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SUMMARY KEYWORDS
Business owner freedom, goal setting, accounting, financial alignment, business growth, lifestyle choice, intentionality, personal goals, societal goals, freedom number, business operations, financial planning, business success, work-life balance, business strategy.
SPEAKERS
Damon Pistulka, Nolan Bradbury
Damon Pistulka 00:08
All right, everyone, welcome once again, the face of business. I’m your host, Damon pistolka, and I am excited for our guest today, because I have Nolan Bradbury here today from Bradfield accounting. We are going to probably not talk much about accounting, but we’re going to be talking about the numbers for increasing business owner freedom. Nolan, thanks for being here today. Pleasure to be here again. Yeah, yeah, repeat offender. So Nolan, for those people that don’t know you tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into what you’re doing today and what you are doing today.
Nolan Bradbury 00:46
Yeah. So by trade, I’m a CPA, so I have those three little letters after my name. I have some other ones too, but doesn’t really amount to a whole lot when it comes to it. I’m very popular at parties, as you can imagine, when you’re an accountant, so I have that going for me as well, and if you’ve stuck with me this long, I appreciate it for for bearing with the the accounting stereotypes that come along. The reality is, though, that while I am a CPA, that is not where I tend to emphasize and work with people. So we work from an accounting perspective, but we work to help make sure that their businesses are actually working for them, rather than the other way around, which I think a lot of people at some point in their career can probably relate to, if you go into business and it is, while the accounting is probably not where you want to spend your time and money and injury energy, I can tell you that ignoring it is going to cost you, and there are some really strong ways that we help people, sort of use accounting and math in a more generic sense, to really help the business get to a place where it’s more in alignment with what they, I think, set out to create when they started.
Damon Pistulka 01:59
Yeah, yeah, that’s great, because I think that a lot of business owners, as as you can attest, they get into business and they, they, there’s a lot of expectations, and it’s, it’s completely not completely different, but it’s much different than what they think once they’re in
Nolan Bradbury 02:17
it a while. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, not all businesses get started the same way, right? But I think for a lot of people, it is a lifestyle choice. They’re doing a job. They’re very good at it. They see an opportunity to go be on their own and make more money. But I think the big allure is to create more freedom, meaning that they get to work with who they want work, how they want work, when they want, where they want all those things, right? But unless you’re very intentional about how you go about setting up and running and growing the business, you are going to probably at some point undermine that dream of freedom. And so you end up getting this disconnect, and you get sort of patches on band aids, on stuff as you try to fix and bridge that disconnect. But a lot of times, it just moves you further away from what you’re trying to accomplish, not intentionally, but because you aren’t really looking at the problem and understanding what the real problem is in most cases. Yeah, I
Damon Pistulka 03:17
agree. I agree 100% so let’s talk a little bit about you. You mentioned that you do accounting, but that maybe not where you spend a lot of your time when you’re working with clients. Let’s talk about that a little bit.
Nolan Bradbury 03:35
Yeah, so, I mean, part of it is acknowledging that people don’t like accounting, right? And so you can’t really lead with something people don’t like, but, but in all seriousness, a lot of it is what you think of when you think accounting right is you think of the tax preparer, you think of the bookkeeper, and those are important, critical roles in any sort of financial conversation. I’m not here to dismiss that or diminish those those importance. But I think for most business owners, when they think about where they feel accounting or finance is letting them down, it isn’t necessarily aligned with what they think they’re getting. And what I mean by that is, fundamentally, when you hire a tax preparer, I think there’s this idea that this person is sitting down, and they’re looking at all your stuff, and they’re figuring out ways to save you a bunch of money, and then they were talking with you about it, and then you have this conversation, you prepare the return, and then all of a sudden, you you pay less, or you you get money back, right? And same thing, like on bookkeeping, like, oh, you know, like they’re looking at my numbers to see, like, Where can I save and how can I do this? And and the reality is that’s not what you paid for. It’s not that they’re not doing a good job. It’s just that there’s a misalignment on what you are signing up for. And so because of that, we’ve tried to address that real problem, which is, what is it that the business owners in particular are really wanting help? It so that it does allow everyone within the business owners, financial world to do what they’re great. If we’re not trying to undermine or take away from any of those players, we’re really just trying to enhance it, make it easier and better for everyone to do the job they have for the client, right? And so a lot of that starts with as it may sound like, what do you actually want? It’s an oddly simple yet incredibly important question that I think if I looked at most business owners calendars, there’s no time in there that’s blocked out for goal setting or dreaming or whatever you want to categorize it as. And I think that’s a real problem. If I’m being honest, I actually think that you are de prioritizing something that is probably one of the most important things in your business, which is not knowing what you want to get
Damon Pistulka 05:55
out of it. Yeah. Yeah. I think and, and honestly, I think when you don’t spend that time to intentionally set the direction, what you want your business to look like, and and then, at least where you’re standing, the steps you’re going to take from where you’re standing today to get there. I think what you find is that the next thing that hits you, the next problem that hits you, the next opportunity that hits you, is where you go. And sometimes you’ll wake up then and you’ll go, I’m way off in left field, and I wanted to be in right field.
Nolan Bradbury 06:27
Yeah, we you end up being reactive to things, as opposed to being the decider of how you want to handle those things right and to your point, like, I think it’s a great analogy of left field versus right field. I often think of it too, as like, if you think of like an ocean liner, if you’re one degree off of where you want to be over time, right, you will be way off course by the time you get to the place you’re supposed to be. It doesn’t take much to throw you way off of where you’re trying to get to. It’s just that if you don’t ever correct yourself, you don’t ever move yourself back to where you’re trying to be, you will just inevitably get further and further away.
Damon Pistulka 07:07
Yes, yes. And I think a lot of times business owners get they’re so busy, and if they don’t have that time in their schedule, just to stop and go, where am I at? Yeah. And how do I adjust where I’m at to keep going the direction I want. They’ll just keep moving whatever way the the world pulls them.
Nolan Bradbury 07:26
Yeah, and, and I say all of this without any judgment or, Oh yeah, shame intended, right? Like, I don’t think I’m better than any I’m guilty of the same things we all are. Yep, it’s more of about just, how do we break that cycle from continuing right? So what are the intentional steps that we can take? And that’s where I come back to which, as silly as it sounds, you need to be intentional about your goal setting. Now I will tell you we were kind of talking about this beforehand. I think what we think of about goals and goal settings is you tend to fall into one or two camps, either Nolan, I know how to goal set. This is a waste of my time or two. I hate goal setting. I don’t want to do it, so I don’t either camp you fall into totally get it. That’s fine, not going to judge you for it. What I think, though, is, if you re position, what goal setting should be, rather than what you’ve probably been taught traditionally it should be, it takes on a different role. So one of the things that can can get people off course when it comes to setting the right goals, and I’ll explain why goals are ultimately really important in a moment, but just to kind of set the stage right. So first is, if you’re anchored to the wrong thing, meaning that, like, the thing you’re trying to achieve isn’t actually what you want. When you achieve it, you’re not going to be happy. Yep, that sounds really silly, but like if you if you achieve the goal, right? So say, you set a goal and you achieve it, but it isn’t the right goal, you’re not going to feel satisfied, and then you’re going to start to pursue more things that are not in align with what you want. And so often times, this is the manifestation of what I kind of refer to as personal goals versus societal goals. So personal goals are ones that are like, they’re true to who you are as an authentic person, like, I want to go own five acres in the woods because I want to be able to disconnect like, that’s a true, authentic goal. A societal goal is more of more a function of you operate in this ecosystem, and this is what is kind of expected of you because of who you are and how you show up. There is nothing wrong with societal goals, so long as they are actually also personal goals. If you’re only doing things for other people that will ultimately let you down, right? And that, that’s where the challenge becomes, right? Is that if you don’t have any real connection to what is actually being a sought then at some point, like it won’t be satisfying. Yep. The second one I would say is that inherently, goals people set are squishy, not to use a very technical term, right? David, yeah, goals meaning that, like you’ll say, I want to make more money, but you. Define what more is to you, right? Or you say you want to buy a vacation house, but you don’t actually quantify what that would take or where you would want it. Or are you going to build, or are you going to buy an existing home like so when you set out to try to accomplish it, your your brain and your heart ultimately have a hard time keeping you focused on it, because you don’t have any real attachment again, to like why you’ve picked it and what it is and how you even would know that you’ve achieved it, right? That’s another place we see people sort of struggle when it comes to goal setting. The other one that we see is that there’s this viewpoint that goals, in and of themselves are the finish line. And what I would challenge you to think of them as instead, think of them as milestones along the journey, meaning that when you reach a goal, you’re not done. Yeah, and that’s a misconception. I think that really throws people for a loop, or can is that they get to the goal and then they go, Great, now what? Right? And so then it’s like, when you retire. I haven’t had this privilege yet, but I’ve heard that like, when you retire, there’s this moment you wake up and go, well, now what do I do? And there’s like, you know, you’re unsure of, like, what the next step is, because everything was working towards this. You never really thought beyond that. Yeah, yeah, right. And so like, you Yes, you accomplish it, congratulations. But now you’ve created an unintentional secondary problem, because you haven’t really moved past that at that place. Yeah, and then I’ll say the last piece, and maybe the most critical, is that for most entrepreneurs or business owners, when they think about goals, they think about it strictly from a business perspective, meaning it’s a revenue target, it’s a profitability target, it’s a higher target, it’s a move into a new office target. Whatever it is, it’s about the business, but they never take the next step and go, how does that fulfill me as an individual? How does that satisfy what my family needs from this business? Right? And when you’re when you do that last step, you’d be amazed at how much more meaningful the achievement of those milestone goals become, because they are actually, again, if you’ve done all the things and you sort of mitigated these areas that I’ve talked about, you get to this place where, when the achievement of that goal comes, it’s much more rewarding. You feel a greater sense of accomplishment, it’s actually probably providing you something that you did truly want, and as a result, you don’t feel the temptation to take on things you don’t need to do. So for me, those are, like the main four areas where I see people the reason why they have a bad relationship with goals is because they haven’t really taken those things into consideration in the way they should.
Damon Pistulka 12:43
So, as you’re working with people, I mean, how many people? So let’s just go way back. How many, when you’re talking if you, if you supposedly talk to 100 people, yeah, how many of them, actually, of those 100, do you think actually set any goals? Ooh, any goals, any goals, any any business personal goals that are, that are other than, you know, the New Year’s kind of jump,
Nolan Bradbury 13:13
I would say, I do think the majority of people set some kind of goal now. I think most of those goals fall into that squishy category, though, meaning that so then so then it becomes like, well, is that a real goal or not? Yes, right? But I do think most people try to, oftentimes, it is a result of something being forced upon them, right? Like, they, you know, maybe they, they got to pay for college tuition. Like, why now I gotta make more money? It’s like, okay, well, yes, that is a goal, but that isn’t necessarily like you set out to go, like, I need to do this intentionally. It’s like, it’s kind of again. It’s being forced upon you because of something that you didn’t necessarily proactively tackle. It’s being more reactive standpoint. I But this, to get to your point, I would say very small percentage of 100 people have clearly defined goals that are linked to something they truly are passionate about, yeah, and that when they achieve them, they feel the sense of satisfaction they thought they would when they set out.
Damon Pistulka 14:19
Well, and this is, this is he said something right there that I think is the key to making it. Because, all right, any goal you set is going to take a lot of work. I don’t care, unless it’s just like, hey, I’m waking up tomorrow.
Nolan Bradbury 14:32
Let’s not get some people that’s a big goal. But yes, I get totally, totally, you know,
Damon Pistulka 14:36
most people, when they’re setting a goal is going to take some work. And I think you said something here, it’s gotta really be connected to something you care deeply about, because then it you will, like you said earlier, you’ll get stay focused, you can and you can turn other things down that’ll take you away from those goals. I think sometimes people go, Oh, I just want to make I need. Want to make more money, even if I. It I want to make $100,000 more. Well, why do I want to make $100,000 more because? Is it just because, because, or is it because
Nolan Bradbury 15:09
I want to buy my mother a new car, or my wife a new car or something? You know, there’s just a lot more meaning in the way that you that, if there’s something behind it. Yeah, I was listening to, and I’m drawing a blank on who this was. I wish I could remember, because I want to attribute this to him, but they, they made a very profound, in my opinion, statement around goals. So not my idea, but I think it’s really poignant, which was the greatest obstacle you will face in achieving your own success. Of your goal is take, is following the path of a lesser goal, meaning that, like, it oftentimes isn’t something that we can’t control that prevents us from reaching where we want to be. It’s actually being on the wrong path and exerting our time and our energy and our resources to something that isn’t the real thing. And I just think that is so spot on to your point, right? Which is that, like, I know it sounds like I’m belaboring this point, and I probably am right. The horse is probably beaten to death at this stage, but it is, I cannot stress how important it is in the foundation of having a successful business, both in the present and for the future, right? You need to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, so that you can actually know what to do. And to me, a core piece of that is understanding what do you need to get out of this business, both financially and from a lifestyle standpoint? Yeah, it does no good to make a ton of money if you can’t do live the life you want with it. And so the other piece, and so whereas we sort of follow this path, right? Is so after you’ve made goals like the problem then becomes as well, is that if you aren’t designing things appropriately, you will find yourself in a position where you’re sacrificing one or the other, and then you have things out of balance, right, which is you’re working so hard to make all this money at the expense of your family and your interaction with friends and family, or sometimes you take your foot so off, far off the pedal to enjoy life, that you stop making the money necessary to keep enjoying life. Yeah. Well, you know, like you’re basically you’re, in one case, you’re either robbing today for tomorrow, or you’re robbing tomorrow for today. And in an ideal state, we don’t want either of those choices. We want to be able to have a situation where both can be supported holistically, to use a buzzword, in a way that, like both can be achieved.
Damon Pistulka 17:31
Yeah, that’s a great point, because you see, I mean, you see people on both sides of that all the time and and some that you. And the funny thing is, and I was back up, because that funny thing is, people look at successful people and go, Wow, that’d be awesome. And then they look, if they knew some, some of these successful people, they’d realize that that’s, it’s a hollow shell, right? And then you see other successful people, and they do have the complete package. And you can, you can tell in the way they talk, you can tell in the way they interact with people, that there’s something different about that. Yeah, and consequently, you might see someone on the beach and you say, those people are, man, they got it. They’re just doing whatever and and they really aren’t. And it’s, it’s, it’s interesting, I think when you look at that and really peel the onion, what you find underneath
Nolan Bradbury 18:26
100% agree with that. I think the most successful people I’ve come across are those who are confident, but not the reason you think they’re confident. They’re confident because they know what they want and why they want it. And so it makes it makes the filtering of all of the noise and distractions much easier, because you don’t run into the temptation of getting sucked into something that isn’t actually what you want or need, right? And so I think that’s important, because I have found this to be the case. I have no evidence, no empirical evidences, but like when you say definitively, either inside or outside, that like, this is what I want, and I’m going to go and achieve it. I think your brain does inherently start to kind of filter that out on its own for you. Like, I think it does start. It’s like, you know, there’s that phenomenon about, like, where when you see, when you buy a car, you start seeing that car more regularly, right? It’s not because anything changed, it’s because you’re more aware of that thing that existing out in the universe. The same is true for goals, right? If you know what you want, you become more aware of the things that exist in your environment that are going to help you achieve that. That there is science to that. And so I think that that that is an element that, like, you can say, like, oh, well, goals don’t mean anything. It’s like, but if you’re really intentional about what you’re trying to accomplish, like, it is going to help lead you on the path towards being successful. And so then it becomes about, well, how do you actually define success? Because that is a real question that people can struggle with, right? We joked about not having time on your calendar, but the reality is that for most people, they they don’t know where to start, like they and so this. Is where I want to sort of provide some food for thought for people about how they can take this on for themselves, right? So you’re sitting there going, like, yeah, I can relate to this. Like I or you, you’re acknowledging that, like, you could do a better job of bullshitting. What I would tell you is you gotta know two things. You gotta know where you’re at and where you want to get to. Okay, this is, like, if you open up Google Maps, it’s going to ask you two questions. Can ask you, where do you want to start and where do you want to get to? Get to? And then after that, there’s a bunch of preferences, right? It’s like, yeah, Want to take Metro. Do you want to avoid highways? Do you want to take carpool? Right? That is the same idea. So you have to be able to clearly define what your lifestyle looks like. Now, for a lot of people, they don’t know how to do that. So what I encourage people to do is quantify how you’re spending your household inflows, meaning like, what is the outflow of your house and where are you spending that? I don’t mean you need to get into the nitty gritty. You don’t have to account for every penny on an average month, though, where does your money go? Because that is what you value as your lifestyle. You may not, you may not like it, but that is that. That is, in fact, how you value and live your life, because that is a reflection of where you’re spending your money. Right from that, then I would tell you to augment what your lifestyle wants to be. And I don’t just mean cut back. I would actually encourage you to spend more in the places that are most meaningful for you. So if right now, you’re spending a nominal amount on travel, but you want to be able to travel more, well, be honest about it, put down a bigger number that you want to achieve, because there is no point in designing a system or business if when you execute on that plan, it doesn’t provide you the actual life you want, right? We’re not trying to solve for okay, we’re trying to solve for ideal and so like, you’ve have to be able to be honest with yourself out what that wants. And for a lot of people, because of society, I would say we are hesitant to be honest about what we want. We’re gun shy. We don’t want to seem selfish or greedy. And I tell you, go for it like this is your life. Like if you want to spend you want to allocate $3,000 a month to travel do it, there’s nothing wrong with that, right? You’re not hurting anyone else. You’re not like, Damon, like, long as everything is there, like, go for it. And when you start to give yourself that permission, and you start to quantify what that looks like for you, right? Meaning that, like, okay, so if I say it’s, you know, 3000 a month, that means I’m, I want to spend 36,000 a year on travel. What does that really mean? Is that two trips for you is that three trips that are 12,000 like, Get serious about why you’re picking the numbers and how you’re improving that life, right? And then what you’re going to find is you have a new number, and I call this the freedom number. It’s the number you need each month to live the life you want to live.
Damon Pistulka 22:39
Ah, yes. So you, you figure out where you want to put your money in your buckets each month, and then figure out what that total comes up to. Then you’re then you’ve got your freedom number.
Nolan Bradbury 22:52
And I will tell, I tell everyone this, I do not care how you spend your money. You want to buy $100,000 worth of Legos every month. Go for it. I There’s no judgment from this side. What I will tell you, though, is that once you figure that out, then we can get really critical about how the business is operating and where it needs to change to provide you that number in a way that you want to do. Because I said both pieces have to be true. You have to be able to provide financially, but you also have to do in a way that’s in alignment with you. Yeah, it’s not a plan to go, I’m going to work 70 hours a week to earn the number I want. That’s not a good plan. Okay, yeah, we want to design something that is both reasonable and you’re going to stick to and so that becomes the next piece is now we know what we’re solving for right now we have this equation. Now we know what the endpoint needs to look like, Okay, well, let’s work backwards and figure out you have this asset that is your business. How does it provide that for your family? And that’s where we spend the most time with our clients. Is helping them get really intentional about that. It’s not just, oh, you need another client. It’s what type of client, how much are they going to pay you? Who’s doing the work? What does it cost to fulfill that work and really taking it down so that they know what their actions are? Because the next step is about being accountable to the things you need to do to get those outcomes. Because if we don’t define and hold ourselves accountable to it, we’re going to end up repeating past mistakes, which is we’re getting distracted by shiny objects where you get sucked into things we don’t need to spend time and money on. And we’re going to stay we’re going to drift off that one degree, yeah, our steam liner, right? And then suddenly we’re gonna be like, Why? Why am I not where I want to be? It’s like, well, because you’re not actually doing the things that we agreed you needed to do to get the outcome you wanted.
Damon Pistulka 24:37
Yeah, yeah. That’s awesome. That’s awesome. It’s a great way to lay it out too, because it starts with, you know, goals linked to something that’s really important to you, and then going through the process of understanding, where am I, where am I spending my time and money, and what does it look like in my ideal situation, and then going and making. That happen?
Nolan Bradbury 25:00
Yeah. And so this is where, you know, when we started, I was like, Well, I am a CPA, and I do use accounting, but not in a way you probably think of, right? And this is kind of what I’m getting at, is we do use accounting, like the fundamentals of how your P, L and balance sheet operate are critical to the designing of your business, right? Like we can’t just sort of willy nilly throw numbers at the spreadsheet and hope it works like there is an intentionality to that, but also layered into it is a very, my opinion, important piece of like, understanding the psychology of why we’re doing what we’re doing, and how does that fit into who you are, and are you happy with that? And because when all those things start to fall into alignment, believe it or not, all the work gets a lot easier. Yeah, like, you know, people talk about flow. That’s really what we’re talking about. Imagine flow at like, the 40,000 foot level, not just at like, you’re doing a basic task, and you feel flow. Imagine like the entire business you own is operating flow. That’s what we’re trying to get to, right, where everything is harmoniously working together, and the only way we can do that is to know that the outcome it’s producing is the ideal outcome. And so that’s how we get there. Yeah,
Damon Pistulka 26:10
yeah, that’s cool. That is very cool.
Nolan Bradbury 26:14
And, oh, sorry, I’m just gonna say, just to sort of take it one next step further, right, which is it? This is where, that’s how we solve for like, not sacrificing today for tomorrow. But how do we not sacrifice tomorrow for today, which is, well, if you build a business that inherently is, so I’ll say, secure in what it does that, then it becomes extremely attractive to other people when you’re when it’s time to move on, because people don’t. Some people like to buy fixer uppers, right? You think about it, everyone. Some people love a distressed asset. Some people love to flip a house. Most people like to buy a house, move into it and live in it. Yeah. You think about your business, the same idea applies, right? You see this all great example, right? Like most business owners are buying a business, not to spend, not to throw themselves into the business, to fix all of your problems, and if they are, you’re going to pay, you’re going to get a discounted like payout for that. So if you’re able to sort of solve both in the moment, then now you’ve created an asset for both today, and that you get to live a life that is in alignment with what you want, but you also get this thing that at some point will probably produce additional payout for you, that when it’s time you have an actual asset, not just a business, because those are not the same thing. They can be, but they are not always the same thing.
Damon Pistulka 27:36
That is for sure. That is for sure because that it’s ran into it a couple of weeks ago. Very profitable business that was not going to be profitable or desirable by anyone else. And it happens like that,
Nolan Bradbury 27:51
yeah, yeah. So then it either gets stripped apart or nobody wants it and the door closed one day, right,
Damon Pistulka 27:57
yeah, yeah. I just, they just go to close down a lot of them, because that that you know, you can create a very unique business around your skill set. And it can be eight figures, nine figures, even, and and still, is not something that someone else can take over because of your key to that business. It just, it just won’t. How would someone else duplicate the revenue and the success? Yeah, yeah,
Nolan Bradbury 28:24
yeah. So, yeah, go ahead. Well, I was just going to say to tie in sort of that we were talking about AI a little bit before That’s right. So yeah, part of that can be, I think, as we move forward, like, not necessarily a genic but like, how do you design, how do you design the bot, if you will, right, the the underlying code to replicate as much of you as possible, so that it does so that’s another thing that, like a lot of things we’re working with clients on now, is so you do all these things, but how do you remove as many of those? And you can train AI to do those for you, such that you can then do more of the thing that is only something you can do. And I mean that in a good way, right? Meaning that, like, it’s something that, like at your skill set exists. Because I think that does give you, not only higher scalability, right, but it also gives you greater ability to survive the tsunami wave that is coming of information being no longer the thing that differentiates?
Damon Pistulka 29:21
Yes, yeah, I think you’re exactly right there. And when you can work on the most critical parts and let other people, other systems, handle the rest of it, and you’re and use your superpowers, that’s, that’s where you do make the most successful businesses? Yeah, yeah. So what do you like the most about helping people do this? So
Nolan Bradbury 29:51
it’s funny when I, when I started out, and I’m going to date myself, I think it’s almost 25 years ago in accounting. You know, I was in public accounting, and a lot of what you do, it’s just compliance for. It’s like, yeah, people paying you to do something they don’t want you there in the first place to do just so they can do something else with their business, right? That that’s a larger part of what it is, yeah? And as silly as it sounds, I remember coming home being like, nothing I do here is like, I can tell my parents, like, Hey, this is what I did today, right? Like, it doesn’t mean anything to them, like, I can tell my friends. And so I moved on, and I went to private. But the same exists. The same issue existed, just from the other side, right? Doing this, as cutesy as it may sound like when I get off the call with someone and we’ve had a breakthrough on what they want, or what they want their business to want, or how they’re going to do it, it’s like, the greatest high in the world. Like it truly is a moment of, like, I can, I’ve, it’s like mom strength, like I feel like I’d lift a car, like it is just an amazing sense of status, satisfaction and and that sounds selfish, and I suppose it is, on some level, but like, knowing that you, you helped this person unlock something for themselves. Yes, I don’t know how it gets better than that. Quite honestly, it’s, it’s and because you’re not, you’re not doing it for them, like you’re helping them do it for themselves. And so it’s like, even more, I think, intrinsic to who they are, because they don’t just feel like someone told them to go to this. It’s like they helped get there with you, and that, it’s like, the greatest partnership that it just, it’s amazing, like, I truly do love it.
Damon Pistulka 31:25
Yes, yes. So what do you think some of the I’m not, I’m gonna use the right word, reasons. I’ll just use reasons why, why people don’t take the time to really think about, hey, where am I going, and what are my goals?
Nolan Bradbury 31:46
It’s the the answer I come away with is, it’s not that they don’t think it’s important, but it’s not urgent. And so everyone then focuses on the urgent matters that are getting the most attention in front you know, like we all know we need wills and estate planning, and yet it’s like the bottom of the list of things that we need to do, right? Because it doesn’t feel urgent, right? Like we don’t, and I don’t mean this like to sound more, but like we don’t think we’re going to die immediately, right? So it doesn’t feel like I need to deal with it. It’s like, Well, this has to be done tomorrow, so I got to do that before I can do this. And I completely understand and respect that there are priorities that, like, Well, I do have to get this done, right? Like I gotta pay people tomorrow. Like, that has to be done. But if every day you wake up and you’re constantly putting out the urgent, either important or unimportant task, right, then the less urgent but maybe more important thing never gets addressed. And I think that this is fundamentally why it ends up never getting handled.
Damon Pistulka 32:49
Yes, less that was great. What you just said, The because the urgent but not important are filling your day you overlook or don’t get the less urgent but much more important things done. Yeah, that’s awesome, because it’s true, right? You made a great example, and on wills and other things like that. We, we don’t, you know, we don’t go, oh, yeah, I probably should do that, because you never know. We go, wow, you know
Nolan Bradbury 33:20
that. So I will share something with you that you people will laugh at what I’m about to say. And this is 100% true. If my clients are listening to this, they will attest to the fact that I do say this to them, which is quite often the advice I give them is to go take a nap or go for a walk. And it’s because, to me, the problem you’re actually running into is that you’re so caught up in what you have to get done that you’ve never given yourself the space to breathe and actually assess, like, what is going on. And so a lot of them have actually come around to this, like, yeah, you know, I took your advice, and I took a nap the other day, and I, like, 15 minutes later, I was like, Oh, I know exactly what to do. And again, it’s, it sounds like silly advice coming from an accountant, but I will tell you that, like, it’s critical. Like you, you can’t just keep doing the same thing. You can’t just keep tackling this thing that, like is, it’s, it’s like email, it will just keep coming. There will. There is no shortage of things that are unimportant and seemingly urgent. And so if you, if that’s how you’re tackling or running your business, you’re gonna, you know, wear yourself out, quite honestly, like you gotta, you gotta focus, re you gotta reposition, even if it doesn’t seem possible,
Damon Pistulka 34:31
yes, yes. Well, yes, you talk about this. And I want to say, from a personal experience, I was one of those people five, six years ago,
34:41
right? Guilty as charged. Yeah, 100%
Damon Pistulka 34:45
but now people think I’m crazy because I take walks every day, and sometimes it’s two hours, sometimes it’s two it’s a long time. And do I talk on the phone? Very much. Nope. Do I listen to music all the time? Nope. Might listen to a book once in a while. It’s just because that time, like you said, away from everything, letting your mind just do whatever, yeah, but not anything intentionally, right? Your subconscious is solving things.
Nolan Bradbury 35:16
So where do people say they do their best thinking the show and the shower right now? Why is that? It’s because the only thing in there for most people is water running, and you’re doing a routine task that you’re probably not thinking that hard about. And so what have you created inherently in your day space? It may be the only space you give yourself in a day is that five minutes in the shower. Well, that’s kind of what you and I are talking about, right? Like, yes, taking a walk is just like taking a shower, only it’s more intentional. And for a longer period of time I had, I had to learn the hard way to plot like I now on Fridays, I basically leave my afternoon unscheduled. It is for me to just decompress, quite honestly, to focus on, wrap some things up, maybe, but more importantly, work on the business. What are the things that like I wanted to get to but didn’t get to for the week? What were the ideas I had that didn’t go anywhere like that? Time is for that, and I can’t tell you how important it is for me, my psychological state of being, and for the business, quite honestly, because it’s, yes, it’s the if I don’t do that, it’s like, not working out. It’s like, Man, I regret it. Like, oh, you know, yeah, I was tired, but I feel better if I went and went and did a run. Like, I just would, like, it’s the same thing. I feel better. I gave myself that time to think,
Damon Pistulka 36:35
yes, and I read it a number of years ago now, where it talked about the the more you move up in leadership in business, or as you own your own business, the more you need to take time away from what you do, just to let your mind and your and your your body and everything reset and do what it needs to do. And I think that, like you said, if we focus on the urgent. It’ll keep us busy and just keep coming. And it’ll take everything you we can give it as a business owner, but if we can step back and say, No, I’m going to take this time to really, as you talked about, focus in let my mind think about what I what I really want, and then come back, yeah, and do that goal setting, like you talked about, we can, we can mean and do meaningful things.
Nolan Bradbury 37:26
Yes, 100% and so one thing I will, I know we’re kind of coming up, right? One thing I wanted to share with people is, you know, if, if, as you’re thinking about what we talked about, like it is the hardest thing, I always think, is the starting, right? Starting anything is always the hardest part, right? And so if, again, if you think that, like, what we talked about was meaningful and it could help you, but you’re having difficulty starting, like, reach out. I have a free little like spreadsheet I can give you. It’s not like our full, robust version that we take people through, but it, it can serve as a starting point for you to sort of like, how do I, how do I put some thoughts down in paper and like, start to, like, work through this? Because, again, I know blank pages is the worst place, right? It’s just like, right? It’s like, having that there. I mean, whether you’ve tried to write a book, or you want to write a book or never want to write a book, like, if you go into it and you go like, hey, I want to write a book by the end of the year, and the other person goes, like, I’m going to write for 90 minutes each day, like one of those people is going to be successful. And it wasn’t the first one. I said, Yeah, right. And all it is is because you created boundaries and intentionality, and you gave yourself a place to start, and you gave yourself some permission to just do this thing without really overthinking it or trying to do more than that, you’ll find that once you get progress going, right, it will breed more progress for
Damon Pistulka 38:43
yourself. Yes, yes, exactly, exactly, awesome, awesome. Well, Nolan, it’s been great having you here today, and I love the conversation about goal setting and about how you guys are helping people really a first of all, step away. Get clear on where they want to go with their business and their life. Yep, bring those goals together and then work down the road to execute them with good accounting behind it to make sure you are making, doing, creating the
Nolan Bradbury 39:16
results you want Exactly. Yep, it’s it’s the best, it’s the most rewarding work I’ve done, and I love doing it. I love helping people. It’s, yeah, it’s incredibly satisfying.
Damon Pistulka 39:26
Awesome, awesome. Well, if someone gets wants to get a hold of you, where and what is, how do they do
Nolan Bradbury 39:32
that? Yeah. So you can go to our website, Bradfield CO, ceo.com, and learn more about her. From there, if you want to learn more about sort of like the specific sort of process we talked about, there’s a website called numbers for freedom.com which kind of really isn’t a larger overview of, like the problems we talked about and why they can kind of exist, and that kind of helps explain things better. And you want to just reach out to us. You can reach out to me at nolan@bradfieldco.com, or. Uh, I am not a bot. I’m a real human. So please be gentle with your emails. But yeah, reach out to us. And you know what I always tell people is, whether I can help you or not, I will give you something, hopefully, that you can take the next step with whether it’s with me or with someone else. So feeling stuck, if you’re not sure where to start, maybe that’s the first step you can take and sort of help get you on
Damon Pistulka 40:21
your way. Awesome, awesome. Well, thanks for being here today, Nolan again. We had Nolan Bradbury here today, and we were talking about the numbers for increasing business owner, owner freedom. And wow, just a masterclass on how to go back to the beginning and really set some meaningful goals and then how how to execute and just move your business the way that you really want it to be going. So thank you. Thank you. All right, well, I want to say thank you to everyone who’s out there listening. Hey, we appreciate you. If you got into this late, go back to the beginning, because you want to hear Nolan from the beginning listening to his goal setting, tips and thoughts. They were awesome. We will be back again. Thanks, everyone. Nolan will finish up offline. Great. Bye. Everyone. Bye.
