10 Life and Business Lessons from Dad (Greatest Hits)

0:00Here's an oldie but a goodie from the archives from the Side Hustle Show Greatest Hits Collection. What's up, what's up? Nick Loper here. Welcome to the Science Hustle Show because your life is your lecture. Just a quick solo episode for you today. In honor of Father's Day, I wanted to share some of the best advice I've received from my own dad over the years and how we can all work to apply it in life and in business. for the sake of background, dad is a chemical engineer. He is not an entrepreneur in the traditional sense in that he spent decades really of his career at one company, but still had lots of entrepreneurial experiences and I think insights along the way.

0:40I know I've shared some of these in bits and pieces over the years, but wanted to run through my top 10 bits of fatherly advice here on the show today. And the funny thing is that almost all of these were very literal conversations, which now 30 years later, I've extrapolated to have a broader meaning that may or may not have been attended at the time. And as I think about the kind of advice I want to be passing along to my own kids, I think these kinds of concrete illustrations might be a really effective way to do it, especially if they turn out to be the chronic overanalyzing types like me.

1:12Ready? Let's do it. Lesson number one is it's not a piano. This is something dad would say as we were working on home improvement projects when I was a kid. And what he meant by that was it doesn't have to be 100 % perfect, which isn't to say he didn't care about quality. He absolutely did. Just that sometimes it's better to finish the job than stress over every last detail. Perfectionism is definitely something I still struggle with. So I try and keep this one in mind and apply to my work today. In startup speak, this isn't anything new. This is the MVP, the minimum viable product. Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn put it this way.

1:52If you're not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you're launched too late. If you're waiting to launch your service, your website, your YouTube channel, your podcast until it's perfect, you're probably never going to get it out there. The first versions of most of my projects were pretty awful looking, to the point where I literally was kind of embarrassed to share them, which is why that Reid Hoffman quote rings so true. But they were functional. They did the job. Remember, it's not a piano. And for most things in life, good enough is good enough. Lesson number two is you can figure it out.

2:27I mentioned that dad was an engineer, a career path that neither my brother nor I followed, but some of that still managed to rub off. Particularly, he would encourage us to be curious about how stuff worked. And he was really methodical in a lot of processes and chores around the house. And he made sure to let us know whenever we were stuck that we could figure it out. And honestly, this was a little annoying for kids who just want the answer, but he was big into the Socratic method, or basically teaching you by asking increasingly more difficult questions and letting you find out the answer on your own.

3:02Everything is learnable. The answers are out there. They might not always be easy to find, but you can figure it out. In fact, one of my new favorite newsletters is eBizFacts by Niall Doherty, eBizFacts.com if you want to check it out. And in one of his recent editions, he highlighted this. He wrote about an email that he'd received that said, hey, I want to start an online business, but I heard that PayPal doesn't work in some countries. Do you know if it works in South Africa? And Niall's first thought is, I don't know if this is going to work out for you, man. Because instead of Googling that question yourself and finding the answer in 10 or 20 seconds, you emailed a complete stranger on the internet and hoped for a response.

3:42He was like, don't be like this guy. Instead, cultivate the skill of figuring things out. And he called that the number one skill for making money online. So be resourceful, be curious. there's a reason that a lot of the episodes here focus on, quote, reverse engineering successful businesses. I think that's dad rubbing off. Or trying to deconstruct the processes that work for other entrepreneurs. Because I believe if we can take something complicated, and building a business unquestionably is complicated, but if we can break it down into simpler steps, then we're far more likely to move forward.

4:18Lesson number three is sharpen your pencil. And again, this was very literal advice as in, look, I will help you with your homework, but sharpen your pencil. You can't do good work with a dull pencil. And now interpreted a little more broadly, this was dad's way of saying the tools you work with matter. Respect them and respect your work. Don't make things harder than they have to be. In your business, you can do a tools audit, a pencil audit, if you will. Are there products and software that you're using today? Are those the best fit for the job or do you have some dull pencils in there? Now, I found this lots of times over the years from trying to build functional websites with GoDaddy's website tonight software, I think it was called back in the day, instead of bucking up and learning WordPress like I should have.

5:04This could be setting up automations in Zapier, right? Run more efficiently. This could be bringing on additional team members. This could be optimizing your top performing content, but sharpen that pencil and recognize it's an ongoing process. It's likely to get dull again. That's when you use it. And why a pencil over a pen? Well, because it's okay to make mistakes in a race. Lesson number four is to do work you're excited about. After college, I took a job with Ford that moved me from Washington State to Washington, D.C. And I took the gig for a couple reasons. Number one, I was excited about the adventure and the opportunity to, quote, be a grown-up and get a place of my own and check out another part of the country.

5:46and number two, I didn't have any other offers. I'd applied to a bunch of other jobs in Seattle, but hey, nobody hired me. To dad's credit at that time, he questioned the move. He's like, you don't really care about cars. Why do you wanna go work at a car company? You're gonna spend a big chunk of your waking hours at work, so doesn't it make sense to do work you're excited about, that you care about? That has stuck with me. And in all the side projects that have found success, especially compared to the ones that have flopped, there was some level of interest or excitement that kept me going.

6:20And of course, I became more interested in the car business as I was in it day in and day out. Because as I've also learned, passion tends to follow doing the work rather than the other way around. But this is an important one. And if you're not excited about your day job, a lot of people aren't, let me task you with this. Find a way to be excited about your other 16 hours a day. Lesson number five is if you're not falling, you're not getting any better. This lesson comes from the often foggy and often soggy ski slopes of Snoqualmie Pass. After each spectacular yard sale wipeout, dad would encourage us, say, hey, you know what they say, if you're not falling, you're not getting any better.

7:03This is the call to do the work that challenges you knowing you might fail. And yes, you could probably stay on the green circle runs, the bunny slope, and never crash. But look, there's this whole rest of the mountain to explore. The other thing dad likes to say as it relates to personal injuries is it'll grow back. And that's his way of saying time heals all wounds. With each crash on the mountain or with each failure comes a learning moment. Like, well, that didn't work. I'll try a different approach next time. And I know I will continue to fall because the challenge of trying new things is part of what makes business fun.

7:38Now, I've got five more fatherly nuggets that I want to share. But before we do that, I thought I'd ask the man himself what kind of advice his dad passed on to him. So it was the summer after graduating high school, and I had made a fair amount of money that summer mowing lawns. So my dad says, I want you to buy 100 shares of British Petroleum, now BP. It's a great opportunity to grow your hard-earned money. Okay, I say. So he helped me make the purchase at$6 a share. Less than a year goes by, and I'm at the UW trying to succeed in school and meet a girl while living in a fraternity house. All the cool guys had really awesome stereos, which seemed to correlate with having girlfriends.

8:20So I've been religiously watching the price of my BP shares climb to$12 a share, and I really wanted a stereo to impress the girls. So I sold the stock and spent$619.75 on a new stereo. When my dad found out about it, he was really pissed and told me it was the dumbest thing he'd ever seen me do. Ouch. And he was so right. By 1980, BP was selling for$22 a share. The stereo, I don't even know where that is today. A few years later, when he told me to buy some Texaco, I followed his advice again. And before I sold it to provide a down payment on a house, I called and made sure he was okay with it.

9:04Absolutely, he said. Perfect. Perfect use of the money. So my dad was not too big on fatherly advice, but his favorite was probably, if you don't have time to do it right, when will you find time to do it over again? That's been very tough advice to follow and a lifelong learning process for me. I'm more of a ready-shoot-aim kind of guy and have had to do many, many things over again in my life. I love that. If you don't have time to do it right, well, when are you going to have time to do it over again? And apparently Grandpa was big into the oil stocks. Now, as for that stereo, maybe it was a better investment than dad's given himself credit for.

9:41After all, he and mom have been married for over 40 years now. Lesson number six is you're really only racing against yourself. So I was on the swim team for several years growing up. And early on, it was discouraging to be getting like these random pink and green ribbons for a fifth or sixth place finish in a six lane pool. But dad's advice was ignore the other races. You're really only racing against yourself. If you can beat your time from before, from the last time you swam that race, you're getting better. That is a win, no matter what happens in the other lanes. And since I was not an Olympic hopeful by any means, that was really helpful for me in something that I applied in the pool and in lots of other areas.

10:25We've talked about this on the show before, the concept of the 1 % infinity, the slight edge or the compound effect. This idea of getting a little bit better every day and how developing that habit over time really leads to exponential improvement, exponential gains as they start to stack up. But to race against yourself, you do need to have a baseline, a starting point, which goes back to the piano thing and not letting perfection stand in the way of getting started. Lesson number seven is until you try and sell it, you'll never know. I remember getting all excited, my friends and I, about certain baseball cards that we collected.

11:05And we would look up the prices in the Beckett Magazine price guide. And some of them would say they're worth$10,$20, sometimes even more. And I remember dad kind of bringing us down a peg. Like, guys, they're pieces of cardboard. Look, if you find a buyer willing to pay that much, that's when you know it's actually worth that much. which we didn't love hearing at the time, but it was a good dose of truth, a little truth bomb from dad. Now, in terms of your side hustle, this is the one about validating your idea with real customers. Ask someone to buy. That's the only real validation. Is this paint job worth$2 ,000?

11:40Is this photography gig worth$2 ,000? Is this online course worth$2 ,000? Until you find a buyer, All you got is an idea. Let's take a break here to pay the bills. Whether you're a seasoned business or you're experiencing your very first Black Friday, Cyber Monday, you need a platform that can handle the rush. The last thing you want is inventory errors or your point of sale crashing when new customers are trying to buy for the first time. So make sure your business is ready for the busiest time of the year with help from our sponsor, Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, including dozens of side hustle show guests and 10 % of all e-commerce in the U.S.

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12:58Lesson number eight is your eyes will adjust. Again, another very literal piece of advice from when we were camping at night. Hey, I'm going to run get the flashlight. And dad would always say that you don't need the flashlight, your eyes will adjust. Come on, you know, let's have some fun. After playing with fire and pocket knives, flashlights were pretty high on the list of cool stuff about camping. But no, it was always your eyes will adjust. And he was right. If you give it time, you can actually see pretty well in the dark. And this was one that I definitely carried with me because the first time I went camping with my wife, I pulled the exact same line on her.

13:35Hey, you don't need a flashlight. Your eyes will adjust. And she looked at me like I was crazy. But to vastly overanalyze this one, I interpret it as a call to be happy with what you got, make do with what you have. You probably don't need the next shiny thing. Give it time. Your eyes will adjust. And not adjusting or, on the other hand, always grabbing for the flashlight, that can be dangerous. That can be expensive. It can be taking the easy way out. Maybe you've heard the theory of hedonic adaptation, which to summarize is a luxury once experienced becomes a necessity. We become accustomed to certain things and it's hard to go back the other way.

14:15And what was once a luxury is now your new normal. And that leads to chasing the next level, the bigger house, the fancier car. Maybe your eyes will adjust is a call to avoid lifestyle creep, a call to avoid buying stuff because you can afford it, like$600 stereos. It sounds like the wrath of grandpa really put a scar on this guy. He's been very frugal my entire life growing up, so maybe the stereo episode saved him a lot of money down the road. But a call to avoid buying the stuff just because you can't afford it without questioning whether or not you really need it or really want it. Lesson number nine is rip off that band-aid, or more accurately, rip out that tooth.

14:57The story behind this one is dad is sick of me constantly playing with a loose tooth, a wiggly tooth. So he takes me out on the deck, grabs his needle nose pliers and proceeds to extract the tooth by force. And in his defense, it must have been just hanging on by a thread because I did not feel a thing. But this is the take action lesson. This is the call to do the thing you've been putting off. The obstacle is the way, right? It's probably not as scary as you're making it out to be. So you might as well get it over with. I've had to rip out that proverbial tooth several times over the years from knocking on my first door, cold calling, posting help wanted ads for positions in my business to hitting record on that first podcast.

15:42If there's a wiggly tooth in your life that's driving you and driving everyone else around you crazy, maybe it's time to grab those pliers. And lesson number 10 is it's only money. I remember another time when we were camping and pulling out of the campground in Oregon. Dad backs our minivan into another car that's parked behind us. And he is frustrated with this mistake, this obviously being in the days before backup sensors, and the repair is going to cost him a few hundred dollars. Still, instead of letting this episode ruin the day, ruin the camping trip, he took the attitude, deep breath, It's only money.

16:19You can't take it with you. And that stuck with me. Money isn't a finite resource like time. You can always make more. And that was a good perspective to see because I was always very money motivated as a kid. And I'm a teenager at this time. And it still seemed like this scarce, hard to get thing. And in some ways it still feels that way. But this was a good illustration of money not being the end goal. It's only money was a dismissal of something that is obviously still a really important thing, but at the same time, not the most important thing. Does that make sense? Now, I didn't grow up alone, and it's interesting how two people exposed to the same environment can have different reactions, different memories.

17:03So when I ran these lessons past my brother, he remembered several of them too, which was awesome. And then he added these as well. Hey, this is Nick's brother, Chris. I write at nwtutoring.com and becomingbetter.org. When Nick asked me if there were any bits of fatherly advice from our dad that stood out to me, a couple things came to mind. One is, you shouldn't have to wait to be told what to do. Anticipate what others need. Dad said this to me when I was helping him rebuild the deck at our house. Dad was doing all the complicated work, and I was his inept assistant. I did what I was told, but I wasn't being observant enough to predict what dad needed, and I wasn't taking initiative.

17:44Being a 15-year-old, it had never occurred to me to do more than I was asked to do. This advice wound up helping me a great deal in every job I've ever had, whether I was a server in a restaurant or doing marketing and web design for a tutoring company. And this also applies to side hustling. Entrepreneurs don't wait for customers to tell them what they want. they anticipate the needs that people have, and identify pain points and create solutions. However, the most important things Dad has ever taught me weren't expressed with words at all. He leads by example, which is the single most powerful thing parents can do to influence their children.

18:21For instance, if we went to someone's house for dinner, Dad would always do the dishes. He never told me this was the right thing to do, he just did it. And then I was at a dinner party in college, and I found myself automatically getting up to do the dishes, and I realized I was becoming my father. The power of leading by example extends far beyond parenting. It's essential for influencers and leaders of all kinds. In sales, they teach you to buy your own product. And if you're in the business of giving advice, you'd better be following your own advice. As Oliver Goldsmith said, you can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lips.

18:57That anticipation point is a really powerful one, and one I will readily admit I've got plenty of room for improvement on. And Chris's second point about leading by example, well, that brings me back to where we started the show with your life is your lecture. And I'm incredibly grateful to have had such amazing teachers, both mom and dad, in this journey. And I know our little guys are paying attention, so it's something I'm reminded of every time they repeat something that we say. if you liked this episode please go tell a friend go call your dad if you have any dad isms from your own household you want to share you can do that in the comments for this episode at side hustle nation.com slash dad or hit me up at n loper on twitter or instagram that is it for me thank you so much for tuning in until next time let's go out there and make something happen and i'll catch you in the next edition of the side hustle show hustle on

20:00do you know a lot of stuff what kind of stuff do you know i know like 45 what else 68 there's numbers i know numbers and math i don't know much math but i do know a lot of numbers yeah and letters what's the biggest number that you know um seven i mean i mean 10 that's the biggest number i know didn't you just say like 68 oh yeah and 25 and 25 uh what else do you know i know six plus eight sure anything not number related like riding your bike or being nice to brother don't know much of that but i can do tricks on my bike lots of stunts on my bike yeah what happens when you get hurt i just get up back up get back up and keep riding that's what i usually do cry for a moment somebody comes and help me and then i get back up and keep riding yeah that's what i usually do What's the best stuff to read about?

21:19Dinosaur. Who's the smartest person that you know? I don't know anybody that's so smart. Nobody? Mm-hmm. Are you super smart? Not super smart, but I am medium. Just medium. Well, you're learning more all the time, right? I know. What's the best way to make a new friend? I usually might come up to them and ask them if they want to play with me. see if they want to or not if they don't want to or don't make a new friend with them what does daddy do for work? recording, call, type recording calls and typing? that's pretty accurate actually do you want to be done with this? I'm out