Daniel Gefen is all about working on his business, not in his business. Hard work and dedication has built a life where he can do what he wants with his time, and this is , to him, is real freedom. In this episode he shares many nuggets of wisdom that can get you on the path to passive income as well.
Daniel had a rough go of things back in 2008 when he lost his 6-figure job (which he had negotiated up from $60K) due to the economy. This left him homeless with his wife and child, until he moved back to London to work at his dad’s grocery store. He was grateful to his father for taking them in, but he couldn’t stand working at the store. Being fed up with his job led him to pursue entrepreneurship.
He decided to start a virtual office and telephone answering company (Jet Virtual). It was a lot of work at first as he was filling all roles within this new company. Daniel hired people as the company grew, but this too came with its own set of headaches.
When his lead receptionist quit, he learned that you should “Never, ever rely on one person to do everything.” Her leaving really hurt as she knew all the protocols and handled all client issues and needs. On top of this, that same day he received a notice that he had to vacate his office within the next two weeks.
This was too much for him and he was about to close the business when he decided to make a rather bold and unconventional move. He decided to outsource all his clients to a competitor. This turned out to be the best decision he’d ever made. Over the next year he was a one-man crew building his company with a laptop and free internet access from a local hotel. He’d turned a disastrous situation into a passive income generating machine that didn’t require much work from him to continue running.
According to Daniel, the biggest area that people struggle with in business is second guessing themselves. The only way to overcome this is through action. “Once you start taking action, the action starts to get results and the results start to boost your ego and self-esteem.” This leads you to realize that you really can do this and can find success.
One other simple yet profound piece of advice is to “Stop consuming and produce”:
“You can’t earn money by consuming, the only way you’re going to earn money is by producing; putting stuff out there.”
To get entrepreneurs producing more, Daniel wrote an article entitled, ‘Focusing on ONE thing.’ He says that by nature we want everything and we’re distracted by all the shiny things out there. But we only have so much time in the day so we need to focus on ONE; product, platform, niche, etc. “People who try to be everything to everyone end up being nobody to no one.” Start small, conquer that area, then expand.
This was a great interview with Daniel, a flexible, honest and creative person who has built a business that allows him to live the life he wants. Now that you’ve heard some of his wisdom and great advice, get out there and start producing more for your business.
SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
DON’T STOP HERE…
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Chris Reynolds has always had incredible community building skills and puts them to good use with his latest business, The Entrepreneur House. For over a year now, Chris has been bringing together experienced entrepreneurs from all over the world, to live in a shared home (or homes) in a variety of countries. During their stay, lasting anywhere from 1-3 months, they mastermind, attend local events, and help each other to grow their businesses to the next level.
Chris knows intimately what it’s like to go from rock bottom to thriving business owner. He started his entrepreneurial journey selling real estate educational packages. This was a fun learning process and ended up being very financially rewarding. But, the crash of 2008 put a stop to this and in the process he lost his home, his car, everything. Determined to make it as an entrepreneur, Chris started over.
It was an arduous process but Chris was committed to reaching his goals of financial and location independence. He started off selling products on Amazon and eventually got into niche websites; this is where he started to gain traction selling real-estate info products. After two years of this work he was able to achieve his dream of being a location independent digital nomad; supporting himself as he traveled the world.
Leaving his home brought him many adventures and ample growth, but it came at the price of leaving a great community of like-minded entrepreneurs that he was a part of. His first major destination was Costa Rica. While living there he was surrounded by people wanting to only hang out and surf. Fun, if that’s all you’re into, but it didn’t offer the entrepreneurial minded growth that he was looking for. Chris turned his need for like-minded community in a profitable business, and this was the catalyst for the Entrepreneur House.
The first House he created was in Barcelona and he had 12 great entrepreneurs join him there. This incredible group of people helped him develop what the House has become today. Together they shaped and molded the masterminding and goal setting processes, and today the features and perks of living in the house are much more evolved. Since the first iteration he’s created four other Entrepreneur Houses, and has many more planned for the future.
Having an international business such as this presents its fair share of problems. But Chris works through those by trying to understand the cultural differences of the countries he’s trying to work with. The logistics of finding short-term housing that suits the needs of the participants would be a struggle for many people, but Chris has honed this process. Many countries outside of the US actually make it easy to lease a large fully-furnished house for any time frame.
When traveling abroad to a new city, it can be hard to source accommodations, good internet, a great community all on your own. This takes time away from the work you want to do. The goal of the Entrepreneur House is to take care of these things for people so they can be more productive.
Some of the amenities that the House offers:
Chris was a great guest for the podcast. He’s created amazing memories for the communities he’s created as well as opportunities for people to grow personally and professionally in a way they wouldn’t have otherwise.
SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
DON’T STOP HERE…
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES:
Thrilled to be joined today by Emma and Carla Pappas, of The Merrymaker Sisters. These two are super energetic, fun and refreshing and I know that hearing their story will absolutely inspire others to take action, make changes in their lives and do the things they’re passionate about.
When The Merrymaker Sisters created their online business, I learned that they never really thought about the perfect avatar that they were trying to attract. (Something we're often told to do as business owners). Instead, they just created the brand and business that they knew people would find value in, and learned and made changes along the way. Their inspiring and health conscious brand, attracts mostly women of all ages, and these women have realized that there’s a different way of living that fits each individual. Emma and Carla have honed in on how to help each woman discover exactly what is right for them.
Born DOERS, Emma and Carla know that the best way to make changes in your life is just to take action. Their best advice for new entrepreneurs: Get started now and put yourself out there.
Just do the best you can do right now and make tweaks and improvement as you go. Equally important is to not get so tied up in what other people are posting – compare and despair gets you nowhere. Everyone’s content (from Marie Forleo to Gary Vaynerchuck) had room for improvement when they were first starting out. “Compare to yourself, don’t compare to others because that’s paralyzing.” You may just end up hating what you’re doing and sucking all the joy out of it.
An integral lesson they learned along the way is the idea that “what you focus on grows.” At the time they worked horrible jobs with toxic people and constant negative thoughts swirling in their heads. Realizing that spending 8 hours per day in this situation was getting them nowhere, this gave them the courage to leave their jobs as soon as possible to devote more time to their brand. Making the business their priority, spending extra time on it and jumping into action led to incredible growth and success. Momentum is everything.
It’s obvious from this interview that Emma and Carla are full of energy and are super positive people. But, like all of us there can be times when they fall back into a negative space in moments of sadness, sensitivity or being overwhelmed.
“It’s okay that we do fall back, it’s just how fast we come back to where want to be in our mindset that matters.”
Yoga, meditation, walks outside or expressing gratitude are some of the ways that the sisters get out of this type of funk. The girls are big fans of practicing gratitude and say, “It’s such a simple thing, but it’s magical.”
To grow their business from a simple idea to a strong brand, Emma and Carla have had to do many scary things; quitting their jobs, putting themselves out there, public speaking and writing their first cook book just to name a few. They know first-hand that as you do more, things become more normal to you and you don’t realize how big and bold you’re actually being.
Speaking of putting yourself out there, One of the things I ask Emma about is her public relationship with fellow entrepreneur, Dan Norris. She shared that deciding to this was all part of putting forth her real, authentic self on social media. Some people put up a front and pretend to be somebody else on social media, but that’s pretty hard to keep up.
“Being you is so easy and way more fun.”
Emma and Carla were so much fun to talk to and I’m thrilled that they’ve shared their brand and incredible relationship with the Bold Life Movement audience.
SOME QUESTIONS I ASK:
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:
DON’T STOP HERE…