Graham Cochrane (00:00.864)
Man, I'm excited about today. Okay. Today I have our first guest on the Better Way to Build Podcast. Actually, we're gonna be doing a collaborative episode here on the Graham Cochrane Show and Better Way to Build Podcast. I've brought my sweet husband Graham Cochrane onto the show to have a really vulnerable conversation about the real hidden cost of entrepreneurship. if you follow the Better Way to Build podcast, then you know that in the last episode, we really kind of cracked open this conversation.
On the costs of entrepreneurship that aren't being talked about and the benefits of entrepreneurship that aren't being enjoyed. And so my promise in that episode was that I wanted to bring Graham on here and just engage a very real conversation about the costs of entrepreneurship in the Cochrane House because there have been many. There have been many benefits, and there have been many, many costs, but I'm really excited to.
Babe, to have you on today. Thanks for setting aside time to do this so we could kind of collaborate on this conversation. Yeah, man. I'm just, you know what? I'm just happy that I'm guest number one because I feel like I won an award. So I'm happy with that. I don't even care what we talk about. Just happy to be here. But yes, this is this is an important conversation. And I think we have a unique perspective on it because we're both entrepreneurs and we both run different businesses as opposed to working together in the same business. So we have
I I know a a lot of entrepreneurs and a lot of entrepreneur couples, and I don't know very many that have our unique situation. So I think we'll have some some flavor to add to the mix. A little spice, a little spice to sprinkle in. Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I think so too. All right. So for those that aren't as familiar with our story, I want to give you just like a very brief 30,000 foot view of kind of what entrepreneurship has looked like in our home.
I've I very proudly like to claim that I was an entrepreneur long before Graham was. I was hustling friendship bracelets on the playground at age four. That is the start of my entrepreneurial journey. So when Graham married me, he married an entrepreneur. And I just want to state for the record that was your choice, babe. No take backs. We're coming off swinging, okay. That conversation will come up again later. But We're getting passive aggressive already. Let's go.
Graham Cochrane (02:17.527)
It's gonna be a spicy episode. It is. I've been waiting 20 years to have this conversation with you publicly. He married into entrepreneurship. And then within a few years of getting married, Graham found himself an an unlikely and a bit unwilling entrepreneur who has gone on to have incredible success across a number of different businesses. originally starting in the recording industry, now as an author speaker, business coach.
the important highlight there being that we've never, like Graham said, we've never worked in business together. And so that does produce a unique set of circumstances that have been challenging for us to navigate because we're not working on the same thing together. We both have our own different stressors, different ambitions, different desires, different ways that we go about building business. And that's just been unique, right? Not not necessarily a problem, just been unique. But either way.
We have been neck deep in entrepreneurship for at least the last 17 or 18 years doing and building our own thing. with some overlap in that we understand each other, but then a lot of things that don't necessarily overlap. So that's kind of where we start this conversation is longtime entrepreneurs. And the thing that I want to kind of talk about at first is let's just start with the benefits of entrepreneurship. And the reason why I think it's interesting to have a conversation about the benefits of entrepreneurship are that.
Most people aren't actually enjoying them. They're not, they're not actually getting to benefit from them. So in the last Better Way to Build episode, I kind of highlighted what I felt like were some of the benefits that we've enjoyed. But I want to hear from you about, you know, you're looking back at the last 17, 18 years of entrepreneurship for our family, really the last 10 years of entrepreneurship that have seen a lot of success and with it its own unique challenges. But what do you think are the biggest benefits of entrepreneurship that we have really truly been able to enjoy?
Yeah, this is is so fascinating to me because as a business coach, one of the angles that I'm taking in my messaging and my brand is helping people build their businesses, but also get back their time freedom. So I'll say it in a bunch of different ways. I help entrepreneurs create more money, more margin, and more meaning. And that's usually the order in which people look for things in business. They start business because they need to make more money.
Graham Cochrane (04:44.238)
Because that's one of the benefits I'm sure you alluded to in the last episode of like there's no cap to your income. And then they typically realize, I'm making money, but I'm burning out. I would love to have more margin in my schedule, more time. How can I do that? and then once they have time, they realize I don't have a whole lot of purpose in what I'm doing. I have a good business, but like it doesn't fulfill me. It doesn't feel like it's aligned with my personal mission. And that's where the meaning piece comes in. And so I try to help people do that, but it is bonkers to me that.
I get pushback on like, why are you why are you talking about working so less? Like, what are you are you lazy? Like real entre it's like the the idea that real entrepreneurs are working around the clock. And the reason why people think that is twofold. If they live in America or they live in the West, that's kind of the culture we've grown up in, which is we we are obsessed about working and obsessed with working. And it's almost like a badge of honor how many hours we work. And like all of our heroes.
Brag about how much they work. Tim Cook, CEO of Apple, and you know, soon to be ex-CEO of Apple, talks about and brags about how many hours he works, how early he wakes up, how late he goes to bed working. Elon Musk says, I never sleep, like just work around the clock. You know, I won't name more and more gurus in my space, but like the typical gurus say you need to work all the time and
Work life balance is a myth and you should ignore it largely, especially in your 20s. So you should just work, work, work, work, work to build the thing. Like all of this is really bad advice, but because it's literally missing the point of business building. The point of business building is not to make a lot of money. There's that is a benefit of business building, but that's not the point. Typically, you got into business because you wanted more time, freedom, and flexibility, or you wanted more alignment with your mission. Like you
You were doing work and getting paid well, but you're like, what's the point of my job? What's the point of this company? I want to do something meaningful. what there's usually a lot of other reasons. And for whatever reason, once we start building, we just get so myopic on the money that people miss out to your point on the benefit of like working less. So to me, this has never made sense because I think for our family, what the benefit of the entrepreneurship looks like for you and I is we only work a handful of hours a week so that.
Graham Cochrane (07:05.389)
We can take our daughters to school every morning. We can pick them up from school every afternoon. We can have date day on Fridays. And now we're adding Mondays as another date day. So we can have the weekends together as a family. So we can have dinner at the table most nights. Unless the only reason we wouldn't have dinner together as a family is because the girls have a soccer game or a foot like it's usually their fault now. It's not our fault anymore. You know, like we're around the table together because that's where discipleship and that's where.
mentorship and family happens is around the dinner table. I think about you reading with Vera. You're reading through you've got just finished up the Harry Potter series, you're getting ready to start Lord of the Rings. When most entrepreneurs are maybe they're dialing in for dinner with the family, but then they have to go back to work. Right. They're going up, they're they're slinking off into the bedroom with their laptop to just kind of take care of a few more things. after I hate that. That bonus shift after dinner that's that's from the devil. That's from the devil. If you're working after dinner
Something's not working in your business. So we gotta figure this out. So yeah, that's a great point. Cause those hours are precious, right? If if if let's say your kids go to school and and even if you're home when they're home, like between the hours of three thirty, four, whenever everyone's home, to nine thirty ten, like those five to six hours are that's your life with your kids. That's it. So that's it. And and like let's not again, this is what's great about this episode is we're gonna be real honest.
This is not rosy like for us. Like one of the tr I literally bought a phone lockbox. So because as if I'm a child where I have to. You put a coffin for your phone. You get it on Amazon. You put it in, you press lock for how many hours, and you can't unlock it for those three hours or four hours. And I got it because even if it's even if I hide it behind the cookbooks in the kitchen, like I I'll go grab it just to see if.
If I don't know, see if the something important happened. By the way, nothing important happened. But so I I even I can miss out and have missed out on the time where like, if it looks like Vera is on the computer doing something and you're doing something, if no one's just chilling, I'll be like, Well, I'll grab my phone and then it becomes tech gather time. And I I'm realizing, but if I do that, then she if she's done and looks up at dad and dad's on his phone, then she'll go back to her laptop. So I'm actually perpetuating the problem. So I'm not saying it's perfect, but that's your magical window from four to ten.
Graham Cochrane (09:30.488)
Or whatever it is in the evenings. And so I'm trying to even lock my phone away. So I have nothing to do but sit there and be like, hey, Vera, do you want to play Nintendo? Do you want to read Harry Potter? Hey, Chloe, do you want to catch up on your day? Like, and it's awkward, but it's that's where real life is happening. Yeah. Do you have other favorite benefits looking back on our entrepreneurial journey? Like, do you have other are there other moments that you're especially proud of? We've talked about, you know, intentionality as a family, time with the kids, but like, what are the other highlights for you?
Well yeah, one of our our goals was to go live in another country for a month. And so a few years back we took the girls to the south of France and we lived in Provence for a month and they were they hated it at the time. They say they love it now, but they hated it at the time. They literally said, never make us do that again. Yeah. They were so bored. There there's no toys, there's no friends. but it was amazing. And it was awkward and like we had our, you know, adventure moments where things didn't work out, and like but we proved to ourselves that A
we could sit together as a family in the middle of nowhere. It wasn't like a big city in the middle of nowhere for a month, which has got its its pros and cons, but like it forces connection. And two, that the businesses, this was for for both of us, like we wanted to prove to ourselves that the businesses don't catch on fire completely while we're gone. And I'll tell you one of the greatest articles ever read by Tim Ferris was The Art of Letting Bad Things Happen. And he talks about going on a long 'cause he does these long trips, he'll be gone for three, four months
And knowing that his business would have a bunch of problems when he came back. And he came back to a a massive client fired him. There was some tax issue. There's some things. But as he sifted through them, a couple of fines, like he's had to pay a few bucks like nothing was irreversible. And he said that did more good for his soul than anything else because he realized I can let bad things happen and it doesn't ruin things. So now he was free to go take more trips. And so that was one for us that I think
Was a big like, wow, we can take a three, four, five week trip and everything's fine. Well, it forces you to remove yourself as the bottleneck in the business. It just forces you to build it smarter. Even the idea of taking two weeks off forces you to build in a way that allows for you to do that and eighty percent of things not fall apart. I mean, you have an interesting lesson that you learned recently about us where a better system was needed and it had twenty five.
Graham Cochrane (11:54.148)
thousand dollar cost to it. That's a good one. So we we went on a cruise during spring break and for one of the one of the worst things that was ever invented was internet on a cruise ship. The cruise ship used to be the last place on the the world that you could get away with the hey you can't my phone doesn't work. Can't catch up with anything. Well now they have internet on the cruise ship and people are frickin' obsessed with internet on the cruise ship. What are we doing, people? You don't need internet on the cruise ship. It'll be there when you get back. It'll be there when you get back. but
I turn my phone off. I don't use the internet when we're on the cruise. I don't have my laptop with me. I'm gone for the week. And unfortunately, I had a client who put down her deposit for a twenty-seven thousand dollar coaching program I have. And so she just needed to get her remaining twenty-five thousand dollars in. And she had a week and a half to get it in while I was here and she kind of disappeared.
But then the day we left, I guess I found out a week later, was the day she emailed in, she had a question about something that she was unclear about. And nobody responded to her for a week. I had told my assistant to just ignore the inbox for a week. and she wouldn't even know what to do anyway, because I hadn't empowered her to do what she needed to do. So when I got back a week later, there was multiple emails like, Hey, I'm not hearing from anybody. I don't feel very comfortable investing my remaining twenty five thousand dollars if you can't email me back in a week.
I'd like my two thousand dollar deposit back, even though it's non-refundable. And I was like, crap. Yeah. I need a better system. I guess I need better, better system for when I go go dark for for seven days. So yeah, I lost twenty five grand because of my system. But guess what? Now I've hired a client, concierge, who is handles all of the onboarding for all I don't even do the onboarding for my clients anymore. So that when I'm gone or even if I'm here, she's the one getting their their wire transfer in and answering her questions about the program. So yeah.
I learned a valuable lesson. Just cost me twenty five K. Lesson learned. And it it has I think for both of us, because we both work. I mean, I w I was in the other episode I was talking about how we've taken the chance to set up a different schedule for summer, right? Like, what a gift to be able to say, like, hey, how much do you want to work this summer? Okay, how about two days? You will I'll take these two days, you take these two days. Let's just have fun the rest of the days because our summers with the girls at home are ticking down and
Graham Cochrane (14:12.607)
We're the boss. So we get to decide how we want this to look. And so we're taking advantage of that and building businesses in that way. Yeah. I think that's definitely a benefit. Any other before we move on to kind of more the costs, any other just like real highlights for you in how we've done entrepreneurship? Well, to me, having a very high margin, low expense business is always a a a goal for me because I don't, I don't
want just a high revenue business. Part of me if I'm being honest does because the ego would be really nice to say, I have a $20 million year business, but I know people that do $20 to $100 million a year, but their take home is closer to a million. Right. So what's it's it's your profit or your personal take home are very different than the revenue numbers. So I've optimized for a simpler business where I'm not going to have as big revenue numbers because I'm not going to have a sales team. I'm not going to be doing a a ton in ads. So
It is what it is, but the benefit of having high profit, like most dollars I make in the business, we get to keep the benefit of that and keeping your expenses relatively low. They're not low by probably most people's standards. We live a great life, but the relatively low to our income where we're spending maybe ten percent of what we're making, the last I checked, is that you have all this extra money that you don't need. And when you have all this extra money you don't need, well.
There's a lot of cool things you get to do. And you've probably talked about this, but you and I have a a big heart for generosity. And everybody I think loves to give. Like it's fun to the f the feeling you get when you see someone at the grocery store who is is their cards getting declined. They can't pay for the groceries. And you're like, I'll just pay for your groceries, which most any of us could do, could pay the fifty bucks or a hundred bucks. Times that by, you know, the being able to we've paid off people's student loans. We've bought people cars. We've helped fund adoptions. Like
This stuff is crazy when you think about and it's so fun. I I have a I've had friends who send me a link for a GoFundMe for someone who just lost their spouse and they're just trying to raise money to support the spouse. I don't even know this person, but because my friend told me about it, I'll just drop ten thousand dollars to this GoFundMe and I'm an anonymous. You know, by saying this, you're about to get flooded with emails with clip. No guarantees. I'm not gonna fund your thing just because
Graham Cochrane (16:34.916)
But you what I'm saying? you can't because you can do this stuff that if you see something that means something to you, yeah. you're not like, I would love to give. Because I even know entrepreneurs who make a lot of money, but they they're they can't really give. And I'm like, why? You you bring in millions of where is it going? Or there's no team or super financially stressed. We know a lot of high net worth, high net worth that are super financially stressed. Yeah. And that doesn't
If you run your business the right way, you get to control that. So I think that's one of the last benefits is there's so much excess profit that you can invest it, you can spend it, you can pay off debt, you can give it away. And it just feels like, well, next month there's gonna be more extra sitting there. What do we want to do with it? And there's nothing like that feeling. Yeah. And the key there is, and you mentioned this, like it's our choice to live well below our means because lifestyle creep is a very real thing. So
For the average person, the more they make, the more they're spending. And they never actually get to that point of feeling like there is financial margin because everything's just gone up. They're just living bigger. and so I think, you know, that the linchpin there for us has been just a decision since very early on to live well below what we're what we're bringing in. Yeah, those are great benefits. okay, let's transition now and talk a little bit more about the dark side, the cost of entrepreneurship. I know, you know, we had a
Us a s a pretty heated conversation a few weeks ago, where I was saying, and I don't know if this was entirely a fair statement, but I was saying, you know, when I look back on these 10 years, these past 10 years of entrepreneurship, which mind you, have been some of the most financially successful of our lives, right? And of our marriage. We've been married for 20 years. The last 10 years represents the most so far financially successful, lucrative years of our life.
We're both doing work that we really love and feels really aligned for us. And yet what I communicated was that I I'm I think I'm gonna look back on these 10 years as a loss when I look back on these 10 years. And that might not be an entirely fair statement, right? That might have been some emotion speaking, but the the the feeling is pointing to something real, which is that we have sort of a before and after in our marriage, in that
Graham Cochrane (18:53.465)
We weren't we didn't start out both as full-time entrepreneurs. We had normal jobs that barely paid very much, but it was enough to live off of. We lived a very modest, simple life, right? Finances were simple, calendars were simple. Tra there was no such thing as a travel schedule unless you and I were just going to visit the parents or that kind of thing. Money was money was simple. The use of our time was simple. how we looked at ambition and what we wanted out of life.
We didn't have arguments over ambition back then, right? It was a very different, very sweet, simple period of time of marriage for us, looking back on those early years. And now life is very different, right? We're we're a long way away from East Market Street, where we used to live in that tiny little upstairs apartment, sitting out in our driveway because we didn't have a a lawn, you know, or a backyard to sit in. So we just sit out on the side of this like major highway and watch.
Semi-tractor trailers go by. And we loved it. All right. When you look back on the last, let's say, especially the last 10 years of entrepreneurship, what do you feel like some of the most poignant costs have been for us? Yeah, I I think we've lost contentment. We've lost connection, like you and I. it's cost us peace, joy.
At times, confident at times. And I think like when I when I started my first business, I wasn't trying to start a business. It it was just we needed to make money. And just broke. Just broke. You just try to do something. and we had this this sense that the Lord was saying, Yeah, like go for this. Try, try this entrepreneurship thing out in the music space. And so it was just a thread we were just pulling and and
You know, I I was sharing on my podcast a week or two ago that I worked full time in the business for the first year and made ten thousand dollars. So it wasn't like it popped off anytime soon. But but there was a thread that is as you kept pulling it out, you could see, man, people are resonating with this. There's something here. And so when that's your mindset, you're not dreaming big. And so you're just like over the moon when it makes sixty thousand dollars. When it then when it crossed into six figures, I'm like, bro, we're kings. We're gonna live like kings. This is amazing. And
Graham Cochrane (21:15.436)
It wasn't until I started to get more coaching and join more masterminds and read more books and because you start to see like as a human being, see what's next, what's next. And this is the greatest thing and the worst thing about being a human is God designed us to be kings over a an assignment, little K kings. He's the king of kings, right? And so we're little kings because he tells us in Genesis to the first command in all of Scripture, like not the commandments, but the first thing he ever commands a human to do.
Is to be fruitful, multiply, have dominion, subdue the earth. So this is all kingship like it's expansive. It is like go expand. And so that's the way we're designed. So the fact that I I learned to dream bigger, this could be bigger. I could reach more people, I could do bigger things. Same thing with you, is a God-given and good thing. And then the shadow side of it is, well man, now that I know it's possible, it doesn't matter how great my business is.
It's not that, or it's not what he's doing or what she's doing. And I struggle with this. And so I'm a person that gets in my head. And so that costs us connection when you see me like just like thinking or fuming, or I can't be super present, even though I'm there. I can't be super present because I'm disappointed in whatever a specific promotion or just the way the last six months have gone, given what my timeline would look like.
And I know the right things to say and do and and and and wrestle I wrestle with this with the Lord, but it really cost me a lot of being present. And so that affects our marriage and that affects the quality of our connection. So we could go on date night every week, but there can be some date nights where I'm like there but not there, you know. And so that's a cost for real. Yeah. I I think of yeah, and we have we have slightly different opinions about this. My opinion is that entrepreneurship.
Is in some ways inevitably challenging, right? It's gonna inevitably have challenges to it. Now, you wrote a book called The Effortless Business. And so I'm married to the guy who's like the effortless business guy. My reality of entrepreneurship has not been that it has been effortless. It has been very effortful. And, you know, we disagree at times about.
Graham Cochrane (23:40.236)
what effort is necessary and what isn't and what challenges are necessary and what challenges aren't. I think what you're really good at and that what you really help me do is challenge whether something has to be true, right? Like does it have to be that way? Does it have to be that hard? Do you have to build it in that way? You are a great, you know, not to drop the name of your other book, but you're an excellent rebel at what needs to be done or does not need to be done in business.
But you and I've built two very different businesses, right? I've always needed to have a team. So there's always been a layer of leadership, people leadership that's been involved in what I've built. you are the talking head of your business, content-based business. It's you. It's very streamlined. I haven't wanted to be the center of my business. And so mine have been pretty complex, right? I need a number of people to pull off what I'm doing typically. And so it's come with it a lot of effort.
And a and with that a lot of challenges. And I know that those challenges have come at a cost for our family in the way that I show up because I do come home, come home, you know, come downstairs at the end of the day, oftentimes frustrated or disappointed or discouraged. I wouldn't say often, but there have been seasons that were certainly very often.
I've gone through very, very challenging seasons of entrepreneurship that that brought with them a certain level of depression to them or panic attacks and things like that, just real deep wrestlings. And that has absolutely taken a toll on our marriage. It's absolutely come at a cost. And I know you've said in the past that in some ways us both being entrepreneurs is kind of more of a liability than it is an asset, right? It would be easier if.
We weren't both entrepreneurs because there are just a lot of challenges that come with entrepreneurship that are brought into the family. do you have anything you wanna add to that? Woo! It's like I try to set us up fair in a fair way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, gosh. So this is
Graham Cochrane (25:51.661)
Again, this is like said at the top of this episode. One of the uniquenesses about our marriage is that we are both entrepreneurs, not in the same business and two different, very s different styles of business. I don't know very many couples that are like that. and so I don't have a whole lot of models to to look to, be like, hey, how do you navigate this kind of stuff? and then we're both of, of course, different personalities. You know, if you're if you're a human being and you've married another human being.
I'm willing to bet that they're a lot different than you. That's probably why you're attracted to them. And that's also why you're irritated with them so many times. so all of that compounds where the way I see the world and the way I see business, I think it rubs you the wrong way a lot of times. And there's elements of it, you're like, yeah, I would like that, but that's just not possible for me and my business or whatever. And and then you'll, you know, you'll throw in your jabs of like,
You know, well it's not supposed to be easy. It's supposed you know, if it's not challenging, it's not blah blah blah blah. And so we we just comment below with whose side you take. Yeah. Team Graham, team Shea. We'll do a s a reality TV show. business is inevitably challenging or business can be effortless. Your vote will be.
I just default to what would be easier. It would be easier if you didn't have any problems. Right? Because I got my own problems. So then I could just, I could just like there's n it feels like a when I'm being my most selfish, there's not enough room for two entrepreneurs to have their own problems. And also, like the benefit of both being entrepreneurs is that we're ha we have a mini mastermind together where we're constantly like.
talking about things and strategizing. And that's also the worst thing about being entrepreneurs in marriage is that we're constantly strategizing and talking about business. And it's like, I, as much as I love my business, when I leave, like when I clock out, I don't want to think about business. and sometimes I I'm the one that brings it up because I'm frustrated and I'm like, this is so dumb and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then some and it's usually the days, go figure when I'm like feeling good and don't want to talk about business that you're having a frustrating day. And you're like, stupid thing of business. And I'm like, don't bring that over here.
Graham Cochrane (28:00.751)
I'm having a good day. I'm I'm at peace. And so I think it's my selfishness that doesn't like it. And so I I know I have room to grow there because this is the the path that God has for us. but yeah, dude, that's a cost, man, because entrepreneurs get so many benefits, but one of the the cons is that you have to carry it mentally all the time. You can clock out like I don't work hardly any hours in my business, but you never clock out in your mind.
It's always there. Unless, you know, that that's a mental game. And so if you got two of us who work very little in our business but carry the weight of it 24-7, that's a con. And some people don't like that and they'd rather just clock in and out of a job. I totally understand that. You're just trading, you're trading pros and cons. Yeah. It's interesting. I think there are a lot of costs that are avoidable, right? You you losing time with your kids, you not you know, if we if we look at the
The true pri order of priority of things that we see outlined in scripture, relationship with God is first, relationship with your spouse is second, right? Marriage, then comes kids, then comes work. There is a lot of cost to entrepreneurship that we and then you could keep going, like taking care of your physical body, mean friendships, community, like there's a lot of other priorities that we could line up. I think the ex the cost of that most entrepreneurs or experiences experiencing.
Is a ch is a choice. It's a choice. It's a choice that's reinforced by a culture that says this is just the way it has to be. This is just the cost of doing something impactful. This is how everyone else is doing it. You're fine, just keep going. Eventually you can, you know, it'll be it'll get easier, except, you know, eventually never comes and never gets easier, or the damage is already done. So there's a lot of costs that I think are avoidable. And then there's a lot of costs.
And these are, I think, some of the costs that we've maybe experienced more of. Cause I think, you know, I'm so grateful. We are like-minded in that I think we've really ruthlessly tried to avoid those costs. The cost to marriage, the cost to family, the cost to our physical health. Like we're very, very good at we have friendships, we have community, we're involved in church. We're in church every Sunday. Like we have deep relationships. We're known. We have time for people. We have time for fun. We're able to travel. Like those things we've done well. The costs we've experienced, you alluded to it.
Graham Cochrane (30:22.329)
they're generally the result of sin. Like it's just the result of when we are going about it my way, on my terms, selfishly, or with fear, with anxiety, when our identity is is tied up in it, when we're at odds with each other, and there's a sort of either there's envy or frustration or jealousy or comparison. Like all of that, all of that is really rooted in
A sinful approach to things, not God's design for entrepreneurship. And so that I think that's that's where we can land with the hope is that God offers in scripture, I I referenced that, I think it was Proverbs 10, 22, that he gives blessings and and blessings that make it rich and he adds no sorrow with it, that entrepreneurship can be a blessing that does not have baked into it a sort of toxicity that is gonna corrode the other gifts in your life.
And then at the same time, we're gonna have to constantly kind of fight sin and fleshly tendencies and worldly tendencies to do it God's way, both both functionally, physically, but also to have our heart and mind transformed by God's opinion and approach to entrepreneurship, his approach to outcomes, his approach to what is meaningful and purposeful.
and we're gonna have to constantly have our minds and hearts transformed through the word of God, through interaction with the Holy Spirit, so that we can minimize those internal costs that you and I have experienced a lot of. And so I think that that's you know, where there's work for you and I that we're still doing, right? There's work that you and I are still doing. But the beautiful hope is that God offers a better way to build. He offers a better way to do all of this, one that involves.
peace, one that involves rest, one that involves c contentment, right? Ambition and contentment can somehow both be true, can both be present. We can be deeply ambitious and also deeply at peace and content. I think those are the things that you and I continue to just fight for on our entrepreneurial journey. And that's the hope that I think that we have is that entrepreneurship can have within it an it can be marked by
Graham Cochrane (32:42.075)
Hope and peace and joy. And that's what you and I, I think, are really still after. It's like, Lord, show us your way so that our entrepreneur can be marked with hope and peace and joy. Anything else you want to add before we Well, I I just just to just to land there. being an entrepreneur is not the problem. Maybe the way you're running business can be a problem and that that that you can restructure your business. And that's the freedom that I think.
We alluded to earlier is that you have, you're the boss. There's no one way to run business, but most people don't challenge assumptions. So you can re-devine your div divide, design your business, excuse me. But at the end of the day, you are the greatest asset of your business and the greatest liability to your business. It's you. It's who you are as a person. It's me. It's who I am as a person. And so when I think about like Romans 12,
Verse two, don't copy the behavior and customs of this world. Please don't copy the behavior and customs of all the entrepreneurs in this world. But instead, let God transform you into a new person. so that's the whole point. You have to become a new person. How? By changing the way you think. So it all comes down to your thoughts and your God will change the way you think, changing to a new person. And so when he does that,
you can see more fruit, like you alluded to, of the spirit, Galatians five, love, joy, peace, patience, self-control, all those things in your business, the way you show up. this is like our heart is like, I'm chasing after this hard. Like, God, how can I become the person that can do the thing and be completely at rest and at peace at the same time? And that's the that that's the growth edge that I have that I'm working towards. I know you're working towards it too.
and I write about this in the effortless business at the end of the day, is like the very end of the book, we talk the only truly way to have an effortless business is to realize it's it's not yours. Yeah. It's God's. And He's in charge of making it happen. So rest in Him. That's the whole Matthew eleven is like, Come to me, all who are weary and heavy laden, I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you because my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Business should feel easy and light, because that's if you're doing it Jesus' way, it's much easier and lighter.
Graham Cochrane (35:03.452)
Hard, hard thing that's driving you crazy might not be the thing he called you to or might not be the way he called you to it. And so that's where we just it's us. It's user error. We're the ones that ruin it usually. We're also the ones I think that if we let God transform us, it's not just a spiritual work. It will show up in your business and it'll show up in your relationships and everyone benefits. Yeah. So good. Well, I'm proud of you as an entrepreneur and your entrepreneurial journey. It's a joy.
Maybe not always, but often a joy to be entrepreneurs. Side by side entrepreneurs. I and I'm proud of you. I love this show. The I love your podcast. I love the the work you're doing at Alum. Like this is so needed because you're bringing people the best business strategy on the planet. And it is doing things God's way. So you're doing great work. I'm super proud of you, babe. Thanks, babe. All right.
If you guys didn't catch episode one on Better Way to Build, I kind of begin this conversation there so you can go back and check it. You can follow Graham, check him out on the Graham Cochrane show. And then otherwise, just thanks for being a part of this. Let us know if something within this resonated. reach out through DMs, leave a review. you know, we'll have both of these will be on you our respective YouTube channels. Let us know how this is resonating and what God's doing in your life in this area. And otherwise, we'll see you on the next episode.
