This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Susan Blackwell: The Spark File podcast may contain profanity and other adult content. Please use your discretion.

[0:10] Laura Camien: When I bump into something that inspires me, I jump in my spark file.

[0:18] Susan Blackwell: Spark file to be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be.

[0:23] Laura Camien: I pump it in my sparks.

[0:26] Susan Blackwell: Spark us.

[0:28] Laura Camien: I jump into my sparks.

[0:32] Susan Blackwell: Let's open up the spark file.

[0:36] Laura Camien: Welcome to the Spark File where we believe that everyone is creative, but smart creative people don't go it alone.

[0:43] Susan Blackwell: I'm Laura Camien.

[0:44] Susan Blackwell: And I'm Susan Blackwell.

[0:45] Laura Camien: Hey, if you're joining us for the first time, welcome. But you may be asking yourself, what exactly is a spark file?

[0:52] Susan Blackwell: Laura, please tell the people.

[0:54] Laura Camien: I will tell the people. A Sparkfile is the place where you consistently collect all your inspirations and fascinations. And if you're like us and you're making stuff all the time, you know that the wellspring of inspiration can run a little dry. We're here to refill it.

[1:11] Susan Blackwell: We are, and we are on the lookout for fresh ideas, images, and inspiration, things that inspire us to get up off of our asses and make things like this very podcast.

[1:22] Laura Camien: Or several multi-million dollar companies, two of which you sold before your 35th birthday.

[1:29] Susan Blackwell: Or a keynote address that makes audiences laugh and learn.

[1:34] Laura Camien: Or a systematic approach to eradicating entrepreneurial poverty.

[1:40] Susan Blackwell: Or a whole series of books that distill your toughest business lessons into lamp oil that lights the way for your fellow business builders.

[1:49] Laura Camien: On today's MakerSode, we're gonna talk to someone who truly sparks us. We're talking to someone who Simon Sinek deemed the top contender for the patron saint of entrepreneurs.

[2:01] Susan Blackwell: And that someone is Mike Michalowicz.

[2:04] Mike Michalowicz: Wow. Welcome to the Spark File.

[2:09] Mike Michalowicz: Well, as a joy to be here. I want to say this was the best introduction ever.

[2:13] Susan Blackwell: Welcome to the world of the Spark File. Mike, we're so happy that you're joining us today. And we want to thank, just right off the bat, just right off the top, we have to thank Super Sparkler, Tammy Evans, the human exclamation point for making Mike Michalowicz's podcasting dreams come true.

[2:27] Mike Michalowicz: Tammy, we're so excited that you're here.

[2:29] Laura Camien: Yes. Tammy, thank you if you're listening. Um, Tammy knows this, but Mike, we like to start with the basics in all of our conversations. So we'd like to know just where are you right now? How are you right now for reels?

[2:42] Mike Michalowicz: For reels. So uh I'm if you're asking figuratively where I am, I'm in a state of flux. I'm about to catch a car to catch a flight for a big speaking engagement, but physically I'm home because of that. Normally I do my recordings from the office, but I had to come home first because my wife is joining me for this particular trip.

[3:04] Laura Camien: Are you going somewhere fancy? Where are you going?

[3:06] Mike Michalowicz: Well, we're going to Florida, which for a speaking engagement, not a particularly fancy venue, but a beautiful climate. And then, and then we're taking a quick trip out to Vegas to see Sting perform.

[3:21] Susan Blackwell: Oh, that's fun.

[3:23] Mike Michalowicz: We came up with this mission, my wife and I, that we're gonna see every musician, every band that we enjoyed in the 80s, the 70s, and the 90s before they retire, we want to see them. So we can check off Pat Benatar, Melissa Etheridge, and Sting as of tomorrow.

[3:42] Laura Camien: Oh my gosh. Who's left on the list?

[3:44] Mike Michalowicz: So yeah, so we're gonna see Steely Dan next.

[3:48] Susan Blackwell: Those are my boys.

[3:51] Mike Michalowicz: That is what we, my husband and I were just talking about this. We went to see John Mulaney a few weeks ago. John Mulaney shares my boner for Steely Dan. And all the pre-show music that they pumped into the Bethel Woods Performing Arts Center was Steely Dan. And I was like, this is brilliant. And it made me really want to see Steely Dan.

[4:12] Laura Camien: So we're on a track two of seeing comedians. We just saw Jim Gaffigan, Sebastian Maniscalco, who's my favorite current active comedian.

[4:22] Mike Michalowicz: Um, but we haven't seen Mulaney yet.

[4:24] Laura Camien: He's an excellent list. He's on, he's touring right now, and I've got to tell you the set is so good because he leans straight into it and he goes there. We have a saying around the Spark File, which is if you have to live through it, you might as well make something out of it. And the way that he has alchemized his lived experience so quickly is it's genius.

[4:46] Mike Michalowicz: He's so public about it. I think it's actually empowering.

[4:49] Laura Camien: It's great, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, Mike, how are you? It's been a wacky year and a half. How are you doing?

[4:55] Mike Michalowicz: I feel great. I feel great. I've been very blessed to be surrounded by colleagues and loved ones that I just admire. I just met with the president of our company, Kelsey Ayers, and it's remarkable what she's done for our company to navigate the changes. You know, a guy like me, traditionally the revenue is you sell books as many as you can, and then you speak about them, and that's where you generate a good chunk of your revenue. But speaking went off the deep end or the sh hit the shallow end, I don't know, what hit one end of the pool, but it was concrete below there. She aligned, realigned the business to continue to deliver what is important to us to the community that is best served by us in a new way.

[5:37] Mike Michalowicz: And uh it sustained our revenue, um, actually amplified our profitability. It is just I'm so impressed by and so fortunate to be surrounded by such extraordinary people. It's good to be like during these times, these sort of unprecedented times. I have to say, it's made me appreciate people using their creativity in that way to not only tolerate a chapter, but to, like you were saying, really make maybe even make it more betterer.

[6:06] Mike Michalowicz: I liken it to a band, maybe like 38 Special, they had a pretty big band. You have a lead singer, but there's like three drummers and 17 guitarists. Well, we're like that in that I'm recognized as being the lead singer, but it's not me. It's eight of us. And what Kelsey saw when things were slowing down and speaking was there was an increase in homeschooling and there was an increase in children's book consumption. So she's like, that's the opportunity. We can translate the stuff that we're doing to serve adults to serve children, and the adults that are already buying from us, you know, Profit First and other books I've written, they may want to introduce this to their children. Why not us be doing that?

[6:49] Mike Michalowicz: And yeah, so we came out with our first children's book. It's called My Moneybunnies.

[6:54] Mike Michalowicz: My Money Bunnies.

[6:55] Susan Blackwell: Yeah, I'm really proud of the book.

[6:56] Laura Camien: That's goddamn adorable. Mike, I know we're gonna get um a price of admission from you in just a moment, but just while we're covering this topic, I think it's relevant for people who don't know you. When they ask you, what do you do, can you tell us how you answer that question? What do you do?

[7:12] Mike Michalowicz: So when someone says they don't know me, I'm like, like everybody else, no one knows me. Like at first, that's normal. And then secondly, I say I'm an author. You know, so I'll get in the Uber later today, going from the airport to the hotel in Florida. And when I get in the Uber and I say I'm an author, like you feel them pump the brakes a little bit, like literally. And they're like, get out of this car. Get out. Shut the front door. Get out. Then the deflating question comes like, oh, what book would I recognize that you wrote? Are you like, have you heard of Grapes of Wrath?

[7:44] Mike Michalowicz: Grapes of Wrath. Grapes of Wrath. I say, the Bible. Have you read that one? Um that was me. And then I say Profit First. And that's my big one. And they're like, uh, never heard of it. And then the whole conversation just goes stale. There's dry mouth. I get all nervous. They just take the next exit and they stump me off someone. Never mind. Never mind this whole thing.

[8:08] Laura Camien: Oh, they just dump you in a field. That's so interesting. Well, maybe we'll circle back to that. I think it's interesting that you are now characterizing yourself as an author first. And it makes sense to me. Uh, but you're so accomplished, you could choose yours. There's so many ways you could identify creatively.

[8:24] Susan Blackwell: Um, listen, before we go any further, we have been remiss. We have to request the Spark File price of admission from you. Can you tell us a creative risk you've taken recently?

[8:34] Mike Michalowicz: This was only a few months ago. I was on a flight, and you know, everyone's got their COVID masks on and stuff, and we just boarded the plane. And uh the habit I have that everyone else has too is you sit down and you start flipping through your phone because it's your last chance to be on Wi-Fi before you take off. And so uh I hop on the phone and I noticed uh not just the Wi-Fi of the airplane, but all the hotspots that popped up. And one of them said, like the CIA.

[9:00] Mike Michalowicz: And I was like, oh, that's kind of cute. Someone has phones called the CIA. I guess but that triggered an idea. It's like, oh my gosh, everyone here is seeing everyone else's hotspot. Why don't I set one up? So I bought what's called a wireless access point. Um, it's basically a hotspot on steroids. It's how you would connect at a hotel, and they make these so small, you can actually plop it into your backpack with a battery, and it'll run for a full day.

[9:24] Mike Michalowicz: And so what I did is I set up a wireless access point that says buy Get Different. That's my new book on Amazon. And what I do, and I've been doing this, and I'm still nervous because I'm doing it again tomorrow when I speak. I'll go to the AV booth prior to me speaking in the morning, say, Hey, do you mind if I leave my backpack here? There is definitely not a bomb in it. Do you mind if I leave it here? No, there's no bomb in it. No, they're cool. And then people start, you know, they arrive at the conference, they want to hop on the internet.

[9:50] Mike Michalowicz: Well, at the end of the conference, this has happened now multiple times. People come up to me and say, You would not believe this. They're this conference is marketing your book over the internet. And I'm like, Are you serious? Are they really doing that? It's unbelievable, it's unbelievable.

[10:05] Laura Camien: I feel like this is a plot line from Silicon Valley.

[10:07] Mike Michalowicz: No kidding.

[10:08] Laura Camien: Fucking genius marketing.

[10:11] Mike Michalowicz: Thank you. You are officially admitted into the Spark File. That is an amazing creative risk. Well done.

[10:15] Susan Blackwell: Oh, I made it in.

[10:17] Mike Michalowicz: Well done. Mike, when your work was introduced to us, I have to be honest with you, I was like, this is the business expert for me. Your content is so useful, but it's also for me, this ding dong. It's extremely digestible because you're very funny.

[10:35] Susan Blackwell: There's so much, there's many spoonfuls of sugar to help the medicine go down.

[10:39] Mike Michalowicz: And to our conversation earlier about comedians, your audiobooks are giving me full on Mike Birbiglia.

[10:46] Laura Camien: And I'm just curious if folks ever tell you that.

[10:49] Mike Michalowicz: They uh occasionally do, yes.

[10:51] Mike Michalowicz: Yes.

[10:52] Laura Camien: And I I don't know him that well. I I know uh I've listened to a couple podcasts he's on.

[10:56] Mike Michalowicz: Oh my god. He's the best.

[10:58] Laura Camien: But he does sound like a doppelganger, or I'm his doppelganger.

[11:02] Mike Michalowicz: He's yours, I think.

[11:03] Susan Blackwell: Okay. When I say that, it is it is the you you look very different. And I'll be honest with you, I heard your voice for a long time before I ever saw your face, and I was surprised because I was like, that doesn't look like Mike Birbiglia.

[11:15] Mike Michalowicz: But uh, I here's your poll quote for the future the top contender for the Mike Birbiglia of Entrepreneurs.

[11:22] Laura Camien: I like that.

[11:23] Mike Michalowicz: Take that, Simon Sinek.

[11:24] Laura Camien: Take it.

[11:25] Mike Michalowicz: So I'm walking down the hallway. I just tell you this quick story. I'm walking down the hallway of Penguin. That's my publisher, and I work with the same imprint as Simon. And I'm I'm walking in. This is pre-COVID. Simon's there. He was working on a book called The Infinite Game. I was coming in to work on a new book I was writing called Clockwork. And uh I saw him, I said, Hey Simon, it's great to see you. We have a little chit chat. I'm like, would you be willing to endorse my book?

[11:49] Mike Michalowicz: He's like, I gotta be honest. He goes, I don't I don't endorse anyone. I I gotta pass up on that. And I said, Oh, I totally respect that. Well, I had met him 10 years prior when he was launching his first book called Start With Why, and I was launching my first book. Um, and we I had met him in his loft and we worked on our books together at the same time, and thank God I recorded this. He said, he goes, Hey, as we try to build our brands, let's support each other any way we can. I had a video.

[12:14] Mike Michalowicz: So I said, Hey Simon, it was great running to you at Penguin. Um, I don't know if you remember this video we did, but this was amazing, and I'm just wishing continued success. He emails back and he says, Oh my god, he goes, uh, you got my endorsement. Uh, I I totally forgot.

[12:27] Laura Camien: Unfucking believable.

[12:30] Mike Michalowicz: Unbelievable, right? Ballsy. Was I strong arm Simon Sinek, did I? It was a little ballsy. I know. But you know, I think we have to be. I think there's a lesson there that we have to. And we cannot be manipulative, but I think we do responsibly be persuasive.

[12:43] Laura Camien: That's right.

[12:44] Mike Michalowicz: And uh that was an opportunity for me. Uh and he served me so well. I'm I'm now forever indebted for him. So if he asked for a favor, like, hey, could you mow my lawn for the next two years straight? I'll be like, You're on it.

[12:55] Laura Camien: I'm on it.

[12:55] Mike Michalowicz: Simon Sinek's lawn looks great.

[12:57] Laura Camien: You never seen such a manicured lawn.

[12:59] Mike Michalowicz: So crisp.

[13:00] Susan Blackwell: For all of our listeners, we wanted to mention you have written so many effing books. Good lord. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur, The Pumpkin Plan, Surge, Profit First, Clockwork, Fix This Next, Get Different.

[13:16] Mike Michalowicz: There's probably some more in.

[13:18] Mike Michalowicz: Well, My Money Bunnies now are coming out the same.

[13:20] Mike Michalowicz: My Money Bunnies!

[13:21] Mike Michalowicz: Don't leave out the money bunnies. We have some questions that we are well aware are on every writer's mind who's listening right now. How the hell do you get so much written? Like what is your approach to writing? How do you get it done? Well, write every single day.

[13:39] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Um, I was reading, I think it's in uh Stephen Pressfield's book, No One Wants to Read Your Shit, that book, which is a fabulous book. He had a list, I think of like 10 or 15 authors on their uh daily production rate of words, and the average author was producing a thousand words a day. Uh and these are you know pretty famous authors. So I commit to producing a thousand words a day. What I do every morning at 6 a.m., uh, I'm in my home office where I'm recording from now, and I write from six to seven every morning. I do it with other authors too. We we have a sprint group where we don't talk, we just all connect, you can see each other on Zoom, but there's this obligation now to produce, and at the end, you simply report your number.

And it's not always a thousand, sometimes eight hundred, and I gotta work a little bit later that day and get the rest done. Sometimes it's over and and I got a little buffer. But that's the what I call the off-season writing. Um in season meeting, I have a deadline, a manuscript I'm committed to. Then I aspire to do three to even four thousand words a day.

[14:39] Mike Michalowicz: And is that just like I clear my schedule and this is what we're doing today? Yeah, just blocks, exactly. You know, there's nothing more important for me to serve what I've defined as my life's purpose than to produce books. Books are the vehicle. Books are not my life's purpose, but I'm trying, I'm committed to eradicating entrepreneurial poverty. And the the pathway there for me is through books, and the books better be excellent quality, the best quality I can produce. And that doesn't guarantee success by any such imagination, but if I fail to write what I believe is an excellent book, all the marketing, all the effort behind it is for not. So that's why it's my priority to write.

[15:12] Mike Michalowicz: Is that like the central guiding purpose over all of the books? The eradicating entrepreneurial poverty. So yeah, and I think we all have it. A little lesson here. I I believe um we all have a calling, and now you can define it as God-given or self-given. I think that's our choice. But what I think is it often it ties back to trauma in our life. I I was interviewing a psychologist for one of my books, and I didn't use her story, but she shared and departed a lesson that was transformative for me. She said there's there's three events in our lives that typically form a purpose. She called it the big T, the Little T, and the C. And the big T was big trauma. Big trauma is where we have an event that's so extraordinary, so painful, so impactful in that moment that we draw a line in the sand and say, I'll never let that happen again.

It could be automobile accident. For me, it was a financial crisis. I lost everything. For many people, sadly, it's sexual or physical abuse. But but it's it's so horrible that we say that this won't be I won't be a victim as a result of this. I'm going to uh never allow this to happen again, or I'm gonna resolve this. That's my life's commitment.

[16:19] Mike Michalowicz: The the small t she called drip trauma, and that's where you know you're you're in throughout school, you're being picked on by a group of kids that just any one instance alone isn't painful, but the collective is so harmful, or it's it's our parents, emotional abuse or physical, it just keeps on coming. And there's a in that trauma, there's a a certain point where we get to where there's the watershed, it's like this is this is the day it stops, or this is the day it changes. Uh and then the C was childhood dreams. Some of us, we just had this aspiration um that one day I will be this, one day uh I will do that. For me, by the way, was that I wanted to be a garbage man. Okay, I don't want to do it now.

I really don't want to do it now because that's hard work, but I do want to get one one shift in. So if if you know anyone that's willing to take me on, Simon Cynics garbage, like you could offer to do that instead of on. Yeah, no, I want to be on the back of the truck. That was the cool part. Sometimes a childhood dream goes unfulfilled, and maybe it's not a vocation, but maybe there's a a purpose behind that. Why did you want to be an astronaut? Because you want to explore, or something like that. And and we can we can commit today to to that being our purpose in life. So I think we all have it. I don't know if we all put effort into discovering it, but for me, at least when I I laid it out for myself and defined it.

And I by the way, I didn't have those words eradicate entrepreneurial poverty from the beginning. That's kind of honed in on that. But but it's become magnetizing. I I when I get up at six in the morning, I'm like, I got a role because I got a mission to serve.

[17:48] Laura Camien: Yes. Can you talk us through? Like uh Suze and I are familiar with several of your books, so we we I think get this concept. But for those unfamiliar, could you talk a little bit more about this central idea?

[18:00] Mike Michalowicz: So what how I define entrepreneurial poverty is that many people start their business, a creative type, a serial type of people. Some people call themselves serial entrepreneurs, that they're just building businesses that are highly sellable, whatever it is. We have a vision for what that means for us. And for most of us, it's a form of freedom that I'll have expressive freedom, I'll have personal freedom, time freedom, financial freedom, and and and usually it's a combination thereof. I would say the day before we go into our new venture, we are anxious and excited, like this is gonna come true, and this is a big leap, but I'm gonna have the world's my oyster now, and always amazing things are gonna happen.

The day after we start a business, we're now in hell. We're like, oh my gosh, no one knows who I am, I'm not getting business, I have no money. And ironically, the the reverse of what we projected happens. We we we anticipated we'd have financial freedom, but now we actually have uh we're trapped financially. We we are in a panic state. We thought we'd have personal freedom, but now we're actually working our ass off all the time. That gap between our vision and the reality is what I call entrepreneurial poverty. And it's in this form of poverty is interesting too, in that we can't be public about it. You can't go and say, I need food stamps now. Not that it's a good analogy, but but you definitely can't go to clients and say, Hey, I'm struggling so badly, would you please work with me?

Like, no one wants to work with you. So we have to feign this confidence. We are amazing, we are great, we can serve you so well. When inside we're like, we suck, I'm making no money. And uh, I don't I'm committed to fixing that because I don't believe entrepreneurs should not only not have a problem, I believe entrepreneurs are the solution for poverty globally. If if every entrepreneur is successful, we our job is no longer to do the work, our job is to create jobs. We can be providers for our planet. So it starts with entrepreneurs, in my opinion, and that's what I'm trying to fix.

[19:51] Laura Camien: Yes. Mike, we first learned about your work from our business coach, Jennifer Rosenfeld. Whoop-hoop, Jennifer Roosevelt. She is awesome. She's the best. She introduced us to profit first uh as an approach to our business financials, which we are proud to say we are currently implementing. But for those who are hearing about profit first for the profit first time, can you can you just share a little bit? It's it's a little bit like a upside down from what maybe we have everything we've been taught.

[20:22] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. Can you can you break down that concept a little bit for listeners? Yeah, I'm a big proponent for a thing called Occam's Razor. And Occam's Razor is this concept that often, not always, but often the simplest solution is the appropriate solution, the most effective solution. And what I noticed was this interesting trend in my own business. I was never profitable. And the more I tried to grow the business, the more revenue we made, the less profitable I was, which made no sense because we all know that sales revenue minus the expense we cur results in profit. So you you need more sales. But then I noticed this trend was not just unique to me. Almost all small businesses are in a check-to-check survival.

We're just getting by. And I said, Well, what's wrong with us? If we want financial freedom, how come we aren't achieving it? And that's when it became uh apparent that there's nothing wrong with us. The formula is, while logically it makes sense, is behaviorally wrong. It's it's human nature when somebody comes last, it means it's insignificant. Like if you love your family, you say, I love my family, that's why I put them first. You would never say, I love my family. I've decided to put them last. Last means it can weigh, it's a manana syndrome, it's not important to me. Well, profit, even our vernacular says it's not important. We call it the bottom line or the year end. It means wait, wait, wait.

So in practice, how do we execute it? Uh we just put our efforts into sell as much as we can. Um, we often say we need to sell more by growing more, which means spending more, and we get stuck in this circle. Then year end comes, April 15th, and our accountant says, Oh, sorry, no profit this year, and we're like, oh shucks, maybe next year. That's the trap we're in.

[22:02] Mike Michalowicz: In the profit first formula, we flip it. It's sales minus profit equals expenses. And mathematically, the numbers work out exactly the same. We're just flipping variables, but behaviorally it's a radical shift. Now I'm saying is every time revenue comes into my company, I'm gonna take a predetermined percentage, whatever that may be, five, 10%, 25%, whatever it is, allocate that toward profit, meaning hide that money away, and then the remainder is what I operate my business off of. It's it's basically the pay yourself first principle applied to business.

[22:31] Laura Camien: It's really amazing because once we started getting into it, we were like, um, yes, this makes so much sense. Do you have a theory on why, like, why more people, why isn't it a more common practice?

[22:46] Mike Michalowicz: Well, we we are trained in this other approach, and uh when I was looking at traditional accounting, the process of putting profit profit last is based upon the gap principle, generally accepted counting principles. So it is taught at all levels. If you take a college course in accounting, you'll be told profit comes last. All the documents, all the profit and loss statements, put profit at the bottom. So all the training is about it. And like I said, it's in our vernacular. We're told it's the bottom line. We're told it's the year after. So it is our natural behavioral default to put it last. And um, that's why we comply with it. But you know, if if if a thousand people say a stupid thing, it's still stupid. That is the truth.

[23:27] Laura Camien: Yeah, so it's but it's hard to unwind this too.

[23:29] Mike Michalowicz: It becomes so established you have to combat it. Yeah. You know, there was a time in human history that we thought, I think it was around 500 BC, that we really did think the world was flat. Um, and you know, if you went too far in the ocean, you'd fall off the off the edge of the ocean. They started making maps with serpents and stuff in the corners of the maps to dissuade sailors from going too far in the ocean because everyone knew you'd fall off the planet. Yeah, you know, we had to unwind that. But when when a belief is established, we start putting uh elements around it to reinforce the belief. Those serpents were put there to further enforce a flat planet. Oh my god. We see the same thing in the county, it's the same thing everywhere.

[24:06] Mike Michalowicz: But by putting profit first, and then uh, like you were saying, the equation is say it again, it's sales minus profit equals expenses.

[24:14] Laura Camien: Sales, I I think this is a great time to admit, I'm not the most numerate person in the world. I really have to study stuff like this.

[24:21] Mike Michalowicz: But sales minus profit equals expenses. It that equation prioritizing profit first, it sort of forces innovation around what you are going to spend on expenses.

[24:35] Laura Camien: Oh my god, I love you said that.

[24:37] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. So there's this concept or theorem called Parkinson's Law. So quick history lesson. Parkinson's a theorist from the 1950s studying human behavior. Specifically, he was studying time, ultimately other things. But he noticed that the more available time we have to do something, the longer it takes us to do it. So if I said to you, hey Susan, I'll get you a contract in one week. Is that okay? And you say yes, it'll take me likely a week. Yes. If you and I have the same conversation about the same contract, and I'll say, I'll get to you tomorrow morning, I will move heaven and earth to get it done.

[25:10] Mike Michalowicz: Right. Well, his research expanded beyond just the use of time. It's all resources. The more we have of something, the more we consume it. My addiction is chocolate chip cookie. If you put a chocolate chip cookie in front of me, just one, I will eat, I'll play a game, but I'll first say, oh, I shouldn't, I really can't. I'll eat one. If you put a dozen in front of me, I'll eat more than one. Yes. And it's and it's really true with money. I think a cousin to that, Susan and I talk about like the more space you have, you will expand to fill it. That's right. Fill it with stuff for sure. Yeah. So you can never have a closet that's big enough. It's just Parkinson's law. Yeah. Uh and you can never have enough money either.

So we I think the belief I had was oh, if my company simply got to this size, I remember my first started, it was 100,000. If I got to 100,000, I'd probably be taking home a hundred thousand. And I got to a hundred thousand, I was I was actually, it cost me 200,000 to get there. So I was like, okay, that doesn't work. That's right. But then I was like maybe 500 or maybe a million. Million was the magic threshold. And when I got there, I was more in debt than ever before. And it's it's that behavior of the cash flow is expanding. There's more cash coming in the bank, but I'm finding more ways to spend it. That's right. By by by siphoning off a percentage first and hiding away from yourself, and you you literally want to make it invisible to yourself. Then you adjust. It's like, okay, this is what I have to work with. And you find a way to work with what you have left over. Thanks for unpacking that. It's so elegant and so exciting.

[26:43] Susan Blackwell: Um, we were thinking about this in terms of you know, the world that we live in, there is this trope of the starving artist.

[26:51] Laura Camien: Yeah, um, we are so fucking not here for it.

[26:56] Susan Blackwell: Like, we're so not about it. We just want artists to thrive creatively, to thrive financially. So we wanted to take this opportunity to ask you are there any ways that profit first model might apply specifically to the businesses of artists and creatives.

[27:14] Mike Michalowicz: Oh, it truly does. Profit first, what I shared is the basic theorem behind it. But in practice, we implement this in bank accounts. And what you do is uh at your bank, you set up multiple accounts for multiple purposes. One is to allocate profit, but one is for materials and supplies, perhaps, one's for expenses. You may have ultimately five, even ten bank accounts, and and people say to me, Well, I'm just gonna do it on a spreadsheet. No, you can't. We have to intercept our behavioral path. So, meaning if if you log into your bank account to see if you have any money or not, that's where you're going. And we need to intercept that. We can't have this in some system on the side, and then you're resorting to checking out your bank balance, and uh you see a thousand dollars or deposits, you say you're a thousand bucks.

So, what creatives can do is uh I think we overspend on uh certain things. I know photographers, for example, who god forbid the latest gadgets come out every day, you're buying them every day. And I'm like, you you can't afford this, but they're like, I need it. So, what we do with the private first account in this example is money comes in, we have an account called equipment. And we say every deposit comes in, 2% will go toward new equipment, 10% goes to profit, and then we have other allocations paying a normal salary for this person. And now when they see the latest greatest gadget, they can look at that account and say, Do I have enough money? If I don't have enough money, you can't buy it. If you do have enough money, now you have a hard decision to make. Is this the appropriate uh purchase? Because not, you know, more money's not gonna flow in instantly.

[28:43] Laura Camien: That's right.

[28:43] Susan Blackwell: So we start making more prudent decisions.

[28:45] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. This is it's it's as you're talking, Mike. I'm just like, I'm upwards of 50 years old. So this old brain has to uh develop new neural pathways to start thinking like this. That it's not sort of about what does my impulse or my instinct or my desire tell me to spend money on. It's about I have, you know, I've I've given a little bit of thought, not a lot of thought, but a little bit of thought, in the in the past about how I'm going to apportion money, and then with the money I actually have in that sort of bucket, I can make choices about what we're going to purchase to invest in the business.

[29:24] Mike Michalowicz: That's right.

[29:25] Susan Blackwell: That's right. I can feel my brain heating up and expanding even as you speak.

[29:31] Mike Michalowicz: From one person in their 50s to another, you nailed it. I'm out of you.

[29:36] Susan Blackwell: Now I need to go take a nap.

[29:38] Mike Michalowicz: I know. I'm gonna kick them and I have a good lay down after this. We experience this. We Laura and I live this as entrepreneurs. And we also we hear this story about how entrepreneurs work very hard 247 on your business, but it's worth it because you're going to be investing in your own vision and your work and yourself. And I love that, but I'm gonna be honest with you, Mike, again, as a woman of a certain age, I get really, really sleepy. And I'm curious because you are you you have like this impressive output. I wonder for realsies, real talk, how many hours a week do you work? Do you have downtime? How do you maintain your stamina and drive? How do you prioritize your family? How do you have time for a colonoscopy? Like, tell me, how do you do this?

[30:24] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, so again, my first colonoscopy in two weeks. Braggart. Yodel Braggart. So let me start off with uh the vacation. Um, I like to work in spurts, like a sprinter. So uh I also like to take breaks in spurts. This year, 2021, I will have taken nine weeks of vacation and and here's the deal that does not include weekends. Some people like, oh you know, every Friday or Saturday, Sunday is a vacation day. No, no, that that's just time off. Um December, I've taken five weeks so far. Uh December, I take um a full month off.

[31:01] Susan Blackwell: Oh my god.

[31:02] Mike Michalowicz: Now, what let me explain why that's important, not for me, but for the business. It's important for me too. That's how I bring my balance about uh with my other aspirations in life. But it's important for the business because if you can leave your business for an extended period of time, I would say ideally, ideally four weeks with a full physical and digital disconnect, your business must run itself. So the first time I took a fork vacation, which was only five years ago, the first time I did it, I was terrified. Yeah, but when I returned, my team, and and team doesn't necessarily mean you have employees, it may be part-time help, uh, or maybe virtual help, could be contractors. Your partner, Laura Camien. When I got back, my team said, My gosh, we've never felt so empowered. I thought I was taking advantage of them by vacationing, and they said you empowered us by vacationing.

[31:54] Laura Camien: Yes.

[31:54] Mike Michalowicz: The other thing though, and this is just my I don't know if it's an advantage, but I turned a disadvantage to an advantage. I've been diagnosed with what's called hypomania. It's a real issue.

[32:02] Laura Camien: Oh no, I know exactly what that is.

[32:05] Mike Michalowicz: So hypomania means you're a level below mania. Hypomania is where it's uncontrollable. Hypomania, hypomania is still channelable, but it's it's relentless. So I do naturally have a constant thirst to just go, go, go. That can become a problem. And some people actually it manifests in in pretty bad things. So they just gotta do things and do others, if you know what I mean.

[32:30] Laura Camien: Like people get out of control.

[32:31] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, yeah. For me, it's channeling. So I'm regimented with exercise. Um five days a week, I do take weekends off, but every like this morning, seven to eight, I'm in the gym and I work to a level of physical exhaust as exhaustion. Not that I need to fall asleep, but the just to burn off some of that hypomania. Yeah, and then sure enough, there comes the wave of focus, and it's like, okay, I can go for four or five hours.

[32:55] Laura Camien: Wow.

[32:56] Mike Michalowicz: At a at a kind of moderate normal level. But then the funny thing is as the afternoon kicks around, like right now, you probably hear my voice. Like, I'm ready to roll.

[33:04] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[33:06] Mike Michalowicz: Like the energy builds going into the afternoon. Then I I can just burn through the afternoon, and by five or six o'clock, I'm like, okay, good day. And let's repeat tomorrow.

[33:13] Laura Camien: So struck by this knowledge that you have of yourself and what works best for you. And I I just have like I'm so curious to know when and how did you start to learn these things about yourself and make the appropriate adjustments? Because I think so many people are like, oh, I just work the way I'm told to work, which is nine to five, and I they can't see any other way.

[33:38] Mike Michalowicz: I think I started having this awareness maybe in my early to mid 40s. And I wonder if, you know, they talk about these stages of life. And one phraseology I heard, which really is the acquisition of wisdom, is that the 20s and 30s are for learning, the 40s and 50s are for earning, the 60s and forward are for returning. Like, you know, and for me, there's like, oh, that kind of plays into the experience I'm having in my life. That the 20s and 30s, it was all about ego and about what I could accumulate and acquire. And there was learning with that, but learning of more about what not I wanted and what was not of service. And then uh the 40s and 50s now have been much more introspective. And about you know, five, six years ago, I started really looking back in my life. I I went through and I continued to do therapy, which is freaking awesome. Everyone should be doing this.

[34:33] Laura Camien: Absolutely.

[34:34] Mike Michalowicz: And I'll tell you the cheapest form of therapy that I started off with was just uh writing a journal, just bringing down my thoughts and emotions, and that turned now into professional help that just gives you tools to navigate business, navigate life, navigate anything. And uh through this, I try to be, I'm not always, but I try to be acutely aware of patterns. There's a great book out there called The Power of Habit by Charles Duhig.

[34:57] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[34:57] Mike Michalowicz: And once you're aware of a habit, say, um, you know, my chocolate chip cookie addiction, I can't stop eating chocolate chip cookies. Um, he put a real simple way to bring conscious thought to it as opposed to unconscious behavior. And what he said was just grab a sticky note and put a column, uh, put a title on it saying eating chocolate chip cookie. And all you have to do is every time you notice you're eating a chocolate chip cookie is put a check on the sticky note, and that's it. But what happens is when you put that check down, it brings a subconscious behavior to conscious thought. And then you think about well, what triggered this? What was I doing? And you start putting conscious thought and you start seeing these patterns in yourself. It's like, oh my gosh, I can now manipulate the patterns. So that's how I found this fact that I have hypomania. And then I also saw ways to channel it to result in um an output that I thought was was best for me.

[35:49] Laura Camien: Well, and you gave yourself permission to be like, okay, I like to I like to work in sprints. How can I structure my life so I can work in sprints, etc.

[35:57] Mike Michalowicz: Totally. I was describing to a psychiatrist friend of mine, Dr. Yoni Mill. Shout out, Yoni. Woo woo. Uh I was saying I was I was in this residency at this uh writing retreat, and I was on a hard deadline to get something done because it was going to be performed in front of people that we had passed midnight, so I guess that day. And I finished writing around, I was up by myself in this very pastoral sort of retreat, and probably finished around three o'clock or four o'clock in the morning. And I was walking under walking under the light of the moon back to my lodging, and I felt like I could lift a car off a toddler.

[36:39] Laura Camien: And I was like, Yoni, what was that?

[36:41] Mike Michalowicz: And he said, That sounds like hypomania, which can be thrilling and it can feel great and very energized. But if it's pushed too far, you could wake up on Park Avenue not wearing pants and not know how you got there. So it's it's what Laura was saying about you learning how to channel it, or it's like a bucking bronco, but like that you've learned how to kind of stay on the bowl and write it. That's um it's I it's what we all aspire to to uh tune with ourselves in that way. It's so great. I think the aspiration is to just have clarity on who we are and to extract the most value out of how we naturally are. It is really more about all of us expanding uh our idea of how brains work, not just our own brain, but that there are diverse ways that brains work, and the world for a long time seems to have been built for one particular type of brain, but we're getting smarter, thankfully, and realizing like oh, there's a whole lot of different brains out there, they work in their own ways, and maybe we could build systems that support all brains.

[37:49] Mike Michalowicz: There was a belief that in the Olympics, I don't know how many decades or or maybe 100, 200 years ago, that there was a perfect uh athletic frame that this male or female is of a certain height, certain weight. Yeah, and they said this is the ideal athlete. And then over time it's like, no, based upon the sport they're doing or the activity they're doing, um, it's pretty different. It's it's radically different. Like the sumo wrestler should not be a luge uh specialist, you know.

[38:20] Laura Camien: That's a great corollary.

[38:22] Mike Michalowicz: That's a actually a great that's a great corollary. I love that you've attuned with that in yourself, Mike. And uh we all get to benefit from it because you're the things that you're sharing with the world and the the ways that you're flowing that into your creativity is just it's just outstanding.

[38:37] Laura Camien: Very kind of you.

[38:38] Mike Michalowicz: It's true.

[38:39] Laura Camien: Hey, listen, let's turn back the hands of time for a second. We know you are an entrepreneur, a writer, a speaker, a podcaster, and a deeply creative person. Looking back, was there a time that you were first aware of that urge to make things?

[38:56] Mike Michalowicz: Um so I I I was never entrepreneurial minus little vignettes into it in my childhood. I don't have entrepreneur parents. So when I became an entrepreneur kind of fell into it but I fell into because I was frustrated of what of the job I had and I was I was just out of college. But I remember I wrote a letter once to a friend in grade school who moved away and we were friends through our parents so I wasn't like this isn't a guy I hung out with but my mother said send him a letter I remember I wrote a letter to him and after writing it I looked back at it and read it was like damn that's a good letter like it feels like I'm in the room with this guy. Like wow you know I was in grade school or something and then I I shelved that I never thought about it again.

And then there's another instance in college I was in this fraternity and there was this I don't know discussion about something and there was two factions kind of arguing and then I summarized the case on the fly I was like well this is what everyone's saying we're actually on the same page and the whole fraternity looked at me and said that's right we are and I was like damn there it is again. There it is again.

[40:00] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah I had these little flash moments of a potential talent I could exploit that's why I hope I do my writing a reader and a writer the connection is so intimate that chances are you're sitting in your underwear in your bed connecting to me the in in the book is a very intimate yeah moment.

[40:17] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. I want people to feel so comfortable that they feel comfortable in that moment in that way. And I better be their best friend. And I also write it assuming that only one person will ever read my book. I don't know who that is.

[40:31] Laura Camien: Yeah, who is that?

[40:32] Mike Michalowicz: Probably my mom. It's pretty saucy for having your mom be your, you know, your sole reader. But it's funny, my mom is reading my most current book. My mom's 87, my dad's 93. And I went, this is true. I filmed it. I went to my parents' house just a couple days ago. I visit them as regularly as I can. And I said, Mom, how are you liking the book so far? She goes, There's a typo. I'm like, oh my gosh, thank you for catching it. What is it? She goes, You put in a word pie hole? She goes, What there you mean like a uh uh apple pie? I'm like, no, no, I mean your mouth. She goes, What do you mean? I'm like, shut your pie hole. She goes, I don't get this. And then my father goes, my father goes, What's a pine hole? I'm like, it's a pie hole, dad. He goes, a pothole? My Jesus Christ, shut your pie hole, dad.

[41:22] Laura Camien: These can't be your parents.

[41:23] Mike Michalowicz: It's funny to hear that. I always assumed pie hole was some like some throwback from the 20s. Like your parents might actually be attuned with that, but no.

[41:31] Laura Camien: You think they would be?

[41:33] Mike Michalowicz: No. And my father, my father was born in 1928. That's prime pie hole. He's the pie hole generation.

[41:38] Laura Camien: That's right. The greatest pie hole generation.

[41:41] Susan Blackwell: Mike, this is a sincere question. You are much more advanced in your business building. Laura and I are, you know, we're sort of these baby entrepreneurs, but we're really making a go of it. We're really proud of what we've done so far. Are there parts of your business that you're like, I like this less, but I tolerate it because I know it's gonna make money?

[42:03] Mike Michalowicz: Or I yeah, I know there's necessary evils that are parts of the business, or things that you just have to. You just have to not really now, but there's a time that you know I gotta feed myself and my family, and that's priority one. And it is a form of prostitution, if you will, in that I am doing something that I have a dislike or even disdain for, but it generates income legally and legitimately. I've I had to do that. For me, that's consulting. I really don't enjoy consulting work. I don't thrive in a one-to-one coaching student.

[42:40] Laura Camien: Interesting.

[42:41] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah, interesting. So I did that stuff. Fast forward to today, sometimes an individual will throw a god-awful amount of money at me to say, please coach me for a day. And I'm like, I don't like to do it, I'm not good at it. And if you want me to do it, I will charge you what I charge for a couple keynotes because that's how much time it's taken. You sure you want this? And they're like, yeah. I'm like, okay, come in for the shittiest coaching session ever with Mike. It's like a like playing hard to get. I tell you, I really am terrible. I don't want to do it, I don't like it. I suck at it, it's expensive. And they're like, where do I sign? We're only signing up. It's the best sales salesman ever.

[43:21] Susan Blackwell: You know what's interesting though is when those people do come in, every word you say is perceived as a word channeled through God. But I guess because they're paying like per minute, they're paying such a ridiculous amount. It's like I better do this stuff. But I will tell you this: as the business grows, the stuff I don't like, I'm able to delegate to people who do like, and that's the key. Delegation is not giving something you don't like to someone else who won't like it, it's about surrounding yourself with these with people who like what you don't like and you like what they don't like.

[43:49] Laura Camien: Yes, and that becomes the ultimate team.

[43:51] Mike Michalowicz: That's that kind of consulting gold that people are looking for, Mike Michalowicz.

[43:54] Laura Camien: Yeah, well, that listen, I could charge you $75,000 for two minutes. Mike, is there something creative that you know you absolutely need to do before you're done? And by done, I do mean dead.

[44:05] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. That's funny. Um, so I must finish 25 books before what?

[44:13] Laura Camien: Are you serious?

[44:15] Mike Michalowicz: Yeah. Yeah. I'm all documented. Uh not written, meaning I have the concepts documented. I'm working on the outline.

[44:20] Laura Camien: Oh.

[44:21] Mike Michalowicz: I'm only eight books in now. So at the current pace, uh, I'm going into my late 90s. Uh, I'm lucky biologically, you know, my father's still alive, so maybe I got a shot at that, but but he ain't productive. Um, so I don't think my productive years are gonna go past. This and your dad like that, I don't know.

[44:39] Laura Camien: I know.

[44:41] Mike Michalowicz: My dad's pie hole. He's the pile of generation. So I think I think I think I can get 25 books out. Actually, I commit to doing 25 books by my mid-70s.

[44:54] Laura Camien: That is so freaking exciting and the clarity of it.

[44:58] Mike Michalowicz: But now that's a goal. To me, it's a compendium. I want to produce the compendium for authors.

[45:04] Laura Camien: Oh, the Mike Michalowicz Golden Book series, and they all are bound in like red leather. It's gonna be gorgeous.

[45:12] Mike Michalowicz: So I do want to make a compendium for entrepreneurs. Yeah, I want someone to say, I found my guy, and then any question they have can be satisfied.

[45:19] Susan Blackwell: So you are writing the Bible, yeah.

[45:23] Mike Michalowicz: Listen, here is a question that we ask all of our guests. You work really fucking hard. What's it all for?

[45:33] Mike Michalowicz: Well, to eradicate entrepreneur poverty. Like I feel so compelled. It pains me to hear of entrepreneurs who are struggling, and I hear it every day. On the flip side, every day now I hear back from people who have been impacted, even in the smallest way by my work, saying I've changed my my life has been shifted, or I'm on the path or I'm debt-free. Yes. And that enlightens me up. So that's what's all for. It's eradicate entrepreneur poverty.

[46:02] Laura Camien: I can love it. And finally, Mike Michalowicz, who or what is sparking you these days? In addition to staying Steely Dan, who or what is sparking you these days?

[46:11] Mike Michalowicz: I think my parents picking the pie holes there. You know, they've had um a rock solid marriage for sixty years. And yeah. And it's it's admirable the support they've given each other. Um it's funny and fun to see my mother, 87 years old, take a sticker. Oh no, sorry, type up on an old-fashioned typewriter. Uh my son just wrote a new book. I have three in my trunk if you want to buy one and go to the local Y and try to hock my books. It's uh to have that devotion to someone else when it's no longer necessary is to me remarkable.

[46:55] Laura Camien: It's beautiful.

[46:58] Mike Michalowicz: I'm in love with your parents.

[47:00] Laura Camien: How amazing. Thank you so much to our guest Mike Michalowicz. Laura, thank you, Susan.

[47:08] Susan Blackwell: That's it. This episode of the Spark File was made on the lands of the Lenape and Seminole people. And we hope it put a bunch of sparks in your file. Listen, if there's a spark you would like us to explore, or if you've taken a spark and you fanned it into a creative flame and you'd like us to share that, email us at thesparkfile at gmail.com or submit it through our website, thesparkfile.com. We'll even take your feedback.

[47:35] Laura Camien: Yes, even me, I'll take it. But you know the price of admission. First, you gotta share a creative risk that you have taken recently.

[47:44] Susan Blackwell: And be sure to subscribe to this podcast wherever you get your podcast, subscribe, rate, five star review those babies. If you like this podcast, we hope that you'll share it with people that you love. And if you didn't like it, I don't know, Mike. What do you say to your critics?

[47:59] Mike Michalowicz: I will punch them in the pie hole.

[48:04] Susan Blackwell: That's good podcasting right there.

[48:06] Mike Michalowicz: Bam! In the pie hole. Friends, if something tickles your fancy and gets your creative juices flowing, we are writing you a forever permission slip to make that thing that's been knocking at your door. It's your turn to take a spark and fan it into a flame. You gotta take it and make it bye!

[48:31] Mike Michalowicz: When I bope into something that inspires me. I dump it in the spark files. Spark files could be something that I wanna make or how I wanna be. I'll pump it in the spark files. Sparkfile. I jump into my spark files. Sparkfile. Let's open up the spark file.

[48:59] Laura Camien: That was exhilarating.

[49:01] Susan Blackwell: He's amazing.

[49:02] Laura Camien: He's amazing. And we just Mike had to go catch a flight, as he said. But Laura, you were saying something.

[49:07] Susan Blackwell: And so here's a little behind the scenes after the podcast super bonus. Here's some like knee jerk reactions. He was talking about how he identified this creative skill in himself, writing things. Writing the letter, like being able to summarize things to his fraternity brothers.

[49:23] Laura Camien: Yes.

[49:29] Susan Blackwell: And it struck me as he was talking that I found it remarkable that he had the wherewithal to identify that in himself. And he identified it specifically as a skill and as something he was good at and something he enjoyed doing. Conversely, we worked with a lot of people, and I'll put myself in this category too. I had skills like in reflecting back, there was every single indication that I knew how to write, and I was a good writer, and all grades and all comments from teachers aligned. I went the other way and was like, well, that isn't hard. It doesn't feel like a special skill. It just feels like something I can do.

[50:08] Laura Camien: So because it came easy to you, you didn't put a lot of value on it.

[50:13] Susan Blackwell: That is correct. But it seems like he saw things that came easily to him. And he was like, I am going to value this and flow it straight into my work. And that's where, and it took me a long time to circle back to it and understand that differently about myself. But I am so curious about what the difference is in the either it's parenting, it's teaching, it's environmental. What allowed him to interpret that as hey, this is easy for me, and I'm good at it. And people seem to enjoy it. Whereas I interpreted it, I'm good at it, and it comes easy to me. Uh, it must be easy for everyone. I'm fascinated with how those two roads divided.

[50:58] Laura Camien: Yeah.

[50:59] Susan Blackwell: And I'm really, I have to say, we said it, we thanked him, but I just want to say thanks again, Mike Michalowicz. My God. If you're listening.

[51:11] Laura Camien: But I also feel like the work that he's doing, the Mike Michalowicz encyclopedia that he will put out into the world before he's done. God willing.

[51:20] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[51:21] Laura Camien: Leather bound and gold embossed spines. I do feel like it certainly is making our business life better, more funner, more creative and flowing, more functional. It's so empowering. I think it has empowered us. The mystery sometimes around bookkeeping and am I doing all this right? It has stopped me in the past.

[51:48] Susan Blackwell: Yes.

[51:49] Laura Camien: And it's not stopping us anymore. We're like learning and actually devouring more of like this is fun to learn. This is interesting to learn. And I feel great when I learn it and I put it into practice. That's why I said he's a business expert for me. For some reason, I can just like when he says it, it can go into my brain hole, it can go into my pie hole in ways that maybe some other businessy stuff. It's a harder force. It's a harder path down.

[52:19] Susan Blackwell: All right. So this is a little spark file behind the scenes after the episode. After the credits roll. And this is one of those examples I have to say, Suze, that like we've talked about before, where like we'll go into a podcast recording. It's scheduled. We're like, oof, I'm tired. I stayed up all night preparing, or I had this thing I forgot about, and now we're showing up to record. And then we do it, and we either talk with each other or we talk with someone phenomenal. And I'm like, I've got 10 times the energy I had before. I'm just so freaking lifted by it.

[53:04] Laura Camien: Yes.

[53:05] Susan Blackwell: Because when you have that meaningful engagement, it really does do good things for your nervous system and your heart.

[53:11] Laura Camien: Does good things, you do good things, you do good things. All right, get out of here, everybody. Go do something fun and creative. Bye.