This episode delves into the personal story of the speaker's father, who worked tirelessly to build a successful business. Despite his hard work, the family's personal relationships suffered.
The speaker draws parallels to contemporary entrepreneurs who, in pursuit of success, fall into the same traps. He proposes a different approach to building businesses that support one's life rather than consume it, emphasizing peace, structure, and effective systems over relentless hard work.
The episode introduces a free five-day challenge called Growth Circle designed to help entrepreneurs break these patterns and design a more balanced and fulfilling business model.
In 2014 after reading Tim Ferris’s book “The Four Hour Work Week” he set a 100 day goal to be self sufficient and to leave his home country and start traveling the world. He since lives in Bangkok running a 6 figure marketing consultancy working with clients in Singapore, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and the United States and other areas in the world.
Show Notes:
Everyone talks about the sacrifice it takes to build a successful business, but I watched my dad work 12 hour days for a decade, and nobody talks about what that sacrifice actually costs. The people who make it.
I don't remember the story. I was too young, but my parents told me about it enough times that it feels like I do. My dad had a storefront business in Johannesburg in South Africa, selling suits to business people in the city.
One night, a couple of guys walked in with guns and they held up the place, but they didn't just want money. Apparently one of them picked me up and I was like, maybe a year they held me, and it was almost like a hostage situation.
I don't know all the details. My parents didn't explain it in full, but I know how it ended. My dad sold that business. he wasn't willing to sacrifice his family for money. Not in that moment anyway. But what he built next ended up holding us hostage. Anyway,
after he sold the storefront, my dad went into insurance
and I mean, he went into [00:01:00] insurance, he'd leave before I woke up. He'd come back at midnight, sometimes 2:00 AM.
You know, during the rounds selling policies, going out with clients, we didn't have a relationship. I didn't see him much, therefore. When this Mega Rich client offered him a position running a Nissan dealership in Botswana, which was far from where we were brought up, he took it. But here's what that meant.
we sold the house, sold the cars. My mom closed the restaurant, which was doing really well. We packed up everything and moved to this very dry, very small, semi-rural town in the middle of nowhere. I then went to school, then university, nine years of living away from them. They lived 900 kilometers away and I barely saw them. My dad saved enough money working at the dealership to buy his own business, or I'm not sure how he managed to get that. It was a supermarket, like a seven 11 type of a thing, and this is the part that shaped everything I do now. That business opened at 9:00 AM closed at 9:00 PM seven days a week, and for 10 years my dad was there [00:02:00] with the keys every single morning and he locked up every single night.
No real days off, no real vacations, no delegation, and therefore the business survived. They made money. But here's what I learned watching that. I saw what hard work really is. You know, not the Instagram version, not what you see online, not the hustle porn version where someone posts about their 5:00 AM routine and then spends the rest of the day creating content about hard, working hard.
I'm talking about real work, lived in Botswana. For part of that time, and I saw poverty that most people will never see. Kids walking into the store with bones visible, a cloth covering their private parts, begging. Grandmothers in their nineties, still trying to walk around and buy milk because there was no other op, no other option. That's real work. That's real survival. And my dad did that every single day for a decade, and so I have massive respect for what he built. But here's the question I couldn't stop asking.
What was the cost? A friend of mine said something recently that I can't stop thinking about. [00:03:00] He said Your dad wasn't willing to sacrifice his family for money when those guys walked in with the guns. But the years that followed, the 24 7 grind, held the family hostage anyway, and I realized both things are true. He wouldn't let me be taken that night, but I didn't see him for years because of the business he built after he made money, he survived. He provided. But at what cost? And here's what I've noticed.
Working with over 200 coaches and consultants over the last 11 years, most of them are repeating the exact same pattern. They left corporate jobs because they wanted freedom and they built their own businesses, but now they're working more hours than they ever did with a boss. They're making six figures, sometimes multiple six figures.
But they can't take a vacation. They can't sleep. They can't step away. The business stops if they stop. Therefore, they just keep grinding and they tell themselves the same thing. My dad probably told himself, this is just what it takes. This is what success looks like. [00:04:00] I'm providing that's what matters.
But I watched that story play out. I know where it leads. So here's how I learned to build businesses differently. Not because I'm smarter than my dad, not because I work harder, but because I decided I wouldn't repeat the pattern first. I learned that a business should support your life, not consume it.
Now, that sounds obvious, but when you're in the grind, it's not, and when I was freelancing, I was the same way. Anytime I got paid well, I made sure I was productive, busy all the time. If there wasn't work, I'd find work, I'd create value just to justify the money. Therefore I was always working, always stressed, always on, But I realized something, I was measuring success by how busy I was, not by the life I was actually living. So I started asking a different question, not how much can I make, but what kind of a life do I actually want and how do I build a business that supports that? Second, I learned that leverage isn't about working more, it's about building [00:05:00] systems that work without you.
See, I lost access to my Facebook ad account a couple months ago. I still can't log in. And you know what happened? My team ran the entire CAM campaign without me, like all the campaigns, and I realized I wasn't the solution. I was the bottleneck, right? The business need didn't need me to be there 24 7.
It needed better systems.
Third, I learned that piece is a choice. My dad didn't choose peace. He chose survival and I respect that,
but I don't have to make the same choice. I can choose calm over chaos, structure over stress, alignment over intensity, and that doesn't make me less committed. It makes me more effective. So here's what nobody talks about when they're celebrate the grind, right? The cost isn't always visible. My dad provided, he worked hard, he survived, but didn't have a relationship with him for years.
And I'm not saying that to shame him or say anything bad, I'm saying it because it's real. See, when you're working 12 hour days, seven days a week for [00:06:00] 10 years, something has to give. And usually it's the things that that matters the most. Your health, your relationships, your presence. the version of the version of you that isn't working.
Therefore, when I work with entrepreneurs now, I don't just help them scale their business. I help them redesign how they're building. Because if you're working 60 hour weeks and feel trapped, adding more tactics is not gonna fix it. You don't need a better funnel. you need a better foundation.
You don't need to work harder. You need to build differently. So here's what I want you to take from this. Your business should support your life, not consume it. And if it's consuming you right now, that's not a badge of honor. It's a design flaw. I watched my dad work harder than anyone I've ever met, and I'm grateful for that. It shaped me, but I refuse to build that way.
I choose peace. I choose structure. I choose alignment. after working with over 220 entrepreneurs over the last 11 years, I've identified five patterns that keep six figure [00:07:00] business owners trapped in the same cycle my dad was in. And here's what I learned. It's not a tactics problem. It's not your funnel, it's not your pricing.
It's not your marketing. It's deeper than that. See, the five traps are scarcity. Right. Even when you're making six figures, you're still saying yes to clients. You shouldn't take because you're afraid the money will dry up. Validation, you're still building a business around what other people think success should look like, not what you actually want.
Boundaries, You can't say no. You can't protect your time. Everyone has access to you all the time. Operating versus leading. So you're doing everything yourself instead of building systems and delegating. And then the last one is time for money. Your income stops when you stop working. You're trading hours for dollars at a higher rate, but you're still trapped in the same model.
no matter how much you scale, you just end up working more So here's what I built to help you with this. It's called Growth Circle. It's a [00:08:00] free five day challenge inside my school community. Each day we break down one of these five traps. What it is, how to recognize it in your business, and one action you can take to start breaking the pattern. this isn't beginner content. Your past tactics, you need depth, and by the end of the five days, you'll know exactly which trap is keeping you stuck and what to do about it.
It's completely free. There's a link in the description, so if you're earning a hundred thousand, 150, 200 k plus and you feel trapped. This is most likely for you because here's what I learned, watching my dad working harder, doesn't fix it. Building different systems does. So I'll see you on the inside.
