Retire from Bureaucracy - Live The NEW Retirement Plan with Jeff Ditsworth: An EOFire Classic from 2021

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation. JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire. Brought to you by the HubSpot. Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals with great shows like Imperfect Action. Today, we're pulling a timeless EO Fire episode from the archives, so the giveaway may not be active, and we'll be breaking down Retire from Bureaucracy, Live the New Retirement Plan. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Jeff Ditsworth into EO Fire Studios. Jeff is a corporate executive three years into his 10-year plan to leave life on the road for more time with his family.

0:36No more corporate bureaucracy and financial freedom. In today's financial, we will be talking about managing your time and attention. We'll talk about how to make work feel like life and have passion in it, not just work, make it a hobby. And we'll also talk about funding your future growth and so much more. And a big thank you for sponsoring today's episode goes to Jeff and our sponsors. As business owners, it's part of our job to stay ahead of the curve. And with AI stealing the show these days, it's time to study up. But where do you even start? Start with HubSpot. HubSpot's AI power tools, including their content assistant and ChatSpot, are changing the way you create content and communicate and serve your customers.

1:17Take HubSpot's content assistant as an example. It helps you brainstorm, create, and share content in no time. And you can do it all right inside their super easy to use CRM platform. And with ChatSpot, HubSpot's conversational bot and CRM whiz, you can not only quickly pull reports for data and metrics, but also learn how to automate manual tasks inside HubSpot for better engagement with customers and more closed deals. These tools run on OpenAI's GPT model, and both are designed to help you get more done all while growing a better business faster. Find out more about how to use AI to grow your business at hubspot.com slash artificial dash intelligence.

1:58Jeff, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something interesting about yourself that most people don't know. Hey, what's up, Fire Nation? Very excited to be here. So the interesting thing that I think that most people don't know is that one day when I was in college, many, many years ago, I changed my major four times in the same day. What? Where did it start and where did it finish? It started out as finance and then it went to transportation logistics and then it went to finance and something else I don't even remember. And then it ended up being finance and transportation logistics. So you just kind of mushed everything together.

2:37Well, the worst thing is, is back then you had to walk all the way to a building and accomplish this with a human being. It's not like I just flipped the switch online, right? So this is, and at the end of the day, I'm honestly not even sure if it really mattered. Well, I can tell you that my American studies major has definitely not mattered in my life. And that's just one of the realities of the world that we live in. But Fire Nation, today we're talking about living the new retirement plan. And Jeff, I just want to dive in because you've broken down the top three myths of traditional retirement planning.

3:15Burst them for us. The system sells everybody that we all want to work till we're 65 or 70. And I just think that's a flat out myth because I know I don't want to work that long in a traditional type of career. The other myth that I see that is becoming more and more apparent is that social security is going to be enough to take care of you. And I think we're all realizing that it's not going to be enough money. We don't know if we can trust it or not, if it's going to be there. And again, that doesn't turn on until what, 66, 71, whatever the number is. And it just doesn't make a lot of sense.

3:50And the other one probably comes down to that the government has set up a number of retirement plan options for us. And we're all familiar with 401ks. And I think a lot of us believe just because we're taught this way that the 401k is going to be enough to get us there and just flat out, it's not going to be there. And again, if you take it out before you're 60, you get penalized. Fire Nation, these are just flat out sad, sad myths that just so many people are living with. I mean, working till you're 65 plus, even into 70 now, I mean, that's not the kind of life you want to live if you're doing that traditional job that most people just do not like whatever they're doing.

4:28Number two, social security taking care of you. I mean, is$1 ,200 a month really going to take care of you? Is that really going to cover unforeseen medical expenses and all these other things that come up and life expenses in general? That's not a retirement plan. And then speaking of retirement plans, Fire Nation, stocks go up, stocks go down, bonds go up, bonds go down. We're living in a crazy world. Hyperinflation, who knows what's happening? Retirement plan, retirement shmam, you've got to be in control. So why should people consider investing in their own business to supplement these retirement plans, Jeff?

5:05Break that down for us. When it comes down to traditional retirement plans, I think they're a great cornerstone, right? I don't think they're bad. I just think there's a lot of rules and regulations with a 401k. Again, I can't take money out till I'm almost 60. Otherwise they tax me higher and penalize me. So I think it's a great cornerstone and you should look at different types of asset classes and your own business is really the only one of them that you can control. So the reality is this. Some people just aren't ready to give up their real job. And I get it because there's a lot of reasons why they shouldn't want to give up their real job right now.

5:42But the reality is there are things that they can be doing to grow their side hustle, to grow their side business without compromising their real job right now. And this can be something that's a very valuable tool to be building upon as we're speaking, as people are growing in their business, you know, going towards those later years in their life. So you've broken down three skills to both master and grow your side business. Again, while people actually have real jobs, while people are doing the actual thing day to day, while they're doing that nine to five. So what are those top three skills?

6:16I think the most important skills to be able to accomplish both and do both well are managing your attention. The first one, managing your attention, it comes down to being able to focus on what's important. And for example, probably four or five years ago, I eliminated news. I say that kind of tongue in cheek. I don't watch the news anymore. I haven't watched one minute of news this entire year. And I pay attention to financial news because that's my business, but I don't pay attention to politics. Wait, are you saying that you don't have Trump's Twitter on notifications on your cell phones, tweeting every time that he sends a tweet?

6:54As important as that would be to my life. It's not one that I have flagged right now. As they would say in Puerto Rico, adios. Go ahead, brother. What's number two? Yeah. So managing your attention is huge because you can't focus on what you can't control. Time blocking is probably the superpower skill, I think, of entrepreneurs where being able to focus on a specific task at a specific point in time. And, you know, that time blocking helps you get things done in an efficient manner. And then the third one, I think for me anyway, is focusing on a daily routine and just running through your routine every single day to make sure that everything gets hit.

7:38And so I focus on my side business, if you will, in the morning before business hours even start. So I spend less than an hour a day in total on my side business and it's profitable. Fire Nation, I love these three skills that Jeff's breaking down. I mean, number one, managing your attention. You need to focus on what's important and believe me, news, politics, not that important. If it's important, you'll hear about it. Believe me, you will. Number two, time blocking. Another way I like to put this is batching. I've got something to share right now. Jeff is the seventh of seven interviews that I'm doing today.

8:14He is number seven. And guess what? This is going to be as great as my first interview because I am loving having amazing conversations with entrepreneurs. And so the fact that I can batch seven, do it in one day is allowing me in two days to go to Maine for three weeks and vacation, spend time with family because I'm time blocking. I'm batching. And then daily routine. If you want health, Fire Nation, if you want wealth, Fire Nation, you are going to have a daily routine. Now, Jeff, you have become a little infamous for saying there are millions of ways to make money. Back that statement up. I love the fact that there's so many creative people out there that can come up with a way to monetize any sort of passion or any sort of product, whether they care about the product or not, monetize a skill.

9:04I mean, that's what I mean by there's millions of ways to make money. And I think you probably hear it more often than I do. But isn't it just awesome when somebody comes out and talks about a new business and people like us look at them like, how did you ever think of that? And I don't know, I love it. So I think there's a million different ways to make money and there's gonna be a million more in the future. Fire Nation, you need to realize that all you need to do is walk out your front door and be out in the world. Keep your eyes open, keep your ears open. Of course, if we're still dealing with COVID when you're hearing this, keep your mask on.

9:41But the reality is you're gonna hear conversations. You're gonna see things. You're gonna see problems and problems and pain points and obstacles and challenges and struggles. And guess what? Any single solution to any single one of those is a way for you to make money because people will pay for solutions, period. End of story. And Fire Nation, these value bombs are only getting more powerful when we get back from thanking our sponsors. Success Story, hosted by Scott D. Clary, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business, startups, and entrepreneurship.

10:22One of Scott's recent episodes was with none other than Jack Canfield, where they discuss adapting to life's twists and turns. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts. So Jeff, we're back and I'm a big believer and a big fan of the phrase, the riches are in the niches. And you, my friends, are a great example of this. So talk to us about your company, Pescador on the Fly, and your specific niche in the fly fishing market. What's interesting about what we do is I needed this product back in the day. So I love fly fishing, and I travel a lot for business. So I wanted to bring a fly rod with me when I travel, because every once in a while I'd go somewhere super cool that there's great fishing opportunities.

11:10and the cool thing is there are fishing opportunities everywhere in the country. You just got to look. And so I started bringing a traditional fly rod with me and a traditional fly rod is a four-piece fly rod that fits into a 30-inch case. And that's great. It's somewhat compact unless fly rods are nine feet long. So 30 inches seems great. But when you're bringing that and you can't really bring it in the carry-on and it doesn't fit in your briefcase, doesn't fit in your backpack, All of a sudden, I stopped bringing it with me because it was a pain. So I started looking for something even more compact.

11:45And I found one with a company that's a very big brand, very good company. And I hated them. They felt like they were telephone poles. They were heavy. They didn't cast well. They didn't feel good. And then again, I stopped traveling with the fly rod. And for me, being able to go get on the river or catch a few fish, it's completely therapeutic and relaxing. It's just that's how that's stress relief for me. So I stopped doing it. So several years ago, probably about five years ago, I started wondering, I wonder if I can actually make a super compact fly rod that's any good. So, you know, a lot of R &D dollars down the road and, you know, all that.

12:32And, you know, here we are. I got my first my first batch done probably three years ago. and I was just shocked and so were our customers of how well they fish. I've actually expanded on that a little bit more and the process of being able to source these products and have them built to my specifications and I've been known as a bit of a fly rod snob so I always use really nice stuff and if I'm fishing it it's going to fish really well and I was able to bring to the market probably the best compact fly rod combo on the market. I can do that at a price point that is significantly less than my competitors because I have incredibly low overhead.

13:16I don't have any middlemen in the middle. We're direct to the consumer. So instead of pocketing that money, like a lot of companies would, I reduce the price and provide this bigger value to the customer. That's kind of the niche. It's kind of funny because as you're sharing the story, like I'm looking at your Skype photo where you're holding up this like 10 or 15 pound. I'm not sure what kind of fish it is. Maybe a bass, maybe a lake trout, but it's a brown trout. It's a brown trout. They don't have those a lot in Puerto Rico, I don't think, but that's true. But you know, what's funny is that my new favorite show is called alone.

13:48It's an amazing show. And I just love how, um, well, real quick backstory of what it is. They dropped 10 people off. They're like, um, survivalists and they just drop them off up in the Arctic and they say, Hey, the person who lasts the longest by themselves, because they're all by themselves, gets$500 ,000 or a million dollars, whatever it is. So these people literally get dropped with 10 items. That's it. But the biggest thing that they keep going to over and over again is fish. So I've learned a lot about fish thanks to the show alone and how healthy fish are with the fats and all this jazz and all this stuff.

14:23And I can tell you, it's kind of made me maybe want to cast a couple of rods here and there. So, uh, I think it's time for you to get into fly fishing, my friend. I love it. So let's talk about growing slow. Like that's counterintuitive to a lot of people, but when does it actually make sense to grow your business slowly? You know, it depends on your goals, right? And when I started this company three years ago, um, my whole plan was that I wanted to be able to monetize this into an income stream in 10 years. And I know that goal is, you know, it's bizarre for a lot of people. But 10 years, I think my success ratio is going to show that, you know, it's plugging along.

15:11But you don't have to invest significant amounts of money in inventory or marketing. You can allow the sales to fund your future growth. And then Then once you sell something, you have a certain amount allocated for marketing and then new product. You grow your inventory over time to the point where I can monetize this whenever I want. The great news now is it's cash flow positive to a ratio that I'm completely blown away with right now. It's lovely to be ahead of schedule. but I don't know if everybody listening to this, if that's the normal goal, but if you could take a step back and look at what you're trying to accomplish with your business, slow growth is a lot easier than rapid growth, as you can imagine, and it costs a heck of a lot less money in investable dollars, right?

16:05Jeff, I love being honest with Fire Nation and let's do that right now. Let's be honest and have you share the biggest, the number one biggest mistake that you've made thus far while growing your business? So the number one mistake, and it's hard to, you know, what's funny is when you start a business, you make lots of mistakes. I don't know. I'm sure a lot of people listening to this can relate to that. I've screwed up plenty of things during this process, and each one of them is invaluable in the learning curve, right? So the biggest one that I've made is once you build your plan, not focusing on your plan, allowing, I'm going to call it salespeople to distract you into the new flavor of the month, get rich quick.

16:57It takes work and it takes discipline and you have to do it consistently. But where I failed is I would see an advertisement for a new marketing system and I would lose track of what I was doing that was already working and I would invest in a new system. And I did this a number of times. And if I went back and calculated the total amount that I wasted, it's significant. But again, every dollar I spent, whether it was good or bad, That is a learning lesson. And what I would say is that if you want to get solicited by people, a lot of them start a business because there are so many people out there that just make money preying on new businesses.

17:43You see it all the time. And there's some really good, right? But I mean, I'm not going to name the company, but the amount of value that I dropped into this one company that was helping me kind of with Amazon, it was absolutely ridiculous. And when I finally found out exactly what they were doing, I mean, I could have done that myself by reading one book. Or listening to one podcast, because I've interviewed some amazing Amazon sellers and creators that just drop value bomb strategies. Oh, for sure. And some of these guys that have done it and gals that have done it. Just listening to them is incredible because you can get so many little ideas and little tidbits.

18:30I'd say that my business plan is really pulling together the works of 50 different people and using what works for me. That's been successful. But I can't just go with somebody's plan and say that's going to work for me because nothing somebody else builds for themselves really seems to work for me. It's got to be mine. Pescador on the fly. Give me the backstory of naming your company. That's a good one. So I got to credit my wife to that one quite a bit. So we were, the word Pescador is Spanish for fishermen. And I've spent a lot of time fishing in Mexico. And my wife came up with on the fly because it's kind of like on the go.

19:14Right. So they're packable. They're great for people that are backpacking or travel specifically. it's you know i love being able to throw two different fly rods and all my gear and my carry on and not check a bag so it's for people that are on the go i've always loved that uh you know if if you go fishing somewhere and you're fishing within 30 feet of the parking lot you're going to be fishing to very very educated fish because that's about as far as a lot of guys but if you walk a lot further in it's not as easy to do with a with a big rod tube so it's pescador on the fly means fishermen on the go.

19:51That's the story. Well, I live about 150 yards from Pesco Radia, which is our great fish restaurant and market here in Palmas del Mar, Puerto Rico. So of course I connected immediately with the name of your company and definitely love the play on words. But Jeff, overall, break it down for us, brother. What is the one takeaway that you want to make sure Fire Nation gets from everything that we talked about today? And let us know how we can find out more about you, Pescador on the fly, any call to action you have for us, and then we'll say goodbye. Perfect. So the one thing I'd love everybody to know about Pescador on the fly is that we provide incredible equipment at a price that will shock you.

20:33And the value that we deliver to the market is absolutely incredible. Customer service is phenomenal. I know the owner, right? So I know where this goes. The gear that we produce is phenomenal for people that are trying to get started into fly fishing and we provide the entire package so when you buy a package from us that's a that's a combo it includes everything that somebody needs to get started i'd love for as many of you that are interested in fly fishing to to get into fly fishing and to do that we've built a coupon code to save 15 on a combo and the code is FireNation. Pescadoronthefly.com and the code is FireNation.

21:14Jeff, give us just the one value bomb you want to make sure that we get before we say goodbye. I would say that the one value bomb that everybody should focus on the most here is that you can grow a business while working a 95 type job. And it's all about managing your attention, managing your time. the amount of fun that you can have working in a business or an industry that you're passionate about or that you love makes it not really work. It's all of a sudden becomes a hobby that pays you. And that's probably what I would say. You don't have to give up on your day job to start this passion and start this business that's eventually going to pay you.

21:53Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. And you've been hanging out with JD and JLD. so keep up that heat and head over to eofire.com type Jeff in the search bar and his show notes page will pop up with everything that we talked about today best show notes in the biz and of course check out Pescador on the fly love it Jeff thank you brother for sharing your truth your knowledge your value with Fire Nation for that we salute you and we'll catch you on the flip side hey Fire Nation today's value bomb content was brought to you by Jeff and successful entrepreneurs, like they accomplish big goals.

22:33That's why I created the Freedom Journal to guide you in accomplishing your number one goal in 100 days. We're talking step by step. Visit thefreedomjournal.com, use promo code podcast for a$15 discount and thank you for listening to my podcast and I'll catch you there or I'll catch you on the flip side. Success Story hosted by Scott D. Clary is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. Success Story features Q &A sessions with successful business leaders, keynote presentations, and conversations on sales, marketing, business startups, and entrepreneurship.

23:09One of Scott's recent episodes was with none other than Jack Canfield, where they discuss adapting to life's twists and turns. Listen to Success Story wherever you get your podcasts.