Trial, Error, and Lifestyle with Kyle Van Deusen FTH: 087

Kim Doyal 0:00

Before we get into today's episode, I have a quick message for my sponsor cloudways. cloudways is a managed cloud hosting platform that simplifies your web hosting experience. The platform allows businesses to focus on their growth and have complete peace of mind with 24/7 support and flexibility to scale. Can we just say support is hugely important when it comes to hosting and thanks to cloudways they are offering an exclusive discount for the Kim Doyal show listeners. Visit cloudways calm and use a promo code Chem 20 to get 20% off for two months on the hosting plan of your choice. Alright guys, let's get into today's episode.

Welcome to F the hustle. I'm your host, Kim Doyal. You want a life that is meaningful and exciting. In this podcast, we're going to talk about launching and growing an online business that fits your lifestyle. After the hustle is all about doing good work, building real relationships, and most importantly, creating a business that supports how you want to live your life. You don't have to sacrifice the quality of your life today to create something that sets your soul on fire. And yes, that includes making a lot of money. So we'll be talking about selling, charging what you're worth, and how earning more means helping more people. My goal is to help you find freedom and create a business on your terms.

Hey, what up what up? Welcome to another episode of EFF the hustle with Kim Doyal because this is now the third iteration of

Kyle has been on with me with the WordPress tech podcast Kim Doyal show. And I think I'm in my sweet spot at least for a few more years with FSL with Kim Doyal. So that being said, my guest is my good friend, Kyle Vandusen. Kyle, thanks so much for being here today. I'm super excited to be here. And I'm just waiting for your next iteration so I can come back again.

Well, you'll I'm sure you'll come back before there is another iteration. At that point. I'm like, Girl, I got like for myself talking to myself girl stick with like, no more rebranding, let's just, we're dialed and we're placing events in the background.

place bets on the the change of the name, or what course platform is gonna jump on next.

Anyway, um, alright, so let me I'm gonna kind of just do a little backstory with. I'm not I'm gonna link to previous episodes with Kyle, you guys can listen to who he is. And what he does, I'll let him do a quick little bio, we've gotten much deeper into his business in previous episodes. But the reason I reached out to Kyle is because he responded to an email about time lotteries. And we're going to talk about that in a minute. So this is going to be much more of a free flow conversation. We're going to talk about thought management mindset, running your business in a way that works for you. And we're gonna just see where it goes. So for those who have not listened to Yo, Kyle, or have had the good fortune of our previous conversations, give a little background.

Kyle Van Deusen 2:55

Yeah, my name is Kyle Van Deusen. As you can probably hear from my accent, I am from Texas. So forgive me for that. But I own a small agency here in Texas that I've had since 2017. About a year after I started that I started an online community called the admin bar for web developers, freelancers, agency owners, and that has grown tremendously over the over time, we're at about 5000 members now. And at this point, my business that's taken over to kind of take up most of my time at this point. So it was before the agency was full time in the community was part time. And now it's the community is full time in the agencies getting a little bit more part time. But yeah, as long as as long as it has to do with web, I'm usually in the middle of it.

Kim Doyal 3:37

Perfect. And he does have Kyle is a believer in email and newsletters as well. He's got the Friday chaser, which is a great newsletter. And I will link to that you guys can opt into that. And it's really based on the community. So if that is your sweet spot, make sure to jump into the community on Facebook, which I will link to as well. So let's just jump into this and this is gonna be I feel like we're doing like our own little Dr. Phil Oprah session here or something like who knows. But so the email that I was referring to you guys is I have this thing I call the time lottery and that is that every single time and appointments cancelled. I feel like I have won the time lottery. And the funny thing is, I love everybody I talk to I really do I don't have I don't have calls or interviews. I just I don't have people in my life. I've worked very hard to get to this point. When my therapists say she's like you've done a good job weeding your garden, and I have but yet, even though I like these people, I like the topics that calls it feels like a time lottery every time something even social stuff you guys like and I always have a great time when I go but when social things get canceled. I'm like and let me just remind you, my life is me. And my dogs at this stage right like I've raised my kids I'm on my own. There's no lot of demand for my time I live in another country. None of my family's like, Hey, can you do this for me? So, anyways, I would love to hear Kyle, why that resonated with you, you email me back, but like, what about that spoke to you?

Kyle Van Deusen 5:13

Yeah, I think the biggest thing is, you know, we have so we put so much on our plate, and then we have constant demands on our time, right. So we have social media, sending us notifications, we have emails coming in, there's like, nonstop endless, sometimes feels like a firehose shooting at us of like demands on our time. So, you know, I'll look at my days and go, Okay, well, I got this meeting this meeting, I need to get these things done and those things down, and it's like, Okay, I'm gonna do really well to even come close to getting all this accomplished. So it's, if one of those things falls off, it's like, such relief that hey, now I can, you know, have a moment to breathe or like, maybe have lunch today. That would be cool. Because there's, there's some days I forget to do that, you know. So even though like you said, it's, I enjoy all the commitments, I wouldn't put myself into commitments I didn't enjoy at this point, I think that's a luxury you and I both share, it's like, thankfully, we've gotten to a place in our business where we don't have to do all the things we wish we weren't doing. But even still, then it's really nice sometimes to just be able to take a second and breathe and go, Okay, well, all those things I had to do, I thought I had to do today, I can actually catch my breath for a moment. Now I usually end up just filling that with more stuff. I don't think it I don't think I ever just sit back and put my feet up or anything when that happens. But it does feel like you know, a big relief. I'm Imagine if it happened every day, it wouldn't feel that way. But every now and then it's it's like Christmas morning.

Kim Doyal 6:38

It is. And so it's kind of a testament to the state of the world we live in, right. And I remember when I was pre starting my business, and I was working full time raising my kids by myself, literally, it'd be like, you know, up to an alarm between five and six, get myself ready to get the kids ready, get them dropped off at school and daycare, go to work for the whole day, pick them up, then if there wasn't a sports activity, it was like, Okay, let's go to Costco. You guys want pizza and yogurt for dinner? Sweet. Let's go to Costco, we got to get that done tonight. Right? And then I'd go home and I put them to bed and I'm like, I'm gonna shampoo the carpets. It's like I arrived on being is absolutely productive, productive as I could. And the funny because I got a lot of acknowledgment for that people were like, how do you do that? And I'm like, it was kind of innate, right in my nature. And my therapist told me this before, like, especially specifically with women, men are much more wired externally, women are internally and she said, you know, you start hitting midlife. And women's natural pace is medium to slow. And it's a gift. Like I friggin love that I can nap that I can't, I don't set alarms, all of those things. And it's an interesting transition. Also, when your business starts getting to that place where you're like, I don't have to take this call, I don't have to take this client, I can say no to this, and you approach it a lot differently. And you know, and so I think there's one I almost think it's like a, I would say a newbie tax, but when you're new, you don't know what you don't know. Right? And you there's there's fear involved with if I say no to this, or if I say no to that, will the opportunity come up? And so I don't know what are your thoughts on growing as a business owner and having you know, the time lottery means so much?

Kyle Van Deusen 8:21

Yeah, and it's funny you brought up like the kids stuff too, I think if you have kids but you can't relate this conversation quite to your business yet. Imagine when it starts to rain and the kids game or their practices called off that relief feeling that's the same one, right? Like yes, I don't have to go take them to that now. Yeah, so it's it's weird in your business because especially as you start like, the last thing you'd want then is for things to not go through the right way or for you to not feel like you're maximizing every minute of the day you know, because you're in that hustle grow you know, all those kinds of things. So it's it's a weird shift when you when you can afford those kinds of things. And I don't mean just afford and like monetary value, I can afford to not do this today but like you just don't have to push your business that hard in order to still be successful. And it wasn't like something I knew was gonna happen and I was trying to strive for go towards but being able to like realize that now at this point it's it is a huge relief even though it just brings different kinds of pressures right? Because you you missed two or three of those things or several of those canceled meetings or whatever happened back to back and then you go back into that mindset of like is this you know, Will I ever go back to being busy again? Is this all over? Has the am I waking up from the dream I was having, you know, so I think that's the roller coaster of being self employed. And that doomsday scenario thing that always has to run through your mind

Kim Doyal 9:48

it does it what do you think about and again, maybe it's it's it's experience and age that happens with it? But so I don't know what I was reading I'm I read a ridiculous amount. Which is probably why like, I can't get through a book because at night, I put up my iPad. Next thing I wait, I'm wake up in the morning and I'm like, oh, it's propped, I got two pages read, but is, you know, it's it's kind of the more I trust myself and the easier I am and the more whitespace I fill in my life, though, there is just it flows it there's, there's something about, you know, when when you feel like and it's not even the cancellations, but it's about having that whitespace. So like, I was saying to people, so I got omachron or whatever January. And it was such a delicious taste of whitespace because I just cancelled everything for two weeks, I I couldn't write the second week, I was feeling way better. But it was like, by one o'clock, I get really tired. And I'm like, I gotta go to bed. And it was like, I shouldn't care. I don't care, right. So you sort of earn your way there. But I think the other piece is that a lot of what you were doing, as you were growing the admin bar, you were having fun, and you were like, I'm gonna try this. I'm gonna have fun. You showed up with integrity, you connected you created value. And it sort of took a life of its own on right. And so I think there's a piece of I think people get into business. I feel like I'm all over the place. I'm probably too caffeinated today. But welcome to life with me, Kyle, conversation, his people get into business, and they expect it to be comfortable, or they expect it to not have to, to not struggle, but it's sort of like they assume something's wrong when things don't work instead of being a part of the process. Right? And so as you grew the admin bar, because you didn't launch that right with, this is my end goal. Right? When you launched it, what was the intention?

Kyle Van Deusen 11:45

Yeah, so there, there was basically no monetary incentive I didn't, I didn't ever figure that was like part of my business. That wasn't the idea. So I connected with another web developer named Matt, in a weird situation, but we hit it off. And we had very similar agencies. And we were kind of in the same place in our agency, right? fairly new, growing, getting our feet under us. And what we realized was the kind of the trajectory of our businesses both took off when we started talking more, and it wasn't necessarily, it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily coincidence, I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that we had somebody else to bounce ideas off of learn from get advice from hold each other accountable. Like all those things you you need in your business, especially when you're doing it completely solo that you don't have, right. So the idea with launching the community was, well, if this worked for me, and you there's probably 1000s of other people out here in that same situation that don't have somebody, right. So I wonder if we could create a space where we could do this publicly, we could help people connect with each other and all that. So it was never, you know, some kind of business plan going into it right. And it just ended up being so much fun and working so well. And opportunities arose that made it part of my business. That, you know, it got to the point for me, where I was working a full time job in the agency and working a full time job in the admin bar. Right. So it was two full time jobs and something had to give you know, so thankfully, I've, I've gotten to a place where financially, the admin bar can help support me where I can focus more time on it and build some whitespace into it. You know, I think I think that's one of the hard things that when you're starting, you might not realize is you work every second of the day, and you feel every second of the day, because it takes that much to pay for whatever your lifestyle is, right. And as you get better at what you're doing, or figure out what you're doing or put the right systems in place. You can build more profit into your business and live that same lifestyle without working the same amount of time, effort, energy, all those things. So, you know, I think when you're starting out, you might be thinking of like that profit margin part of it being like, Okay, well, then I'll just keep working at the same pace and make twice as much, which is probably what I thought as well, too. But I think there's so much more reward in the fact that okay, I could slow down a little bit and still have what I what I need and enjoy. You know, most of the minutes I live for say, right? Yeah, maybe not every moment that way, but most of them

Kim Doyal 14:23

Right. And you know what, it's I still to this day, like I could see the beach from here- ask me the last time I went to the beach was probably like two weeks ago, because it was the pool last Saturday. But it was funny because it took the power going out and I was thinking last weekend like I'll get some Pool time in but I have a tendency and I have very few client things that I do anymore. It's sort of on a if it comes and I want to work with the person, I'll do it and now it's writing its copy and email writing and stuff. And so it's funny because like then I go into the weekends because I'm like, Oh no, buddy no I'm working. It's how it feels. Right? Right. So there's like this sort of, but I'm like, this is gonna cause massive burnout. So I really I'm trying to like, even to this day, reframe. I'm not going to work on the weekends, if I do. Kudos, but I'm not working on the weekends, but it took the power going out for me to be like, well, I guess we're going out of the bowl. Right. And by we, I mean, me and the dog, they go hang out, right. So, and I was down there. And then I went to a barbecue that afternoon when I was like, I felt phenomenal. Come Monday, right? Sunday, I took it eat, like I love Sundays, just to do whatever the hell I want. You know, but it's, it's there's still this mindset sometimes. Like for me to go to, it's called price Mart. It's owned by Costco down here. And you literally could probably put price Mart in the back corner of Costco, but I'll take it. And there's a Walmart, it's like an hour away, though. I keep thinking I should go and I should go at night. Like get it done like that way I don't. Because I don't want to take a day. Right to go. Because it's a kind of a trek. Mind you. You don't want to see the roads at night here they can I literally have to drive to like a little river. Right? I should do that. Although it's probably dry at this point in season. But the whole thing is there's it's really still, I think there's a fluidity that you have to allow for yourself to get in the mindset of what do I want my life to look like? And how would I want to feel about this. And like, anytime I work with a coaching client, or like I'm working on a project, here's an example this might help us pivot to the mindset piece is like I was gonna launch community, I was talking about it, I worked the coach for six months, I really dove deep into sort of the success journey of people and and I think my audience tends to be their service providers, they've got a business, they understand the digital marketing space, but they're stuck in the leverage piece, right? And now that I'm doing email marketing, it's like, how do I do that for this? Because I have clients and so but they're really looking for that leverage piece. And so, you know, I think there is I totally lost my train of thought mid sentence. What was I saying? Initially, what were we talking about? For the love of God?

Kyle Van Deusen 17:10

You were you were transitioning into the mindset part of this conversation? After talking about taking some time away, and kind of forcing yourself into time off,

Kim Doyal 17:21

Kyle's all God, are you sure you're healed from COVID? Like,

Kyle Van Deusen 17:25

It's alright, I know the brain fog.

Kim Doyal 17:29

Thank you, you know, but so it's just sort of that like, reframing how I think about things and and so like, I have this exercise, I don't know if you've ever read it. I don't know. I think I've done a podcast, but it's the what if exercise. And I literally did two full pages in a journal one time I'm like, what if right? And the whole thing is they have to be what if? Up statements? So what if I could earn more and work less? What if I only had projects that got me excited? What if I could learn email marketing, and automate some sales? What if right, so I as I start doing this, because it's like, well, what if, like, I won't go super sideways with esoteric thoughts here. But January, I was sick, I was out for a couple weeks at a friend here, I still brought in $11,000 that had nothing to do with my efforts at all. And you're one had to write six of that had nothing to do with business or time at all. It was they were like gifts. I'm not kidding you. It's nutty. And then one was a podcast...