Going Long Podcast_SOLO Episode 443_Billy Keels

Thu, Aug 01, 2024 3:43PM • 13:20

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

moving, realize, destination, pace, faster, started, decision, investment, traveling, point, goal, context, optional, wanted, year, understood, work, fork, needed, happening

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00:00

Today's conversation is sponsored by the Billy keels advisory program. If you want to learn more about how to make your nine to five optional, just go to Billy keels.com, forward slash advising once again, that's Billy keels.com, forward slash advising.

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00:13

The truth about traveling alone to your destination. This is one of those questions that I started to ask myself along the way, as I was moving from successful corporate executive, to someone who found this passion, and wanted it to continue to grow. But the thing is, is that if you don't actually have an answer to the question, you start to realize, okay, well, the truth about traveling alone to your destination, it can be one of those things, that unless you make the right decision for you, can be a very daunting task. So if I think about where I was, because ultimately want to be able to help you to recognize what are the steps to take, if you're getting clear on your destination, you're starting to have some early successes. But you're feeling like you're not moving as quickly as you want? Well, there's a couple of decisions that you're going to need to make. Because if you really do want to know the truth about traveling alone to your destination, whether that's the thing for you to do or not, I know that this episode is going to be very helpful for you.

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01:18

So if I think back to where I was in corporate, so, at this point, you know, I've been in corporate over 20 years, successful IT software executive.

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01:30

And at the same time, and I know that I've talked about this before, there was the emotionally charged event that happened when my son's third birthday party when I missed that birthday party, right. And so it got me moving it put me into action. And I started realizing like I had an idea, I knew that there was something that I wanted to be able to do. And once I had that idea, I was able to move forward. I mean, I go more, much more into detail about that in episode 442. So if you want to check that out, like once you have an idea, like now what what do you what are you supposed to do? Well, I've already gotten to that point. And so this is, you know, this is towards 2017 2018, something like that. Maybe not that like mid let's call it mid 2015.

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02:16

Businesses running successfully, it's doing over $100,000 a year. And this is the side business, right? This isn't my day job. Because the day job was, you know, multiple six figure salary and stuff like that. But the side hustle is now going over $100,000 a year, at the office of crushing it at work, things are going really, really well. I've just done 300% of my sales quota, done over $25 million in a particular deal. So things are moving really in the right direction. If you look at it from the outside, I was getting to a point. Like I started feeling liking, I started feeling like I was enjoying going to work, but I wasn't really free yet. Right? I was going to work and I was enjoying it. But because things were happening really, really well outside of the office. And in the office. I was writing CLOUD NINE had just gone into the catalyst program, which is like top talent. And all that sage stated.

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03:07

Thing is I started to see the light at the end of the tunnel. And I was like, Okay, well, if this business is a side businesses doing over $100,000 a year, like, what if I were able to make this scale? Like how do I make this scale so that it becomes something that can actually completely replace what I needed to do, because I still haven't gotten into the mindset of like, I was already free, but I just didn't realize it, I was still chasing the wrong kind of chasing the wrong thing. But I wanted to be able to figure out how to make this thing scale. But the reality is, is I kept moving, but I didn't know what I didn't know. So I was feeling a little bit stuck. And I thought to myself, well, you know, at this point, I've got a pretty important choice to make. I can either keep moving slowly, because I set up this goal. And I said I wanted to be able to do this. And I wanted to be able to build a portfolio a real estate portfolio. And I wanted to be able to do that in five years. Now it didn't take five years, it took a lot less than that and only took 33% of the time or less than 32% of the time

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04:05

to get there. But the idea was I was moving slowly and surely. But I started to say to myself, again, the choice, here's the fork in the road, like do I keep moving at this slower pace and steady pace? Or can I pick up the pace and because by picking up the pace, getting stacking more of the assets, which is one of the things I talked about before is

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04:28

stacking more assets would allow me to be able to make my nine to five optional sooner. And so I had a choice to make,

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04:36

pick up the pace, or keep moving at the slow and short pace. And so I realized to myself, like okay, well one of the things that you need to be able to do in order to make a more informed decision is to sit down create a plan so i That was the thing and so after realizing there's a fork in the road, I had some key questions that I need to answer for myself and I want to share these with you because when you can do something similar, it's going to help you get

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05:00

To the decision, that's the right one for you, because you need to decide, because there is a real truth about traveling alone to your destination. And if it's the right thing for you, right, because that's the fork in the road. That is, do I keep moving slowly? And surely? Or do I start to pick up the pace. And because I didn't know what I didn't know, I knew that if I started moving faster by myself, there was a much higher probability of a train wreck happening. So I didn't want to continue to, quote unquote, waste time. And one of the things that I also recognized was, I needed to look for if I wanted to get help with someone that was a higher touch, because at this point, I was already started to become parts of communities. And I would you know, you're you're writing a question in a Facebook group, or one of these different portals and you're asking a question, and sometimes you wait two days, three days, four days for a response. And as you're waiting for a response, you've got all of this, like, I need a response, I need an answer. Now, because I want to make a decision, I want to make an informed decision. And when you have to wait over and over and over, or you're asking someone that has the same level of knowledge as you do, or experience as you do, it starts to get really frustrating because you can't move any faster. And so there's definitely a place for communities, there's a definitely a place for learning and being able to learn in a group and the a lot of people are doing cohorts and things like that definitely has its place.

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06:20

But I got to a point where I needed to stop doing the community stuff, like I needed response times faster, I needed someone that I didn't have to repeat my story every single time, I wanted more of a one on one kind of interaction, because that one on one interaction was going to give me the information that I needed very quickly, I wasn't going to have to repeat myself each and every time. And the context was understood to help me make the most informed decision possible. And I got my specific questions answered every time all the time. And so as I went through that process, I also said, Well, you know, one of the other things is, do I have the actual money to pay for it. And so this is one of the things when you come from a working class family, you always realize, or I started thinking or you You're, you're taught, keep the money in the bank, you want to keep the money in the bank. And this is even as I started becoming part of community, some of my thoughts were being challenged, and I started to move forward. And I realized that I had a surplus excess capital that was sitting in the bank that I didn't know what to do with. And so once I realized that biggest thing, the best investment that I could possibly make was in myself, because I knew that I was willing to do the work. As long as I found the right person, the right vehicles, they were going to help me move forward faster. So after I got out of my own head and realize, okay, well, I'm gonna be able to invest in myself. And keep in mind, like, I was looking at investing almost six figures, like almost $100,000, in myself. And I thought, I can't do that. And I don't know, I've talked about this before. But the reality is, is I thought, wow, you know,

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07:56

this is the time like, if I'm, if there is a time, this is the, this is now the moment for me to invest in myself to make the bet on me. Why? Because I knew that there was no better return on investment than investing in myself. Because I knew that I was going to do the work, I just needed response times faster, I needed someone to understand what I was going through, and understood why I was doing the things that I was doing, it helped me to make the most informed decisions possible. So once I got out of my head, I decided, hey, I need to move forward, I want to move forward. Because I want to be able to accelerate this business, scale it and be able to make my nine to five truly optional. And so I made the investment, the idea was to be able to get to a particular goal and do that within 12 months. The reality is I didn't get to the goal in 12 months, I didn't get there. So I made this huge investment in myself, we had some very specifically defined outcomes, and I didn't achieve them. Now my coach was there and was there to push him to help. But I wasn't managing a day job. I was a young father, you know, dedicated husband at the time and all of these things, but I just didn't get that particular goal. I didn't accomplish it in a year, it actually took twice the amount of time that we thought it was going to take to actually get to the goal. And so although I didn't get to the goal, there were some really important things that I did realize, because ultimately, I was able to figure out how to start to scale my business. Number one, I also realized that there was a path to be able to make my nine to five optional and so I was able to get to that goal a couple years later.

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09:28

I really understood that I could think for myself and had a process to follow because I was working with someone who understood my context and gave me very specific things for me my context, goals, frameworks to be able to use moving forward, I clear processes to follow. And I was betting on myself and I realized that betting on myself there was no better return.

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09:53

And so at the end of the day,

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09:57

this making the decision to not continue

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10:00

I need to travel on this destination by myself to go and work with someone one on one to be able to get my specific questions answered was a massive personal growth and professional growth exercise for me. And so when you start to consider it, which goes back to what we talked about in the very beginning, like the truth about going traveling alone to your destination, as it may be for you, especially if you want to continue to go slow and steady. If that's the thing that you want to do, then that's fine. But at a certain point, when you want to start to pick up the pace, and you want to do it in a way that you're going to get your specific answers that are contoured for you in your context, that's when it starts, that's when it becomes the moment to look at how you can have a much higher touch, much more contoured, much more focused, travelling companion, if you will. And so if you feel like you're a bit stuck, and you feel like you don't know, or you hadn't had any kind of access to information like this, hopefully this story is helping you to understand when is the right time, if you want to continue to go it alone, slow and steady, or when it's time to pick up the pace, when it's time to pick up the pace, find someone who's been there, before you that's doing the types of things and whether that's around designing the type of life that you want to do, if that's how you get out and you're traveling around the world more, or if you want to move up the corporate ladder more, because that's the thing that you want to be able to do. But you want to do it faster, and make be able to make better decisions within your company. Or if you even do like I did, like you liked the corporate role. And at the same time, you wanted to be able to create your own life outside of that, whatever the case may be.

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11:34

When it's time to start to pick up the pace and get to your destination faster.

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11:39

Find the person or people that have been already walked the path that you're looking to connect with them. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself. Because at the end of the day, the bet that you're making is on you, and your ability to move forward. So

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11:57

I just wanted to share that with you because it's one of those things, I get the question sometimes, hey, look, what's the best way to do this. And the best way to get to your destination or travel to your destination is understand your context. Do you want to take more time? Or do you want to get there faster? And then do you have access to the people and the capital to make the investment in yourself. So hopefully, it's been helpful. If you know somebody who's in this context, or you this has been useful for you definitely rewind, share it with others, I always open to having a conversation. But most importantly, hopefully getting this insight and the truth about traveling alone to your destination. This has been really helpful. And I look forward to sharing more with you in the next episode. So until then go out and make it a great day. Thank you very much.

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12:53

Today's conversation was sponsored by the Billy keels advisory program. If you're looking to make your nine to five optional and need some help, just go to Billy keels.com forward slash advising once again, that's Billy keels.com forward slash advising

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