Defining Success Through Growth

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Cut the Tie podcast. I'm your host, thomas Helfrich. I am on a mission to help you cut the tie, for whatever it is holding you back from success, the success that you're defining for yourself, and today joined by Jim Wiley. Jim, how are you doing? I'm great. Thank you, thomas, and you. I always tell people I'm delicious or tantalizing Generally. They'll have to look up what tantalizing means, which is fun.

Speaker 2 0:25

Like walk by and get out a.

Speaker 1 0:26

GPT. And you look at it? Yeah, spelled with a Z, but it depends on what part of the world you're in. It might be an S, exactly Now. I appreciate you joining today. You know, haven't we? Yeah, of course. Take a moment.

Speaker 2 0:41

Introduce who you are and what it is you do. Yeah, I'm Jim Whaley. I'm a native Scot braising in Atlanta. I'm a father of three. I'm happily married. I'm one part of ownership team that runs an experiential marketing business, envy Create. I'm kept busy as a father. I travel a reasonable amount for work and in my business life I also have some private investments that are separate from what I do with Envy. But in my business life we help big companies spend money.

Speaker 2 1:14

We work in the experiential field, so that is about helping companies with marketing programs that connect their product, their service, with audiences. That can be media audiences, it can be partnership audiences, retail audiences or consumers. We were natively involved in doing that for them in physical spaces. Then the world took a turn in the spring of 2020 and we were forced, coerced, into doing these things on digital platforms only, and since then we've settled into this notion of living in a hybrid world. So there's a component of what we do that is digital and allows brands to connect with audiences on digital platforms, but the mainstay of what we do remains in the physical dimension. It's a great space to be. We work with some exciting brands, we meet lots of wonderful people, we do it internationally and it helps us on a path for growth and development.

Speaker 1 2:14

I love it. I'm offline, I'm going to follow with you. We can get the details of that, but our focus of today is really around your journey and you know how. You know what kind of ties, so to to speak metaphorically, you cut to get that success. Uh, and you sound very touching a couple.

Speaker 2 2:29

But to take a moment first to define success on your terms hey, success is a it's an interesting word, I would say it's it's growth based um private growth as an individual, and then the demonstration of growth in things that you influence and things that you're influenced by and things that you touch um, your first social unit is your family and looking at how your family grows and looking at how they allow you a platform for growth as an individual and then within your circles. And I feel quite strongly that if you're not growing, you're decaying, because such is the evolution and such is the path of how things constantly move and father time is constantly on the move. If we don't align with that, then we're not growing. So success to me involves making sure that you're growing be that mentally, emotionally, developmentally.

Speaker 2 3:29

if you put it in a business metric, then financially. But starting with the individual and looking at how the individual affects a family unit, how does my relationship grow with my wife, how do my wife's relationships grow with our kids? How do I grow my relationships inside my own family and how do we, as a family unit continue to experience growth? And what does that look like? That, to me, is a metric of success.

Speaker 1 3:55

I love this, the idea of growth. One of the things I heard some Sunday at North Point, where the church we go to, they said if you're not growing, or differently said, if you're coasting, you're on the decline. Yep, you're going downhill and all things achieved are uphill. And it's so true, metaphorically, like if you're just kind of coasting next to you know you've gone a really long way and haven't really done anything. And that's the midlife crisis, that trough when you're like, oh wow, I can't get any lower. Some of those things are tied, so to speak, to what we talk about, which is you haven't defined your own success and you haven't chased that piece just as a simple metric of your own life.

Speaker 1 4:38

I love the idea of growth. So we try to learn something. Try to lose a little bit of weight, try to lose a little bit of weight, try to want less things or whatever it is. Now you define it and then you go after it and then redefine it, because when you're younger it's money, money, money, maybe a wife, kids, whatever it is better bottle of wine. Later it's I want to mentor people, I want to teach somebody something, I want to leave something behind for my kids.

Speaker 2 4:58

It just shifts the definition of success I agree with you 100, I think as well. When you, you know, you talked about being in a younger person's frame there, um, I used to say um in my 20s I would. That was a decade of making mistakes. You know respectable mistakes. In your 30s you need to have a good idea of what you want to do, and in your 40s you should be in, you should be comfortable with it where you are and enjoying what you're doing. And I think that's an issue that I see with so many of us.

Speaker 2 5:28

You're kind of defined by what you do by the time you're in your 30s and your 40s, because there's a societal sort of conformist view that you're supposed to sit with. And so many of us are defined by what we're doing, but we're not happy doing it and we're not growing in the role. And so to me, I think success has to be measured on growth, and it's not all financial success, um, it can be emotional growth and it can be developmental growth. To your earlier point, how would I know in my 20s the type of things that would motivate me in my 50s? So here I am, um, and in a business capacity, your role evolves and your role shifts and your role changes. There's no training for that. You just have to sort of come to terms with it and figure it out, and so that, to me, is that's a measure of success. Am I better today? Am I influencing people in a way that allows them to be better? Am I learning in different ways than I did previously?

Speaker 1 6:25

Yeah, and I'm happy with it. Before we move forward, I'll leave with this. In my 40s, I realized I absolutely didn't want to work for somebody. And then, as I've started living this, trying to live, this cup of tea, idea, health and this and that, and I started out the path of addressing adult ADHD I'm like, oh shit, I could have worked for somebody. But you don't realize that and it changes your perspective of oh man. But my idea of success is my wife and I say listen, we can help our kids who may have this. That opens a door for them and that's the win. I can't go back in time, but I can help that future right there.

The Reality of Entrepreneurship

Speaker 1 7:04

Redefining what it is, terms as as you learn it to acquire it as something that matters is success and you're not getting it at all. But it's just a matter of you know showing up in your own journey. Let's move forward a little bit. What's been you know? Talk about your journey a little bit. You know to build your company. Envy, right, is the name. What's been the biggest tie that you got to cut to align the success as how you defined it?

Speaker 2 7:30

The biggest tie that I had to cut, I would say cutting ties to some degree with where you're moored and where you're anchored. In a metaphoric sense, if you want to run a company and you want to be self-employed, there's all these notions of you know, pick what you want to do, make sure you love it, and you'll never work a day in your life. I want to be my own boss, you know, I want to be defining my own destiny and I quite often find, retrospectively, that those codes are written by people that may or may not have done it, and if they have done it, to what degree did they do it with any success? I find the opposite to be true. I find that when you put your your neck on the line, you create a company, create a name. You do it with people you trust you are entirely at someone else's disposal because you're asking that you be. So you're sort of cutting ties with this notion of I don don't want to be an employee. You know, I talk about myself as being gloriously unemployable. I don't want to be an employee. I want to make sure that I'm going to be doing things to suit what I want to do.

Speaker 2 8:34

But the opposite is true. You're at somebody else's behest. You're all of a sudden doing so. You have to cut ties with the notion that being self-employed gives you freedom, and it really doesn't. It gives you choice, which is different from freedom. So I would say that no, and all choice does is um, help you lead you on a journey towards making decisions. You're still going to have to make the same decisions. You're just garnered with other choices. It's garnished, rather sorry, with other choices, but I would say the biggest tie I had to cut is this idea that if you're self-employed, it brings with it more freedom. I don't know that it does, necessarily, because I think your cell phone has to be on, you're expected to answer emails and, again, that's, that's the gig, that's what you signed up for. So you don't enter yourself into those waters with any sort of resentment. You do it willingly and you do it openly, and you do it on the basis that I've put myself in front of you and I'm going to be available, I'm going to make things right for you and I'm going to solve problems that you have.

Speaker 2 9:34

So our notion as a company is we're very, very lucky, very fortunate, we've got a lot of sticky clients, but we genuinely just want to be the first or second phone call to a number of people. You know, procurement relationships being what they are in the modern world and the way that we're brought into business, there are practices where we're quite often on a company's procure or a list and a roster of agencies and on occasion we'll be invited to respond to a particular RFP. On occasion we'll just see that business went in a different direction and then on other occasion business might be a fit for us and we might get that. But the idea that somebody has a piece of business to deliver that they weren't aware of, they know they need to do it in six months time. They don't quite know exactly what it is but they want to do it with us that's very, very humbling. That's somebody's trust, you know, and it brings a lot of responsibility with it.

Speaker 2 10:29

So, a very long-winded way of saying I think you have to cut the tie as a self-employed individual, you have to cut the tie with the notion that it's going to bring freedom, because it really doesn't. And the other thing I would say is you need, because it really doesn't. And the other thing I would say is you need and I perhaps didn't know how much, how important this is. You need a really strong support network around you. That's family, who are invested in what you do, and you're really asking somebody to be invested in your dreams, you know which is. Again, that's humbling. So on the client side, you've got people whose trust you've managed to, to earn, um, and then on the family side, you've got people whose absolute trust, unequivocal trust, you've got which is and on both sides it's very humbling. So my responsibility is just to work hard and do the bit in the middle yeah, the uh.

Speaker 1 11:19

That is a fantastic type of cut and I and it's it's one that's in a stage of entrepreneurship and I I'm going to back up. I'm in the solopreneur earlier stages. Four years in, I've absolutely created a job for myself that I own. So marketing services, podcasts, and I'm in that phase of moving to. How do I make it? Let's say humanless, meaning I can have things run without my brand. Do I make it, let's say humanless, meaning like I can have things run without my brain?

Cutting Ties with Freedom Myths

Speaker 1 11:45

The thing I would tell I don't want to challenge you, I would say, is a starting point. Starting around your passion, your potential, your skills and a problem to solve is the right place to start quickly Is like start around something you love to do that you can do pretty well and there's a problem that's worth people pay for. It's a really good spot to get on your own, create your own job, so to speak. There is freedom in the fact that you can do that, to choose, so to speak, to do it. But if you want to build a business with lead flow, with consistent revenue, that's not dependent on you showing up every day and there's other people that's probably not always going to be around the passion. If it is good word, you're one of the lucky ones. If you also have the skills to kind of do a lot of that, awesome. But if you can outsource it, the where you're talking is the next evolution, where I think it doesn't have to be around your passion, it has to be around something that makes money and you can do your part in that.

Speaker 1 12:35

Yeah, business, well, and and and I think that's a piece where I want people to know that you should start, I think, in that quadrant of what you're good at to get out. But you're going to go through a period of I'm going to like doing that, I'm in a job, so, uh, and I listen, I and I live that right now I'm, I'm in a I a job that I've made for myself and I'm actively going. Hey, how are we pivoting this thing out to a new kind of company, a different kind of service or a different kind of offering? Um, because it's not what I want to do. I'm 49, I don't want to do that. 10 years now I want to have to do something here and I love that. Um, do you remember the moment when you're like I am done, believing that I, I, oh my gosh, I've been living the lie. I was living the wrong idea.

Speaker 2 13:16

It's not freedom, it's choice yes, um, I suppose there was a couple. I remember something in my path when I was working with a company in the same industry and I was in an operational role. It was post the 2001 recession and 2003. Things hadn't really picked up as well in the sector as they might and the company was going through another round of layoffs and I was invited quote unquote to to take on a sales position, and it was 100 commission and it took me a minute to realize what that invitation meant. It meant that if you don't take this, you know we're getting you off the payroll unless you contribute. And that was quite petrifying. And I remember phoning my father, who'd always been in sales and, um, you know, explaining to him through fear this is, this is they're going to move me into sales, it's 100 commission, and I never sold anything in my life. And he stopped me and he told me that. Well, he asked me a couple of simple things. Do you like talking to people? Can you listen to people? Do you know how many eyes and ears you have versus how many mouths you have? And if you're not doing twice as much listening and watching as you are talking, then you're always going to struggle. And that moment of fear and unknown and trepidation. I think it served me because I managed to grow in a sales role and I think that then gave me the assertion that I could go and do this on my own, because effectively in sales you're dependent on a lot of great people. Of course you are, but what you create is a business unit and you're aware of the commercial upside or downfall if you don't get it right. You need to be conscious of overhead, you need to be conscious of time, you need to be conscious of value, you need to be conscious of what somebody's prepared to pay, you need to be conscious of where the juice sits, where the profit sits, and so that moment of him being prepared to move into sales, I think really gave me sort of non-theoretical learnings in what it's like to run your own business unit. And so I gave me the retrospective knowledge, having done it for 18 months, two years, to think I could. I could do this on my own.

Speaker 2 15:28

Um, and then um, in my current, with my current business partner, he and I were realized that we were kindred spirits. He was working with one company that was a prospect of mine, he was in a sales capacity, I was clearly in a sales capacity. Where I was um. We were at a filling gas station, um in la on the 10, having been at the los angeles convention center, driving out to santa monica, and we were having a conversation in the car and I stopped to go and fill up the petrol gas and he got out and came and joined me at the hose when we were filling up and at that moment in time he was in sales, I was in sales.

Speaker 2 16:06

We both realized that there was a value to be created and a business to be had in our sector, um, running companies in a leaner way. So I would say two lessons one, the movement into sales, which I was petrified of, the sort of simplification of that from my father, and then the sort of realization that I was in business with the right, I could get into business with the right person, because time just passes by, you forget what it is you're doing, because you're so deep in the conversation and you're so tied to what it is you want to do together that everything else gets in the way, including petrol pumps.

Speaker 1 16:42

I love it. That's fantastic anyway, including petrol pumps. I love it. That's fantastic. What's some of the impact since that moment?

Finding the Right Business Partner

Speaker 2 16:52

The impact. I would say you're met with lots of things that you need to come in front of or get ahead of. We were very fortunate and we're still very fortunate with the client base that we have. Um, they're internationally recognized, strong in class, and I think that resonates well, I know that resonates with me. I'm humbled by the client base that we earned or we have, and the fact that they'll put their faith and their trust in in us and our company and our individuals and you know our community for want of a better. That always has an impact.

Speaker 2 17:34

Um, knowing what you're not, I think has a great impact and it's a great reminder to help you grow that we.

Speaker 2 17:44

The other one is the reminder that I do have a sort of I take umbrage to the fact when I hear people saying, well, he did it on his own or she did it on his own and they went and did it on their own, and I think nobody ever did it on their own, not a single person.

Speaker 2 17:57

And so I think the reminder of that and, as I said, the the, the constant um support from family has a huge impact. I mean on your earlier question when you asked what did you cut the tie with. I mean, I moved certainly not the first person and by no means the last. I left the UK, um and cut physical ties with family, um, which was way more challenging in retrospect than I thought it was going to be at the time, because you just that's what you do, you get on with it. That has an impact, um, but I think, credit to the relationship that we have. We've maintained great contact. We've never let distance become an obstacle for for relationship development and relationship growth and, um, yeah, I would say those things have had a big impact.

Speaker 1 18:51

Um, yeah, I mean it's significant, right, uh? And where you describe a very positive environment at home or our close circle. Not everyone has that and and when you know, I tell out there when these are some of the hardest ties you might need to cut You'll have to either say the pain of that to do what I want far exceeds cutting, versus this is the hard position which is going to be more important, and then it's going to get people behind you or exiting. Family is a big one Spouses, even kids, and stuff like that. Those are some of the artist ties, and I know you're grateful and fortunate at the same time in the same stroke to be able to cut that tie and not have to worry about cutting the one at home. It's like you have the foundation base. If that leg of that stool is rocky though, I will tell you that's going to you're going to feel very alone.

Speaker 2 19:47

I can imagine that could be very challenging dude, listen up, give a.

Speaker 1 19:51

Let give a lesson for the listeners. Like a little bit of advice, give me a short couple lines on. If you're this person, do this a short couple of lines.

Speaker 2 20:00

I'm reminded of my cousin's wedding, my, my uncle. It was the father of two daughters and he was giving his youngest one away, and he said three things that I'll never forget that his uncle had passed on to him little pearls of wisdom from a, a sage um, and. But I think that I think they resonate and I think they continue to work. If you can't take a joke, you should never have signed up. You You'll never make a million working for wages and never bet a white horse on a soft track. And I think those things they're very versatile as phrases, you know. I mean you might still be very successful in the corporate career, so you might get you know stock compensation and arguably you're working for wages and so you could be a highly affluent individual on the basis that you're an employee. Of course you can.

Speaker 2 20:50

But what it means, I think, is if you're just going to be transactional with your time and let somebody else use and or abuse your time, you're never going to recognize true value.

Speaker 2 20:59

At least that's what I take from that the idea that if you do take yourself too, the idea that if you can't, if you do take yourself too seriously, I think you're going to struggle. I think you have to be very prepared to laugh at yourself and know what you're not and be in good company all the time and take those lessons very well. So that's the second one, and then the third one that you know never bet a white horse. That's like you need to be right horses for horses, 100, and you're going to see people that can show ponies, that can talk a good game, but you're going to need thoroughbreds. You're just going to need people that can do things on a certain day, on any given day, um, and it's more about performance than it is appearance, um. So those are, those are things that I sort of I'm reminded of, at least weekly, if not daily.

Family Support and Life Lessons

Speaker 1 21:44

Love that. Just quick fire questions here. Who gives you inspiration? My kids, I love that. That's a really good answer. It's because the lead behind right, the legacy, is what you do with it and no one gets it right 100%, but you're getting it exactly how you're supposed to yeah.

Speaker 1 22:03

I love that. I want to back up. You said no one does it alone. Even Jesus didn't do it alone. Yep Could have done it, probably right. Some people don't believe it, but still grab 12 people and say, hey, I need some elder. He had his board team. You may cut that from the plot. Final, I don't know. We'll see what's the best business advice you've ever received insurance, insurance, insurance, um, I never heard that one. Please explain that. And they are rapid fire to keep the input.

Speaker 2 22:34

You really need them. You're going to need insurance and I think it's not just the the biggest crime to humanity hiding in plain sight. That is the insurance business. It's the you know, indecision, decision-making. You're going to need to think through that. You're going to need to yes, you can be impulsive, but you're going to need to have ensured that you're comfortable with the decisions that you make. You're going you're going to need to make sure that, as you create teams and build teams and foster teams within teams, that they've got insurance and dependability in one another. Um, I would say those yeah, I mean that's.

Speaker 1 23:12

I love that, because it's not what most people don't answer that way, so I'll give you credit. Uh, one point. Um, it's a dad point. You can spin them however you like, sure. So, dad, you know what I mean. Yeah, I don't know where you can spell it. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 23:24

If I can tell my daughter I slayed, then that's a win for me. You did slay, slayed. You got raised. I got the W, I didn't take the L, you know.

Speaker 1 23:32

Right, yeah, that's right. I bro was all right. Bro, okay, that's a key point. Well, is a bro or bra? And I don't know what they're talking about.

Speaker 2 23:49

Anyway, uh, what's your recommended must read book? Oh, um, wow, business book or any book, any book. I can tell you about very impactful books. I always found the Cape Runner a very powerful book.

Speaker 1 24:07

High Rock.

Speaker 2 24:08

It's a movie. Yep, and the Richest man in Babylon is probably my simplest business book. What's the one thing you got out of?

Speaker 1 24:18

that business book. Pay yourself first. I will tell you that is not how I rocked the first two years and that caused me to shout yourself first. I will tell you that is not how I rocked the first two years and that caused me to shout. I will leave it at that. We'll stop there. You're right, If you can't build a business to pay yourself, you don't have a business Anyway. So there's a difference. We can get into the details offline on that one. But if you had to start over today, what period in time would you go to and what would you do differently In business or in life, Anything you like? These are free, open questions.

Speaker 2 24:50

I genuinely believe, as misguided as my life might be, that this generation right now, these, what are we? Gen Xers?

Speaker 1 24:59

I think it's Gen Y Ron right now coming out of it.

Speaker 2 25:02

What am I If I'm born?

Speaker 1 25:03

in 1973, I think I'm a Gen A. You're a 100% expert Color of hair. Gin Lilling you're an expert Color of hair sandy, salt and pepper.

Speaker 2 25:12

I think we've had it as comfortably as any generation and I'm very comfortable where we are. There was no real threat to life or enjoyment or critical threat to existence. There was great opportunity. There was a sort of currency of ownership in what you did. We weren't coddled. I was smacked as a child thankfully, um, and I was. I was in a, in a world where everybody else was. There was accountability in what we did, but there was great opportunity, there was great fun and there wasn't a lot of things holding us back.

Final Business Insights and Gratitude

Speaker 2 25:54

If I was to start a business, I wouldn't change where or when or how I did it, because that's a different journey and that would be a different me. Um, I genuinely think we're blessed. Um. I look at some of the things as parents that you have to contemplate now. I know you can never do as a parent is your best right and I look at some of the things that our parents had to contemplate. And they didn't have a digital generation. They didn't have to think about where boys going to get roofied. They didn't have a digital generation. They didn't have to think about where boy is going to get roofied. They didn't have to think about, you know, existential threats, um, but with that, the pace of communication, the ability to consider a life or conceive a life in a distant part of a global village. You know that's the other side of the coin that we live in right now and we as parents have to safeguard against for our own kids. So I don't know that I would change much, to be honest.

Speaker 1 26:51

It all happened for you instead of to you. So I love that, that's great, and that's, I mean. The mindset that I think you can take away is things happen for you instead of to you. You to you. You're in a good spot to learn from, whatever happens. I think my question if there's a question I should have asked you today and didn't what would that question have been and how do you answer it?

Speaker 2 27:12

what am I most thankful for? Um, and I would say it's the, the life that I've had to date and the people that are around me and the people that believe in me, um, on a sort of constant basis. I'm very, very grateful for that, very grateful for the support network that I have, you know, in family, at work, within the client base, in friendship. You know I've spoke a bit about cutting the tie from physically, from friends and family in one location. You carve out relationships that almost become extended family as you move. I mean, you'll know that You've moved, I'm sure, at different points and times. I would say that you never ask me what I'm most thankful for, and I would say it's that, the support network that I have around me that allows me to do what I do and pick up the pieces when I'm not around and let me pick them back up when I am. I love it.

Speaker 1 28:11

I'm going to add that to my list of questions. That gets a really solid one and more in line. So thank you, Jim. Thank you so much for coming on today. The conversation's awesome and I love that you're a land and local. We've actually met in person and I'm sure we'll. Our paths are going to cross, you know we've who should get a hold of you how they do it.

Speaker 2 28:29

Um, anyone that's interested in catching up for a coffee? Um teaching me certain things about how I can continue to grow and develop? Um, if there are marketeers out there, on from a business angle, who are interested in helping market their business in the live space or the live event space, or even connecting with audiences through digital means, give us a shout. You can get me on email, jimwiley at nv-createcom. I could put that in the chat, I think, and that might make it easier. That's probably the best way to do it, and I'll put my email contact details and our business website address. We'd be delighted to hear from people, like-minded souls, people who have just got a need or a willingness to want to catch up.

Speaker 1 29:19

Fantastic. Thank you, by the way, so much for coming on here. All at this banner Get a hold of Jim Wiley at nb-createcom. Jim, thank you so much for coming on. I'll make sure I'll call us and show you you rock. I appreciate you.

Speaker 2 29:32

My pleasure. Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 29:34

And everybody who's listening. Get out there. Go cut a tie to something holding you back Anything. Start with one thing Work at it. 1% math, do it every day. You're 37.8 times better. By the end of the year, you get 1% worse. By the way, you're 0.0025 and the mathematical difference between getting better and worse is significant. So get better. Thanks for listening.