Focused - 59: Kaizen

Episode Date: October 30, 2018

In this episode, David and Mike look at the concept of Kaizen and how little changes can add up to big results. They also help Michael as he makes his second attempt at free agency, share what they do for fun, how bad David is at using virtual assistants, and their favorite music to work by.

David Sparks and Mike Schmitz spent their careers working for the establishment. Now, they've had enough. They've rebelled against the status quo and are now seeking success on their terms. They are free agents. Welcome back to Free Agents, a podcast about being an independent worker in a digital age. I'm David Sparks, and I'm joined by my fellow co-host, Mr. Mike Schmitz. Hi, Mike. Hey, David. How's it going? Good. Good. Glad to be back on the Free Agents.

By the way, I am really enjoying all the stuff going on in the discourse group for this podcast. If you're listening to this show and you haven't signed up yet, you should head over to talk.macpowerusers.com. There's a ton of people in there, and some of them are a lot smarter than me. So you're going to do good getting in there. And I see a lot of good advice going back and forth between free agents and people thinking about becoming free agents. So I'll put that plug out there at the beginning. and people thinking about becoming free agents. So I'll put that plug out there at the beginning.

Yeah, in fact, we've got a bunch of feedback that we've worked into this episode in particular. This is going to be a little bit different. This is one of our content episodes. We're going to cover the free agent survival skill, but then I posed the question to you and you kind of sounded like it was a good idea. We got an email from somebody who is kind of in the middle of this.

So we're going to kind of dissect the situation and offer some feedback there. And then a ton of great stuff at the end with virtual assistants, favorite music soundtracks, stuff like that. So a lot of feedback worked its way into this episode in particular. Yeah, let's get started first with this month's free agent survival skill. And it's a word that we, that you and I have tossed around a lot between each other. Kaizen. Yep. Kaizen, I believe it's a Japanese word. It literally means small improvements. A lot of people who have heard this word before have probably heard about it from the Toyota way, because that's kind of the approach that they took. They gave all the people on the assembly line the ability to pull the yellow cord at any point and

stop production if they saw something wrong. And those small improvements that they make over time, those add up to big results. And you don't have to be working in a factory to apply this. It's actually, I think, more powerful if you apply it through a personal lens or a free agency perspective. Those little things that you can change in how you go about your day, they can add up to big results in your business or just the little bit of margin maybe that you want to increase so that you can pursue your passion project, finding the time to work on your side hustle, whatever. This is a really important idea if you want to get from where you are to where you want to go. Yeah, I feel like as free agents, one of our

superpowers is our agility. A lot of people who are out on their own at one point worked for a bigger company. And everybody knows what it's like when there's some little problem at the company and there's a solution out there, but it's got to go through four or five people. And for some often random reason, the solution never gets implemented. And you sit there and you look at something that's a tiny bit broken every day. And when you're out on your own, you get to set those things. You get to set those things. And in fact, one of the concepts I always think about as a recurring concept on the show is the idea that we should be resistant to habits as free agents.

So we should never just say, well, that's the way we do it because that's the way we do it. You should always be looking for ways to make things a little bit better because as a free agent, you have the power to fix that immediately. So this is something we should all keep in mind. Yeah, and this is something that is very easy to make concessions in also. So let's just use the topic of email, for example. You can say, well, I'm only going to spend so much time in email. And then you get more email than you thought. Well, I'll just finish off the ones that are in my inbox. Now you spent two hours and then that turns into four hours and then

6.3 hours, which is the average amount of time that the U.S. worker spends an email every single day. So the small improvements can work both in your favor or if you're not careful, they can work against you. But if you are intentional and you recognize that this is the thing that I should be doing, this is the process, this is the thing that moves the needle in my business or in my life. And then you figure out ways to optimize that, make that more effective. Even those small improvements, those add up to a large amount of change if you extend it out long enough. A 1% change every day does not add up to a 365% change over the course of a year. I put a link in the notes here for an article by James Clear, who just published a book called Atomic Habits. And this article in particular, he shares a excerpt from that book about this person who took over the British bike racing team. And when

he took it over, they were absolutely terrible. They had won a single gold medal in the Olympic Games since 1908, and they'd never won the Tour de France in 110 years. And he takes over the British cycling, and he drills in this idea of the 1% improvements. And they focus on all of the little things that typically you wouldn't even think make a big deal. And they just fixed every single one of those, one at a time. And by the time the 2008 Olympics come around, they won 60% of the gold medals. They won five Tour de France victories in six years. And he's got a nice graph in here about the power of tiny gains, that 1% better every day, which is what the British cycling team embraced, that compounding 1.01 to the 365th power is 37.78.

But if you're 1% worse every day, that 0.99 to the 365th power, and again, there's an awesome graph in the article for this, that ends up being 0.003. So it could be a small change, or it could be a very powerful boost towards the future that you want to create. Yeah. And give them thought. I think one of the areas of resistance to this is you see something that needs change, but you're in the flow or you're, you know, you're busy and you say, okay, making that change makes sense, but I don't have time to deal with that right now because I still have a bunch of email or I have this client deadline or whatever. I'm a big fan of just stopping and fixing it right there if you can. But if you're in one of those moments where you can't, you know, have a pad of paper,

have a task manager, have something where you can immediately capture that that problem exists. And then schedule yourself time to fix those things, to get those 1% things implemented. And man, I can just think of examples every day where I try and do this. Yeah. And you don't have to view it as something that is going to be different every single time. Maybe it's establishing a habit, which is really James Clear's wheelhouse is you know you should be doing this thing but you every day but you don't do it so how can you if it's something you want to do it's a positive behavior that you want to do maybe it's carving out enough time to do deep work or write or creative work or whatever it is I mean you can fill in the blank for the

thing that is going to provide the most benefit for you as a free agent and then scheduling that time every day. So maybe that's the habit you want to create. How can you eliminate the friction that comes against you when you sit down to write? Or maybe it's something you want to eliminate. We had Joe Buehlig on the previous episode. He and I just went through a book as we're recording this on the happiness advantage. Sean Acor shares a story in there about how he would come home from work and he would be tired, exhausted. He sits down on the couch and he would watch TV for three hours. So the simple change he made there is he took the batteries out of his remote. It would have taken him by the time he got home and sat down on the couch to turn the TV on and it doesn't work 20 seconds to go get the batteries, put them

back in the remote and he could continue with the habit that he had created previously. But that was enough friction for him to say, no, I should be doing something else instead. So that extra 20 seconds bought him back three hours a day. Yeah. I mean, this stuff really works. And I mean, I just had a thing where I'm dealing with a lot of customer support email. I've released several field guides lately, and I'm increasingly finding ways to get some of the more time-intensive stuff off to my assistant. And the fact is, if I spend all day answering emails, I'm never going to make another field guide. That's just, I'm going to be in the email business, not the field guide business. And it does take time to figure out ways to effectively offload those so the customers get what they need and you can free up your time. But boy, I tell you, just taking time to set those mechanisms in place and offload that stuff makes a huge difference.

kind of talking about this specifically in the area of like winning back your time, but that's one area that this could be applied to. It doesn't have to be that particular area. I would argue for a lot of free agents, independent workers, people who work from home, those sorts of things, that is the place maybe to start with this kind of stuff. But it could also be fixing broken systems. One of the things I picked up from working with the Asian efficiency team is something that Tan calls the three times rule. So if you recognize that something is broken and you have to go work around it, maybe you write it down, but you don't necessarily even have to keep a mental log. And in the back of your head, if you remember the three times rule, eventually you're doing this

thing and you're thinking to yourself over and over again, and you're just like, I shouldn't be dealing with this frustration. This system is broken. I should figure out how to fix it. So you don't want to drop everything and fix something if it's a one-off thing that you're going to do. That's not worth maybe the extra effort to figure out a way to do it more efficiently. But if it's something that you do over and over and over again, then if you fix it, you put in a little bit of extra time up front, that's going to provide benefits over time. I think it even applies to just the materials you use and the stuff you're, you know, the software, the pencils, whatever it is that you're using to get your work done. If you find there's areas of friction in there that you can improve, taking the, I guess we call it Kaizen every day, taking

the time to improve that a little bit can really make a difference. And once again, you're a free agent. You can do this stuff. You have the power to make the change at that moment. There aren't many people that can say that. Exactly. The trick is recognizing the things that are worth fixing. So shiny new object syndrome, you know, if a new task manager X comes out with a dark mode that you think looks really good on Mojave, don't drop everything out of the system that you're using. Transfer it all over because there's a lot of work to be done there just so you can quote unquote try this thing. But if you recognize that you've hit the ceiling

in whatever task management tool you happen to be using, then yeah, maybe it is worth it to look for a different system. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's something that I think we should all keep in mind. I like the idea of the small improvement because when you talk about,

because I was actually going to suggest for our topic today, we just talk about habits and how easy it is to change habits when you are on your own. But I like this better because habits feel ponderous and heavy. But we're just talking about small things and small things anybody can change. And like you said, small things add up to big things. Yeah. And if you really want to dive into habits, I can't recommend James Clear's book enough. I actually just interviewed him for the productivity show. He sent me an advanced copy. It's an amazing book.

Probably the most popular book in this space is The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg. I think James Clear takes that model and expands on it in a really powerful ways. So if you want to understand how all of these mechanics of habits work, that's a great resource because he gets into not just, okay, so the habits aren't isolated. You know, it's not, you're going to do this one thing. If you do that one thing, you can stack habits, you can tie these things together. And pretty soon, instead of just following through with one thing that you wanted to do, now that one thing starts a whole chain reaction of positive things. And pretty soon, if you never had a morning ritual, if you never had an evening shutdown routine, you have that one thing that's really easy to do. And then that triggers the

domino effect and that can create a really positive scenario for you as well. So that's definitely something to look into as well. If you like the whole idea of habits, I think habits are really, really powerful. I think the morning routine specifically, I'm talking about eating your frog, you know, doing your biggest task at the beginning of the day, I would argue the best thing you can do at the beginning of your day is take care of yourself, protect the golden goose. And so if you can check off a bunch of things personally at the beginning of your day, that's going to set you up for success in the long run. That's going to put you in a real positive state. But that mindset, that can be applied a lot of different ways. We apply that to my family situation. My wife and I, when we

have our date night every week, it sounds cold and mechanical maybe to some people, but we love it. We go over the three questions that I mention all the time. What should we start doing? What should we stop doing? What should we keep doing? That's a version of Kaizen. We think about the things that are causing us pain or causing friction in how we run our family, and we're figuring out what are the small adjustments we can make, which is going to fix this thing so we don't have to deal with it anymore. A lot of good has come out of that. Yeah. And I guess the takeaway here is you can make a long journey with little steps. So think about that. Sound off on it in the forum if you're trying to apply Kaizen

to your free agency. What are the things you've done that have been successful? We'll probably follow up on this at some point. And we'd love to hear your thoughts on it. And don't feel overwhelmed. I guess that's what I really like about this concept is it gives me freedom to feel like I can start making change without having to turn the whole apple cart upside down. Be mindful, watch what you're doing. Where you see room for improvement, make it. And if you can't make it at that moment, write it down because you will have time later. It becomes almost a game, honestly. I mean, this whole thing just, I know we don't want to focus on time management stuff, but this whole thing with the email and releasing two field guides in one month has really been a challenge for me. And now it's starting to become a game for me. It's like, okay, how can I take care of this problem,

this customer problem faster without me being involved in it? And I'm finding solutions. I'm finding the little steps, the little 1%s every day. And it's helping out. I think it helps the customer at the same time. So this is something everybody can benefit from. Yeah, I want to call out one area

that you could apply this specifically if you are, I mean, you host Mac Power users. So TextExpander is a phenomenal tool. Now it's available on Windows as well. That's a great place to apply that three times rule. If you type the same things over and over again, versus free agents, maybe you send invoices over and over again. You know, we're going to talk about one of our sponsors here in a little bit that can help you with that. But that's just an example of the types of things that are repetitive that you don't necessarily think about in the moment. In the moment, you're just, I need to do this. I need to send this to this person.

And if you recognize the patterns that are there, there are a lot of powerful tools that you can use to automate all that. Yeah, I mean, and just kind of to put a cap on this, this discussion, let's say that you're really good at making underwater baskets. And that's, that's what your goal is to become a free agent to make underwater baskets. What you'll be surprised at once you escape and start that business is how little time you have to make underwater baskets. Because you are going to be spending time doing invoicing and managing customers and doing all these other things that it's easy to forget about when you're not in the thick of it. And I think that's a ripe area for Kaizen. Yep, absolutely. So if you do want to have more time to make underwater baskets,

our friends at FreshBooks can save you up to 192 hours with their cloud accounting software for freelancers. That is ridiculously easy to use. I want to put this out there to all the freelancers. You know how important it is to make smart decisions for your business. You want to apply this Kaizen, this three times rule by simplifying tasks like invoicing, tracking expenses, and getting paid online. FreshBooks can drastically reduce the amount of time that it takes you, just like it's drastically reduced the time that it takes for over 10 million people to deal with their paperwork. One of the things I love about FreshBooks is that it automates those late payment email reminders. So you can spend less time chasing payments and more time working your magic, weaving your baskets. And when you email a client

an invoice, FreshBooks can show you whether they've seen it so you don't have to go back and forth. It eliminates all of the guessing games. So if you're listening to this and you're not using FreshBooks yet, now is the time to try it because FreshBooks is offering an unrestricted 30-day free trial for listeners of this show. There's no credit card required. All you have to do is go to freshbooks.com slash freeagents, all one word, and enter freeagents, two words, in the how did you hear about us section. That's freshbooks.com slash freeagents, one word, and enter freeagents, two words, in the how did you hear about us section. So thank you, FreshBooks, for your support of this show and RelayFM. All right. So we've got the little 1% problem solved, but we need to talk about Michael's

problem. Yeah. So this is an email that came in, and I'm just going to read this because there's a lot in here that we're going to try to digest a little bit. So Michael says, Hey, David and Mike, at the end of last year, I left my job as a strategy consultant to move back home in with family. I decided that before putting myself back into a corporate job that I'd try putting myself out there and reach out to friends, family, and ex-colleagues to see if I could work for myself instead as a freelance consultant or business analyst. I got a lukewarm reaction along the lines of that's a great idea, but I personally don't need that right now. So after trying for a few months to get even a single person to hire me, I pulled the plug and took a full-time job as a business analyst. 10 months later, I'm finding myself bored with the

work. I've built all the systems from scratch at this firm, and I'm doing the work in a quarter of the time which is expected. I want to make another run at going out on my own. The issue is people have no reason to trust I can do the work of someone more experienced. I'm only 24, but a little experience I do have is working with CEOs and managers. I'm an extraordinary generalist and worked in marketing, analytics, geospatial science consulting, but I'm not what I'd call amazing at anything except Excel spreadsheets. My question for you is what steps could I take before having a second shot at this to give myself the best chance at success? Do I need to go get my master's, get managerial experience, nail a portfolio, and go from there?

Love the show. Would love a show on how younger people can work towards free agency. Well, Michael, that's what we're going to talk about today. You know, I love this email for so many reasons. First of all, he's a young guy and he's already making his plans and he's making his second run that's great yeah exactly i had the same reaction he's 24 he's tried it once it didn't work that's okay he's not discouraged he wants to try it again now that's an important mindset in the last episode we had joe buehl again and we talked about how he transitioned from working at a company to being a quote- free agent and not just a free agent, but running another company. And he's kind of transitioning back. He's stepping back a little bit. And we

talked at length about how that's not necessarily a failure. You need to learn from those experiences and then just adjust for next time. So I think like in this email, we don't know all the specifics of what happened last time, but assuming you have that proper mindset, I think that this is a great situation to be in because you kind of know already at least something that doesn't work. So, you can modify the plan and adjust it accordingly. Yeah. And there's a couple things he writes in here that raise questions, you know. And one of them is he talks about being successful. And I guess that's a good question, right? What is success? Yeah, exactly. Success is a different thing to different people. So maybe success in Michael's eyes is escaping the current job. It's actually owning your own business, which is fine. Go ahead and define that as the goal then. But success could also be finding more purpose in what you do. He mentioned

that he's built all these Excel spreadsheets. It kind of sounds like it's not very fulfilling work at the moment. So maybe there's a way that you can infuse more purpose into what you do. Maybe it's just escaping the cubicle nation. You don't want to have the nine to five. Maybe you can do that without owning your own business. So the first thing I would recommend to Michael is define what success looks like for you. What is the thing that you are aiming at? The second thing, which actually I didn't even put on in these notes, is when it comes to success, you know, he mentions he got a lukewarm reaction of, that's a great idea, but I personally don't need that right now from people, it sounds like, that are close to him. I've experienced this myself. And I would say, I would ask these people, are you telling me the truth? Do you really think

this is a great idea? Or is this just something that you're saying as a placebo? Because I know a lot of people who throw out a bunch of ideas, and this is kind of the canned answer. It's like, oh yeah, great idea. I'm not interested in that at all. So it's better to know right up front, is this a bad idea? Do you see any problems with this before you try to make something work? Because somebody close to you doesn't want to hurt your feelings. And I'd like to go back to the idea and the definition of success for a minute, because I feel like for culturally, I think it's defined among a lot of my lawyer friends, knowing what I'm doing now and knowing the business well enough, though I'm making less money than I would if I were doing other things, they immediately think that it is an unsuccessful venture or a bad idea. And you have in your own internal definition of success, because for me, it's not making the most money. But you have to know that yourself before you go out because you are going to run up against that once you start making moves.

That's a great point. You know, success kind of implies that you are making a lot of something. So yeah, it could be money, but there are other currencies that are important to people. I saw something one time which kind of talked about when you're in these different stages of life, you've got generally two or three of these currencies. When you are young, you've got time and energy, but you don't have any money. When you're kind of in the middle, you've got the money and the energy, but you don't have any time. And at the end of your life, you've got time and you've got money, but you have no energy. So at different stages of your life, different things are going to be more important to you. But recognizing that this is the stage that I'm in, and this is the

thing that I want to bank. This is the thing that I want to collect, this resource in particular. Maybe it's not making a ton of money. Maybe it's having a bunch of freedom. That was kind of the thing for me when I joined the Asian Efficiency Team is I wanted to be able Uh, maybe it's not making a ton of money. Maybe it's having a bunch of freedom and you can, uh, that was kind of the thing for me when I joined the Asian efficiency team is I wanted to be able to say at any point, you know, I'm just not feeling it today. I want to go with the family to the museum. We're gonna do a field trip because we homeschool our five kids. I wanted that flexibility, that autonomy. Uh, and that was the thing that was more valuable to me than the paycheck that I was getting. Another thing that stood out to me with Michael's email was his success at the gig. He says, I think he said he's doing his work in a quarter of the amount of time they expect.

Yeah. And, you know, this is so common, you know, with young people, but even old geeks as well, where you figure things out and they just don't understand how quickly you can do this work. And, you know, maybe something I, when I wrote Michael back, I said, it sounds to me like you've got the makings of a great side hustle here, because if you're being, if you're able to finish your work in a quarter of the time, that gives your brain time to process other ideas and thoughts. And, you know, the last time you went out, it didn't work for you. What would you do differently now?

What do you have that's different? What's the business plan that's different? But you actually have the clock cycles right now to figure that out rather than just start out and start taking shots in the dark. I think this is a great time to develop those muscles. Yeah, that's a great point. a great time to develop those muscles. Yeah, that's a great point. Obviously, there are jobs where you have to put in expected effort, expected time. There are other jobs where just the results are the thing that matters. And if you can get the work done in a quarter of the time, then you've got three quarters of your time, essentially, to at least think about if not be

working on the thing that's going to be the side hustle. So again, that comes back to your definition of success. If your goal is to make X amount of income, you've got a pretty decent setup to run a side business and not have a whole bunch of additional hours. If your goal is to own something, well, maybe that's a little bit different. But don't necessarily think that you have to go out on your own to accomplish the goal of I want to make this much money because I want to own my own business. Maybe you can do it right where you are. Yeah. Now, Michael's emails, it sounds like he kind of knows what he wants to do.

He wants to do consulting. But I would, because he says he's a generalist, it makes me question. But I would, because he says he's a generalist, it makes me question. You know, I think that's something where if you want to go out on your own, quite frankly, a lot of times the success is in those margins. It's in those specialist areas. And maybe this is a time to give some thought to that as well. Yeah. So a couple of related points to that.

If you're going to be a specialist, what are you going to be a specialist in? One of the points I wrote down was, what do you want to be amazing at? Because he mentioned I'm not really amazing at anything except Excel spreadsheets. That's okay. You're only 24. You can become amazing at anything that you want, but you have to identify what is the thing that you want to be amazing at because you're not going to be amazing at all the things that you listed in the email. Pick one thing that's really going to push your buttons and go all in on that if that's really the thing that you want to do. Related to that, a question that I had was, what can you do that's valuable? What are the things that you can do right now that are going to add value to the marketplace? Because Cal Newport in

his book, Deep Work, talks about how the marketplace rewards people for bringing value to it, not because they showed up. And from reading this email, a couple of things stand out to me. It sounds like you're pretty good at building systems. So maybe you can build some systems for people who recognize the value of those systems and get paid well for those systems. Also sounds like working with CEOs and management level, that's a pretty decent skill to have, I would argue. I know a lot of people who if they're talking to somebody higher up in a company, they get all nervous. They have wet feet. Sounds like you've got a regular rhythm to practice that. So maybe you're good at working with decision makers. For a long time, I worked in the family

business that sold educational software to schools. And it was totally different when you were talking to a teacher who was going to use the software versus the decision maker, which was a director who was going to spend it. So there's going to, and that's obviously, that's the conversation that you've got to nail. So there's value in that. Another thing that I would point out here when you're working with people and you're trying to communicate the value that you can give to them is recognizing how you can save businesses money. If you really wanted to be a consultant, if you really wanted to architect these systems, there are people who are doing just that and they justify their costs that way. One example that stands out to me is the work the system guys. So Sam Carpenter is the guy who

started the business, but there are actually people who work with him who are consultants for businesses, and they help them develop standard operating procedures. They help them develop these systems in their business so that they can make more and work less. So you've kind of already done that. Maybe you could help other people do that. Yeah, agreed. It's interesting, the idea. One of the themes that comes through the email is, hey, I'm only 24, and that makes it hard. And I get that.

This actually dates me, but there used to be a TV show called Doogie Howser. You've never heard of it, right, Mike? I have heard of Doogie Howser, but I did not watch it. Because now I'm no longer Doogie Howser. But when I was younger, for a variety of reasons, I often found myself working around a lot of older people. And this young guy comes in and starts telling you how to legally manage your business. And two or three different clients started calling me Doogie Howser. That was their joke.

I'll wait until Doogie Howser gets here and tells us what to do with this contract. And so I had this age thing where I was too young. And then I had another guy say, I really like your advice, but you don't have any gray hair. So I'm not sure I can believe you, you know, and, and that that was stuff I heard. Unfortunately, now I have the gray hair, but you know, but I think I do see that as. But I think the answer to that, or my experience with it, was you just drive forward. Have the confidence to say, well, this is what I'm here to do, and this is what I'm going to do. And you don't let that become an issue. Laugh off the Doogie Howser joke and just keep pushing forward. Yeah. And I think maybe the internet makes it easier to do that. I don't know that for sure. But I think that the internet at least gives other people other examples of people who have been successful in this at a younger age. If you're working in a firm or in a company, and this is the way that

we've always done it prior to the internet, maybe it's a little bit of a stretch to say, oh, well, this guy over here did it. But when you see examples of that all the time, maybe it's a little bit more believable. Yeah. There's also, I think, among older people, I guess I'll be the representative here as a 50-year-old, that the millennials don't want to work hard. And I actually don't believe that because I've worked with a lot of millennials, Mike included, who are just great and awesome. But there's this weird perception of that. And so if you're out there and you're younger, that gives you an opportunity to kind of like play against that and become the outlier for that. And that gives you another angle. The other thing that stood out with his email for me is just the idea that he's got a successful job that he has free time. Now, I know I mentioned that a few minutes ago, but

the other piece of that I didn't say was, I think that gives you kind of a laboratory to do experiments at the current job to help you work your way into that next gig. Like when Mike was talking about what am I great at? Why not figure some of that out while you're on somebody else's dime? Yeah, exactly. Because ultimately, you don't need a degree and you don't necessarily even need so many years of experience. What you need to do if you're going to be a consultant specifically is you need to make people believe that you can solve their problem.

So do the test, figure out what is the thing that you're going to be amazing at, develop the skills that you can solve the problem. And then at that point, it's salesmanship. In fact, at one point, I told some guys who we were having a discussion about the stereotypical salesperson. And a lot of people who have a negative reaction to salespeople, they kind of justify it as like, well, I just am not good at sales. And if you're married, I would argue, well, you've sold yourself at least once. Everybody is a salesperson. Maybe you're not trying to get somebody to buy something, but you're selling somebody on an idea, especially if you want to be a leader. For example, leadership is a big thing for me. You have to embrace this idea of sales orientation. And if you're going to be a powerful leader, because you have to convince people that you can take them where you want to go. It's the

same thing if you're trying to get a client or you're trying to work with a particular company, you have to clearly identify what is the problem that you are able to solve. And you need to make them believe that you can solve it. And then another layer on top of that, by the way, just because there is a problem, I've learned this over the years, just because there is a problem and you can solve it doesn't mean necessarily that you're going to get the job either, because your customers may have a problem that you see needs solving, but they just don't care. So do your customers care about the problem that you're trying to solve? So let's say Michael wants to make his second move now. He wants to go

for it. What do you advise him? Well, I would say that if you want to work with clients, then you should figure out not how to build a business working with clients from this point forward, but figure out how to get one client. And then from there, get another. And you can figure out and learn from your mistakes along the way. You know, David and I, you've talked to me about that. Like, well, if you're working with this client, this is the things that I would have done differently. So I know next time I'm going to frame that project a little bit differently. But also success doesn't have to be an all or nothing. So maybe you want to work with these clients. Maybe you can do that in limited time.

Maybe it doesn't have to be a full-time gig. Maybe it is, in fact, a side hustle, and that's as far as it ever goes, recognizing whether you are okay with that. Well, first of all, I think that's outstanding advice. I think that the next move is find a client. It's not start a huge business. Just find a client and do it. And find out if you like it or not.

Maybe what you think is your big thing isn't something you enjoy or something that people want to pay you for. And if that doesn't work, you know what you do? You find another client and you do something else. And you just start laying down these small bets and finding where it works, where you're happy with what you're doing, where you've got something that people are willing to pay you for. And once you start seizing on that, then you start perfecting that and you start adding additional clients. And the idea here is you gradually grow that side hustle. And you don't need to, I don't even think you need to decide right now whether that side, you're going to be happy with it just as a side hustle. First, you got to find out if it exists.

And if it does, maybe you love it. And then you really say, oh, this is something I really want to do. And you start putting more and more time into it. But, you know, quitting the job and going out and saying, now I'm going to make underwater baskets or whatever it is that you're going to do is probably a mistake because you really don't know yet what it is. You know, it's that magic combination of work you enjoy plus work people will pay for. And it may take three or four or five or 10 attempts before you find that. So I feel like Michael's in a great position because he's got a job where he has free time because he's able to automate so much of his work where he can really kind of hone that. And he's young enough that he

can find that space. And then once you get that toehold, then you go all in. Yeah, exactly. And you kind of touched on this, but I'll say it maybe a little bit different way. Be willing to change course. So you recognize that maybe this is the next thing. Once you get there, reevaluate and see if you are still on the right path. So the end result, the goal that you're trying to get to is going to change as you keep following the next step. But that's okay. Look for those related things, those ancillary things, and always be asking yourself, what's the next thing? What is the thing that's appropriate? What's the right decision to

make given where I am right now? And then when you get to that next step, asking that question again, that was a theme when we had Joe Bulig on was recognizing that, you know, just because this was the right thing previously doesn't mean it's the right thing anymore. When I, the first episode that I was on, when we talked about my journey, that's kind of where, how I started, I started off as a writer. Then I started creating some videos and I started doing some screencasting. Then I started doing some podcasting. Like I, if I would have joined the Asian efficiency team and I'm like, yeah, I'm going to take over the podcast. Like that would have freaked me out. There's no way I would have been on board with that. But it was a slow journey and a bunch of small course corrections, a small bunch of small adjustments that got me to where I am today. And along with that, you know, keep growing your skills, decide what you want to be good or bad at. And again, this can change. You don't have to decide right now that this is the thing I'm going to be amazing at and I'm going to go all in on podcasting

because you know what? Podcasting may disappear at some point. What's the next thing then? But there is going to be something that comes next and podcasting, if you recognize it, will develop the skill set that will help you get there. And you can apply that to whatever industry you happen to be in.

Recognize that the growth along the journey is more valuable necessarily than the destination. You're never going to get to the point where, okay, I'm here now, I'm done. Yeah, you never arrive. That's a recurring theme on this show. Well, Michael, good luck with you, Michael. I want to hear how things go. And it sounds like you've really got your head on your shoulder. So I'm looking forward to seeing what comes up with that. This episode of The Free Agents is brought to you by Timing, the automatic time tracking app for macOS. Use the link in the show notes to get 10% off your purchase. So let's talk about why you should track your time. For anyone billing their hours,

this may seem a little obvious, but even if you are employed or billing per project, you need to estimate how long a specific task is going to take. Time tracking helps you stay on track with those estimates to make sure you don't end up in the red with your projects. And it also helps you make more accurate estimates in the future. Best of all, it just tells you where you're spending your time. And if you're trying to make it as a free agent, that is a vital piece of data. The trouble is, most timers require you to manually set them every time you switch tasks. This is a pain in the neck and inaccurate. Enter timing. Instead of making you start and stop timers, timing automatically tracks how much time you spend on each app, document, and website.

It shows you exactly when you were working on what, when you slacked off, and how productive you have been, so you know how to improve your productivity. Timing's functionality is similar to iOS 12's Screen Time, but for the Mac. Plus, Timing offers more advanced tracking, including manual tracking and a gorgeous new dark mode. But you know work doesn't just happen on your Mac. That's why the timeline automatically makes suggestions for filling in gaps in your time. That way you'll never again forget to enter a meeting. And with the automatic sync feature, your track time will magically appear across all of your Macs. So even when you work on the go with

your MacBook, you'll still have the full picture on your iMac once you get home. I'm a big fan of the timing application because I do think the automatic tracking feature is super useful. Even if you set manual timers, you're still going to have little forays into things you don't expect to do. You may jump into Amazon for 15 minutes or go to your favorite website to read an article for 30 minutes. And all of the time, you're running a timer on what looks like a work project. It's just human nature. Timing slaps you in the face with your actual time, and it really helps you get better at this stuff. I've been using timing for a long time. I even use Timing to log things when I'm away from

my Mac. When I come back, I just enter it. They've got a nice little menu where you can type it right in. Timing is so confident that you'll love their fuss-free approach. They offer a totally free trial. Download the free 14-day trial today by going to timingapp.com slash freeagents and save 10% when you purchase. Stop guessing how you spend your time and instead focus on doing what you're good at. Thank you, Timing, for your support of this show. All right, so we had a lot of feedback

at the forum this month, Mike. Why don't we spend a few minutes going over some of that? Yeah, so the first one that I put in the notes here, which I absolutely love the topic of this thread, it's what do you do for fun? So Adam S. Brown says, the latest episode of free agents stuck a chord with me. I am 31 currently working for the man with no real urge to go into free agency, but I still find the topics covered and talked about helpful. In the latest episode, it was mentioned that fun was important for staving off burnout. I'm struggling to actually find things that I find fun. My partner works most weekends,

and I often find myself working my day job without even thinking, of course, this can't be good for my health. What are my options? I've considered a games console, such as a Switch or other, but the cost is quite high. So there were several people in this thread who cast their vote for the Switch uh several people recommended some maybe portable systems or older systems i have a switch you have a switch we talked about this uh i absolutely love it i think this is definitely very fun and i want to add you know we did a whole uh whole episode for members on some of the things that we we play on our switch and different games and things like that but i found a new one uh super mario is out now for the Switch, and it's amazing.

Did you just cost me $50? Mario Party? I think you did. Yes, yes, I think I did. Because it's one of those games that everybody can play with just one Joy-Con. And you don't need to have any experience with it. It's kind of like a board game in video game form. But there's these mini games where you're competing against other people, kind of like Fusion Frenzy back in the day. Well, now it's

available for the Switch, and so it's a lot of fun. And my kids and I love playing those multi-game Nintendo games. And there were a lot of great options or things people were writing in on. We heard about Civilization, the turn-based game

that I cannot stop playing whenever i start playing it so that that's a little uh scary but then we had people doing things like cooking and spinning yarn and um rosemary wrote in about nano raimo you know national novel writing she writes a novel um we had listeners that do photography and salsa dancing and board games. I think the answer there is to find something that lights up your brain in happy ways and make sure to schedule time for it. We talk a lot about scheduling here. That stuff is important.

Yeah, a couple other things on this list. I want to cast my vote for Richard C. mentioned board games. We mentioned a whole bunch of board games that we play in the members-only episode. Those are a lot of fun. Rosemary also mentioned read a book. So I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Bookworm here. This is a podcast that she'll be really going to hide you.

So if you want to join a podcast book club, go check out bookworm.fm. Another thing that I want to call out here, because you mentioned hiking, walking, running, things like that. I think that there is a lot to be said for your mental state when you get outside. So I don't think the specific activity really even matters all that much. Running is the thing for me. In fact, when we get done recording here, I'm going to go for a run. But when you get outside and get around nature, there is a positive impact that makes you happier. And that is going

to in turn help you do better work. Yeah, there's a two mile hike near my house. I do almost every day. And I blame the Apple Watch for that. But I've done all these experiments lately, like do I do the walk after lunch? Do I do it in the evening? You know, the morning is such sacred time when you get so much work done. But I find that if I get up and leave like at sunrise and do that walk, it takes about 45 minutes. And it puts me in such a great mood that when I get back, I'm just like a monster at getting my work done.

And even though I'm giving up 45 minutes of precious morning time for it, I totally get it back. So, you know, fine. I think that's something to consider, you know, getting out there. But I mean, it could be whatever floats your boat. I play the saxophone. I mean, we all have different things we do to have fun. The message we wanted to get across that show, and that's worth renewing here, is a successful free agency isn't one where all you do is work. In fact, that's a recipe for losing your free agency because you are going to burn out if that's what you're doing. And find a way to do some fun. Make sure you break out time for it.

That's just as important as everything else. Yeah, I'm glad you called out the saxophone because I think that playing a musical instrument is something also that is very powerful. I saw a study at one point that showed what that does to your brain. So it's not really, quote unquote, restful, but for a lot of people, it pushes all the right buttons and it actually increases your energy levels. So when you go back to do your work after you take a 10 minute break to you pick up a guitar sitting in your office or whatever, that can be a really powerful reset. Yeah, I mean, for me, because I don't even necessarily play music, I work on improvisation, where I'm making up music while I play, which I think unlocks a whole bunch

of stuff in my brain. You know, I mean, it's just like, it's almost like a combination of math and art. And it does when you sit down, it's funny because I'll go back to work after that and whatever problem I had just gets solved. Yeah, exactly. And a lot of times you don't even understand when you do it and you get that problem solved initially, you can look right past it. You don't even understand what actually just happened. And so that's why I want to call it out specifically here is a lot of people will try to solve a problem and they'll be working on it in one state for a really long time.

And a lot of times just going outside, playing a musical instrument, changing up your state, that's the thing that unlocks the solution for you. We also heard about virtual assistants. Joel wrote in, if a free agent was looking for an online or offsite assistant to offload a little work, where would they start to look? This is an interesting topic that I've heard a lot in the productivity space. And I think maybe at the heart of this, if you dig into the conversation, there was a lot of confusion about what exactly is a virtual assistant anyways. And I want to dispel one of the common misconceptions here, which is just that you can delegate all the stuff that you don't really want to do because a lot of people don't delegate it effectively. don't delegate it effectively. So I want to just couch this by saying that I think the idea of a virtual assistant for a free agent or an executive assistant doesn't have to be virtual necessarily. If it's somebody that you work with locally, that's fine too. But this is a really powerful idea, but you have to do it right if you expect it to work. Let me talk a little bit about my

experience with this because we had Michael Hyatt on the Mac Power Users, and he motivated me to like, oh, you know, you need to get a bunch of people, you know, because I was thinking you needed to find one person. But because I have a legal business and a publishing business, it really isn't one person. The stuff I need is different types of people. And I completely botched it up several times. You know, I had, I tried to hire a virtual assistant. I actually hired one that was recommended to me by a client and like an idiot, I hired them or retained them. And then I had no idea what I was going to give them. Yeah. You know what I mean? It's like, okay, be careful what you wish for. But where I have had success with this is exactly

what Mike was discussing where I have a couple, and most of them are actually in the real world. They're around me, and they come over and help me out once in a while, or they do a lot of this stuff remotely. And the key to me has always been getting the training across right. And I, because not surprisingly, I have all the tools to make screencasts. Anytime I'm handing off something that is done on a computer, I make a video of how to do it and just outline the whole steps. This is where you log in. This is the box you check. This is a lot of the stuff for the customer support stuff. And it's been very successful that way because you send the person you're working with a video that they can go back

and watch as many times as they want. And one of the issues may be that I give them this little task and I don't have another task of this nature for another month. They're not going to remember. But with that video on file, they can always go back and watch it again. And I think that really has been the answer for me. How about you, Mike? Yeah, well, I've made the same mistakes. So I've hired somebody, like you said, didn't have things for them to do. Then you're scrambling like, oh, what can I delegate? I read Virtual Freedom by Chris Strucker, which is actually a really good book. And it explains the process, but I'd never really put forth the amount of effort prior to hiring the person that I hired to make it work.

So that's completely on me. But one of the services that Chris advocates for in that book is virtual staff finders. So if you were looking for a true virtual assistant, I would say that would maybe be a place to look at. But like I shared, just because you hired somebody doesn't mean that it's going to be successful. Really, the ultimate success or failure of this venture is on you because you're the one who knows how the work is supposed to be delegated and supposed to be done. So really, you're the only one who can communicate that in an effective way. I think the screencasting thing for training is an awesome idea. I also want to throw out there that you don't need to spend a whole bunch of money on ScreenFlow and have a bunch of experience in order to do this type of stuff.

Yeah. I think that maybe is a hurdle for some people. Like, well, I can't do a screencast. I don't like the way my voice sounds. It doesn't matter. There are other tools that you can use which make it even easier. One of the ones that I like is tapes. And full disclosure, I know the developer, but it's just a menu bar app.

And you launch it and you choose the portion of your screen you want to record. You can use it with your AirPods, for example, if you want to do something quick and it records your audio while you're explaining something on your screen. And then when you hit stop in three minutes or less, it'll take that small video and it'll upload it to the cloud and it'll give you the link already to paste so you can send it to somebody. You don't have to edit it and export it and then find a server somewhere to share the file. It handles all that stuff for you. And there is a limit on the amount of stuff you can upload in a given month, but I've never even come close to it. And I just find that that app in particular,

it's a couple bucks, I think, on the Mac App Store, but it just makes the whole process so seamless. It eliminates all the friction when I want to show somebody how to do something. Yeah, it's actually better for that problem than ScreenFlow, because it does exactly that. When you want to share it with a virtual assistant, you already have a link. You don't even have to figure out how to send them a big file. So that's a great way to do it. But documentation is always the way to go. I mean, if you don't want to screencast these problems, or maybe it's something that doesn't lend itself to screencasting, you still need to lay down what are the steps necessary to successfully accomplish this task. And to me, the things that are natural for a virtual assistant

are the things that happen repeatedly and are tedious to you. There's something that you don't want to do. It doesn't require your expertise to handle this problem. And it's going to happen more than once. And if you've got something that meets those, or maybe three times, you know, to use Tan's number. But if you've got something that is a repeatable, tedious problem, you have to put some time in to set that up. But if you do, it can be very helpful. Yep. And then delegate not by abdication, not by saying, okay, here's how to do this thing. Now, just go ahead and get it done. But true delegation requires a lot more effort and a lot more thought before someone really understands

why they're doing what they're doing and what a successful outcome looks like. So if you can't describe what a, you know, I guess this is kind of a scrum term, but like the definition of done for the thing that you are delegating, if all you have is a checklist of step one, step two, step three, for a lot of stuff, that's not good enough because things will pop up that you didn't think of. And you need to have that picture of this is the successful outcome for the person to be able to decide what to do in a given moment. So unless it's something that you know exactly what to expect every single time that you do this, you'll find that you have a lot of trouble delegating things if you don't paint that picture of this is what success is. Yeah. And another piece of this that I think

has helped me is having some type of software management system to track it. Traditionally, for me, that has been Trello, where I set up a Trello card on the major things that I delegate, so we can kind of keep track of where they are. I'm experimenting now with Basecamp because I'm using Basecamp with a bunch of legal clients and I may just move all the assistant stuff there too. But do having a place where the two of you can have collaboration space to share files and thoughts and ideas can be a big help if it's somebody that's not going to be in the building with you. Yep, I've used Trello previously for that and it's worked great. Basecamp also, I'm familiar with that tool.

I think that would also be a good tool. Now, if you're trying to figure out where to get your assistant, I mentioned the virtual staff finder website that I've used previously. And again, it didn't work out, but I'm putting that on me, not on them. You mentioned you had Michael Hyatt

on the Mac Power Users. I know one that he recommends is BelaySolutions.com. B-E-L-A-Y. I don't have experience with that one either. And another one that I've heard of and worked with in a limited capacity is Zirtual. Zirtual tends to be more, I guess the term would be executive assistants. So these are people who can do a little bit higher level tasks, but also, you know, if you're looking for something

that you can delegate stuff to and it's just stuff that anybody can do, but you don't want to do it, maybe this isn't the thing for you then because yes, you can get people on a very limited part-time basis, but it is going to be more expensive as well. And I guess the one last point

I'd make on this is figuring out whether you need a virtual assistant or not is just keeping track. For me, it was a time tracking experiment that really helped me realize, oh, wait a second, I spend this many hours a week dealing with this problem that is entirely something I could offload to another person at a fraction of what it costs me to not be doing my business. So, um, so do some time tracking or even just have a little piece of paper next to you where you can just make a checklist every time you do something silly that you could hand off, put a check mark down, you know, just, just find some way to quantify it so you can understand, uh, what a bargain it is,

uh, if it's, if it's appropriate for you. Yeah, and maybe the place to start is just tracking that stuff and tell yourself once you hit X number of things, maybe it's 10, 15 things that you have to do regularly, that's the point where you're going to think about hiring a quote unquote virtual assistant or an in-life real assistant. But that way you avoid the problem that I had where it's like, well, I like the idea. I like the picture of I can delegate all the stuff I don't want to do. But if you don't define that stuff ahead of time, then it's not going to work. Yep.

Another question we heard in the forum was, what's your favorite music or soundtrack to listen to when getting work done? That's kind of a thing going around the Internet these days. What do you do, Mike? Well, I added a whole bunch of stuff to this because I'm always on the lookout for this type of stuff. I call it deep work music. So it's typically music that does not have words. It's not going to distract me while I am doing my work. I've found several things that I really like. One band that I discovered recently is a band called Utah, and it's an instrumental band. U-137 is another one. There's lots of great soundtracks out there. The Monument Valley soundtrack is something that I heard Sean Blanc recommend at one time. Do you get into soundtracks at all yeah i like soundtracks um but the um but i do get

invested in them sometimes and that makes it harder to focus like if i listen to john williams like all you will remember the scene of the movie when i was hearing this you know when i was eight years old or whatever so i have to be a little careful about that the uh the music i generally listen to is one that most people would probably recommend against is I like classic, like 1950s jazz, cool jazz, and even bebop. It is crazy music. It's kind of random, which is probably the wrong ideal music to listen to because there's very little structure in it.

But it's a music I grew up listening to. I know all those songs so well. And because there's a limited quantity of that listening to. I know all those songs so well. And because I, there's a limited quantity of that type of music and I've listened to it my whole life. So it's, um, it's just, it's a comfort to me to have it in the background and it does not capture my attention, if that makes sense. And I think that's what you're looking for. Exactly. That's the critical piece is it can't take your attention away from what you're doing, which is why a lot of people will recommend these video game soundtracks. Like Monument Valley is a perfect example because the music in Monument Valley is amazing. But it's a $3 iOS game that you're not heavily invested in. You don't have strong emotional connections to it. At least I don't. It's enough to just have nice music in the background, but it's all instrumental, which is a lot of video games. So that's perfect.

I saw on your list is Victor Cahiao's Surrender album. Yeah. Victor's a friend of mine, so I like that. You listen to his music. Yeah, I remember you had him on Mac Power Users when he released that CD. I met him at Mac Stock right before he released it, I believe. I met him at Mac stock right before he released it, I believe.

Yeah. So what about storms or, you know, rain music or white noise? Do you do any of that stuff? I don't do any of that. Although somebody had recommended brain.fm. I do use brain.fm when I am usually mobile. So if I'm working from a coffee shop or whatever, I might fire that up on my computer. When I am in my office, I have my HomePod play music generally.

But Brain.fm is a great service. The basic idea here is that it's curated instrumental tracks to help you accomplish a specific goal. So they have a track for focus. They have a track for sleep. They have a track for energy. And you just kind of pick, like, I want to be focused for the next two hours and then it'll play focus music in the background. Kind of another service kind of like this is Focus at Will. I feel like Focus at Will's music is a little bit better. I've noticed some repetitions in the Brain.fm stuff, but Brain.fm also you can find a lot cheaper in fact

stack social frequently has like lifetime lifetime deals on it for a fraction of the cost of something like focus at will you know i tried brain brain.fm once and it did not work for me at all it just didn't i mean the musician in me was listening to the music critically and not happy with it. But I do listen to, in addition to jazz tracks quite often, I listen to a lot of thunderstorms for some reason, maybe because I live in California and that's such a rare event here. But there's an app called Thunderscape, which is some professional sound engineer just went around with a microphone and a tape machine and start recording thunderstorms in a barn in a you know different locations and i really like that app and i listen to it all the time i mentioned it once on mpu and some one of the listeners is like a doctor or somebody sent

me an article saying that listening to that stuff that's like white noise or a thunderstorm isn't helpful to you to mentally or something i didn didn't, it wasn't, they may imply that it wasn't the best solution for that type of stuff for background noise, but, uh, I still like it and I still listen to it all the time. Yeah. Uh, that would probably put me to sleep because I have, I think that's the argument. Yeah. Yeah. I have an app. I forget what it's called even, but it makes white noise and I use it occasionally when I, when I travel. If I'm in a hotel with thin walls, for example, I will fire that up. And I always use, they got different scenes, but I always use the rain one. And so that's the thing that sometimes helps me fall asleep. That probably

wouldn't be great for my productivity. Yeah. I think that was the argument. It's not stimulating enough for your brain. I do mix it up between those two, but it was interesting to see all the different things the listeners do as well. It seems like not anybody was, well, I think one person was listening to Frank Zappa, so there you go. But I think most people don't listen to music with words in it. And just the whole idea is you don't want something that's going to pull your focus away.

Yep. You want something that's going to enhance your focus on what you're working on and not pull your focus into it. And that's a, that's a line to walk. I think. Exactly. A couple other recommendations I'll throw out there. Personally,

it's a Magnus had mentioned explosions in the sky. I really liked that one as well. Uh, Tyco is great. It's all instrumental. Uh, Belmora, Caspian,

Helios, Mogwai. Those are all bands that I've listened to that are instrumental. And the soundtracks, I can't get enough of the soundtracks. The Friday Night Lights soundtrack is actually amazing. I have listened to that probably thousands of times. I picked up a recommendation from Cortex recently, Night Drive Instrumental Edition by Time Cop 1983. Mike Hurley was going on and on about this. And I'm like, yeah, sure, whatever. It really is amazing. I love it. And then also the Firewatch soundtrack. This is something that I got when I bought the game initially, but the music in that game, again, is amazing. So I really

like listening to that. And then the No Man's Sky soundtrack, if you needed some things to plug into your playlist. You could also just tap into some playlists on like Spotify or Apple Music. Somebody had mentioned the Acoustic and Atmospheric playlists and Spotify. Apple Music is a service I use. They have a pure focus playlist, which is really good and includes a lot of this instrumental focus music. I guess, and since you're making recommendations, I'll make a couple. If you're going to follow me down the jazz rabbit hole, since you're making recommendations, I'll make a couple. If you're going to follow me down the jazz rabbit hole, two artists that I think are very good for background music is Dexter Gordon, a tenor sax player, and Clifford Brown, a trumpet player. And neither one of them were the giants

of their time. They're not like Miles Davis or Charlie Parker or Coltrane. But for some reason, they just play, for lack of a better word, happy. If you listen to their music, it's just happy music. They play, you know, and I think it's great in the background while I'm working. It just kind of lifts me up while I'm working, if that makes sense. Yeah, happy people are productive people. Yeah. So just, you know, if you've got one of the services, just look up. I'm sure there's many playlists for both of those artists. Give it a try.

Okay, Mike. Well, there we go. We got to the end of another episode of the free agents. Solved some problems. Hopefully helped Michael out and taught some folks about Kaizen. Anything else? No, that's great. Thanks again for the feedback.

Keep it coming. You can join the discussion at talk.macpowerusers.com. And then there's a free agents room at the Mac Power Users Inn. So just click on the button for free agents. I want to call out specifically again, there's an ongoing thread for kind of your free agent journey. We love hearing those stories. So contribute to that one in particular, or even if you just want to see what other people are listening to, you want to figure out

what you want to do for fun or how to work with a virtual assistant, you know, that's the place to do it. Yes. And thanks to our sponsors, Squarespace and Timing. And we'll see you all in two weeks. Thanks.