, actually, maybe this is a lifestyle business I want, maybe it's, and maybe it's not, it's up and down. It's like, I could have, I'm, I refer to myself as a walking contradiction. Sometimes I could have one idea, maybe six months ago, I said, Oh, definitely sell the business. Yeah. Just make as much money as possible. I'm sick of it. Two days later go, Oh, I love this. this business. I never want to sell this business.

So it's up and down like that. And I suppose it's like your life in a way you have thought processes that say, I want this journey. I want that journey. And it's really just figuring yourself out. And that's what I love about running the business and doing that. Cause it's given, I'm so grateful. It's given me the opportunity to test my resolve and really find out what I want in life.

You don't want to see people struggle, but in doing that, I remember the first person that we had to essentially fire and it was a big ordeal. There was many nights of worry and anticipation of this because you feel really bad. And this tests your mental resolve. So sometimes there's trouble sleeping. So you need to. You need to have something.

You need to have your spiritual journey, whatever that may be, whether it's meditation, whether it's playing pool, table tennis, playing the piano, whatever that is, or going for a walk in the evening, you need to follow a process and you need to have a structure to your day. Like at the moment, the structure of my day is really get up, play with the kids, get them ready for, they go to daycare or get them ready. And then I have my meditation time for half an hour and then a cycle tour.

Then at nighttime, it's again, it's play with the kids and do all that kind of stuff and have it a bit of downtime meditation and go to bed. And if I break that cycle, if some nights you're out and do things like that which happens, you can then go down that stream of thinking too much about things. And during the last few years running the business you have to really improve and balance all those different parts of your life. Because if you don't, things will consume you.

And I've learned the hard way that all of those things like just maybe firing someone like that, it consumes you. And you get into endless streams of thinking, what's going to happen to the rest of the team? What are they going to think? What's going to happen to that person? Are they going to have a bad reaction? Is it a bad decision?

And if you have those kinds of things going on in your brain all the time, it's not very good because you, it's how you come across the team, see you being worried that Team see you being vulnerable and that's fine. I think it's very important to have a vulnerable kind of stage, but it can work against you that you're not performing at your best. So those types of situations are so important and you double down on the mindfulness strategy.

And again there's all those things that come up from a strategic point of view. Maybe there's a new competitor. Competitor takes your clients. Like we lost a client last week that I've been working with for six years and I was devastated. And again, it's, I'm better at, I've seen the improvements in me better able to manage it now. I haven't thrown the toys, toys out of the pram and gone mental. I've actually been calm and say, what can we learn from this? What can we learn?

This is a great opportunity to learn. Whereas previously I would have went crazy and maybe blamed someone. So again, that is testing your resolve and testing your mental side. And every business book I've read, the famous ones, how to win friends and influence people, there's a lot of different kind of business books, the sales books recently I've read, it's all goes back to the fundamentals of consciousness and mindfulness.

It's being present in the moment, listen to the person you're speaking with, being totally there with that person. And then it goes back to the goals and the settings that you have in the business and goes into laws of attraction, visualization. These things will happen for you if you look at them. And I think that the big thing that I've tried to really work on is that, it's all going to work out in the end.

And just have that in the back of my mind, you have, and you so many setbacks in being an entrepreneur every week, there's a setback every week, there's a landmine around the corner and it's your ability to be able to master those landmines. And that's, it's a real struggle. It's still a constant struggle, but if you don't have structures in place that allow you to stop that constant thinking, because it can consume you and it has consumed me in the past.

probably will again, but it's just about trying your best to let it not.

And so I think it's important to realize. I've been the

And at the end of the day, everyone is trying their best. Everyone is doing the best in this world, and if you have that kind of attitude, it's really important. And it's again, going back to the attitude of, which I really struggle with, because I have this obsessive nature to improve all the time. And I think I have this things of, this is the way the world should be. It should be lined up this way.

And I find it very hard to understand that it, okay this is the way it is and you just have to deal with it. So having things in place to help you do that or is difficult.

And in a working environment, when you're taking too much on and going from meeting to meeting and being busy all the time, it creates this, and from my experience, kind of constant adrenaline. And you're going, you're doing deals, you're making sure. someone is happy, you're hiring someone, you're doing all these kind of things and you're going from one to another. There is zero down time.

So then when you get home, there is just like, okay, I have to go to a different frequency, to family frequency. And that's very difficult to go from this frequency down to that frequency or whatever. I don't fully understand what that's. the way I look at it. And that's, you're trying to be present with your kids, but then you're thinking, Oh, is that deal going to close? Is that person going to sign? Is that customer, they happy now? Oh, I wonder, should I have done that differently?

But if my calendar during the day, if there's time to refocus and clear your head a small bit without that constant meeting it's very important. Like that's the most crucial thing I would say, is to not let it build up. Even small things, like you go to the toilet and the natural thing is to bring your phone. Oh, what can I check on the toilet when I'm in the toilet? Some email or something like that. So the strategies I have are, I don't have any, I don't have any social media.

The only thing I do use is LinkedIn. I don't have any email or work stuff on my phone. So I try to stay away from that. And I'm trying to be a bit more mindful during the day. Like if I have a spare two minutes, you can go to the toilet or something like that. Just have a few deep breaths and just let the buildup of energy and adrenaline dissipate. And you become a bit more centered. And that's so much, so hard.

That is really very hard and it's a constant battle and I think the phone definitely is a constant struggle of mine. Some weekends I don't touch my phone and have a great weekend and it's hard because then some people are trying to contact you or different things like that but when you don't have that as your kind of crutch If you're staying present with your kids, you just have to, in answering to your question, you just have to block a lot of things out of your life and be happy with that.

Like, I try and not watch the news too much because I don't have that much influence on all it, especially the world at the moment is just a lot of worry. that, that builds up in you and you start to get angry at the world and you start to get, oh, it should be this way. It shouldn't be that way. It's like, there's not much I can do about it. And that is the way it is.

And sometimes that makes conversations with people easier or more interesting because you're asking, no, what's going on in the world? Then you just get educated from different people. And you can only do a few things right as well. I suppose you, you the one thing I always think about is, I think is health is very important.

So I eat very well and maybe fitness hasn't been as good with the kids, but again, it's about making headspace the priority and try and get as little as you can into your head. Like definitely not the smartest tool in the shed. So I try and limit the amount of information I have coming in. That means, not being as connected in the world, not the social media has worked wonders for me personally, and it's just from my experience, the last four or five years I haven't.

really been on Facebook or Twitter, those kind of social media, because I just think it's more influx of information that, that I need, but it has to be a priority. And you have to really say that the rewards you're getting from having a clear headspace and a healthy mind, far outweigh anything else that you can do, because.

Everyone wants the best for their children and the best thing I can have for my children is that I am present and there with them because I've experienced when I'm beside my phone and checking my phone and when you have your son say to you, Oh, get off your phone, Daddy. That's a pretty, you'll put down your phone if your kid says that to you. And I've experienced that and it's not a good way to be. So I try and there's been there with your kids and there's been really there.

So you have to try and really focus about for me to try and really be there. But, it's easier said than done. And sometimes, I was out for dinner on Friday night and had a couple of glasses of wine. And the next day I was definitely stayed up till 12 o'clock was up at six, you just didn't get enough sleep. And you're a bit ratty and you're a bit you're not as well there. So sometimes you fall off the edge of it and it's not going too crazy, but it definitely affects you.

It affects you the next day. But I think that's a, what I'm working on myself is like, that's a bit of a poor excuse to just say, Oh, I didn't get enough sleep. Had a few glass of wine, so my head isn't feeling that good. So I'll just naturally not be that present, but it's going past those kind of times and trying to be as present as you can in those difficult times that, that make the difference.

Because there's plenty of times I've had very little sleep, I've had two hours sleep and I've got into work and had a fantastic day at work just because I'll focus and knuckle down.

Is that kind of what you're saying?

But then as you're getting better, it's very interesting to understand the theory and the theory about the chakras and theory about the mind versus. yourself and being a witness and all that kind of good stuff that get you on to the next level because then it's, you think you're getting a bit of a psychology degree and just finding out more about yourself and finding about more about even your childhood and your upbringing and what people would say to you and say, Oh, you should be doing this.

You should get a college education. You should do this. You should do that. And it's the parent versus child in you that's. The constant battle, but it's just understanding that and, walking down the street saying to yourself, Oh, I'm thinking now, okay. Just being able to understand that you're thinking now is massive progress than personally where I was a few years ago. But getting back to your question, really, it's not.

And I try to do it every day, the hour meditation sometimes doesn't work out, especially at the weekends where you naturally you're, I think psychologically, sometimes you eat a bit worse. I know I do myself. You maybe just go, Oh, it's the weekend. Like don't have to do the meditation. And even this weekend, I didn't do any meditation. And this morning I did a 30 minute one. And it was definitely not as good as previously, but very good to do it. And you get.

back into it again, but it's, you always have these little hurdles that you're trying to improve and increase. And I think taking the couple of minutes each day to between meetings or something like that is something I'm nowhere near there because there's a lot of days where I just forget totally about, about doing that, but it definitely is. I know when I do it and it's.

Sometimes importantly when you get in that fight or flight mode, if you get in an argument with someone, I'll notice it myself. I'll just go, Oh, actually, yeah, I've learned something here. I know how to, I know how to deal with this now, and you just go, okay, take a step back. And that's at those moments, you get so much confidence in yourself and you go, wow, I've made progress. I've made incredible strides here that I'm able to do that.

And so if only it was that way, everything would be great, so I have thought a lot about that and meditation has really helped me to notice that story that I have. And that there's like, I'm explaining myself in my own head. I'm like explaining. Explaining myself to be like, look, I'm doing it the right way. And just noticing that gives me a degree of freedom, right?

I'm observing and I don't need to be completely bought in and believe every single thing, I think, and that gives me a lot of freedom to look at things that happen, right? I gave the example earlier of I'll be sitting in meditation and come upstairs and then get triggered by my wife or something that happens with my son or whatever. I have a tendency to get pretty defensive. When something happens, I'm like, no, it wasn't me. I didn't do it.

I didn't do it, but even when I react very quickly, I realize that's not who I want to be, right? That's not how I should have reacted, right? And I'll go and I'll say, look, sorry. I was being a jerk, like five minutes later. That would have taken me like two weeks before if I even was willing to acknowledge it, right? And so just that type of self awareness. both in the moment, but also just like overall of like, how am I showing up? Is that how I want to be showing up?

And just checking in and trying to keep that in alignment is constant work, but also quite cool when I start to find times that it does happen.

It's a new day today and you can't do anything about the past anyway So you might as well just focus on the present and how you show.

In starting the business, when you have to create a set of values that you abide by, it gets you time to think and step back. And I can't remember what book I was reading at the time or what influenced me, but it was basically like Googling the values of businesses and how they came about doing this. So it wasn't any rocket science, but then it goes back to like, what are your real values as a person? And then it goes back for me, it went back to my childhood.

Like my parents ran a bed and breakfast in the West of Ireland, the values that they had, they, I remember vividly my dad could have overcharged someone by two pounds.

And he would have drove 30 miles to give the money back, these are transparency and doing the right thing and constantly times of customer service, when someone would be up at maybe 12 o'clock and they would be, It wouldn't be in time for breakfast and my dad would make them breakfast anyway and just be totally nice about it because he's the nicest person in the world.

But these are things that is ingrained in you and ingrained and it comes out when you're starting a business like this and you really want to focus on that. And then you have some great young people like yourself, Adam, when you started at Google, I really wanted you To develop into being a great person. First of all, that's the same with the young people here in the business. I just want them to learn, have fun and grow. And if that's a pub lift, great.

If it's not great, the number one focus is for people to grow. And when, practically when you go through that, you get like a lot of energy from it and you get so much enthusiasm. into the business that you're like, Oh, we can create a real difference here. And if I can learn more about what's good in life and trying to make people happy and enjoying the craftsmanship of the work rather than the end result, you look at a carpenter and what, how they make something and how they fine tune it.

Like a big thing for me is efficiency. Like, I love being efficient in everything we do in the business, but home life. And it's about like, I want people to work nine to five maximum and less if possible, because you get to spend more time with your friends. You spend more time with your family, more time doing hobbies, rather than, excuse me, having to work.

But I found work was in a, ability for me to be able to bring out my spiritual teaching to other people or bring out my values and what other if my purpose in life was to have a really big impact in the world and help people. improve themselves and live happier, healthier lives. I've had a lot of mental health issues in, in, in our family, like a cousin of mine committed suicide at 25, which so sad, and it's just like, he was a really good friend of mine as well.

And you just see how people suffer. And if there's any platform like this, even our discussion now, if there's any platform that invigorates someone and says, Look, I, I can have an impact in the world, or I can do that, or I can help people out in some kind of way. Then we're doing a great job because mental health is such a, so important. And we're seeing it these days that people are really suffering at the moment.

And it's going back to that structure of the day and having those things in place. And like, we're back, we're lucky enough we're back in the office here the last couple of months. And it's really been great because we have a lot of young people that. Like being part of a family, like being part of a bit of a tribe, and that's very important. Those social aspects as well are really important, and it's the things, the checking in with people. How are you doing today? Are you okay?

Are you getting enough rest? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you getting enough, Do an exercise this week. Yeah, don't worry about that client. Make sure you're getting exercise. That may be wrong, I'm really focused about making sure that people have the right tools to go about that.

And if we're the values that have in the business, like we've 11 values in the business, one of them is, Consciousness, healthy headspace, another is efficiency, family spirit, these kind of things, but they're all, I think, trying to improve as a person and that resonates with the customer that's going to make more revenue, save time for a customer, must be more reliable to the customer. And it's about having autonomy to improve a process, for instance, talks about craftsmanship.

If we're building the kind of product that they're building, the best product fit for the customer, it mightn't be the best product, but the customer is gaining the most out of it. And it's like that. If you have that customer first kind of mindset, how can you have the most impact on the customer? You can do that for yourself really, because you're like, how can I have the most impact on my life? And it's about having that headspace.

Space to be able to think and really go well, where is my life going? What do I want to do? Because anything is possible. You can achieve anything in your life if you just focus on it. Really.

I've said let's just, and as we get bigger, hopefully it might provide a platform where, it could be an opera telling, telling Oprah how I'm trying to do this in business and how I'm trying to impact people's lives as well. Yeah. for the greater good. So maybe there's an opportunity to do that. But in creating the values, we have gone through a lot of iterations of values. The latest one was about three months ago during the lockdown, actually, in Sydney, that we refocused the business.

And we said, what are we doing here? What's The value we were creating for our client and what do we want as a team? So the values were created by the team. It wasn't me. It was actually, we did about a two month intensive two hour session a week where we discussed all of these values and put them down on paper and discussed them, started off with 20 or 30 and whittled down to 11. And then from that, they've really started to intertwine in the business. And we actually use.

We are one on one template now uses these 11 principles and saying the number one is delivering service. And we're Oh how have we delivered service in the last couple of weeks? How, where would you see you're at with that? Have you a healthy mindset? So it's driving that accountability within the businesses is very important. And we're incorporating it now into 360 degree feedbacks. And so it's all based on, on, on the values in the business.

And then when the decisions, and this is practical, when decisions have to be made, about a certain product or something that happens with the customer, we make a mistake and it makes the customer decrease their revenue by a couple of grand. Like what does our value say? Our value is we totally have trust and transparency in our DNA. So that means we tell them exactly what it is and then we just go I think this is the right thing to do.

We'll give the money back or we do whatever, but it's all goes back to that stems from the values in the business. And values to me in the business, aren't just things written down. They have to just be like, it all goes back to practical examples. And we've done that in our weekly team meetings as well.

We've given them examples of where we've shown our values or we did something on vulnerability or something like that and went around the room and tell me about a time when you've been vulnerable. So all those kinds of things, you have to live in the moment. And that's my biggest role I have is to always make sure people are aware of that. And that's the problem with scaling up the business as well. We've got about 25 in the business now. We're probably going to go expand into Europe next year.

And you get more people into the business then. But it's about how we do that. And it's a big kind of challenge, but again, it goes back to giving people autonomy and giving people the ability to say, Oh, should we change our values? Are the values correct? And be constantly asking that. And as well as that, I'm pretty proud that we implemented profit share this quarter for the first time. And that has given people pure autonomy in the business.

that they can go should we spend this money here on something? That's going to impact our bottom line and all those kinds of things. People can see why the values are in place, because one of the values is building a sustainable business model. Is, can we go down some other product avenue that is going to sustain our business and sustain the lives of our customers, because we've got over 230 customers now.

So we have to make sure that our business is intact and state cutting edge technology for them too. Thrive and our mission statement and vision is basically to allow publishers to thrive and survive for a long time So it's built into that.

Checking in and seeing how much I am or am not doing that in my work, in my life. And there are many ways that I am and then there are many areas where I could be doing it more. And so I really like that you have that within your one on one template.

within your team meetings, the way that you make decisions, the way that you incorporate the team in making those decisions and really giving them ownership literally with profit sharing and figuratively with the values and the whole thing to really embody and live those. And so I think that's really cool. Another thing I really like and would love to hear a little bit more about is how you think about using this.

entrepreneurial path to develop and make the, create the impact that you want to create on the world, right? Because I've had this thought a lot as well. As you mentioned, I am very attuned to the comforts of corporate America. I have gotten quite comfortable. And in many times in my career, I thought that I needed to leave Google and I needed to leave, a corporate safe job and take a risk as an entrepreneur to truly make an impact and to develop into the person I wanted to be.

And to some degree, I really still do want to be an entrepreneur, but I've found that I am an entrepreneur. I don't need to wait until some future time when I quit my job to be an entrepreneur. I can be an entrepreneur right now and I can live in alignment with my values right now within my job at Google with this podcast, which I can do on the side and that's entrepreneurial in itself.

I'd really love to hear more about how you think about your work as the ground with which to Build your self awareness, your skill, your leadership skills and to create the impact that you want to create in the world.

And I, they've pioneered kind of the tech kind of self funded kind of startup. They had profit share for a while with their employees. They pay their employees are incredibly well. We actually got a. The head of strategy, give us advice on product strategy. And we've incorporated the jobs to be done philosophy in our product strategy. So that was really useful.

And I get really enthusiastic about companies like Southwest Airlines, which a lot of their values are underdoing the competition and being profitable from where it go. And it's not about just looking for an exit for Publift. It's about creating like it's a self funded business, so not answerable to anyone else. Can just do what we think is the best way to go down. Obviously, you've got responsibility to your clients and to the team. But that's it.

So you can create this kind of journey, and I can use this as a platform to share my experiences. I never want to share a gospel and say, this is such a should do. All I can say is this is what has worked out for me and my team. And I want to create incredible wealth for our team. I want to create autonomy. I want them to have fun. I often thought about going out and maybe doing being a, an advisor or being a consultant to companies and let them do it.

And, but again you're saying, this is what you should do. This is what you should incorporate in the business. But if I have a working example, cause. Most of the time you spend most of your time at work, really. That's what most of the population do.

So if you can create an environment where your work is fun and invigorating, and you can share that with the rest of the world maybe it's a, it's an impact that, that other companies can have that, that they can go there's a lot of businesses already doing this. It's give autonomy to employees. I've got so many friends that just are. Punching the numbers at work, go to work. And they say lockdown is great. Cause they can just do like two hours a day, because they don't have to do much more work.

And, but their brain maybe isn't getting challenged enough in those kinds of environments. So maybe it's a change in what we I can maybe foster a change in, in, in the doing that. And maybe we create different products, maybe create different going to different industries or something like that. That that you can create that change as well. So look I'm not really too sure to be honest with you, Adam. I'm just trying to improve myself and try to do the best, the way I think it is.

And if that's an opportunity to teach people the right way of doing things and take responsibility of their lives and that way. Maybe you can create a bit of PR about being on this podcast with you about doing other similar type of podcast that it's not all about making the most money possible that, that seems to fuel corporate America.

It's not like I lived in America and I didn't like that when it was people judge you, but where you went to school, people judge you about what social class you're in, how much money you have, like, I don't have any care for any of that kind of stuff. And maybe if there's more people creating businesses that. Share wealth with the team and share it's not all about the end result. Like people ask me, even the team asked me like, what's the end result here, Colin, what do you want to do?

And I just go like, look, I'm still figuring it out, but I just focus on trying to improve and trying to improve the value that we create for our customers. is the most important thing. And if we're adding value to customers, I want to add value to more customers. So that means getting more customers. Yes. But I want to do it in a conscious way. And I want to make sure that every team member that we bring on this journey with us is adding value and they're adaptable. They're changeable.

They're all the right values that we need. To get us where we want to go, because if you have one bad egg on the bus, it's sets the business totally back, so recruitment is so important to, to, to doing those kinds of things. Yeah, I don't know if I really answered your question about where it can have the impact on the world, but I definitely think it's. It's like maybe being a school teacher or something like that.

If you have a lot of kids that come every year, you can have the impact and you can help their lives. I definitely, I've written a few articles and I wrote one article a few weeks ago about my constant struggle with digital screens. And I make money through people clicking on ads. So this is a constant battle with me. I'm trying to align the spiritual kind of practice, not being on social media, not being on my phone, whereas I make money through that. Yeah. That's a total contradiction.

But if I'm not out there saying that it is like you, you maybe watch the social dilemma on Netflix. It's scary what, what is going on out there. And it's definitely like, I really do like to create a good user experience for the users of websites. I want to have a targeted advertisement that, that works and adds value to their. internet experience. I am not a big believer of big flashy ads and manipulation and getting revenue growth in the short term.

It's about long term creation and on ongoing adding value. And I definitely not an advocacy of spending more. time online. The average think person spends four hours online now. That's a lot, if I'm using a business ad and I'm saying, Oh that's great. I want people to spend more online. I don't, I definitely want people to be enjoying their life and being out in nature and doing all those good things rather than. and spending too much time online.

Like, the internet has made massive efficiencies in our lives. It's, previously you would have had to go to the bank to do stuff. You stand in line to get there. Now you can do it in a couple of minutes on your mobile phone strings, for instance. And it's been massively useful, but I definitely don't want to get totally obsessive with more money and more going through that. I think it's not the right thing to do. It goes back down to that, back down to the values.

I know it sounds corny, but like I've incredible clients that are friends. We lost a client last week and we're working with six years and they're still incredibly good friends because they, I'm so grateful to them for giving us the opportunity when I was a small business starting out. And then there's other partners. People at Google, Pubmatic, Rubicon, all these kind of people are great people and you learn so much from them. And then there's other entrepreneurs you meet along the way.

And I can literally go to any city in the world basically. I can visit a client, I could visit a partner, I could visit a competitor. All this kind of stuff is just incredible. And that's well to me. On the I've always I did a jobs to be done philosophy. I don't know if you're aware of the product philosophy jobs to be done. So it's basically revolving around the job rather than a product. a persona. So for instance, you have an option to go for lunch.

You could get a smoothie, you could get a sandwich, or you could get a salad. So it all, it's all about satisfying that, that job that you, you hire the product to do. So I built that for myself and the jobs to be done philosophy I have is that I want to grow. I want to have an impact on, Anything I learned that I want to reciprocate that to the rest of my team and maybe the rest of my clients, but I also want to be able to be in a financial position to do whatever I want in terms of experience.

So if Ireland are in the World Cup final, which I dunno will ever happen, but I want to be there and if it costs me $50,000, I want to be there. Those are the kind of things I like in life. And just to be able to experience any of that, I'm not a material possession kind of person, I fancy dinners, I prefer a home cooked meal rather than anything else, or a takeaway of Portuguese chicken is very good too.

I don't anyway think about spending money, I don't have a flashcard, it doesn't interest me, any of that kind of stuff, just experiencing it. experiences interest me going out to visit you and your baby or something like that and having the financial independence to be able to do that is, yeah, something that I'd really focus on. So it's, I suppose when I started out, it was just about getting a job that I enjoyed and it's still about that. And I think if you focus on.

The wealth creation side of things, it's a bad angle to focus on from my experience, because if I'm just thinking about the customer and creating more value for them, the, it's like what I said to the team, you focus on the process, you focus on refining the process and the structure rather than the goals, rather than the financial rewards, rather than the end result. So I don't really think about the financial independence or.

Sorry, I know your podcast is about that, but I don't really think too much about that, to be honest with you, Adam.

I have the idea and then I think about it a lot and then some more and then some more and then maybe I do some, right? And but I really do resonate a lot with this idea of craftsmanship and aspire. I'm an aspiring craftsman. But I'd love to hear just how you think about that in, in improving yourself, right?

And if the business kind of folded up in a couple of weeks time or something happened or there's some kind of change, it's definitely a worry. But again, I suppose it just goes back into your headspace at the time. And if you continue the process you'll get there in the end. And it's that mindset of just it's all going to work out in the end. And it's because I'm putting good energy out in the world. I'm being a good person and doing all that kind of stuff.

But there's moments when, something happens, some trigger points, you lose a customer or you someone is going to leave the business or your product fails or competitor takes two customers in two days or something like that. And you just go, Oh shit. Yeah, I'm really worried about this one. But it goes back to that. Spiritual mindfulness again. So that's what I was going to say about that. But in the doing aspect, I would just say, Adam, I've yeah, always had that.

I'm pretty stupid that I just don't think about too much things about too much. And I lack a bit of foresight, I would say, so it can have positives and negatives.

We've been guilty in the business of not planning things out, and sometimes it works for us, sometimes it doesn't, and you just have to be comfortable in making those mistakes, because as we scale up the business, our processes and structures within the business currently are not where we want them to be at all, pretty poor, I would say, so it's only in the last while that we've tried to improve that, or say it's about the process, it's about the craftsmanship, it's really only in the last six

months when we've gone through that bit of a change with Publif 2. 0 and figuring out our values and our product philosophy side of things that's only been something that we've figured out in the last couple of months, really. But myself and Tobin have always had doer kind of attitudes. So it's all has been part of we just roll up our sleeves and get things done and that's to the detriment of scaling sometimes because we always come in and save the day and quench fires.

If something's wrong with a customer, we'll come in rather than another team member dealing with it because we just know how to do it. It's always been the case, but I suppose, yeah, I just don't think about the repercussions of doing stuff and very impulsive. I would say, I'd say I'm very in tune with my intuition as well.

And, from meditation going into intuition, feelings, maybe feelings, not as much for me, but intuition, if I have an idea, if I have a thought, most intelligence is high with me, I will just go do it and I'll back myself and deal with the consequences. If it's. If it's wrong.

This time last year and there was a long period of time where I was thinking about doing it and I have a tendency to jump ahead to what are all the things I'm going to need to know when it's this big podcast, right? And it's like no one, it's not, it's literally not even a podcast yet. So what am I worried about? I'll negotiate

And if I take the time to take a step back and look at, oh wow, look at all that I've done, right? I've had eight or nine episodes, I've, gotten this much progress, I've learned how to do this, right? Like it's pretty cool. And that gives me energy and encouragement to keep going. And for me, that's really helpful. So I'm trying to be more of a doer. That's really my I'm in this program called the Inner MBA. And I had to pick a, like a learning goal.

And my learning goal is I want to take more action in my life because of that thing, right? As I start to take the steps, I start to find new opportunities as I walk down the path. And it's cool to get your thoughts on that. So let's shift gears into what I call the mindful fire final four. And so the first question is what is your top tip for those getting started with meditation and mindfulness?

I think the guided meditations at the start, because you really don't know what you're doing and be very thankful to yourself for making the time to, to do anything. And I think it's starting off doing that. We'll see. Back something. And everyone's on their own journey. You can do yoga, you can do mindfulness through eating, you can do mindfulness through playing tennis. This. It's about doing those things that, in creating your present moment.

Like I think we spoke about Michael Jordan's documentary, the Last Dance. I've got Phil Knight's book on my desk there that I'm gonna read. I think Phil Knight. Is that the name of the coach?

Stuff that is very interesting, and I think it's good to, if you're, if you get a bit of something out of it, reading some books like The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle, stuff, and, it just set, it sets off different things in everyone's head, but I'd say that the apps like Headspace or Cam or these kind of stuff are really good tools, I reckon.

of I'm an all in kind of person that's very black and white with me, but if you can do something where you're working and then you're doing your side hustle and then your side hustle becomes big enough that you don't have to work, that's an incredible amount of our clients that a lot of our clients run kind of puzzle websites or coupon sites or something like that. And they would have been software engineers.

And then they just made so much money from AdSense that they went and did their own thing.

Things like teaching Search Inside Yourself within Google and leading meditations every Tuesday at Google and doing the podcast, right? So it's like, the podcast is really my foray into, what might I want to do after I retire early from Google, right? Do I, I think maybe I want to teach mindfulness. Let's talk to some people who teach mindfulness and see if they like doing it, right?

And what are the pros and the cons and then talk to people who are just living life that Intentionally and what they're focused on like you building this business, right? You're looking at building this business as a path of personal growth and development, right? That's really what it's all about right growing and learning and creating opportunity is certainly in my mind. And so how can I test the waters while still having that financial security?

And then also how can I bring more of that into my day to day work at Google, right? It doesn't need to be either or, right? I think you said that one of your friends said, why does it have to be One or the other, why doesn't, why don't you bring both together? And so that's really what I'm trying to do. So the third question is what advice would you give to your younger self?

Thank you very much for having me My pleasure, dude, and let's hope we can see each other in the not too distant future.

This guide will help you craft a clear and inspiring vision for your life. Again, you can download it for free at mindfulfire. org slash start. Thanks again, and I'll catch you next time on the mindful fire podcast.