Billy Keels  0:00  From employee to business owner, the powerful mindset shift you need. Today's episode is sponsored by Billy Keels advisory services. If you want to learn more about how to make your 99 optional, just go to make it optional.com. Once again, that's make it optional.com.Speaker 1  0:19  Helping you build freedom without losing your edge. This is the going long podcast with Billy Keels,Billy Keels  0:32  from employee to business owner. The powerful mindset shift that you'll need is for anyone who is making this move right now and thinking about the building business on the side, you're feeling some struggle, you're feeling some challenge, and more importantly, you recognize that something that you're thinking about in corporate is not working exactly the same as you think it's going to work. Otherwise, if you stick with me just for a very few brief minutes, this episode is going to clear it up for you, because and I like to reflect on what was going on in my life, like at a certain point in my life, like when I was in corporate and I was thinking about building this business on the side. Well, guess what I was like in a really, really early investor stage. I was having success from my first 10 doors that I had in my portfolio, 100% own. It was generating over 200,000 USD. Through, also the corporate success, like I was closing massive deals, like a big deal that was like 25 million and was getting promoted opportunities for promotion. And so all of these really, really positive things were happening and going on in my corporate life and also outside of my corporate life, so much to the point that, as I reflect on it now, it's kind of like the victim of my own success, because so many things were happening at the same time in a very, very positive motion, and you're thinking yourself, okay, yeah, but from employee to business owner, the positive mindset shift that you need. What does that have to do with anything? Well, just stick with me, like I said, it's not going to be very long. But the thing is, is like as so many things were happening positively and because coming from the background that I come from, you know, a working class family, us working class family, parents, working two jobs, I wanted to continue to make more money. I wanted to make get not promoted, but I wanted to make more money at my day job. I wanted to get more real estate in my portfolio, because that was making more money that way, because that was somewhat how I was taking score. But then what I realized is I really wanted to make this path on this side business, because I wanted this as, like, a future family business, so much to the so much to the point that I even named the company after, like, combining names like, as a family like, that's how much I had it in my mind that wanted to build this family business. Family business and be a part of it and all that kind of stuff. But that was kind of what wanted to happen and so. But I realized that something was happening, right? Because as I was a successful employee and building this business, I was doing a lot of things as from a business owner perspective, but in the same way that an employee thinks and an employee, when you're working in a really big company, it's not bad, it's not good, it's just is what it is, right? So, so stick with me, and you'll you'll understand and why I want to help you to navigate this a lot better than I navigated it, because, as I noticed that my days started getting longer and longer and longer, meaning in the combination of my corporate role, because I wanted to be everywhere all the time with for everybody, and then building the business on the side, the same kind of thing. All of this was self imposed, by the way, no one was asking me to do this because I wanted to be great dad, great employee, great business owner, all of these things. And I wanted and felt like I needed to be everywhere, although that wasn't, in fact, the case, which is why I'm sharing this with you, because you get to learn from me. But I didn't really know where to turn to figure out how I'd get the days to stop feeling like they were so long, because what I did know is like I was running into a wall, like I didn't want to keep up this frantic rhythm that I was going through. And so as I started meeting people, I started seeing and then I started hearing these people that were talking about, well, they're working with this coach, or they're working with this mentor, they're working with this person, and they're helping them give them an outs. I kept hearing this outside in perspective. So I started thinking about that in my corporate role. And yeah, in my corporate role, I had, you know, people that would teach me particular skills. And I was, I was even a coach like, I have coaching certifications through a couple different sales coaching methodologies, right? Because that's the thing that I did. And so I was somewhat familiar with coaching mentoring, and even had mentors within within the business. But what I started to realize was I wanted to also find out how I can make my day stop feeling so long, stop feeling a little exhausted. And I wanted to start to outside of the day to day. I wanted to realize that there were things that I was looking for and someone who could help me, and I needed those things to be like things that I could connect with. And so I was looking for somebody that was from a similar background, and I was looking for someone who. Who was already where I wanted to go, because I really realized that I couldn't put my finger on it, but at the time, I knew that I wanted help. I didn't need help. I wanted help. And the thing that I started realizing, as I was hearing from people over and over, was the thing about someone who is helping you to advise you, or someone who's helping to coach you or mentor you, they don't have the same emotional attachment to the decision or the outcome that that I was having at the time, which was also keeping me in the roles, um, whether it was nine to five, five to nine, uh, just things kept continuing to go on and on and on and on. And so as I started looking for someone who was where I wanted to go, someone that I could have things to connect with. So for me, it was a similar background. Then I started moving forward. But nothing you don't move forward without having some kind of challenges. And so even what happened is, as I was moving forward, I had this challenges around being like, moving forward too much, because this is we're talking about being an employee and going to to business owner. What was everybody going to think like, if I took on the some of the frameworks that the person that I would work with? Like, if I actually did them, what would everybody at my job think? What would my boss think? What my co workers think? And so I had this like, internal kind of like dissonance that was happening, like I just wasn't feeling good about myself inside. And so, yeah, I share that with you, because as you make this mindset shift when it happens, not it, but when it happens, it's part of the process. I didn't understand that because I hadn't been involved in it long enough, but now I haven't worked with a number of coaches and a number of mentors. This is part of the process. It's part of the mindset shift, which is what I want to talk to you about, because what I started to realize, and what I'm sharing with you in this brief episode, is really at the end of the day when I realized was when I was in corporate, there was so much specialization, because there was just one role, one task, sales, sales leadership, and that's the only thing that I had to do. And guess what? I was real, darn good at. It Amazing, at least. That's what my coworker said, what my bosses said, and that's why I was in the top talent program, right? So I was overachieving against the KPIs consistently. But then what would also what I was realizing is outside of that specialization in the nine to five, when I was looking at my five to nine, or the things that I was doing outside of the corporate to build my business and the business owner, and early on, starting out, doing a lot of the things myself, learning and then getting other people to come on on board, it was a different mentality, because that was more about knowing a little bit about everything and being able to effectively delegate, which was very similar, by the way, transferable skills. Hint, hint, for those of you who are also going through this, or Crossing the Chasm, if you will, is that there are a lot of the same skills that I was using, using for my corporate that I could then take and use in the in the in the in the generalization as the founder, as the business owner. And so those things were just a realization, like I realized that, and at the same time, I was so very fortunate to realize that these transferable skills that I had from corporate, they were serving me in my my Business Owner mode. And at the end of the day, the thing that was that I got the biggest benefit from by having lived in these two worlds, from corporate employee, successful employee, high achieving employee to business owner, was that the external guidance that eventually I did get, it was fundamentally game changing, because as I invested my time, effort, energy and money, currency, let's call it, into this, it helped me to realize that that external guidance, like it, was allowing me to really recognize where the true skill, where the true the transformation was taking place. That transformation was because I was actually leveraging skills that I'd learned in corporate and those same skills were helping me build a business. But I had to realize that it wasn't always about specialization, especially early on, you got to do a lot of every different thing, but learn it quickly, understand the task and then delegate it to the right person, so that you can continue to do what you're best at, and that, my friend, is what you need to think about when you're going from employee to business owner, that specialization, that generalization, being able to leverage those skills and use the transferable skills that you have to get to the results sooner, right? And having an outside in perspective, like a coach, like a mentor, that is something that is game changing, because that is what helped me to cut down on the timeframes, to getting to the goals that I wanted to do, and allowed me to get to a life of optionality, which is something that you know I am really, really in love with. So if you are not struggling, if you are. Struggling. Think about what I've just shared with you. If you know someone who is struggling, share today's episode with them. And then when you share, make sure you care. Get on the phone with them. Talk about the episode that you've just shared, very brief today, as I mentioned, as I promised. And while you're doing that, while you're going from theory to practice, guess where I'll be? Yeah, I'll be right here, preparing for the next episode. So until then, go out and make it a great day. And thank you very, very much.