Welcome And Listener Question

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Yo, yo, yo, welcome back to the Further Your Lifestyle Podcast Conversations on Lifestyle, Passions, and Hustles. My name's Chris. I am your host, and I'm super excited to be back here having the conversation with you. Episode 285 today. We're continuing on from a set of questions that came through over the last few weeks. This one actually kind of follows up really, really quickly with last week's episode. So if you haven't checked out episode 284, I do encourage you, go check that one out. That's about when building a side hustle or trying to change paths, there's this dangerous middle phase. And how do you manage that? Well, this one is more about actually, we're gonna we're gonna answer the question. We're gonna read out the question in a second. So if you do enjoy these episodes, make sure you do hit like, subscribe so you are informed. But this week's episode question is this is what they've said to me. They've said, you've talked about how often we're not actually confused, but we're actually just avoiding a hard decision. We did this episode uh probably, probably last month, I think it was. And when someone is staring down a choice where both options have massive risks, like staying in a secure but soul-crushing corporate job versus jumping into full-time reselling, for instance, how do you practically separate legitimate caution with pure decision avoidance? This is such a good question. We're gonna dive into this, folks. Uh, if you enjoy these episodes, as I said, make sure you do hit like, subscribe. You can leave a comment afterwards as well. Uh give your thoughts and opinions. Uh, but we're gonna roll the intro and let's get into it.

Start With Where You’re Heading

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So I think when it comes to these tough choices, I mean there's there's always going to be risks, right? And I know my cliche answer to all of this is it comes back to where do you want to be? What are you working towards? Because that to me is what keeps me on a straight path. Because if I have something that comes to me, and I'll give some good examples of this, but if I have something come to me and it's a tough decision to make, I have to then weigh up, okay, well, is this going to get me closer to where I want to be? And if it is, and I know I can possibly take a bet on myself to get that working, then that is the path forward. But there's also levels of risks and other things we need to think about. And it's not just as simple as let's go do this and don't consider the consequences of it, because obviously everyone's situation is different. Now, if we go back to the stereotypical question or cliche question of I want to leave my full-time job, which pays really well, but I hate it there. I want to go start my own full-time business doing whatever it is maybe you've never done it before. It's like, how do I separate the legitimate caution versus a pure decision for avoidance? I think I think there's I think the pure decision avoidance

Use The Numbers To Decide

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comes when you already know the answer, but you're scared to do it. Whereas I think a practical legitimate caution is something there when the math doesn't add up. So an example of this would be I I I spoke to someone a few years ago that wanted to go into full-time reselling, and they said, I need to be basically taking home, let's say it's $80,000 a year or something. And I said, Okay, that that's fair enough. And then I said to him, well, in order to make $80,000 net profit, right, you're gonna have to sell X amount of product for, let's say, usually it's about three times that. You're gonna have to sell maybe $240,000 worth, right? Uh to be able to even generate a potential of $80,000 net, right? And that's assuming you don't have huge costs, you don't have a warehouse, you're doing it from home, all these different things. You don't have staff. But of course, if if you were gonna do $240,000 worth of sales, and let's say your average sale was $45, you need to sell $5,333 items in a single year. Now, to get those $5,333 items, let's say your cost of good is I don't know, $12. So in order to get that stock, you need to spend like between $60,000 and $65,000 in buying that stock. Now, obviously not all at once, as it's a rinse and a repeat kind of process. And that in itself becomes quite overwhelming because then all of a sudden you have to realize, well, how do I actually get 5,000 pieces? I've never sold something in my life, kind of thing. So if you're at that position, that's when you start to realize, okay, this might not be as easy as I think it is. But that's where probably the last episode comes into play. It's like, well, you could probably start to do this on the side. Can you start to build it as a side hustle? And then once it is at a position that you can leave your corporate job, that would make more sense. But I think where it comes sometimes comes down to, so that that's probably about the legitimate caution. And of course, you've got to take into consideration do you have mortgage? Do you have mouse to feed? Do you are you responsible for someone? Are you a guardian? Like all these different things, and is your partner going to be happy with that? And what's the conflict if it's going to, is it going to cause any conflict where with the people you work with or the people you love or all these different things, right? So that's where you have to bring in all of that to play. But let's say you're in the world now and you're already starting to make the you're already starting to want to make that decision

Side Hustle Before The Big Leap

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to make the jump. Now, when it comes to decision avoidance, for me, this is how I was able to make that decision very, very easy because I knew before I even wanted to leave my job that I always wanted to have my own business. And for me, it was uh a matter of looking at it and saying, okay, I know what I want to achieve. I want to have a podcast, I want to have my own business. I've been doing the side business for about three months. I can see how it works, I know it can work, but I also can't see myself doing what I'm doing right now for the next 15, 20, 30 years. Right? I just can't because I'm going to get to the point where I'm like, if I don't try this, even give it a go for one year, two years, five years, I'm probably going to regret not trying it later. And I felt like at that point in time, it was the best time to do it. One, because I had money saved up. I knew that I could work, I could basically go do this. And if I didn't get paid from the business for four years, I would be fine. And that's the way I was able to weigh it up. So it didn't come down to, is it a legitimate caution kind of question? It came down to a pure decision avoidance simply because I knew I had the safety net, I knew I had options, and worst case it's like I can go get another job. But I it wasn't a matter of like, okay, I have to pay a mortgage, I've got a family to feed and those things. It was more around, okay, am I actually willing to do this? And a good example of this was also my podcast when I wanted to start my podcast. So when I left my corporate job and I started reselling, I wanted to start my podcast. And I was so scared to start it because I was coming from nothing. And I remember getting on Clubhouse and talking to Rob Atkis and uh a few other people, and they said, if anyone's wanting to take action and you're too scared to do it, let's have a chat. So I said, Yeah, let's

Fear, Identity And Starting A Podcast

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chat. And he said, What are you scared about? And I said, Oh, well, what if no one listens to it or whatever? And he said to me, and so what about the people the five people that do want to listen to it? You're not giving them a chance to even hear what you have to say because I'm too scared. And then he said, What's the worst that could happen and all these different things? And went through and I realized it was all in my head. So that one was also a pure decision avoidance because I was worried about what people would think. I was worried about I wouldn't be good enough. And there's always this level of there's people that are doing things at the top tier level versus you just doing it thinking you want to be at that top tier level. And there's this disparity between the results. You've got to remember you're on a timeline, and there'll always be people ahead of you, there'll always be people behind you, and there'll be plenty of people at the same stage as you. You can't let that be the dictation of why you do something. You have to then come down to well, why am I doing it? I'm doing it because I want this. So therefore, that's the reason why you're doing it, right? It's got nothing to do with anyone else, but purely for your own motivations. So I think that's the difference for me between legitimate caution versus decision avoidance. The math doesn't math around keeping yourself if you need to be able to have $4,000 in your bank to be able to pay your mortgage, but you're only able to generate $1,000 for the next two years per month, the math ain't mathing. So you'd be better off to stay in a job, get the side hustle happening, get that money starting to overtake, and then you know that it's gonna work. But then, of course, when you leave, you won't have that other steady income as well. Whereas, as I said, pure decision avoidance is more so the math does math. It it actually there is a viable option here, there is a a chance to

Big Deals, Exit Plans And Buffers

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make this happen. Obviously, there's always risks, uh, but it's it's just because you're scared to do it. Some other good things for risks is I've I've when I when one of my big deals that I first purchased was like $4,000. The second time it was $5,000. We then went and did a $25,000 deal. And the biggest deal that I've done today is $128,000 or $123,000. And people saying to me, Chris, that's why are you doing that so risky? And there was some favorable payment terms on that and things that enabled me to obviously take action on that and not have to pay for it for a while, which to me was like, well, I did the math. I did the math, like, okay, this is how much we have to earn every month. I know we can do this, I know we can do that. I'm backing myself, we've got a system, we've got a process. But then I also had to weigh up, okay. Well, let's say everything in my mind of the perfect scenario, what if that doesn't work out? How am I paying for this? And I had a plan of knowing how I could pay for it. Worst case, I could liquidate shares, or worst case, I could use savings, like if I had to, right? So I knew there was always going to be an uh an exit for it. Whereas if I didn't have that, I would have to look at it and say, nah, it's too risky. We had another opportunity come up where we were offered uh 20 pallettes of shoes, and it was going to cost about $25,000. Now that one is a good opportunity as well, but the problem was didn't have the space, didn't have the cash flow straight away because I want the payment the same day, and I didn't have the infrastructure to be able to collect it and then bring it back. So when I looked at it, it's like, okay, well, it's not going to be $25,000. It's probably going to be, I'd have to get more racking, I would have to get that setup ASAP, I would have to then get the delivery. It was probably going to cost another five to five to ten thousand dollars just to get it all organized. So we're about $35,000 now. And in a short time frame, too rushed. For me, it made me too uncomfortable based on the math because the shoes weren't, it's not like the shoes were like Nike. The shoes were kind of like low-end brands that you would see at kind of not Kmart, but maybe like some of the small shoe shops. And I had to take that risk of understanding, well, like the demand, the supply for these, where am I selling them? How am I selling them? And then when I get it, the amount of space that it's going to take up means I can't say yes to other opportunities. So I was able to look at that and say, it's not that I'm avoiding it because I'm scared. I'm avoiding it because it doesn't make sense from a math standpoint. Yeah. So that that's

Commit, Reassess And Know When Out

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that's my perspective on all of this. At the end of the day, it is problem solving. At the end of the day, you need to weigh up all the risks in your circumstances uh to make sure it does match. But also don't just assume that because something in the past has happened, that's how it will continue to happen going forward. You also need to consider around the unknowns. You need to think about buffers, you need to think about the things that you do not know and trying to make sure that you understand that life is not linear. Life has its ups and downs, so does business. So if you're going down that path, you need to be willing to commit to it. But also understanding that if things don't go to plan, know what that looks like, and when is it time to call ship? Like it's a sinking ship, and jump out and then restart, go get another job, whatever it may be. That's my two cents. Hope that helps. Uh, we'll be back here again next week, folks. Uh, we've got another good, good question coming up. Appreciate you being here again. If you enjoyed these episodes, please subscribe, comment, and yeah, feel free to share it as well if you think someone else needs to hear it. Otherwise, I'll see you next week. Ciao