Authentic Achievements With Special Guest Mike Potts
Welcome to the Authentic Achievements Podcast, where we dive into inspiring stories to fuel your personal and business growth! Our latest episode features the incredible journey of Mike Potts, a musical prodigy whose passion for music shaped his life from the Chicago Suburbs to the high seas. Discover Mike’s musical odyssey, starting with early piano lessons at age 4 and blossoming into a degree in jazz performance. His love for music led him to spend three years performing on cruise ships before embarking on a groundbreaking venture. Enter Felix and Fingers, Mike’s brainchild—a dueling pianos company that revolutionized private events. What began as a vision has now flourished into the largest dueling pianos enterprise in the nation, boasting over 400 performers and captivating shows spanning the United States.
Join us as we uncover Mike’s remarkable journey and glean invaluable insights from his experiences.
Find out more at https://www.felixandfingers.com/ or / @felixandfingersentertainment
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Transcript:
0:00[Music]
0:06[Applause] hello and welcome to this episode of authentic achievements where I’m
0:12delighted to be joined by Mike pots Mike welcome hey Kim I so looking forward to
0:17this conversation but before we get into it let me just introduce you more properly than that so Mike you’ve had
0:25such a fascinating Journey already growing up in the Chicago suburbs you were in your term h a brand nerd through
0:33and through your parents started you with piano at the age of four then came saxophone in band and eventually a
0:38degree in jazz performance that sounds awesome and then after three years performing on the cruise ship she
0:44started up a jeweling piano company called Felix and fingers and Felix and
0:49fingers is now the largest jeweling piano company specializing in private events with over 400 performers and
0:55shows across the United States what an amazing journey you’ve been on would you would you mind sharing with us a little
1:01bit about that journey in your words please yeah sure um so yeah I mean spot
1:06on with uh kind of the progression of things is I’ve been a bander like my
1:13entire life if if there was a music program in school if there’s a choir program in school if there was anything
1:18that I could do music related that was me that was my crew that was my tribe so
1:24right that moved into a jazz saxophone degree which I um jokingly say is probably the most useless degree anyone
1:30could possibly get no one cares that I have a degreee in jazz performance but
1:36it was a really great experience because the people I got to study from where I got to live because I was studying downtown Chicago that peed the way for
1:43the cruise ship gig which for three years was like I mean I recommend cruise ships to anyone in their like lower 20s
1:49if you can get on a cruise ship and go see the world and get paid to do it and meet the people that you get to live
1:55with and interact with that’s amazing like that was such a cool time in my life and then yeah I came back and uh
2:01when I came back to Chicago I realized no one wanted to pay me for jazz saxophone so again just not super useful
2:08but they would pay me to play piano so one thing led to another and we moved into a dueling piano show so and I
2:16forget like are you familiar with Dulan pianos um I wasn’t until we until we had
2:21our last conversation so you for for the audience that might be like I was pre our last conversation could you just
2:27share with us a little bit about what is juling and in the in the states it’s a really
2:33big thing like we have it in every major city I don’t know what it’s like on your side of the pond but every major city
2:39has a Dueling Piano Bar and Dueling Pianos is a high energy all request very interactive type show so when I say all
2:46request based our team is used to playing anything from let’s say Elton John Billy Joel up to cardi b or Eminem
2:54or like literally anything you can name that’s our job is to be able to play that style of music
3:00now what we do is instead of doing it in the bar atmosphere we have a mobile show
3:05so weddings fundraisers corporate events any type of private function that we can travel to and set up our show at that’s
3:12what we specialize in oh cool I think must bring with it really high energy
3:18and and that energy must like um dissipate across the event would that be fair right yeah it’s one of the things
3:25that is key to us in how we approach the show is um we have a an acronym for like
3:32our company values and because I’m a band nerd the acronym is piano well the O of piano stands for like our goal is
3:39to obsessively create positive lasting memories oh I love that that’s our job
3:45that’s what we he here for isn’t it and I funny I was sharing an article just today that was a study on happiness that
3:51had been done by Reuters and it talked about the fact that you know we think success is going to make us happy but
3:57happiness is about the experiences and the memor memories that we create along the way and and therefore unless we
4:03create that experience unless we create that memory and something that we really engaged and involved in we can have
4:10monetary success and still not be happy right because we’re missing that connection absolutely so yeah I mean
4:16that’s the show is if we can it’s the Disneyland model and I don’t know if you’ve seen like I don’t know if it was
4:23an article or a book but somewhere along the line like I learned that Disneyland when you go to Disney you are 99% of the
4:29time no more happy in Disney World than you are sitting on the couch eating potato chips but there’s so many
4:36opportunities in Disney for that 1% magic to happen yeah for some connection
4:42for some memory to happen and that’s why you go so like that’s what we’re trying to do with our show is find that magic
4:48find the way to bring the crowd in and create some sort of an experience that you wouldn’t get any other way than
4:53having this all request totally improvised music I love that because I
4:59think think again that is what we’re all really trying to to achieve isn’t and that Disney 1% of magic that piece where
5:05we can forgive the dog who’s decided wants to join in which is what happens when you do a podcast on
5:12Halloween so I think unfortunately the people outside have not spotted the sign that says I’m really sorry I’m out of
5:20treats I guess you like we’re talking about this is a real life experience so this is kind of what’s Happening you
5:27Just Go With It forgive me for that um but when you first got into jeweling
5:33pianos what what made you take that leap because that’s quite that’s another
5:38quite Niche space to be in isn’t it right and it’s weird like there’s kind
5:43of a a joke to an extent in the community that like no one searches out
5:49being a dueling piano somehow it finds you and how we had started the company
5:55the company is called Felix and fingers doing pianos Felix and fingers when we started uh right after I got off the
6:00ships what we were doing was just background jazz and it was Felix fers because my partner his name is Dave um
6:08Dave was he was on American Idol he was like season seven he made top 10 guys he was a phenomenal singer specifically for
6:14background jazz like he sounded like Sinatra oh wow so we were doing this Jazz Duo and one day I showed up at the
6:21at the gig and I said hey Dave um Mike and Dave is really like Bland and dull so can we have stage names I’m going to
6:27be fingers because I was just playing piano yeah like well I’ll be Felix because someone thought his name was
6:33Felix a few years ago it was like that was it that’s that’s the story of how we named the company and that was just
6:39background jazz what ended up happening was the owner of that venue was purchasing the neighboring venue and
6:46wanted to see if we could do dueling Pi at that that moment I had no idea what the concept was so I went to like a
6:53local bar I checked out I’m like I can do this and then I talked to Dave I’m like hey Dave can you do this he said no absolutely not so I said okay okay we’re
6:59going to do it anyways I’m going to train you we’re going to figure this out and one thing led to another where we
7:05started doing these Dueling Piano shows and it just kind of evolved into its own thing so it found me I did not seek it
7:12out at all oh I love that but I think for me one of the things that comes through your entire story
7:18is the burning desire the passion from birth it sounds has been music it’s been
7:24to do something with music whatever that is um and it’s been because that’s where you
7:29gain your joy and that’s where you give joy so you get that kind of um duality
7:36of of not only does it make you joyful it makes the people around you joyful and that’s been your one constant so
7:43although how that’s turned up has evolved along your journey that bit has
7:49remained consistently who you are would that be fair yeah absolutely it my my
7:55family likes to joke that there’s there’s no instrument that you can give me that I won’t learn or can’t already
8:00play being on the cruise ships I was able to like pick up a digy do in Australia so then I was seeking out
8:07opportunities to play the digo with people I’m going on websites posting that I’m a digo player I’m not a great
8:13digo player but it created so many cool opportunities where like I was in
8:18downtown Chicago doing uh it was some cultural event and I was talking to all
8:24the kids about the history of the digo and doing these demonstrations it’s just like being being committed to music the
8:30way that I have been has just revealed so many unique opportunities and experiences to just broaden uh just my
8:38experience in that and I love that because there’s loads of research that shown that once we once we know what our
8:45burning desire is and once we commit to it wholeheartedly in however it’s going
8:50to show up right then actually New Opportunities turn up um almost like
8:56busers you’re like how did that happen but I I think that’s because you we are
9:01so certain of what it is we’re here to do and that’s the thing that we’re going
9:06to commit to it’s like I don’t have to do that yet well I’ll learn it it’s fine because I’m you’re less daunted by the
9:13need to learn than you are by the desire to have the opportunity to see what you
9:19can learn yeah it was just fun it wasn’t work it was just natural it was just something I wanted to do so yeah I just
9:26I felt like I was my lane and then therefore the opportunity ended up coming amazing I love that so I mean
9:32you’ve already achieved so many but what would you say has been one of the greatest achievements you’ve had so
9:38far uh greatest achievement so I mean Felix and fingers has certainly been the biggest project that I’ve been a part of
9:45ever and as you had mentioned like we have 400 different musicians that work for us like this started out as I said
9:51it was a jazz Duo playing at this small little dinner Club in southern Wisconsin like it was a tiny thing there was no
9:57Grand ambition to build build that out and then over we’ve been around for about 12 13 years at this point to see
10:04that grow has been amazing so like that’s and that’s been kind of maybe the next phase of my journey was as I
10:12continued to play and as we continued to get busier I found out that as the
10:17company grew and the team grew I couldn’t serve my team at my best capacity at like the highest level if I
10:24was playing shows every Thursday every Friday every Saturday night I couldn’t be a good husband or a good father if I
10:30was doing shows every weekend it just wasn’t aligning with where I wanted to be and who I now am so I really think a
10:39big achievement has been building out the company in a way that it’s been able to scale that I can remove myself from
10:44gigs I haven’t played a show with Felix and fingers for about four years at this point which is crazy but that’s been
10:52that’s been my new passion my new project is how can I create an environment that enables as many people
10:58as possible to fulfill their dreams fulfill their needs like their financial goals their personal goals their career
11:05goals how can I create that atmosphere that empowers them to be the best they can be because if I can do that then I
11:12can sit back and not sit back and be lazy but sit back and like enjoy the fruits of what this company has been
11:17able to give to people oh I love that and it is it is one of the greatest achievements because a lot of people go
11:23into business like you because they’ve got a passion and they’ve got desire then the business starts to grow and then all of a sudden they they hit this
11:30wall where it’s like okay so if I stay doing the bit that I know how to do and
11:35do really well then actually I’m not serving these new parts because now I’ve got to lead people and I’ve got to um
11:40set the strategy and I’ve got to make it scalable and and now I’m in it not on it and how do you how do you make that
11:47transition and and enable the business to reach its full potential so the fact
11:53that you’ve been able to do that and take that step out and you you say you’ve been doing it for 12 years so i’
11:58been intrigued how did it how did covid impact because obviously you are a
12:05physical um show that’s what that’s what you were about that’s what you’re about now so how did you handle that change
12:14and what did you learn from it sure so covid was probably both the best and
12:20worst thing that could happen to us is right I mean we had a show that you play
12:26for people so our job became fully illegal like even though we’re in a
12:32dozen plus States right now in the US there was no location that we could play this show so from March till probably
12:39June or July it was just illegal to do our job I had two options we could either
12:45scale everything back or we kind of see this as like the opportunity that it was was we have no job but also all the rest
12:53of the musicians have no job they have no gigs so what we ended up doing was uh
12:59because up until that point we’ve done a good job of building the system we’ve designed all of our own software to help us scale to really manage things and
13:06like I said I want to build this platform that people can find success with it yeah so we use covid to recruit
13:13really really heavily so I had ended up training uh we do a sales boot camp and I probably did a sales boot camp for
13:18over 40 people um and it was always like five person groups six person groups so
13:24every few weeks I was doing a boot camp trying to recruit and bring people into the concept because even though the gigs
13:30weren’t happening there were still people who had to plan for the next year for 2021 2022 so if we could build a
13:37sales team then we knew that we could come out of the gate as soon as like the world released um their their
13:43restrictions we come out of the gate just blazing and that next year because 20 2020 was terrible 2021 was better
13:52because now we was starting to come back but 2022 was significantly higher than any year that preceded Co like more than
13:59100 150% higher wow I love that because you I think in those moments
14:05when changes is put upon us um I think one of the biggest things that we lost
14:11during Co was Choice um so you we we were no longer able to choose what we wanted to do where we wanted to go and
14:18and some people really struggle with that and some people then look at and go okay well let me focus on things like
14:23that are in my gift to do so I can’t change these things um and looking at
14:29them is not going to help me but what I can do is look at the things that are in my gift and plan for where we’re going
14:35to come out next and and that’s where we’ve seen real success for a lot of organizations is the ones that didn’t
14:41get stuck in the there and now they got stuck in the how do we get ready for the
14:46future because the future won’t be what the present looks like um and it sounds like that was something that you did
14:53Super successfully and 400 you I mean you must have um some really real
14:58learnings around how do you attract and recruit talent in such a niche market
15:05because actually that would be replicable in any Market which is actually how do how do you get in front
15:11of the right people to grow that team what would be your key learnings from that so yeah working with musicians is
15:19is a struggle in of itself like we’re in the gig economy so every musician kind
15:25of has their own business already like they’re all entrepreneurs so it’s hard to recruit when you’re
15:31recruiting from a pool of people who are used to bookings
15:37so really what what’s need to needed to have been learned and what we’ve really
15:43built a lot of the concept around is how can we just deliver as much value as possible that someone would have to be crazy to not want to work with us
15:50because at the end of the day musicians don’t want to do sales they don’t want to do like all the business stuff even though they have their own businesses
15:57they don’t that’s not why they got into music so we’ve spent a lot of time just building out the system so that we can
16:03create an opportunity for those M musicians to thrive now some of those musicians are full-time employees and
16:09that was always a value and a priority for me is we wanted people to have full-time benefits with health insurance
16:14and 401ks and profit sharing that’s what we were always trying to build so there’s a small handful of people who
16:21have ascended to that level and committed to us in that way but to truly scale we also had to find a space and
16:29find a really a role for the people who want to still be kind of on their own
16:34the people who want to do a lot of gigs with us but have some more um just Choice over what they’re doing what gigs
16:41they’re accepting so we’ve just built a system that has three different levels depending on where you’re at what you’re
16:46looking for for gigs that still allow us to keep the product level very high but also the way that we commit to our
16:52players and serve our players in a way that meets them where they’re at I love that it reminds me of a book I’ve
16:59recently reread uh which is the big leap by gay hendris and it talks about the
17:04fact that very often we stop when we get to our level of Excellence so where we
17:10know how to do something people will pay us for it and we just keep going but
17:15actually what we have to do is Ascend further to our um zone of Genius which
17:20is actually us at our very best and therefore we have to delegate or find other systems other processes other
17:26people that can do the things that actually take us away from being us at our best and it sounds like that’s what
17:33Felix and fingers is doing for for a lot of musicians which is if you want to be fully employed and to have those parts
17:40then you can if actually you want to have some of the access to some of the systems and infrastructure to enable you
17:46to to continue to build your own business and work on the bits you love to do without having
17:53to do all of these other bits that maybe aren’t um your zone of Genius then
17:58actually you can um and I think that that flexibility is been one of
18:04the big challenges for a lot of organizations is how do you learn to lead in that more hybrid environment is
18:14there been any key learnings you’ve had of having moved into that space and and done it so
18:19successfully um right and yeah I think you’re right it’s like the the workforce now is different than it was let’s say
18:2650 years ago it’s like everyone has all the tools they need to be successful on their own everyone has Ambitions there’s
18:33a lot of really good content out there that are encouraging people to be their best so yeah I mean what are the
18:40learnings it’s it all comes back to how can I how can I serve the team how can I make the best possible platform how can
18:46I take uh like I’m a big fan of extreme ownership by jao willink it’s like how can I take ownership to say okay if
18:53someone doesn’t want to to work with Felix and fingers if they don’t want to to commit to us something about the way
19:00that I’ve built the system isn’t serving them something about the offer I’m making isn’t strong enough isn’t value
19:06valuable enough to inspire them to take that step so it all comes back to me so
19:12we’re constantly going in and tweaking and optimizing and finding new ways to make uh I mean here’s probably the best
19:19story uh most recently is we built this company using like aggregator websites
19:26so we’re in the wedding industry you have the you have wedding wire those are the two big companies which are now one
19:32company one bought the other um but the non wedding wire gave us all of our leads we had all of our reviews that’s
19:38how we built the company over the past three years they have lost their grasp
19:44on the markets like our leads have gone from like 40 leads per month down to four like we’re at 10% it used to be so
19:52okay what do we have to do now to solve this it used to be that as we were recruiting sales reps it’s like well
19:57here’s how you reach out to venues and planners and introduce yourself and make friends and here’s how you cold call but
20:03at the end of the day I know that musicians didn’t pick up a a saxop phone or a piano or whatever it was so that
20:10they could do cold calling the system wasn’t serving them and therefore people were falling out of it yeah so now the
20:17challenge has been is there a new way that we can like really leverage the skills of the people who are coming in
20:23for sales and help them find other ways of generating leads and we’re now going to do a podcast system and we’re going
20:30to be doing a we call it our pay it forward campaign where we’re just giving value back into the community by trying
20:35to match leads up with other vendors all with this mentality of like hey our
20:41musicians are personable they’re fun they’re they’re like ambitious people
20:46they don’t want to do cold calling but they do want to make a difference so by being able to tap into that I think we
20:53have a really nice platform that we’re building and we’ll continue to build I love that because it really is is about
20:58putting um when I say the customer at the heart you’ve got two customers as I see it so you’ve got the End customer
21:05the person whose wedding you’re playing for whose venue whose event that you’re
21:11um supporting and making sure that it’s an amazing event for them and that they you know that you make the most of their
21:17special time but you’ve also got your second customer which is your musicians um and you know I’ve always said as as a
21:23leader um my client is my people if they don’t like what I’m doing if what I do
21:30doesn’t add value or serve they won’t continue to work for me and then they won’t deliver to my CL the end client
21:37what I want them to deliver and you’ve really started to put that into practice of saying how do you constantly keep
21:45iterating listening to the feedback understanding what really is working and
21:50what isn’t working so that you can keep evolving and that’s where we see
21:55Innovative companies really do well but it’s where we see some of the big giants have got it wrong and then they have to
22:02come back and they the hit can be hard when they stop listening because ego
22:09gets in the way and and all of a sudden they lose market share and and they have
22:14to Rebrand and relaunch I think one of the great lessons that you’ve already gotten you you’ve shared with us is that
22:21constantly looking outward for the feedback but looking inward for the accountability of doing something with
22:28that feedback yeah no and I think that’s well said um right it’s like how can we serve the team and how can how can I
22:37really be open-minded uh one of my favorite books is uh Rio’s principles where like he preaches about being
22:43radically open-minded the further I remove myself from the day-to-day
22:48operations so that I can work on the systems and scaling and all the the fun stuff that really gets me going right
22:54now the bigger my blind spot is and the more I need to listen to the team to
22:59understand what’s going on and it’s so easy to be like oh well I used to play that gig five years ago and you’re wrong because it used to be like this so just
23:05like suck it up and deal with it yeah that’s not a way to inspire a team that’s not the way to grow a company and
23:12improve it’s it’s not an and I I love that yeah I used to joke that I made a career out of asking dumb questions um
23:19because I did transformation for years and went in and and that’s just but ask people ask why do we do that like that and why is to learn not because I was
23:28just challenging where they were going but often you’d find that we were asking them to do something because we’d always
23:34done it that way and even though they thought it was ridiculous and the world had moved on they’re still doing it
23:40because nobody actually asks from a position of curiosity from a position of
23:45well okay let’s be really open-minded why are we doing that what what other op other ways are there to do it how could
23:52we do something different so that we we bring it and I love that actually that’s how you’re approaching things from from
23:57a lead ERS ship point of view and also from a running a business point of view which is how do you stay so curious and
24:04therefore open-minded to that change to go it might have worked like that when I
24:09did it five years ago might not work like that now because the world keeps
24:15evolving doesn’t it and our desires keep changing yeah yeah especially with Duan
24:20pianos the tunes are changing it’s an all request based show so the audience
24:25changes uh the audience I was playing for I mean with weddings the people getting married are always the same age
24:32so as they age out of that that group and a new generation comes in the job’s
24:37different the gig is different so the team is essential to just re removing
24:43that blind spot that I have and I need to listen I love that because we all have blind spots for a reason we’re
24:49blind to them it’s not because we don’t want to change it’s because you we don’t know what they are but if people if
24:56we’re willing to listen and ask and people willing to tell us then actually we can get through our blind spots
25:01because we see what they are you’ve shared so much amazing stuff already um
25:07what would you say in business overall has been the greatest lesson you’ve learned so
25:13far the greatest lesson for me in business um I have and you probably
25:20can’t tell very well behind me but like I I love this wall behind me before I had like fascinated by it looks
25:28amazing I want to lean forward and read what’s on it like I can’t do that because I’m really interested in the
25:33conversation with you but it’s so intriguing that it it invites you in so
25:38yeah what I what I did was before the shelves were up there and it was like my 30th birthday I was having some
25:44existential crisis where I was thinking about like who I want to be and what I want to do in my 30s and I thought you
25:50know what I have this blue wall behind me I’m going to grab some Sharpie markers some gold and silver and bronze
25:56Sharpie markers and I’m going to write every phrase up there that truly speaks to me and then over the years I continue
26:03to add phrases to that wall and it’s not like a Blackboard wall it’s not like a
26:08chalkboard type thing you can’t erase it it’s a Sharpie marker my my wife is so upset about it like when she came
26:13downstairs and she saw I’d scribbled all over the wall and my handwriting is not good she was not happy about that at all
26:21but like two of the things that just kind of come to mind immediately from the wall behind me is number one I I’m a
26:28firm believer in the phrase if you want to go fast go alone if you want to go far go as a
26:34team it’s and I want to go fast like gez I want to go so fast so many times and
26:42there’s like I kind of come from my dad’s a business owner and I’m always
26:47used to hearing him say stuff like yeah if you want it done right do it yourself but that’s such a limiting belief it’s
26:54such a liting mindset because yeah if you want to done the right sure do it yourself but you won’t get it all done
27:00like you’re giving up so much to be the technician to like do the thing that you think you need to do when you could be
27:07finding a way to create a better system to delegate it to someone else yeah so it’s it’s it’s been a challenge to yeah
27:14put my pride aside and let things let things fail let things be not perfect so
27:19that I can let the team lean into that that Gap and grow from that
27:25experience that’s number one the other one that I love uh my one of my other
27:30favorite books is just the one thing so like what’s the one thing like their question their main idea is what’s the
27:37one thing you can do such that by doing makes everything else easier or unnecessary that’s been everything with
27:43Felix and fingers what can I do that makes every other task easier or unnecessary because if I can figure out
27:50that thing and I can make a system around that then I can move on to the bigger challenges I can move on to the
27:56scalable challenges as opposed to the day-to-day minutia oh I love I love both
28:02of those I think I think it’s true I think it used to be certainly I’m older than you and I was in my teeth in
28:08leadership it it was that you know if you want it done well do it yourself and how if that’s really your thinking then
28:15you’re not giving yourself any credit for your ability to teach
28:22right because you’re not you’re saying that actually you’re incapable of teaching what you know to somebody else
28:27when you play that back to somebody who said you wanted do well do yourself go so you can’t teach others and they like
28:33well no I can well do then do pass it on I me bring you’re bringing in people who
28:39are going to now be able to do it your way and surpass your way and do it even better because then that’s how you
28:46that’s how we’ll grow and I think often you we we get stuck trying to solve the
28:52whole problem don’t we we we look at it and go I’m not going to make any move until I can see every move between where
28:57I am today and where I want to be and it’s like you never get anywhere that way if we look at what is the one step I
29:03can take what’s the one action that I can see that will move us forward and
29:09take that then actually you start to change advantage point don’t you you start to bring others into view and I
29:16think it was Michael Jordan that said you don’t have to see the whole staircase you just have to take the next step H and I think that’s it’s great
29:24that that’s kind of your ethos in it which is you the best way to move through these things is to just keep
29:30taking action and looking at the what’s the I’ve got a friend who said you’ve got to look at what’s the biggest
29:35problem and what’s the smallest solution um so if you keep looking for the smallest solution even if it doesn’t
29:41solve everything but it moves you closer then before you know it the problem has been solved um such Insight in your
29:49entire Journey could I ask you for one last thing if you could go back and give
29:55your younger self some advice advice what would it be if I give my younger self some advice
30:04um and you know what this even ties into what you had just said um and like the
30:11if you want something done right do it yourself I I’ve been kind of a fan of this idea that being busy is being lazy
30:20and let me unpack that for a second is like as a technician like when you get good at something and you want to do
30:26that thing and you want to do that yourself because you want to get it done right and then you start like identifying yourself as someone who
30:32works really really hard and puts in all these long hours and it’s because you
30:37are the most competent most able most whatever type of person in the world it’s actually the laziest way to do your
30:44job because you’re not making the hard decisions you’re not actually challenging yourself to do something
30:50that’s outside your comfort zone you’re not challenging yourself to grow you’re just taking solace in the fact that you
30:56feel need needed because of the need you created for yourself and I mean again I come from a
31:03a family where my dad’s an entrepreneur he works all day long all night long growing up like he left before I went to
31:09school and he came back when I went to bed like I didn’t see him that much during the week days and I love him and
31:15I’ve learned so much from his work ethic but also noticed that that’s a double-edged sword and just by being
31:22that busy is escaping the decisions you need to make it’s being lazy for what
31:28matters or as Gary Keller says if you’re working more than eight hours per day you’re cheating I love that if you’re working
31:35more than eight hours you’re cheating how long have I been cheating I that that was something that
31:41blew my mind when I started thinking about that and I wish I knew that when I was younger oh I love that that’s that’s
31:46so amazing you my dad equally he was he was an entrepreneur um and growing up
31:51you know we didn’t see him love him to bits learn loads um but I knew when I
31:57went to this next part of my journey that isn’t how I wanted to parent Scarlet so it was actually how do I how
32:03do I push myself to get out of my comfort zone to go and do the next level that says if all I can do is trade 90
32:11hours of my life to be able to be really good at this technician I’m going to sacrifice being a Goodman um whereas
32:18actually if I push myself to the next level then you can have both you can juggle all of all of those elements but
32:24you’re right you have to keep pushing yourself into that next level isn’t it
32:30into that I always say it’s getting it’s learning to get comfortable with the uncomfortable because that’s where the
32:35magic happens um and if you can get comfortable there the rest becomes quite
32:41easy doesn’t it right it’s a muscle you just have to do it you have to keep doing it you have to you have to be
32:48comfortable failing I mean I my team is probably so annoyed with me for how many
32:53ideas I bring to the table and then we execute and then we bail on them because like they’re not working and sometimes I
32:58get a lot of flag from them because it’s like why can’t you just commit to something and there’s a time and a place to commit to something but at the same
33:05time I want to fail fast I want to fail forward yeah yeah if we can just keep throwing a bunch of stuff out there see
33:12what sticks keep iterating and not not romanticize a certain way that things used to be done before then that’s how
33:19we know we can survive I live that it is that constant iteration isn’t it and looking at it and saying okay it’s not
33:25always the idea that’s wrong it might just be the way we’ve executed it that needs a tweak it needs an amend it needs
33:31a look but if we look at the success in as great a detail as we look at the failures then actually we find the next
33:37success we find the next opportunity Mike I could literally chat to you all day but I’m very conscious that we’re
33:43coming to an end how can people get in touch with you yeah of course uh the website is Felix and fingers.com you can
33:49find us on any of the social platforms uh at Felix and fingers so pretty easy
33:54to find that way otherwise my direct email is just Mike Felix and fingers.com that is the best way to reach me at this
34:00point I don’t take phone calls my wife can’t even call me my parents can’t call me it’s amazing I have all of that
34:07turned off so um yeah email is the best way amazing I love that I have to give
34:13that one a try we make sure that all of those details are in the show notes below and thank you again on behalf of
34:20everybody watching and listening uh and me personally for coming on and being such an amazing guest and sharing such
34:26Insight with thank you thank you my pleasure Kim until next time take
34:37care
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