Afford Anything - "Why I Quit My Dream Job" – with entrepreneur Leslie Samuel

Episode Date: September 28, 2016

#44: When Leslie Samuel immigrated to the U.S. at age 17, he hoped for the American Dream: an education, a secure job, and a traditional career path. But during his college years, Leslie realized he had an entrepreneurial streak. He made a few attempts at working for himself. He failed. He lost money that he'd set aside for his wedding. He tried investing in the stock market. He lost more money, savings that he'd set aside to pay his tuition. But he didn't quit. Leslie graduated, married, and accepted a job as a high school science teacher. He felt happy and secure. Yet his entrepreneurial itch persisted. He started building an online business in his spare time.  Leslie began earning an extra $14,000 per year on the side, a nice supplement to his income. A few years later, Leslie landed his dream job as a university professor. He loved his work. He earned a solid income. His wife gave birth to a healthy baby boy. Everything seemed perfect. But his entrepreneurial calling persisted. Ultimately, Leslie made the difficult decision to quit his dream job in order to become a full-time online entrepreneur. In this episode, he shares why he made this tough choice – and how he handled the fear and doubts that blocked the way. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You can afford anything, but not everything. And that's true, not just of your money, but of your time, focus, energy, attention, any scarce resource in your life. What are you going to do with that one short life? Are you going to create financial independence? Are you going to become an entrepreneur? Are you going to retire early? Your options are open, and you can do anything, but not everything. So what matters most?

That's what this podcast is here to explore. My name's Paula Pan. I'm the host of the podcast. and today we have a very special guest. His name is Leslie Samuel. He immigrated to the United States at the age of 17 from St. Martin, a small island in the Caribbean. And at first, he thought that he was going to pursue the American dream,

go to college, go to grad school, get a degree, get a secure job, make some money, buy a house, live his life. But then he learned about entrepreneurship and suddenly things changed. First, he started a blog and began. again receiving emails from people in developing countries that expressed to him that even though they couldn't afford traditional education, they were learning a lot through the blog that he built. People from third world countries and all over the world were saying,

hey, I have no access to textbooks. We can't afford textbooks. And I was struggling in my biology classes. And I found your website. And it really helped me. And now I believe that I can be a doctor. I can do the next step in my educational process. Then his path took an interesting turn.

His blog paved the way for him to get his dream job as a university professor. He thought, awesome, best of both worlds. I have this online business. I'm earning some money on the side, but I'm also working at my dream job. This is the thing I've always wanted to do. I've always wanted to be a university professor. But he was burning the candle at both ends. He was exhausted from his workload.

Something had to give. I am working when I'm not working. If I'm not working on my job, I'm working on my PhD. If I'm not working on that, I'm working on my business. I don't have time for my family. My mom is ill. I can't go and support her. Something has to change.

Of course, giving up one or the other was scary. And the one that he chose, entrepreneurship, well, it wasn't making enough money for him to support his family at the time that he chose it. And that was terrifying. I'm leaving the anatomy lab. My day is over and I am going home. And I'm walking toward my car. And all of a sudden, like from nowhere, I just freaked out.

So why did he make the decisions that he made? And how did he deal with fear and uncertainty along the way? We're going to hear that story from Leslie right now. First, before we get into it, I want to thank our sponsor, Fresh Books. If you're an entrepreneur or if you have a lot of, side business, you probably have to do a lot of invoicing, bookkeeping, all of those administrative logistical things that are necessary to your business, but they're not fun, and they're not the thing that will grow your business and move the needle. Well, Fresh Books makes all of that

really easy. They're a web-based, intuitive, user-friendly platform that automates the invoicing process so that you can free up your time and energy to focus on actually driving your business forward. Try them for free for 30 days by visiting freshbooks.com slash Paula. That's freshbooks.com slash p-a-u-l-a. And when they ask how you heard about us, mention this show, either say Paula or say the afford-anything podcast. And now let's hear from Leslie Samuel, who quit his dream job in order to become a full-time entrepreneur. Hey, Leslie. Hello, how you doing? Good. How are you? I am I'm fantastic. I'm excited to be on this podcast because you are excited. You sound excited when you speak. So that gets me excited. So I'm excited. Just letting you know. Oh, excellent. Excellent. Excellent.

For listeners who aren't familiar with you, could you please introduce yourself? My name is Leslie Samuel. I'm from Become a Blogger.com. I teach about blogging. I have my podcast that's called Learning with Leslie where I talk about how to blog, how to turn it into a business. I interview bloggers like Paula and many others about what they've done to build their businesses and sharing their stories and that kind of stuff. I'm all about how do you take something that you're passionate about, create content, put it on a blog, build your email list and use this to kind of build a business. That's what I talk about all the time in my blog. What I want to talk to you about today is your personal journey because a lot of the people

who are listening, you know, may or may not necessarily want to be bloggers, but a lot of the listeners have some type of dream that they're working towards, whether it's financial independence or scaling from full time to part time or developing a freelance business. I mean, there's a huge array of different kind of paths that people walk. Yep. But there are a couple of universal common themes throughout it. And one of them is making that transition, making the decision. Oh, man. Okay. Definitely. So I went to university and I studied biology. When I started studying biology, I was a terrible student. Oh. Because I came from the Caribbean, St. Martin, a small island. And I was a terrible student back then. So when I came to Michigan to start school, I was still a terrible student. But at a certain point in my college career, there are two things that happened. Number one, I got really passionate about biology. So I got really excited. Like this was a topic.

I took a physiology class and it just, when I'm studying the nervous system and how that functions and all that good stuff, it excited me. That's one significant thing that happened. But another significant thing that happened was I got introduced to this concept of entrepreneurship. And what I say introduced is because that's not something that I grew up with. I had heard about entrepreneurship, but it wasn't something that anyone in my family did or, anyone that I knew from back home that was doing. So when I got introduced to it in college, it really fascinated me. The idea that people weren't just going out there and getting jobs, but they were building businesses and those businesses were working for them. And not that

they weren't working as well, but I started meeting people that had significant amount of leverage in their life. And that really fascinated me. And it kind of started me on this journey of trying to figure out, hey, how can I be an entrepreneur? I read the book, Rich Dad, Poor Dad. That was like one of the first things that introduced me to the concept. And I was really excited about that. So I tried a few things and it failed. What did you try? So I did an MLM at one point. Oh, multi-level marketing. Yes. What were you selling? This was prepaid legal. Oh, yeah. So we were sending legal services and yad, yad, yada. But I didn't really do much with it.

I was starting to go to these meetings and talking to people that were thinking in a totally different way than I was thinking. Even though I didn't really get deep into it, it opened my eyes to what was out there. Okay. Let me pause you here for a second. Let's explore a little bit further. People who are thinking in a different way than you were. I assume you mean thinking like an entrepreneur rather than thinking like an employee. Is that kind of where? That's exactly what I'm talking about because I had always been around people.

that, you know, the idea was, and especially for me, coming from a little island, 32 square mile island in the Caribbean, you know, that big dream is to go off to America and get an education so that you can get a job and then you can climb the ladder and make some money. Like, that was like the pinnacle of anything that you could accomplish. And then I started meeting these people that were talking about building businesses and employing people and the passive income and all these different. concepts that initially were foreign to me that I started learning about and I started reading books about those same concepts and started to get excited about that. What were some of the main differences? Was it the hiring people and the scaling? Was that the main difference that you saw between the mindset? Actually, the biggest difference is working for someone else and working for yourself, where you're building something for somebody else.

And no matter how much work you did, you don't own anything. And I think the difference between that not owning anything and building something that's your own, number one. Also, you know, having a team and you being that person that is above that team and working with this team and leading them, you know, all of those ideas were exciting to me. But like I said, it's not something that I was taught from a young age. When did you come to the United States? I came in 97. How old were you? I just turned 17 when I moved to the States.

Oh, wow. Did you come by yourself or were you with your parents? I came with my dad because he dropped me off to go to school. But then he left after a weekend. It was just me. It was me against the world. And not against the world. It was me to take on this big world of America.

Wow. And St. Martin, they speak both French and Dutch there. Yes? Yeah. So there's a Dutch side and there's a French side. and I'm from the Dutch side. So I grew up, you know, when I went to school, the language of instruction was Dutch. I went to St. Martin a couple of years ago, but I was on the French side.

Did you like St. Martin? I did. I loved it. It was beautiful. That was the only acceptable answer, by the way. Oh, man. So you got into this multi-level marketing business. Even though you didn't make a whole lot of money with it, it did help expose you to different ideas and a different way of thinking. Exactly. I actually, I don't think I've spoken about this in a podcast, but I dabbled in a number of different

things that I found online. You know, all these money-making opportunities? I remember there was one that was called 12 Daily Pro. It was like this auto-surfing scam where you just look at 12 websites for 12 seconds and after 12 days you made a certain amount of money. Wow. For some reason, I got suckered into it and lost some money there. And then there was another one called golden rocks and I was just kind of, you know, I heard you can make money on the internet. So I started looking for these sites and they said, hey, you could make money. Just give us this amount and do this. And then you'll make some money.

I actually lost, this is actually painful. I lost a thousand dollars of my wedding money on one of these online money making opportunities. I mean, it was terrible. Wow. And these were like, pay us money so that you could have the opportunity to. Exactly. Yeah, this was when, you know, I started hearing what people making money on the internet. I started seeing websites saying, hey, you can make money on the internet. So I started, you know,

just experimenting with these different things. And it didn't go well in the beginning. Were you still in college at this time, studying biology? Yeah. So I'm in college. I'm studying biology. When I finished my biology degree, I went on for my master. So this was kind of like when I was going into my master's. I did a master's degree in neurobiology because of how fascinated I was by the nervous system. And this is when I continued on that journey and that's when I started losing money. But ultimately, what I wanted to do was go on for a PhD. And when I get that PhD, because I was so fascinated by the nervous system and I was I was in love with teaching, the goal was to ultimately get the PhD so that I could become a university professor. So what

What happened after you finished your master's? While doing my master's, I realized one thing very significant. And that was, I hated the research that I was doing. I mean, I was basically studying, I was looking at crickets, and I was looking at the neurons in the crickets and recording from them and blah, blah, blah. I mean, a whole bunch of stuff, spending hours and hours in a lab. They sent me to Germany to do research out there. And I was doing that research, and I realized, you know what, research.

isn't for me. If I want to go on for a PhD, I'm going to have to do a ton more research. I don't want to do that. I am done. So I decided I'm not going to go on for a PhD. I'm just going to get a job teaching at a high school. So that's exactly what I started doing. My wife, well, she was my fiancé at the time, but we got married in 2006. And in 2006, I started teaching at a boarding academy. I was teaching science and math there. And she was there as well teaching music. And while I was doing that, that's when, you know, I, before when I was looking at all these money-making opportunities, it was when, man, I really needed to make some money to, you know, pay some school. I didn't even mention that I lost $4,800 in the stock market. And that was college tuition money.

Oh, wow. Yeah, that was, anyhow, it was painful. But at those points, when I was doing these different types of opportunities, it was just kind of like, oh, man, I need to make some money. Let me see what's out there. And I found this site that said, you can make this, so you do this, you do that. But for the first time, you know, I had a secure job. So I didn't have any issues paying bills or anything of that sort. We were doing okay.

And then I started to look, but with different eyes. I started to look and do research instead of, oh, this says I can make money. Let me go ahead and make money. I started to actually do some research into the different opportunities that were there. And then I started my online business in two thousand, I mean, legitimately, my online business in 2008. It was January 18 of 2008 that I got started. Wow. Okay. So let's let's walk through that. So, um, first, what was that online business that started January 18, 2008? It's still going to sound a little like iffy. But it was, I don't know if you've seen those freebie websites.

where you sign up, you complete offers, and then you refer your friends, and you get like a free iPod or a free this or whatever, a free TV. I started with those websites because there were some of those websites where if you complete offers and you refer others, you would get a certain amount of money, like $20 or $40.

Yeah, go ahead. What kind of offers? What are these? They were actually affiliate offers, but they were incentivizing you to complete these affiliate offers. Okay, so I'm just trying to imagine this because I don't think I've ever seen one of these websites. So you go to a website and I'll give you some examples of the offers.

I remember back then there were things like you could sign up for the DVD of the Month Club or you could sign up for Netflix or you could sign up for a number of different services and these companies would pay you to sign up for these services if you sign up and you refer others to those services as well. Okay. So it's kind of like a two. It sounds a little bit like multi-level marketing, like internet multi-level marketing. Exactly. It's kind of multi-level marketing, but it's funded by affiliate marketing because the companies are paying those websites and they are paying you a percentage of what they're getting. And there was this really complex trading system that was involved. For example, the reason I got into it is because there were forums out there with people that were looking to complete those offers. So you then became the in-between guy.

I would say, Paula, if you sign up and complete these offers, I will pay you $20. And I get $40. So I'm paying you 50% of what I was getting. And, you know, back then it worked. I made a decent amount of money with it. I remember the first year that I did it and I was doing it part time. I made about $28,000. And, of course, I split 50% of whatever I made with the people that I referred.

So I made about $14,000 doing it part time in that first year. Okay. That's an extra thousand a month. Exactly. Yeah, that's significant money, particularly when you're right out of school and just getting started with your entrepreneurial journey. Exactly. So I started that. Eventually, I was in the forums all the time and I had to do a lot of work to get people to come in and to find out about what I'm doing and so on.

And then I heard about blogging. And I heard about blogging in a way where, you know, you could build a blog and you can start putting content out there and people would start finding you. And I decided to start a blog. I went through some training. I started my blog. People started finding me. But then I realized I don't really care about talking about this freebie stuff. This is not something I'm passionate about.

I'm more passionate about the business aspect and the blogging aspect. So I started to talk more about blogging and affiliate marketing and those types. the topics. And that went pretty well as that went well. Now at a certain point I realized I said to myself, okay, so I did the freebie stuff and that went well. I started talking about blogging and online business and marketing and that went well. And that's a very competitive niche. What if I were to start a blog about something that I'm passionate about? And the thing that I'm passionate about is that whole biology concept because at the same time I was kind of getting a little tired of what I was doing at the academy, the high school, because I wanted to teach more of this

advanced neural stuff, you know, the nervous system and physiology and those types of topics. So I said, you know what, I'm going to start a blog about that and see how that goes. If it goes well, I could use that as a case study. So I started that biology blog, and that went better than anything I had ever done in terms of the number of people that it reached. And it grew so quickly and it had such an influence that I started to realize, man, this concept of putting content out there to help others is a very powerful concept. Because I got people from third world countries and all over the world, people that were saying, hey, I have no access to, you know, we don't have access to, you know, we don't have access to. textbooks. We can't afford textbooks. And I was struggling in my biology classes and I found your website and it really helped me and now I believe that I can be a doctor or I can do the next

step in my educational process because of the value that I'm getting from this. So it was something that to me it was powerful. Now we spoke about the whole landing the dream job thing, right? A few years, not even a few years into it, a year or two into it, I found out that the university that I went to college, when I went to university, that university was looking for a professor in the physical therapy department to teach the foundational sciences. I got a letter in the mail inviting me to apply for it and I thought to myself, whoa, this is crazy. So I went and applied. I was so unqualified. I don't have a PhD or anything of that sort. And when I spoke to the chair of the department after, and he said, when he saw my application, he just kind of put it to the bottom

of the pile because it didn't even make sense. I don't have what they're looking. for. But I made a decision because one of my former professors recommended that I do this, I made a decision to go in and talk to him, talk to the chair of the department, and show him what I was doing with my blog. And I went in to meet with him and he was all like, okay, so why are you here? And I told him, I'm applying for this job and you could kind of see him. He had his arms crossed and he was sitting down, kind of sitting back and just kind of looking at me like, okay, so, you know, what do you want? So I told him, I'm applying for the job.

I know I don't meet all the qualifications, but I just wanted to come in and show you a little bit of what I was doing. I have a biology website, and I would like you to check it out. And he said, okay, sure. He took me to his computer. I pulled up my website. He looked at the website. He said, oh, you did this.

And I said, yes. And then he started browsing around and clicking around and looking at the different pages and seeing the videos and listening to some of the examples of me teaching. and he went from that kind of sitting back, arms crossed, to kind of really intrigued by the website and browsing through everything and starting to get excited about the content that was there.

And at the end of that meeting, he said to me, you know, you weren't even going to get an interview because you're so not qualified for this position. But I want to make sure that you at least get that. And then he took me around to meet all of the people that were making a decision about who they're going to hire so that they would have a face to put with the name.

So he took me around, introduced me to everyone, make a long story short. I went in, did the interview right there that same day. They told me, you got the job if you want it. And I finally had this dream job of, you know, being a university professor, I didn't have to do the PhD, didn't have to go the traditional route,

but they saw what I was doing and they were impressed and they gave me the job. Wow. You must have been blown away at that point. I was beyond blown away because not only was it a great opportunity, but quite frankly, the stuff that I was teaching was way above my head. I mean, I was teaching, this will grow some people out, but I was teaching gross anatomy to, you know, people that are working on their doctorate in physical therapy. And, you know, we're dissecting cadavers and I'm teaching them about the, the anatomy of the human body, and I never even took anatomy. So it was overwhelming, but it was a fun challenge, and I really enjoyed it.

What year was this? When did this happen? This was... So this happened. I started working there in 2011. Okay. All right. And then what happened next? Because I think this is the interesting twist to the story. Yeah. So, you know, I'm teaching. I'm enjoying what I'm doing. One of the requirements that they gave me was when they hired me, they told me within two years, we need you to start working on a PhD and we're going to pay for it. Oh, wow. So I thought to myself, great, a free PhD.

But then reality kind of sunk in, right? So I'm teaching some really advanced stuff. So I'm spending a lot of time preparing. I mean, sometimes I would be preparing this morning for a class. that I'm teaching this afternoon. And then I'm working on a PhD. I'm running my online business. And I am extremely overwhelmed.

I am constantly going. My wife and I had our son, and this was in 2012, and I don't really have much time to be with my family. And then at a certain point, the tipping point for me was back in 2013, my mom got diagnosed with breast cancer. She's okay now. But at that time, you know, she's in St. Martin. She's flying to the country of Columbia for treatment.

And I wanted to go down there to be with her and I couldn't. And then I started thinking, man, I am just running around in circles. I am working when I'm not working. If I'm not working on my job, I'm working on my PhD. If I'm not working on that, I'm working on my business. I don't have time for my family. My mom is ill. I can't go and support her. Something has to change. I spoke to my wife about it and I told her this is too much. Something has to change. And we talked through the process. I started thinking I could leave my job or I could leave my business. And I started thinking about the impact that the business was having and the impact that I was having on my job. I mean, I'm having a real impact. I'm working with students. I'm enjoying teaching and so on, but there was kind of a ceiling. And the thing was I looked at the other professors that had been there for 20 years, 30 years to try to see, okay, so maybe something different happens after

you've been doing this for a while. And now you have more time to be with family and friends. And that's not what I saw. I saw people that had been doing the same thing that I was doing for 20 years and even more. And I said to myself, 20 years down the line. And I said to myself, 20 years down the line, I don't want to be in that position. I remember my wife saying, I think you should leave your job. Now, when she said that, she's not the risk taker.

I'm more of the risk taker, as you can tell by all of the losses in the past on stupid things. But when she said that, I mean, the next day I went in, I spoke to my boss, I let her know, you know, this is coming to an end

at the end of this year. And I just made a decision. I'm going to leave it behind because when I first came to America, I wanted to be a neurosurgeon. And then I started to speak to people whose parents were neurosurgeons, and they all told me the same thing.

My dad didn't have time for me. Or I didn't know my dad. I don't really know my dad. And I automatically canceled that dream because that is not the type of person that I want to be. I want to be around family because family means more to me than a job. It means more to me than a business.

So I just knew that I had to change what I was doing And the decision was to leave the job and to focus on building my business. Now, your biology blog, was that your only online business at the time? No, it was a combination of the biology blog, which was a smaller part of my income, and become a blogger, which is my main blog now where I talk about blogging and entrepreneurship and business. And how are you monetizing it at that time? So at that time, the biology blog, I was monetizing with, and I'm still doing it this way, with ads primarily because I wanted to make that information freely available because of the kind of

information that it is. And I have a study guide that I sell, just an e-book that I sell. On the Become a Blogger end, I have a membership site, I promote affiliate products, I do one-on-one coaching. Those are the three main aspects of my business on that site. So my own product, which is my membership site, I promote other products that I believe will be helpful. to my audience and I provide that one-on-one coaching. And just as a side note, when I left my job, the business wasn't making enough money for us to really live. It was, no, it really wasn't.

So I had had some success in the past, but it was the kind of success that came, you know, every few months, maybe I do a launch or I do something significant in my business and I make a decent amount of money, but then it goes right back down. because I'm so busy, I'm running in all these different directions. So it really was a risk. And it was something that, you know, at a certain point, it even freaked me out the concept of leaving a secure job to build this business.

But I knew that I couldn't build it unless I left my job and freed up some of that time. So, I mean, it was a tough transition. But it worked. I want to stay on this for a little while because I'm curious, and I think a lot of the listeners would get something out of walking through. how to get past that fear, particularly given that you have a family to support and you're quitting a very stable, very desirable job to go into something that's not making enough money to support your family. I mean, how did you deal with that? Actually, I remember one day in particular. I'm leaving the anatomy lab. My day is over and I am going

home and I'm walking toward my car and all of a sudden like from nowhere I just freaked out. It was kind of like, you know, I had a really good lab. I mean, engaging with the students and all that good stuff. And then all of a sudden I'm walking to my car and reality set in, I am leaving this, this security for this crazy entrepreneurship world. And it freaked me out. I remember going home and freaking out about it. there were a few things that I kind of had to go through.

There was a process that I had to go through. First of all, I had to realize that fear is normal. Like, if you're not experiencing any fair in your life, it's because I believe you're not doing anything worthwhile. And anytime you try to do something significant, there will be that fair factor. And I started looking at other entrepreneurs that have experienced the same kind of fear and realize that, you know what?

okay, if I am experiencing fear because of a project that I'm doing or a venture that I'm starting, then I'm in good company. So that's the first part. And then the next thing I did was ask myself, what was the worst that could happen? And I literally started thinking about that and I started, you know, writing down, okay, you know, my business could just go terribly. I could lose it all and not have enough money to pay rent to buy food for my family, to buy diapers for my son.

I mean, it could get really, really bad. And then I had to ask myself to question, if the worst thing were to happen, what could I do to fix that situation? And the answer was kind of obvious, right? You know, if it goes terribly, I could go and get a job. You know, that's not impossible.

I could go and get a job. But then I asked myself, what's the best that can happen? And then I started thinking about the potential for my business to grow, for me to have an impact on the world, for me to contribute value to other people's lives and about how successful my business can become. And I started to think about those things

and the ability, the freedom to travel and to go and see family, if my mom gets ill, I can go and be there to support her and all that stuff. And then you look at what's the worst could happen, what's the best that could happen? And then you ask yourself, well, do the pros outweigh the cons? And in my situation, the pros far outweigh the cons. But then it doesn't stop there. You've got to come up with a plan.

You've got to come up with an actionable plan to accomplish the goals that you have. And I remember I had to sit down and say, okay, so this is what I'm going to be doing. I thought about launching my membership site and starting to offer coaching and how I could beef up what I'm doing on the, affiliate promotions and I started to create an actionable plan and then just started taking the steps that I needed to take to bring that plan into reality. So it wasn't an easy process and I don't believe entrepreneurship is ever going to be an easy process. But when you kind of go through that process of thinking about, you know, what's the worst and what's the best? The pros outweigh the cons. And another thing that really helped me a lot is surrounding myself with great people.

Surrounding myself with people that are on this journey. Some of them, many of them, maybe farther along on the journey. And I have a mastermind group, just as an example that we meet every week and we talk about what's going on in our businesses and that kind of stuff. That has been so instrumental. If I wasn't a part of a mastermind group, I would probably still be teaching right now as a professor. Wow. But because I have those people in my life, it really helped me to kind of step outside of what I was used to doing and to go for something bigger. How did you find your mastermind group?

How did that form? So that actually came about, I guess, just from, you know, connecting to people, going to events and getting to meet people. And, you know, I'm an interesting person because, you know, a lot of people go to events and when they're at these events, it's all about pitching their businesses and all that stuff. When I go to events,

it's really about getting to know people. And, you know, like I met you at FinCon and we became friends and just talking about life and what you're doing, whether it's in your business or just in your life. That's how most of the valuable relationships

that I have today, when it comes to my business, that's how most of them started. I meet you at an event, we connect, We talk. We stay in contact. And then at a certain point, a friend of mine that I met at an event, this was Cliff Ravenscraft, he reached out to me and he said, hey, we're starting a mastermind group. Want to know if you want to be a part of it.

And it was him. It was Pat Flynn and Mark Mason, so a group of them that were getting ready to start this group and they wanted them if I was interested in it. And I was like, yeah, sure, let's do it. So it just came from just being genuinely interested in people and connecting with them at events and then forming relationships, forming friendships, and you never know what comes from that. That's a very good note to make about the right way to be at a conference versus the wrong way to be at a conference. The right way is to be there to meet people, just to form those genuine connections, not to try to pitch something. Exactly. You know, when you think about what we do, what I do, what I do, what. what you do. You know, you're at home, you're blogging. For me, you know, I'm down in my basement

and I'm typing or I'm recording a podcast, I'm doing an interview or whatever the case might be, it can be a lonely experience unless you are intentional about connecting with people. And I think as entrepreneurs, it's so important to connect with like-minded individuals, people that are doing things, people that are trying to do something that's bigger than themselves. And I find when I go to these events, you know, there are people that are just there to promote their businesses. But I find that the people that I always end up connecting with are people like you, people that are just genuine, people that just they care about helping others and they want to do something positive in the world. Yes, they want to build a business. But it's not all about money.

It's about helping people. And surrounding yourself with that type of person, those types of people can go such a long way in helping you to accomplish big things. So I have a question. You've described before you quit your job, just how overworked you were with PhD and teaching and running an online business. How is it that you avoided the trap? Because this is a trap that I fell into. the trap of kind of telling yourself, well, if I just worked harder, I could do it all. If I was just more efficient, I could do it all.

Well, you know, the way, well, first of all, I was trying to do it all, right? I was running the biology blog. I was running become a blogger. I was doing the PhD. I was doing the university professor thing. And everything was suffering. But, you know, at that point, I was giving it all. I had no more to give.

So how do you avoid it? Man, I didn't. It happened. And then at a certain point, it all came to the tipping point when I realized this is too much. And I just had to come to that realization. And I think for me, having a child and wanting to be with your son. and not having the time and always kind of rushing away from

family stuff because you have to do all this other stuff that's a problem for me so I didn't fully avoid it I messed up many times in terms of that balance that work life balance that everybody seems to talk about but no one ever really seems to have fully

reach I didn't do it well I can't say that I do it perfectly now but I feel much more balanced. You know, I'm able to spend time with my son in the morning and then he goes to daycare and then, you know, we eat together. And it's just a big difference now from what I was doing before. And I don't regret it. So how do you avoid the trap?

You try your best to and you constantly evaluate, hey, what am I doing? And is what I'm doing getting me towards my ultimate. ultimate goal. And if it's not, then it's time to reevaluate. Were there ever moments after you left your job that you doubted your decision? Absolutely not. Really? Absolutely not. Even in the first few months after leaving my job when, you know, we had to make the decision whether we're going to buy clothes for our son or food or pay the rent now or paid in a week late. with the fees and all that stuff. Even during those times,

I never doubt. I never, like, I never wanted to go back because I felt as if I was building something that I had more control of and I had enough positive examples in my life in terms of the people around me

that were doing, you know, that had been where I was before, that I, personally, I never doubted it. Before I doubted it. but then after no and i honestly i can't see myself ever going back to traditional employment ever yeah once you make the transition it's very hard to go back yeah no hey i don't know what will happen in the future um i can't predict the future but man it's never my my goal is never to go back what would you say to the people who are listening who are still in that process of

of building something, you know, some kind of a side business, some sort of freelancing, consulting, whatever it may be, what would you say to them as they're at that stage of their journey? If they might not be ready to quit yet, but that's the ultimate goal, what advice would you give? The first thing I would give them is not to compare themselves to people that are five, ten years down the line. You know, we look at other entrepreneurs that are being so successful in what they're doing. And then we are hustling on the side, trying to make, you know, a $10 here, a hundred dollars here, and just to validate what we're doing.

And we look at others and we see them being successful and they're not even working hard at it or it doesn't look as if they're working hard at it. And we start to doubt whether we can do this. But we don't see all those times that came way earlier on when they were right at the same spot. If you are at the point where you are not ready to quit a job, it is 100% okay. If you're at the point where you're struggling to build something on the side and it's not working, you're in good company because most successful entrepreneurs, if not all success, all the successful entrepreneurs that I know went through many failures before they had any success.

many of them made stupid decisions like I did early in the game, lost money in stupid ways, and then many of them figured out how to make money but then struggled to make that $100 a month and fought to get to the point where maybe they can leave their job or even considering doing that. So if you're at that point where you're struggling to get to that point, you're in a good place.

my suggestion to you would be, number one, if you know what your goal is, do not give up. Because it's possible. I mean, if I could do it, you know, little old me coming from this little 32 square mile island in the Caribbean and, you know, being a terrible student, not even knowing what's going on with life to figuring out about entrepreneurship, falling and getting back up and falling and getting back up, ultimately finding something that works, that evolves into something that eventually evolves into something else. And we'll probably continue to evolve.

You can do it too. Surround yourself with good people. Number one. Don't be afraid of failure. Number two, don't be afraid to ask for help. Don't be afraid to invest in yourself and get the training that you need in order to take your expertise to the next level, to take your business to the next level,

invest in yourself and make that dream a reality because it's possible. The way I know if something is possible is has someone else done it? And all I need is one person. And if I see one person has done this, then it's possible. And if I see more people have done this, it's possible.

And maybe I'm not at that point yet. And it's okay. I'm going to continue work. and I'm going to get there. That's the way I would encourage you to look at it. For people who are wondering if it's the right time to quit, how do you know? Oh, man, that's a difficult one to answer. Because I don't recommend for anyone to do it the way that I did it.

In my mind, the better way for it to have been done, you know, first of all, I think this is a requirement. You have to demonstrate that you have the ability to make money with your business. All right. Now, if I never made money with my business, my wife would have never said, I think you should quit your job. She would have been crazy. But I had done it over and over and demonstrated I have the ability to make that money because I've made it in the past. And the only thing that's keeping me back from taking it to the next level is time.

I don't have the time. I have the knowledge. I have the resources. but I don't have the time. Once you've demonstrated that you have the ability to do it, because you've actually done it at some level, the next thing I would recommend is seeing you can build up some savings. Now, everyone's situation is different in terms of their job situation,

in terms of what's available to them, you know, family resources or whatever the case might be. You need to take all of that into consideration. If you are in a relationship or if you are, married, do not make that decision alone. Involve your partner because they have to live with your decision as well. And, you know, just make a decision that's right for you. And I think that's going to be different from person to person.

Final question. When your son is old enough. And you have two children now, yes? Yes, I do. Son and a daughter? Yeah, a three-year-old son. That'll be four in November and a three-month-old, well, almost four months now. Oh, wow.

Daughter. Congratulations. Thank you. What do you want to teach your children about career and money and entrepreneurship? Yeah. The first thing that I want to teach them is, and this is something that I've struggled with, that talent is overrated. Yes. I don't know if you've read that book, but I read that book.

By Jeffrey Colvin. C-O-L-V-I-N. I'll link to it in the show notes. I really want to teach my kids that. Because in many aspects of my life, I've depended on my talent and didn't work as hard as I should to make my goals a reality. I want my kids to understand the value of hard work. And I think that is something that is sometimes lost these days. with everything so easily accessible, right?

You want some hot food, you go and microwave it, and it's done in a few seconds. And we expect everything to just kind of happen. I am constantly thinking about ways that I could teach our children that if you want something, you plan it out and you work hard. If you're talented at it, that doesn't mean that you have to work less. That means when you work hard, you're going to do it better than the people that are not as talented in that specific area. The value of hard work is something that I am constantly trying to teach myself, and I want to pass that on to up my kids.

In addition to that, I hope that they see the value in providing value to others. You know, this whole, the servant mindset, I think there's so much power. in that. Not in terms of, I mean, also in terms of building a business, yes, of course, but just in terms of serving others because it gives you joy to bring joy to others or to help others. That's something that I believe if you have that mindset, it will take you far. And those are some of the things that I really want to pass on to them. There are many others, but those are the ones that come to mind right now. Well, thank you so much, Leslie. Where can the listeners find you if they want to know more about you?

Yeah, they can check me out at become a blogger.com. That's my main blog, or they can go to blogger coaching to find out about my coaching club. Awesome. And I'll link to both of those in the show notes as well. All right, well, thank you so much for coming on the show. This has been fun. Thanks for having me. Thank you, Leslie, for that awesome interview.

What are some of the key takeaways? What can we learn from this? Well, first and foremost, I'm inspired by the fact that he believed in himself enough to walk away from a secure dream job in order to go off on his own. And that he did it at what seemed to be the worst possible time. He had a newborn. He wasn't making enough money to be able to support his family. He had every reason in the world to make excuses. He easily could have said, this might not work out. I'd be crazy to leave this job.

I'm responsible for supporting my family. He easily and very, very justifiably, could have stayed in the secure job that he enjoyed. And there's nothing wrong with staying in a job if you enjoy it. But Leslie, deep down inside, knew that if he had to face a choice between those two options, he knew what he wanted that choice to be. And even though the timing didn't quote unquote seem right, In fact, even though the timing in many ways seemed very wrong, he still pursued the path that was right for him. And that's the key takeaway. Fear will always be there. Uncertainty will always exist. And the timing will never be quite right. Sometimes you have to take the leap anyway. Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's the ability to persist in spite of that fear. That being said, however, Les didn't quit his job because he had some pie in the sky idea. He already had a blog. He was

already making money online. And that's takeaway number two. Key lesson number two. Before you make any drastic decisions, make small bets. Test drive those decisions in little ways over time. And use the security of your full-time job to be able to try ideas, iterate, make a little bit of extra money on the side, have some savings ideally. So that when you are making the big leap, you're doing so for the sake of pursuing an idea that you're confident will work if you put the time into making it work. And that actually leads me into takeaway number three, which is abandoned the ideas that aren't working.

Remember how Leslie described all of the failures that he had early on, the money that he lost by trying various online business opportunities that turned out to be scams. He lost $1,000 of his wedding money. He lost more than $4,000 of his tuition money. He's tried many things and has made expensive mistakes. And yet he didn't give up. He abandoned ideas when he saw that they weren't working. But at the same time, he also ran with ideas that were working. There's a little bit of a paradox here. You have to be willing to be willing to be to quit, but also willing to go all in. And you need the wisdom to distinguish between those two. That wisdom comes with time, and it comes with experimentation. So if you're at the beginning of

your journey, or even somewhere in the middle of your journey, know that as long as you are making progress and as long as you are learning, you're on the right path. Those are some of my favorite takeaways from this interview. You can read a synopsis of the interview and access links to some of the resources that we discussed by going to the show notes at podcast.offordanything.com. Again, that website is podcast.offordanything.com. While you're there, sign up for free email updates so that you'll know when new episodes come out. Finally, I'd like to ask you for a huge favor. Please go to iTunes and leave a review for the Afford Anything podcast.

These reviews are super important. they make a huge impact on my ability to grow this audience and get excellent guests to come on the show and share their knowledge and expertise with you. This is Paula Pant from the Afforda Anything podcast. Signing off. Thanks and I'll see you next week. Would you rather eat a stick of butter or a gallon of ice cream? Ew, a gallon of ice cream. Why would you?

The ice cream actually sounds nice to do. Why would you do you, father? Oh, my. Hey, Paul, would you rather punch yourself in the face or get $100 for free? Yeah.