“Everyone says, “I’m doing it for my kids, I’m doing it for my kids” and that was a story I told myself for a long time, like, you know, providing for my family, blah, blah, blah, got to work hard, and all that type of stuff. But now I’ve kind of just embraced slowing down and just feels good to not be, you know, on hustle street all the time, and just enjoying things a little bit more.”
Dale Beaumont | Business Blueprint
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We all know the early years of being a business parent are an impossible struggle.
The late nights up with kids, the early mornings trying to build your business.
But what happens when your business is a success, your kids are teenagers and you want to shift gears and enjoy life a little more?
When you’ve been ‘go go go’ for a long time and told yourself the story that you’re working hard for your kids, how do you know if now is the right time to stop, take stock and start enjoying life a little?
I’m talking to one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs about the challenges of being a younger dad, working with his partner, powering through productivity and mastering his money.
But we also dig deeper into why many business-owning parents feel they’re not good enough, push themselves too hard and fail to prioritise their health and well-being.
This is just a fabulous podcast episode with someone who I personally admire hugely.
I think you’re going to love it.
Tune in to learn:
- Dale’s mindset towards business and family
- Why we fall into the martyr trap in our business choices
- Dale’s parenting style
- How Dale shifted from focusing on success to focusing on joy
- Challenges Dale has faced as a young parent
- Dale’s biggest productivity tactic
- How Dale handles his financials
Listen to the podcast
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About Dale Beaumont
Dale Beaumont is an Award-Winning Entrepreneur, International Speaker and Author of 19 Best-Selling books. He started his first business at the age of 19 and has been building companies ever since.
One of those companies is now a multimillion-dollar enterprise, which has enabled Dale to become an avid investor, charity supporter and travel with his wife Katherine and two sons to more than 85 different countries. As a result of his success, Dale has been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post, Business Insider, Gizmodo and GQ, just to name a few.
Fun fact: Dale was the National Junior Aerobics Champion in a former life.
Connect with Dale Beaumont
Buy the book
Transcript
Kate Toon:
We all know the early years of being a business parent are an impossible struggle.
The late nights up with kids, the early mornings trying to build your business.
But what happens when your business is a success, your kids are teenagers and you want to shift gears and enjoy life a little more?
When you’ve been ‘go go go’ for a long time and told yourself the story that you’re working hard for your kids, how do you know if now is the right time to stop, take stock and start enjoying life a little?
I’m talking to one of Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs about the challenges of being a younger dad, working with his partner, powering through productivity and mastering his money.
But we also dig deeper into why many business-owning parents feel they’re not good enough, push themselves too hard and fail to prioritise their health and well-being.
This is just a fabulous podcast episode with someone who I personally admire hugely.
I think you’re going to love it.
Hello, my name is Kate toon. I’m the founder of stay tuned, a busy business owner and an okayish parent. And today I’m talking with Dale Beaumont. Hello, Dale.
Dale Beaumont:
Hello, Kate. Hello. Hello
Kate Toon:
Dale is looking super glamorous today. I’m going to talk about that with him on the podcast because I look utterly bedraggled. I’m so glad we don’t have video for this podcast. But for those of you who do not know who Dale Beaumont is, you must have been living under a sock. Dale Bowman is an award-winning entrepreneur, international speaker and author of 19 Yes, 19 bestselling books. He started his first business at the age of 19 and has been building companies ever since. One of those companies is now a multimillion-dollar enterprise which has enabled Dale to become an avid investor charity supporter and traveled with his wife Catherine and two sons to more than 85 different countries. As a result of his success. Dale has been featured in Forbes, The Huffington Post Business Insider, Gizmodo and GQ. Good Lord, just name a few. Fun fact Dale was a national junior aerobics champion in a former life. Oh my goodness, I did not know this. Can you do backflips?
Dale Beaumont:
I can do backflips I can do handstands, I can walk down stairs on my hands. I know be amazing. Like I haven’t, you know, competed in 25 years. But it’s just one of those things like I probably do it on no for fun once a month, like just do a handstand. I could do one right now. But just because you’re just doing it like a little bit every now and again. Your body just kind of like goes oh yeah, I can do that. So that’s my kind of like challenge is to try and you know, do do something like you know, every month so that way you never forget how to do it.
Kate Toon:
Well, maybe that’s why you look so perky. I mean, I’m the sort of person who makes the noise when they bend over to pick the remote control up off the floor. You know, that kind of noise? No, I’m not I did deadlifts today, I’m getting back into my fitness. I’m nearly 50. And I’m like, not going to go gently into the night. I’m gonna Yeah, keep pushing, keep pushing.
Dale Beaumont:
I remember seeing like a video of this guy who was I think in his 90s. And he was like that 100 metre champion for sprinting. And he’s not it is in his age age group. And he had this mental philosophy that I think was so awesome. He’s like, whatever I can do. Today, I’m going to make sure I can do it tomorrow. And it was just whether it was doing like 10 Push ups, he just had this mindset of I’m just going to whatever I can do tomorrow, I can do today. Or I could do yesterday I can do today. And so he just was like continued like that. That’s why you see like some 60 year olds that are kind of on walkers and you see other 60 year olds that are, you know, got like abs and just super fit. Because, you know, one person just decided, Oh, I’m gonna stop doing that now. And the other person just said, No, I’m just gonna keep doing it no matter what.
Kate Toon
I love that. I mean, mindset is everything in business in life and family. I want to dig into that today. Because you know, that’s something that I think that you exemplify, and you pass on to all your members and people at your events. But before we dig into it, just so people understand. Can you tell us a little bit about you, your family life? Like how old are you how old your kids just so we get a bit of context?
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, 41 I started out in business when I was 19. So what’s that 22 years ago, I at the same time at y now wife, Catherine. So we started dating when I was 19. I got married when I was 23 when I was 26 became a dad. So I’ve now got a 15 year old and also a 12 year old as well. So we now have a group of businesses that we have of eight, soon to be nine different companies. And along the way, were raising two kids and trying to kind of, you know, do business and life and, you know, relationships and everything in between. So yeah, we can talk a bit about, you know, my philosophies on some of that stuff. And what we’ve done well, where we’ve struggled. And so yeah, happy to be share.
Kate Toon:
Wow, I mean, look, you have to admit you’re a bit of an overachiever. Come on, we’ll just take a minute there. 22 years you’ve done so much. So many books, so many things. I remember I met you a couple of years ago, I was awhile ago now. And I’d literally left the meeting room and said to my friend Good grief, like that was my first comment, good grief, who is this person? He makes me feel like I’ve achieved nothing. But you know, I’m sure there’s been compromises and challenges along the way. My son is 14 And one of the reasons I wanted to get you on the pod today was you know, you do do a lot you have worked really hard and But you recently put a post up on LinkedIn about how you were going to take a little bit of a change of direction you were going to maybe reduce the number of events that you ran. And because you wanted to spend more time with your kids, and I think it’s funny, because people think that the early years are the super intense years, but I’m really finding that these teenagers are a my son is old enough to kind of do stuff with and be this is kind of it’s a more subtle kind of support that’s needed. So what prompted that decision for you to make that change? And what does that change look like?
Dale Beaumont:
Yes, so I’m, like, everyone says, I’m doing it for my kids, I’m doing it for my kids. And then and especially as they die, the kind of like the breadwinner, and, you know, I told that story to myself, you know, a long time, like, you know, providing for my family, you know, blah, blah, blah, got to work hard, and all that type of stuff, you know, but having kind of now and I’m not saying, you know, I’m done, and I can, you know, maybe financially I can retire, but I’m still got lots I want to do and achieve in life, but it’s just like, at what point do you choose to slow down? Or just take a pause, or just go look, I’m just gonna rest for a while, like, Why does life have to be, this is just for me for my story. And it’s not everyone else’s story. But I was, I was a gymnast. And I was like a high achiever. And it was Go, go go, and more and more and more, like, every, every day, every kind of moment was pushing. And that when I transitioned from sport to business, I just took that same philosophy, and it made me successful. But it also meant that I kind of had the sacrifice to give up on a lot of things. Like, for example, I’ve always, always wanted to play soccer, I didn’t play soccer for 20 years. Because my excuse was, you know, I was, you know, working hard in the business or I was, you know, looking after the family. So a lot of stuff, I just like pushed to the side. And then one of the things that kind of helped inspire me is reading this book, it’s called die with zero, I’m holding up to the camera right now, just Google die with zero, you’ll find it by a guy called Bill Perkins. And it basically just sort of said, there’s certain things that you just can’t do at certain stages of your life, like, you probably can’t play a decent level of soccer when you’re 60. So I couldn’t have that excuse for the next 20 years of I was working hard on growing my stack higher and higher, making more money. But then all of a sudden, you’ve got all this money, and you know, your kids are kind of grown up. And now I want to spend time with you. It’s like, well, they’re already gone. I want to play soccer, well, now your knees aren’t really that good. And now I want to kind of do that, well, you know, you really don’t have the energy. And so it’s really about going, you know what I can I can always do more businesses later on, I can always make more money anytime I want to. So let me just go into kind of like chill mode for a while, you know, kind of like sports mode in your car, you have Race mode, sometimes, then you just go kind of comfort mode. And it’s nothing wrong with it. I’ve actually I felt like a bit of a failure. So that was a story which we can unpack but felt like a failure, but going slow, or for going into comfort mode thinking that I was, you know, being like, you know that I was stupid, or selfish or whatever, for just going slow. But now I’ve kind of just embraced it and just feels good to not be, you know, on hustle street all the time, and just sort of enjoying things a little bit more.
Kate Toon:
Yeah, I’m so interested in that, because I’m very similar. You know, I’m absolutely not a sporting person, but very much somebody that pushes themselves and it can be all stick and no carrot, you know, like, and as you said, it’s a story you tell yourself, I was brought up to work hard, you know, I am the breadwinner, as well. And, you know, there can be this kind of concern that there’s, you know, when is enough money, like when do I have enough money and I love that you mentioned the bill Perkins book. Another kind of reference I love is, you know, building a CV life versus building a eulogy life, you know, and I’ve focused a lot on my CV, you know, I’ve spoken at this place, and I’ve done this number. And then you look at your eulogy life, and that’s gonna be like, who your friends what did your family think of you? You know, like, how many trees Did you plan? Were you good at soccer? And I think it’s a real shift that having made that change. You mentioned that you felt quite challenged by that. How have you unpack that? Because if you’re somebody that has prided themselves on productivity told himself that story, it’s a hard shift to make, isn’t it?
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, it like it is because like, like, what happened was that with regards to this little bit of my you know, doing some counseling here, I never normally talk about this stuff, but I was like, I’m fairly high level gymnast, but I was was not kind of good enough to if I go to the Olympics, or world championships or anything like like, like that. And so I did have this kind of like, you know, the seed that was planted like, you know, in sport like you’re good, but you is not good enough, you know, and there’s always people that are better than you. And so therefore my kind of antidote to that was I’m just going to work really hard. And I was just have to, I’m just going to prove to myself prove to everyone, you know, that I was actually, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs actually, you know, they they do have some type of belief that they are somehow, like, in its own a bad way, but they believe that they’re kind of better than other other other people. But they also believe that, you know, that they’re somehow they’re sort of like not good enough, or they have to work harder, or they have to kind of overcompensate. And so that was me for a long period of time just driven, just driven in for the sake of being driven and just wanting to, you know, prove something to I don’t know, who like, really,
Kate Toon:
and we try to prove it to it’s so funny, because I’m saying, like, you know, I think I’m smart, I think I’m capable. But I also fundamentally, deep down, think I’m not enough, and that therefore, I have to keep pushing and pushing and pushing, and no one cares. You know, I realized I was I read, I was reading something the other day, and it’s like, you know, there you are driving along in your Lamborghini. I mean, I drive a Mazda two, but it’s not the same, you know, and people look at you, and they are impressed now, like, look at that dude, in a Lamborghini. I’m not saying you have a Lamborghini, but really, they’re not impressed by you. They are imagining themselves in the Lamborghini, you’re actually utterly insignificant. You know, I mean, I do look at you, and I admire what you’ve done, and it inspires me, some people, you get jealous of other people, you’re inspiring. But my admiration, you don’t know that I don’t bring you up every day and go Dell, you’re awesome. And even if I did, you wouldn’t care. After a week, you’d be like, Kate, can you stop ringing me? So who are we trying to prove it to it’s so confusing?
Dale Beaumont:
Exactly. Like you’re, you know, maybe introduce yourself fine. But your parents, parents don’t care, like my mom and dad don’t really even understand what I do anyway. So they just happy, they just love when I, you know, come over and spend time with them. So they’re the easiest to please. And then you kids, your kids aren’t really that impressed by that didn’t really care at all, you know, what you’ve done and what you’ve achieved. So yeah, your friends, well, your friends just want to hang out with you, or they just want to talk shit with you or do whatever they want. You know, they don’t care how many books you’ve written or whatever. So yeah, it’s just like that whole thing, I’m not good enough, I have to, you know, try harder, I have to do more, you know, and even that sort of concept as well of one day, the money is kind of going to run out. Or I remember going to the supermarket with my grandfather, he and it’s different because he grew up in that post world war two kind of era where, like, he used to cut out the clippings from when it comes to coupons. Yeah. And we used to go to buy like cornflakes. And we buy like, 14 boxes. And that’s all he eat for six months. Because, you know, he was able to save $2 A box or things like that. And so that that sort of stuff goes in to your head as a kid when you’re pushing around the shopping trolley with your, you know, your granddad, but, you know, like me even a look at the amount of money that I have sort of now, and it’s just like, oh, you know, kind of like, stop, because what about the money runs us like, Yeah, but you’re not gonna stop like, you’ve done this. And you can do it again, anytime you like, and you can you can make money at will. And if you have to, you know, you could do anything. So why are you so worried about if it’s all going to disappear? Or, you know, what are you going to do? Like, you know, it’s just silly, it really is just that, that kind of silly voice that’s going on inside your head. And sometimes you just need to just tell it to shut up and just,
Kate Toon:
yeah, exactly. The stories, the stories we tell ourselves and then recurring little voice in our head, the inner critic, blah, blah, blah. And I think you know, it does take, you know, you’re 41 I’m 40, nearly 49. And it’s taken me till now to be able to sit back and look at me myself. And I like, oh, look, look at me doing that. That’s interesting. Why am I doing that to be able to separate, you know, my myself from myself, my ego from my ID, and observe my behavior with a comical grin. Because I still do stupid stuff, I still will set myself up to be like, wow, you know, even with this book, yeah, everyone else takes a year to write a book, I’m gonna write it in two months, because then I’ll be better than everybody else. And I’ll be amazing. No one cares. All it happened was I stress myself out, you know, so I still do it. And I still watch myself. But I think it takes a while to get to that level of being able to examine all these things and this mindset stuff, don’t you? Like I couldn’t have done this at 25 I was totally unsettled.
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, exactly. And I think you have to go down a path far enough to kind of go well, there’s nothing there, you know, and I’m going to go in a different direction. So yeah, I sort of got to that sort of point where I’ve, you know, turned 40. And it was just like, and we can talk later on about sort of health and looking after your kind of like body. But I just came to this point whereby you know, my mic kids are old enough now where they’re, you know, fairly sort of like self sufficient. And I couldn’t use the excuse for the next 10 years to say I’m, I’m running around for my kids, I’m doing it for my kids, I’m working hard for my kids, but really, you know, they don’t really care. And also, that I think what I do in the next is my philosophy, and where the story that I’ve told myself, which is, I think, a good one, but what I do in the next 10 years, is going to determine whether I’m going to live to 7080 90 or 100, you know, just looking after my kind of health and preserving my youth and also doing things that I’ve always didn’t, you know, I thought was kind of indulgent. And I thought it was time wasting, you know, why play a game of golf, when you could, you know, write 10 emails to make more money, you know, something silly like that. But I’m kind of at the point where you just, you have a different I call, like you’re optimizing your business or optimizing your life for different things, you know, the beginning of optimizing for like validation? Like, will anyone buy what I’m selling? And then after that, it’s like, okay, can I make money. So now I’m going to actually optimize for revenue. But then if you’re making a whole bunch of money and spending it, then you start optimizing for profit. And then you can also optimize for leverage a whole bunch of other things. I’ve got this whole kind of presentation that I gave, but on this subject, but one of them is just optimizing for joy optimizing for us. So like, what actually is going to bring me joy today, or in this moment? Or what am I going to enjoy doing? And irrespective of how much money kind of like makes, if it’s going to bring me kind of joy, then I’m going to do it. And for a long time, I wouldn’t allow myself to do that. Because I would just force myself to suffer and just take the hard route every single time. It’s like, what’s the hardest way to do something? I’m going to do that, like it was just stupid. Instead of going, what’s the easiest way to do some thing? Like I’ve got this, this this friend, Grant, and he has this saying, which is really funny. Anytime we talk about some business idea, he goes, Oh, that stinks of effort. Like his his mind, is that’s going to be hard. I’m not going to touch it. But my mindset previously was, if it’s hard, then I’m going to do it like the torture or punish
Kate Toon:
myself that matter that matter mentality, isn’t it? Like why do we need to flagellate ourselves through our business? It’s, as I said, all stick no carrot, we need a bit of carrot, we’re allowed to have some joy. So I mean, things have evolved a lot. You are a young dad, by the sounds of it. So I didn’t have my son till I was 35. You had your kids when you’re a little bit younger? You know, it. Let’s dig into parenting a little bit. Do you think you have a parenting style? Like, could you label yourself as a permissive parent and authoritarian, you know, Tiger parent? You know, do you think have you examined how you parent? And why you parent? How you parent?
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, I have and, and I’ve got a few like mistakes, the mistakes I’ve made along the way, they’re a few kind of like philosophies. Maybe I’ll start with that. But overall, overall philosophy, I think, and this is something that someone said to me, once that has brought me a lot of, I suppose, just like peace and relief. And that is whatever you do, Dale, as a parent, it’s going to be wrong. So just just like, assume that that’s the case. Like if you’re a parent that pushes your kid all the time to do stuff, what’s going to happen is they’re going to turn 18 or 20 or 30. And they’re gonna get to the point where dad was always pushing me down was always telling me what to do, you know? Or if you just say, Do watch, I’ve got like a nephew. And his biggest gripe with his dad was Dad never pushed me that never told me what to do. And so I’m like, You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned. If you don’t, if you push your kids, they’re gonna say, Dad always push me if you don’t push your kids, then your kid’s gonna say, he never pushed me. He never actually, you know, told me like, gave me that direction. And so when you kind of realize that you just kind of gonna go, Okay, I am, I’m just going to be sort of true to myself, do everything that I do wrapped in love. And I’m going to, I’m going to encourage, I’m going to inspire, I’m going to motivate and but I’m going to give them choice at the end of the day, and I’m gonna say, Hey, it’s your life. And this is what I’ve learned. If you kind of do a whole bunch of good things every single day, then good things generally happen to you down the track. But if you you know, want to keep just going into, you know, the lollies every time you go over to Grandma’s house every single time, you know, you’re going to put on 10 kilos in the next like two years, I’m telling you now that’s what’s going to happen. So but it’s your choice, it’s your body. So I kind of am I do everything quite sort of like firm because that was sort of a bit about my training, not necessarily with my mum and dad, but as a gymnast. It was always like very strong, very disciplined, you know, not kind of messing, you know, like sugarcoating stuff. Just be very direct, but doing everything with kind of love and say, hey, it’s ultimately your choice, but I don’t think it’s very smart that you’re you know, doing that So that’s kind of like my parenting style. And I’m probably gonna get it wrong. And I’m cool with that.
Kate Toon:
Well, I think, you know, I, for the book I interviewed, I spoke with Jody Thornton, who’s a parenting coach. And one of the biggest things, the messages that she shared was that we have so little control. You know, we think we can guide we can give input, we can give advice, but there are so many other factors at play, you know, we try the parents that try and control every move, it’s not going to work out anyway, because there’s so many other influences. And as you said, you have to just wrap everything in love, be present. And you know, do your best, I think as well. I’m interested there about the whole discipline piece, because, you know, I think I’m relatively disciplined. And I think one of the real challenges is when your kid comes out nature, nurture, we can, that’s a whole different thing. But they’re very different to you. I’m quite lucky in that my son is very similar to me, so I can understand his approach. He’s more discipline than me, which is a little bit annoying. I can understand him really well. But he’s very different to my partner, and my partner kind of doesn’t get him and that can be a real challenge. If you’re, if you’re your kids very different. Are they very similar? Are they like you as I like Katherine, where do they sit in the scale?
Dale Beaumont:
Yes, so we’ve got two boys. And the first one is was like a real challenge. So he’s his, his name is Finn. So in our kind of like, personality sort of style, so I’m a dominant personality, being entrepreneur, and I happen to marry a wife, there’s also, you know, D as well, probably even stronger than me. So my son came into this world with seeing like a dominant man and a dominant woman and thought, you know, what, I’m gonna see if I can actually out dominate both of you. Super, super strong, to the point whereby he argues with everything, like from a young age refused to sleep just would not sleep, like you put him in bed, crawl out, put him into bed, call out, put him into bed, gosh, like, you’re just like, I had to literally hold him down. So you need to sleep and he would kind of wrestle me, whatever. And I just have to lie next to him, because the only way I could get him to stay sane. So now 15, but he’s very, very strong willed, very, very determined, and you just can’t tell him what to do. He does laughs a professional, like, he feels a job for professional argue.
Kate Toon:
Like, he’s gonna become a politician.
Dale Beaumont:
So, and the funny thing was, like, as a parent, like, I could not work from home impossible, because he would just crawl on like, up there, he would push things over, it was impossible to get any work done. Because his whole, like, you know, idea was, how can I just like, you know, get dad off the computer and just, you know, get him to do what I want him to do. And, and he always wanted a controlled situation, where I have like another son, and he came along. And it was like, when he was three or four, I just put some Lego up, and he would be there for six hours. And I’m like, oh, like, this is bliss. Like he’s just, he just like, you know, was just so pletely self sufficient, didn’t need anything from me, you can come and hassle me, he didn’t ask me for anything. He was just completely at peace. So I’ve got these two extremes, one that’s like, really, really strong and super hard to handle, and you go to it with everything. And the other one. Like, if I said to fin fin, clean your room, it would be six hours later, he still would be arguing where the other one go clean your room, he’d say, okay, and just walk and do it. And it would be done in 10 minutes. It’s just like, how do we have these two?
Kate Toon:
Isn’t it because I’ve only got one? So I’ll never know what my second one would have been? Like, I’ll never know, you know, and it’s, it’s so interesting. I love hearing all of that. And from that, you know, challenges, right challenges around business and parenting. So you I’ve been to yoga, lovely offices. And you mentioned that you couldn’t work from home. Right. And I think one of the joys for me is being able to work at home, but it does have its challenges. So what what have been some of the biggest challenges for you juggling the kids, your wife, your relationship? And also, as I said, being a relatively young, young dad, you know, like, and having all these ambitions? I’m sure they must have all come into conflict at one time or another. What have been some challenges you faced along the way?
Dale Beaumont:
Yes, so becoming a young guy, which I think was a great thing, but it sort of meant that I was, you know, starting my parenting years, right, when I was kind of really trying to, you know, that I just hit that sort of point of exponential growth within the business. We’ve done the three or four, you know, hard years and then we were just starting, everything was just starting to work. And then all of a sudden, you know, okay, now I felt like I was like, you know, hamstrung with not being able to do more like I really wanted to just kind of like Go Go, go go, yeah, yeah, but I just couldn’t and what like so with Catherine, my wife and I, we had this sort of little deal that she was going to always get up during the middle of the night. But the moment the morning came along, then that was kind of she needed to get, you know, some sleep. And so I was going to kind of take over, which was great. So it meant that I could always have a decent night’s sleep. But when I was burning the candle at both ends, when I was working, hired going to bed at one o’clock in the morning, and then at 4am, I’d have this person crawling on me, and just like, Honey, it’s your turn. And I’d be like, I just had three hours sleep. And that was my fault. That’s not her fault. I you know, was kind of, like, just like pushing it too hard. It was just torture those first three or four years, like were you have to watch them the whole time. Like, where they pull everything out from everywhere, especially our youngest, you had to just watch them the whole time. And I remember just like trying to stay awake with it was in my eyes, and then just wanting to fall back asleep, I was so exhausted, and then I’d have to go to business. And you know, and I’m so
Kate Toon:
glad you admit that. Because you know that I wrote in my book, you know, someone came up to me in a cafe once and just said, The first year is just shit. And I was so relieved that someone said that to me, because it was it was awful. And the first two or three years, as you said, you just constantly trying to not kill them, or let them kill themselves. They’re constantly trying to stick their fingers in things and fall off things. It’s exhausting. And people, you know, people are like, oh, you know, enjoy every minute, it’s all going to be over soon. And it’s true, but a lot of parenting is not enjoyable. And we’re allowed to say that, let’s be honest, we are allowed to say that. And I can totally
Dale Beaumont:
understand why the divorce rate is so high when you know, when they’re, you know, their kids are 123 years old, you know, because it’s just it’s hard, hard, hard work. And, and it’s really hard if you’re building a business at the same time as well. Because you really feel like your turn, you know, you’re not being there as much as you want to be as a parent, but also you’re not giving your all to your business either. And it’s just, it’s just hard to people just need to be more, you know, easy on themselves, maybe go a bit slower, you know, just like get more asked for more help. You know, if you have family around you great otherwise, you know, get some friends and just like, you know, ask for help, because we want to kind of do everything ourselves or, you know, get a clean, I get it, you know, someone cook you some meals if you need get someone to do the washing, get some help, because otherwise we just punish ourselves. And then we get, you know, feel so terrible about ourselves, we take it out on our partners, and then it’s just becomes like this downward spiral. And it’s sad that so many families fall apart, you know, during that period of time, but like you said, if you someone said, this is going to be really crap, maybe for three, four years, and just be ready for it. And just no one’s completely normal. And there’s nothing kind of wrong with you as a person or you as a couple or reflecting on your marriage as like, this is just a really tough time. And you’ve just got to get through the other side that would just you know,
Kate Toon:
I think more wish Yeah, I wish someone said that to me. Because you do you feel like why? Why am I struggling with this? Like other people seem to be doing great. And obviously they’re not. It’s the fake Instagram world, but you feel like why can’t I juggle everything? Why can’t I have it all? Like everybody else does. So having that permission and having someone like you say that as well is really comforting. But I’m gonna move into tip plans because I do you know, you are, you obviously have had success, you’ve overcome challenges. And one of the things that strikes me about you is you’re super productive, or you come across as super productive. It could all be a big lie. What is one of your biggest productivity tactics that you use to get stuff done during the day?
Dale Beaumont:
So what gets scheduled gets done so really scheduling stuff in your diary is really important. Being able to actually schedule I know it’s gonna sound silly, but it’s really important. Like, if you you know, start the day, well, then you’re off to a good start, but that the day starts the night before so actually set this up. I know it’s hard but setting us up a time to go to bed and so I’ve got like an alarm that goes off at 10 o’clock to say basically downfalls that winding down. Yeah, maybe if you want to go downstairs and watch Netflix for half an hour or whatever, but you need to now stop. Because all you’re going to do is that see affecting your next day. And if you know and so I go to bed like 10 o’clock that said 1030 Pull the sheets up, go to bed. It’s so
Kate Toon:
hard. How do we do it? I have to and I haven’t seen that says it’s coming as well. I’m like, shut up, shut up, shut up.
Dale Beaumont:
And then you kind of go okay, well, next day I’m wearing I’m going to be at 530 or six o’clock, whatever the tight sort of time is, and you should have had whenever you know, your seven hours sleep or eight hours, how much that you need. And then I have different sort of now like this is really I didn’t have a lot of this was just survival when the kids were kind of like, you know, toddlers and stuff like that. I was just doing whatever I had to do in that particular moment. But now, you know, I have things that are scheduled different businesses that I need to kind of like work on meetings with my team. So scheduling stuff is really important, and then sticking to it. But then also getting help around you as well will be another big productivity hack both at home, but also in their business like getting like a virtual assistant to help you, maybe someone if you having a lot of stuff requirements for social media, maybe a social media coordinator. And it’s never been easier to get help around you, either domestic help, or help in your business with all these amazing kind of like tools out there and, and all of the apps that make it possible for you to be able to work with people all over the world, or access, you know, people like on air Tasker and things like that, you know, to do our jobs, putting together furniture or whatever needs to get done. Just get some help and stop being the person that feels like you have to do everything yourself.
Kate Toon:
I think we’re getting a common theme here of like not being a martyr and trying to do it all yourself, I love that you love that you actually have a great presentation. I’ve seen you do your business blueprint sessions, where you have like your 10 favorite apps and a few of the ones that I use now today, like Slack and Asana, and they’re all on and even just your basic Google Calendar, I’m a big time blocker. But as you said, it’s not just the blocking of the time, it’s the discipline to stick to the schedule that you set. And I you know, I have big discussions with yesterday, me and today me yesterday, me is sometimes a little bit ambitious about what tomorrow we can achieve. But you know, I have to split that out as again, me, myself and I, at the end of each day, I put together the plan for the following day, so that when I hit my desk in the morning, I don’t think I don’t get emotional, I just start on the list that yesterday me made and I worked my way through it. And that that works for me. Now, obviously, you’ve talked about money, you know, you have now you’ve got your different companies, your investments and you know, created financial security for you and your family. And um, you know, we talked about how you know, enough is never enough. But it’s a big broad question. But if you could give advice to somebody who’s in those early stages, parenting and business, what would be one of your biggest money tips around managing money mindset or something practical about money?
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, so here’s obviously different sort of like phases from just being able to kind of like make it, you know, is the tips around that, then there’s basically how you to hold on to it, because if you spend it all, then that’s good. So then you’ve got your kind of like keeping it sort of phase. And then after that you’ve got your investing face, and just being able to make sure that you’re investing. And I think one of the biggest things that I recommend to entrepreneurs, is to implement Profit First, which is yes, but making sure you’re taking some money off the table every single year, because it’s very tempting. And we did this for nearly probably eight years, just reinvested everything back into the business back into the business back in the business all the time. And you just never know, what is around the corner, when there’s the next, you know, GFC or pandemic or some technology that, you know, you might think, oh, won’t happen to me, but you get totally kind of like wiped out. And all of that hard work is kind of just goes up in smoke. So take 10% and minimum off the table every single year and put it into other income producing assets. So we have been doing this for last 12 years. And it’s been amazing. But I wish I did this sort of like much, much sooner and not told myself the story are, well when I’ve got more money, then I’ll invest no start like now even if it’s small, and and developed those those investments because we missed, you know, a whole bunch of like, different growth cycles, because we just had our blinkers on and we were just thinking about, you know, our business. So Profit First implementing that. And then from there, investing and just like a lot of people think investing is risky, I think not investing is the riskiest thing of all, because at some point, you know, no business kind of is going to really last forever, something is going to change either within you or within the marketplace. And eventually it’ll come to some type of logical end, maybe you sell it, but maybe you won’t. And so what you want to do is make sure that you’ve got other income producing assets outside of your business, because you never know, you know, what’s going to happen?
Kate Toon:
No, I totally agree. And, as you said, you can start with as little as 1% with with your profit first. The other thing I think that’s super important about that is, I found it very hard in those early muddy years to actually see what money was my own, and what money was the tax man’s and whatever, but also to have a sense of achievement. You know, like you’re working really hard, but that money isn’t connected to any kind of goal. It’s not translating into anything in your real life. And seeing for me seeing that little profit first account build up first as a, you know, to pay off debt then as a buffer, that is a potential to do other things, made my business feel worthwhile and kept me going through the hard times, you know, so money is powerful. Not just with what you do with it, but the way it changes, your mindset was really great for me in the early years to be able to say no to opportunities, because I had a bit of money in the bank, and I knew I was okay. And I didn’t have to say yes to every thing or reduce my prices or discount, because I had that little bit of backup. So I love that. So we’ve done productivity, we’ve done money. Our next one is communication. So you’ve mentioned that you and Catherine great name, by the way, I’m also a Katherine. You know, you’re both quite sort of dominant characters. And now Finn is a dominant character to I’m guessing communication in your household is important how you communicate that, oh, look, I do need to go away this weekend, I do need to work or how Catherine communicates with you about other things. What have you learned about communication? What’s a good communication tip for our listeners?
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, so I think that yes, it’s really important. Well, first of all, with we decided that we tried working together in the same office or at home, and it just didn’t really
Kate Toon:
Oh, God, I did that, too. It was horrific. Yeah.
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah. It just likes, especially without two sort of personalities working together. Like she wanted to know everything that was happening, like every single call, who is that? And what do they say, and do this, and you should do that. I’m like, Honey, I make 100 of these decisions a day, you don’t have to be across every single one of them. And, and so yeah, and she wouldn’t do things in her way. And I have opinions on them. And so just better to say, you know, what, you have your office at home, and I have my office at work. And I say bite you in the morning. And I just kind of like, you know, I’m going to do my thing, and you do your thing. So but that means that a lot of things happen. And we also have some clear lines between who’s responsible for what, and so my staff come to me and they start asking me a question around Aw, can I get this upgrade this new computer? Like, Oh, does this involve money? Like, yeah, talk to Catherine does, like, she’s the one that looks after that. If you want to prove or spend money on buying new computer, new gear, just talk to her about that. But also someone comes to her and says, Hey, Catherine, what do you think about the marketing idea? Or what do you think about this? Oh, is this involved in marketing? Oh, that’s actually you talk to Dale about
Kate Toon:
very clear lines of division between what you do? Yeah,
Dale Beaumont:
exactly. And then sometimes I’ll ask her opinion on things, and she’ll ask for my opinions on things. But we we are, yeah. Because otherwise, we just create this situation with the staff. That’s kind of where don’t ask, don’t ask dad. Because, you know, mom will say yes, or vice versa. And you’re, you’re making all these joint decisions together, it’s not so so she has learned that certain things that she looks after certain things that I look after. And then we need to kind of communicate, and I’ve actually got it in, I think I probably my last pair of pants that I wore yesterday, but I have a card, like of just things to talk to Catherine about. So lots of things go to like build up. And so I was like, Oh, I’ve got to run, let Catherine know that I’ve just agreed to this, or I’ve just, you know, promoted this or I’ve just done this or I’ve just done that. So and then that’s your I need to kind of say, hi, Catherine, like, once you get to a list of like 10 things are Can we go for a coffee? Or can they go for dinner, and I just want to run through a whole bunch of ideas that I have, or decisions that I’ve made that I want you to be kind of aware of and across. And so that being able to communicate with them. I don’t kind of do it every single second of every day or sometimes daily, but I just if I need to pick up the phone and call her. But otherwise, if it’s just things like a weekly wrap or weekly summary,
Kate Toon:
I’m gonna steal. Yeah, because I you know, I try and communicate with my partner. And I’ve tried lots of different ways. You know, like email lists, I find bullet points work quite well. But you know, I’m somebody that has a million ideas a day. And also, I’m super excited about everything, like all the time, crazy excited, and I want to tell you right now, so I think that idea of kind of having like, I think I might even create an Asana task, and put in all the staff, and then be like, right, let’s have a powwow, let’s have a weekly catch up. I’m stealing that one. Dale, I love that. Because I need to restrain myself because just because I’m super excited about it, my partner has ADD. And if I tell him something, he will spin off, spin off into that, you know, and that could derail a couple of hours of his day for him, because that’s the way the brain works. Whereas I can say it move on and completely carry on with my day tomorrow. You
Dale Beaumont:
might change your mind
Kate Toon:
you’re gonna change my mind. What am I actually doing it? It was just an idea, but he’s got away and planned or whatever. I love the weekly powwow. I think that’s such a good idea of stealing, stealing that. I mean, there’s so much more we could talk about. I could talk to you about this all day. But I want to kind of wrap up and you know, I guess kind of, you know, we’ve got lots of different people listening all different stages. Some people just at the beginning of the journey, some people like us with teenagers. The biggest thing that’s occurred to me in the last really the last year is that family or the way that our family is functioning now is a short term thing, you know, we’ll always be family will always have our children but this little home dynamic of school and all of that, it’s sure it doesn’t last forever. And that makes me both incredibly sad, but also feel that it’s incredibly precious. What What have been some of the big learnings that you’ve had in the last couple of years? And how are they going to change? Dale Beaumont, in the next 10 to 20 years?
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, like, you’re really right, that, you know, raising kids is like a, you know, it’s a window of time, it’s like a chapter in your life, maybe a few chapters, you know, in your life, but eventually, you know, kids will kind of like, grow up and find their own path, and will always be, you know, parents forever, and we’ll probably have an opinion on everything, but we need to sort of step back and let them make their own decisions and, and find their own path, you know, in life. And so, we, you know, talk about these kinds of lists before, like, we literally have lists to say, the holidays and experiences we have with our kids. And then we’ve also got list of like, things that we want to do when we don’t like when the kids are left, or when the kids are kind of like, you know, grown up. And so because I think it’s really important to sort of go back to building a life outside of your kids, you know, and actually being a couple again, and having goals, individual goals and other things, as well as having individual goals, because, you know, when you’re raising kids, you’re very dependent on each other to raise this kind of human. But also, you can sometimes forget about and I did for a long period time was all my energy was going into my business or my family and very little was going into my myself. But now I’m thinking, well, what are the things that I really want to like play soccer, like to, you know, go freediving or like to go heli skiing or things like that they’re things that I couldn’t, I’ve always wanted to do. But I couldn’t really justify you know, that when I’ve got kind of like, kids. But now once it’s time to grow up, I’ve got a list of things that I just want to do for me, or I just want to do with, you know, the my guy mates or I want to just do with experiences that I want to have with, with friends or anyone that’s interested in, Hey, you want to go heli ski, I don’t care who it’s with.
Kate Toon:
I want to go skiing. I don’t even know what it is. But I want to do it. So we jump out of a helicopter and ski.
Dale Beaumont:
Yeah, so they go right up to the top of the mountain. And, like fresh tracks. So there’s no one that has been on that kind of like, mountain that day, normally, Virgin snow. Yeah, Virgin stone, you can just like go for like, you know, half an hour, sometimes just going down, you know, this, this mountain, like a wave that lasts forever. And then they pick you up at the bottom, and then you hit it to the top. So yeah, there’s things like that, that I think it’s important that you sort of touching on about, you know, getting back to being you getting back to being a couple, you know, again, and realizing the fact that we’ve you know, good exercise, and you know, all of the wonderful food that we have these days and looking after our bodies, like most of us with modern medicine should live to at least maybe even 90 or 100. So you’ve probably got another 50 years on this planet. So, you know, how are you going to feel that you’re not going to be you know, able to parent any more as much as you are. So you know, it’s time for you to now you know, create, you know, whatever you’re, like die with zero is holding up that book, but it’s like, okay, how you want to how do you want to be remembered? What do you want? What experiences do you want to have, because he can’t take any of the money with you when you die. It’s, you know, all gotta be consumed or it’s going to be lost.
Kate Toon:
I love that I was reading about younger you which is all around, you know, that kind of, as you said, investing in your health now because you know, a lot of people will live live older, but you know, there’s some percentage of people who post 65 will have some serious illness or other so yes, you live till 90, but the last 20 years of your life, you will be suffering if you do not invest time. Now. I think that’s so important. And I love that you’ve said that as well, because I had a bit. I’m gonna call it an epiphany. My son went away with his dad to Europe, and I was on my own for two weeks, and I don’t think I’ve had any time on my own as a grown woman. And I felt for the first few days I felt utterly bereft and I was like, This is what it’s going to be like when my kids leave home. I’m going to be this empty, lonely old empty nester. And then I was like hell no Hell to the no. What do I want to do with the rest of my life? I want to go back to university I do not want to have a ski Now that sounds horrific, but I’m gonna find other things like if there’s a still life this life post family and you’ll always be a parent. And the other thing I think is you know with you as well like your business has evolved you’re changing it to meet your needs as a grown adult man and it will evolve yours I reckon you’ll still be doing something business you when you’re 60 I don’t think you’re going to completely just retire and play golf. So am I right or am I wrong?
Dale Beaumont:
No, like, I think that yeah, like now if business consumed we used to consume probably other than family family was probably 25 sent in my life and then business was like 75% of my life, but I think it’s healthy to to reduce that, but I don’t think I ever want it to go less than 20%. Because I want my brain like, you know, your brain is a is like a, you know, most important probably organ in your body you gotta look after and you got to use it if you don’t use it, you’ll you kind of lose it. And I think this is my other philosophy as well, just in terms of the of the brain is that you know, before the reason why Alzheimer’s is kind of going out of control is is because most people’s bodies would die before their brain. But now we’re at this point whereby our bodies because of the you know better food that we’re eating and more nutritious kind of like, you know, meals and health overall, that most people’s bodies are living far longer than their brain. But what happened is they get to 60 and they stay ghosts go this is it. This is my knowledge is fixed. It’s like, well, you could learn to play a musical instrument much. I met this lady who was in her 60s and she said she was going to take up African drumming. And I was like, what African drumming She said, Yeah, I’d figured it’d take me about 10 years to get good at it. And so I’m now this has become my new thing. And that’s so cool. Like, we need new things in our lives at every sort of age. And you need to having these new kind of like, you know, S curves or whatever you want to call it, where you say I’m gonna learn an instrument, or I’m going to start a business, or I’m going to, you know, enter politics or volunteer, you know, my whatever, you know, local shelter, and just do things not as a one time thing, but something that challenges your brain after months or even years as well, that takes a long time to master. Because if you don’t start looking after exercising your brain in other ways. And so going back to your question, I think one of the ways I want to continue to keep my brain sharp is through business, but I don’t want it to doesn’t need to dominate my life. It can just be maybe two or three hours a day. I do business stuff. And that’s about it.
Kate Toon
I love that. Stay curious. I have a next door neighbor, Daphne. She’s 95. She picked up the ukulele five years ago and is in a ukulele band that travels around old people’s homes. So she’s 95 She goes into old people’s homes to entertain old people who are 20 years her junior, which I just think is the bomb. And she also has one of those core senior scooters. I literally can’t wait until I’m old enough to get a senior scooter I might get one now. And she’s got it all pimped out with like school staff like Daphne is my icon. So be more Daphne. Hashtag be more. I love it. Dale, you’re an inspiration. I’m so glad you took time to come on on the show today for those of people who do want to learn more about you and what you do and in the business world and in the charity world as well. Where can we find out more about you?
Dale Beaumont:
I just go to my personal website, Dale beaumont.com. And then there’s link to links to all the other business stuff from there.
Kate Toon:
Fantastic. Well, I’ll include a link to that and also to the bill Perkins book as well because I think that’s a great one to recommend as well. I’m gonna put that on the on the audible list today. Dale, it’s always lovely to talk to you. Thank you so much. Okay,
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