#jaren is in love with him because he wants to be evil so bad but he CANT !!!

[jrueships]

they are, perhaps, evil

[jeawrites]

BBS Derby AU: Important Others

The final bits of fun facts and some info for this AU! I might start writing an actual story here in a bit too, so look out for that!

Anthony-

Nicknamed by the team Jiggly Panda. 

He’s the coach, not even that strict of one but he is very committed. 

He owns the skate park the team practices at! He was also the one to pitch the idea of starting a derby team to his most regular skater (and really good friend) Tyler.

The team loves him, they will fight for him. And, he will fight for them (even though he’d rather not).

He’s the one who convinced Evan to join. 

“It’s just like hockey- except no ice, no sticks or pucks, and you go in a circle the whole time!”

Used to play when he was younger (that’s how he met Brock).

Very competitive when it comes to important bouts. Don’t question him.

The team got him and Brock customized varsity jackets with their respective names on the back and the team’s logo on the front. He nearly cried when he got it.

His laugh is just as noticeable as Jon’s, but his rage is a lot more iconic when its seen. He has broken clip boards. 

He wears a panda hat to every bout, it’s his own symbol for the team. They all love it a lot more than they say they do.

Brock- 

Moo Snuckle, he had the name back when he played for his old team (he thought it was funny then but now its just a little embarrassing). Everyone just calls him Moo.

He’s the bench coach! He helps sort out everyone on who’s going out onto the track and whatnot. If it’s not a bout, he’s usually just the assistant coach. 

Was brought onto the team by Anthony- he got a facebook message late one night.

‘Wanna help coach a bunch of dumbasses with my dumbass?’

He’s really patient with them all. Helps calm down people if they start to get frustrated. Most infamously, he calmed Tyler down after he threw his helmet off and broke it. It took him five minutes and a shit ton of crappy puns.

Brings in extra water for everyone during bouts, makes sure everyone eats before they practice (messages them an hour and a half before hand so they can snack on something healthy).

There's a joke running through the team about him and getting angry. It’s mostly just comparing him to a werewolf. 

On that note, it takes a lot to make Brock angry, so the moment he snaps it’s usually pretty unsettling and you know you’ve screwed up then.

He only got that way once when it was really noticeable, and it was during a bout when the refs weren’t making any correct calls (Joe and Mark excluded because they couldn’t make it that night- Joe was sick and Mark was making sure he was okay).

He actually sobbed for ten minutes after getting his jacket. He wears it to every bout.

Everytime they move up a rank in the charts Brock takes the team to dinner. He insists he can cover the pay, but everyone usually tips in anyways.

Brings extra face paint, duct tape, wheels, and other needs to bouts as a just in case.

Jaren-

Smitty!

He’s the local EMT. Goes to every bout to cover the injuries. 

Was the first one to make fun of Jon for fracturing his wrist.

Nobody actually knows where he learned to be a medical professional, but nobody really questions it either. 

He supports the team a lot, has actually come to a few practices to just watch and hang out with them all. He’s also gone to away bouts whenever he can.

Like’s to heckle the team jokingly, though he has gotten smacked a few times by Marcel and Ryan (not hard of course).

He’s actually really fun to have around too, makes a lot of good jokes and he is scarily good at timing shit. He’s helped them all at practices with that talent. He’s also pranked the entire team at least once with it.

Him and Evan both sort of bonded over being Canadian. Jiggly introduced them to each other as “fellow penguins”.

“My name’s Jaren, how aboot you, eh?”

“Evan, nice to meet you, eh.”

They both shared a few pieces about their old homes and then just sort of became friends. They both act like children sometimes though if kept in the same place together too long.

Him and Jon actually get along really well! Both of them like making weird jokes and acting out dramatic scenes. 

“And with this last breath, I die!” 

“Pfft- Del, oh my god, okay- Nooo!! My one true love, died to an evil oposer--- I curse you Evan for knocking my love out of play!”

The team either finds it really entertaining or really weird. Jaren was kicked out of a practice one time due to one of his and Jon’s acts, if that says anything.

Mark-

Gorillaphent!

He grew up with Luke and Jon, so of course they dragged him out to watch the sport once.

He really liked it, but he didn’t want to play it. But, the reffing seemed fun and with some encouragement he became the Banana Quads first ref! 

On Halloween they have a scrimmage where he wears this ugly purple elephant trunk that he got from somewhere. Nobody wants to question it because people know thats what he wants.

Eventually Ohm gives in and questions it and he gets called on a cut he never made later that game and forced into the penalty box. It happens five more times and then Ohm is paranoid the rest of the night.

“Gorilla, please!! I did nothing wrong--”

“Are you talking back to a ref, Ohm?”

He’s kinda evil, in short.

Not really, he’s actually pretty chill, he just thought that whole ordeal would be funny (and it kind of was).

He’s unbelievably good at making calls. He’s rumoured to have eyes in the back of his head, but he’s actually just pretty observant. 

He’s also pretty smart on top of that, so he can sort of tell when he’s going to need to make a specific call before it happens thanks to careful observing and knowledge. 

He has a purple helmet with only two stickers, one being an elephant, the other being a sticker of his name made like a logo.

Him and Joe bully each other on a regular basis, do not interfere or you will get dragged in and become part of whatever war they may or may not be in. Its all fun and games until the two are dumping baby powder on your head.

Joe-

Dead Squirrel (he used to play for, like, a year, but that was his name for it).

He met Mark, Jon, Luke, and Ryan a year before the derby stuff started.

Was dragged onto the team by Gorilla, but he found it really fun to meet new people and the traveling wasn’t half bad! Plus, he really enjoys chasing after the Jammers, especially if his in the lead. 

He wears makeup to bouts- it looks like his head’s missing a peace and a cartoonish brain is coming out (cartoonish meaning there’s not too much effort in it- not that its actually cartoonish).

Also oddly good at making calls when he’s supposed too. He catches some others might not.

He doesn’t ever get really mad, maybe over excited for the bouts. He’s never yelling out of anger though.

Luke and Gorilla are pretty protective over him. Joe’s a little more oblivious to when people are being flirty or a little too polite (he doesn’t want to be rude sometimes and tell them he’s uncomfortable, especially if he might be misreading things) that’s why his two tough derby buddies come in and save the day. 

It doesn’t happen often, just once or twice a year.

He’s loyal to the team, but holds no bias when it comes to making calls. If that’s questioned the team will prove it. (Joe has been offered a few bribes once or twice but his opinion on it remains unmoved and he remains as unbiased as possible). 

“Alright, I’m sayin’ it again. I am not, not going to call you out for back blocks, Marcel, quit trying to convince me and just try to not get back blocks.”

He’s the one who dumps the baby powder on people’s heads. He carries it around with him because its helps keep his bag smelling good, and it makes his skin soft. 

He and Brian are the only two who care if their equipment stinks. He usually supplies Brian with his own little thing of baby powder whenever its needed. 

John-

Mostly their as either an NSO or a fan. If its a home bout he’s usually an NSO. 

He works the score board when he’s an NSO. When he’s a fan, he’s cheering on the team excitedly or hanging out with Jaren on the side. 

He’s really laid back until he’s yelling at the team in excitement. 

“Yeah! Kick their asses ohm, you’re doing great!”

Ryan tried to get him on the team, along with Scotty and Tyler, but they were all denied. 

He does go skating with them on open skate nights though. He just prefers to keep it more casual than competitive. 

The team all chipped in to get him some custom ring with the team's name carved into it and a new vape. It was a present to him for being their number one fan.

He really liked the gift, wouldn’t stop smiling the rest of that day. 

Got an honorary jersey with the name Kryoz (he got to pick it). He wears it to every bout he’s a fan at.

He’s the one who suggests they throw an end of season party to celebrate everything they did that year. He’s also the one who gets stuck planning it out sense he made the idea, but he does convince Ryan, Tyler, Marcel, and Anthony to help out.

[royvdhelart]

So...as I've been sick for the last week, I kind of needed something to cheer me up a bit and something to get the Art-passion flowing again. So, I decided to finally redo Emil's reference sheet, as I never liked the old one, after designing him a new outfit <3

This was a bunch of work but boy, I can not recall having this much fun with a drawing and I'm actually hella proud of it for once :D I hope you like it as well!

--- Just to be clear btw: This Art is NOT for free use. ---

Callname: Emil/Baltazar Full-Name: Baltazar Emil A'zam Duman Jaren Qazir Languages: Common, Dwarfish (future: draconic)

Age: 26, born on the first day of June Sex/Gender: Male Height: 1,95m/6'4 Race: Human Class: (Lore) Bard (level 9) (future: Draconic sorcerer)

Background: Entertainer/Noble Sexuality: Bi-Romantic

Favorite Instrument: Violin. Alignment/Personality: Neutral Good, optimistic, Drama Queen, charismatic, polite, group-mom, party-guy, curious, creative. Flaws: Drama Queen, has a big mouth and turns into an awkward/clumsy dork when he has a crush on someone. More about his family: https://sta.sh/014wc8gu8y2p Background: Baltazar was born on the first day of June in the city Setus. He was the 7th and youngest son of a wealthy merchant family, having 4 brothers ( (35) Amin, (33)Kareem, (30)Jarah, (27)Gabriel, and ( and 2 sisters (Farah (31) and Iris (35) above him.  Baltazar had always been the "runt of the litter". Tall but lanky, Emil wasn't strong, and always out searching for trouble. This often caused him to clash with his parents, who really wished Emil would become more serious instead of going on about silly adventures and hanging around in inn's every night. Actually just fearing for his well-being.

As a proper noblemen's son Baltazar was learned etiquette from a young age, getting schooled by a wise old teacher (Nazim), who had years of experience teaching his older brothers and sisters. Emil wasn't the best student however and caused quite the frustration to his teacher. He skipped classes, pulled tricks on his teacher and rarely did the work he was expected to or find some kind of way to do his tasks with the least effort possible. Emil was much too busy learning plays out of his head, creating new songs or just dreaming about what it would be like to be actually free, to travel the lands, slay monsters, be a hero, to do such boring and repetitive tasks. It didn't matter anyway, he was the youngest, he would one day be married of to a rich woman/man and that would be it. He often worried about this future, a future, which in his opinion, could only become boring. The moments he spent on stage, telling people silly stories when he played his violin, were the moments he actually felt alive, at those moments he could feel a kind of power flowing through him, which could vaguely be described as a warmth but different. To him, it seemed that all that they wanted to do is take that from him, make him "more serious" as he would never honor his family's name as a simple entertainer. One day Emil had pushed his parents too far, he missed his teacher's lessons again and had a big fight with his father. All Emil's frustration and fear for the future came out at that point. Which ended with Emil, angerly saying that he was going to leave the city and that he would prove them that he would become worth something, he would become a great entertainer, a Hero even, his name would become known! With that, he packed his stuff and left the next morning. Quite quickly Emil found out that traveling was definitely not as easy or fun as he expected and regretted his decision quite quickly as he started to run out of gold, the city Setus was mostly surrounded by desert and small villages, where there was no way for him to make any profit. After traveling for days, he decided that he really wasn't ready to cross an entire dessert after having a nasty run-in with Goblins. He finally reached a cross point between three larger cities. He decided to travel between the cities, to try out work as an entertainer to earn some gold. For a few years, he played music at inns, took on small roles in plays and did some odd jobs to earn some extra gold. In these years he discovered the kind of power within himself again, a power which he studied and could control more and more each day as he got mentored by another bard called "Rafael". Who saw potential in him. Eventually, he learned how to control magic with his voice, movements, and music. Even though he enjoyed entertaining, with his new found powers and being able to do whatever he wanted, he realized he became somewhat stuck there, unable to grow, he was running out of ideas for songs or tales. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn't go back home and wasn't confident enough of his abilities yet to go on actual adventures alone, as he and Rafael split up after a year, his powers seemed mostly passive, supporting at most. Contemplating his options, he almost stumbled over a black panther which seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. He looked back at the table which the large black cat was laying against, sitting around it he saw what could only be described as a perfect example of a knight in shining armor drinking a large pint of... milk? and a younger somewhat odd hooded figure, bright red with a large bird emblem depicted on his back in gold. Emil was immediately intrigued by the curious figures, decided to buy them a round and started talking to them. The knight was apparently the Paladin called Adil Fahd, somewhat of a folk hero, who he actually recognized by name as he had heard it before. The hooded young man was called Yashan, a Phoenix sorcerer from far away, this apparently meant he knew a lot about setting things and himself... on fire, he was apparently on a holy mission to find a religious artifact called the Sun-Stone. He spends the rest of the evening talking with the adventurers and eventually convinced them to let them join their group. A few months later, they met their newest members to the party "Kakaah" a odd but smart Kenku Rogue and a sassy Fighter called Ustrom and with the party complete they would face many adventures, from fighting as gladiators in the area of a savage dwarf Island, to Dyeing Ogers hair to get out of trouble, surviving many of Adil's bad ideas, dangerous sea-trips, a trip to the Underdark, meeting the Evil beholder called Kazejux, retrieving priceless artifacts,  fighting a Demon called Kalahai who is wanting to take over the world... and many more and many more more to come. Extra/Random Facts about Emil: - Emil is a very charismatic and likes to flirt but is absolutely terrified of sex because of a mix of bad/silly experience and anxiety. He gets nervous about the subject and panics as soon as things become too hot and heavy. - Emil has a huge weakness for smart and dorky, guys/girls <3 - He learned the tips and tricks about being a Bard from a Bard called Rafael, with whom he has a somewhat competitive-love/hate friend-relationship as their friendship got a little complicated at the end of their showbusiness-partnership. Rafael is a stereotypical bard, very charismatic, party-animal and somewhat of a nymphomaniac. - Emil used to own a tiger when he was younger, who he shared with his brother Gabriel, which is supposed to be depicted on his bracers. Gabriel, after being reunited with Emil again 3 years after Emil left home, decided to also engrave his name into the bracers, in a way, so he'd be with him on his adventures. -Emil grew up with two mothers and a father, his biological mother is called Anjah, she is smart, smoll and scary, his second mother is called Dolunay, Cool, collected and wise, and his father's name is Azam who is intimidating but too sweet for his own good. His parents are in a Poly-romantic relationship and don't appreciate the "He is rich so he has more than one wife"-talk/ habit, the relationship is shared between all of them and they all love each other equally.

- Aside from the strings, his Violin is made out of Wood, Gold, and Ivory. It's called "Yarro" and is named after the Yarrow Plant. - He was thought to shoot his crossbow by his older brother Amin, who is good at handling most weapons known to that region, and an avid collector. Currently, Baltazar owns a magic Heavy Crossbow which is able to cast the spell "Tenser's transformation". - Emil is familiar with wearing drag or being scarcely clothed on stage as he used to be a part of a show in an "Entertainers-bar" for about a year. His drag is now one of his costumes next to his dessert robes... this job wasn't one of his favorites... but it was where Rafael discovered him, which would change his life forever. (He is dangerous with a pair of heels.) - Emil recently acquired a sentient cape, called Thanatos, a cured copper dragon with a ton of attitude. He allows Baltazar to Fly, be resistant to fire and look very extra. - His feather ear-ring is supposed to resemble a phoenix feather, however, he has no clue if it's real, as he bought it on a market from a somewhat sketchy guy. - Emil lost his finger for a while after using a magic artifact to save his ass... (Future: luckily he was able to get it back!) - Emil has a birthmark on his left hip. - (When compared to the real world) Emil would have a combination of Arabic/Indian/maybe a bit of Egyptic heritage. - Emil Knows gods exist but isn't necessarily a follower of any. More Baltazar: - https://romyvdhel-art.deviantart.com/art/OC-Spectrum-Meme-DnD-Characters-724820026 - https://romyvdhel-art.deviantart.com/art/DND-Reference-Baltazar-Emil-Qazir-707607613 - https://romyvdhel-art.deviantart.com/art/DnD-Sketchdump-VIII-717548901

[bettydgunter90]

072: Is it Heroic or Idiotic to “Burn the Ships”?

  People in the business world and particularly in the real estate space sometimes look down upon employees and people who choose to rely on a job while they start and grow their business.

There’s this idea that the only way to make it work is to take a reckless leap of faith and ‘burn the ships’ so you can’t turn back.

It makes for a compelling story… but is that really the right way to play this? We’re going to talk about that today.

Links and Resources

Entreleadership by Dave Ramsey

5 Real Estate Side Hustle Ideas (I Made $1,000 in One Day)

070: The 10X Rule vs. 80/20 Principle – What’s the Right Way to Run Your Business?

Profit First by Mike Michalowicz

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Thanks again for joining me this week. Until next time!

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Episode 72 Transcription

Seth: Hey everybody, what’s up? This is Seth Williams and Jaren Barnes, and you’re listening to the REtipster podcast. Today is episode 72. By the way, you can find show notes for everything in this episode at retipster.com/72.

Today, Jaren and I are going to talk about something that we’ve sort of noticed and kind of bothered by for many years. It’s this idea of a job, the dreaded “J-O-B” being a curse, something that needs to be shunned and something that needs to be basically moved away from “at all costs” as soon as possible.

I think what makes this kind of tricky is because for somebody who is an entrepreneur and wants to be financially free and wants to do the whole self-employed thing and start their own business, undeniably there’s always going to be an element of that, where you do want to get away from your job, and you want to cut the cord and live life on your own terms.

But there’s this attitude among a lot of voices online and hardcore business owners where it’s like a job is downright evil, like it’s wrong. And anybody who has a job is somehow failing as a person and the only way to handle that situation is to do what they call “burning the ships” or “burning the boats” or “burning the bridge” or whatever you want to call it. Where you basically cut ties with that permanently so that you can’t go back. Basically, given yourself no other option, but to move forward towards the path of “success”, the place that you want to go.

We’re going to unpack that a little bit today and share our thoughts about that whole mindset and that philosophy. Where that is getting it right, where that is getting it wrong and kind of how we look at this situation.

Jaren: Yeah. I’m excited to dive into it, man. Because I know for me, especially when I first got started in real estate out in the Bay Area, there was like, I don’t know, like this elite-ism among aspiring entrepreneurs and existing established entrepreneurs. That just was like, “If you’re an employee you’re automatically a lower-class human being. If you work for somebody else, you don’t work for yourself, you’re just less, you just kind of suck”. And we would use language like “The Employee Mindset”.

I remember a lot of my peers that left good jobs. I left a really solid job to go pursue this real estate flipping business that was doomed to fail from the beginning. I just remember, we thought so highly of ourselves with almost $0 in our bank account, just scraping by doing the “starving entrepreneurial” lifestyle as opposed to the starving artist’s lifestyle of somebody who’s pursuing music as their full-time thing. Every single person that started is now working a full-time job, as an employee. Myself included.

Seth: So, it didn’t work out for them?

Jaren: Not at all. Not a single one of them. The only people that I’ve ever seen actually transition out of it into being able to sustain themselves long-term in a business that they own is very slow, very methodical, lots of contingency plans, lots of savings. And everyone I know – You, Brett, Tyler. Everybody that I know had a strategy to transition out.

I just kind of feel like we owe our audience something that I wish somebody gave me when I was first starting out and kind of pull the curtain back and say, “This is not sound good on a stage when you’re trying to hoorah the crowd”. But I think the stories of people “burning the boats” and going after their thing, their backs are against the wall, it’s very inspirational. It makes it a very good movie, but it’s very much an outlier. I think most people don’t cross the bridge into owning their own business full time and as their primary source of income without doing that slowly. I think most people have to do it slowly.

Seth: Yeah. I think the reason why this idea catches on so much and why people love to tell this idea is because it makes for a really compelling story. It’s sort of like this hero’s journey where they’re up against incredible odds and somehow, they overcome them. And it is a great story when it works out well.

Those are typically the stories you end up hearing about. Those are the types of people that do get interviewed on podcasts and all this stuff. But the people that don’t make it, a lot of times you’re not going to hear those stories because they’re not fun stories to hear about and it doesn’t sell books and it doesn’t work well, motivational stage and that kind of thing.

I remember I heard about this a long time ago, the band Blink-182, sort of this punk rock band and their drummer, Travis Barker. I remember seeing some interview at some point where he was talking about how… I don’t remember all the details, but what I remember was that when he was young and he wanted to be this drummer in a rock band and really make it in music, he went out and got these tattoos going all the way up to his neck. Like tattoos that couldn’t be hidden. And sort of this idea was like, “I’m going to make this happen so that I can’t go to a white-collar job. I’m going to have to make the Rockstar thing work”. And of course, it did work for him and that’s great for him. And that’s a great story.

But what if you got a bunch of neck or face tattoos and then, “Oh, well, the rock star thing, like 99.9% of other aspiring musicians doesn’t work out?” And now what? You’ve just ruined a lot of chances that even if these alternative routes weren’t going to be your final destination, they still would have been very helpful as a way to get you to where you want to go in the meantime.

When I think about this idea of “burning the ships”, essentially what it’s saying is that you’re making a permanent life-altering decision without all the facts, without all the foresight and implications of that decision. You don’t know where it’s going to go, or if it’s going to pan out the way you plan. There are a lot of things that just in my own life I can think about that I’ve really wanted at certain points that were not the right thing for me, that I was not the right fit for. And it took me some pain and discomfort to figure that out. But if I had “burned the ships” and give myself no other option, man, I’d be in a pretty rough spot.

Jaren: Yeah.

Seth: When I think of this idea of “burning the ships”, it seems like sound advice for somebody who is fighting an addiction or trying to move away from a situation or behavior that is indisputably undeniably 100% bad. Like there is no redeeming value in the place that they’re at and they have to move away. There’s never a situation where it’s going to be okay to leave that option open. So, like that, I understand. I can totally get why this “burning the boats” advice would make sense. But when we’re talking about starting a business, that honestly sounds like some of the worst advice I’ve ever heard.

Jaren: Tell me how you really feel.

Seth: Well, you’re cutting off all forms of security and you’re cutting off all of the fallback options. And in my opinion, that’s not a smart move. It makes for a great story when it works out well, but more often than not, I think it doesn’t work out well when somebody does that because it’s a foolish decision in the first place.

If somebody is considering “burning the ships” for one reason or another, it’s important to think about “WHY”. Why is it necessary to eliminate all your other options? What does this do for you? Is it because the feeling of commitment is exciting and feels good? Because if that’s the case, I think it’s important to also remember that committing to something is not the same as doing it or accomplishing it. It’s surprisingly easy to trick ourselves into believing that committing is the same as doing. I’m guilty of this. I’ve totally had this feeling before, but it’s like, “Hey, I am going to do this.” And in my mind, it’s like, “I’ve already done it”.

But man, I got to tell you, every business I’ve ever tried to do has always a hundred percent of the time ended up being a lot harder than I thought it was going to be. Sometimes so hard that it’s like, “Well, I don’t want to do this anymore”. And other times it’s hard, but not something I couldn’t overcome. So, this idea of cutting off all your other options when there’s a lot of unknowns and frankly, there’s nothing inherently evil about having a job. It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Jaren: I think for me, where it really falls apart is at least my personality, I can’t speak for other people because I know other people perform well under stress, but if my back is against the wall and I’m not okay financially, I make really dumb decisions because I am very emotional. I can’t get out of the side of my own head. I thrive in an environment where there is no stress. If I have like a fight with my wife or if I have other factors that day, it really plays a toll on my productivity. I do not perform well under stress, unfortunately. And that’s just a personality thing of mine.

When I have in the past taking this advice and really tried to like, “No matter what I’m going to make this happen”, I end up being all over the place and not being able to be wise in my decision making.

And I want to say too like, I get it. I don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. When we first started the conversation about employee mindset and stuff. There is an employee mindset, for sure, that is not a good mindset to have. The clock in clock out, just do the bare minimum to get by or to get your paycheck. That has never resonated with me. I remember the first real job that I got. I was working as a security guard at the hospital where my mom worked at. My mom was a labor delivery nurse until she retired.

I used to get so upset when my manager would say, “Jaren, you have to go take lunch now”. And I’m like, “Well, I’m doing my routes. I’m doing stuff. Why can’t I take lunch later?” And same thing with 15-minute breaks. I didn’t like that cog in the wheel stuff. But not every job is like that.

For example, the job that I have here at REtipster, autonomy is a really important aspect for me to perform well at my job. And Seth gives me a lot of autonomy. I know I’m really fortunate and I’m really blessed to be here, but there are other jobs too and other career paths that have autonomy or have other things that allow you to function more from an entrepreneurial, or I don’t even know if it’s entrepreneurial. It’s more like just being a contributing voice to the problems at hand, like being an active team member. I think any job you work at, you can just be somebody who just collects a paycheck or you can be a part of the core team that’s actually moving the mission of the business forward.

Even there’s a book by Dave Ramsey called “EntreLeadership”. That’s a really good book about how you can be entrepreneurial-minded and still work for another company. So, I don’t think that the issue is being an employee inherently. I think that the issue is how do you think as a person and what’s your mindset, what’s your approach to life?

Because there is higher-level thinking and there is a better mindset to approach stuff in the entrepreneurial world. But that doesn’t mean you have to be the owner of an LLC that solely provides for your income. While you’re building your dream, while you’re building your business I think it’s much smarter to go get another job or go work for somebody who is successful in the business that you want to be successful in and get paid to learn and then go and do it on the side until your side business replaces your income and you have some savings and then make the jump.

Seth: Yeah. And you were talking earlier about this idea of getting really emotional and making emotional decisions when it really matters. Like you’re depending on this thing to support you full time. I know we’ve talked about this before in our office hours, things we do for the land investing masterclass and that kind of thing. But this idea of going full time with your real estate business, it’s a massive decision.

When I think about like a lot of deals that I’ve done in the past, the reason I was able to hold out for the best possible deal was because of the fact that I wasn’t depending on them working out. I was a hundred percent fine walking away from anything that didn’t make good financial sense. And if it was a situation where like, “No, no. We have to do a deal somehow somewhere, or this whole thing falls apart”. Like if you put that kind of pressure on yourself, it’s a perfect environment to start making dumb decisions because it’s just human nature. Who wouldn’t feel that kind of pressure if they had no other option and they felt like they had to make this thing work? I think you can certainly get there, but it’s really important not to take that leap prematurely before you’re ready, before you can really weather a storm or a few months of uncertainty that is inevitably going to happen at some point.

Jaren: Yeah. I do think there is a place if you’re like, let’s say you’re 18 or 19 years old, or you just graduated high school and you’re still able to live with mom and dad and you don’t have the responsibilities of a wife and kids and all that stuff. I think in those circumstances, if your family is in a case of supporting you, pursuing a business instead of say going to college for a designated amount of time, I think that in those circumstances it could make sense to go “all in” and just say, “Hey, I’m going to be living in mama’s basement for the next couple of years and just put all my attention and effort and all my resources into building a business instead of going to get a job”. I think that that could make sense. But if you’re in a position where you have to contribute to make sure that your family eats every month, I think that it is noble and honorable to provide for your family and put your dream as a side hustle and lose sleep, like sacrifice to make it happen.

You can work during the day, spend time with your family in the evening. And then a few hours while everyone’s sleeping, instead of going to bed at 09:30 or 10:00 o’clock, go to bed at 12:30 and take those couple hours to build your business. I think that’s very feasible. And I know you, you even shared Seth, when you were building your business, you would take your lunch hours, you wouldn’t want to go out and hang out with the guys. You would sit there and work on your thing and you put those hours in. And I think that’s what it takes to make the transition successful if you’re in a situation where people would depend on you.

Seth: I think some people are just in different situations like you were saying, Jaren. Some people just have a lot more at stake. They have a lot more to lose than other people do. When I think of my situation when I was 23, it wasn’t really that hard to take a big leap and do something like this because my living expenses were low. I didn’t have kids. Like how far was there to fall when my career was just starting anyway? I had some expenses like some baseline had to be covered, but it’s not like I was in the most expensive stage in my life. Whereas when I look at where I’m at now, I’ve got two small children and just a lot more happening.

And if I was like cold Turkey going to just stop everything I’m doing now and start something totally different with no promise of that working out, that’s a heck of a gamble. I just don’t think it has to be that way.

I think if somebody is trying to cut the cord and make this big leap, I would think it would just be helpful to think about like, “Why do you think it’s necessary to force a particular destiny on yourself?” What makes you so sure about this thing working out? What evidence do you have to believe that you are going to succeed at it? Not just the person you’re following who happened to succeed at it, but the person that you heard about who did well of it, because the person that you heard about who did well at it, they may have a totally different set of attributes, a totally different situation than you.

Just because there is a proven case study of somebody who did well. It doesn’t mean that you’re going to match up with that. Is it possible that there is something about this particular path forward that’s actually not good for you and you just don’t have the experience to see that yet? I don’t know. There are just a lot of stuff to think about. And there are a lot of question marks with any new business venture and it might not be prudent to just “burn the ships” so to speak.

Jaren: Yeah, my biggest thing, man, I want the listeners today to really hear me out when it comes to shame, because I feel like the “Gary V’s” of the world and the “Grant Cardone’s” of the world and maybe not them directly, but a lot of the culture that goes around a lot of the business influencers, they really look down on you if you have a job. And I will speak firsthand that my land business has done way better since I’ve been working at REtipster and I had the consistent income of REtipster that helped me just like relax and like, calm down. And my business has grown because of it way more than it was growing when I was trying to pursue it full time.

I want to also say I understand if being your own business owner is your dream. We’re not trying to shun your dream. You can definitely make your dream happen, but we’re just trying to encourage you to be more realistic and making it happen. It’s kind of goes back to that whole conversation about “The 10X Rule” versus “The 80/20 Principle”.

I think that it would be better for you to have a very clear goal. Like, “I live off of my land business. I live off of my real estate business”. And then reverse engineer that and figure out the steps that need to happen for that transition to be a reality. Whereas if you just kind of approach it, as like, “Yeah, I’m going to do it”. Kind of like the 10X kind of approach of “I’m going to ‘burn the ships’ and no matter what this is going to happen, or I’m going to die trying”, you could really miss your dream. You can miss your destiny if that’s your destiny if you don’t go after it methodically and with wisdom. And there’s no shame in that. There’s absolutely no shame in working two jobs or three, driving Uber or doing some side hustles while you’re pursuing your main gig.

Seth: Yeah. I think what makes it hard because I totally agree with you Jaren, it’s important to dispel the shame idea behind this or just you’re living a less worthy life or you’re a less person because you haven’t taken this huge audacious risk to do something great. I think what’s hard to accept about that is that a lot of times going slow and being careful and waiting, it’s just monotonous. It’s a long, boring, slow, not exciting process to do that. I’m very familiar with that. It took me basically like almost a decade to get to where I wanted to go. And there were lots of times when I was like, “Man, is this ever going to work? Why is this taking so long? Look at this guy over here who got there faster. What am I doing wrong? How am I failing and why did he succeed? How was he smarter than me?”

There’s lots of self-doubts that can creep in. But C.S. Lewis has this quote where he said, “I don’t believe good work is ever done in a hurry”. He started talking about something different, but it’s kind of related in that for a lot of the best things in life to get there in one piece and the best possible shape, it just requires patience and just consistency and a long-term vision of where something is going. It’s not always the funniest way to get there, but it’s the safest way to do it in a way that has the highest likelihood of you doing it right without sacrificing a bunch of stuff like losing relationships that you don’t need to lose.

Jaren: Yeah. Now, man, I think we pretty much hit it right on the head. And I know this might be a bit of a short episode if we ended here, but I don’t know if I have much else to contribute to the topic.

Seth: Yeah. I know. And that’s pretty much it. It’s just the idea of we’re sort of acknowledging that it’s very easy to fall victim to this idea that the people who are really the heroes, they’re the ones that do this overnight or they’re the ones that just hit the nuclear button on their job and somehow make it work. But it’s like, in my mind, it’s almost sort of like very fortunate fools. That’s obviously generalizing. Some people might be really smart at it, but statistically, there’s way more people, way more people who fail when they do it that way. And it’s not because they’re any less capable, it’s because that’s just not necessarily the wisest way to proceed. Great things just take time and that’s okay. And it doesn’t make you a coward. It makes you a prudent person I think to take the time you need.

Jaren: No, a hundred percent. And something that I have been learning a lot about recently, I’ve been really getting into the whole Profit First model, if you guys haven’t heard of it. Profit First is a financial management system for small business owners and it is radically changing my life. And something that kind of helped rid me of shame and rid me of comparing myself to others is just because somebody has a really flashy business that makes a lot of revenue, it doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re thriving financially.

When you go to these business conferences or you go to these networking events, they’ll throw out their deal flow and then they’ll throw out their revenue. And that really doesn’t matter when you pull back and you look at how much money they’re taking home. They might be killing it and I don’t want to over-generalize, but there are a lot of people who behind closed doors are still living paycheck to paycheck. That’s just a big paycheck to paycheck.

Our goal with when it comes to business and real estate, it should be financial freedom. What I’m learning the slow and hard way is that financial freedom takes discipline. How much you make, like how much revenue you’re bringing in through your business it does play some factor, but you would be shocked at what you can do if you manage money well. And that’s what I’m really trying to transition in, especially in light of Covid-19 and everything that’s going on. I’m just realizing, man. Managed money is much more powerful than lots and lots of dollars coming in and out of your bank account.

Seth: Yeah. The whole Profit First model is a pretty big game-changer. It can rid a lot of stress out of your life that it doesn’t need to be there. Like if you just have a solid framework with which to manage the money that’s coming in, like yeah, that’s pretty smart. Definitely a good book for anybody to check out.

Jaren: I really, really am getting a lot out of it. It’s a process to set up for sure. I’m head deep in setting up like seven different business checking accounts and all this crazy stuff. I have to call these banks and be like, “Hey, I’m not doing anything weird. I promise. I’m just opening up a bunch of accounts”.

Seth: I will say the audiobook version of that is a pretty good book as well. The author Mike Michalowicz. I can never pronounce his last name. He does a lot of ad libs and adds a lot of commentary throughout the book. He doesn’t just read it word for word from the text, but he’ll insert comments as he goes through and it is pretty helpful stuff. So, it’s almost like extra bonus content if you listen to the audiobook.

Jaren: And you might need to check that out because I actually read it and take notes and stuff.

Seth: Well, I think that’s a wrap. Should we hit our little exit question here?

Jaren: Yeah, let’s do it.

Seth: Okay. So, wait. This is the question. And this might be kind of a weird one, but what punctuation mark would best describe your personality?

Jaren: The exclamation point (!).

Seth: Yeah. I could have guessed that. And why do you say that?

Jaren: Because I want to make an impact with my life man. Impact is my driver. When you are writing a sentence and you want to make a “Hey, pay attention”, like a dent on the sentence, that’s what you do.

Seth: Yeah. Cool, man, that makes sense to me.

Jaren: What about you, man?

Seth: I think for me, it’s probably either the question mark (?) or the dot-dot-dot (…), if that counts. I don’t know if it’s because I’m slower or something, but I think I’ve learned over time that there’s a lot of stuff in life I don’t know. And I spend a lot more time like asking questions than giving answers. A lot of times I feel hesitant to give anybody an answer about anything. I know there’s a lot of times whenever I take a stance on something or state a fact, I always feel the need to add these caveats and disclaimers. Like, “This might be the way to do this”, which really doesn’t help me honestly. I know people who read blogs and watch videos and stuff like they want solid a hundred percent certainty answers. Like they don’t want caveats and all these complexities. But I know, that’s kind of how I am. I think sometimes those question marks are well warranted. Like it’s worth asking those questions and sometimes it’s just me beating a dead horse kind of thing.

When I say the dot-dot-dot (…), what I mean by that is sometimes it takes me a while to fully form my thoughts. Like even just doing these kinds of conversations with you Jaren right now on this podcast. For me to have an opinion about this subject, about “burning the ships” or committing to a new business and that kind of thing. It took me like a long time just to write out my thoughts and understand what I even thought about this. I sort of vaguely had an idea, but for me to just like go lie without any preparation and have an opinion on that would be very, very difficult. I’d just be sitting here going “Ah” for a long time. So, that dot-dot-dot (…) means it takes me a while to really form my thoughts and opinions on stuff. Which again, I don’t think is very helpful because people want just straight answers really quick, rapid-fire. And it’s really hard for me to do that.

Jaren: Well to your defense though, I think when you do come to an answer, it’s a very, very, very good, well thought out answer.

Seth: Thanks. I appreciate that.

Jaren: I think one of the reasons why people resonate with our content at REtipster versus other places is because you’ve set that expectation that if you read an REtipster article written by Seth, it’s going to be like step one to step Z and it’s going to cover every aspect of it. And it might be the last thing you need to read on the subject. And that’s people who want to go out gun blazing, and they’re right about everything. Especially in my wife’s culture and kind of the post-Soviet Union, kind of Russian culture.  Like my sister in law works in that community quite a bit. She has her former boss and some other people, they’re amazing people, but you cannot tell them anything. They know everything. And it’s a cultural thing because if they are honest and like, “Hey, I don’t know. Tell me about direct mail marketing. Tell me about this. I don’t know anything about that” – That’s a sign of weakness and you don’t have it together. You’re not leading strong.

Seth: It seems like a huge liability to me, man.

Jaren: It is.

Seth: It’s begging for trouble in life if you have to speak with authority on something you don’t know. It’s crazy to me.

Jaren: I understand from a leadership standpoint, there’s this tension, right? Because you have to facilitate strength and all that. But I don’t know, it’s hard to figure out that balance between being vulnerable and authentic and not knowing what you don’t know and also conveying strength in your environment. But I prefer your style of teaching and your personality because I know that if I ask you a question, it’s going to be real. It’s going to be authentic and very well thought out.

Seth: Yeah, I appreciate that, man. Thanks. I do know, just from experience, when I think about any statement I’ve ever made or email I’ve sent or whatever, in a flippant way where I really didn’t think about it, I just did it. I kind of like to blame for the most damage I’ve ever done in terms of explaining something the wrong way or hurting somebody’s feelings or saying something that I would regret in the future. That always happens when I don’t take time to think it through. And I think as sort of like increasingly become more of a public person through REtipster. It almost underscores it again and again and again. Like, think very carefully about what you’re about to say because you could either really help somebody or you could do a lot of damage here. So, I’m just acutely aware of that. I don’t know. It’s a blessing and a curse, I guess.

Cool. Well, listeners out there, I hope you guys got something out of this. Again, not that we’re the ultimate authority in the right way, but I think there’s a lot of validity to what we just talked about and our thought process. So, what do you guys think about it? If you have different thoughts about this, feel free to head over to the show notes retipster.com/72 and you can leave a comment there. Let us know what you think.

And also, if you guys want to pull out your phones right now, if you’re listening on your phone, go ahead and text the word “FREE”. F-R-E-E to the number 33777 and you can join our email list if you want to and stay up to date with all this stuff we’re doing. You get access to a ton of free content stuff that isn’t only talked about on the podcast or the blog.

Thanks a lot for spending your time with us. I hope you’re doing well in business and life and we will talk to you again in the next episode.

Jaren: Later guys.

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from Real Estate Tips https://retipster.com/072-burn-the-ships/