[00:00:00] Josh: Hey friends, it's great to have you here for this podcast episode, episode 238. I'm really excited about this one because this is a fun kind of different type of topic that we're diving into in this. The reality is there's so many ways you can build your business and grow your business, and most often what I've found is you get a lot of advice, but that doesn't mean that all the advice that you hear and see, including what I recommend to you is right for you necessarily.
[00:00:30] Josh: I want to really encourage you in this episode to build your business your way in with this topic, in this motto in mind, I can't think of a better guest to bring on than Hunter Louder, who is the co-founder of, and husband and wife duo business called, uh, Tor Curtis, excuse me, tortoise and the Bear.
[00:00:51] Josh: Uh, but they're awesome. And Hunter was, was just a really great person to talk to about this because she, as you'll find out in this episode, Really, quote unquote embraced her inner weirdo. That's exactly what she said to me in the beginning of this chat, and learned to build her business her way that worked around her personality, her energy.
[00:01:12] Josh: And I want to encourage you to do the same. So if you feel like you're a little bit daunted because you feel pressured to, to build your business in a way that people say you quote unquote, should build it again, I want you to maybe take a step back and realize that you have the freedom to build the life and the business that you wanna build that works around your personality, your energy, and all those good things.
[00:01:34] Josh: Now, I don't think you should stay in your comfort zone, and I think you do need to get out of what you're most used to in order to grow. And often some of the best things in life are right outside your comfort zone, but that doesn't mean that you need to become somebody different or like hate showing up for your business because it's just something you just absolutely dread.
[00:01:53] Josh: I want you to love your business and love every day of your life running it, and I hope this episode helps you do just that. So, without any further ado, here's Hunter. We're gonna talk about building your business your way, embracing your inner weirdo, ranking some rules and doing things that fire you up. So here we go.
[00:02:12] Josh: You, hunter, welcome to the podcast. Thank you so much for taking some time to chat. I'm so excited, uh, to pick your brain here for the next little while. .
[00:02:22] Hunter: Thanks for having me, Josh.
[00:02:24] Josh: Uh, it was cool because when your request came through, I told you before went live. I just loved immediately your style and just kind of your vibe and the fact that you're a husband and wife business, and more importantly, I'm always fascinated by people who have kind of a counterintuitive approach to business and life sometimes, and it seems like that's exactly what you guys have.
[00:02:45] Josh: So I'm, oh, there's a plethora of things I'm sure we could talk about, but the idea of like reverse engineering or counterintuitive growth strategies, I figure that's what I'd love to, to dive into, if that's cool with you.
[00:02:57] Hunter: Absolutely. It's took me a while to actually embrace my inner weirdo and kind of say, , let's break all the rules and let's do it. Uh, cause it doesn't work the same way for every single person. You know, we all try and do what the gurus say and what the experts say, and we follow this path, which can work for a lot of people. But then you have the ones that are really different and need like a unique approach to their own business. So I kind of jumped head first into that one.
[00:03:18] Josh: Oh, I love that. Okay. I wanna ask about when this started for you, but first, very curious, if you'd love to let everybody know, first off, where you're based out of. That might give us some context of your clientele and stuff. And then my follow up question to that. Now, as always, when somebody asks you what you do, what do you tell them? .
[00:03:34] Hunter: All right. So I'm currently based in San Diego, California and inching my way towards hopefully being a digital nomad in the near future. I have a 16 year old son, so I'm kind of waiting for him to, you know, go off to college and become an adult before I just, uh, put my wings out and fly off to various parts of the world.
[00:03:49] Hunter: So I love much like you being able to work from anywhere and being able to serve my clients in any time zone, any country, any location. That's like a total dream of mine to never have to go into the office again, . But to be able to really help people from anywhere in the world. So that's, uh, me geographically. And then I think your second question was how did this get started?
[00:04:09] Josh: Uh, I actually would love to know, uh, what you say, people ask you what you do. Yes. It's one of my favorite questions cuz it's so hard to answer. For pretty much all online entrepreneurs, or designers or
[00:04:19] Hunter: creative. Absolutely. So I always have a boring answer and I have a really exciting answer. So my boring answer is that I'm a certified director of operations and project manager, and I help corporate expats and pandemic pivoters create a custom personality based sales and visibility strategy so that they can grow their business into a profitable and impactful one without burnout or overwhelm.
[00:04:42] Josh: So that's the complicated one for, for somebody who, that's the complicated one, for, for somebody in your family who's like, what do you do again? What do you, what's the, uh, simple version of what you tell them? Curious.
[00:04:52] Hunter: I tell them that I'm a chaos coordinator. Chaos coordinator.
[00:04:57] Josh: I like that. So I work, oh, sorry, go ahead.
[00:05:00] Hunter: No, go ahead. I was with small business owners who are growing or scaling and help them put systems in place so that the business feels a lot more easy, uh, to run and
[00:05:10] Josh: gotcha. So it's, and I'm kind of curious, do you work with all sorts of businesses or is there a preferred or even like target niche that you end up going in with?
[00:05:20] Hunter: So my niche, niche is more like the person I tried to look at the different industries. Did I wanna work with coaches, consultants, you know, online service providers. Um, and I really decided to go with people that are experts in their field, uh, but have decided to start their own business, like their own, maybe it's a side hustle that became a full-time job, or they decided to leave corporate and they wanna actually take their passion and their experience and turn it into a new career. So mine is usually about people that are, uh, starting or growing a second career typically.
[00:05:48] Josh: Gotcha. That's a great niche, I feel like too, because they're probably established in some way. It's probably different than like, I wanna start my own business, but I have no idea what I'm doing. Or, you know, what, uh, anything about this industry.
[00:05:58] Josh: So it seems like there's prob, I don't know how much strategy was involved in that with your end, but that sounds like a safe way to go as a good lesson in nicheing is like, find a proven industry of people who maybe are a little more established or at least, uh, have a, a good foundation to build off of.
[00:06:14] Hunter: Absolutely. So it's kinda like new business owners then there's people that are trying to grow and there's people that are scaling. So at what point, as a strategist, do you wanna come in and, and help them? And I'm usually at that point where they plateau like they've been super successful. It's been like a wild ride.
[00:06:26] Hunter: All their dreams are coming true. And then all of a sudden they hit like a wall and they're like, nothing's working. Like, I'm not converting sales. My marketing's floppy. Like where do I go from here? And I just commented on your Instagram post this morning that you had one that said, what got you here won't get you there.
[00:06:41] Hunter: And that is literally what I tell all my clients. They hit that point and they got there and they're trying to do the same thing still, like go backwards and make it work again. But it's like you need new skills, you need new mindset, you need new tools to kind of hit that next level. And that's usually where I come in.
[00:06:54] Josh: Hmm. And what a segue to this topic of like a counterintuitive approach to everything. I'm curious though, before we get to that, and maybe this, this, I don't know if you have a exact framework or the, or the high level things on that. I am curious, when did this happen for you? You mentioned that you just dove headfirst into this idea of being weird and embracing your own weirdo and doing your own thing. When and how did that start for you?
[00:07:18] Hunter: So my story is that I actually used to be in the luxury wedding industry. So I started off as an event manager for wedding and event venue in Central California. And over the course of about a decade, I worked my way up to c e o of that company, which became a multi seven figure company.
[00:07:32] Hunter: And it was like exciting. It was so much fun. We were there for people's weddings, like their biggest events for their lives. We had a restaurant and a winery and it was just amazing. And then I crashed and burned, had a like massive burnout where at 35 years old, I basically decided that I could either stay in my career and probably have a heart attack before I was 40, or I could leave my career behind and see what.
[00:07:54] Hunter: Well, what I wanted to be when I grew up basically and kind of start over. And so I left my career back in 2017. Uh, my family and I moved down to San Diego and I kind of started this exploration of who am I, what do I like to do? What am I good at doing? Because my identity was so tied into my career that when I left my career, I was almost like, I dunno who I am.
[00:08:16] Hunter: Yeah. I dunno what I wanna do. I don't know what I'm good at. And so I really went down this path of self-discovery and identity and I got a lot of coaching certifications to heal myself. And I also thought that I wanted to be a coach for a really long time. And when I got into that industry, I realized that I'm way too opinionated to be a coach.
[00:08:32] Hunter: I love coaches, but they're like, what is the answer inside of you? Let me ask you these questions, let me support you. So I'm more of a consultant that's like, here's what you need to do, 1, 2, 3, and this will get you to your goals. Um, so I decided to go down that consulting path and take my decades of business experience in brick and mortar and hospitality and learn about the online business world and then combine the two together.
[00:08:54] Josh: And do you feel like the counterintuitive approach, do you think that was a result of burnout? that you decided to just do things your own way and do whatever the hell you want to do, or like, or was it a, a matter of like the self-discovery that you went through that helped you realize, I don't know. Well, did you feel like life is too short, let's just have fun and do business? What, what did it look like? So,
[00:09:12] Hunter: I think there's a couple things that go on there. Number one, I went through my values. So that's a big thing I do with my clients is what are your values like in life and in business? And I discovered that one of my top values is to have fun.
[00:09:22] Hunter: And, uh, that's not super popular in the, you know, American culture, for having fun. We should work hard, we should be industrious, we should make money, we should, you know, uh, retire when we're 75 with a pile of gold underneath of us. That's what we should be doing. So when I realized that, I was like, okay. So the way I do things is already different because fun is not like a top value in most businesses and most corporations.
[00:09:42] Hunter: Um, so I really try and look at everything that I do through that lens of having fun. And then as far as the counterintuitive approach goes, when I burned out in order to heal, I really had to redefine everything that I thought was like success. You know, I was married, I had a kid, I had a house, I had two cars, I had accolades awards.
[00:10:01] Hunter: I was, you know, recognized and respected in the industry, and I crashed and burned. So it's like I achieved all these things. I, I lived the American dream. I did everything I wanted to do when I was a teenager, but it didn't serve me.
[00:10:14] Hunter: So if I'm gonna hurt myself by accomplishing those kind of more standard corporate, uh, you know, American type goals, I need to actually redefine what my version of success is and what is going to be healthy and wonderful for me. And so that's really where I go into the whole very personalized, no person is cookie cutter. Everybody has their own unique, um, approach to life and business. I
[00:10:36] Josh: love that because it has to be the core of growing a business your own way and doing things counterintuitively because it's gotta make you happy and it's gotta, you know, fill you up and energize you if you're gonna be sustainable.
[00:10:49] Josh: I love that you mentioned the fun thing, because I agree. I think I I don't think I realize I did this, but I often would tell clients in meetings like, we're gonna have some fun with this. I, I didn't really talk about it much. I need two more. This is a great reminder for me to, as a sales tip for all my students, everyone listening, add fun into your messaging.
[00:11:07] Josh: Like no one wants to work with somebody like, oh, I'm stressed out. This is gonna become complex. Like, make it as fun as you can. Make it lighthearted, because I think now, so more than ever after the wake of the past couple, few years, really, it's like people want to have a better time e every day. So if you can make the experience more enjoyable, it's just such a great reminder to add fun into the mix of, of a proposal or conversations in the beginning.
[00:11:32] Josh: I would love to dive into your darkest days here, hunter. Um, aren't you so glad you damn this podcast because I do podcast. Think podcast therapy. Yes. Podcast Therapy. Because I do think that really sets the foundation for how you grow a business that is right for you. Because like you said, there are so many gurus.
[00:11:50] Josh: We're you and I, you know, we have our messages we're probably considered gurus to some people. Whether it's tough because I feel the same way. I try to tread that lightly. Like I don't tell people, you should do this. I say, this is what has worked for me. Yeah. It's what I recommend, but make it your own.
[00:12:05] Josh: Um, but I think a lot of business owners are just flooded by all the different messaging out there and they end up becoming versions of people who they are not, or they, they don't really enjoy. So for you, I am very curious. This might be a weird question, but I just wanna know, was your burnout your your fault? Like, were you responsible of all your burnout or was it just a mixture of things? Yeah. What did
[00:12:27] Hunter: that look like? Absolutely. So I, I, at first, you know, it's like, I'm gonna blame this person. I'm gonna blame this person. I'm gonna blame the horrible, you know, uh, bridezillas and mothers of the bride who made my life miserable.
[00:12:36] Hunter: I'm gonna blame, you know, my boss who was always, you know, uh, barking down my neck and everything else. But it's like, at the end of the day, it's like the way you do something and who you are, like, I'm a super type A overachiever. I love to work, I love to create things. I love to be productive. It's part of who I am.
[00:12:53] Hunter: But if not paying attention to that, if it's just unchecked, then that can, it's kinda like a car that's engine is just running, running, running, running, running. But it's not really going anywhere. It can burn out the engine, which is exactly what happened to.
[00:13:04] Josh: Oh, that's a great analogy. Yeah, cuz yeah, literally, I mean, I, it happened to me. I don't, I never like officially burned out to, to where I like called it quits or anything like that. But I had seasons of burnout, you know, symptoms. And, and I do see this with a lot of people actually, uh, just recently, a couple people, students and, and people I know who just went too fast. But it was very, just like you said, that analogy of the car, it's like they really weren't moving forward.
[00:13:28] Josh: They were just going, going, going, going. What, was there a catalyst event for you? Was it like a health thing? Was it, um, I don't know. Yeah. What was the event that, like, was there a wall that you hit? Like, what did burnout look like? I'm kind of curious what burnout looked
[00:13:41] Hunter: like for you. Yeah, and I say like, all of a sudden I was burned out. But it's not like that. It, it happens over the course of many years, uh, for people. And usually burnout is just like a basically extensive exhaustion. You just, uh, so I wasn't sleeping, I wasn't taking care of myself, uh, physically, mentally, emotionally. Um, I didn't have ti I didn't feel like I had time to, I was a mom as well as like a career woman as well as a wife.
[00:14:03] Hunter: And so you're kind of trying to juggle all those, um, different roles and make everybody happy around you as much as possible. So for me, it really started off that I stopped sleeping through the night, which then just really led to that exhaustion and like hormonal imbalances, you know, with cortisol and like adrenal fatigue.
[00:14:18] Hunter: And then I started having, um, carp palpitations. So my heart would be like 130 beats per minute just sitting. Doing nothing, which was like workout, you know, rate. And so I went to the doctor. The doctor said, nothing's wrong with you. Your heart's perfectly fine. So I kept having these physical ailments that the basically like Western medical community said, you're fine.
[00:14:35] Hunter: There's nothing wrong with you. I'm like, I'm not fine. This is not how you're supposed to live your life. Like life shouldn't be like this. So I actually started going a little bit more into like the eastern kind of woo spirituality realm because I was like, well, Western medicine has nothing for me. Let me see if a psychic or tarot card reader or acupuncturist or astrologer can help give me some insight that maybe is just kinda like a light bulb moment that I can grab onto and move forward.
[00:14:59] Hunter: So really the crux of me deciding to leave my career is I received an email from a naturopath who had a, uh, like intuitive, uh, psychic in their. And they were offering heart chakra healings. And I said, well, my heart's bothering me. Uh, I know this can't hurt me at all. Let me see if they can maybe help me, uh, have a perspective.
[00:15:20] Hunter: And when I went in and did the reading with her, one of the first things she said was, I see you in this picture of your life, this perfect life with this perfect house and this perfect career in this perfect marriage. And you are on your way out of that picture like you are done with that picture. And when she said that, I just was like, I am.
[00:15:38] Hunter: It just kinda took that outside perspective to tell me what I already knew, but I was afraid to admit that I was just done with that picture. And then I had the opportunity to decide, you know, how to move forward from there and what the next steps would be.
[00:15:51] Josh: Now when you so when, when you got to that place at Burnout where you were done like, like, like as you said out of the picture, I kind of wonder if you could go back now knowing what you know now and and everything, do you think you could have stayed in that industry and done it in a balanced way? Or do you feel like the industry itself and the work itself led to a lot of that as well? Or do you think it was mostly you? internal problems with personal growth or, or boundaries and things like that? I
[00:16:18] Hunter: think it's very complex. You know, I think there are some industries that are way more high stress than others. I, I know the wedding industry, obviously the medical industry, you know, police officers, firefighters, of course there's some industries that are more, uh, stress related and people need to really watch out for that, for compassion fatigue and, you know, hopefully have resources in place to help make those jobs a little bit more palatable for people long term.
[00:16:39] Hunter: Um, so I think there was a little bit of a stress in that, uh, industry. And I wouldn't go back to the wedding industry necessarily cause I love that it was super fun. But at this point in my life, I want a little bit more of a laid back, uh, you know, work life balance, lifestyle. Um, so I don't think it's like everybody in the wedding industry is gonna burn out by any means.
[00:16:54] Hunter: But I will say a big buzzword that I wasn't, uh, implementing at the time is, You know, you're just like enthusiastic. It's weddings, it's people's special day. There's a lot of, um, requests, there's a lot of, uh, emotions. There's a lot of things happening. And so you almost just kind of take on a lot of that yourself.
[00:17:11] Hunter: And I was just, I think, too young, too unaware of personal development to really have a, a method to be able to like, decompress, kind of let go of those, uh, emotions and feelings and understand that it's like neutral and objective. It was very personal to me. You know, every, every problem, every success was me. And so really taking that on is my identity, I think was really the big problem for
[00:17:33] Josh: me. And I think you mentioned you were extroverted. I think this is a big challenge for extroverts like myself, who I like, I, I'm very social, I like doing social things. I'm, you know, group of people I'm fine with, I'm cool with going to networking events and things like that.
[00:17:48] Josh: I have some extroverted tendencies, but overall I'm quite, you know, extroverted by nature. But we do tend to get ourselves in trouble when it comes to burnout because it's so easy for our personality types, and I'm lumping us together. I'm sure we have differences, , but you know, if we're gonna go extroverted, introverted extroverts tend to just go, go, go without almost realizing we're burning ourselves out until there's some sort of wall that we hit, or some adva, you know, some sort of life event or whatever it looks like.
[00:18:15] Josh: Whereas introverts, I think, have an easier time pulling themselves back by nature. And I, I should say, I have my own personal thoughts on, I, I don't like to lump people in as extrovert or introvert. Because I, I, and there's more science now that shows like, there's, there's a lot more ambiguity to those two terms, but, um,
[00:18:33] Josh: I just wanted to say, it's interesting because I feel like a lot of extroverts do get to that point where one of the people I just mentioned a little bit ago on top of mind who burned out is a very extroverted person. I had no idea he was struggling with burnout symptoms. It was just like behind the first level of, of the smile.
[00:18:49] Josh: You see? Uh, so I think it's a great reminder to be self-aware about your personality type and then knowing like what gives you energy and what pulls your energy out. I, I imagine that's a big part of figuring out the right business approach to, to this counterintuitive life.
[00:19:03] Hunter: Absolutely. And I think that's important with extroverts and introverts is a lot of people think introverts are socially awkward and they're afraid of being social. And extroverts are just constantly out there in the spotlight. But it is so much more complex than that.
[00:19:13] Hunter: Um, you know, introverts really, they get their energy by themselves. Extroverts get their energy from other people. And if you're an extrovert and you get energy from other people, you might just be around people all the time and going to networking events and doing activities.
[00:19:25] Hunter: But is that moving your business forward? Is that moving your life forward? Is that like intentional or are you just expending your energy every which way because you're an extrovert and that's what you like? So it's almost like reflecting a little bit and saying, okay, is this opportunity where I need to spend my energy? Am I enjoying this? Is this moving me forward? Or is this just extroversion for extroversion?
[00:19:44] Josh: What are your, let's talk about that because this is really interesting and I think just getting to know you a little more, I feel like you probably have a, a really cool pulse on extrovert versus introvert because I, I used to lump myself in as 100% an extrovert and when I became a business coach, or I prefer, actually, I don't like the term coach either.
[00:20:06] Josh: Yeah. Cuz I don't identify myself like that either. but when I started coaching people and getting to know more of my students, I realized that so many people. Lump themself in as an ex or introvert. Mm-hmm. and said automatically I can't sell or I don't like to sell cuz I'm an introvert. Yeah.
[00:20:23] Josh: Particularly when it comes to sales. What are your thoughts on that? Like what are your thoughts on being introverted by nature in some ways, but. Being able to sell still and being out there and growing your business as an introvert.
[00:20:33] Hunter: Absolutely. So one thing I will say is, uh, despite the fact that I work with personality based assessments, I'm actually very like anti label. Um, I think when people are like, I'm this, I'm that, and they use it as an excuse for why they can't do something, it's like, that's not the point of this. The point is to learn what comes naturally to you. It's kinda like that strength-based approach. What are you good at? What are you talented at? What comes easily for you?
[00:20:54] Hunter: And let's, um, really capitalize on those abilities. I don't wanna look at like, oh, I can't do this because I'm X or I'm bad at this because I'm X. Like, that's like a limiting belief. Yes. So when I look at the people's personality assessments, it's not to be like dogmatic, like, this is who you are and if you do anything other than this, you're gonna fail.
[00:21:10] Hunter: It's just more like, how do I get to know the complex human being that you are in a short period of time and make kind of good recommendations for you to move your business forward? So I do always like to say that I'm not like a label person where people I think use those items. Um, To hold themselves back.
[00:21:25] Hunter: Um, so with introverts and selling, what I love about whether it's brick and mortar or an online business is there are a million ways to sell. You can sell face-to-face, you can sell over the phone, over Zoom, over dm. You can do email marketing, passive affiliate, like there is just every single which way you possibly can sell.
[00:21:45] Hunter: So if someone's like, I'm introverted and I have trouble selling, I would kind of call them out on that and say, that's not the same thing. You might have trouble selling because you lack self-confidence. Or you think that sales is dirty, or you think that money is evil, or you have these beliefs, but introverts aren't bad salespeople.
[00:22:02] Hunter: in and of themselves because the definition of introversion is just that you rejuvenate your energy by yourself. So that means what I would recommend is pick one day a week to have sales calls. Don't do them five days a week. You know, I try and have them all together so you know, hey, Wednesday is my sales day.
[00:22:19] Hunter: Thursday is the day I go to the spa or have lunch with my friends, or go for a nice long walk to kind of recharge. So to me it would be more about an energy thing, and let's get rid of those, uh, negative beliefs or limiting beliefs that you think you can't sell because that's not the.
[00:22:34] Josh: Oh, I'm so glad you said that. That is exactly the mindset and approach I've come to adapt over the past year or so. Yeah. With this topic and this idea of like people saying, I'm introverted so I hate sales cuz I get that all the time. And I didn't quite know how to say it. But I think based off of what you just said, the way I can consolidate that is to tell people it's energy management.
[00:22:55] Josh: Yeah. And one of my favorite examples of this was a recent podcast guest, Elizabeth McCrae, who was interesting because she is somebody who likes to like do public speaking. Which you would think introverted people would never like to do, but she identifies herself in most ways as an introvert.
[00:23:10] Josh: But what's interesting is she's like, I like public speaking. but it drains me so much that I need to clear my schedule the couple days after that to recover. Yes. It's so similar. So I love what you said there. Like count, literally calendar, block your, your people time. Uh, absolutely Say I learned this with my wife because we're so different opposites tracked as we all usually find out in life.
[00:23:31] Josh: She is so, so different for me in the way of like, we're both social and she likes talking with people in certain settings. But the difference is like if we go to a party on a Saturday night, I'm fired up on Sunday. She needs to do nothing for the entire day. If I put plans on there, I'm gonna get the look.
[00:23:48] Josh: So I know now energy management wise, I'm gonna be pumped up, but I'm not gonna make her do stuff on Sunday with me cuz she needs to recover. So I think it's the same approach to business too, which I love. What a great reminder on this too, like plan your day in your week around your energy. Uh, which that's not like a common thing in business. that you're, you know, like when you start a business, you're not like, okay, let's look at energy management. It usually comes after burnout.
[00:24:15] Hunter: Yeah, exactly. , it's, and that's what I do basically, I always tell my clients is like, I've spent years, tons of money, tons of time and energy figuring this all out. And so my biggest goal is to help them prevent burnout and prevent overwhelm and not have to recover from it. Cause it's so much easier to be proactive and kind of go backwards and, you know, fix some areas and, and implement some foundations so that you don't burn out versus. You know, exploding everything and then kind of starting all over again.
[00:24:41] Hunter: Uh, but I love what you said about your wife. Cause I think that's a, makes you an amazing husband to recognize the differences that you all have together and to kind of honor them. It's like, it's not good or bad. Introvert versus extrovert isn't good or bad. It's not like a moral uh, decision. It's just like, what works for me and what doesn't work for me.
[00:24:58] Hunter: So I'm all about like really accentuating the positive, not focusing on the negative. Like, let's look at your strengths and not try and be kinda that like, uh, I think fomo, you know, shiny object syndrome. Like, oh well that person's doing this, so I need to do that to be a valid human being. And it's like, no, you don't. You can absolutely forge your own path.
[00:25:16] Josh: Yeah. And in the case of like, I'm sure what's coming to a lot of minds include his mind is like social media and you see somebody who's on video all the time and you feel like, oh God, I gotta be on video all the time. You don't have to, like, I have a ton of students who strictly go the SEO route and just work on like, content that brings people there.
[00:25:34] Josh: They're not on video as much. Or if you want to talk with clients via proposals or calls, you don't even need to show your face necessarily old, or you even just do calls, uh, like they used to do in the nineties without being on a video. So, like, there are, you're right, there's so many ways to sell and so many ways to go about this.
[00:25:51] Josh: Also, one thing I wanna get your thoughts on is like personal growth. For example, I used to hate being on camera. and not that long ago, if I had this camera on and a couple lights, I would be a very different version of Josh. It would be a very different scared deer in the headlights type of person,
[00:26:08] Josh: But because I got on video nearly every day, I've become very comfortable and I'm almost more comfortable now with a camera on than like at a party like I used to be. So what are your thoughts on that with getting past these limiting beliefs into saying that like you might be here now. With practice growth and everything else, you may learn to love this.
[00:26:27] Josh: You may break out of some introverted tendency. What, what are your thoughts on that and how you, I don't know if you advise on, on that when it comes to growing past certain limitations. Absolutely. But I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Absolutely.
[00:26:37] Hunter: So what's coming up for me right now is this word like, should I think people have a lot of shoulds in their life. I should be on video. Video is king or queen, I have to do this, I must do this all and all those are limiting beliefs. Cause none of that is true. Someone might have done that and been successful. Absolutely. And someone else might have done that and flopped completely.
[00:26:55] Hunter: So there's no like, you know, one plus one equals two when it comes to, you know, sales and marketing. Um, so I always really look at their shoulds. Now, if you wanna be on camera and you're like, I wanna be on camera cause I don't wanna have this fear anymore and I think I have a really great message that could help a lot of people, then we'll approach it from that perspective. It's something you really want to do.
[00:27:13] Hunter: What is standing in your way? How can we work through that? How can we focus on your strengths? But if someone's like, I have to be on camera because everyone says I should be on camera and it scares me to death, I would probably say, do you want to be on camera? And if the answer is no, then let's avoid camera and let's work on something else.
[00:27:31] Hunter: So I think kind of taking the pressure off of ourselves, you know, it's like I love how the word should is in the word shoulders. It's like everything's on our shoulders. It's like taking that off of our shoulders of like, I should be on video. No, you should do what makes you happy and what you're comfortable doing.
[00:27:45] Hunter: And doesn't mean that you can't push and overcome those levine beliefs, but if you're just doing something cuz you think you should, that is the probably the worst motivation out there.
[00:27:54] Josh: Oh, what a, what a clip. I need to make sure I just marked this cuz I wanna make sure to, to get that little clip out and spread that around because that is, I never thought about that.
[00:28:02] Josh: It's genius that the word should is literally on shoulders. Wow. Revelation day. I'm having all sorts of awesome, uh, you know, just big breakthrough moments in this video. You right. You're like, I'm getting a therapy session hanging out with you here. So, Oh, so many ways we go with this, but I, I just, I do love this because I, one thing I said a little bit ago that I didn't really think about intently is that you do tend to think about these things after burnout.
[00:28:27] Josh: I, I hope this is sinking into some folks who are maybe earlier on in the journey or at a place where they're not burnout because I feel like you can kind of catch yourself. And I, I think what honestly, one of the biggest things to do is just to be self-aware. Yes. And just take time to like think, and this is the hardest thing to do.
[00:28:44] Josh: As a busy person running your own business because first off, it's very hard to turn it off. As we all know, when you join, when, when you become an entrepreneur, I always joke around with people in the corporate world, I'm like, you know, if you think you're working a lot now, I'll just remember, you may have more free time, literally like in your schedule, but you are, your mind is gonna be very different.
[00:29:02] Josh: It's gonna be like 24 7. You're gonna have to learn to manage that. Mm-hmm. . But I, I think just the act of like stopping and whether it's intentionally for a little while having like a c e O day mm-hmm. Or a few hours to go to a coffee shop or do whatever you do, be intentional in your work calendar to mm-hmm.
[00:29:19] Josh: to take time to be self-aware. I think that's really, really important. Have you found that to be the case too, where you have to like tell people to just freaking. And look at everything and like, let's look at what's going on. Think about where your energy is. What, I'm just kind of curious about your thoughts on stopping and just looking and evaluating things.
[00:29:36] Hunter: Absolutely. I think, you know, taking time for yourself, taking time for your passions, you know, having a well-balanced life and you know, being reflective, whether that's journaling, meditating, taking your dogs for a walk, uh, having those shower thoughts or you know, driving the car where you kind of zone out a little bit.
[00:29:51] Hunter: I think those moments are so valuable and I think we have a lot of guilt when we have those relaxing moments for like, oh, I should be doing something productive. I should be doing, you know, I should listening to podcast or lets reading that audio, or listening to that audio book or watching that course that I purchased.
[00:30:04] Hunter: And it's like, it's okay just to take time to rest and to think and to process and just to be, um, it's kind of cliche, but I always say, you know, we're human beings, not human doings. So like, if you can take more time to be and just be alive and enjoy the world and enjoy everything that you have, that can really help reduce, especially anxiety a
[00:30:25] Josh: lot of times.
[00:30:26] Josh: And I feel like it's, that's typically something that somebody needs to hear from the outside. I, I feel like it's rare that unless you get to a place of burnout that you're gonna be on a good trajectory and just be like, I'm just gonna slow down a little bit. Usually it is like something happens to, to make you do that.
[00:30:43] Josh: I know there's a couple different versions of the classic Henry Ford quote about like thinking being the hardest work, but it, it, it is a g or probably goes back to Abraham Lincoln, like, all quotes, but it, it is, it is good to just remember that like, just because you're not actually actively doing anything in your business or not getting a project out or whatever, it doesn't mean that sitting there and just thinking.
[00:31:06] Josh: Really beneficial and like I said, moving the, the needle forward. In fact, I think it's pretty well known across all entrepreneurs and people who are sustainable. As a business owner, your best ideas and your best position, or your best, like chapters in your business of growth typically happen. Would you agree with this in times where you just like think through a. Or absolutely in times of like deep thought,
[00:31:29] Hunter: I always have my best thoughts. Like right when I wake up in the morning and I'll grab, you know, my phone and just start jotting stuff down. It doesn't even make any sense. Cause it's like this, you know, your brain has been resting all night long and it's kind of like taking all that information and putting it together and routing it all over the place.
[00:31:43] Hunter: And then when I wake up I'm like, oh, I have this brilliant idea. The problem's like almost solved itself. Um, the shower I think is another place people have brilliant ideas because you're just not thinking, you're kind of going through the motions and then boom, this idea comes through. So it's when we are still and, um, relaxed and not really actively, even actively thinking or actively doing anything is really when we do get our best ideas.
[00:32:05] Josh: It's different too, I think in creative fields. If you're, like, if you're in a position where. , your income and your work is based off of you typing and actually just getting something out without too much thought then, then yeah. Literally like, you know, you working on something. That's, that's the end goal.
[00:32:22] Josh: But for most people as business owners, web designers, creatives, a lot of our best work is out off of the keyboard. Like, like you mentioned on a walk in a shower or whatever. One of my favorite, my wife and I love, uh, the show Madman. Got it. And one thing, I don't know if you've ever seen that, but it's, it, it covers the advertising age to the sixties and one.
[00:32:42] Josh: So a common recurring theme in that is, is Donald Draper, the, the creative director, John Ham, uh, would often just sit and just like think or take a nap and it looks like he's not working. And even his boss at one point walks in is like, I have to get used to you seeing you do this and remembering that you're actually working because it's true.
[00:32:58] Josh: Like with creative and problem solving, you don't have to be at your desk to, to be working to get it done. So I just, I wanted to point that out because it is really interesting, and even in that show, it articulates how many big breakthroughs in their business or on a project happen. When there's an app involved or when there's just sitting and just staring off involved.
[00:33:18] Josh: So , um, yeah, like even, even like, I mean, I, I just remember early in my entrepreneurial days, I felt like I had to be at my computer nonstop to feel like I'm working. And because I have a blue collar background, I felt weird if I was just sitting on the couch just thinking it felt like I was not working during those times. But that's a day who, that's a dangerous path that leads to burnout as a lot of people.
[00:33:39] Hunter: And that's a big mindset shift too. I'm sure as you saw, going from an employee to an entrepreneur to the c e o leader of your company, like that's definitely a path. And a lot of people, you know, they were employees, even if they were upper management, uh, they started their own business and then they wore all the hats.
[00:33:53] Hunter: They did all the things. They had 17 balls in the air at the same time. And then again, when they get to that point of growth or scaling, now you gotta put the CEO hat on. Now you have to put the leadership hat on, which is working, you know, on your business versus in your business. It's like, how am I growing my business? What's my vision? What's my overall goal? As opposed to clickity clack on the keyboard so much.
[00:34:14] Josh: Gosh, it's such a good point. And I feel like. Um, my vision casting and having the CEO hat on that is difficult work. Very, very difficult work because it is all thinking. I mean, you could practically lay out ideas and journal and write and jump on you. You could go to like one of these mapping, like mind mapping style sites and literally put like ideas out or spreadsheets or org charts or whatever.
[00:34:38] Josh: it is tough to like quantify vision casting. I actually kinda curious, cuz I imagine with working with a lot of different people, what have you seen work well when it comes to visualizing the next evolution of a business? Because I'm in a season right now, I'm sure a lot of people listening are at a point where maybe you're going to the next level or maybe you realize, going back to the quote you just mentioned, what got you here won't get you there.
[00:35:00] Josh: trying to map out the next evolution of your business or set goals. This is gonna come out, I think, likely at the end of, of 2022 here. So we're in like, you know, goal setting time, . Right. Do you have tips or advice or strategies on vision, like figuring out the vision and mapping out, you know, the next chapter of the business.
[00:35:18] Hunter: Absolutely. So I'd say probably three things come to mind when it comes to, uh, small businesses and vision. Number one, like your vision is most simply your why. Why are you doing this? Why are you waking up every morning? Why did you put this business together? Why are you showing up on social media? You know, like, why do you have this business? Is it something that you want to, uh, live a certain lifestyle and it's lifestyle business?
[00:35:38] Hunter: Is it a legacy business that you actually want to be able to pass it down to children or possibly sell it someday? You know, like, really, why did you do this in the first place? And then if you have your why, that's something you can always refer back to. And every decision that you make literally can go back to your why.
[00:35:52] Hunter: I'm going to uh, set up Facebook ads. I'm going to have a new website. I'm going to start a podcast. Does that fit with your, why is that in line with what you decided that was your reason for having this business? So it really helps make decision making a lot easier so you don't get that decision fatigue, uh, that comes with entrepreneurs where they can.
[00:36:09] Hunter: They have the freedom. They're not employees anymore. They have the freedom to do anything that they want. And sometimes that can be really overwhelming. It's like, how do I choose of all these things, what I should be doing? And so going back to that, why is really important. Um, and then I think if you're coming from corporate, you're used to probably like a three to five year vision, maybe even a longer one.
[00:36:27] Hunter: But with small businesses, especially online businesses, technology and world events move so quickly. I tell my clients, do not plan your vision more than a year out. Like, because you, six months from now, probably you will have changed your vision and that's okay. It's okay to pivot, it's okay to change your ideal client, your offerings, your platforms.
[00:36:45] Hunter: Like things move so quickly. In the online world, it's like, You're not stuck with this for the rest of your life. So it doesn't have to be perfect. I'm a big fan of imperfect action, like, write down your hopes and dreams. Write down the reason why you show up at your office every day. Write down why you had this idea in the first place, and just keep referring back to that. And when it doesn't resonate anymore, then it's time to change it.
[00:37:06] Josh: That is such good advice. You mentioned the corporate world thing. I remember one of my friends who I think is still in the corporate world, when I started my web design business, he's like, so what's your five year plan? Yeah, . And I fell inferior because I was like, oh, I don't have one.
[00:37:21] Josh: I don't know, like I just, I just wanna make enough to, you know, be able to support myself this year. That was my plan. Yeah. Uh, but I totally agree. I have learned. Especially, I think most everyone listening to this as web design business owners, we know things move so fast. It's nearly ipo. I'd say it's ab absolutely impossible.
[00:37:39] Josh: Yeah. To plan five years out cuz technology change and trends change. I think year is a great rule of thumb and I actually even like to put more emphasis on quarterly planning. Yes. Um, okay, we're here, we're talking goals, planning. I'm sure you have some counterintuitive approaches for annual and quarterly planning.
[00:37:57] Josh: What are your thoughts on that? Because again, for me, I found the power in quarters real quick. This year, exact case, like case in point, my plans and everything that happened this year from a personal side changed everything for me. So I'm so glad I didn't commit to a yearly plan that I was not able to follow up. Cause I'd feel like a failure this year. Um, so yeah. What are your thoughts on the counterintuitive goal setting and planning? Absolutely.
[00:38:22] Hunter: No, I totally agree with you. And so, like, the year to me is like the biggest chunk that I would look at with a client. But when we do our, uh, planning, we plan for the quarter.
[00:38:29] Hunter: Absolutely. Because, like you said, things just move so quickly and the vision is really that one year vision. And then I'm a big fan of reverse engineering, so most of my clients, it's like how do, what am I supposed to do Monday through Friday to reach my goal at the end of 2020? . And that in and of itself can be incredibly overwhelming and like produce a lot of anxiety because it's like, what do I do Monday that's gonna make a difference 12 months from now?
[00:38:54] Hunter: So what I typically do is we look at the mission of their business, which is basically their what we look at their vision, which is their why. We look at their values, which is like their how, like I said, one of my top values is to have fun. So we have to like kind of put everything through the lens of your values and then we set smart.
[00:39:10] Hunter: Um, so like the specific, measurable, actionable, realistic, and timely. And then we basically say, what do I need to do every quarter, every month, every week, every day in order to reach that goal, like a year from now? And so that really takes that big like overwhelm and kind of, um, almost like you don't have a path and it gives you a path that you can move down.
[00:39:32] Josh: And typically when you hear or think about goals, I imagine, like myself, for most everybody, it's like, what do I wanna make this year? Yeah. I always personally, I believe that's a big part of it because particularly those who have families and stuff, you need to know what you want to take home in a business. Yes. But outside of that, I imagine there are some different approaches to goals. Like what, what constitutes as a goal in your mind?
[00:39:55] Hunter: A business. Oh goodness. So it can go, I mean, a lot of what we work on is making their lives, um, easier and making their business growth, um, more predictable and less like inconsistent.
[00:40:07] Hunter: Um, so I'm a big fan of that, looking at, okay, what you're doing is going to be like predictable that you know that if I do this, I'll probably get this result as opposed to where I typically find them, where they're just throwing spaghetti at the wall, they're trying every single thing, they're downloading all the freebies, and it's like, let's just kind of focus here on the things that are really going to increase your revenue, reduce your expenses, free up your time.
[00:40:30] Hunter: Um, and then sometimes it'll go into things like, uh, product or, um, service creation, uh, operational efficiencies, team scaling. So maybe they're ready to hire a VA or a copywriter or something like that to move their business forward. So goals can range anywhere from marketing to operations to sales, to product development, to uh, growing
[00:40:51] Josh: a team.
[00:40:53] Josh: And do you at all split them between personal and professional or like, do you have goals for time, family, you know, or whatever that looks like? Hobbies, travel versus goals for just the, the business side of things to get that. Like how, I'm just kinda curious, do you, do you keep those separate or is that all intertwined?
[00:41:11] Hunter: It's kind of intertwined. Have you heard of the Wheel of Life assessment?
[00:41:15] Josh: I think I did something similar. It may, I don't know if it was termed that, but I went through, uh, disk, uh, okay. Disc personality. Testing. I'm not sure if you're familiar with that. Yes. Um, very corporatey. And I was really skeptical, but it nailed me and I was like, oh my God, this is, this does work. Um, I think we went through something similar to where it was like a pop, it was like some sort of pie chart
[00:41:36] Hunter: that, A pie chart. Yeah. So the wheel of life and it can look really different and people can just go on Google and look up Wheel of Life assessment and it's basically a circle that's divided into equal parts and it's like family wealth, health.
[00:41:48] Hunter: You know, career, uh, you know, intimate relationships, et cetera. And then you go through it and on a scale of one to 10, you basically rate your satisfaction in each level, 10 being the highest, one being the lowest. And it kind of creates like a little spider web and you can see that, oh, my level of satisfaction with my, uh, family is at the lowest right now.
[00:42:08] Hunter: And so the lowest areas is where the, the focus needs to be. The areas, if you have high satisfaction, you're killing it. Leave that alone. You're doing great. Let's focus on the areas of low satisfaction. Um, and so I do the same thing with business where I have like a wheel of entrepreneurship which looks at those areas like I mentioned.
[00:42:23] Hunter: So might look at, uh, financial steadiness, uh, product development, organizational efficiencies, and have my clients rate their wheel of life and their wheel of business. Cuz I also have this other belief that the way you do one thing is how you do everything. So if you're struggling in finances in your business, you're struggling finances in your life.
[00:42:42] Hunter: If you're struggling with your relationship with your clients and your business, you're probably having relationship struggles in your life. So it's like how can we hopefully make a really easy shift to make both of those areas, uh, be more exciting and more satisfactory for.
[00:42:55] Josh: A little subpoint there that I love, and I totally agree that how you do one thing is how you do everything. I, I found that to be true with mowing the lawn . Uh, I'm a pretty, I'm an aspiring lawn weenie for sure. But it's funny, I take the, that approach of like, for, for one, that's like a task that I get to do that is a short reward. Like it's done, which is not, you know, for probably both of our businesses, it takes a long time to sometimes see results and fruits yes.
[00:43:20] Josh: That was like my task to, to be like, I'm gonna do this in excellence. No, I'm not gonna like go, you know, too far with that. And then there's the, the issue of perfection with things. But excellence is different than perfection, at least in my mind. I think those are two very different things. Absolutely.
[00:43:36] Josh: Okay. You agree? Awesome. Yes, . Uh, so, but it was like my little thing cuz I, I did find myself, it's so funny you mentioned that 100%. There was a season in, in life where like I just started getting a little sloppy with that and I was a little sloppier in my business and lo lost some discipline than I I, I did catch myself being like, you know what?
[00:43:55] Josh: I'm gonna go back to my perfect crisp diagonal lines. And it really did have a, an impact on, on everything else. And, and there's a lot of variables to this. Like I've had to give myself some grace. As you know, my family just went through the toughest season we've ever been through and it's chaos right now with three kids, one a newborn and one getting over with her having health recovery.
[00:44:16] Josh: So I'm giving myself some grace, but it, this is a great reminder for me even to take the little things I can control to do those in excellence. And maybe, maybe that's a factor of focus is like what can you control? What's outta your control that you can try to tackle? But what can you control? I don't know if that's an approach for you.
[00:44:32] Josh: That
[00:44:33] Hunter: is so, that is like my personal. Mission in life for myself as well as for my clients, is this idea of controlling what you have control over. There are so many things we do not have control over, and when we get upset about them or we try and control them, or we try and live our life around them, it's just, you're going to set yourself up for failure because you can't.
[00:44:53] Hunter: So yes, bad things happen, and yes, good things also happen. And like, how can I, uh, really capitalize on those, like I mentioned earlier, like really play to your strengths. Like what are you good at? What, where are you in these times of crisis? Don't focus on the negative, don't focus on the, um, things you can't do and you can't have control over because they're always gonna be there. You know, focus on what you can have control over. And then like you said, try and do that in excellence.
[00:45:15] Josh: Oh, I love that. And it kind of goes back to something you were talking about a little bit ago with the, with the wheel, with the different pie, you know, percentages of of life and focusing on the things that you're not doing so well at.
[00:45:27] Josh: Does that factor in with goals too, with like, you have a year end goal, you'd look at a quarter. And I imagine maybe the focus is here for a month, the focus is here for the next month. Is that a part of fulfilling, like, like goal setting as well as like just aligning focus to certain things? Yes,
[00:45:44] Hunter: because again, I think entrepreneurs get very scattered where they wanna do everything all at once, right? At the same time that everyone else is doing. And it's like, I don't know
[00:45:52] Josh: personally, I don't know what you're talking about, but I imagine
[00:45:54] Hunter: somebody, right? I mean, neither , I'm not guilty of it ever. I know as, as quote unquote gurus, it's like we, I'm in this business because this was a challenge for me. It was a challenge for me in my business. And so I wanna help other people not make it a challenge in their business.
[00:46:08] Hunter: So it's like, you know, those who can't do teach type of concepts, you know, . Um, but it's, it is something that I, I still work on to this day and I think that's important. We all have our things that are just going to be our constant life projects. Um, you know, but really moving forward in that sense I think is really beneficial.
[00:46:24] Josh: Yeah, that's great. Cuz I focus is something I've learned more and more recently too, is, Perhaps one of the most, uh, underrated aspects of, of like sustainability is just like aligning your focus on, on certain things. I am reminded also more and more recently that some of the folks without getting into an area of comparison or judgment, tend to like the people who are really killing it in a lot of industries tend to work on like one thing at a time.
[00:46:50] Josh: Yes. It's like one priority, one focus, then you move on. As you just mentioned, it's so easy to be so scattered and distracted, but, uh, what a good point to make sure to remember that f like there's so much benefit and just focus. in getting something done out the door and, and I'm sure most everybody as business owners are probably some sort of like achievement oriented, so it just feels good to get something done.
[00:47:13] Josh: With businesses that often take a long time to get results. So yeah. Do you like, what's the value of just getting little things done or even just like, you know, like maybe a project is gonna take a month, but you get it done. What's the value in that, you see?
[00:47:26] Hunter: Absolutely. So what I will say is like, I'm definitely a multi-passionate person where I'm one of those people where everybody's like, niche down, do one thing, don't get distracted, don't multitask. And so there are people that are like very focused and driving through to that one thing. And then there are people that I think do better when they have like one to three things to focus on.
[00:47:43] Hunter: So my big thing is don't go over three, like three is like your, your maximum amount of things to focus on between, uh, work and personal life. But one thing you mentioned that was a huge lesson for me, uh, especially for high achieving people, is that when they accomplish those things, are you celebrating that accomplishment?
[00:48:00] Josh: Yes. Oh, great point.
[00:48:02] Hunter: I didn't realize until I was in my late thirties, uh, cause I was working with a business coach and I said, oh, I, I did this one thing that I wanna do. I can't remember what it is now. And she said, great, how are you gonna celebrate? I was like, celebrate. I don't celebrate. Like this is just one less thing that I have to do now. I just check it off my list and I add a new thing in. Then I go off and work on the next thing. And it merely made me realize that I have never celebrated any accomplishments in my life.
[00:48:26] Hunter: Um, I really just looked at it as like checking off a box and moving forward. So now I celebrate every single little thing like you just mentioned. Even if it's like going to the grocery store or booking the dogs for a grooming appointment or you know, calling the doctor for your annual checkup. Like those things that we avoid because there's not like a lot of reward in them.
[00:48:44] Hunter: It's like everything you do should just be a celebration. Whether it's like, I'm gonna go listen to my favorite song, or I'm gonna go out to a nice dinner. Like obviously the level can be different, but we don't celebrate ourselves enough.
[00:48:54] Josh: My gosh, we are so in alignment. on so many things here. Hunter. Um, I have a web design process course that is my entire s o p of the process that I use and refined for a decade of building websites and launching them.
[00:49:07] Josh: Can you guess what the last step is? Shocker. Like surprise. Guess what? The last steps. Celebrate. Yep. That is literally a checkbox that you have got to complete. If you're gonna follow my process for every website project. And like you mentioned, maybe that's going out and celebrating, maybe that's getting a bottle of bubbly.
[00:49:23] Josh: If it was a really big project, maybe it's going on a trip. If it was a huge project, maybe if it's, you know, maybe it's just taking the half a day off and going, seeing a movie, whatever it is, celebrate another, like, just so many good tips for reminders in this one. Are you familiar with Derek Sips? I don't think I've heard that name.
[00:49:42] Josh: No. Uh, I think he will be your new best friend after this conversation, because talk about alignment. A lot of the stuff that you're saying is so, uh, in a line with, with him, he's an author. He's coming on the podcast soon, which I'm really excited about. Okay. He, uh, built and sold a company called CD Baby, which is a huge marketplace for c Jackson.
[00:50:01] Josh: My old band. We still make some money through, through CD Baby. Oh, okay. Anyway, um, sold that for like Multimillions, but it's just a, a very counterintuitive type of mind when it comes to this. But one of his books, which is my absolute, one of my favorite books of all time, is called Hell Yeah or No. Oh, cool.
[00:50:16] Josh: Meaning, when it comes to focus in priority, if it's not a Hell yeah, let's do this. It is a clear no. Yeah. I say all that to say number one. I recommend that. Check out some of the stuff. I love him so much. But, uh, also what are your thoughts on that idea of like, when it come, Chris, the, the reality is opportunities come left and right and I've found, I have to tell my students this on a weekly basis.
[00:50:40] Josh: Here's an opportunity that how timely, we just talked about this in my membership. One of my students has this opportunity and I'm like, ah, the red flags came up. I was like, this does not sound like a sound, like a hell. Yeah. Opportunity. This sounds like a, you could do it, but should you do it? What are your thoughts on being so clear about, yes, I'm gonna do this or no, because at a, at a certain point, I found you need to get used to about saying 90% no to, to everything.
[00:51:08] Hunter: Yeah. No, it's very true. I think we're, we're, we should be saying no a lot more than we are , and I mentioned boundaries earlier. I that, that comes into play a lot too. It's like we wanna say yes, we wanna be polite, we wanna take advantage of opportunities. We're worried that if we don't take advantage of that opportunity, that's the last opportunity and nothing's ever gonna come at that point.
[00:51:23] Hunter: So it can get a little complicated and that's why I really recommend people that are, uh, work with people like yourself, like business coaches, business consultants, to kind of have that outside perspective. Because if you're like, I want to do this, or I have to do this, I should do this, no other opportunity is coming my way and you're doing it out of fear, then that's not a great approach to it.
[00:51:44] Hunter: Um, if you're also saying no, out of fear, I don't know if I'm good enough, imposter syndrome, you know, why would they hire me? I have self-confidence issues, then that's something that needs to be examined. So I would say absolutely hell yes or no, and make sure you're looking at why it's hell yes or no. If it's like a totally positive, I really wanna do this, I think I would be amazing at it.
[00:52:04] Hunter: Fantastic. If it's a negative, like I'm scared, I don't think I would succeed at this, I'll probably fail. You might wanna examine that and just see why is that coming up in that opportunity.
[00:52:14] Josh: That's a, it's a good point too about the fear thing because I remember taking on so many opportunities that were fear-based. Like, yeah. For example, I took on this retainer client for like, I think it was 400 bucks a month for about a year. And the work, I just, I took it on as a web designer cause I was like it's 400 bucks a month. But yeah, it was also, Quite amount of time that I was dedicated to, that pulled me away from projects that I was making way more in.
[00:52:39] Josh: That I probably should have ended a lot sooner, but it was fear-based. It was like, well, what if I don't have all the projects coming in? Versus this opportunity is, is you know, 10 x what this is. And I just feel like I'm a better fit. So it is interesting to think about what, and again, this goes back to like stepping back. And just looking at your day-to-day and your decisions, what's fear-based? What, what's the opposite of fear then? Is it like opportunity based? Is it energy based? What
[00:53:05] Hunter: I think excitement. Excitement is the opposite of fear, you know? And I think fear can feel. like excitement sometimes or vice versa. Excitement can feel like fear, but you know, I think excitement is that positive energy. And you absolutely can still be afraid and you absolutely can still have reservations.
[00:53:18] Hunter: But you know, I think moving forward, uh, taking imperfect action, um, doing it even though you're afraid. And I think there, that goes back to also that redefinition of failure. So even if you do something, it's total flop. It's still a lesson. Like nothing is ever a waste of time or energy. It's always something you can learn from and then apply later on in your life.
[00:53:37] Josh: This brings me right back to, uh, public speaking and when I joined a networking group, my first few presentations, wow. I wish I would've recorded those. Probably super embarrassing, but they were brutally bad. I just hated speaking in groups. I was a, I was awesome at a coffee shop with one or a small group at, at a coffee table, but you put me in front of 20 people with a projector. Different, different story. Right.
[00:54:02] Josh: Back then now, it was very different, like we talked about. But I say that to say like there is, when it comes to fear, and it comes to, I, I do think there's like decisions made in fear, but then there are fears that you just need to work through. And also, you just mentioned excitement. One thing that I learned through that experience and just being forced to do that is I learned that I nec, I wasn't always necessarily afraid, I just had like this.
[00:54:29] Josh: Anxiousness that I learned to channel differently. Yes. Um, and I used to be in a program called Toastmasters, which i, I recommend for a lot of people as well. It's not all about public speaking, it's leadership and communication. But one thing I learned in there, which was super valuable is that if you feel the fear that is okay.
[00:54:47] Josh: And I still feel the butterflies when I go live for things or like on q and as. Uh, I still feel fear symptoms, but I've learned to channel it to just be a little more excited and just and I think, I think it's actually really good. I don't know what your thoughts on, on this are, but I think it's good to be afraid all the time for some, like, not all the time, but , like, if you are super comfortable, what you're just you're just so content, it's, you're gonna get bored.
[00:55:12] Josh: So I think it's good to outta challenging yourself. Yeah. You gotta get a challenge. Get outta your comfort zone to, you gotta feel a little fear. Yeah. , uh, what, I don't know, we're, we're getting into like motivational, uh, yeah. You know, minutes here, but like, well, yeah.
[00:55:23] Josh: What, what's your. What's your advice and thoughts on if you get to a place where you're a little too content, maybe a little too stable, uh, how do you advise stepping into something that is, you know, a little outside your comfort zone, feel in that
[00:55:35] Hunter: fear? Yeah, so I think there's always this expression that goes around about talking about, you know, uh, don't play small. You know, don't be afraid, like step into the spotlight. Uh, but for people like me, who again, super type a overachievers, sometimes playing big can be our biggest detriment. You know, uh, because we do everything big. We do it all the way or not at all. And so sometimes the fear can be of, oh, I don't want people to see me and judge me.
[00:55:57] Hunter: But sometimes the fear could be of, if I do this, I'm gonna blow it up, and then it's gonna take all my time and all my energy, and I might head towards, you know, burnout again. So I think there's like two perspectives on that. And I, I love the word the question why, so you're afraid of public speaking. And then why?
[00:56:15] Hunter: And then why, and then why. And then just keep going until you really get to like the reason that they're afraid of public speaking. Now, if that's something that they want to work on and they want to get rid of and they want a public speak because they're so passionate about speaking their message, then yes, let's work on it.
[00:56:29] Hunter: Um, but if there's other ways that you can communicate and express yourself that don't automatically have that fear response, let's start there. And maybe we can work towards public speaking. Like you just mentioned. Could you speak at a coffee shop and then maybe do like a Facebook Live and then work your way up to speaking to 20 people, you know, so there's like baby steps.
[00:56:46] Hunter: I think we go from like zero. To a hundred and then we quit. Cuz we're, we fail, we're afraid it's just too much. And it's like, again, that kind of reverse engineering, like, how can I do these little steps, um, in order to reach the goal that I'm trying to
[00:57:01] Josh: reach? Oh, that is well said. Yeah. I mean, that, that could be the case with, with public speaking weight loss often. Like it's the same thing. If somebody wants to lose a hundred pounds, you don't just start running to lose a hundred pounds. It's one pun intended, step at a time. Like, it's a great reminder to just take things small. In the case of public speaking and being on camera, like we talked about earlier, that was 100% the, the truth for me.
[00:57:23] Josh: And, uh, and I've seen a lot of my students be really shy and awkward and not themselves when a camera's recording, but then they stick at and they just, you know, do little things or, or like I said, do a screen recording and don't be on camera. And then suddenly your confidence grows. And, and I do love, love, love the approach to like asking why.
[00:57:43] Josh: Multiple times, several layers deep. It's like you gotta be a toddler. You almost have to like, treat your own self like a toddler sometimes. Why ? Why, why? It's like, why am I afraid of public speaking? Um, cuz I'm nervous. Why are you nervous? Uh, cuz I might be judged. Why are you afraid of being judged? Uh, because they may not like me.
[00:58:01] Josh: Why do you care if they don't like you? Oh, actually, I don't really care of that. You know, realtors that like me, I'm like, why do I care? I don't mean to get up and share what I know, so, oh, I love that place. I the
[00:58:10] Hunter: same with Dewey, public speaking too. It's like, I wanna do public speaking, but I'm afraid Well, why do you wanna do public speaking? Because I want to have my message out there into the world so I can make it a better place. Well, why do you want your message out there in the world? So you make it better place and just keep going. And if the drive is strong enough, if the reason is strong enough, a lot of times that can even cancel out the fear like right then and there because it's like, oh, the benefit of this, the desire is way better than the alter, than the, uh, negativity.
[00:58:34] Hunter: Your
[00:58:34] Josh: alternative. Oh, that's a great point. Yeah, they
[00:58:38] Hunter: almost like convinced themselves , which
[00:58:40] Josh: is great. Yeah. Right, right, right. Oh, so much good stuff here, hunter. I really feel like we've covered some really good ground with these counterintuitive approaches. I mean, a lot of this is definitely like psychological and mindset, but I, it's just, I, I fully believe that the success and growth of your business, if you're gonna be sustainable is 100% attributed to your mindset.
[00:59:03] Josh: So I love that we covered a lot of things, including like, energy focus, priority. Um, I think one thing I really gained from this conversation is just the, the reminder to just do things. Fill you up like, yes, man. You know, like, make it fun. What's the point of doing business if, if you're doing everything that everyone tells you to do and you don't make it your own and you don't absolutely have a life that you love while, while doing it.
[00:59:28] Josh: So, gosh, I couldn't agree with everything that you said. Nothing that you said, I was like, oh, I don't know about that. , I 100% . Uh, get behind everything you said there. So thank you. A lot of resources that you have. Hunter, uh, I'd love to, I wanna ask you a final question, but where would you like people to go to, to connect with you? Uh, is there a certain resource you'd like to point into? Where, where should people
[00:59:47] Hunter: go? Absolutely. I have a wonderful free gift for podcast listeners. Um, that's at, uh, tortoise and the bear.com/podcast. And we offer a free personalized customer journey audit. Uh, so I have people give me their personality assessments, uh, a little bit of information about their business, and then I walk them through their customer journey. And I usually have at least three really simple action items that they can implement immediately to turn their business around.
[01:00:13] Josh: Awesome. Oh, awesome. I'll have to try that out. It's fun. Yeah. That feels, I feel that feels fun. I love what you said. Fun too. So my, my, I love trying to figure out a, a final question just to kind of put a cap on everything that we've talked about. Yeah. Since it's all top of mind. But I'm kind of curious for somebody who you would, you, you may know somebody who is like, on their way to burnout, but they don't realize it.
[01:00:38] Josh: What would you tell them of all the things maybe we talked about, is there, like a, is there something that you would say to, to prevent burnout? If, if, if they just, they're not sure they're, you know, like you can clearly see this is not gonna end well. What would you, what would you tell them?
[01:00:54] Hunter: Um, they might not be ready to hear this just yet, but one of the things I would tell them is that there are no rules. Every rule that we've ever been taught is someone else's rule that we just decided to believe at one point.
[01:01:04] Hunter: Like we weren't born believing that, you know, success is $10,000 months or we weren't born believing that success is two cars in a house. Like we learned that at some point. So like everything you think is real and true and a law is not. And so even though the, that person probably, if they are burning out and is not aware of it, might not be in the place to hear that.
[01:01:24] Hunter: I will say that for everybody listening today, that whenever you sit there and say, I have to do this, I should do this, I must do this. No, you don't because there are examples of people that have not done it that way and have absolutely been successful. So look for those people who do it a little differently, a little weirdly, a little outside the box and like give yourself permission to do things in your own, you know, weirdo.
[01:01:44] Josh: Oh, so good. What a rebel. We've got a rebel on the podcast today. It's funny. Uh, one, one of my good friends from high school was getting into web design with a side hustle. He's still in the corporate world, but yeah, he had a, he told, I just talked to him last week and, uh, he said because, okay, I'll just, I'll just, I can say it this publicly.
[01:02:01] Josh: His, his name is Billy, but he now goes by William. I haven't seen him in years. He lives in North Carolina now. So we've been connected, but slightly outta touch. And I was like, what's with William? And he said, I'm a mentor. I'm a mentor in the corporate world who said, if I wanna be taken seriously, I need to go by my full name William.
[01:02:20] Josh: And I said, all right Billy. I said, will you come into the freelance world? Your name is Wild Bill , because that ain't gonna fly. And it was just so funny. It was like a practical, it was just such a funny, like what a goofy thing that you feel like I like it. Like, if I had got a corporate job, I would've to call myself Joshua and wear a tie. No. Like, you don't have to do that. I just wanna say that as a practical
[01:02:42] Hunter: example, that's not the barrier to your success, is the fact that you said, hi, I'm Billy, and they're like, Nope. Yeah. We're not giving you this deal now . Right,
[01:02:49] Josh: right. Okay. That is not the case, . Exactly. Oh my gosh, that's so funny. I, yeah, I just, uh, I have so many issues with the corporate world that we don't need to get into, but Oh, yeah.
[01:02:58] Josh: Uh, such good stuff. Hunter, thank you for your time. I so enjoyed this chat with you. Thank you. Thank you for me. Yeah. A lot, lot of great stuff. Like I said, I feel very, uh, aligned with, with, with a lot of the things that you, you do and, and help your clients with us. Well, so thank you. Thank you for, thank you for sharing some really cool insight and My pleasure. Excited to keep in touch.
[01:03:16] Hunter: Absolutely.