Unmasking Entrepreneurship: A Candid Conversation with Elisabeth Galperin

Speaker 2: 0:11

Welcome to Side Hustle City and thanks for joining us. Our goal is to help you connect to real people who found success turning their side hustle into a main hustle, and we hope you can too. I'm Adam Kaler. I'm joined by Kyle Stevy, my co-host. Let's get started, all right. Welcome back everybody to the Side Hustle City podcast Today's special guest, elizabeth Galperin. All the way coming to us from the northern part of Cincinnati all the way up by King's Island, how you doing? We're all the rich people. Yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 3: 0:45

It's a love land in.

Speaker 2: 0:46

Llandon Love land Like I love old love land that was. That's a cool little town.

Speaker 4: 0:51

Yeah, I'm right, five minutes from there, really.

Speaker 2: 0:54

That's right yeah. I'm a part of suburbia these days, I think the worst crime is actually happening at King's Island right.

Speaker 4: 1:03

Probably.

Speaker 3: 1:04

My friend, my friend, my friend's son's the one that did the Chimarche's thing, yeah, and he had to go on channel nine and like give this whole appalled, like the whole family had to go on and give this whole apology because people were so angry. Dude, this camera was terrible.

Speaker 2: 1:20

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:21

He's just right up at his head, turn it off. He just started off.

Speaker 2: 1:25

Well, don't worry, it's all audio anyway, but they had to go up there and apologize because people were so stupid and pretended that they were like these huge Chimarche's fans.

Speaker 3: 1:33

The kid the kid that, the kid that they said was Chimarche's didn't even look anything like him, His son. His son was security. He was like oh, he's 19 years old, he had a cheap security shirt on and parents, everybody, they were like coming up to this kid, oh my God, it's Chimarche A bunch of morons yeah, it's bad.

Speaker 4: 1:53

All it takes is one little leak of misinformation, right.

Speaker 2: 1:57

That's right, that's right.

Speaker 4: 1:59

Well, we're here to talk.

Speaker 3: 2:00

You're not stupid, you deserve it.

Speaker 2: 2:01

Yeah Well, there are some people that Elizabeth's trying to help. I wouldn't say they're stupid. They're all entrepreneurs and they have businesses. But the problem is, is they're?

Speaker 3: 2:10

smarter than me, though.

Speaker 2: 2:11

Well, they have problems with growth, though they're trying to figure out how to keep their. And what I liked from your LinkedIn you had mentioned something about their people with ADHD, which I think every entrepreneur has ADHD right.

Speaker 4: 2:27

I would agree there's some element of it. For sure. We live in an ADD world, honestly, so we all experience the difficulty with staying focused on just the important things. But, yeah, a lot of entrepreneurs are. They lead with their creative mind and therefore paying attention to the detail and sticking to boring processes and steps is a challenge, so that is a large part of who I work with.

Speaker 2: 2:57

I'm guessing that has a little bit to do with the mobile devices we carry around every day and the social media and the Twitter and everything else that's on those devices that distract us right.

Speaker 4: 3:09

Yes, 100%. The 24-7 news cycle and there's always something new, the shiny object that we think we might miss out. And therefore, yeah, we tend to spend way too much time allowing the information to come to us, versus us going and seeking out the information that we need.

Speaker 3: 3:28

I would say also I had I never had problem focusing through school. But once I started working on my job, with having to do different things and not having days to do assignments but having hours at most minutes often is that you can't. You start dividing yourself up amongst all these different tasks to get them finished and then you get help where you can get help. And even when you get help you need to check with the people doing the jobs and make sure that they're going to be completed on time. And it kind of rewires your brain to where you cannot just sit there and focus in on tax returns or whatever CPAs get to do. You know when you're just sitting at a desk and you've got a stack of assignments and when there are stacks done, the stack's done. But it doesn't have to be done until April 15th, whereas on a lot of this stuff, when you have to go as an entrepreneur, where you have to make decisions spontaneously and instantaneously, it rewires your brain. I think it does. I don't have scientific backing to that, but it's just from my personal experience.

Speaker 4: 4:36

Yeah, yeah, I would absolutely agree with you and I think I always. One of the things that I always tell my clients is it's not really about there being a right decision versus a wrong decision. You make a decision and then you do everything you can to make it the right decision and I think as an entrepreneur, you know a lot of times you're you're paving a path that no one's paved before. It's not like there's a handbook for how you should build your business, because it's a unique business. So oftentimes we're making decisions not knowing exactly where it's going to take us. So, you know, don't get caught up in. Is it right, is it wrong? It's I'm going to make a decision and start taking action and then, you know, do everything I can within my control to make that decision work for me in the way that I need it to.

Speaker 2: 5:25

Yeah, that totally makes sense. I mean, that's just a different approach. I've actually haven't heard that before. It's like, don't worry so much about making the right or wrong decision. Whatever decision you make may actually be. I mean, sometimes you just can't overanalyze things and you just got to go with your gut and what you think could work and then, hey, you know, pivot, make it. Make it work. I mean, think of a startup. You know, if you're going to build a startup, you've got this idea. You're like, oh, that's a great idea, I'm going to do this. But I mean, most startups pivot maybe two or three times before they actually find traction and it just it happens and you just got to work at whatever it is.

Speaker 3: 6:03

See, I didn't know that until I started getting involved with you guys, I thought that you, just you, were focused in on one task and if you didn't succeed in that task, it's you know, so bad, too bad, too sad, but what it? But that's not what a good startup will do, right? That's it's they're going to. They're going to go to wherever the openings are at.

Speaker 2: 6:26

Yeah, because I mean your startup could last five, six years, and things are going to change.

Speaker 3: 6:30

And I'm assuming that's where you go with growth too. Like you're, you think I want to grow a specific avenue. I'm going to outsource this job and you find out later that, no, I actually have to bite the bullet and I have to actually pay for a full-time employee in this role. Am I right, or am I wrong?

Speaker 4: 6:45

Yeah, absolutely Absolutely, and it is. It's that ability to flex and change. I mean, I think you know it's the yes, we should have a plan right, but also know that you know I've got plan A and maybe I've got plan B and it may end up being that I have to go with option C, and I think that oftentimes that is where people either decide they do want to be an entrepreneur or they decide and realize, okay, actually being an entrepreneur is not for me. I have a friend who's a lawyer, works for a big firm now, and he calls himself a failed entrepreneur because he started out wanting to run his own firm and then realized you know what, I don't want to have to put all the structure and systems in place and I don't want to have to make all the decisions for myself, and so, again, there's nothing wrong with it. You know, not everybody is meant to be an entrepreneur, but those are the characteristics that are. Extremely important is being flexible and being able to make decisions quickly, pivot and then make the best of the circumstances.

Speaker 3: 7:53

I think that takes a lot of courage, because when you're a, you know regardless if you've got a JD or you go and you get an MBA or hell. If you just start your own software company and you come to the realization that I thought I was going to be the next big thing and it's just not who I'm meant to be, and so I need to work with somebody or work for somebody that takes a. That's a I don't know. That's yeah, bite the bullet. Yeah, that's a ego, admit it. Yeah, I don't know that I could do that. I admire that, the ability to be able to do that.

Speaker 4: 8:27

Right, right. Yeah, I think growing up, most of us also are taught that you decide, you know you decide your career and that's your path for the next 30, 40 years. I think that my generation, I do think that the younger generations are realizing that you can work for multiple companies and have lots of different roles and switch industries and careers, but I think that a lot of the workforce that exists now we were given that messaging that you pick what you're going to do and then you do everything you can to make it work and you know it doesn't doesn't have to be that way. That's the hard way.

Speaker 2: 9:04

Well, and you're working with people from different generations, and I mean we're. You know, at one point we all had to realize in your whole website if people go to your website, peeqproductivitycoachingcom, you're going to see right away. It's about productivity. It's about not just being busy, to be busy, but actually being productive on things that are getting you from point A to point B, whatever that is. But when you're talking about generations, I've seen a lot of young people just on TikTok crying at the idea that they're going to be working until they're old and it's just like this isn't how human beings should be.

Speaker 3: 9:42

It wasn't, it wasn't just that generation.

Speaker 2: 9:44

Yeah, not exactly. That's what I'm getting. To that point I've seen crying in person. No, no, no, no. But I'm getting to that point. We all reach that point in our lives at some point where you're thinking you got to leave the nest. Right, you live in socialism at your parents' house. Right, they pay. You know the house is free, the food's free. You know you're sleeping for free.

Speaker 3: 10:01

I'm doing socialism completely wrong. Isn't the authority supposed to be the one that gets to hold on to all the money.

Speaker 2: 10:09

You would think so. Well, now I'm seeing TikToks of people in Canada crying about it. The healthcare is not worth it. You know all this and that we're paying too much money in taxes. How can I get to America? It's like, hey, we don't want you here. But the thing is is you've got these problems where every generation goes through this. You go through that growing pain of wait a minute, taxes like you get your first check and you see those taxes got taken out of it.

Speaker 3: 10:33

That was the worst thing. I was like what the heck?

Speaker 2: 10:36

happened. I was about to. I was counting my money. I was like I could pay this much an hour. I bet I'm going to go buy this, I'm going to go buy that. And then you see those taxes like Medicare. What is this?

Speaker 3: 10:45

I almost had an argument with an. I almost had an argument with our HR lady. He's like why am I paying into social security when I'm not going to be able to get social security when I'm 65?

Speaker 2: 10:54

I'm sure that's not the first time she got that question she was like it's, you're not going to win this argument.

Speaker 3: 10:58

That's like all right.

Speaker 4: 10:59

Right right.

Speaker 2: 11:01

So, elizabeth, like what is that? I mean these are, these are growing pains that, like, young people have, but there are growing pains that adults have when they reach a certain point in their business. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Speaker 4: 11:16

Absolutely. So what I see and I'll kind of go back to the idea of most entrepreneurs or individuals who want to leave, you know, the big corporation and start a business of their own Majority, are going into their. They're starting a business because they're great at that skill. You know they're a great architect or they're a phenomenal electrician and so they have. They have, they've mastered the skill itself, but the challenge is running a business as a whole, another set of skills, and what often comes up when clients, prospective clients, reach out to me, it's the. You know, I want to keep being the phenomenal architect that I am, but I don't know how to keep doing that and to manage the business and all of the administrative side of things. And then if I'm going to grow, then I'm managing people, and so I don't know if you guys are familiar with the book the E-Meth.

Speaker 2: 12:19

Oh yeah, I've read it though. Yeah, I need to get chat TBT. To summarize, it.

Speaker 4: 12:24

Yes, do that, do that. No, actually read the book, because it's amazing, but it's. You know it's about. Are you in the business? They follow a woman who loves to bake pies, and you know the question is are you in business to bake pies or are you in business to run the business of baking pies? And so that's often the struggle that my clients are facing is, if they want to grow, they have to start doing things differently, but they also have to start letting go of things. They can't be the expert architect 40 hours a week. They have to step back and work on the business. And then they need to build into people, their team and their employees who are going to work in the business. So that's often the struggle, and you know, once you come to terms with that, then the next step is okay. Well then, how do I become a good people manager and how do I become a good communicator? And how do I understand the you know, financial side of running a business? And what do the other challenge to overcome is what do I want to learn to become better at? And then, what do I want to outsource? And so, again, it's being willing to say I can't do all of it myself. So where am I going to hire team to execute? Where am I going to find partners and outsource tasks? And kind of rediscovering what their zone of genius is going to be as the business owner, as the entrepreneur. So they kind of have to shed that identity of I'm an amazing architect and create a new identity of I'm an amazing business owner that runs an architect firm Amazing. That, obviously, is just an example.

Speaker 3: 14:10

So you sound like you're. The clients that come to you are more the driven type A personality founders right there, the ones that have a hard time letting go. Because so I got lucky. When it worth TQL I was like the hundredth guy hired. So I was, I was there before there was a stratification and it was just. There was owners and it was salespeople in the accounting department. That was it. So I've watched kind of like off to the side as Ken Oaks built the company and he was, in my opinion, the best at what you're talking about right now. He found the people that was going to help him grow, to get to get to his goals. He what he didn't feel he was strong at. He hired people to do it. He let them, he gave them enough rope to do their job. On the flip side, we've had a lot of guys leave and start their own companies and they have gotten into it with the idea that I'm going to work as hard as I need to work, just enough to get to the point where I want to with our income, and then I might show up twice a week, I might show up twice a month. I'm all that, everybody else they're not going to grow it like Ken did. Well, they're not going to be driven. So she's dealing with people that are driven to. You know they're. They are going to put in the 90 hours that it's going to. That's going to be required. They're going to be shooting out emails at 3 30 in the morning when motivation hits them and then wakes them up from sleep. So, yeah, I, I, I can understand, like who you're dealing with.

Speaker 4: 15:33

Now it makes it much more sense to be yeah, and then the reason that I'm a resource is because they are driven to work as many hours as humanly possible and they will burn, you know, the candle on both ends and they will be sending emails at 3am. But that's not sustainable, right? And so my goal as a productivity coach and consultant is helping them to figure out how to build it, but how to do it in a sustainable, healthy way. That's not going to, you know, ruin your personal life or destroy relationships or and result in getting burnout and losing that motivation and drive that got you there in the first place. So it's how do you build, grow and scale while still maintaining what you need for for the personal side of life and, you know, being able to perform at your peak in the business, but then still have time to pursue the passions outside of that part of you?

Speaker 3: 16:33

So what's like your hardest, what's the hardest bugaboo to get Get these owners to get over? Is it is it? Is it in the sales side of it? Is it in the? Is it in the just the operations side of it, or is it just it's all dependent and it's mixed between all your clients?

Speaker 2: 16:50

For me it's always been sales it's. I can do my sales myself, but you're never going to grow unless you can hire like a dedicated salesperson, like in my, in my. That's my problem, you know with all my stuff.

Speaker 4: 17:00

Yeah, it really is unique. I mean it really a lot. I will say that A lot of it is a mindset. I was just talking to a client earlier today who was talking about the mental guilt that she places on herself when she is doing something for herself or for her family and not for the business. And so, again, going back to you know you're only successful if your butt's in the seat and you're cranking out, you know, products or emails or whatever it is that you know you deliver in your business. So a lot of it is getting over those stories that we tell ourselves and kind of having a new paradigm of how do I want to define success, how do I want to define productivity and you know, how do I want to again create this way of life that's sustainable. And where am I willing to? I don't want to say like, accept your weakness, but where am I willing to say, hey, this is not something that I want to become great at or that I need to master, and it's better for me to find someone else that can do this so that I can stay, you know, in my lane. So it is. It's a combination of the different components of a business that you know have to. You have to have sales, you have to have operations, you have to have, obviously, the delivery and the customer. You know service or support and you know again. So, figuring out, where are you going to as the owner and leader, where are you going to excel? And then, where are you going to pull in the other individuals that can do that better than you and be happy with that? It's not a competition right. You want to surround yourself with people that are better at things than you are.

Speaker 2: 19:01

Well, also. Yeah. So you know this brings up something what Kyle said and what you kind of touched on there for a second. So after this podcast I'm going to AVH. I don't know how much you know about AVH or nor the guitar, yeah, but Jill Morenz she was on the podcast a couple episodes ago. One of her former I guess students or whatever is you know working out of my commercial kitchen in the basement she's killing it doing over a million in revenue. My cousin was also a graduate of that program. She sold the same business twice. She's kind of going through a barstool sports thing now where they paid her to take yeah, so it's kind of the same thing, but she sold the same business twice. Now she's on to another mobile taning business and it seems like you know that thing's producing really good people and business owners that know how to scale. But she said and actually I think it was Mavis might have brought it up, somebody brought it up to us but they said that female business owners only 3% of them get to over a million in revenue a year. And you mentioned something about someone feeling guilty because they were working on family stuff instead of the business. And I almost feel like and Jill brought this up too. She said men would feel, I guess, like they have permission to grow and scale and beat each other and, you know, make these huge businesses where women almost feel like guilty, like the community itself, kind of oh what's, where were your kids? Like, what's going with your kids? Like, I see you're out here hustling, you're grinding, you're doing your thing, but you know how your kids okay, are they getting good grades, are they? You know, nobody asked guys that like, hey, how are your kids. I don't know our wife takes care of that. I'm hustling, I'm trying to make us money. We're getting paid, like how does that? And I'm sure you have women, you know executives and stuff that come to you. But do you get that a lot? And I just want to get down to it, because I've had Jill on, I've had Mavis on who's successful, I've had my cousin on and it's good to, I think, get it out there to maybe say, hey, look, you do have permission to grow a big business, you can do this. What's your experience with that?

Speaker 4: 21:12

I would agree with you. I mean, again, not to stereotype or to say that all women this and all men that, but I do think that there is a lot more conversation with my female clients about the you know how do. How can I do it all? How can I grow the business? How can I, you know, put my heart and soul into the business? And then how can I still be a successful parent? And that's where, you know, the conversation that I typically begin with with all clients is how are we defining success and productivity for you? Because it is, it is up to us. If we are a business owner, if we are an entrepreneur, we get to make those rules in a sense, and we don't have to prescribe to. Well, at my old job, this was how we decided that somebody was, you know, able to be promoted or was successful, and so the conversations are definitely different with my female clients than with my male clients. In terms of, you know, success for a female client is often you know, I'm getting my work done, I'm taking care of myself and I'm spending quality time with my kids. I think with a lot of my male clients, there's more focus on, you know, yes, I'm available to. You know, I'm present with my family, and then I think there's also maybe a little bit more of an emphasis when they're defining success and productivity. And you know how are they managing and leading their leadership, leading the team. So you know, I think that it is there are still a lot of societal expectations that women face that are different from them. There's also you know how much Jill talked about this with you but there's also the idea that female led organizations and startups get such a small piece of the pie when it comes to investments and capital. So there's still a lot of progress to be made, but again it's. There's the external challenges and then there's the internal challenges we do as women. We spend a lot more time thinking about, you know, what should I be doing and what could I be doing better? And I do think that men are able to just have a little bit more of blinders on and to be focused on what am I doing right now and and how do I stay focused on this, and are a little less distracted by the, the other noise that goes on outside of that.

Speaker 2: 23:51

Well, also, you just being able to like sell the vision. I think you've got men that are like, oh, this is going to take over the world. We're going to scale it up. It's we're going to do a billion a year. It's going to be huge. And women are thinking in their heads wait a minute, I can't do all that because I got this thing to do. I got this. Family response was I got this. So they start more lifestyle businesses. Jill and I talked about that a little bit where they start more like lifestyle versus these growth crazy. Just, I'm going to take over the world and saying business ideas, you know yes, they're also really with what they can do.

Speaker 4: 24:26

You know, right, right. Another really interesting fact that I read recently is about the difference of men and women. Men will often put their name in the hat for a position that they're not fully qualified for, whereas women, if they see a job posting, or again if they think about what does it take to be a business owner, and if they don't feel like they checks every single box, they will not put themselves into consideration. And so I think men are willing to be more of the I'll build the plane while I'm flying it, whereas women are like oh no, no, is this plane fully ready to take off before I get in and, and you know, get behind the wheel. So I do think that that's another part that is different in the work that I do, and certainly in you know what Jill is seeing with startups, and it's just, it's a different risk taking. I think that's really what it boils down to.

Speaker 2: 25:24

Because we think we're just going to make it up in the interview, like we'll be. Yes, I can talk around that. Yeah, if it's a guy like we're just like oh, yeah, I'll make it up in the air, We'll talk sports and stuff when I get in there and I'll, you know, I'll throw this in there and that in there, and it'll be fine. Like well, yeah, I'll be as my way through it, like that's what we think in our head, I think, and I think that's actually been validated too. I remember reading something similar at one point and yeah, I think that was it. Like we just think we're pretty confident in our ability to like BS. Essentially, yeah, yeah, and women like I can't lie about myself Like I don't want to. Yeah.

Speaker 4: 26:00

Right, right. I think the other difference that I will see is I do find that women are they wait longer before they ask for help, so before they will bring in a coach Again, it kind of goes back to that I should be able to figure this out myself, whereas I find that my male clients, if they, you know, hey, I need support here, and you know, either I can't do it or it would be faster if I had someone help me with it I do find that men are more willing to make that decision and and pull in that support earlier in their business growth than women.

Speaker 2: 26:36

Well, what about? Do you feel? Like people hold back and they're like oh, I don't want to bring up the family responsibilities because that's not her job. You know, I'll deal with that. She just needs to. She just wants to talk about the business. Like, are they afraid? Like because if it's about productivity, it's everything in your life, it's not just about the business. Like we're not isolating just the business, right?

Speaker 4: 26:56

Right, Right, you know I I don't find that and I think it has to do with if there's anything people tell me I'm I'm really good at doing, it's listening, and so I don't know if it's the energy I put off or what it is, but so often clients at the, at the beginning of our relationship will say, man, this almost feels like a therapy session. They are able to kind of break down. You know, I can, I can lower the walls. I think with with individuals. And again it has to do with the how I position things up front, which is, if I'm going to help you become more productive and successful in your business, we have to talk about things outside of the business. There is no such thing as work life balance and you know, at five o'clock you leave the office and then you don't return to work until 9 am. None of us live that world anymore. And vice versa. When you're at work you're also thinking about the kids and managing household things. And so you know, I think it's the positioning of being a, being productive, being a successful business is it's 360. It's every part of you, your life, and so you know, I position that pretty early on and that, I think helps people, kind of, you know, get comfortable with talking about what's going on with their kids and with their family and how that impacts the, the goals that they have in their business.

Speaker 2: 28:25

Well, eventually Kyle's going to ask a question, but I'm not going to let him because I got so many questions. So I'm going to jump in as soon as you get that talking, as soon as I see your lipstop moving, I'm jumping in. But what I'm interested in, too is is, outside of just the one-on-one coaching that you do, you also do keynote speaking. You're talking to teams, you know. I've noticed we've interviewed several, you know, business coaches and honestly, I think this is a great thing to do if you're an expert and you're going to take this from a side hustle into a main hustle, because I actually had a customer who was a Navy SEAL, who did this, and he's doing gangbusters business now. Like it's crazy. When we first started I was just doing his logo. He was hoping he could get some people. Now it's just the word spreads like wildfire through these, through these business communities. So you're doing these, these coaching sessions for entire teams, for companies, and then you probably have individual people who are like hey, I've got. You know, I'd love to do one-on-one sessions. So out of those big training sessions, you probably end up with a few, you know, individual sessions as well, right.

Speaker 4: 29:34

Absolutely, absolutely. I mean when. So, when I started my business, it was a side hustle and I didn't have a budget for marketing and so speaking was my go to. So I would go speak to any group that would have me, whether it was a local, you know civic group, whether it was a moms group, whether it was a lunch and learn, you know, for a small or medium sized business. And that was that was my marketing. It helped people to understand what I did very quickly and to also get to know me, my you know what my personality, what my energy is like. Because, again, when you start working with a coach, you have to, you have to, there has to be some synergy there, right, yeah, and so that the speaking and the training, a it helps. I mean, it's a one to many format, right, I get to share some of my knowledge and my expertise and I get to share it with multiple people at once so it gets my message out in a faster way. But, yes, then it's. You know there are certain things that might be a part of my speaking or training that really resonate with an audience member. And then, ideally, you know like I'll often speak to, let's say, a chamber. You know I'm involved with the Northern Kentucky Chamber and if I speak at one of their, you know connect hours or happy hours there are, you know, let's say, there's 40 different professionals from 40 different companies in the room. Somebody there, you know, or multiple people there, are going to think to themselves. You know this would be a great topic for my team, or this is we were just talking at the water cooler about how inefficient we feel like our meetings are or how inefficient our email, you know communication is. So, yes, that's often the catalyst for someone reaching out and saying, hey, I don't necessarily need six months of coaching from you, but my team or my organization, we would love to have you come in and teach us some best practices or help us develop some specific customized processes for our team based on you know what we do and how we do it.

Speaker 2: 31:42

I've always been interested in this stuff. Like, how do you stand up and remember all of this? Like, like, is there a lot of interaction in your things? Like, do you stand up there, like what's? How are your sessions if you were to go into a company and you were to do one of these? What is this format? Like, how does that?

Speaker 3: 31:59

how does?

Speaker 2: 32:00

that format work for you. Well, so what?

Speaker 4: 32:01

I call my keynote is I teach my. It's a kind of a signature method that I created. It's called the Ascend method. So there's six fundamentals that I'm teaching people that impacts their personal productivity and has kind of a domino effect within, again, their team or their organization. So I mean, that is, that is my intellectual property. I've been developing that for the last 15 years since I started my business. So I can talk about that with my eyes closed and nothing, you know, to prompt me. So if I'm doing something, that's really it, it it's almost always stemming off of kind of those fundamentals that are part of my Ascend method. But yes, if I am really customizing something to a specific organization, then I am doing a lot of work to make sure that. Hey, I'm talking to a group of lawyers and so billable time. I'm talking to a group of lawyers. Time is an extremely important element here. So I'm going to have to talk to them about time management in a different way than I might. A group of you know engineers. So you know, in terms of there there is prep, right, that's what PowerPoint slides are for. They're for me as much as they are for the audience, and it's practice, you know I, I mean, I used to. I tell people all the time. I used to be terrified of public speaking and you know so it is. You get up and you just, if you make a mistake, you make a mistake, right, I'm human and, yes, I. The more the audience can interact, the more I can ask questions and get information, and the more they can ask questions and I can give information, then the more it's. I think of it more as like a conversation than necessarily I'm up here giving a lecture and you know there's 90 bullet points that have to make sure I hit. The more I can treat it like a conversation and more of a, you know, a round table type situation. Then there's again I'm flexible, I can pivot right. Well, I was going to talk about something next, but this question I'm going to go in a different direction. So it's learning to kind of let the conversation and the topics flow, then having to stick to a precise plan.

Speaker 2: 34:17

And then bringing them back like at some point, like it just goes so far.

Speaker 3: 34:20

I was in one of those today where it's like no, I got to bring them back.

Speaker 2: 34:23

I got to get. I got to get something out of this meeting, but you're going to learn as you're going to learn as much from them than every single time you're building and you're building. And I think what people don't understand is they get this imposter syndrome and they don't think that they can be a coach. And I mean you look into your background. I mean you know it's unbelievable In 15 years coaching. I mean you've been doing this for a while the ascend methods awesome. I was looking through each one of those. I was like, which one of these do I need help with most? And I'm going through it and I'm like, oh no, it's every single one of them that I need help with, it's not just one of them. Like, I guess distractions might be the, the or communicating boundaries also might be a problem, because I, you know, my wife always tells you you got to do better with your boundaries. You can't just, you know, have a coffee meeting with everybody every day. You know you've got to. You got to get work done at some point. But yeah, I mean you're going through that whole ascent thing and it's like every single one of them is important and it's great that you're able to break that down into. You know one word, you know, that describes each one of these things and it's good to have IP. So if anybody's out there and you're trying to do a side us on, your thinking, hey, I might want to be a business coach. It sounds like a really cool thing. It takes time to build that up. It takes time to get over the imposter syndrome. It takes time to build up your client base. It takes time to get over the fear of public speaking. Maybe join a local toastmasters or something like that, so you can, I think, from a To touch, from for the, or even, like I'm in the CBC, the coming to business council, and everybody goes around the room and you say what you do and you learn that little 30 second elevator pitch by doing that. Enough right, and, like you said, you could be blindfolded and do one of these things at this point.

Speaker 4: 36:00

Yes, and I'll also say that I am a coach who I wouldn't have I wouldn't be where I am, I wouldn't have my methodology, my intellectual property defined if I hadn't worked with coaches. So I've worked with marketing coaches, I've worked with speaking coaches, I've worked with business coaches. So you know, I'm of the belief that every one of us needs a coach and a therapist, just like we need doctors and dentists, right? But again it's, I've had to lean into other experts to get to where I am. And I often say you know, make sure that if you're hiring a coach, make sure they have a coach, because that means I'm walking the talk right. I believe in coaching to the point that I need it for my business, just like my clients need it for their business.

Speaker 3: 36:48

What's hilarious is that many of these guys that started business, they'll spend thousands of dollars on golf coaches. They'll spend thousands of hours watching how to you know slice it and then hook it and whatever draw it instead of hook it and all this other stuff, but when it comes to like things that will actually be beneficial to their business, there's there's this, just like feeling of inferiority if you have to get help.

Speaker 4: 37:16

That's true. Yeah, absolutely. That's often, yeah, one of like, if you asked me what are some of the objections that I that I see it goes back to that idea of why I should be able to do this myself. Or I think, if I could read, I'll just read some books, right? How many books have you read? And maybe you took like a tiny little bit of action from it. But has any book actually, you know, transformed your life or your business? No, you need a person, you need a partner, you need someone that's holding you accountable, that's showing you the way. And so, you know, I think we do have to get past the idea of I should be able to do it myself. We have to get past the idea of I should be the smartest person in the room, right, and then, and then, yeah, what's? It's an investment not just in yourself, but it's an investment in the longevity of your business and it's an investment in your team, and that's, you know, it's not really measurable once you see it that way. It's invaluable once you see it that way.

Speaker 2: 38:18

When everybody needs an accountability partner. I think it's kind of what you're saying too. It's not just about this coach who knows more than you. It's about you told me you were going to do this and then you didn't do it, you know, oh, maybe throw some guilt in there, like my other clients did it. I don't know what's wrong with you, buddy. But you know I'm Catholic, so it works on me. So, yeah, but throw a little guilt in there. And then, but no, but I mean you need an accountability partner. And, and you know, I didn't really think about this until maybe just now, but every time I come up with a new startup idea or a new idea, I'll like tell it to everybody, and then everyone you know, instead of keeping it close to vests, and everybody's like don't tell people your ideas until it's the thing and somebody's going to take your idea and all. There's nobody's going to take your idea, like this deal, right. They like people got a million ideas of their own that they want to work on. They don't go steal your idea and then they don't do anything with them either. So don't worry. But I tell people and I'm like hey, you know, every once in a while somebody comes by hey, Adam, what about that idea? I thought that thing. And they're like yeah, I know. I need to do it, you know, and it's kind of like you've got all these external accountability partners, in a way, that are that are breathing it down your neck about this thing, you know.

Speaker 4: 39:25

I mean there's, there is research that that specifically says when you have a goal or an idea and you think it, you know you might be I don't know 20, I'm not going to be the right percentages, but you have to be 20% likely to move on it when you simply writing it down, even with no other eyeballs on it than your own. Once you write it down, you become more accountable to actually taking action. And then the most the guaranteed way to get your idea to move forward or to get you yourself moving towards a goal, is sharing it with another person. And that actually goes back to you know, we, thousands of years ago right, we are tribe people. Right, we used to survive and thrive because we were part of a tribe, and the reason is we're more motivated by the idea of pleasing or supporting others than we are ourselves. And so that's why, if you say to a buddy, hey, I've got a great idea for a podcast, you now feel a sense of not necessarily obligation, but you want to. You want to prove to your friend that that was important to you. And if he thought it was a great idea, you want to actually bring this idea to life because it might help him. And so when we rely on ourselves, we're really we are our own worst accountability partner, and so if we look at kind of the neuroscience behind it and the history of how humans thrive, we absolutely need to tap into other people.

Speaker 2: 40:57

Well, you know, Kyle came in today and was like Adam, when are you going to get done with that, that project? I could have used that today and I'm like, oh, you're right. Yeah, Well, the cool thing is is like the limiting beliefs thing on your website too. I went to the you know your subscribe page and the the list here of things that people think I don't know how to create structures and systems. I am a disorganized person. I am terrible at time management, I'm too ADD, I'm not a good leader, I am not a great communicator, I can never focus, I'm terrible with details, Like all those things, like I've thought all those things before. You know, and I think it goes through everybody's head and when you feel like you don't have all the things right, like you mentioned all the tools, the right tools, the right systems, the right resources, that leads to procrastination.

Speaker 4: 41:50

Yes, absolutely, absolutely. And you know, just because you think you've always been a disorganized person, that doesn't actually mean that you are, that you have to be, so that you know when you said what's one of the biggest you know challenges, it's getting people to stop thinking what they've been thinking and create some new beliefs and some new thoughts. But that actually takes time and work because you're literally creating new neural connections in your brain. If you want to get nerdy and scientific on it.

Speaker 2: 42:21

It does, it does, yeah, yeah, well, and then also I mean you've I was just reading the other day. I'm fascinated with, like human beings and how we operate and like why we do the things we do, similar to what you said about how we're tribal people, but also some people that are smart, some people have high IQs and they are terrible communicators. They're terrible listeners. A lot of times you really have to train yourself, like you did, to be able to actually listen to people, because I'm worried about what I've got to say next. I've got all this information in my head and, instead of having a conversation, you end up creating a lecture for these people and they're looking for the exit. They're like, oh my God, this person. I gotta get out of the damn conversation because this person is doing another lecture in me this whole time.

Speaker 4: 43:09

Right. Yeah, there's some interesting in fact there's whole books upon it that the way most of our businesses, in America at least, are built is that to promote, you eventually have to become a manager. But how many people get promoted to management simply because that's the next level of promotion? But they don't have people management skills and so again it's. You know, we don't just automatically become good at managing because that's the next role in the climbing the ladder. Those are soft skills that if you don't have them, naturally, yes, you can develop them, but they don't just come with a title Right, which often gets assumed in larger organizations.

Speaker 2: 43:57

Well, have you heard of this? I can't remember what the book is, but Peter Turchin, and he speaks about the overproduction of elites in America. No, oh. Yeah, where he said there's too many college educated people going after the same positions and not enough of those positions, yeah, and when those people can't find jobs they become kind of disruptive to society. Okay, it's really interesting. Like yeah, you should definitely check it out because it could also play into some of the stuff that leads people into possibly becoming entrepreneurs. So they could be negative in society because they feel slighted. They feel like, well, I went into that underwater basket weaving class and I thought I was going to get a degree doing, I thought I was going to job, you know, working in Mexico doing underwater basket weaving, but there was only five of those jobs available, right? So they don't. And now there's a class to learn about. What's her name? The singer lady who's got everybody. What's her name?

Speaker 3: 45:00

There's like a million, no, the one that just came here that everybody was.

Speaker 2: 45:03

Taylor Swift, taylor Swift. There's a class in Taylor Swift. What college worth its salt? Like who spends $300 a credit hour to go learn about Taylor Swift? Like just go be a plumber, go be an electrician or something Like what are you doing out here? Colleges should be ashamed of themselves. But anyway, long story short, like I mean, you've got too many people going off these positions and it may not be they become disruptive in a bad way, like they become these, like annoying political people and just complaining all the time because you know college was too expensive and this, and that they could become disruptive in an entrepreneurial way, where it's like I can't find a job in this thing, so now I'm going to go out and create something.

Speaker 4: 45:44

Yes, yeah, I would, I would. I'm a glass half full person, so I would like to follow that chain of thoughts.

Speaker 2: 45:51

That's what I would hope, that's what I would have, right, yeah?

Speaker 4: 45:53

Right. Often it is Okay Apparently I don't fit into the system that already exists, so how can I come over here and start something new and kind of disrupt, disrupt the system or disrupt the industry, and that as, as you said, that that can can be a positive. But I agree. I mean I think you know there is, our society definitely still puts too much value on you know, did you get your degree and do you wear a suit to work? And you know, I think at some point we're going to hit a tipping point where I mean there are trades individuals that will make more money than you know, most CEOs. So there's opportunity everywhere. It's just learning that it's okay to follow your own path versus having to follow the traditional path that we tell people is how you become successful and make money.

Speaker 2: 46:47

Yeah, I mean, and it could lead in his thing. I'm reading it here why do so many elites feel like losers? So if you don't get into that you know you went to school for whatever you're not one of the five out of the hundred people selected for the job you really want it could lead to you feeling like less than capable and you're not. You just you didn't know the macro effects. Maybe there was a hundred of those jobs when you first started college and now there you only need 10 of them because maybe AI disrupted that. Right, there was something you didn't see come in. That changes everything.

Speaker 3: 47:21

Yeah, and you just never know in the world.

Speaker 2: 47:24

So I mean you've got to be able to adapt, you've got to be able to know what's coming. You've got to. You need a coach who maybe keeps her ear to the ground when things are out here and understands what's going on, and an accountability coach, somebody to hold you accountable to what you say you're going to do, because if you don't get things done fast enough, somebody else will. There's always. What is it like? Every time somebody has a good idea, there's two other people in the world with the same exact idea at the same time.

Speaker 4: 47:50

Right, right, you got to act on it. Yeah and just yeah, think about it.

Speaker 2: 47:54

Yeah, you can be number three or you can be one or two, you know it's, it's just what it is. I mean, you could be Facebook and be number two and still be fine, you know friends, friends it was number one for a while there. That's right Anyway. Well, elizabeth, this has been great. Tell people how they can reach out to you. You know, throw the website out there, any other contact information. Any way for them to follow you on social would be great.

Speaker 4: 48:15

Okay, fantastic. So, as you said, website peak productivity coachingcom. I do work with people in the greater Cincinnati area, but I also work with people all over the country. I've worked with people across the pond, so geography is not a limitation. Linkedin is where I do the majority of my social media activity, and that's. I spell Elizabeth with an S, not a Z, so that's the trick to finding me, and then I'm going to shamelessly put in a plug for a book that I just co-authored. I was part of a collaboration and wrote a book called Culture Impact, and there are 11 of us authors who talked about workplace culture from our different lenses. So my lens, of course, is about creating a culture not just of productivity but of contribution and how to motivate your workforce by creating those opportunities to see themselves as contributors. So that book, culture Impact you can find it on Amazon, and it's another good, another good way to get a taste of my message, along with several other experts in the culture and HR world.

Speaker 2: 49:31

Don't just show up to work every day, actually contribute, you got it yeah, and there's. You heard about these lazy girl jobs, did you hear about these? Yes, that's the new trend about the lazy girl jobs. And then you've got jobs like worthless jobs, like what was the one guy you came up with? He said be at bullshit, like bullshit jobs, that there's a bunch of jobs that companies just have. There's like middle of the middle manager. It's like there's you know three levels of management when there only really needs to be one guy doing it you know, right, right, it's crazy.

Speaker 4: 50:01

There's, there's a job for everyone. Yeah, this is gotta find it.

Speaker 2: 50:04

I find it interesting, but I'm not a coach so I don't know. But these are things that I'm sure you're on top of and you know you could see these things coming a mile away probably. So, yes, well, elizabeth, this has been great. Colin, I are happy you got on here and this has been helpful for me, and I'm going to check out your site and hopefully everybody else gets out there checks it out too, and we'll put everything in the description for the show. So, guys, definitely check out Elizabeth. Elizabeth with an S Galperin, gal P E R I N and Elizabeth. Thank you very much and enjoy the rest of your Wednesday, and we will too.

Speaker 4: 50:38

Awesome. Thanks for the opportunity, guys.

Speaker 2: 50:40

Thanks, great day. Thanks for joining us on this week's episode of Side Hustle City. Well, you've heard from our guests. Now let's hear from you. Join our community on Facebook, side Hustle City. It's a group where people share ideas, share their inspirational stories and motivate each other to be successful and turn their side hustle into their main hustle. We'll see you there and we'll see you next week on the show. Thank you.