Episode 113: How to Survive Being a Solopreneur

Mike O'Neill: Welcome back to the Get Unstuck and On-Target podcast. I'm Mike O'Neill with Bench Builders, and we help companies solve the people problems that are slowing their growth and hurting their profits. We do that primarily with management training in the form of people skills, training, and coaching. Today joining me is Larry Kaul. He's the founder of Solopreneur Inc. He helps self-employed achievement oriented professionals make enough income to fund their desired lifestyle without sacrificing happiness. He developed the self-employment mastery system for those like him who were tired of siloed solutions, ineffective conventional ideas, and quick fix solutions.

Welcome Larry.

Larry Kaul: Thanks, Mike. It's great to be with you.

Mike O'Neill: Larry, we've had an opportunity to have several conversations prior to us scheduling this podcast. I wanted to include you as a guest for a variety of reasons. The most obvious is you work with solopreneurs, a term that probably wasn't even around 10 years ago.

How do you define solopreneur?

Larry Kaul: To me, solopreneur is representative of the next era of work. I think we're moving into the solopreneur era. So it's not enough just to say, oh, it's somebody who works by themselves, because that's not really the point. That's just a factual piece of it.

But what it really is to me is someone who is, for whatever reason, in a situation where they've gotta fund their own lifestyle now, and they are out in the world and out in the marketplace as an army of one, trying to figure out how to do that. And I think the world is going that way and I think what people are talking about when they think about self-employment and the shift in the economy and the world of work as they're thinking about the gig economy, they're thinking about freelancing, they're thinking about small business ownership. They're thinking about consulting and coaching and skill-based kind of things. And my gut is it's not enough.

It's just not enough. We are what we're doing and bringing to the world comes from deep inside ourselves and I think there's different industries, personal development, industry and then there's the business skill industry and the sales and marketing industry and all of these things that are totally siloed.

And I think that's a lot of what's causing the problem, where people who are indeed, in my judgment, solopreneurs, meaning they're doing something that's meaningful and unique based on skills of course, but also integrated fully into who they really are, deep down as a person and how they like to work.

And I think they're being lost in the marketplace. And the solutions are fragmented and that's why I think so many solopreneurs are unhappy.

Mike O'Neill: You know, I'm glad you kind of clarified that because solopreneur is not just someone who's in business just themselves. It's so much more the way you're defining solopreneur.

I was a little intrigued by that, and that is these are people who are choosing to live and work this way and they're doing what they're doing, which they have a real passion for. It's far more than just a way to earn an income. Is that what I'm hearing?

Larry Kaul: I think that it would be great if in the real world that's how it was working.

I think it's correct what you're saying, but I think a lot of people are being pushed into this, or they're choosing it out of no other viable option, feeling there's no other viable option. Because we're living in a world where there is a, there's a fundamental problem around financial ownership of companies public corporations, but it's also true venture backed companies, PE backed companies or vc venture capital backed companies, which is that the people who run these places just absolutely do not care about the long-term viability of the legacy of those businesses. Now, it's an inherent conflict, meaning that they can pretend to care about the people who work in them, but they don't because it's not in their interest to, based on how they see the world. So their interest is to lower the labor costs in the business that's in direct conflict.

It's like an insurance broker who says, oh, I'm on your side, but gets more commission when the policy cost goes up. So sure they may work in your interest, but the, it's not really aligned up very well. So that's pushing a lot of people out of the labor market because they're doing everything they can to lower their labor costs so people get forced out.

There's a lot of ageism, discrimination of all kinds going on around this. Some people can move up and get into the executive level and escape this or people in a middle stage of their career are kind of ideally suited. So early stage, they don't want 'em cause they don't wanna train anybody cuz it's expensive.

Later stage career. They don't want 'em because they don't wanna pay 'em, they want too much money. So middle stage I think is pretty good, although a lot of those kind of people want to choose self-employment, they're not being pushed as much. So I think it's a complex dynamic, but it all leads to exploration of why am I here?

What do I want to do? What am I good at? What skills do I have? Who's my market and how do I make this work for me and my family.

Mike O'Neill: One reason I wanted to have you as a podcast guest is that what we're talking about here is not necessarily how to set up a successful solo business. The way you kind of describe yourself.

And that is how you can fund your desired lifestyle without sacrificing happiness. As you know, I come out of a corporate HR background. At one point I was managing a relatively large HR team. I don't do that now, and I don't do that now in large part out of choice. But you introduce this idea of happiness which in today's environment is very elusive. Tell a little more about what you mean and when you're working with your clients in helping them understand. It's far more than just a source of income.

Larry Kaul: You know, there's this great idea about how do you find your market and the idea of the market is that it's a group of people who share the same private desire in common.

So they're already there. I'm not trying to convince anybody to care about happiness. They already do or they're not for me. So if somebody doesn't care about that, there are other people out there who are gonna teach you business development skill sets so you can make more money. That's not me. I'm going to do that.

But I'm doing it for people who are also looking for this other piece, cuz these things to me. I, it's what I want. I want 'em to combine together. I don't I'm not looking just to make a killing here. You know, I'm looking to construct a life around this income that I've built. So then the next question is, I was trying to figure out how do I define happiness?

So I'm looking at de I'm looking online and I'm doing searches, and I'm like, everybody's got their own definition. So I know what happiness is and I'm gonna tell you. And then I realize the answer is there isn't a definition. The answer is, what's it mean to you? So we put it into buckets. Maybe they're the wrong buckets.

I don't know. I mean, I think it's about I wanna make enough money to support the lifestyle I want. That makes me happy. Second, I wanna feel a sense of security. So I'm not looking ahead and saying, oh my God, I can never, what if I get sick? You know, there's a big problem with that out there today.

Third people call it all kinds of things, but there's some vision, mission, purpose, interest, something usually skill that people wanna develop. I mean, who knows, but there's some thing people are really feel they derive some kind of passion or interest or something. That's third, fourth you know, personal time.

I think some of us have woken up and sort of moved on from this false idea perpetuated in this culture, in particular in the United States, that you are your achievement. And this comes, you know, go back in history. This is Protestantism basically is you are identified with your output. You have no value as a person.

That's the, it's really that fundamental. You have no value as a person unless you produce something useful. That's the anchor of the entire philosophy of that history and religion. I disagree with that, but I also don't because I'm struggling with that inside myself. I'm trying to break free of that cultural conditioning too.

So there's something in there about family or my time or something about me outside of productive socially useful things. And then finally I think there's wait, I think that was it? Wait, 1, 2, 3, 4. I may have missed one in here. What was, let's see what, let me think. What's the other one?

Oh I call it joy of work. So, there's really only one thing we really wanna do. There's 10 choices of what we really wanna be doing all day long. And then there's a sub area of interest, and those two need to combine. And then there's one that drains all our energy. And I think joy of work is just figuring that out and constructing a system, a structure where you're able to do more of that and less of the other one.

I think that's extremely important for people too.

Mike O'Neill: Larry, you're making it clear we're differentiating self-employment from solopreneur as we're defining it for this podcast, but I know that we have folks listening right now who are working in a corporate setting. They're working for some body, a company and owner, and there's something inside them that says, I would like to work, quote for myself, but I know that the people out there, tempted as they might be, that's probably not good move for them. Nope. Do you have any just kind of guidance if yes, someone is kind of wrestling with that now, what would be some questions that you would invite our listeners to think about that would kind of help them know better if they would be a good candidate for this?

Larry Kaul: Yes. First, don't do it. That's number one. Just take a breath and don't just jump unless you have no choice. And then you're going to, but here's what you can do. And you can do it right now and you need to do it every day and it's not what you think. So most people say, start a side hustle.

So find something you love to do. Start doing it is what a side hustle is. So freelancing in something, or now there's this whole industry of, you know, package your intellectual property and build a digital course. I think that's also wrong thing to do because you're jumping to tactics immediately. What you want to do is you want to figure out, really deep down who you are and what are the storylines that emerge from that, and who is going to care a lot about what you believe.

Don't worry about what you're selling. It doesn't matter at all. What do you believe? What do you care about? What are the key topic pillars that you wanna speak about? Organize all that and then do it. Master social media channel. Just pick one, LinkedIn, YouTube. It doesn't matter which one, but it's one where you can get some traction and start to build your community.

And you wanna start taking a lot of meetings. Now, if you're working full-time, find a way to do it, do it at night. Do it on the weekend. Do it early in the morning. Start meeting as many people as you can and trying to figure out what they're thinking. Start to master them too while you're mastering yourself.

And that moment will come and you'll jump and they'll be there to catch you and you won't have to bootstrap this thing from nothing when you're desperate. Or the other common mistake was where people think, oh, I can do this. It's not that hard. Or, you know, this is what happened. People sell 'em these fake courses where they'll say, you know, five steps to seven figures and six months and this kind of stuff.

It's like, so people are like, oh, okay. And then they go do it and they realize, well, that's not gonna happen. So you can get started immediately. I think everyone should do this period because we own our own destiny, and that's the solopreneur era that I'm really is a big part of the solopreneur era idea, is that everyone needs to be out there known as a celebrity in their own little niche in the marketplace.

It's not an option anymore. I think younger people get this. I think when you get into the millennial and down, they already know what I'm saying. I think Gen X Boomer and up, they don't really understand this, although they see other people doing it. And they can do it too. They just don't.

Mike O'Neill: I'm a boomer and when you describe celebrity in my own niche I get a little queasy.

That's right. And I don't wanna make assumptions about all boomers, but to be a celebrity in your own niche requires intentionality. And you said something a moment ago that really caught my attention and that is do it now and begin reaching out to those people and asking, and building almost a sense of community.

 Such that when you do that, I love the phrase, and they'll be there to catch you. Is that term community. That's actually how you and I met. It is, yeah. In a community. I think this was Suzanne Taylor King's community. And it was in a Zoom setting that I met you. Yeah. I would not have met you if I hadn't opted to kind of see what that community was all about.

What is the power of community? Why is that getting such buzz?

Larry Kaul: Unbelievable question. So I wanted to tackle two things. The first thing is that this resistance, so I'm working with someone right now who is a back office kind of person. You know, she just, she really doesn't want to go out there and the idea of going and being a celebrity or a mini celebrity, she's doing it.

I'm showing her how to do it. Why? Because you have to go inside and figure out who you are naturally so you can be that for real. So there's archetypal energies, we channel and one of hers is called the every man or woman. So I'm like, you don't have to go be some big, you know, stage presence.

It, it's fake. In other words, for her it would be fake. But you know, if you're gonna go be. Grant Cardone, Paris Hilton you know, whatever. They're really changing they're, that's an authentic thing in there. That's an energy they're bringing out. She can do the same thing as a person who helps people who are, in her case, working in digital marketing, helping them feel a sense of belonging and community around her leadership in that world where she just felt like there was a lot of things she didn't like that were going on for women and she fixed these things, or is fixing them for herself and now bringing other people into these masterminds and stuff.

just be yourself. But you gotta figure out what that is first and where it impacts and why people will care. So anybody can do this, but the words are the problem sometimes. So that word of, you know, mini celebrity or whatever, I think I deliberately kind of wanted to poke that a bit, but I would back off from it and say, it's not quite that, it's just being yourself really.

But you gotta figure out how to do that. Now the second part in community is this is how I did this. So I have another business, and in the fall of 2020 I formed a an online community in LinkedIn and I had 235 people sign up and I did not charge them. I just started to figure out how am I gonna add value to these people?

I didn't know who I was or what my brand was gonna be, or what I stood for or for who I had no idea I hadn't really heard the word solopreneur at the time even. I sort of heard it, but I didn't really know what it was. I never thought about it. And then I started a Zoom event and 70 people showed up in November of 2020, and I've been hosting that ever since.

And then at one point I was doing them every day. Well now I'm known. So I have relationships with people who have communities. And you mentioned one of them where we're building each other's communities and cross pollinating deliberately and intentionally. So you need to become an insider in the place you're in.

So what people do is they go chase customers. People are teaching them to go find customers. It's not the right way to do it. It's about we're all in high school still. So you go into a new high school, what do you do? You gotta find your little group. You know, you're not looking for people to buy stuff from you yet

you know what you, you go in, you find your little group, you find your place. So you've got the leaders, you've got your peers, and then maybe you've got the people who look up to you and need something from you, like support or help or something. Maybe in high school analogy, they're less popular and they're trying to, now here it's more about.

They need something related to their business or their life, support it. I think people can start doing that immediately. There's absolutely no reason why somebody could not decide. Okay. This guy, Nora Rasheta, so secular Buddhism podcast, he's studying Buddhism and his spiritual traditions, and he just started a podcast, millions of listeners.

So we started a community on Patreon every Sunday. Gone a few times cause I love his podcast and I'm, I study this too and practice it. So I, he's a community. He's got thousands of people involved in this movement that he started. He's he owns some kind of a, or owned a, like a photography equipment business.

He just did this. Anybody can do this stuff today. It's easy, but you have to get out of your comfort zone and you gotta figure yourself out.

Mike O'Neill: you write the way out is in

Larry Kaul: Yeah, well, it wasn't me that came up. I wish I'd come up with that, but I can't claim it.

Mike O'Neill: But is that what you're describing here?

Larry Kaul: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: Okay.

Larry Kaul: Well, it's half of it. It's half of it.

Mike O'Neill: What's the other half?

Larry Kaul: So one half is around. The Who am I? What's my personal power archetypes? What do I like to do all day long? What's my purpose, vision, passion, mission? Who do I wanna be surrounded with? What are my values? Who shares them? So that's half.

The other half is, there's two parts of us self. One part is the connected self, and the other part is the self-absorbed self. Well, who's responsible for moving more of our attention from the self-absorbed self to the connected self? If you don't do that, you're not gonna succeed. Yes, you have to do that.

And I started that transformational project about 10 years ago on myself, but I accelerated it starting September 20th, 2020. as I decided to move into this new business, whatever it was gonna be, area, but I started really working on myself every day. And if I hadn't done that, this wouldn't would've failed.

So both sides are important. You can't just do personal development and not develop your your inner kind of what will be your public facing brand itself. You and your business skills. You have to do both together.

Mike O'Neill: You know I mentioned a while ago, or in your conversation about me coming outta a corporate HR background, and it seems to me that people in the corporate world are forced to conform.

Larry Kaul: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: And what you're describing is if really gonna be successful, if you're really gonna be happy, you're gonna know who you are, how you were made, and you'll find a way to share that with others. And I was a little bit intrigued when you said that the first step is not necessarily all the steps of Solo employment.

The first step is to get to know yourself. Yes. And I think that's a differentiator for what you do and how you do it. And that is you put the emphasis there early on because it is foundational. You said that we're in a kind of a new era with solopreneurs. I'm gonna assume that covid and work from home and the upheaval that resulted in do you believe that has led to an acceleration of this movement, or do you think it was gonna happen anyhow?

Larry Kaul: I don't know. But it's pretty obvious, I think, to most of us that it led to an acceleration of something different in terms of employment there, there was a lot of broken systems and I think they were exposed pretty much across every aspect of the country, the economy around the world and the way of working And subordinating your own, personality, subordinating your personality supporting subordinating, your values.

Subordinating your interests, subordinating your authority over what you want to do or what you're gonna do all day long. Your autonomy as your own little CEO regardless of who you report to. In some company has all been kind of challenged and sort of brought to the surface.

So I think that's gotta have some impact. But what I'll tell you is that, and this is also proven, so there's Jeffrey Moore did this thing called the technology adoption curve. And I'd recommend to anybody to learn that it's very important to understand this. And I think when you have change of any kind, there are people who are, will not go along with that change. So we're in a massive change right now, but I don't think, I don't know. I don't know. Cause I don't really, I, this is something that would have to be like scientifically studied and I'm sort of, you know, up at 30,000 feet here, so I can't claim much.

But Jeffrey Morris' concept of crossing the chasm, which is when something goes mainstream. And I think the concepts I'm talking about are in the left side of the chasm in what's called the early adopter phase, meaning there's a vanguard of people. It's I don't know what the number is. I can't remember if it's 15% or 30%, but I think it's like around that 20% range, something like that.

Mike O'Neill: The number top saying is around 15%.

Larry Kaul: Around 15%. Okay. So around 15%. And I'm definitely in that group. I'm not a pioneer. I'm an, I'm a fast follower, early adopter, it's called. So I didn't invent this stuff. I think, you know, a guy like Tim Ferris. I would put in the Pioneer, and that was, you know, what, 25 years ago or something.

I don't know when he wrote the four hour work week, but that's what I'm talking about. He started, he was one of the very early pioneers in this area. Well, now it's getting out into the people like me who are trying to find practical ways to use these concepts. But the next phase is the big phase where it jumps, the chasm, either falls in the chasm, it goes away, or it jumps.

And then what's called the early majority. Which is a big part of the population, but won't do anything until it's a best practice or they've seen it proven they won't change until it's proven. And then they'll change. But as long as they look around and they're like, wow, all these people I know are changing.

And then they'll do it. But I don't think we're quite there yet. I don't know if it can be stopped though, because of the economic infrastructure. I just don't see companies really saying, I really mean it. when it comes to, I care about my employees. And until that happens and they like mainstream it happens in certain companies but it's the minority. But if all of a sudden the world, 80% of the companies say, I really care about my employees and I'm gonna act like it every day, and they really mean it and do it, this is, the things will be different. I think people would rather be in a structure and then have to deal with all this stuff that we have to deal with.

It's extremely hard to be self-employed. But I just don't see that happening.

Mike O'Neill: I share that same view. As you know, I work with companies who are trying to have a reputation for caring, but it doesn't...

Larry Kaul: Trying. I like that you said that very well and carefully. And you know exactly what you're talking about.

Trying to have a reputation of caring is not the same as caring. Exactly. Trying to have a reputation for caring is a business and marketing strategy. This cannot be a business or marketing strategy. So you listen to these CEOs and they're saying, should we adopt this trend? And then they hire a consultant who wrote a book about it and they bring him in and nobody everybody gets all excited, including the CEO of the company who thinks they're doing something meaningful. This, that person goes away. There's an economic pressure in the company cuz of an investor gets pissed off or whatever it is, they go back to the old behavior.

Mike O'Neill: It's the behavior that I was really referring to, and that is what you're saying.

If it's not backed up by your behavior, it's not gonna happen to say you care. Is not enough. You have to actually care. And if you haven't guessed, part of kind of what I try to do working with clients is help them develop behaviors that truly demonstrate that they care through coaching and training.

And it's it takes work. But if you're persistent, then people will say, you know what? That's real. That's not some slogan in the boardroom. It's real, and it's evidenced by specific behavior. I'm enjoying listening to you because you, you described something about the chasm. We're recording this at the end of 20 22 and you know, the economic forecasters are saying there's a looming recession ahead and it's hard to know what's going to happen. Does, but you actually being much of what you described, describes what I'm doing with my business. Yeah. And I'm choosing not to go hire a lot of employees, but I am trying to find ways to be able to help more.

And that would mean that it helped more by through affiliation, but your emphasis on being real clear who you are first and then go actually do that. Larry, in keeping with the theme of this podcast, can you think of an example where either you or a client got stuck and when that happened, what did it take to get unstuck?

Larry Kaul: You know, I can think of an example. I think of a lot of examples, but there's one in particular that, you know, just to pick one that I can explain. But I think getting unstuck can happen immediately. I don't think it takes very long to get unstuck. I think staying unstuck can be more challenging, but I think getting can happen very quickly.

So in this particular example, the stuck was somewhat in corporate who had spent a life in corporate, but on the side had done some pastoral counseling, had helped people and started getting interested in some things going on in the society, and it developed some coaching skills, but it was just, you know, a hobby, I guess if you wanna call it or an outside interest, really.

And then made a decision to leave corporate and go turn that into a coaching business, but without having any idea what that meant. And this is what I'm saying is don't do that yet. Get your brand built for a year. Go talk to him. But he didn't do that. He just went and did it. So now he's two years in, I don't remember the exact time.

I think it was about two years in, and he's like, I don't know if this is working. He said, I'm exhausted. And this is a guy with a very positive mentality who's got a lot of to give to the world. But it wasn't working. So the first thing I did was just try to figure out what's the impact that you make. And his impact was on a core desire of people in his subset of the market, Men, typically 40 up who've been somewhat successful. So often military background can be included. There's certain type of culture there that he's very familiar with. So the aligned beliefs, interests, and so, so we kind of figure that out.

Well, what is his slice of that world have in common. It's a sense of wanting to feel fulfillment. So if find, okay, that's called core desire. So the desire is fulfillment. What's their obstacle? What's their pain? Their pain is feeling emptiness. So what's that cause by, well, working in companies, , right?

It'd be in 40, 50. It's pretty odd. The subs gets really simple. That's why I'm saying it's quick. We can do this, I can do this in like 15 minutes with somebody. And then it's like, well, what do they want? They wanna be happy. They want to fulfill whatever their destiny. So we came up with this idea of life of significant, well, he did, I helped him, you know, get the kind of thinking process down for it.

But he came up with the. Life of significance. So what is he doing? He's a coach and he's helping these men who are, you know, want to feel fulfilled. It's important to them, they've achieved, but it's not good enough. They feel a sense of pain around feeling kind of empty and a bit you know, discouraged and in unimportant, like their life doesn't mean anything.

What is he doing? Well, he is helping them live a life of significance. Well, that's a good step. Now there's one other step. The next step is what's the energy you're bringing to do that, to help somebody do that? Cause you gotta talk about that too. Yeah. You know, hero energy. So there's 12 core energies called archetypes now, brand archetypes, power archetypes, whatever you wanna call it.

So his is hero says there's a test. You take the test, you're like, oh, I'm a hero. And what does a hero do? Takes the hill with you leads the way, leads the charge. He would do that if you didn't pay him. That's the thing. You want to, I would do what I do now. You don't have to pay me. You don't have to pay me.

I'll just do it. I don't care. I need the money cuz I need the money. Right. Cause I want, I wanna get paid for what I do. But I would do it anyways. So he got to that place right away. That led to closing a coaching client very quickly at, you know, a decent amount getting really built into his systems, around connecting with people on social media, filling up his calendar as well as creating his own weekly event that he had started, but what wasn't sticking to or knowing kind of quite how to structure it.

And that weekly event is now building essentially a pool of prospects for his coaching business.

Mike O'Neill: You said something. a moment ago that I may have misheard. And that is what I thought you said is sometimes the getting unstucks not the hard part, it's staying unstuck.

Larry Kaul: Yes.

Mike O'Neill: Can you elaborate?

Larry Kaul: It's just it's how we're designed.

I mean, this is just, I've studied a lot of evolutionary biology and brain science and stuff like this because it was the only way I could figure out what's going on . Not only inside my own head, but with other people. I just couldn't. I'm like, why are people behaving in these crazy ways? And then when you study it, you realize it's biology.

So what happens is you can spark motivation . You know what I just said to someone will motivate them. I can get 'em there in 15 minutes. They're all excited. Well, then it gets hard. Well, then their brain starts making judgements. It says, I'm no good at this. Or They're stopping me from being successful , or I'm judging this situation's not gonna work because of la da.

Blame the economy. Blame mom, blame, whatever. It doesn't matter. Stuck in this judgment brain and it's over. And then you go back to bad behaviors. Why? Because your biology's trying to it. Your biology's threatened and it's saying, hunker down. Feel safe. So how do you push through that? That's the difference between people who succeed in action and don't.

It's you have your vision, it's clear, and you have a way of being incredibly persistent and moving through obstacle to obstacle without losing enthusiasm, which is part, you know, the Winston Churchill quote, moving from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm. He didn't say feeling great.

Mike O'Neill: You know, this is, we've recorded over a hundred episodes.

This is the first time that the notion of staying unstuck really has come up. And I'm a little surprised by that. But that is in keeping with if I understand one of the things that you try to offer your clients, and I'm gonna, I'm reading this, find your inner truth first, then add desire, risk, and persistence, and that will lead to how you can master self-employment. And so you just very nicely kind of tied some things together. That was very helpful. Larry, as you reflect on what we've talked about, what do you want our viewers and listeners to have as takeaways?

Larry Kaul: The power to be successfully self-employed, already exists inside you.

You already have everything you need to do this. Anybody can do this. I'm absolutely convinced, and I think anybody in the world today can do this. You could live in a little village in India or the Philippines or wherever. And if you figure this kind of stuff out and you got a cell phone, you know, you can get a YouTube channel going or something.

I mean, you can do it. Anybody can do this. There's absolutely no reason why somebody can't do it, except they tell themselves they can't. or they don't really have a systematic way of creating their own system to do it. You have to take responsibility for your own success here. You can't I'm very much against what I call magic pill guru solutions, so I don't put myself out there as some guru with a seven step program with all the answers.

I say, I have a structure in a system that you can use to create your own system. Which is very different because there's, again, it goes back to my own archetypal makeup, is I'm helping people with mastery and helping them take risk. I'm not helping 'em feel safe or secure, that comes a little later, but you know, there is a moment there where you've gotta get out there and you know, do some hard things.

Things that may make you feel uncomfortable.

Mike O'Neill: Anything else you'd like to add?

Larry Kaul: No I think that's it. Hopefully this was helpful to people listening. This is this is a tough thing to do. Anybody can do it. But you need a really good pathway forward. Don't just jump and hope that somehow you hit your sales targets in six months, cuz you probably won't.

Mike O'Neill: Larry, I'm confident the people listening to you will say, you know what? This is Larry Kaul I, I wanna learn more. What's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Larry Kaul: Well, the best way to learn more is to go to our site, which is gosoloinc.com, and on there you get a better understanding of what we're doing, and there's also a free offer, which is our Thursday mastery workshop and we've got a whole community of people that come through this. It's free. And we're in a Zoom room, so it's not like you're just watching me talk on a webinar or something. You know, we all get to know each other and that's a good start. I think for someone to engage more in the kinds of things that I'm talking about.

Mike O'Neill: We will include that link as well as your LinkedIn link and other things in the show notes. So if you're driving, listening to this, don't worry about it. It will be in the show notes. Larry, thank you.

Larry Kaul: Thank you, Mike. I really appreciate the opportunity to talk to your listeners and love excited about what you're doing too.

It's it's very similar in a lot of ways to what I'm talking about.

Mike O'Neill: I have shared this before, and that is what's really has been such. What's really been neat about hosting a podcast is I learned so much from the guest and you're no exception. There's real substance to you. And I can see how you can make a really meaningful difference in the lives of those that you work with. So, this was a real treat for me. I also wanna thank our listeners for joining us today. If you would like access to all the podcasts, just go to bench-builders.com. And while you're there, you can also subscribe to our weekly management blog called The Bottom Line. Now, if you're trying to grow your business, but it's the people problems that have slowed you down, let's talk.

Head over to bench-builders.com and schedule a call. So I wanna thank you for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some tips from Larry that'll help you get unstuck and on target. Until next time.