Grow Without Hiring

[00:00:00] Ken: What if I told you you're planning your life around a number that was invented in 1889? Today we're living longer than ever, yet we're still saving piles of money for golden years that may actually never arrive. And as I've shared in other conversations, we've also inherited a life model built for factory workers in a world.
[00:00:24] Ken: That no longer exists, and let's be honest, if you're an entrepreneur, are you really going to be happy sitting on a porch watching paint dry for 30 years? I know I'm not,
[00:00:36] Ken: this is something that I've wrestled with for years, but my good friend Derek Coburn, takes it a step further in a book that he has called Let's Retire Retirement.
[00:00:45] Ken: recently. I had Derek join me for a private fireside chat within my growth collective of founders, consultant coaches and solo. And he detailed why he had the right to talk about this concept as a financial [00:01:00] planner who's telling people that they should kill the retirement script.
[00:01:04] Ken: And the insights that he shared with me and my people, let's just say that they had a new vision for their future right afterwards. And I understand that you didn't get to be there live. So I wanna give you a little bit of an inside look of some sharp shifts that will challenge how you think about retirement, how you think about life and the way that you're building your business.
[00:01:25] Ken: And it does start with this number. The retirement age was never about you. It was a number made up in 1889, this age of 65. And the reason for it, you're not gonna be happy when you hear this, was that social policy experts knew that someone would kick the bucket around that age. Think about back then again, it was a lot more manual laborers.
[00:01:50] Ken: People didn't live as long the medical. System, the health system was not as good as it is today. And when I learned that, it really stuck with me and it frankly made my blood boil a [00:02:00] little bit. So much so that I actually told this story to my barber recently and he said, that's messed up.
[00:02:06] Ken: Except he's a pretty hard dude and he didn't say the word messed. You get the picture.
[00:02:11] Ken: The entire idea of retire at 65 was never about freedom for you. And I want to challenge as part of this conversation to say that retirement is not an end game for entrepreneurs. It was a government workaround to avoid paying benefits. And now we all the way, fast forward to the time of this recording.
[00:02:33] Ken: Have been building this life model built for factory workers, built for manual laborers, which we appreciate, but we are not that the people listening to this conversation in this world that no longer exists, so we should know better and we should plan better.
[00:02:48] Ken: When I talked about killing the nine to five workday in episode two, it was a very similar concept. A lot of what's wrapped up in society today also pushes down into entrepreneurs, and they are [00:03:00] from relatively modern ideas that also got cemented during different times.
[00:03:05] Ken: The Industrial Revolution population shifts to urban centers and having a super highly concentrated workforce. You know how this plays out today, because I even heard a conversation last week when we did this. Where someone said, yeah, people questioned me today as an entrepreneur. Instead, they say, take a nine to five quote unquote, secure job.
[00:03:26] Ken: Or, how about this one? When are you hiring people? When are you getting employees? Remember, we also covered this, that hiring is not a badge of honor in another conversation. And while this was something that got pushed back on a little bit before, we still hear things like. This city is the only place where real innovation happens.
[00:03:45] Ken: Fill in the blank. I'm not gonna give you the fodder here, but you know what I'm talking about. We know the truth though. When it comes to these norms, bigger doesn't mean better. RIF means no. JOB and remote is here [00:04:00] to stay. Economic growth today is driven by us. We're knowledge workers and we live and work anywhere,
[00:04:06] Ken: and we can also understand what it looks like not just today, but within the next five years as this 2030 company. And I went through a very eye-opening exercise around this in episode 12 of the 2030 company.
[00:04:21] Ken: So once you realize that retirement planning is built on someone else's timeline and built because they were expecting not to give it to us, the real question becomes, what do you actually want? Again, you can hit pause right now and think about that, but I'll make a suggestion for you. You don't want retirement.
[00:04:40] Ken: What you want is control. Here's what's wild. You built your business by rejecting conventional wisdom, but you're planning your future using conventional financial advice. So I'm gonna ask you to stop deferring the life that you actually want.
[00:04:59] Ken: I actually [00:05:00] shared the time of this recording a post on LinkedIn that talks about why I'm no longer trying to build a big quote unquote business. Because when you try to build bigger and bigger and bigger, you're maximizing for something that may or may not occur. And I'm not saying just go for cashflow, always.
[00:05:18] Ken: But I know for the kinds of businesses, and I've had this conversation before, that we build, there's a lot to be said for whatever people want to say. It's called a lifestyle business, but a cash flowing business that does put your life first or that allows that life work integration. So you're not really looking to be retired.
[00:05:36] Ken: What you want is, what Derek says is financial independence. It's not that you hate working, it's that you want the option not to work, or maybe even like some of my clients, you want to do work that you find more fulfilling and more rewarding. And last week was a big week for me in my business and this trend came up in multiple mentoring sessions, then reinforced by this fireside [00:06:00] chat.
[00:06:00] Ken: Which fundamentally shifted how these people, my clients, thought about their future because most entrepreneurs like you are exactly that. You are an entrepreneur. You want to build, and then you want to build again, and then you want to build again. Remember having a lunch with someone who was very successful, not the nicest person in the world, but I had a lunch with them one time.
[00:06:22] Ken: I was really trying to understand more. About people who have been successful. Let's say this is probably 15 years ago, something like that, and they said, yeah, you'll sell this business and then you'll do it again a few more times. We are out there building, but we have other dreams, and today I'm actually building a different business than what that person suggested because I also like you have other passions, and those passions aren't about spending money on sugary drinks on the beach until you're redder than a lobster.
[00:06:49] Ken: Some of you and some of my clients have businesses that are pushing significant cash flow today,
[00:06:54] Ken: and they like you believe it will help them fund something else they want to do [00:07:00] tomorrow. When you say you want to be retired, what you more likely mean is that you want to be able to fire some legacy clients. Or not have to plan to take a three or four day weekend.
[00:07:11] Ken: If you remember the last conversation that we had on your next 100 clients in episode 15, here's the concept and how they relate to each other. You don't need 100 clients. You just want the option to get more clients. And I truly believe optionality in your business is the biggest unlock you can have.
[00:07:30] Ken: Not focusing on retiring at 65 gives you optionality to drastically reduce how much you need to save and how you plan out your life. Derek actually showed us a crazy case study that would make you question everything. Shifting one number can actually offer you 96% in savings.
[00:07:49] Ken: and I have the full chat in my mentoring group, but you can also pick up his book, thumb Through It and find this exact case study. But here's the irony. It is that by over [00:08:00] saving for retirement, we might just be jeopardizing getting to financial independence faster.
[00:08:06] Ken: Think about it this way. Would you rather earn 8% in an index fund or 80% by reinvesting in your proven business model or your one person business? And we went into the one person business deeply in episode 11. I've actually had this conversation a lot with my own financial advisor and he focuses on portfolios of other seven figure entrepreneurs and frankly beyond that, and I've told him I wanna maximize what I put back into my business and myself first, because as entrepreneurs, our return on investment, our ROI always beats the market.
[00:08:42] Ken: I also have a philosophy of investing as an LP into funds or tools that I use in love. I remember talking with my own sort of unofficial mentor and they said, Hey, like I've done a hundred of these kinds of investments and I probably broke even. I think I'll do better than that, but they all may go to zero. That's [00:09:00] fine. Just one of those hitting well though could put me into a much closer version of my own financial independence or just gimme a significant cash infusion that just relieves.
[00:09:11] Ken: And the same thing for you, some of the pressures that you have. In life and business, but you don't want to be 401k poor and you don't want to always be pushing towards the future and not living in the present.
[00:09:24] Ken: So here's the thing about wanting control over your time and work. You need to be physically and mentally equipped to use that freedom. So if you wanna keep creating, you need to do this, take care of the machine. The question is if you could be financially independent, would you really be sitting around. And if you're not financially independent, you obviously would not be. I work hard often by the pool or outside this time of year, although we already are starting to feel that fall air, but I'm still working.
[00:09:55] Ken: The difference is I'm building something I love instead of [00:10:00] enduring something I tolerate.
[00:10:01] Ken: You also know back in episode 10 that I advocate for sprinting and resting in your business. and you've heard already in this conversation itself. That I advocate for life work integration versus work-life balance, which never actually existed.
[00:10:17] Ken: So when I posed a question about their target retirement age. To a room of six and seven figure entrepreneurs, not one person raise their hand for traditional retirement. You might be like, Ken, I don't know where you're going with this. Here's how these ideas tie together. If business is a marathon and sometimes it's a sprint within that marathon, as I just alluded to from other conversations, you must be ready to run that marathon.
[00:10:43] Ken: So Derek and I have a very strong alignment on this from a tool and philosophy standpoint to keep our bodies and minds humming like an engine. I make a lot of space for self-care routines, and I don't just wait to the end of a month or the end of a quarter or end of a year. I build that into my week.
[00:10:59] Ken: Derek also [00:11:00] talks about mini retirements, and I had one of my clients share about how he knows someone who shuts down their agency every five years.
[00:11:08] Ken: Back when I was running my agency, I actually gave my people who were there for five years what we called. Not sabbaticals, but "Savvaticals" because we were called savvy apps. Also, creating a calendar that fosters deep work, fulfilling work. It's not just about hyper concentration all the time, it's also about being fulfilled as a person, having an impact beyond yourself.
[00:11:29] Ken: Another tenant of being a remote solopreneur and being able to grow without hiring is surrounding yourself with a community of expert peers. You don't need to go hire a bunch of people because you have people that are the best at sales. You have people that are copywriters, you have people that are fractional.
[00:11:48] Ken: You have other ways to level up your business. And because you're not over investing in the future, you have those funds to help you grow without hiring today. I am also a really big fan of the Oura [00:12:00] ring. I use it for tracking sleep, stress and HRV. Again, if we think about the fact that we are gonna be able to do this thing for years and in our model, right?
[00:12:08] Ken: It's not just about let's retire retirement. It's in our model of being someone who can be a remote solo entrepreneur, growing without hiring, working wherever we want, having life work, integration, you have to have this as a foundation. I told people during the session, and I've said it before in this podcast, that I was a great boss to everybody else, but the worst boss to myself, and I changed that on day one of doing this new business.
[00:12:33] Ken: We also need to incorporate mind, body, and spirit training. I'm a person of faith. I also am someone that can't spend. Hours and hours in the gym anymore. I did that before I met my wife. I said it was inversely proportional to, our relationship. The less I knew her, I was in the gym.
[00:12:48] Ken: And over time we have a lot of responsibilities. I still take care of myself. I just don't have the time to do hours and hours. So I find a way to make that work within my current schedule before I go to sleep. I use Lumosity typically within [00:13:00] the last hour, my kind of hour and a half wind down routine, and I start my day with light in my eyes.
[00:13:06] Ken: Doing my devotions and getting started with my day.
[00:13:09] Ken: Derek also shares a little bit of his backstory in the session, in the fireside chat, and he talks about the fact that he was very addicted to a previous way of unwinding, and what allowed him to replace some of those habits was his addiction to waking up feeling amazing and being unstoppable in the morning.
[00:13:27] Ken: so no retiring retirement is not about living to work, but my guess is that you actually appreciate what you do more than a lot of people, or you're trying to move towards that by listening to things like this conversation. I had someone who asked a great question at the end of the q and a and they basically were saying
[00:13:44] Ken: I really enjoy working. is this a healthy thing? And the way that it was phrased out by that individual, but as well as by Derek, he said, go for it. I love what you're doing. And he didn't have a lot of attachments that would prevent him from doing that. And he also was someone who's actually very [00:14:00] healthy and in shape and has healthy outlets outside of work.
[00:14:03] Ken: So it's not living to work, it's not working till you're dead. It is life work, integration, doing what you're passionate about. Being strong enough to say no more than yes, and pushing against conventional wisdom in these constructs built for another century.
[00:14:19] Ken: That's what growing without hiring is all about. That's what being a remote solopreneur ready for 2030 is all about. So I highly recommend you to check it out. Again, I try to make the show notes very tight. I will put a link down below to Derek's book. I also have given copies to people in my mentoring group.
[00:14:40] Ken: If you ever wanna learn more about that, send me a note on LinkedIn. Tell me that you're listening to the podcast. Love to explore that further with you and help you apply these concepts.
[00:14:49] Ken: Again, I give a lot of information available for free for for you, but if you want the shortcut to the finish line or what I call the helicopter to the top of the mountain, feel free to send me a [00:15:00] note. That's where we're gonna end it for today.
[00:15:02] Ken: I'm trying to do more than just the tactics in this podcast. So if you like hearing about ending the nine to five workday or getting rid of retirement and retiring retirement and similar things, please leave a rating or review.
[00:15:16] Ken: Really helps me understand that this is the kind of stuff you wanna hear more about And until our next conversation, I can't wait to help you learn How to grow without hiring.