Ep 255: How To Build An Unshakeable Business Mindset When The Going Gets Tough With David Ralph

Jaryd Krause:

How would you like to have rock solid confidence in business when things get tough, such as algorithm changes, losing revenue, losing traffic, and hard things happening in business for you? Hi, I'm Jaryd Krause. I'm the host of the Buying Online Businesses Podcast.

Today, I'm speaking with a dear friend of mine—a very dear friend of mine, David Ralph. He is the stress-free businessman who teaches people how to build their dream business in just a few hours per week of work. We'll talk about how and why in the podcast.

David has his own podcast; it's called Join Up Dots, and it is in the top 0.5% of the best podcasts online. So it's better than the top 1% of podcasts online. It's huge. He's got 3,000 episodes, a massive following, and he's just a great human being.

I've been on his podcast a few times, and this is the second time he's coming on my pod. He also talks about how if you want to create the kind of income producing no boss, no hassles business that you can do in your underpants, David's the man.

Now, in this podcast episode, David and I don't talk about just growing businesses. All the philosophies that we have and share are things that we've learned through personal development.

And we talk about how to have rock solid confidence, how to build your trust muscle and how to trust yourself—how to trust not just the universe but build and instill rock solid confidence in you that's not built on air and a fluff that allows you to get through these tough periods. Because it is a mindset game, and you do need to have trust. And we talk about how to do that.

We also talk about a lot of personal development, philosophies, things that we've learned, things that we have used to a certain point, and then we break them down and why they don't work so much. We talk about towers and principles.

We talk so much about how to uncondition yourself from thoughts that you may never have thought you were having that are not your thoughts as well. And how to just rock in business to build a business that is a lifestyle business that truly allows you to work just a couple hours per week, or just focus on a couple of ITF tasks per week, which is what I call important tasks first.

This is by far one of my favorite podcasts. It's a long one. It's a genuine, heartfelt podcast. And there are so many things that we share that will not only rock the boat for you but also help you propel forward in your life, physically, mentally, and in business. Enjoy.

Do you have a website you might want to sell either now or in the future? We have a hungry list of cashed up and trained up buyers that want to buy your content website. If you have a site making over $300 per month and want to sell it, head to buyingonlinebusinesses.co/sellyourbusiness. Or email us at [email protected], because we will likely have a buyer. The details are in the description.

David, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.

David Ralph:

It's an absolute delight to be here. It's very, very early in the United Kingdom. I had to sort of traipse myself up to the garden in the pitch black, trying to find my way to my office because I don't normally do it this early. But no, it's an absolute delight and I wouldn't be here for anyone else.

Jaryd Krause:

Thank you so much, David. I really do appreciate it. You don't typically go on podcasts, and this is the second time, actually. I feel very privileged and I'm sure everybody else listening should as well. The last time you came on was Episode 146. This is going to be episode 250-ish, 255-ish maybe. And so it's almost been two years since we released one of these. And I was on your pod just a lot—well, a couple of weeks ago, we were recorded.

And last time we chatted on our pod, this one was about the easy way to earn more with less stress. And that's what you're all about. And I've learned so much from you on that. And I try to embed that and help others integrate it into their lives as well. So I'm sure we're going to have some fun tales to share today.

David Ralph:

Yeah, I think we've got the war wounds over the last sort of 10, 15, or whatever. And it's those kinds of things that you look back on. My podcast is Join Up Dots, as you know and the mantra of my podcast is that when you're in a dark time and you're having a terrible time, you think, How do I get past this?

Just have faith that that's actually going to be the story that you tell in the pub years later. That's the one that becomes funny when you look back on it. And that's the one that you learn most from. And so, yeah, so the rough times, the war wounds and stuff are the only way I believe that you actually get to where you want to be.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I have been sharing some war wounds lately. Like you said, we've been in business a long time, both of us. And I've had to share some war wounds as stories to inspire people, especially in our audience. So they're going through some tougher times.

And what's really happened in this online content space is that Google's changed the algorithm. So they've had a helpful content update and a lot of people are listening, buying businesses and creating their own content for websites and blogs.

And the algorithm changed, and a lot of people have lost some traffic and some revenue. And it's a difficult time. And what's difficult about it is that sometimes it's people's first time ever that they've had a big hiccup like this and a financial hiccup as well.

And it's pretty damn stressful. You and I know that. And it's a part of life. It's a part of business. We can't run away from things that happen. And it's great. I look at it as great. You and I can look at this in hindsight through all the things that we've been through.

We can see it as an opportunity. Typically, I know that in my own health journey and business journey, the hardest times have been, and I've grown the furthest out of them because of those. And they have actually been a blessing and a gift.

It's really, really tricky to say that and people will hear that and have that land for them when they're in the thick of it. So how do you get through hard times in your business? And we can relate it to life as well. And how do you teach others to do the same thing as well? So what are some of the things that you do?

David Ralph:

Well, I just want to touch base on what you were saying about the Google algorithms. And it used to be the penguin or the panda; there was always some furry animal linked to it. And I always say to the people that I work with, “Just focus on quality.”

The only thing that Google wants is the best stuff to be at the top. End of story. The whole business is based on whether, when you type something in, you get the best results. That's the only thing that Google does.

So when people are chasing around going, “Oh my god, the algorithms changed and stuff," I always just say to them, “Focus on quality, focus on quality.” And I think that's the sort of message of my life really that I don't focus on more, more, more, but I used to do. It used to be that global dominance was what I wanted. Now I just focus on the quality. And that could be personally and sort of professionally.

Now to answer your second question, how do you get through tough times? I remember reading an article by Paul McCartney years ago. And I looked back on this, and I thought, yeah, he was right there. And he said, When the Beatles were going and we all know them as the Beatles now and they're global, how could they not be anything but the Beatles?

But there was a time that they were just four guys dragging themselves around in a van, trying to get gigs in tiny little places. And there's a brilliant picture of them playing in a small-town hall on a Monday night in the United Kingdom. And there were more people on stage than in the audience, and so you think they started.

And when they got to a point where they didn't know how to get further and they wanted the bigger gigs and stuff, they used to say, “Something will happen. Something will happen.” And they proved that one night when they were driving through some really snowy mountain tops and their van went down into the ditch. And this was before the time of mobile phones. This was the time of breakdown covers and all that kind of stuff. And they just said, “Don't worry about it. Something will happen.”

And I remember reading that and thinking to myself, it's all right to say, “Oh, you can say that because you're the Beatles,” but they weren't the Beatles. They were just four people trying to get through. And I think that is what I try to focus on in my life.

If I don't have the answer, if I'm going through a tough time, then I kind of almost walk away from it. Don't think to yourself that you can force the issue and solve it. Just think to yourself: Something will happen.

And I find a lot of times when I'm going through tough times, when I walk away from it, I end up having a conversation or I end up having an email that comes through. There's always something waiting for you to help you reach the next stage.

If you are quiet enough and reflective enough to actually see it, when you go, “Oh my god, how's this going to happen? What's going to happen? How are we going to get through the day?” You miss all these opportunities that are actually sort of waiting there for you.

Now, I know that we can say to people that are struggling and we can say to people that are just getting going and I can't see the wisdom in that, but it's been proven to me time and time again, years and years and years, that the less I stress about things, the less that I try to force things; actually, it just takes care of itself.

And so that's my sort of answer to that. It wasn't me five, six, or 10 years ago. I was a real stressed person, and I was one of those worst ones that looked like they weren't stressed and looked like they were sort of relaxing, but inside I was sort of really in turmoil. But now I just think that if it's a bad time, I'm going to go for a walk in the country.

I'm going to take a few days off. I'm just going to leave it. And I guarantee something will happen that will sort of just click that door and then you can open the door and you can go, “Oh, here we go; that's where I need to go.” And more often than not, it's not what you were planning, anyway.

Jaryd Krause:

It's such a good point. That's so good. It's so simple that people overlook this, David. It really is true that if you are less stressed, you can see more opportunities. And where was it? It was some video professional surfer that was saying, “When you talk less, you hear more.”

And it's a similar thing. So when you stop doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, you can see more because you're being more present, and you're focused on the future and the past at the same time and trying to dig yourself out of the past into an illustrious future.

David Ralph:

I do think it's hard. I'll just jump in there. I do think it's hard not to be doing, doing, doing when you're starting. You've got to get that momentum. You get that ball rolling. You've got to get the bills paid. I totally accept that.

Doing, doing, doing is very, very important. And it's a leap of faith to go—I listened to these two guys on a podcast and they're saying, “Leave it for a few days, walk away,” when they're trying to pay the bills.

I understand that totally, but it's still the right thing to do. It really is. Even if you're stressed, even if you're lying in bed, stewing, go away, go and sit on the beach, look at a sunset, come up, whatever, and the message will come. It sounds a bit spiritual, but I've seen it so many times now.

Jaryd Krause:

It is. I think what I've learned from our conversations and our awesome chats is that we are business minds and we're business-oriented. But for me, I don't know if it's the same for you, but business has been a spiritual awakening for me and it has become a spiritual path for me more so than money, money, money.

At the start, of course, you actually mentioned this to me when I came on your podcast. You said the last time we chatted on your podcast, it was the first time. I seemed far more aggressive towards goals and had far different energy than I was now. And yeah, I agree. Because at the start, I was like, “Let's get this show on the road.” Versus slowing down. I was going to ask this question later on, but we're on this thread. Do you find that some?

David Ralph:

I kind of know what you're going to say. I kind of know what you're going to say, but you say it anyway.

Jaryd Krause:

Where people are so conditioned, and it happened to me, that so conditioned into and have learned that at the startup phase, you need to work, work, work, work, hustle, hustle, hustle, and go hard, hard, hard, that so many people do get stuck in that. Because that happened to me and it was really hard to work my way out of, like, “Hang on, why don't I just stop and slow down?” Do you find a lot of people get stuck there?

David Ralph:

Yeah. Well, I certainly did. I remember when I started Join Up Dots, we used to talk about flexing the hustle muscle and grinding your way through. And I was a great believer in that. And in those days, it was all things like Gary Vaynerchuk and people like that saying, “I work harder than anyone. And if you're doing 16 hours a day, I'm doing 30 hours a day.” And you go, “Well, that's not even possible. How are you doing 30 hours a day?”

And I do come from a background of work. I believe that if you're supposed to be at your desk at eight o'clock, you're at your desk at quarter to eight, and you're the last one left. And I have that kind of blue-collar mentality.

So it's very difficult when you're seeing people in an online environment saying they do 15 minutes a day. But now I listen to that, and I go, “Yeah, because they're doing the right 15 minutes a day. They're doing the right 15 minutes a day that actually gets them going.”

So all that stuff about training yourself—I had a terrible time. I went into a burnout. I had loads of health issues because I almost got so trained into doing 16 hours a day. I remember one day I did something like 15-hour podcasts back-to-back.

And I started off at eight o'clock in the morning and I was still going 15 hours later. And I was doing the production and everything in between. And the sweat was pouring off me because, physically and mentally, listening to that many conversations and trying to drive it

But I just thought to myself, if somebody is going to do three podcasts a week, I'll do seven podcasts a week. And I just thought that doing more and more and more would tip it over to where I wanted to be. But once again, it comes back to what I said at the beginning.

It's not a quality. You can do a hundred podcasts and if they're rubbish and nobody wants to listen to them, then it's not going to do anything good. It's much better to do one. You used to work on corporate land, did you?

Jaryd Krause:

No, I was a plumber.

David Ralph:

Oh, okay. Well, I used to work in corporate land, and we used to go into board meetings and there was always one or two guys in two hours, never saying anything. And then when they did open their mouth, you thought, “Yeah, that's right. That's right.” Now I was the person that would open their mouth constantly whenever there was a gap because I felt like I needed to fill that.

And once again, that's a message that I should have picked up on when I was back in those days—slow down, listen, bide your time and then hit that home run when it happens. And so those people who are doing 15 minutes are doing that. They're just biding their time, biding their time, jumping on that wave when it comes along and then getting that momentum instead of just paddling, paddling, paddling.

Jaryd Krause:

And so I learned this from a previous business partner of mine and mentor because he helped me get out of the work, work really hard, change my whole business model and basically turn this into a lifestyle business where I like to work 20 hours a week. And before that, we had very similar stories where I got really sick and had too many coaching clients.

And to get to that stage for me, and I want to share this story so everybody else can hear it, that to get to that stage where I do less and maybe it was 15 minutes a day or maybe it's two hours a day, I needed to work out—if I've only got two hours a day of work—what are the most important things I need to be doing in my business?

And then, once I know those things, I can focus on them at that particular time. And I know that they're going to be things that drive the business or support my team in the business. So it might just be a one hour phone call with the team, or it might be a one-hour podcast with somebody, and it changes and evolves. But then I know that's what's going to drive the business. It's not just the 80-20. We can still look down. It's really 90-10.

David Ralph:

I have spoken to so many people; I've been doing my podcast for 10 years.

Jaryd Krause:

Congratulations.

David Ralph:

Yeah, thank you. It's quite a milestone, really. But I've spoken to so many CEOs and business owners who found that their businesses multiplied when they left the office and went on six-month road trips. And they said they were just driving along and then suddenly, “Ah, that's a great idea,” jotting it down. And then they'd come along.

And then, when they actually connected with the office, they had about six or seven things that they couldn't possibly have seen if I was in the office environment doing it. And that really says it, doesn't it? That says everything—that they're not in the office, but their brain's working. And if you allow your computer to work, it will solve it.

I had a guy on my show; I can't remember what his name was, but he used to say all the time, “We've got a billion-dollar biocomputer in our head that very few people are using.” And he was saying that basically, he would go into an office as a consultant, he would just walk around, and he would jot down all their problems.

He would put it by the side of the bed, he'd sleep on it, and he'd wake up the next morning and go in and charge them 15 grand for the solution. And he said it was just that his body—his biocomputer—was able to decipher what needed to be done when he wasn't doing it.

I'm into this thing called Taoism and Taoism has been a big life changer for me. And one of the things it has is non-doing. And what it means by that is not to do anything, but just do what needs to be done.

And I always reference nature, but nature always knows that spring is going to be before summer and summer's going to be before autumn. And you never get an oak tree racing to grow any; it just does what it needs to do to get there. And everything gets done.

And it has been a real wake up call for me. And I can talk about this forever and a day, and most people will roll their eyes if they're not at that stage of understanding that what we're saying is the truth. If they're still in that grind, grind, grind, they're never going to listen to this and go, “Yeah, that's what I need to do next.” Because they're sort of trained into it.

Jaryd Krause:

You trained yourself into it; I trained myself into it. And then you've got to get to the next step. You've got to train yourself out of it into a new strategy, which is the strategy that you're talking about.

And what worked for me is that, like you said, you've had so many CEOs come on as founders, and they've said that their business has multiplied since they got out of the office. I actually tracked this in my life over the last sort of three years and found that the less work that I do and the more that I will go for a surf, play tennis or have fun, do something that's joyful. For me to become more aligned with my soul's purpose, I need to be happy, and I need to find what I love.

So the more that I do things that I love, the less that I can work. And also, the less that I can work, it also pushes me into working on the small, the few things that take one to two hours a day of those things that are important. And I know they're important. And when it comes to me being able to do the work—and listen to the key words, me being able to do the work, I get to do the work,

I'm excited because I've got so much more energy and excitement from sitting in the water, out in the surf, playing tennis, going on a hike—whatever it is, I get to come back to my work and work on it and work on only the most important things.

And when I'm excited to create something amazing, I do create something amazing. When I'm not excited to create something, it's because I'm on the hamster wheel. When you're doing 15 podcasts in one day, how good were those podcasts compared to the ones you've done in that one week that you're like, “Yes, I'm really excited to do this one”?

David Ralph:

It's funny, actually, because it resonates big time with me, but I look back on 15 years of me working, working, working, and a lot of that crap's crap. And I look back on it and I think there were membership sites; there was this and there was that and stuff and it didn't sell and that didn't sell.

And I look back on it now and I think, yeah, because it was just rubbish. It was me trying to force, trying to force instead of getting that bit that you're excited and you come back to your computer, and you start working on it.

And two hours had passed, and you hadn't really noticed, and you were in the flow, and you look at it and you go, “I wouldn't change a thing on that. That's amazing, that's brilliant.” Yeah, it's funny, isn't it, really, how desperate we are to create when actually we should wait for our body to say, “I'm ready to create”?

Jaryd Krause:

Absolutely, absolutely. Apologies, my camera's just turned off, but we do just better work. And when we do that as well, what I have noticed is that we become magnets. We become magnets for the type of work that we're supposed to do and the opportunities that we're supposed to get do pop up because we're becoming far more magnetic and far more aligned with what we're supposed to be doing versus trying to force stuff.

We're opening ourselves up to allow those things that we're supposed to be doing to come to us rather than force ourselves in a direction that we think mentally that we're supposed to go in.

And I've done that in my life so many times that sometimes it is just worth taking action for action’s sake, to learn stuff and fumble around and learn a few things. But if you don't come back and take a step back and then digest and process it, then you just keep forging a path that can take you further away from what we're supposed to do here, I think.

David Ralph:

Yeah, I think you're right. I've got a product that I'm launching shortly, really, and it was never part of the plan. It was never part of anything, but it came to me through an issue that I had, and I started talking to other people and I said, “Oh, yeah, I've got that same issue.” And I thought, “Okay, I'll see if I can sort this out.”

Now I do have an imposter syndrome going, “Well, who are you to be able to sort this out if so many people have got the problem themselves?” But all I did was become really quiet and really sort of just focus and concentrate.

And I bought a URL a year ago today, basically, and I built a website, and I got all that going and stuff, but the actual content, I've just spent like a year thinking about it, not doing much at all, just sort of thinking about it. And now I've got the answer, but that was never, ever, ever part of my plan.

My plan 15 years ago—well, I look back on it now and the plan was awful. It would have just been having clients constantly. It would have been having Zoom meetings. I would just be on my computer all the time. And now I'm rarely there.

So it's one of those things that I would say to people out there, if you're struggling, just be aware that you're learning because whatever you're struggling on won't be the thing that you're going to be doing in about two or three years anyway. It's just a stepping stone. It's a dot to where you are going to end up and you probably don't even know it now.

There you go; you're back. You're even more handsome now. You must have had a filter on it.

Jaryd Krause:

Absolutely. Coming back to that, I find that we don't know our full potential, even mentally, when we try to conceptualize our full potential. And this is where manifesting and the personal development world gripe me a little bit.

I've got a fair few personal development suckisms that I have been proving wrong for a few years in my own life and with friends and stuff and getting them to poke holes at my theories. And I would like to come out with a book on it one day or do some work around it.

But one of them is that we do have this vision, and this is coming full circle back to the start of our conversation, where I wanted to touch on having a vision to have some trust in the process to move forward and how you can hold onto that vision when times are tough and believe in it.

At the same time, there's this weird thing where what I visualized for my life was really limited. And it can be good at a certain stage in our journey, I feel. But also, at the same time, if we say we're going to achieve X results, we also put a glass ceiling or a top off, as that's the pinnacle.

When we don't really know our full human potential at all, we can try and conceptualize it mentally, but that also blocks us from manifesting something that's far more beautiful or a far more beautiful life than what we can mentally conceptualize. Have you seen or felt the same thing?

David Ralph:

Yeah. Well, I have. I realized when I broke that ceiling that it wasn't me setting a goal. It wasn't me saying, “By the end of this year, I want to have a squillion dollars in the bank” and all that kind of stuff. My number one goal, and it's still my number one goal, is how do I have total time freedom? How have I got total time control? And that is my driving force.

Today, I looked at my calendar and I thought, “Oh, I've got Jaryd and then,” but other than that, I can do anything that I want whenever I want. And the only thing that restricts me is podcasts. When I've made a decision to do a podcast, somebody else has got to meet me, so you've got to be there at that time.

Everything else drives me to make decisions based on: if I do this, is that going to take me away from having total time freedom? Is that going to take me away from being able to go, “No, we'll do that today?"

I’ll give you an example. My wife said to me last night, “What days are you working this week?” And now that's really made me sort of smile as I was driving along. Because it was a question that so many people don't have. People have to work every single day. And when she said, “What days are you working?”

And I said, “Oh, well, what days do you want me to work?” And she said, “Well, do you fancy going to the movies on Wednesday lunchtime?” And I said, “What is it?” And she said, “It's a new Robert De Niro film.” I said, “Fine, let's do it.”

So I didn't even have to look in my calendar because I knew that there's nothing in there for me to be restricted by. I can just do what I want. And so that's when I realized that my ceiling could be broken—not by setting any fixed goals, but just by creating a lifestyle goal that gave me the opportunity to just do whatever I wanted.

I read The 4-Hour Workweek many, many years ago. And I've got it up there and I haven't read it for probably 10 years. It's probably not that relevant now. But there were a couple of bits in there that I remember.

And one of the bits he was talking about, Tim Ferriss, was saying how he spent four days in Argentina flying over vineyards and spent about $400 in the process. And he said, “People want to be millionaires, or that's what I thought until I realized that people don't want to be millionaires. They want to live like millionaires do.”

And so when you have time freedom and you can just go, “Oh, let's go away. Oh, let's look at the flights. A thousand dollars, a thousand dollars. Oh, if we go next Thursday at seven o'clock in the morning, $70, oh, we'll take that one,” your life actually transforms. Because then you're not having to earn as much money to be able to have the lifestyle that you want. It all becomes cheaper and cheaper and cheaper, all under your own control.

And that's what people can't see. And it's difficult when you've got kids, and you have to go when the kids are at school and all that kind of stuff. But everything transforms when you start making personalized decisions about what you want, not business decisions. And by deciding, “I want to be surfing two hours a day,” you then start making business decisions which allow that to fit in.

And what you're actually saying, Jaryd, is “I want to be as effective as I possibly can in my business because I want to go swimming two hours a day,” instead of saying, “I've got 24 hours to sit in front of my computer. I'm going to use all those 24 hours.” And most of it is just rubbish, rubbish, rubbish work.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, it really is.

David Ralph:

It really is.

Jaryd Krause:

I heard it on a podcast, or I read it in a book, where there was a man who was quite successful in business, but he got really, really sick and he was flying around all these different countries. And he realized that when he got sick and couldn't perform, the business didn't really perform.

And he realized that the business wasn't the asset, which is, most people think, “Ah, business is the asset.” I'm talking about the capital T-H-E, the asset. When, really, the business can come and go.

The business model, like you said—membership, coaching, whatever—all that sort of stuff—who cares? It can come and go, but the asset is you. The asset is the person who can buy a different model, build a different business model, or sell one. The asset is you learning all these things along the way.

And if you don't look after that asset by giving that asset absolutely everything that it wants, i.e., if you want to go for a walk with your partner, go for a walk with your partner in the middle of the day. If you want to go see the movies at 1:30 in the middle of the day on a Wednesday, do it. Because you're going to be happier. You're really feeding an asset. And the better the asset is, the better everything else flows from there.

David Ralph:

Yeah. I'll tell you a little story. When I started off, I was basically in my job, a corporate gig, and decided to quit. And I thought I'd be a web designer because I quite like making websites and different things. And after three days of doing that, I thought, “I hate this. I really hate this, but what can I do? What can I do? I've just quit my job; I need something.”

And I fell into podcasting and podcasting was a natural fit. I've gotten used to communicating. I used to do training and development courses standing in front of conferences and stuff. So it was a natural fit.

But to transform it into money was very difficult because I missed out on a fundamental part that my every business that I do now is based on this four-letter word. And I look at it and go, “Does this fall into this four-letter word?” And if it doesn't, I'm not having it.

So I've got an offline shop, which is a car parts shop. And we sell oil filters. We sell filters. I use it as a bit of a hobby.

Jaryd Krause:

This is your family business that you got into. Is that right?

David Ralph:

Yeah, it was a family business. Mom and dad were going to sell it because it wasn't doing very well. And I thought, “Oh, I could turn this around.” And so I bought it. And interestingly enough, even though you know a lot about a business until you actually run an offline business and you've got employees and stuff and you've got to pay their pensions and their PAYE and all these kinds of stuff, it's a world apart.

But anyway, I looked at it and I thought, “Does this fall into this four-letter word?” And I thought, “Yes, it does.” And the four-letter word is ‘need’. Do people need oil filters? Do people need spark plugs? Do people need this? Yeah, they do. That's 75% forward in a business.

And then I thought to myself, “What are people needing more of?” And so they've got electric cars. So me and my brother have started a business called EV Chargers, electricvehiclechargers.pro, where we go around fitting electric charging points on the sides of houses. So when people buy their cars, they need to charge them, and they plug it in.

And so everything now I look at and I go, “Do people need it?” If they can't get their car started, they need that. If they can't do this, they need it. And the effort of creating the business is magically transformed because you don't have to convince anyone.

And I see a lot of people starting new businesses that I say to them, “Number one, I don't really understand this. I don't understand what you're trying to offer here.” Especially in the life coaching realms and the business coaching realms and stuff. And secondly, I say, “Do people really need this? If I were on a desert Island or if I were broken down in a road across Australia—

Jaryd Krause:

A tow truck, yeah.

David Ralph:

And you turned up and you were offering a sort of time management service. Do people really need that? Or is it just a want? And that really transformed everything for me again. Just looking at that and saying, “Can I create a needed business that allows me to be free from everything and not really be involved in it until I want it?”

And it seems too obvious to say. And then the more you need something like this new business that I'm creating at the moment, it's a big need and it's a pain point. And there's about 31,000 people a month Googling for this thing. And so I think to myself, “Well, you only need a few of those and it's sort of a job done.” But need, you need, need, need.

Jaryd Krause:

This is the opposite of what people have been taught and I feel a lot of people believe you just need a million-dollar idea. Whereas a million-dollar idea means you're coming up with something brand new that the market doesn't know that it wants or doesn't need, really.

Whereas if you find what you're saying—that need—you're finding a pool of people that there's demand for. You're finding out where the demand is. And then you're just going away, and that product is the supply. You're like, “Here you go. This is what you guys need. Here's the supply.”

And I want to circle back to where we started in the conversation, David, around the difficult times in business and getting through those. And I mentioned that one way that can help people take action—a lot of action at the start of their journey—isyis setting up a goal visualizing that goal and believing in it.

Which I feel works to a certain extent when we start to realize that it can become limiting. A lot of our beliefs do become limiting, and we can outgrow them if we can conceptualize that.

For you and me, I don't know; in me, innately, I've just got this trust. I trust myself a lot. I back myself and I know that you do too. But it's not that I just back myself; I back the universe to give me what I need at the right time. And I know this is going into pretty spiritual land here and I hope we're not losing people.

Because this is really the secret to my success, really, is trusting in myself. Whatever the world's going to throw at me, it's for a reason and I'm going to learn from it and the universe is going to give me what I want and need at the time I need it. Whether I like it or not, like a Google update, It's not what I want. But it’s what I need.

And I guess that sort of is one part of the answer to how do we help people? Or how did you discover this for yourself? And when did you discover this? And do you talk to people about this as business owners? And how can they start to trust in the process, even when we're so freaking scared, like, “Am I going to lose all my money and do I have to go back to my regular job?” or whatnot?

David Ralph:

I'm going to link this to Elton John. This is a strange story. But years and years ago, I worked in a very posh bank up in London and we had butlers. We had people that would bring us food at our desk, drinks and stuff.

And I got really friendly with one of the butlers and the butler used to buttle for Elton John. And he said to him, “How do you know that you're going to be able to write a song? How do you actually know that you're going to be able to sit there and just get some words and write a hit song?” And Elton John said to him, “I trust the process.” He said, “It's as simple as that,” but Elton John just knew that if he sat there, he could do it. It was nothing more than that.

And this butler went to Sydney. He emigrated to Sydney. And he said he basically wrote a list of what he needed when he was in Sydney. And it was like, “I need a flat, then I need a job and then I need a bed.” And at each stage, he would write this list of things.

And he said, “I used to walk around the streets and then find a mattress discarded. Or I saw a poster in a window that said, ‘Bed on offer free.’” And he said, “It wasn't even that it was being given to me.” He said, “It was being given to me in the order that I wrote it on the list.” And I remember thinking, really? Really? That's just mad. And then we're talking about 30 years down the line; I can see that's true.

Now, what's he saying? And what's Elton John saying? What they're saying is to believe in yourself and become as good as you possibly can. When Elton first sat at the piano, he wasn't writing hit songs. He was just writing something. But by doing it time and time again, it builds up that trust muscle. And I think that once you get that trust muscle in you, you say, “Oh, it's not working. Let's walk away. Let's leave it for a few days. It'll be all right.” Or, “Yeah, it is working. Let's go for it. You see magic occur.

And we're not talking hocus pocus. We're not talking about miracles. All we're saying is that there's so much going on in the world. Literally, we're bombarded by things. We walk past people. There's things that go past on buses. It's just things all the time.

But if you trust yourself, you get back to what the Beatles were saying: Something will happen. Because there's so much whizzing around us. Something is whizzing around us all the time, but you've just got to look around and go, “What do I need next?”

And it's taken me 30 years to follow up on all these messages that people were giving me that were life wisdom that I wish I had. But, of course, you can't get life wisdom. You've got to earn life wisdom. And that's why, when you see some old guy sitting on a bench, talk to him.

There's a brilliant thing on YouTube and they ask these hundred-year-olds what advice they would give their younger selves. And it's about a 16-minute video. And literally, all of it was to enjoy life more. And it just comes down to that. It was just enjoying life more.

Because if you get to the end of the day and you get into bed and you pull a duvet up to your neck, you're doing damn sight better than the majority of people. And the people that are sitting there, walking along, listening to podcasts, putting their MP3 players on, getting on the train—all those dots have led you up to that point. You've made those decisions. You decided to take that job. You decided to get on that train. You decided to do that. So just turn that thinking into, “Oh, I want another story,” and trust that process.

Jaryd Krause:

Trust the process. And that's so, so good. I want to talk about the trust muscle, flexing this trust muscle that you mentioned. And I want to share a little bit of a story on how I have learned to trust the process and flex my trust muscle to trust in myself.

And to be honest, back in the day, I did all the personal development stuff, and I did the affirmations and I basically faked it until I made it. I wasn't grounded. I wasn't solid and yeah, I was rooted in my confidence. I faked it, to be honest. And I told myself that I was all these sorts of things, and I would achieve all these sorts of things. And it was built on air. It was built on nothing at the start.

And I'd love to hear how you build your trust muscle, but I had to reverse engineer how I built my trust muscle or trust in myself to be like, “I've got this. I've got this for myself. And if my friends and my family need support, I'm the man.” And I don't say that with air or built on air or fluff anymore. It's like, “Consider it done.”

So that only happened once; it started to snowball from the first moment that one of my partners, it was actually nine years ago, used to beat herself up a lot for not achieving certain things. And she hired somebody and was speaking to a therapist and the therapist said to her, “What you need to do is count your small wins.

You need to not discount all these other things that you've done.” Maybe you didn't get this thing done or achieved in this certain time at the level right now where you're at in your life. But what about all the other things that you've done?

And this is what I do whenever I speak to coaching clients when we have our mastermind. We always rock up and we always share a win. And the win doesn't need to be “I made 10 grand today.” It can be “This morning I woke up and I didn't want to work, but I knew I had to, so I did it.” That's a huge win. So we share our wins and then we count those wins.

And I think for me, it was my trust muscle, really, where I started to do the heavy reps; the heavy lifting was when I was down and out, and I achieved something by keeping my head afloat. For example, in my first year in this business, I made just under half a million. The year after that, I was spending five grand a month every single month. I was just trusting and hoping that I would come out of this and build this, and I had to revolutionize my whole business.

And this is a story I've been sharing with a lot of people, that I was going backwards a lot in my finances, I took a job, and I was doing sales calls. I was like, “I'm just going to make it happen.” And my partner's like, “Let's go traveling and spend all this money.” I'm like, “Ken, do we have to?” But when I look back at that process, I go, “That's a massive win for me to count.”

So whenever anything ever pops up now in the future for me, I'm like, “I've got this.” I've built up a bank account of things and experiences where I put faith and trust in myself, and I've come out on top. And that bank account, I think, is very helpful for people in times like this, where they're like, “Oh, am I doing the right thing and staying in the process?” So that's sort of one and a mixture of ways that I've helped build my trust muscle. Have you got some stuff that you've used?

David Ralph:

Well, can I?

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah, of course.

David Ralph:

Can I just reach out for the book?

Jaryd Krause:

Absolutely.

David Ralph:

I'll show you a book. Okay, one second.

Jaryd Krause:

And while he reaches out for this book, there are so many little things that we can do to count our small little wins and we need to build ourselves up to get to that point.

David Ralph:

In front of me. It was in front of me, The Power of Your Subconscious Mind. So it's by Joseph Murphy. Now I read that a lot and I still do affirmations. I constantly do affirmations on physical things, and I've seen miracles occur.

For example, my hair doesn't look that thick. But there was a time a few years ago when it was literally disappearing. It was absolutely disappearing. And through stress and sort of overwork and different things, I just thought, “Okay, I'm going to be one of those bald guys. As you get older, you lose your hair.

And I started reading this book and basically, you've got two levels of your mind. You've got a conscious mind. You've got the subconscious mind. And the conscious mind is the one in which you make the decisions about what you're going to do. I'm going to have a sandwich, and I'm going to talk to Jaryd today. But the subconscious mind is the real powerful thing.

And I started using what this says in this book to actually build that trust muscle. I really had that belief that, “Hey, it's going to happen. It's going to happen.” And do you remember Dumbo used to have that magic feather? And if he had the feather, he could fly. And once you actually give yourself that feather in your hand, you feel like you've got a suit of armor on. You feel like anything can just be bashed away.

And this was a great book, and it repeats like all self-development books do. You could write it in 30 pages when they do it in 300 pages. But the basis of it is that if you want something and you really, really believe it, it will come true as long as you put work and effort into it and do the right things.

And what I talk a lot about to my clients now, and I have very few clients like you, but I say to them, “If you went into a shop, say, you wanted to cook a really romantic meal for your partner and you went into a shop and you bought a nice piece of steak and you bought some mushrooms and you were going to do a big meal.”

And then you came home, and you went into a room that didn't have an oven. You're not going to make that meal; it's not going to happen. So you've got to set the conditions right to make success happen. You've got to get the tools out. You've got to get the oven out. You've got to get it to the right temperature. You've got to put the steak in at the right time.

And I find that a lot of people are trying to create success in their lives without setting the right conditions. And so they are trying to do it on a laptop where people are walking all around them. No, go to a quiet space and lock yourself away. Keep away from your kids. Say to your kids, “Look, just for an hour, I don't want to be contacted.” And you've got to set those conditions right.

And once you set those conditions right, physically and environmentally, i.e., where you're working, then you've got more than a 50% chance to actually make things happen. But you can't just turn on the laptop and expect miracles to happen.

You can't turn on the laptop, as you say, and expect inspiration to hit. You've got to do things to feel inspired. You've got to do things to feel rested. You've got to do things to feel creative. So I spend more time now doing things that allow me to create those conditions.

One of the things I do is swim every single day. And while I'm just doing 40, 50 lengths, whatever, and I'm not thinking about anything about my breathing, something will come into my head and I think, “Oh yeah, that's a good idea.” And then I've created that condition, that environment, to actually come back and make it happen.

So it all ties up with that trust. It all comes down to trusting the process. It all comes down to not being stressed, not being pressured, and just doing what needs to be done. And I don't know about you, Jaryd, but I think that if you've done three really good things that day, go away.

Go away, go and binge watch Netflix or whatever you want to do. But think to yourself, “What three things do I really need to do to sort of move this business forward?” And then focus on those and make them good.

Jaryd Krause:

So good, so good. I believe we've been taught and conditioned through personal development. It's really good and it gets you started, but I do think it's quite limiting, depending on different stages. And one of those is, as you said, if you just do three good things a day, give up. You're done. You've done everything you need to do. You've set yourself up for success.

Don't stack it to be 50 or 100 things on your to-do list for the day, or even 10. If you do those two to three things, I used to call them ITF (important tasks first). And this is what I used to teach my clients. If you do your ITF, then don't do anything else. We've been taught to be so damn productive with all of our time.

My friend, the other day, said to me, “Do you listen to a podcast when you're doing the washing or when you're cooking or when you're just doing stuff?” And I'm like, “No.” He's like, “What do you mean? How do you keep learning?” I'm like, “I learn, I think about things, and I process things and I digest them without me trying to do it. I just give myself a lot of blank space.”

And just by watching Netflix, I tested this as well. I did a couple of things a day. I do two coaching calls, I'd have a podcast and I'd watch Netflix at 11 a.m. and eat food. And I would watch Netflix without trying to learn. I would just learn and come up with things that I've noticed in the content. It's like, “Oh, that's interesting. Maybe that'll come into fruition for me one day.” Versus, there's a certain level of unproductivity.

And even Tim Ferriss has come out, saying that he went from being so damn productive to deciding to be unproductive on purpose. And I think that's where we hit our genius zone and we start to become the best version of ourselves when we allow ourselves and when we don't be so strict on ourselves. I think there's a time to be strict and not.

David Ralph:

I agree. Yeah, I agree a billion percent. I really do. But I am still trapped by the fact that you go to work. You have to work. My parents worked hard, so I need to work hard. And I still feel guilty. I've actually started saying to people now that I'm retired because it's easier to say that than just saying, “Oh, I choose what I want to do when I want to do it.”

People understand the concept of being retired more than they do working two hours a day. It doesn't fit naturally with how I see other people's lives. And when people are racing here and racing there and picking the kids up and doing this and doing that and trying to get a dinner on the table at night and falling into bed exhausted at the end of the day, I can see that everything there is almost out of their control.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. It is.

David Ralph:

Oh, I'll tell you what I was thinking. You've got ITF. I have OPP, okay? OPP is other people's priority.

Jaryd Krause:

Yes, you did mention this, but I want you to share this with everybody. I've heard this talk about this.

David Ralph:

If an email comes through to me that says, “Oh, David, I've been listening to your podcast, and I really would like to connect, and could we have 15 minutes?” I think to myself, “Did I ask for that or did they ask for that?” And I move it into my OPP folder, which I might come back to, but I've got quite a big folder of other people asking for stuff.

And I look at it all and I think to myself, “If I were on a planet where I could do what I wanted to do every single day, would I have chosen that thing? Would I have chosen that 15-minute call?” And that's why I don't do many of these because I make a decision on whether this is actually benefiting me or the person.

Now, Jaryd's a different kettle of fish because when I connected with him, I thought I'm going to give him a man hug if I see him because there felt such a strong connection that I would do these every day of the week. But OPP was a way of me moving the ego away, making me think, “Oh, this person wants to speak to me. This person wants 15 minutes to me.”

All these virtual conferences that you see people going, “I'm so delighted to be at this virtual conference with all these other speakers.” I think the only one who's benefiting from this is the person running the virtual conference and setting the tickets. Would you have chosen Would you have chosen to do that? And if you wouldn't have chosen it, then it goes into OPP.

Jaryd Krause:

It's a big point. It’s a big point. Because there's people who want to get out of their regular day jobs. People who listen to this want to get out of their regular jobs, replace their income and have their own time. But you're right.

You've mentioned this, where people who have a job—that job, that boss—control your time. You've given, you go, “Here you go, here's my calendar. You can take the 40 hours and just put it wherever you want in the week.” And you've just given it.

And I've got friends; I love them, but they have given their 40 hours to one person, which is their job. And they don't run their own calendar. So they've given the rest to their partner. So actually, they are last on the list. It goes to work, a partner, their two kids, and then them.

And I'll come back into the country, be like, “Let's hang out," and I'll text them all these dates. “So let me check. Let me check with these five other things.” And I get that your work is important for you to put food on the table and all these things are important. But at the same time, start to claim them back if you can.

David Ralph:

Yeah, yeah. It's a flow. It's a flow. And I was there. 20 years ago, I had a heart attack. I thought I had a heart attack, but it turned out to be stress. And basically, as I was getting up in the morning, I was having to catch the train. I was getting there, I was doing a training course, and then I was learning a subject to train in the afternoon. And then I had to get out at four o'clock because the kids were going to Cubs, and I had to get them to Cubs, and then I had to pick them up at six o'clock.

And when they put me on a heart monitor, as soon as I woke up in the morning, my heartbeat was going to 165 beats per minute. Because I was just constantly chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing, chasing.

And that was because I gave my control away to every single other person. Every part of me was about just being there because somebody else had told me I'd got to be there at eight o'clock. I've got to be there at 10 o'clock. I've got to be there at four o'clock.

So I totally understand how people get into that situation. And I don't think there's any bad situation that I haven't gotten myself into over the years. It's not that I sort of rode to Damascus early. I haven't. I've done every stupid thing known to man. I've affected my health. Everything down to bad relationships and stuff. I've done a lot. And when you actually get to the moment where you go, “Am I making this decision?”

I tell you, I read in a book. I read a book, and this was a guy called T. Harv Eker, and I can't remember what the book was, but I just remember this thing. And it was one of those moments that I thought, “Oh my god.” I actually almost had to pull the carve over because I was listening to it on an audio book.

And he said, “That fault you've just had, is that your fault? Or is that every single person? Is that a teacher's fault that has trained you? Is that your parents' fault? Is that your boss's fault? Whose fault have you just had?”

And I thought to myself, “I don't know. Maybe I'm not having my own faults. Maybe every fault that I've got is because of what somebody else has said to me or somebody else has trained me all my life.” And it blew me away.

Now I haven't resolved it. I'm not having total clarity of thoughts that nobody else has trained me for. But it does make me think to myself, “Am I doing that? Or because my mom always said to me, "If you don't eat your peas, you're going to go blind.” It's all that stupid stuff that just sort of becomes you. Jaryd Krause:

Oh, this is one of my favorite things to do with my mom—prove wives’ tales wrong. And it's so good. Oh, yeah.

David Ralph:

I bet she loves you.

Jaryd Krause:

Well, she does. But sometimes I know when I can push it and sometimes I know that she's got a level of thinking and societal conditioning that is different from my level of un-conditioning and how I like to un-condition myself from: Is that my thought or is that something that I've learned from my coach at football?

Or what everybody else has been saying at school. Or what I learned from my old boss as a plumber. How I started to consciously—because sometimes we have these thoughts unconsciously, but what I started to do consciously was grab some of those thoughts and go, “Is that true? Is that true to me? And also, can I prove it wrong?”

And that's why when I got into personal development, I just trusted the process so much until I got to a point where I was like, “Hang on, is absolutely everything that I'm learning true and correct and right for me at this time?” And I've proven a lot of it wrong for me, where I'm at in my journey and for where I feel a lot of people are at.

And I think that's a really good thing to understand. We can be on so much autopilot without even understanding what we have been taught. And that's the difference. So you and I, David, are not normal human beings at all.

David Ralph:

I believe that to be true on a daily basis, actually. Sometimes not for the right reasons either.

Jaryd Krause:

I’m sure. I'm sure. But one of my fears is being normal. I don't want to be normal because I don't want to live a normal life. I want to live an extraordinary life. I don't want to be ordinary. But it is pretty ordinary to not take yourself back and give yourself the chance to think independently, I guess.

And that's where people end up in 10, 15, or 20 years down the line, like, “Damn, I didn't learn from David when he said, Watch this YouTube video of these wise people that are at the near end of their lives. They said, Just enjoy your life. I just didn't think about enjoying my life. I just went and did all the things that I was supposed to tick off that the media and the world have told me are success.”

David Ralph:

I'll tell you a little story about this and the whole conversation is what I always call YIC, and I say to my family, YIC (you’re in control). You are in control of your faults. You're in control of what to wear each day. You're in control of whether to have a shower in the morning or not. With every decision, good or bad, you are in control.

And once you take that good or bad and don't say, “Oh, it's because Jaryd got me up early in the morning that that's happened.” And because of this and because of that. And I see it with my daughter; my daughter is always looking for somebody to point the finger at.

That was because her day was bad; it was because of this person. Once you get into YIC and just accept, then things will just sort of take control of themselves, really. And you are in control. You're in control of everything.

I find this fascinatingly simple, but I also know that once again, there's going to be people out there listening who are gritting their teeth and going, “If it were that simple, everyone would do it.” Yeah, I understand. And because everyone isn't doing it, everyone isn't trying to be normal.

They're getting the same results and they're getting the crumbs of that cake where Jaryd is saying, “I'm not going to be normal here. I'm not going to do what everybody else does. I'm going to create my own path. Oh, there's not much competition on this path. I'm going to get more results because of this.” And it's annoyingly simple, but it's horrific to actually be able to achieve because you're going against everything you've ever been conditioned in, basically.

Jaryd Krause:

Such a good point. Apologies; my camera is playing funny buggers again. But it is hard. It is really, really hard to go against the grain, because I'll give you an example. People don't want to be judged. People have a fear of judgment. For me, bring it on. I don't care if you judge me because it's not my stuff; it's yours. So you can just prove that one wrong right there.

A lot of people are worried about how the world will see them. I don't care how the world sees them. I care about how I see myself. I care about how I show up, not how other people show up or how other people judge me. They're going to judge me anyway, whatever I do. If I become the next Elon Musk, which I do not want to do, then I'm going to get judged. Because Elon Musk gets judged. Everybody does. So judge away.

But if people have these fears of stepping outside the boundary, I'm so different. Everybody in my life—my friends, my family, people I ought to meet—they're like, “This dude's odd. He's different.” And I am in my own unique way and I'm happy with that.

And I'm becoming and I'm not perfect, and I always want to grow and evolve and become a better version of myself. But I feel if people decide to start to lean into doing more of what just feels nice and good for them, they're going to be better versions of themselves and they're the assets to build a better business.

David Ralph:

Yeah. I'm going back to corporate again. When I was in corporate land, I used to be told by the board directors and stuff, “David, you are a maverick. You are a maverick.” And it was like a bad thing. And it used to drag itself around with me from job to job. Wherever I went, I was told I was a maverick. And I look back on it now and I think, “No, it was a great thing. It was a brilliant thing.” And it led me to quit my job and go out and do my own thing against the norm.

And being a maverick is just thinking about your own thoughts and doing your own stuff. And I used to look at it all the time, thinking to myself, “This is stupid. Why am I here eight hours a day? I could do this in four hours.” And I used to question everything. And when you start questioning everything, you realize that everything is false. Everything, once again, is what somebody else has told you or what you're led to believe.

I just find it mind blowingly beautiful—this conversation. I forget it and sometimes I get a bit overwhelmed by stuff. But actually, it's simple. Look after yourself, rest, keep yourself in peak condition and do what you can. And if you do those three things every day and you've done 21 things a week and you've done 84 things a month, that really builds momentum quickly.

Jaryd Krause:

Absolutely. That comes down to not the 80-20 but the 90-10 of the few things that you need to do a day, which we can categorize into the ITF (important task first) and your own priorities.

David Ralph:

I'll tell you what, Jaryd, when I started Join Up Dots many years ago, just jumping in, literally every person used to say, “Yeah, I get up in the morning and I go straight to the gym and I do a half hour there, and then I come back and I write in a gratitude book, and then I do some meditation.” And I used to think, “Really? How'd you get anything done?” If you're doing all that city stuff, how do you get anything done? Just get up and crack on with it.

But what they were doing is what I was saying, they were setting the conditions right. They were creating that meal for that day by getting the oven on, getting the temperature right and all that kind of stuff. Once again, it's a lesson that I couldn't see. People were telling me time and time again, every single episode, they weren’t getting enough and just steamed into it instantly for the whole day. They were getting up.

You look about 30 years younger again. I don’t know what you're doing. It’s like Tom Hanks in Big; you're suddenly going to be about five by the end of this podcast.

Jaryd Krause:

Yeah. Sorry, I was jumping in between trying to get my camera back on. But you're right. They are setting themselves up for success. Like you said, cooking that amazing steak They're doing the things that are going to set them up for success preparing a beautiful meal and preparing a beautiful life.

And yeah, David, I'm just charged with this conversation. And as always, we have the best conversations. So I just am truly grateful for you coming on, and yeah, sharing everything you've learned and all the dots that you've joined up. Speaking of that, where can people go and find out more about your podcast?

David Ralph:

The easiest place is just Google Join Up Dots and we'll be at the top and you can see everything there. And what we try to do is basically, through Join Up Dots, teach you how to create your own online income and your own online business, but it's not there on the website.

I always say to people, “Send me an email. Send me an email.” Because I think sending an email is the most powerful thing that anyone can do. [email protected]. Because that's actually putting yourself into something. You are actually thinking about what you are typing. You are actually sending something with intent. And once you create that intent, you've got the ball rolling.

So you can listen to the podcast; you can listen to everything. And it's not saucy; it's not prescriptive. I'm never going to tell you that it's the right path, the wrong path, whatever. All we say to you is YIC (you’re in control).

Jaryd Krause:

Absolutely. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening. I don't always ask you guys to subscribe, but if you haven't already, give that a crack. Thanks, guys. Bye.

Hey, YouTube watchers, if you thought that video was good, you should check out this video here on the 2 Best Types of Websites Beginners Should Buy. Or check out my playlist on How I Made My First $100k Buying Websites and how to do due diligence. Check it out. It's an awesome playlist. You'll enjoy it.