Quitting Your Day Job- The Fractional Revolution

Brett Trainor (00:03.191)
Yeah.

Here we go

Brett Trainor (00:15.118)
This young and clever and oh new my

Nowadays we only talk about the weather and nothing seems to change. Legends, we're brought for to be legends. Caps don't matter of your dreams. Legends, we're brought for to be legends. Good morning, good morning, welcome. I need a little live thing over here behind me so I know that the studio is live. Good morning listeners, good morning our guests. We'll talk to our guests here in a second.

Here we are, what is it, 22 days into 2024. Here we go. I mean, the year is upon us. We're already past the halfway mark. Thank you everyone for joining us. Hopefully this is working for you over in LinkedIn Live, but you can always catch us on Spotify. This is the place, this is the Fractional Revolution. I'm your host, John Arms, and this is a place where we talk about the Fractional Revolution and all things fractional, and what that means to America and what it means to you.

Joining me today, because I'm not alone in studio, joining me today is Tara Fletcher, speaker, I gotta get this right, Tara, speaker, author of Flex Your Freelance, An Unconventional Guide to Quitting Your Day Job, Fractional CMO, there it is, yep, hold it up, let people see it, all that kind of stuff. Good morning, Tara, there it is. Is that something people can get on Amazon? Absolutely, and what's really cool is, if you have Kindle Unlimited, a lot of times you can get it.

without charge. Oh, very nice. So check that out. Very nice, very nice. Well, for today's topic of quitting your day job and never going back, that's a very appropriate book. I think we probably had the pro on it. Also joining me today in studio, in digital studio is Brett Traynor, speaker, I gotta get this right, Brett, speaker, host of the Corporate Escapie podcast, and fractional staffing specialist. Brett?

Brett Trainor (02:12.938)
You got it. Unfortunately, no book yet, but that's coming, Tara. One of these days. Well, the funny thing is I had the original plan before the podcast was to write the book. Started writing the book, the editor's like, hey, start a podcast, you'll have a platform. Well, 230 episodes later, the podcast, I have that, but I still don't have the book done. I got to put that priority.

You wonder if you can tell AI, hey, can you turn my 230 episodes of my podcast into a book and see what it would return? That's an interesting idea. It's a good idea. It's going to get there. What's that Tara? It's going to get there right now. If you do that, you're going to need to rewrite the whole thing, but I'm just imagining in the future that's going to happen. It might be closer. Our guest, our actually our very next guest later this week is Jay Z.

And she's an AI specialist. She's like up here on AI. She's worked in it and, uh, I had some good meetings with her lately and she's like, yeah, AI can do much more than we're using it for. So she's going to give us a little shed, shed a little bit of light on that. Great. We'll tune in for that one too. I feel like I got some serious cred on the show today. Not me, like with you guys, you guys are writers and 230 episodes, podcasters, leaders of the fri. I don't know if you guys remember, uh, I'm sure you do Brett, uh, Wayne.

I'm not worthy. I'm not worthy from that. I feel like I'm not. I feel like I'm not worthy. So I'm super, super grateful that you guys are both here today. And those listening are grateful because they're going to learn a lot. Well, thank you. Thanks for having us today. This is great. It's my it's my it's my favorite thing to do. So we're going to talk about quitting your day job and never going back. That's the thing. So let's kind of get into it here a little bit. Quitting your day job. Maybe I'll start with you, Tara.

Why do it? Why quit your day job? Let's talk about that. There's so many reasons. We a lot of times it becomes a very personal reason that someone is inclined to quit their day job. For me, it was because I wanted to spend more time at home with my son. I what I was doing was not working and I wasn't happy with the work itself. It wasn't a bad company or anything, but somehow I ended up in accounting, doing numbers. And I'm a writer. Like, what the heck was I doing in accounting? It wasn't the right fit.

Brett Trainor (04:35.854)
So I wasn't happy about the work. I wasn't happy about the schedule. Wanted to be home with my little guy. So I remember just racking my brain, trying to figure there's gotta be a way. There's gotta be a way. Just every day thinking about how can I get out of here? How can I quit my day job? So you had the number one reason, you had a little one. You know, our priorities, the priorities of our life can certainly explain that. It's interesting that, isn't it interesting that

Um, life, the day job does not allow you to have the time you need as a mother and father and everything with your little one. So that's, uh, that's a big dimension. Brett, do you want to talk about why, why do it? Yeah, well, I mean, as Tara said, many reasons, but you know, in my case, it was interesting, it took some reflection after leaving it's been four years. And I thought when I left, it was financially, you know, get charged.

financial career and independence and I think I can make more money doing this on my own. But I actually wrote about this in my newsletter last week that it was so much more. I think looking back, I was finally done chasing the corporate ladder or trying to climb the corporate ladder. It wasn't a motivator anymore. And I wasn't chasing anything. So it just kind of stuck in.

no man's land, if you will. And it wasn't until after I left and started finding my footing that I realized that it was the chase again, or the purpose, right, to do something that really motivated. So I guess it was the two reasons. One, I thought it was one thing, but in hindsight, it really turned out to be there needed to be something more. Life is too short to keep going through the motions with this job. Yeah. Did you find that true, Tara?

Oh yeah, absolutely. And so for my book, I interviewed so many different entrepreneurs and every single one of them had a reason other than just money or a financial reason. There are so many people who are looking for something beyond that. It wasn't just about, it was a way to fulfill a greater need. Usually it was a very altruistic purpose. Altruistic purpose. Well, you know, the, so

Brett Trainor (06:52.578)
funny quick little production note. You guys are probably seeing all the Brady Bunch circles start to pop up. And we've got a whole bunch of people that are dialing in here to watch our podcast or join it. So hello everybody. I know you're all on mute or at least please, please stay on mute. We're getting rolling with our podcast. By way of that, for those who are just joining us, cause it looks like there's some LinkedIn live stuff going on.

Um, we'll try to produce that with us today is Tara Fletcher, who's going to talk about quitting your day job and Brett trainer, who's got the podcast, the corporate escapee. So if you're just joining, thank you for coming in, uh, a few minutes behind. And that's on me. It's always on me. That's on me that the technology wasn't connecting, but I'm very, very grateful that you've all, you've all joined in. So, so we were just talking about quitting your day job when we were on the part of why do it.

And, you know, there's family reasons, there's economic reasons. I think there's something and I'd love both of you to talk about this, Tara, maybe first is there's something to the disillusion that the corporate path is going to work out really well for you. I think that's macro and societal at this point. You guys both references, could you both talk about that a little more about the disillusion there? Yeah, well, I think I think.

We have changed as a society, our expectations have changed. We don't have, we don't live in the world that my grandparents lived in. You know, I think of the environment then. My grandma actually wrote memoirs of her journey and she talked about her professional life. She and her husband owned a hardware store and they supported 11 children running that hardware store. But then she talks about the shift, how things changed as time went on where people just, their expectations changed, their expectations for how they shopped.

for the times they shopped. And, you know, grandma and grandpa were used to being open weekdays, nine to five, and things shifted. Things changed, and now we live in an entirely different world than we did back then. People now, just in the last several years, have gotten so much better at working remotely, but they have gotten accustomed to their own, living their own life on their own schedule. And that's a big part of the reasons why people are interested in freelancing and fractional work, including their day job too, is the schedule.

Brett Trainor (09:14.57)
So we had alluded to family issues, we alluded to economic things, but there's so many limitations in the corporate where you just don't have the flexibility, the autonomy to do what you want to do. So there's a lot of freedom. And I love the title of Brett's podcast for that reason too, an escapee, because that's what a lot of us feel like. We're like, oh, finally, I can do what I want, when I want, how I want, without all these restrictions. That's a big deal, Brett. Yeah.

I mean, it's spot on, right? Because as I thought back, at least I drove, you do the corporate route, you pay the bills, you take care of your family, you climb the ladder, you get the next job, you get paid. But as I got older, I realized, right, unless you're like the CEO or CFO of a pretty large corporation, you get bought out. Where is the retirement piece of this gonna come?

And then the second part of that is thinking back, as you can see, I've been doing some reflection is, you know, I designed my life around the corporate job. Right. We did kids events. If it got under a schedule, we asked for time off. You know, everything was really designed around those, we'd say 40 hours, but in you know, P corporate it was 50, 60 hours easily, and there was no life. And now, you know, as Tara mentioned, we can actually design our life and then have the work.

fit into it, right? You got to work to make that happen. But I think it's just the full mind shift that said, this is dumb, right? At least in my case, it just, I can't believe I'm doing this. And again, I don't like to look too far back, but looking forward, right? I don't want to work in corporate for another 10 years and then do that. So I think, you know, it was spot on that you can take control and start to, again, live your life, design your life, and then figure out how work fits into it.

Isn't that something? Isn't that something that somehow we lost that script? Your grandmother's script, Tara, a hardware store, you know, Brett, the script you're talking about, like that's just life. Right. My family matters, my relationship matters, my health matters. And somehow along the way now, as you guys know, I will attribute it to probably to 1976 when we started the shareholder economy. That's an entire it's actually today's blog. But but here we are.

Brett Trainor (11:36.422)
right, with a very imbalanced life portfolio and, uh, and the day job reaching far deeper into our lives. Um, and in ways into our lives that really it's not designed for. Tara, you weren't supposed to give up time with your kid to make a living. Brett, you weren't supposed to take, give up time for your health just to catch a paycheck. And these days people get really frustrated because, you know, we all know that the corporate rat ladder

is a very thin ladder and very shaky and only a few people go up. So there's a lot of bodies at the base of it. Um, how, how did we get here? How did we get here? We're going to talk about quitting a day job, but how did we get here as a society where work takes so much? How did we get here? Either one of you can take that one. I'll throw, I'll throw it out there first. I think it's.

It just kind of just built upon that, right? That the corporation, again, back when I was younger in my career, it's what you did. You weren't supposed to, I was a job hopper, not necessarily intentionally, but it's one, you can't do that. That's going to crush your future advancement. They're going to see that you move too many companies. And I think these companies had the power and the fear over you that if you don't perform and don't get that raise, then you're going to have to go look for another job. And it wasn't that long ago that

that job hopping wasn't all that common. And so the, the court just had to play by the rules of what those companies were. And as time, I think the, uh, the pandemic showed, Hey, we can actually work from home, we can have some white balance. It may not be ideal, but all of a sudden the, the corporation started to lose a little bit of that flex and now they're trying to reestablish that control with.

you know, returned to work. And I know John, you posted on that mandates and those types of things. And I just found that unless you're at that senior level, you know, these companies should be focused on how do we get, you know, what the balance, right? You're not going to necessarily buy into the culture of the company unless you're an owner of the company. Right? So that's a whole different topic, but I think that it's kind of shifted. And I think for the better, and we're in this transition phase right now of who's in control.

Brett Trainor (13:59.294)
Yeah, well, we sure are, you know, the COVID pandemic and the shutdown and like none of us have lived three years after a pandemic and worked and everything that means. So it is a whole new world and the power center is shifting back to the worker, which is awesome. Because I don't think about it as back to the worker. I think it's back to the individual. Yes. Like back to our own.

I'm going to refer to your grandma quite a bit to her, like back to that self-determined individualism that really makes America what America is. Well, we do. So there's good reasons, right? There's good reasons to leave corporate America or leave your day job because it's not feeding your soul. It's not feeding your family. It's not feeding your health. It's not feeding your pocketbook. And there's a lot of fear with that. But

When I wrote the book, Revolt, I promised myself I would only spend one chapter being negative. That's it. Out of all the chapters, I was only going to get down on things for that. So now, and so we're going to do that here. So now let's shed light, right? Let's talk about the upside of how and why and all that kind of stuff. So quitting your day job and never going back. Let's go. Tara, how do we do it? How do we do it right? Fantastic.

So, well, I can tell you my story. I can tell you my pivotal moment where I decided something's gotta give, something's gotta change. So I had started freelancing, doing side hustles in 2007. And 2008 comes around, I got this little guy, I'm still working this accounting job. And I'm like, this, I'm gonna break. You know, I'm at that moment where I'm just like, done, I'm done. So I was in my office and staring out the window going, what the heck, this is not right. So I did it with any.

self-respecting 20-something would do. Got up, closed my office door, sat back down, and called my mom. But you know what? That's what you do to go to mom. It is, but, and my mom is great. Like she's the best mom ever, history, mankind. I'll fight you for it. But she's also a serial entrepreneur. So I was raised by serial entrepreneurs. So she had insights for me beyond, you know, just the mom insights. So I said, mom, I've been trying to get this thing going.

Brett Trainor (16:19.17)
I'm not there yet and I'm not going to make it. Something's going to crack within me. I just, I got to figure this out. And she gave me the best advice. She said, get out your calendar and pick a day. Pick a day. Pick a day you're going to quit your job. She said, it does not matter what day that day is. You just need to pick it. She said, I cannot tell you how many people ran a business for 30 years, other businesses in addition to that one. I cannot tell you how many people I know who never did it.

who never quit their day job. And it was always because they found this comfort and the stability and I get it, I had a son, I had to have insurance, I had to figure out some of that really tough stuff that comes with having a family. You can't just jump in without having a plan. So she said, pick a day. And then instead of sitting there and staring out the window and daydreaming about how great it would be, make an actual plan.

But to take out the emotion, because there's all this emotion in there and you see all this stuff in the way, you can imagine what it's like to turn in your two weeks notice, to be your own person. You can imagine that, you can daydream about it all day long. Yeah. But how do you get from here to there? And this is where her advice was so helpful to me. She said, plan it backwards. For she said, choose a stick a day on the calendar. Stick a day on the calendar and then plan backwards from that day. And she said, it doesn't matter what that day is, because that day can change and it might change. And you probably know that, John, you wrote a book. I know my date for my book changed.

Did it change? But you got to pick a day because you got to have something to plan for. And then she said, what is the last thing that you need to do before you quit your day job? Okay. So now we're getting real. So for me, that was things like I got to figure out the insurance thing. That's a must. I got to figure that out. It was also, I need to have a cushion. I got to have a cushion in the bank because I'm not going to go in this and then sink my family. I can't do that.

you know, especially if it's not just you, it's even more important to make sure that you have a financial cushion if at all possible before you do this. So, okay, so in order to do that, I went through this process, okay, so I gotta figure out this, I gotta figure out that, in order to have this cushion in the bank, that means I gotta make a little extra income, means can I scrimp more, can I save more, can I get more side gigs? Okay, in order to get that, I gotta maybe attend some events, I gotta network with people, so I started putting the tasks on that calendar.

Brett Trainor (18:37.734)
So they weren't just goals and ideas and dreams. They become tasks and goals. And that gives you that path to help you outline your journey. You're a planner. Ah, for sure. I am. You should see my calendar. You should see the little lists. Yeah, very much. I'm very process driven. Well, God bless you. Cause having a process to quit your day job is really, really important and have a mechanism for it. And, um,

For those of you who are just joining, Tara wrote a great book about this. And anytime you want, you can hold it up to the camera. There you go. Yeah. Flex. Yeah, exactly. And so, so grab that. And she's, you know, she can't read the whole book on air today for this section, but we're certainly getting nice bits and pieces. Um, Brett, pick up on that if you could a little bit. Let's talk about like, how do you do it? And so you've done 249 podcasts. You have to be a master on this now.

Yeah, Tara's route would have been a much better plan for me in hindsight, right? It was, I didn't have the, it just, I just got more to a breaking point and we agreed to disagree and I'm like, all right, I'll figure this out. Which it's been four plus years now and it's been, it's been a journey, right? And, uh, when I started, I moved from management consulting and what did I do solo management consulting.

realized after about a year that I really don't like to do this anymore, right? Chasing project plans and stakeholders on this and then stumbled into Fractional and said, all right, I can get behind this. And just kind of figured it out, right? And if I would have met Tara yourself probably two years prior, I could have shaped a couple of years out with this learning curve to do it. But yeah, I think that the biggest thing that I've found is, I think I've had over

probably close to 200 conversations with folks that are in either just escaped or thinking about escaping it. It's in that fear and I think it's the unknown, right? That you've known corporate, it's comfortable. You can plug most of these professionals into any other job and within a week, they'd be up and running and figuring out what they needed to do, but then put them into the wild, right? And figure it out. It's just a different... I'm completely convinced that everybody could do this.

Brett Trainor (20:58.07)
But as Bruce Rolls likes to remind me, it's not for everyone, which I agree. But the plan makes sense. And I like to focus on get super niche into one area, right? One problem you want to solve, one offer, one type of customer, just to get the momentum going, then you can start to expand it. This is what we've done. And so...

Again, that goes back to my advice to the same story, is to have that plan. What does that financial runway look like? Well, one of the things I try to share is that the opportunity is out there, right? It's never, I focus more on the SMB and the mid-market companies, but talking to some other folks, enterprise is now starting to adopt heavily into specialists in these roles. And the one...

The analogy that I'll use is people in corporate thinking they're going to leap into this entrepreneurial world. I've got to start a software company or the next school and use your own experience and skill to start a business. And the tightrope they think is across two skyscrapers and if they stumble or if the wind blows, it's, it's a fall. No, the tightrope is actually eight inches off the ground. If things don't go your way, it doesn't blow. You can always go back into corporate. If this wasn't for you.

And so I think that's what I would say. It's a lower risk. You have to believe in yourself. And the last thing I'll say to this is if you want to coast, you think, you know, maybe you're in a paycheck job and you're kind of coasting and you're doing your job getting, this isn't a coasting job. You're going to have to work hard, but I say you're going to work less. It's just more focused work. To me, it's, it's energizing and gave me that, that sense of purpose and drive towards something. But, um,

Yeah. So that's always my advice is there's more opportunity out there than you think. And yes, Tara, have a plan. Please do have a plan. Have a plan. Buy Tara's book, listen to Brett's advice, listen to his podcast. Do you do that weekly or monthly Brett, the corporate escape? You know what? It was the summer, it was weekly for like the first three years and then I kind of was figuring out what I want to do with it. Now, some weeks I have two episodes per week. Basically I'll record.

Brett Trainor (23:11.85)
Yeah, have a conversation with folks and we publish it within the next couple of days. So, right. So, so when this goes out on Spotify, we'll make sure people have access to that. But that really is it, right? You know, wherever you are. I love grandma's know your mother's advice, not grandma's. Well, she has a grandma because you have a child. So, you know, pick a day and commit. Brett, you know, you were talking about what you didn't meet Tara and have access to her wonderful book.

You know, you didn't have VoyagerU as a resource as a way to go fractional. So, uh, yours was a little more, um, maybe less planned, but you got there, right? You got there and Tara, you got there and we want, we want all of these folks to listen, we, I mean, I, I get up every day. I'm like, man, I look at this whole thing as a path to self-determination again. And I look at that and I'm like, and isn't that what we all want? You know, isn't that.

what we want, that we want agency over our time and our day and the money we make. And, you know, for 50 years, it's been less and less having that. And so the whatever, if you're well planned, that's awesome. If you're reacting to a bad situation, maybe a lot of folks get left off and you just have to go down this path. So but be planful is definitely the way to do it right. Could you guys talk a little bit? So here we are in, you know, three years after a pandemic.

Um, major changes in how we work major changes in the economy. Like this is not normal shit we're going through at all. Right. This is like whatever things were before the pandemic and what are they are now and whatever they're going to be in the future, like totally different. Um, could you guys talk a little bit about why it feels like there's more opportunity on the other side?

I see Tara. Tara's got some thoughts on that. So I'll start with you. The opportunity on the other side. Why now is actually a pretty good time for it. It really is. You know, it was alluded to before that people just stayed even when it was tough and it didn't feel good. People just stayed because we didn't have the options that we do today in so many ways. Geographically, there might have been only so many jobs within a distance that we were willing to travel to and have the qualifications to fill those roles.

Brett Trainor (25:31.882)
And we have had we have had this technology, we have had video conferencing technology for years. But it is more acceptable now. I think of my biggest fractional client 35 miles down the road, I was I was going there physically in person once a week, sometimes more than that. Now, it's rare. It's I might stop by if I'm in the area, or if we have a big meeting.

I'll step in. It has just gotten more acceptable and easier to do things remotely. That alone has opened up the floodgates of opportunity. There are so many opportunities. And I appreciate too that Brett talked about being really specialized, really find that specialization because that was something that I didn't feel like I could do when I got started. I felt like I had to offer so many different services because I was in such a small market.

So I'm 35 miles outside of Green Bay. I'm in Shawano, Wisconsin. It's a very small community. So there were only so many customers, clients right here. Now I hardly work with anyone great in this area because we can get really specialized and we can serve exactly the people that we need to serve. So on the fractional side of my work, I've really gotten specialized in working with manufacturing organizations, going through mergers and acquisitions.

Brett Trainor (26:51.896)
Very few people could say that they have done CMO work in that field. So if you need, if you're going through that, you need very specific assistance. Now that's something that I can offer rather than just saying I do marketing. Now I can find exactly the right people to work with, to offer my services. And they're going to get a better value for me because of that specialization. And I can work with people anywhere. We don't have to just find it.

Yeah, work with people we can drive to their physical location. That's a big deal. You know, the reason now is a good time. Technology has made it so right. We were able to, you know, close all of the offices down for a very long time and still maintain an economy and grow out of that. We are able to do that now. And while you sort of really I love it, like you ratchet it down your focus as to the value that you bring, but your ability to deliver that to a company in

Charlotte, Tampa, San Francisco, like we live in a world. You're 35 miles from a customer and you only go there every now and then, right? So it is a whole new world. Now is a good time and technology enables that. Brett, any other thoughts on why now is a good time to quit your day job? Yeah, I mean, I, yeah, day job and I just, because I, again, we can go more macro, right? The future of work and.

You know, the times are changing. And I think again, I'm seeing it more in the SMB and the SME world where people with, and I work mostly with Gen X. So we've got 20, 30 years of experience in corporate, you know, people with that skillset and talent were never accessible or there didn't have, or weren't available to smaller companies, right? So they had to promote from within or hire more junior and figure out, hopefully get the right people in and grow.

Now with Fractional, you know, kind of on the front edge, people are realizing, man, I can just pay for the outputs, right? It's a better deal for me. And I just think that the organization of the future without going too deep is going to be much more, if like today's big corporate is hierarchies, right? There's sorrows and people and things.

Brett Trainor (29:04.719)
Exactly. And maybe a good week, 30% of your time is spent doing the job that they hired you to do versus unnecessary meetings, busy work, fire drills, et cetera. What these smaller companies are starting to figure out is they can pay just for that expertise that they need. So it's becoming more of, I would call it an ecosystem, right? Well, I need a CRM specialist, I need a CMO. I don't need any of these people full time, but I can get really good people on a part-time basis to fill this.

And that's what I try to encourage people to think if you're in that fractionary leaving corporate, think about where you can plug into that ecosystem. And just two quick analogies. So people out there haven't heard me talk about this before, right? I think about Hollywood and if you're making a blockbuster movie, think about all those people that come together to make this movie, most of them are individuals or small companies, right? You got hair, makeup, script.

Yeah. It's about 18 months together, they build this thing, they all go their own way. And then these groups may work together on something in the future. And then the other one that people remember them will be oceans 11, where clueless in a route, the casino and he needs eight different specialists, right? He needs a disguise person. He needs the bond person. He needs this brought together. I mean, it just makes sense. You can start to leverage what you're good at and what you like to do and get paid for it. So we're not.

quite there where everybody's like, yes, this is what it's, you know, but I'm seeing that just because of these companies that are adopting the fractional, they see the value of doing this. And so by the time the enterprise organizations figure this out, it's going to be down the road, right? There's a lot of marketing and sales being aligned, let alone how to leverage right fractional and freelance type work. So that's why I'm so excited where the future of this is going.

Brett Trainor (30:54.742)
kind of pick the path that you want to. Again, there's not a ton of those skillsets available in these organizations yet. So to be able to offer that is gonna create, and again, they're okay with virtual as well. So you don't have to make- Sure, yeah. Well, yeah, we're over the arc on that, Tara. You're not- Yeah, and I was just thinking too about you, John. What I love is you're such a good connector. You, with the fractional, in the fractional sphere, with Voyager U, with all the work that you've done, is that-

You help. So to Brett's analogy, I love with the oceans movie too, like all these special, you know who all those specialists are and you've connected them to each other. And what a great opportunity too, for us to network and be able to, because I love to do that too, as a CMO to come in, oh, you need a CFO or, you know, whatever other fractional specialist somebody might need is to have really strong networks and connections. And it also allows us to vet, get the right people.

and have all the good rise to the top. Cause I too believe there's enough room for everyone who wants to do this. And organically we're gonna get higher quality services because of specialization, but also because we're working and recommending people who we know are doing good work. And I take a lot of pride in being able to present those options to people too. Maybe I'll say, hey, you know, actually I don't think you need a CMO. I don't think you need this right now. You just need somebody to manage, like you said, right the CRM. Maybe you need that.

Or maybe you need someone to manage your social media. You just need a few people who can do some of those tasks for you right now. And to have those connections is really powerful too. So John, appreciate all you're doing and making those connections for people. I love doing it. You know, it, uh, you know, helping, you know, I always say one plus one equals three. So if I take, you know, one Brett and connect him to one Tara, what can come out of that is, is just, is exponentially larger and you never know exactly what it is. But.

It doesn't just equal to, it's not just linear. Um, and particularly when it comes to Brett said my favorite word, Gen Xers, uh, as a Gen Xer myself and a big fan of the clash and the police. And I was listening to my Gen X music last night. Like there's a, there's a, um, there's an absolute hunger in Gen X and below. For independence for self determination, self determination for.

Brett Trainor (33:10.95)
Uh, which, which is another reason why to do this now you might have a burning desire, like, you know what, I, I do have self independence. I'm not in love with, you know, all of the decisions in my life being made at a corporate level. So now is a very, very good time to do that. You guys were touching on something that's very close to what I do at Voyager and how I teach fractional. And that is mindset, like get Tara's book. You're going to learn all about like the

process to do it and jump into void, where did you learn it? Listen to Brett, like there's a million stories, but let's talk. It's so, so the sort of the linear path, right? It's, it's there and you can find it, but let's talk about some other components, the mental space. Let's talk about the mindset. You know, these are other dimensions that a lot of people, I don't think we're used to like, Hey, what's the CRM or what's the process, what's the tool? Mindset matters so much.

Could you guys talk about mindset in quitting your job and then getting to the other side of it?

Either one, Brett, I'm going to call on you. I think, and you're absolutely right, John, it is the mindset that is so critical. And talking to folks that are on the fence about leaving or staying, it's, right, can I do this in the confidence to do it? And 100% they have the ability. And the other thing that I think about is the can and will, right? There's so many people that say, I can do that. Oh, I can absolutely do it. But will you do that?

And that's where the difference is right now, the people in your community, the folks that are doing it, they will, they did do it, right? They figured out how to versus I can do. So taking that, the shift from mental and actually taking action, this is a big step. And I mean, I get it. It is that the fear of back to the unknown, right? Well, where am I going to find leads? And will people actually like my services and buy from me?

Brett Trainor (35:08.682)
It wasn't until that mind shift that said, Hey, I can, in my case, there was no choice. Yeah. And thinking about it, exactly. And I don't necessarily recommend it. It's okay. You can make that work, but if you can plan the better, but that's the thing is just to get that mind shift from can to will and just say, I will do this. Sure. Very dedicated. You got very focused. You, you.

You followed the David Goggins path. You just set your mind towards a, towards a accomplish mindset. And that's what got you here today. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I wish I had Goggins mindset, but I think I'm not so sure. He's a, he's an interesting dude, but, um, yeah, it's just more of.

We got to get back. You know, you mentioned Gen X and you know, you think about our childhood and it's cliche, but you know, latchkey kids, we had to figure it out. There was no, my mom and dad weren't bailing me out of problems unless it was super serious. But then with friends, we had to figure it out. There's no play dates and you know, we kept score and all those things. But then over the decades in corporate, you're in this box and there's fewer freedoms in the sense of what you're doing. And it's just, hey, just incremental improvements. Make sure this is a little bit better. Hit your goal.

And then all of a sudden we get a taste of the freedom again. Like that's how we grew up. So I think it's that shift to go back to what really you enjoyed. And again, if you don't, if you like the structure, then this isn't for you, but you're probably not listening to this podcast. Right. So you probably didn't, you probably didn't dial in. Tara, talk a little bit about in your book and what you've come across in your own life, you know, mindset, where does, where do you set your mind and how do you sort of get that tuned into the right channel?

to quit your day job and then get to the other side. Okay, so Ken and Will, I've got another one I'm gonna add to that, have to and get to. That's a great mind shift switch as well. Do I have to do this or do I get to? Tell me more. Yeah, so a lot of our tasks, because if you think of what's on your to-do list right now, do I have to pay taxes? We just had quarterly taxes last week and it was like, do I have to pay my quarterly taxes? No, I get to, because I'm self-employed, I get to.

Brett Trainor (37:22.73)
pay those taxes. Also, you reframed a lot of those. It's just a reframe. Exactly. Do I have to take my kid to the dentist? No, I get to. I spoke with a woman recently who is not able to take her child to the dentist right now. And it hurt me. It hurt my heart because how many of us take all these privileges that we have for granted? So that's one encouragement for the mindset switch.

Instead of saying you have to say you get to and even for the really hard stuff, because there's always going to be stuff that's hard being self-employed is you still get to do it because not everyone can follow this path or this journey. You still get to, you still get to, uh, another thing, flex a freelance rate of a, the first chapter, I talk about failure. We talk about learning to fail, uh, Michelle Kwan. So she talks about in here, the very first coach that she worked with, um, that was the first thing.

that she learned was how to fall. She asked the question. She says, why, why do I have to learn, learn how to, how to fall? It's going to happen. You're going to do it a lot. Here it is. Uh, page 23, chapter two, actually, I started figure skating at the age of five. And the first thing my coach taught me was how to fall. I remember gazing up with a puzzled expression thinking, shouldn't I be learning to skate?

Looking back, I realized that my coach was very smart. She knew I was bound to fall many times throughout my career and that I needed to learn how to handle it. Another reason why I wrote this book is because so many people who I knew personally, friends, people who had taken my classes, would start their journey and to try to start their own business. And they had so many misconceptions and misunderstandings and expectations at an improper level.

where I wanted it to be a reality check. I wanted it to be an honest guide and not the things that you're gonna learn in the classroom, not the things that you're gonna learn in traditional education, things that I had seen people do the wrong way or the hard way or things I had learned the hard way that I don't want other people to have to learn the hard way. And the mindset thing is so important. And you're still gonna have tough moments. I think of just this last one. I had a tough.

Brett Trainor (39:45.226)
I had a tough time. I remember hitting this, I called it a trough. I was like in a trough for a while. I started questioning, I had three things go wrong in a row. And I started questioning like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Am I on the right path? Do I need to get a, do I need to go get a real job? Do I need to go back to corporate? We have those moments. That's going to happen. And at that point in time is a good time to stop, step back, look at the big picture and ask those questions. What do I really want? What do I really want? And for me, it was like, okay.

I enjoy the work that I do. I'm working with great people. The thing that I'm feeling I'm not getting enough of what I want right now is the teaching part. I love to teach. Love it, love it, love it. Well, you're a great speaker. You're teaching while you speak. So I said, that's what I need to do more of because that's what fills me is when I can help other people. So then I just put myself out there, got a little more proactive and focused on filling my cup that way. So if you feel a discord, if you have a struggle, what can you do to balance it?

What can you do to fill that up? And again, with the self-employment options, you have that ability to flex your schedule the way you want to build in more time for personal things. We should, right? We talked about health. We gotta do those things, the basics. We gotta take care of our health, mental, and our physical or emotional health. We gotta take care of all those things so that we can have that positive mindset and we can be ready to go. Yeah.

I'm glad you brought that up and you brought up that friend of yours who couldn't take their child to the dentist. And that is both a shame and a stain on how we do things. That's why I wrote about, I write about the status quo and revolt so much is I do consider that a stain. Like we only have each day. Like tomorrow is absolutely not guaranteed. And so our days have to be, they have to fill our cup.

And to have an environment where it is you can't take your kid to the dentist or to be trapped because the only health care you can have is through that job. Now you all, we all know that that's not true. You can get healthcare on the open market pretty easily, but we've gotten away from what it means to be an individual. And somehow we've moved more, just, I don't know why we've moved away from that, but what I want everybody to know is that on the other side of this,

Brett Trainor (42:07.434)
When you do, as Tara says, put the date on the calendar and commit to it. And as Brett says, like when the freaking world falls out from underneath you, you just commit to it, all of that. Let's talk about the other side of it. Like now you're, now you're there. I'm there. We teach people who are there, like talk about what people can expect and what they can look forward to and what they can prepare for. Maybe we call that on day two. You did quit your day job. Now what?

And I'll invite Brett, I'll have you talk about that a little bit. The other side of quitting your day job. Is this the good side or the work side or the combination? You know what? Take whichever side you want. Well, I mean, I think they go hand in hand, right? Cause Tara mentioned the hard, right? And it is hard, but guess what? Corporate was hard. So at least when it this way, it's your hard, right? You're working for yourself. It's your timeline.

And like Taryn mentioned, I also preach the, what do you want to find really what you want? I never done that in 30 years. I never defined what do I want? What is my next 20 years look like or what do I want it to look like? And I actually have some control over that now that was refreshing. And it took a- You spent 30 years putting yourself in a box that you had to fit into as opposed to creating your own box. Is that what you're getting at? Yeah.

And think what's next, right? Am I going to have to keep working in corporate because, you know, corporate failed to provide those pension claims. We're going to keep paying you after you retire. And, you know, I'm definitely not one that was planning on retiring anyway, but I'd rather do what I want to do and make the money and kind of control that. Um, it took a little while to figure out what the day to day looks like afterwards. Cause initially it was, I was probably working more for Wes just because.

It was completely reactionary and, you know, figure out what the client wants, worked all that. But now I've really kind of calendarized my day and it aligns with where I'm productive. Right. So my early mornings are perfect. I block those off like six days a week, but I'm okay. I get up energized, get to work. And even though I've got more structure in my day than I had in corporate, I work less. Right. So it's, it seems counterintuitive sometimes that.

Brett Trainor (44:24.726)
Yeah. More structure leads to it. And I just find that having that, that energy again, and the purpose driving towards something is it just makes all the difference in the world. Instead of going through the motions and dreading what, you know, Monday morning is going to look like it's to Tara's point, I get to do this on Monday. Right. I get to record another podcast episode. I get to do this with this client. Right. And you may not say that about your corporate job. You may not say that about it.

It's hard to find gratitude. If for those of you listening, you can find Brett on LinkedIn. He wrote about this recently in that, I read your blog and you were talking about you get up at 5.30 and it sounds like about 1.30, you're really focusing on your health and your family and your well. So you're very, very structured. So that is your other side of it. Tara, talk about the other side. Yeah, so.

I'm happy with my other side. So I wanna focus on my recommendations for other folks who are perhaps already knee deep in this and not sure where to go next. So make sure you meet with a financial advisor and make sure you meet with an accountant because you need to know how to keep track of everything and what you need to keep track of so that you can fulfill your obligations. And if you wait until the end of a year before you start doing that, you're gonna be a big trouble. I had that happen to a dear friend. She went, worked for a whole year and realized, crap, I lost money. Because she wasn't keeping track.

she wasn't planning. So that's essential. You need to know where it's going and what to do with it. The other thing when it comes to the time management piece and how to organize your day, really good book, Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt. That's a really good one because it helps you to ask those tough questions. What is really important? What do I really want? And then how do I divide my time up thoughtfully? I love, there's whole sections in that book about delegating. There's whole sections in that book about eliminating, eliminating stuff that is really not necessary.

So very helpful because we are masters of, I call it productive procrastination. There's still procrastination, but we're just keeping busy doing something, but it's not the most essential task. So if you're struggling with those things, pick up Free to Focus by Michael Hyatt. Really, really helpful to get really focused on your schedule and on what's important. And Brett, sounds like you do a nice job of outlining your calendar already. And I feel like I've...

Brett Trainor (46:46.006)
Still have a way to go, but I feel like that has been so essential to me too, is making sure I have my day lined up and all of the important things go on there first and then everything else fills in with what's left. You guys know, you guys might know I'm a history nerd and an anthropology nerd and a dinosaur nerd. I never lost my dinosaur phase. You know, a lot of us Gen Xers went through the dinosaur phase. I'm still in it. My partner in...

Voyager, Jason Voyage, we were both full-throated dinosaur nerds, but anthropology too. And did you guys know, did you know that in the generations before us, I'm not talking industrial revolution, I'm not talking like, but throughout the larger arc of time, how much time a person had to spend to survive in it each day, that time, so I'm talking, you know.

10,000 years ago, 5,000 years ago, 3,000 years ago, was 20 hours a week. 20 hours a week to acquire your food, shelter, reproduction, that's always in there, anthropologists talk a lot about that. Those three primary, what is that, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, like 20 hours a week, which allows you time for spirituality and health and those sort of things. Damn! I mean, now that is the fractional week, right? The fractional week is, as we teach it, is a 24-hour week, but.

Think about that like, what the hell? Why can't we have that again? And of course we can, we lost that script. And I'm not saying we have to all go back to wearing bison coats and living that life, but there's something to be said there about working smarter, not harder, and not prioritizing everything, that only a few things really matter. Yeah, we waste so much time. And John, I gotta tell you something, because if you're a dinosaur nerd, you're gonna love this. So I just got back from Kauai.

and I got to see several of the locations where Jurassic Park was filmed. Oh. It was so cool. And- Did it feel like it? Did you feel like you were in the movie? It was fun. You should have seen my husband though, he totally nerded out over it. He had brought along a little toy dinosaur and like put it in all the spots where the movie was shot and took all these pictures. And we got a picture right where they found the eggs right in the big Banyan trees and they had eggs. We got to pretend we found them. Super cool. Oh my gosh. Yeah. There's this-

Brett Trainor (49:08.814)
Project Boneyard up in Alaska I want to visit one day, somebody found like an absolute like just treasure of all wooly mammoth and all those bones. I just, there's just something about, I guess maybe it makes me feel small, right? Like we are small little dots on this, but you know, getting back to it, like why do we prioritize so much when in fact we need so little to be healthy and wealthy and prosperous? Why is that you guys? Yeah. Well, how do we avoid it? Listen. What's that?

I said, it's comparison, right? The next guy or the next woman, or I need to have more. And maybe it's just age, but getting away from that's been helpful. And really to defining what you want, right? It sounds simple, but you know, I've worked with a few folks and put them through that exercise and this is the hardest part of defining. What do you want? You know, um, Jesse Itzler and you remember NetJets, married Sarah Blakely, and Spanx woman. He.

He has a talk or I saw a clip where he's a couple of years younger than me. So he's like 54. And he's like, statistically speaking, right. I've got another 23 years left on this earth, right. If I live to 77, 78, that means I've got 23 summers left and I want to pack as much into these 23 summers as I absolutely can. And there's kind of a light bulb went off. I'm like, yes, that's exactly what we should be. Instead of going through the day to day, what can, what more can we do that we want to do?

in the remaining time, right? I mean, it's, again, more of an optimist, so hopefully it's 33 years, but it's a long time and things that we need to do in order to accomplish that. So again, I think it's flipping from reactionary to more intentional, but intentional to what? Decide what you want and it can change over time, right? Or even as you try to start to figure some things out, but. I think there's something too, as well, when we were talking about this is the right time.

and why now is a good time to that Brett and Tara. And that is, I always recommend this book in our coursework, From Strength to Strength. Jenny Erickson, good friend, shared that with me and it's by Arthur Brooks. And it talks about the difference in our life. The first half of our life is about learning. I mean, our whole life's about learning, but they call it, what do they call it? Fluid intelligence, right?

Brett Trainor (51:31.658)
And the second half of life is us with crystallized intelligence. And what that means is the more you walk around on this earth, the more wisdom you have, which means the more guidance you can provide, which means the more sort of corners you can help people see around. And part of the reason I think now is a good time to do this. If you're over 40 or even in your late thirties, but if you've been around for 10, 15, 20, 30 years.

There's this weird juxtaposition right now in corporate America, whereas the older you are, the less value you have. And it plays out in ageism of all the isms and ageism and sexism and genderism. Like all these isms really play out in corporate America, but ageism specifically plays out in an inverse way. Like the older you are, the more wise you are, the more you have learned. And so one of the reasons I think now is such a good time is it's time, right? It's not.

You're not supposed to be grinding and suffering through your days. You're supposed to be leading and guiding. And what Tara was saying about like you get you fill your cup by helping others. Absolutely. Yeah. And one thing on that book, John, I actually really I would highly recommend it as well. But you got to stick through the first few chapters. Oh, my God. First few chapters. I'm like depressed. What do you mean? My best years are behind me in the year. We're we're thinking.

But then the author took a little time getting to where the point of the book was. But yes, if you stick through it, then it all makes sense. But the first part, I'm like, whoa, no, it's hard. It's hard. Have you read it? No, I just wrote it down. No, I will. I'm a huge reader. I mean, Brett is right. Like I was with Jenny Erickson. She's an amazing person. She's I think she's in Phoenix and she talks about the death of being a workaholic.

Like you don't need to do it. And she's got this great podcast and helps people with all that. You can find her online. Um, she used to freeze up here in the Northern Tundra where we freeze in the twin cities, but, um, she recommended to me and it was so hard the first chapter two, I'm like, damn, I feel terrible. It's all over. Right. But Tara, you're living this Brett, you're living this. I like, we have wisdom to pass on.

Brett Trainor (53:50.002)
And there is tremendous value. And let's be honest, money to be made by dispersing that to other companies. There's 33 million small businesses in America. It's half our GDP. There is no ever going to be any shortage of businesses that need that wisdom and guidance. Wouldn't you guys agree? Absolutely. How's the time? Yeah, I was just thinking too, talking about setting goals, talking about how, how to be thoughtful in this with our time too.

Maybe we don't want to think about this or talk about it, but again, I have to recommend that you meet with a financial advisor for that reason too, because you can tell them, my goal is I want to go to the Boneyard in Alaska, or I want to go see where Jurassic Park was filmed in Hawaii. Whatever your goals are, as far as your downtime, your vacations, your family things, you can talk about that with them. And as an independent business owner, there's not a lot of people that sometimes you can talk about the money stuff and the hard stuff. That's true.

but you need to plan for what you want. And they can help you to look at what's realistic and to set goals. And that has always helped me. My advisor will sit down and say, you know what, you're already doing this in this part of what you do, and you're gonna do this here. I think you should go after this and get that. And you can, and that's really helpful too, because it's like that little bit of external accountability. And then same thing for visiting the Boneyard thing, John, is pick your day for that.

We got to pick your date. How many folks do we know who wait until they're older to travel, wait until they're older to do things and then they lose the health? They lose the health to be able to do it. So we have to be able to take time off now for the family stuff, obviously, but also for our recreation. We're not intended to be working 60 hours a week for 52 weeks a year. You know what's in...

Revolt, I talk about that. I can't remember which chapter. I almost have, I wrote it. I should memorize everything like in chronological order, but I don't have that kind of brain. But I talk about that as you make a very good point, Tara, is the health effect of the status quo of work, right? Like heart disease is the number one cause of death in America still. It goes back and forth cancer, but right now it's heart disease. That's terrible, right? And the number one cause of heart disease is stress.

Brett Trainor (56:12.702)
And the number one cause of stress is work. So that recipe is terrible. So another reason to do it is like, get your, get your life in order so that. You don't have a heart attack. Like if you know what I mean? It's like, it's our work is really not structured for us to be healthy individuals, but yet we're on this planet to be healthy individuals. And, and if there's no other reason, like.

get out, if work is giving you stress, then that is reason alone. Cause stress is, is super unhealthy. And Brett, you talk about this a lot. Like, listen, this independent freelance consulting fractional thing, it's not a walk in the park. It's not like all flowers and daisies, I mean your work, but it's yours. You know, it's your work. It's your time. And I think for me, I feel like I don't feel stressed like I used to. And I think it's because it's mine. Now you guys talk about that a little bit.

Well, for me, it was a short term sacrifice. It was, you know, initially, and it was going to be hard. It was going to be hard again. I had the little one too. So I was only committing a minimal amount of time to my business initially. So that meant a lot of scrimping, a lot of saving a lot. I mean, I made everything from scratch. Like I got a little crazy about it. Like I went a little overboard. Like, I mean, I was like making my own laundry soap. Like I was kind of weirdo for a while. You know, anyway, but.

But I knew it was temporary until it would, until I could get to the good stuff. And that's where that focus and that grit, and we talked about mindset. I think it was a Carol Dweck who wrote the mindset book. You know, if that's an area that you're struggling with, work on that part. And all of these are skills that can be learned. They're all skills. So yeah, you're gonna have hard stuff. You're gonna have blind spots. You're gonna have weaknesses. Focus on finding how to fill that.

Whether it's through delegating a task that's hard to someone else or it's learning how to do it because it's different. Again, it is different when it's your own stress and it's your choice. That's totally different than someone else telling you and an external force telling you this is what you need to do and this is where you need to be. And this is how you need to do this. When it's, when it's you, it feels different. Yeah, it is. And maybe that's the entire difference, Brett, you were, you had something to throw in there.

Brett Trainor (58:35.614)
Yeah, I was just, the one thing that helped right when I was in corporate, and this is personal with my wife, we need the paycheck was coming every two weeks. Back in the day when it was monthly, right? We knew what the benefits were, we knew what insurance was. There was no stress necessarily on her other than, right, the economy's bad or these company may be in trouble, whatever. But going solo shifted that, right? Cause all of a sudden she didn't know what I was doing. There was no guaranteed paycheck coming in every two weeks.

And her stress level went through the roof over time. And we probably argued more because I'm telling, no, everything's all right. We're good. We're just moving in the right direction. The one thing I moved to last year, and again, this works for us, is my wife and I have a quarterly business radio. We sit down for a couple hours. I go through the entire business and say, hey, here's what we did this past quarter. Here's what I think we're going to do this quarter. And then we talk about what we want.

right? What are we doing here in the next month? We don't have trips. What, whatever it is, right. And that's just created more alignment with us and just took out an unnecessary stress or brilliant. Cause I never really thought of it from her perspective. Like, yes, no, things are good. Yeah, we're going to get through this, but she had no idea right until we actually go through it. So again, just to tip quarterly business review, right? Like with your, cause your stakeholders are not your family yourself, Tara.

see you chomping at the blip of Ryan. I'm so glad you shared that, Brad, because that's so real. And I think that's important for our listeners to understand too. I am so, so grateful that my husband let me try this, that he let me do it, even though to be honest, he didn't believe that I could when I first started. He did not believe, I know that he didn't, but he let me try it anyway. And I'm so grateful. And things took a few years.

to really turn around and go in the right direction. So I'm so grateful for the patients, but yeah, you gotta have those conversations with your personal stakeholders, with the people in your life. And we do that too periodically. We actually found early on in our marriage that we got along much better with separate bank accounts. We're very different. I'm the saver, he's the spender. So we, but we do need to get together periodically and just make sure things are divided up equitably between us and that everything is getting covered and we're not having any issues that way.

Brett Trainor (01:00:54.902)
So you got to find what works for you, but you got to talk about it. And sometimes it's good to bring in another neutral person to have that discussion. If that's something that's really a big challenge for a couple to get through the financial stuff, bring in someone else, it's okay. Bring someone else in to keep you on the right mood, the right level to have that conversation. And it is hard.

Yeah. I think it's, I often think, some people think it's a very entrepreneurial life. And that may be true. That may be true. I'm going to revert back here at the back end of the hour here. I'm going to revert back to your grandmother. I think it's a very self-determined life. It's a very independent life because you're not alone, but is that entrepreneurial? Maybe. But when you're going fractional or independent, you know, you're not creating a new software that's going to change the world, your world, you're just creating a life for yourself that fits. We cruise through this. Oh my God.

Well, clearly there's going to have to be another one. I know it's 10 o'clock. So a couple of things I want to do before we close out is I want to give. I'm an educator, too. I want to give people a lot of resources here because there's a lot of ways people can go forward. So I'm going to start with Brett Brett. A couple of things folks can do by reaching out to you and finding you to help quit their day job. Talk about that if you could. Yeah, a couple of happy to have conversations. I've probably had.

70 probably in the last five or six weeks with folks that are seriously considering it. I'll throw in the podcast. Like I said, I'm trying to make her content more and more relevant to folks that are really considering this. And Tara, the episode that went live this morning was a financial planner who was an escapee turned financial planner. She's big into tiny home living. And so she's like, so it even took it beyond just the business and how do you get your expenses in order? So

I was thinking about you and you said that. I'm like, it took me a while, but I finally got her on. And like I said, I've got a number of tools, right? And stuff that I've just put together to help people think through the process. That's the one thing I'll say is educate yourself. It's not as hard as you think it is. The risk isn't there, because you can always go back, but educate yourself. Start the process before you do.

Brett Trainor (01:03:09.078)
Because then if you're laid off or corporate changes, then all of a sudden you're scrambling and you're not going to think as clearly as maybe if you had a little bit of time to product. So find you on LinkedIn and that's the doorway to all the resources you have. Okay. Great. LinkedIn, John, or TikTok. I'm enjoying it. Yes. Not going to trade a lot back and forth. We think TikTok is a good place for us independent folks. So the time will bear that out, but it's a lot of fun. Tara.

What resources do you have to share? Where can people find you? Talk about that. You have a lot to help people in this capacity. Yeah, same. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn as well. I share a lot of my best content there. You can also find me on TikTok. I've started getting a little bit more active there. I find there's a good audience there too. So those are good places to start in addition to my book. And if you, like Brett, I am willing to have a conversation with anyone who wants to talk about it. If you're trying to get going, I am so happy to give back. I think of the people who took the time to meet with me.

have a cup of coffee and give me pointers and send me in the right direction. And I just want to do that for other people with no obligation. So you can find my calendar on my website. It is Tara L Fletcher dot com. And that is Tara like Tara Kata T E R A letter L as in Louise Tara L Fletcher dot com. My calendar is right on there. You can book an appointment with me and we can have a have a conversation privately, no obligation. I just I love to be able to do that for folks. And the book is on Amazon. You betcha.

Flex the freelance and unconventional guide to quit your day job. Perfect. The book is there. There's a couple more resources I want to share. It's it's I'm me. So I have to talk about Voyager. You you can learn how to become a fractional pro there for sure. Brett and Tara and I, we gathered last year we did frack the world's first international conference for fractional professionals. And that was here in the Twin Cities. We're doing it again in 2024. So look at.

Look, Google that, right? Google, uh, frac 2024 and you'll find a conference where us independent folks get together and gather in person. And that's another resource. Are we free? Oh, fractional is United. That's another great resource. Uh, it's interesting folks, isn't it? Like none of these resources were there for us. So we really want to share them with you. Those who are listening guys, thank you so much. Thank you for staying extra a little bit. I really appreciate it. I appreciate you both.

Brett Trainor (01:05:27.426)
And I look forward to having you both on. And then I'm really grateful for the work you guys do. Thank you. Thanks, Tom. Thanks, Brett. All right. Well, have a good day.

Brett Trainor (01:05:43.031)
Yeah.

Here we go

Brett Trainor (01:05:54.958)
He's young and clever and oh

Brett Trainor (01:06:00.266)
Days we only talk about the weather and nothing seems to change

Brett Trainor (01:06:11.026)
Yeah