Changing the planet, one grass-roots movement at a time

Episode
Teresa de Grosbois (say “de-Grow-bwah”) based in Costa Rica. Teresa is on a mission to change the planet, one...
Key takeaways
- Permission to succeed sloppily is essential for entrepreneurs because the journey is inherently messy and you learn by standing in the mess rather than trying to perfect everything from the start.
- Skip the practice business and go straight to your biggest dream because nobody will be more committed, passionate, or perseverant about your dreams than you, and the practice business won't necessarily teach you what you need anyway.
- Balance your time with 30% working on the business, 30% on marketing and sales, and 30% on content delivery or other business operations to ensure you're building structure while generating revenue.
- Influence comes from developing relationships and promoting others rather than promoting yourself, because you become most influential when you shine light on other people's work instead of trying to make yourself famous.
- Build your team intentionally from the start and focus on who can take away the work you hate so you're left with the work you're really good at and love, as this is the root to achieving financial freedom as an entrepreneur.
Transcript
Full transcript page · Interactive episode
============================================================ TRANSCRIPTION WITH SPEAKERS ============================================================ [00:00] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Canada's podcast. [00:05] SPEAKER_00: Hi, this is Celine Williams hosting for Montereo for Canada's podcast. [00:10] SPEAKER_00: My guest today is Teresa de Grobois, who is on a mission to change the planet one grassroots [00:14] SPEAKER_00: movement at a time. [00:16] SPEAKER_00: She's the number one international best-selling author of Mass Influence, The Habits of [00:20] SPEAKER_00: the Highly Influential, which has been on bestseller lists in seven countries since 2015, [00:25] SPEAKER_00: and she heads up the International Evolutionary Business Council, a membership-based organization, [00:30] SPEAKER_00: which empowers change makers to create profitable, impactful businesses. [00:35] SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Teresa. [00:37] SPEAKER_00: It's great to be here. [00:38] SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for having me on, Celine. [00:40] SPEAKER_00: Absolutely, my pleasure. [00:43] SPEAKER_00: Your background, even just from that intro sounds really interesting. [00:46] SPEAKER_00: So I'd love if you could tell us a little bit about your journey as an entrepreneur and [00:51] SPEAKER_00: to get to where you are right now. [00:54] SPEAKER_00: What it has been like, the twists and turns that we all take in life? [01:00] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I'd love to tell you it's all been marvelously linear and planned, but I think life [01:06] SPEAKER_02: often has other ideas for us. [01:08] SPEAKER_02: When I first started my entrepreneurial journey, I actually thought I wanted to run a charity. [01:15] SPEAKER_02: I had left my job in government and was determined to build schools in Africa. [01:23] SPEAKER_02: I thought it'd be fun to take some of these little stories I wrote for my kids. [01:27] SPEAKER_02: I used to write little poems and stories for my kids and published them into kids' books [01:32] SPEAKER_02: to raise money for the charity. [01:35] SPEAKER_02: That quickly taught me two things. [01:38] SPEAKER_02: It taught me very quickly that I didn't love running a charity. [01:42] SPEAKER_02: What I thought would be running a charity was totally different than the reality of it. [01:47] SPEAKER_02: I wasn't enjoying it at all. [01:49] SPEAKER_02: I wasn't going around to schools doing kids' programs. [01:53] SPEAKER_02: That wasn't really lighting me up either. [01:55] SPEAKER_02: I wasn't enjoying either of those activities. [01:57] SPEAKER_02: I thought, well, that's fascinating. [01:59] SPEAKER_02: What I thought I would love and what I thought I'd be good at hasn't played out to be the case. [02:04] SPEAKER_02: At the same time, I started to have dozens of people coming at me going, how did you put [02:10] SPEAKER_02: three kids' books on the best cellar list in only eight months? [02:13] SPEAKER_02: There was like, what did you do and will you show me how you did it? [02:16] SPEAKER_02: I started coaching and mentoring all these people on, how do you create these influential [02:21] SPEAKER_02: big book launches and how do you work that people want to listen to? [02:28] SPEAKER_02: It wasn't until a few months after that that I was sitting having cup of tea with a girlfriend [02:33] SPEAKER_02: and I was venting a little bit. [02:35] SPEAKER_02: I'm not loving running the charity, but I'm loving this other work, [02:38] SPEAKER_02: but I'm not getting paid for it. [02:40] SPEAKER_02: She just looked at me and she said, honey, when the universe sends you a flood of something [02:45] SPEAKER_02: you love, you should pay attention. [02:47] SPEAKER_02: Go with the stuff you love. [02:50] SPEAKER_02: That really was a late-ball moment for me. [02:53] SPEAKER_02: I actually rebranded overnight. [02:54] SPEAKER_02: That was when I started realizing, oh, my superpowers actually influence. [02:58] SPEAKER_02: I'm not standing in my store. [03:02] SPEAKER_02: That's when I rebranded and started coaching and mentoring people on, how do you get more [03:07] SPEAKER_02: influence? [03:08] SPEAKER_02: How do you become an influencer? [03:09] SPEAKER_02: How do you put a book on the best soloist? [03:11] SPEAKER_02: How do you create these big wildfire, word of mouth situations where everything just goes [03:17] SPEAKER_02: crazy? [03:20] SPEAKER_02: The rest is history. [03:21] SPEAKER_02: Once I started leaning into this stuff, I was really enjoying doing the entrepreneurial [03:25] SPEAKER_02: journey. [03:26] SPEAKER_02: I just started picking up steam and moving in the direction that it needed to go in. [03:36] SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of listeners who are stepping into our entrepreneurial journey. [03:42] SPEAKER_00: I'm curious, was it all smooth sailing? [03:47] SPEAKER_00: What were some of the lessons you learned? [03:48] SPEAKER_00: What were some of the things that you're like, I would never do this again, but absolutely [03:52] SPEAKER_00: I should have done this from the beginning or this was the right choice in that. [03:55] SPEAKER_00: Because the world of entrepreneurship is challenging and twisty and turny. [04:06] SPEAKER_02: It's messy. [04:07] SPEAKER_02: There's no two ways about it, right? [04:10] SPEAKER_02: Although there are university programs that teach business, they really don't teach entrepreneurship [04:16] SPEAKER_02: or not the reality of it. [04:17] SPEAKER_02: The reality is most entrepreneurs build the plane while they're trying to fly it. [04:21] SPEAKER_02: That's always going to be messy. [04:24] SPEAKER_02: But you learn by standing in the mess. [04:28] SPEAKER_02: There's no other way to really learn true entrepreneurialism other than to set up a business [04:33] SPEAKER_02: and start. [04:34] SPEAKER_02: There really is no other way. [04:36] SPEAKER_02: You've got to give yourself permission to succeed sloppily. [04:40] SPEAKER_02: That's, I think, if I was to do one thing different, I would beat myself up less for [04:45] SPEAKER_02: the fact that it was messy. [04:48] SPEAKER_02: Because so many entrepreneurs worry so much about, I should be getting this right. [04:52] SPEAKER_02: I should know how to do this. [04:53] SPEAKER_02: I should. [04:54] SPEAKER_02: We should on ourselves so much. [04:56] SPEAKER_02: If you just lean in, I love how Cheryl Sandberg talks about that. [05:01] SPEAKER_02: Just lean in the direction of what's working. [05:04] SPEAKER_02: Lean in the direction of what makes you happy. [05:06] SPEAKER_02: Lean in the direction of where you're passionate. [05:09] SPEAKER_02: You will learn so much and your life, I couldn't have conceived the life I'm living now [05:15] SPEAKER_02: 10 years ago or even 20 years. [05:17] SPEAKER_02: It was just, I had to keep taking whatever the logical next step was and my life unfolded [05:26] SPEAKER_02: from there. [05:27] SPEAKER_02: That's really what the entrepreneurial journey is. [05:31] SPEAKER_00: I love how you phrase that because I think quite often we're very attached to the idea [05:37] SPEAKER_00: of what's, we're going to shed on ourselves again right now of what something should look [05:41] SPEAKER_00: like. [05:42] SPEAKER_00: This is the next thing. [05:44] SPEAKER_00: This is what's going to happen. [05:45] SPEAKER_00: My life should be this way in five or 10 years. [05:49] SPEAKER_00: I think that's not the reality in any circumstance, but I think even less so when you're dealing [05:56] SPEAKER_00: with being an entrepreneur and running your own business and designing your own thing. [06:01] SPEAKER_00: Because no one else has done it. [06:03] SPEAKER_00: You've never done this before. [06:04] SPEAKER_00: Therefore, no one else has done it the way you're going to do it. [06:07] SPEAKER_00: It can, I think there's often that messiness comes from that push pull of it should be [06:14] SPEAKER_00: this way. [06:14] SPEAKER_00: I should be making six figures already. [06:17] SPEAKER_00: I should have this many employees. [06:19] SPEAKER_00: I should be whatever, versus the reality of starting and running and growing in whatever [06:26] SPEAKER_00: way. [06:27] SPEAKER_00: There's no way to grow business, but to sustain you doing that yourself is not going to look [06:34] SPEAKER_00: the way it should look. [06:36] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's so true. [06:38] SPEAKER_02: I think one of the biggest mistakes I see early entrepreneurs make is they do what I would [06:45] SPEAKER_02: affectionately call practicing a business. [06:48] SPEAKER_02: They can business themselves that if I do this business first, not the one that I really [06:54] SPEAKER_02: want to do, not that really big dream I have. [06:57] SPEAKER_02: But if I do this little business, saying little in quotes, if I do this little business [07:03] SPEAKER_02: first, it'll help me learn entrepreneurialism. [07:06] SPEAKER_02: It'll be easier because in my mind, it's smaller. [07:09] SPEAKER_02: Then they get into it and they realize, oh, this is a lot more work and a lot harder than [07:13] SPEAKER_02: I thought it would be. [07:15] SPEAKER_02: When in fact, if they had just gone straight to the, what's that really big dream you have? [07:20] SPEAKER_02: What's that? [07:21] SPEAKER_02: If you could do any business you want, what would that business be? [07:25] SPEAKER_02: What's that real dream that's at the very core of your being that you really want to make [07:29] SPEAKER_02: a difference for other people? [07:31] SPEAKER_02: The reason I think so many entrepreneurs fall into that trap is our dreams are bigger [07:36] SPEAKER_02: to us than they are to anyone else because they're your dreams. [07:40] SPEAKER_02: That's huge. [07:42] SPEAKER_02: Yet, nobody's going to be better hardwired to step into your dreams than you, especially [07:48] SPEAKER_02: your dreams of really making a difference in other people's lives. [07:52] SPEAKER_02: Nobody's going to be more committed, more perseverant, more passionate, more engaging [07:57] SPEAKER_02: because they won't be that person's dreams. [08:01] SPEAKER_02: Skip over the practice business. [08:03] SPEAKER_02: Go right to the one when you hear yourself saying, someday I will do that one now. [08:12] SPEAKER_00: I think that's great advice. [08:14] SPEAKER_00: I think we have a lot of illusions of, and it's not to say, I'm going to caveat this [08:20] SPEAKER_00: before I even say it, it's not to say that you can't learn from those side businesses [08:24] SPEAKER_00: or side hustles or the practice. [08:26] SPEAKER_00: You absolutely can. [08:29] SPEAKER_00: It's always going to be more work and it's never going to be exactly applicable to whatever [08:35] SPEAKER_00: your real dream is. [08:38] SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you have run a few businesses. [08:40] SPEAKER_00: You've been an entrepreneur in a few different ways as have I. [08:43] SPEAKER_00: I can tell you that what I thought I knew with my first business, when I tried to apply [08:47] SPEAKER_00: to my second business, I was like, well, the world has changed entirely in a very [08:52] SPEAKER_00: short period of time and I basically need to unlearn everything that I thought I knew. [08:57] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. [08:58] SPEAKER_02: Yeah. [08:58] SPEAKER_02: All of those things that you think you're going to learn in your practice business may [09:02] SPEAKER_02: not be applicable by the time you get to the other one anyway, right? [09:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. [09:06] SPEAKER_00: So true. [09:09] SPEAKER_00: I'm curious how you started a business helping people be better influencers. [09:17] SPEAKER_00: Let's put it that way. [09:18] SPEAKER_00: I might be killing that. [09:20] SPEAKER_00: I hope hopefully I have captured the essence of it. [09:25] SPEAKER_00: And then from there, you wrote a book that not a children's book, but this book on influence. [09:32] SPEAKER_00: Is that was that kind of the next step after running or while running a business, not [09:36] SPEAKER_00: after? [09:37] SPEAKER_02: Well, around the same time as probably a few years before we came out with mass influences [09:43] SPEAKER_02: when we started the evolutionary business council, I think that was the next biggest [09:46] SPEAKER_02: iteration of my entrepreneurial journey. [09:49] SPEAKER_02: And ironically, it was sort of a lot, a lot of line with what I was just talking about. [09:55] SPEAKER_02: You know, I used to teach people to step into that really big dream now, right? [10:01] SPEAKER_02: And ironically, I wasn't doing it myself, you know, I remember I did a really big event [10:07] SPEAKER_02: for marketing, all about influence, face marketing in Calgary. [10:10] SPEAKER_02: And I invited a lot of the top speakers in North America, you know, people I master [10:15] SPEAKER_02: might with, I was so excited to have them come up to Calgary. [10:18] SPEAKER_02: And I booked some condos up in the mountains to take everyone up for the weekend just so [10:24] SPEAKER_02: we could all hang out together for a few days after the event. [10:27] SPEAKER_02: And that first night, we're all sitting around the living room and out of my mouth pops [10:31] SPEAKER_02: someday when I'm influential enough, I would love to start an organization for all the [10:36] SPEAKER_02: change agents and emerging thought leaders of the world so that they could really learn [10:40] SPEAKER_02: to help each other and really help each other get, you know, bigger word of mouth epidemics [10:46] SPEAKER_02: and more word of mouth out there. [10:48] SPEAKER_02: And everybody in the room started laughing at me. [10:51] SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, what, what, I just told you guys my dream, why are you all laughing? [10:57] SPEAKER_02: And Danielle Gutierrez looks at me, of course he's one of the top Latino speakers in the [11:01] SPEAKER_02: world. [11:02] SPEAKER_02: And he says, wait a minute, Theresa, you were just on stage four hours ago telling people [11:07] SPEAKER_02: to notice when they say someday I will and inviting them to have that day be today. [11:14] SPEAKER_02: And then Jennifer Hof turns to me, who's, you know, one of the biggest speakers in the [11:18] SPEAKER_02: whole holistic realm and says, so when are you going to do that, Theresa? [11:23] SPEAKER_02: And it was those people holding my feet to the fire almost through intervention. [11:28] SPEAKER_02: That was the moment the evolutionary business council was born. [11:31] SPEAKER_02: You know, because I think in my mind, my own self limiting beliefs, my own inner dialogue [11:36] SPEAKER_02: was, well, who could ever be possibly influential enough or big enough to lead a community of [11:41] SPEAKER_02: change agents and thought leaders? [11:42] SPEAKER_02: Like, who would ever be strong enough for that? [11:45] SPEAKER_02: And ironically, you know, the evolutionary business council has been one of the easiest [11:49] SPEAKER_02: things I've ever done because I'm surrounded by amazing people who won't let me fail. [11:55] SPEAKER_02: You know, there's such caring, loving, beautiful human beings that there's almost no problem [12:00] SPEAKER_02: I can bump into that they're not there to support and assist. [12:03] SPEAKER_02: So it's been pretty wonderful as a journey. [12:06] SPEAKER_00: I love that you had people holding you accountable and who kind of pushed you into your own [12:11] SPEAKER_00: story. [12:13] SPEAKER_00: Because I think that that is, I think we are much better at giving advice to those around [12:21] SPEAKER_00: us and seeing what they're not seeing. [12:24] SPEAKER_00: Then we are seeing it for ourselves. [12:26] SPEAKER_00: And so it's great that they were able to see that for you and pointed out lovingly so [12:31] SPEAKER_00: that you did something with it. [12:32] SPEAKER_00: I think that's fantastic. [12:35] SPEAKER_00: And you know, how so the evolutionary business council sounds like I'm totally guessing [12:42] SPEAKER_00: around 10 years old. [12:43] SPEAKER_00: Is that right ish? [12:46] SPEAKER_00: 12 years old now. [12:47] SPEAKER_00: 12 years old. [12:48] SPEAKER_00: I was close. [12:49] SPEAKER_00: I was okay. [12:50] SPEAKER_00: I feel good. [12:51] SPEAKER_00: I know the date of the book. [12:53] SPEAKER_00: So I was like, 10 years ish. [12:55] SPEAKER_00: So how has it grown and changed and in the last 12 years? [13:03] SPEAKER_02: Well, that's a great question. [13:05] SPEAKER_02: You know, it's matured a little bit. [13:08] SPEAKER_02: You know, when we first started out, we weren't quite sure what we needed to be. [13:13] SPEAKER_02: And in fact, when we first started out, we were all really just about growing influence, [13:17] SPEAKER_02: you know, influence around the change makers of the world. [13:20] SPEAKER_02: And what I quickly discovered was, you know, well, and actually I sort of invented this [13:27] SPEAKER_02: little idea, right? [13:28] SPEAKER_02: I thought, what if I took the marketing principle of creating like a marketing funnel, you [13:34] SPEAKER_02: know, we normally have our highest cost products down at the bottom of the funnel and we have [13:39] SPEAKER_02: free stuff up at the top and we draw people toward us. [13:42] SPEAKER_02: I thought, what if I treated influence like it was money and I created a funnel around [13:46] SPEAKER_02: influence and I drew the most influential, the biggest change agents to the world toward [13:51] SPEAKER_02: me, you know, in this funnel. [13:53] SPEAKER_02: And it worked so well, like all of a sudden, you know, within only a few years, the collective [13:59] SPEAKER_02: reach of the members of the ABC was getting close to half a billion people, you know, which [14:03] SPEAKER_02: is phenomenal. [14:04] SPEAKER_02: How quickly it grew. [14:05] SPEAKER_02: Amazing. [14:06] SPEAKER_02: But it almost became like putting a Lamborghini engine in a go kart and then the car exploded, [14:12] SPEAKER_02: like it was like that, right? [14:13] SPEAKER_02: Because all of a sudden, all this thought of influence and no thought of profit, it was [14:21] SPEAKER_02: like it almost rolled over the rest of my business, you know, because as a council, it wasn't [14:27] SPEAKER_02: really designed to make money initially. [14:30] SPEAKER_02: And that was when I sort of realized, okay, well, you know, A, that was a really good [14:34] SPEAKER_02: idea and that was the best idea I ever had and the worst idea I ever had all in the [14:38] SPEAKER_02: same moment, you know, because I can work so well that I almost destroyed us, you know. [14:42] SPEAKER_02: And so then we realized we needed to bring in all three pillars, like influence, profit [14:48] SPEAKER_02: and impact playing together. [14:51] SPEAKER_02: And then that's really what people needed, right? [14:54] SPEAKER_02: Because a lot of change is it's in the world. [14:56] SPEAKER_02: They're all about the impact and they're all about the influence and they forget to think [15:00] SPEAKER_02: about the money and all of a sudden they came by groceries, you know. [15:04] SPEAKER_02: And in some ways, we were falling into that same trap ourselves. [15:08] SPEAKER_02: But when you get influence playing powerfully together with profit, that actually is the sweet [15:13] SPEAKER_02: spot to generate the maximum amount of impact that you possibly can. [15:17] SPEAKER_02: So we're doing a lot better now that we're teaching the three as three pillars. [15:23] SPEAKER_00: And is a piece of what the evolutionary business council does, training and teaching, [15:28] SPEAKER_00: you mentioned teaching. [15:29] SPEAKER_00: So I'm curious if that is an element of it or an aspect of it? [15:33] SPEAKER_02: It's a really big element. [15:34] SPEAKER_02: I mean, first and foremost, we're a safe space for leaders to do their own inner work, [15:39] SPEAKER_02: their own transformational work, right? [15:41] SPEAKER_02: Because as leaders, we bump up against our own negative self-talk and our own inner dialogue, [15:46] SPEAKER_02: just as much as the next person. [15:47] SPEAKER_02: And sometimes that can be hard to talk about in any regular training room, right? [15:52] SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, crime, you lead an organization of 50 people, boohoo. [15:58] SPEAKER_02: Like, you know, people can make it unsafe for you to share. [16:02] SPEAKER_02: Whereas in the EBC, it is a safe space for leaders to step into. [16:07] SPEAKER_02: But we also do do a lot of training around influence and business and how they work. [16:12] SPEAKER_02: You know, we do several events a year and we do calls every month. [16:16] SPEAKER_02: And finally, we're also a mastermind space. [16:18] SPEAKER_02: Like, where the influential who are all about changing the world can get together and collaborate [16:22] SPEAKER_02: and support each other and create energy around each other's projects. [16:28] SPEAKER_02: So it's actually all three in combination. [16:33] SPEAKER_01: That is, I think that's a very important and interesting [16:41] SPEAKER_00: combination. [16:42] SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of places tend to focus on one or the other. [16:45] SPEAKER_00: And the fact that you have all three pillars, I think, is very unique. [16:49] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. [16:50] SPEAKER_00: So when you look at your, I'm going to keep saying journey. [16:56] SPEAKER_00: I know it's just repeating the word journey. [16:58] SPEAKER_00: It has a journey, though. [17:00] SPEAKER_02: That's not so good. [17:01] SPEAKER_02: It's a journey, right? [17:02] SPEAKER_02: Because it is. [17:03] SPEAKER_02: Life in general is a journey, but especially in a different area. [17:06] SPEAKER_00: Yeah. [17:07] SPEAKER_00: When you look at your journey thus far, what do you, [17:14] SPEAKER_00: oh, I have two questions in here, but I'm going to focus on one instead of [17:18] SPEAKER_00: trying to do both at the same time. [17:20] SPEAKER_00: The first, my first curiosity is what do you think is next for you? [17:23] SPEAKER_00: When you look at what you've done so far, what's next? [17:26] SPEAKER_00: What else do you want to accomplish? [17:29] SPEAKER_02: Well, we've been having a lot of fun. [17:31] SPEAKER_02: A small group of us from the EBC came down here to Costa Rica and started [17:35] SPEAKER_02: developing an intentional community down here. [17:37] SPEAKER_02: There's been kind of an offshoot of the evolutionary business council. [17:40] SPEAKER_02: And it's kind of becoming the physical home of the evolutionary business council. [17:45] SPEAKER_02: Because EBC runs online, you know, globally. [17:49] SPEAKER_02: But we never actually had a physical space that was kind of considered our landing. [17:54] SPEAKER_02: So we've been having a lot of fun, but doing that, building a retreat center. [17:58] SPEAKER_02: We've got a little retreat center running here now and [18:01] SPEAKER_02: we're planting food trees all over the neighborhood. [18:04] SPEAKER_02: So that's been kind of a fun little passion project that's sort of [18:09] SPEAKER_02: me kind of fake retiring. [18:11] SPEAKER_02: I probably won't ever fully retire because I just love to be busy so much. [18:15] SPEAKER_02: So now I'm just sort of like, what can I do that would be outrageously fun and still a line [18:20] SPEAKER_02: with my business passions, you know. [18:23] SPEAKER_02: So I think that's kind of what's what's coming next in terms of partnership partnering [18:28] SPEAKER_00: a parallel project with the EBC. [18:32] SPEAKER_00: I love this idea of fake retiring because I think I feel like there are [18:37] SPEAKER_00: there is a set of people who are very focused on retiring and getting to that age where they can [18:43] SPEAKER_00: just stop working. And I think entrepreneurs are not that generally. Most of the entrepreneurs I [18:49] SPEAKER_00: know are like, and I, both my parents were entrepreneurs and worked until they'd, you know, [18:54] SPEAKER_00: pretty much until they died with love not because they had to because they were like, [18:58] SPEAKER_00: well, you know, what else can maybe I can teach other people? [19:01] SPEAKER_00: Maybe I can do this. I think there's always something that I think drives differently. [19:06] SPEAKER_00: So I love that you said fake retired as part of your story. [19:10] SPEAKER_02: I really think for entrepreneurs, it's just, are you financially free? [19:14] SPEAKER_02: Okay, we're good. Let's keep going, right? Because life is too short to not have fun, [19:24] SPEAKER_02: life is too short to not live your passion. And really, what are entrepreneurs doing other than [19:30] SPEAKER_02: stepping into their passion? And retirement should be the point of life where you get to live your [19:35] SPEAKER_02: passion fully. Well, what? So you're going to leave the business that is your passion, that doesn't [19:41] SPEAKER_00: make sense, right? So yeah. I think it's a great reframe because we don't hear that. I think [19:49] SPEAKER_00: it's the reality for a lot of entrepreneurs, but we don't talk about it a lot, right? A lot of, [19:53] SPEAKER_00: when we talk about retiring, it's still that traditional no offense to government employees, [19:58] SPEAKER_00: but that kind of you hit an age, you retire like a government employee of this pension line. And [20:03] SPEAKER_00: that's not, that's not the entrepreneur life. And I don't think it's what most entrepreneurs want. [20:07] SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate you sharing that because I think it's important. I know I don't want. [20:14] SPEAKER_02: Yeah, in fact, a lot of government workers or industry workers retire and then start a business. [20:20] SPEAKER_02: You know, so I think really the equivalent of retiring for an entrepreneur is simply getting the [20:25] SPEAKER_02: business to a point where you can only do the fun pieces that you love. And when you have enough [20:31] SPEAKER_02: team and enough staff around you that you get to just show up and do the fun bits, then you are [20:36] SPEAKER_00: retired, you know, that's really the truth. So I, the other question I wanted to ask you was, [20:43] SPEAKER_00: and I don't know the structure of EBC or your other businesses. So no assumptions of how [20:48] SPEAKER_00: you structured or grew them. But what advice would you give to someone who is looking to, [20:57] SPEAKER_00: or trying to build a business in such a way that they can get to that point of retiring like an [21:03] SPEAKER_00: entrepreneur where they don't have to be doing all the things every single day where they don't, [21:07] SPEAKER_00: they can have the freedom to say, what's the most fun thing I can do right now? Because I think a [21:12] SPEAKER_00: lot of people are searching for it and they don't know how to sharing your perspective on how you [21:17] SPEAKER_00: got there or what you would advise is always helpful for people. I would say take a post at note and [21:24] SPEAKER_02: write the word team on it and post it on the wall in front of your computer. Because that's the [21:30] SPEAKER_02: root to getting to financial freedom, right, is who's on your team. And I would be in that inquiry [21:37] SPEAKER_02: every day, every week, every month. Do I have the right team? Is my team well trained? Is, you know, [21:45] SPEAKER_02: is there more I can be doing? Are there volunteers that could be supporting me? Are we automated [21:50] SPEAKER_02: effectively? I think as long as you're working on your business more than you're working in your [21:57] SPEAKER_02: business, you will get there, you know, but the first step is having a really amazing team around [22:03] SPEAKER_02: you that takes away the work you hate and leaves you with the work that you're really good at that you [22:08] SPEAKER_00: love. I think one of the hardest things is for people to work on their business and not work in [22:16] SPEAKER_00: their business, especially when they feel like the profit or the money is tied to them in some way. [22:24] SPEAKER_00: How did you make that transition or how did you find that transition or the balance whatever you [22:33] SPEAKER_00: want to call it for yourself? I'm curious because I think that's brilliant advice and I, even for [22:41] SPEAKER_00: myself, I run a business and that is the hardest thing is to be like, okay, time to work because [22:47] SPEAKER_00: there's always stuff to do in the business. Yeah, I always set myself almost like a budget every [22:56] SPEAKER_02: week where 30% of my time has to be working on the business. 30% of my time is marketing and sales [23:03] SPEAKER_02: and 30% of my time is anything else in the business like content delivery or whatever. And when I [23:09] SPEAKER_02: chunk it up that way and so on any given week, if I feel like I'm not getting where not making [23:14] SPEAKER_02: traction, I look back over the course of the week, where was I spending my time? And usually that [23:20] SPEAKER_02: balance is not wax somewhere. And usually it's, I got busy down in the weeds working in the business [23:26] SPEAKER_02: and I either forgot marketing and sales or I forgot to work on the business and the business [23:31] SPEAKER_02: structure and the business setup and the business leadership effectively. It's usually that balance [23:37] SPEAKER_00: that's twisted. I love that. I think that's really, it's simple and anyone can, not that they [23:45] SPEAKER_00: necessarily will, I appreciate that, but anyone can take that and apply it to their business. [23:51] SPEAKER_00: So I appreciate the simplicity of that. I'm curious if there's anything that, [23:59] SPEAKER_00: actually, I'm going to take a step. I'm going to change this slightly. [24:04] SPEAKER_00: In doing the work that you do and especially around influence who or what has influenced you [24:11] SPEAKER_00: the most, whether it's a book or someone out there where you think that's a person who is like [24:16] SPEAKER_00: a great influence in a positive way, hopefully. Well, my absolute favorite business book would [24:23] SPEAKER_02: have to be Bob Berg's the go giver. And I think if you really want to understand influence other [24:29] SPEAKER_02: than my own book, of course, obviously, it's brilliant. But I think if you really want to understand [24:38] SPEAKER_02: influence, read the go giver, because it really talks about, and a lot of women do this naturally [24:44] SPEAKER_02: and intuitively, but they don't do it with intention. They're not intentional about it. [24:50] SPEAKER_02: And a lot of men are the opposite. They're intentional, but they really don't understand what [24:54] SPEAKER_02: they need to be doing. And I don't mean that, but I don't mean to polarize the sexes, but in [24:59] SPEAKER_02: terms of our natural hardwiring. Because influence is really about developing relationships. [25:06] SPEAKER_02: Because you can't make yourself famous. I couldn't stand up on a chair and a networking event and say, [25:12] SPEAKER_02: look at me, I'm so great. I would get shown the door so quickly. But if I stood up on a chair and [25:17] SPEAKER_02: said, oh my god, guys, Celine Williams just walked in the room. She's got the best podcast. You [25:29] SPEAKER_02: actually become the most influential person in the room. When we start to notice this and get [25:36] SPEAKER_02: really intentional about it, one of the reasons I wrote my book was there were so many people out [25:42] SPEAKER_02: there, like really amazing grassroots change agents that were doing some really incredible [25:47] SPEAKER_02: things in the world, but they just didn't understand the basic principles of how influence worked. [25:52] SPEAKER_02: And somebody just needed to explain, here's what you do need to be doing. And here's the common [25:58] SPEAKER_02: mistakes that you're falling in traps with that if you just stop doing these things and start [26:03] SPEAKER_02: doing these things, you'll get so much more traction around what you're doing. [26:08] SPEAKER_00: That's great. I appreciate that. For all of our listeners and viewers, Teresa, where can, [26:15] SPEAKER_00: where's the best place for them to find you online and connect with you? [26:19] SPEAKER_02: Well, I've got a free program that your listeners are welcome to do at what's called [26:23] SPEAKER_02: a free day in for a challenge. So you can come to massinfluencedthebook.com and do the 30 day [26:30] SPEAKER_02: influence challenge and we'll send you to all the links where you can get the digital version of [26:35] SPEAKER_02: my book for free right now. We're to celebrate at seventh year anniversary of remaining on the best [26:40] SPEAKER_02: seller lists. We're now giving the digital version away for free. So you can get amazing. [26:47] SPEAKER_02: The Amazon keeps trying to raise the price again. So email me if you find Amazon's [26:52] SPEAKER_02: charging for it again, but all of the sites we're putting it down to free so that we don't want to [26:59] SPEAKER_02: have anyone have any barriers to learning how to change the world in a positive way. So you can't [27:04] SPEAKER_02: blame that the book costs money. It's there to support you. So massinfluencedthebook.com. [27:12] SPEAKER_00: Amazing. And I hope all the listeners check it out because especially first of all, [27:16] SPEAKER_00: congratulations on being in the best seller list for seven years. But also very generous to be [27:21] SPEAKER_00: giving it away for free. And I hope all the listeners get a copy of it and do the challenge and [27:27] SPEAKER_00: reach out and tell you how it went because I think that is an amazing offer. So thank you for [27:31] SPEAKER_00: sharing it with us. Thank you. It's my pleasure. And I appreciate your time today. Teresa was [27:38] SPEAKER_00: really great chatting with you and to all of the listeners. Thanks for listening to Canada's podcast. [27:43] SPEAKER_01: Like, comment and subscribe to all our channels. [27:52] SPEAKER_01: To get the latest podcasts from entrepreneurs across Canada.
