HOBIE PORTERFIELD: If mindset, to me, could have been a quarter as important, 25 percent as important as business planning—
AMY PORTERFIELD: Yes.
HOBIE: —holy crap, you could have been, you could be in another stratosphere right now.
AMY: Okay. So, that's—wow, I've never heard you say that. But back in the day, I guess the biggest takeaway I want you all to hear is that I didn't value mindset as much as I do now.
HOBIE: Right.
AMY: You all know that I believe what you think creates feelings, feelings create actions, and actions create your results. And I didn't know how powerful that was. And I've always said, Tony Robbins always says, that being an entrepreneur, 80 percent of it is what you think. It's your mindset.
INTRO: I'm Amy Porterfield, and this is Online Marketing Made Easy.
AMY: Remember the movie Now and Then, with Rosie O'Donnell, Christina Ricci, and Demi Moore, where four childhood best friends are brought back together and they reminisce about the old days versus where they are now? Well, in today's episode, I'm bringing you Now and Then Porterfield style, with the one and only, my husband, Hobie Porterfield.
Now, the reason I wanted to bring him on today, November 11, 2021, is that this episode goes live on Veterans Day. And as we talked about what episode we wanted to air on this holiday, I decided that I wanted to bring my favorite veteran on the show, Hobie. And so before we get into this episode, I want to take a moment to thank not only my veteran husband, but all the veterans who have served in the U.S. military. I am so grateful for each and every one of you and for the sacrifices you made for our country. So be sure to take some time today to thank the veterans in your life. And I also want to acknowledge my listeners who have served as well as all of my amazing students who have served. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
So, what sparked this podcast episode topic with Hobie is that we often talk about the then and now and how our relationship has changed, how I've changed, and how entrepreneurship has really changed our lives for the better, albeit it hasn't always been an easy change, but standing here today, looking back, it always seems to work out, doesn't it? So I'm bringing Hobie on, and we're going to talk about the lessons we've learned throughout the years. And I have a sneaking suspicion that there are a few nuggets in here that you need to hear today, including a pep talk from Hobie himself.
Thanks for joining me today, and I'd be so grateful if you can share this episode with a friend or a loved one. Let's get to it.
Well, you're back. Not only are you my most favorite veteran, you are my most favorite guest. And I think all my other guests could understand why. So, Hobie, welcome back to the show.
HOBIE: Thanks. You're my favorite host.
AMY: Have you been on a lot of podcasts?
HOBIE: No.
AMY: So, tell me this. Are you feeling a little bit nervous?
HOBIE: A little bit.
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: It's just we’re talking—
HOBIE: I’m not a pro like you.
AMY: Listen. But we're also talking about a topic that is sensitive to me because we're talking about some of my faults and some of the things you've seen along the way. So I'm sensitive to a little bit of this, but we're going to go for it. So are you ready?
HOBIE: You only have, like, a couple little faults.
AMY: Yeah. He says that now, my friends.
Okay. So, what you can't see, we have video going, but we're only giving you snippets of it. Scout is right here with us. Scout, yes, you are part of this interview, for sure. So he's right there with us.
Okay. So, first question is I want to talk about the roadblocks that I experienced in the beginning, years and years ago, and the roadblocks that I experience now, because would you agree? I still got issues.
HOBIE: I mean, nothing compared to when we got started.
AMY: Okay. So, let's talk about the roadblocks in the beginning. What's one that really stands out? Like, when I was just getting started, where did I struggle the most, based on your experience with me?
HOBIE: I mean, I think it was the confidence—
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: —because everything from confidence was fear. Like, if you didn't have the confidence, then everything was twice as terrifying.
AMY: Yes, for sure. Like, what did the confidence—how did it show up?
HOBIE: Like, you would take jobs, like, different things that were to fill your docket and make sure that money was coming in. They were things that I knew you had no interest in doing, and you just did them because the fear and the confidence of you being able to keep things going, you were trying to constantly be, like, having an income source—
AMY: Yeah. It’s like—
HOBIE: —because you thought that was the most important thing.
AMY: That's what defined me. If I was making good money, I was a good entrepreneur.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: Even in the early days, when I didn't even know what I was doing, which was such unfair pressure to put on myself.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: Like, hearing you say that, I'm like, “Oh, I remember those days.” I worried more about the money coming in than, am I building a business that's sustainable, that I will love, that I won't—
HOBIE: That you love, yeah.
AMY: —yeah—that I won’t work myself to the bone? So, I mean, quite honestly, I did start building a business I didn't love, when I did all the consulting.
HOBIE: At the beginning, yes.
AMY: Yeah. I did all the consulting, and I took customers, or clients, I didn't want to work with, and I built a business I absolutely hated, which I talked about on this podcast a lot, until I moved into digital courses. But those are the years you're talking about.
HOBIE: Yeah. But it also, I mean, yes, that’s a lot of negative in it, too. But it also showed you what you did want to do and what you didn't want to do—
AMY: Very true. Very true.
HOBIE: —which made it possible to focus in on, like, what was the business that you want?
AMY: Yeah, totally agree.
So, now here we are in Tennessee and looking out this window—did you see the deer that was there just a second ago?
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: Like, it's like a whole new world. We've got deer outside versus palm trees and seventy-degree weather. We won't get into that.
But tell me this. The roadblocks you see me face now—and they might be unique to the season I'm in. I'm in a little bit of a rough season. I've talked about that on the podcast—but what are some roadblocks that you see thirteen years into my business, multi-million-dollar business? We're doing well. What are the roadblocks you see?
HOBIE: I mean, I think the hard part is we moved here. So you have a complete change of everything moving here. I think that's a huge roadblock. And then when you get here, you know, we get here, and everything changes. Like, what does—our spare time looks different than it did in California. Everything that we do together is different than it was in California, and I think that that seems to wreak havoc on how to stay focused in the business, too.
AMY: Yeah. Like, confidence in making changes, I think, is something you said—
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: —that comes up for me a lot.
HOBIE: Like, right now, trying to admit, like, when your entire life is completely in disarray right now or, you know, unorganized space—
AMY: It's not like it was in California.
HOBIE: Right. Right now, everything's just getting settled down.
AMY: Right.
HOBIE: That's pretty hard to make new changes to your business when everything outside, that's the one thing that was the constant. So I mean, again, that's a confidence thing, too.
AMY: Totally. The confidence moving into the four-day workweek—
HOBIE: For sure.
AMY: —was scary for me. Confidence in knowing who should I hire or not hire? I feel like my confidence has been shaky lately, definitely.
HOBIE: Lately. But I also think that there's a lot of reasons behind that. I mean, you don't have steady ground to stand on. And at least in California, you could close the doors on the house, and you had that.
AMY: I knew. Yeah.
HOBIE: You could escape the business world, the personal world, everything, by just hiding in the house. But here, we've had people here. It's been a constant work. That's tough. That's really difficult.
AMY: Yeah. Our life just looks very different now. And so I will say, I think people go through seasons of their business, and I think I'm coming out—I actually, genuinely think I'm coming out—of a dark season, and I think we all go through that. So the reason I wanted to bring this up and just look at some of the experiences and roadblocks then and now is that I think it's important that I want my listeners to understand that what they're feeling was probably very real for me in the early days as well. If you struggle with confidence, if you struggle with different dark seasons in your life or your business, if they feel like roadblocks, I've been there, and heck, I might even be there now. So the roadblocks are 100 percent part of the journey as an entrepreneur. Do we agree?
HOBIE: I agree.
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: I think it's hard because you want it to be perfect.
AMY: Oh, yeah.
HOBIE: And if it's not perfect, then, it causes you to go into a funk.
AMY: So, here's the thing. As a husband of an entrepreneur, how does it feel for you when you see, maybe there's a lack of confidence for me? Or let's go to the early years because that's kind of what we want to focus on, too, is when you saw that happening to me, as a husband, how do you navigate that?
HOBIE: Difficult. Remember, you and I had done a lot of talking over the years getting this down. And the hard part is you coming at it from a business standpoint. Talking it out definitely helped. Well, I'm always coming at it from a combatant or from the athletic standpoint, where I got to get hyped up to overcome a confidence issue.
AMY: Right.
HOBIE: And that's the exact opposite for you. So my coming at you with—
AMY: Solutions.
HOBIE: —guns blazing and—
AMY: Who do I need to beat up? Or—
HOBIE: Yeah. Like, screw this. You're the baddest chick on the Earth.
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: You're coming at—like, that's my approach.
AMY: He does do that, and I'm just like, “Babe, I don't need you to tell me I'm a bad ass right now. I kind of need you to just, like, hold me really, really tight.”
HOBIE: Yeah, yeah.
AMY: And so sometimes our energies don't match, and he thinks he's being really helpful, where I kind of want to kill you just a little bit.
HOBIE: Just a little.
AMY: But I feel so fortunate. I have a husband that wants to take care of me, and you're very protective. But yeah, our energies sometimes don't match. Me in it, in my business, knowing all the details, wanting to talk it out. You being outside of that. You're not in the day to day of the business. So when I talk to you, sometimes your energy and my energy doesn't match.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: Yeah. That's fair. I don't think we've ever talked about that before.
Okay. So, one thing I love about my sweet husband, aside from his sexy mountain-man beard, is that he is so good at giving little pep talks. So Hobie, what kind of pep talks do you remember giving me in my early days? And actually, let's do something kind of fun. Are you ready?
HOBIE: Oh, boy.
AMY: I want you to give—
HOBIE: Now I’m nervous.
AMY: You should be. I want you to give a pep talk that you may have given me in the early days, or heck, maybe you still give me the same pep talk today. But give it to people listening that maybe want to overcome some kind of roadblock. They're starting their business. They're in the messy middle. They’re somewhere along the way. They're feeling shaky and fragile in the place that they're at. What would you say to them?
HOBIE: Nobody has it figured out. Like, nobody has everything figured out. And I almost feel like we always think we have to know everything. We think we've got to know every little thing, and if we don't, we're a failure. And nobody knows everything. Nobody knows everything. So you just keep going forward. And you got to remember that this, too, shall pass. Go, go.
AMY: Mm, it’s true.
HOBIE: You just got to sometimes work your way through things, and you just can't stop. I think that was one of the things that was inspiring to me about you. There were a lot of times where I was scared that you might pull back because you didn't know, and you just kept going, and now we're coming out on the other side. And I mean, it's just tough because you want to know everything, but it's not possible to know everything.
AMY: And I love that you said that because you can absolutely still move forward as an entrepreneur without having all the answers.
HOBIE: You just got to jump.
AMY: Yes.
HOBIE: But you got to keep one foot in front of the other. And sometimes, some days, it’s a half a step in front of the other, you know? It’s not a step at all.
AMY: Or maybe a step backwards. But then the next day—
HOBIE: Could be. Next day, you come at it a little harder. But it's don't quit. Don't ever quit.
AMY: Mm, I love that message.
Okay. So, think back to when I was starting my business, and as a husband or a partner to someone who was starting a business, what was the hardest part for you? And I guess I kind of asked this earlier, but I want to get into it a little bit more. Do you feel like you've had moments where you feel second to the business? And how did you navigate those feelings and those moments? And then, I also want us both to kind of share how we felt, how we navigated as a couple. But to go back, have you ever felt second to the business?
HOBIE: For sure.
AMY: I was going to say, why, I don't even need to ask that.
HOBIE: Yeah, for sure.
AMY: And do you feel resentful to me? And please be very honest. Do you ever resent me for putting the business before you and, I hate to say it, even Cade?
HOBIE: Yeah. I mean, for sure. There’s been a lot of different times where I literally was angry about things. The good thing with us is that after the fact, you and I have a really good, to me, a good relationship where we sit down and we talk about it. So, and it never failed. Every time one of us is experiencing something—because there's been times where I should have been more supportive for you when you had stuff going on with the business and I wasn’t. And when you and I sit down and we talk about it, it's like, huh. So then the next time we try to be a little better than we were the time before. By no stretch are we perfect.
AMY: Oh, god, no. But I think one thing that I did that really irritated you—you can tell me if I'm wrong. In therapy, the therapist says say it or change it. So say it or change it—I would tell you, “But Hobie, I have to work this weekend. I am making money for our family. I make the most money. I have to make this money,” or “I have a lot of pressure on me to make sure that our family is taken care of and that we are building our savings,” and whatever. I would tell you that, “No, Hobie. I have to do this. I am responsible for us.” And I would use that almost as to say, “You are wrong; I am right.” Say it or change it.
HOBIE: Yeah. Well, I still don't quite understand how to say it or change it.
AMY: Either say yes, you're right; or change it to something that’s more true.
HOBIE: Yeah. Change it. For sure, you’ve definitely used that, but I feel like in the last year and a half—I can almost put it down to a year and a half—I think you’re starting to catch yourself saying that.
AMY: Mm-hmm.
HOBIE: And you're realizing that that's not a fully true statement.
AMY: It's like I use it to get away with my bad behavior of maybe working too much or worrying too much or justifying that what I am doing, these unhealthy behaviors, are totally justified.
HOBIE: Right.
AMY: Yeah. And I catch myself more. But I don't know who needed to hear that, but I just kind of wanted to share that, that I do that with Hobie sometimes, and I'm not proud of it. I also cringe and kind of want to cry when I hear Hobie say, “Absolutely, you've put Cade and I second to the business.” I mean, I just need to hear this for my own—not always.
HOBIE: Yeah. No, no, no.
AMY: Okay.
HOBIE: No, no, no.
AMY: But I definitely… And I will say—I want to share this with all of you— I did that because I always was, you know, my biggest critic is myself.
HOBIE: Right.
AMY: And I'm like, I've got to do this. I've got goals. I've got to show up. I want to support our family in the way that I know I can. And I just got to go, go, go, go, go. And sometimes at the detriment to how I show up for our family, and I have regrets. Thirteen years in, I absolutely have regrets—I’m going to say this without crying—of times that…
I remember—I think I've told you this, Hobie, before—but one time when Hobie was at the fire station, when Cade was really young, I went to a baseball game. It was a practice for Cade. I went to a baseball practice for Cade. And he was young. I don’t know, six or seven years old. And he was out there practicing, and I had my computer. I had my laptop, which Hobie would never show up to a practice on his phone or with a laptop, but I did. And some deadline I had to get to. So I was typing away, but I was there. I was there. I was there for Cade, in my head. And so I would look up, and I'd cheer him on, and then I'd get back into my laptop.
And so after, like, you know—and you know I hated baseball.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: I just do not love watching it. I’d much rather Cade wrestle or play football. Baseball is so boring. So anyway, but that wasn't the point.
So after the practice, I was walking Cade back to the car, and I said, “Cade, you did so good!” And he said, “How do you know? You were working the whole time.” And I wanted to die. “How do you know? You were working the whole time.” I didn't know Cade noticed those things. And as you know, I've been doing more therapy lately and just really taking care of my mental health, and some of the stuff that happened to me as a child, I think, “Oh, my god. Am I repeating that with Cade?” And so I want to tell Cade all these things. Like, “I'm so sorry for anything I did to screw you up as a child.” But that was one moment that he would never remember, but I remember.
HOBIE: Yeah. Well, it's tough. I mean, but here's the thing. Nobody gets it perfect.
AMY: I know.
HOBIE: Just like nobody knows everything. And the hard part is that you care so much that you take on the fact that you didn't do it exactly perfect, and nobody does. You just get a chance to keep going forward, and you try to change what you did.
AMY: Yeah, that’s true.
HOBIE: If you didn't like it, then you change.
AMY: Be better.
HOBIE: What was the thing you just said?
AMY: Say it or change it.
HOBIE: Say it or change it. Change that shit.
AMY: Okay. We don't typically—
HOBIE: Oh, sorry.
AMY: —cuss on this podcast.
HOBIE: Change that caca—
AMY: Oh, god.
HOBIE: —poo poo.
AMY: Okay. Moving on.
So, as many of my listeners know, one of the biggest challenges was leaving the partnership that I was in. It’s a big one. He just took a big sigh; I don't know if you heard it. But the partnership was a big one. So, now, obviously, Hobie was at the frontlines with me on that and really saw that experience, felt it, understood it at such a deep level. So, babe, what do you feel came out of going through that?
And the reason this is important for my audience to hear, many of them have not gotten out of a partnership, but as an entrepreneur, we are always going to have those moments where we come to a breaking point and we’re just kind of wondering, is this even freaking worth it? And trust me. I believe it is worth it. All the hard work, all the heartache, all the challenges, all the dark seasons that may come up as an entrepreneur, it is absolutely worth it.
Wait. Before we go on with this question, do you believe all the stuff we've gone through of me building the business—all the tears, all the frustrations, all the comparing myself to others, all the hardships, the partnership, everything, this kind of dark season that I've been coming out of—is it all still worth it?
HOBIE: It is. I mean, you really got to stop and look at where we’re at in our lives. We would be nowhere near a retirement conversation. I guarantee we would not have a clue what retirement looked like.
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: We would be knee deep in it still, as two people working for a paycheck that's provided by somebody else.
AMY: Yeah, you're right. So that part, the freedom, the lifestyle freedom. As much as I don't work as much now as I used to, but we got to a point that we have lifestyle freedom. And I want to talk about—we're going to get… Ooh, I’m all my all over the place right now—but I want to get to a point that I want to talk about how much I worked and how that probably wasn't necessary to get to where we are, and I want to get your opinion. But hold on. We'll come back to that.
So let's go back to the partnership. But my question for you is, what do you feel came out of me going through the breakup of a partnership? Because that was a dark time.
HOBIE: Yeah. Yeah, it was, but again, I mean, a lot of this stems down to the same topic, and it was confidence. I think that you had to have enough confidence to actually create the break up.
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: That was one.
AMY: Saying I wanted out.
HOBIE: Yeah. That you could actually out loud say it, outside of you and I talked.
AMY: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
HOBIE: And then I think that then it created another whole time of doubt, from the time it did break up to where you had the confidence to make it on your own.
AMY: True. But I saw a huge change in me—
HOBIE: Huge.
AMY: —the night I called you—
HOBIE: Huge.
AMY: —and said the business is ours again.
HOBIE: I knew the night you were even talking about it.
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: I knew it.
AMY: I, like, get chills because I was in it. We were at a meeting where we made the decision we were going to separate, and we came up with the terms. And the first call, of course, I made was Hobie, and I’m like, “It’s over.” Like, it is over.
HOBIE: Was that when you were playing that song? We can’t say it, obviously, if we’re not saying any swear words. But…
AMY: What? Oh, no. He's thinking of Kesha. I'm a mother-f-ing woman. Hobie hears us play that song.
HOBIE: I thought that was it.
AMY: No. That’s not the song.
HOBIE: That's our fight song.
AMY: That's our fight song, but that's because of Chloe. Chloe plays that song all the time.
HOBIE: Okay.
AMY: No. That was Avett Brothers “Ain't No Man.” That was the song, the theme song, of where we were at our lives right there, because we played it all the time.
But the point being, I called Hobie, told him the business was mine again, and then we met for dinner with our lawyer that night. And it was just like, holy cow. We kept looking at each other, like, oh, my gosh.
But I feel like my confidence at that moment grew. And why I'm sharing this—and I've talked about this before with you guys, so you know the story—but anyone listening right now where you're just like, “Holy cow, is this worth it, or does it get easier?” And there's going to be a moment in your experience, in your journey, that something just clicks. Whether you get over a huge obstacle, you get a great opportunity that you have the courage to say yes to, something in your life ends so something new can start, and you're like, game on. I feel like everyone has those moments.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: That was mine. But holy cow.
HOBIE: That was one, though. Just one—
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: —of a whole series of friendships that you started and stopped. Like, there was a whole ton of those things along the way. Like, it’s a long book.
AMY: It’s a long book. It’s true. There's many friendships, unfortunately, but I guess fortunately, this is life, that have come and gone. I can name four or five people that I was dear friends with, and I'm not dear friends with now because our lives went different ways. We maybe disagreed with each other. We weren't on the same page anymore. I think probably more recently than in the past. But those were moments as well, where I had time in my entrepreneurial journey of kind of mourning what was and not knowing what was going to come.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: Yeah. That's a whole other conversation.
But we talked a little bit, last time you were on the show, about money and how that has been an area as a couple that we've really had to work on.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: I don't think anymore. And what's interesting is where we are in our life right now is when we moved to Tennessee from California, Hobie was a firefighter, a San Diego firefighter, enjoying your job—
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: —doing really well in your job. But to move to Nashville, the way firefighting works is that you have to start over.
HOBIE: Most of the time.
AMY: Most of the time.
HOBIE: Sometimes you can get lucky and catch a lateral, but…
AMY: Most of the time you got to start over. And so Hobie’s like, “I'm almost fifty.” Can I say that? Is that hard to hear just now?
HOBIE: Yeah, but it's not “almost.”
AMY: Hobie’s older than me, everybody, just to be clear.
HOBIE: I just turned fifty, so not “almost.”
AMY: Yeah. He robbed the cradle.
HOBIE: I did.
AMY: Forget it. Let’s not get that crazy.
But anyway, so he's like, “I can't start over.” So we just made a decision because we were financially stable and could do it, that he'd retire. And I thought that when we moved here—I did. And we've talked about this a lot—I would very much resent you. Like, you're not going to a nine-to-five job or you're not working anymore. Every penny that I earn is the only money that we have now. When I say that, does that sting a little?
HOBIE: Yeah. For some reason, a little bit.
AMY: I could see in your face. Is it not true?
HOBIE: Yeah, it's true.
AMY: What stings for you when I say that?
HOBIE: I feel like I'm working a twelve-to-twelve job.
AMY: Okay. So, why it stings a little, I think we should probably tell them, is that when we moved to this house in Nashville, although it was a new house, it just needed a lot of work, and not like just, oh, this would be nice if it looked this way or that way. Like, there were some things that we had to fix, and so Hobie’s been literally working himself to the bone since the day we got here. And so maybe that's why I don't feel resentful. Like, I'm working and you're not. But you're never going to, like, sit on the couch and watch TV all day.
HOBIE: No. Not my personality.
AMY: That's not the kind of guy you are. Yeah. But so, Hobie’s like, “I don't even know what retirement is, because it's been really busy.” But we'll get you a point that you won't be so busy every single day. But I just love the fact that you're home every night, because as a firefighter, you work on every other night, and I hated that. I love that you're home. I love that we get to do life together. I love that you encourage me to take more time off. You know, four-day workweek, part of my drive was to spend more time with you. And the fact that now we have a lake house that is getting renovated right now, that we get to spend time in next summer. Like, we’re so excited about that.
So anyway, I got us a little bit off track, so let's go back to talking about money. So I want to talk about how finances looked in our early days versus now and how as my listeners build their business, they might lean on one salary more than the other. And sometimes that's challenging because sometimes, babe, people are listening that they're trying to get their business up and running so their spouse or partner is making all the money right now, and they're not. And so that also can create some rifts in a marriage. So how would you say that we found our flow with finances as a couple over the years? Because I want to remind everyone, when I started, we were forty thousand dollars in debt in our first and second year of me starting this business. So 2010, 2011, about forty thousand dollars in debt. Hobie was just getting ready to quit his general-contractor job and become a firefighter. So you weren’t hardly making money, and I hardly wasn't making any money. So we had our moments of, oh, my gosh.
HOBIE: As usual, we did a “let's change everything all at once.”
AMY: Everything. We have a pattern, my friends, of all or nothing, something I'm trying to get away from, exactly what we did in Tennessee. Like, my dad's like, “Why not just rent a place and just see what you think about moving that far away?” I'm like, “No, no. We're going to buy a house and a lake house that we need to remodel, and everything's going to start from scratch.”
HOBIE: Cutting all ties. Anything safe is gone. We’re going to a whole new place.
AMY: Oh, we have a problem, Hobie. We have a problem. And I'm not proud of it. We joke about it, but it's caused a lot—why I'm in a dark season is that we did that, but that's another episode that I've already recorded and you guys have already heard.
So basically, how have we found our flow? Because you are alpha male, to the max. You are very much—I'll say this about you that you might not say about yourself—you are a very hard worker, and that is part of your identity. Protector, hard worker. You are, like, I want to say you're the man of the house, but not in a way that's disrespectful.
HOBIE: Right.
AMY: You definitely have a big presence, and then your wife now is making the money.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: So how have we found that flow? Because I don't even think it's an issue for us anymore.
HOBIE: I don't think it's an issue, because I think that we have spent so much time trying to figure out budgets and safety things—like, I would say every two years we sit down and we do a whole new budget as far as what the future looks like, retirement. Like, we've done this for a long time, and now I feel like we're on our way to trying to get to an exact goal.
AMY: So, yeah, because now we're starting to talk about retirement. And what that means for me, I have no idea. What age I'll retire, I don't know. And if my team's listening, don't worry, it's no time soon. But we are looking at—
HOBIE: But it being an option—
AMY: Yeah.
HOBIE: —if you wanted it to be.
AMY: True. Like, I'd love to—
HOBIE: Realistic.
AMY: —this is my goal. I've never shared this with all of you before, but my goal is to get to a place that I don't need to make a cent in order for us to be financially free, but I get to work just because I absolutely love it. And I think we're getting close. And you all might think, “Well, Amy, you've talked about having a multi-million-dollar business. Why wouldn't you be there today?” Well, we've never looked at the numbers. We've never saved in that way, not that we're big spenders. But there are some things that we want to just make sure are in place. And so we started to really dig deep into that.
And I think that's what Hobie’s alluding to, where we've gotten the flow of our finances because even though I am making the money now, we talk about it together all the time. You know exactly what the numbers look like. You know exactly what our goals are or what we're shooting for. You know where our weaknesses are, where we can be better. It is not just because I make the money. I don't control everything, and that, I think, is important.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: I have some friends, women that are not in the industry at all, and they shared with me recently that they have no idea about their finances. Like, their husband does all the finances. And that scared me because I thought, “Well, that feels very vulnerable. And I wouldn't want Hobie to feel that way, and I wouldn't want to feel that way.” So I guess we shouldn't give any advice about money. But if we gave a little bit advice about marriage and money, would you agree it would be to make sure both parties know all the details?
HOBIE: Yes. That's tough to do, though.
AMY: Why?
HOBIE: Because it’s always one person’s personality more so than the other.
AMY: Oh. I know what you’re thinking. Yes.
HOBIE: And you are more of the finance person along the way, but it’s like ever since we switched towards a goal of a retirement and a family-security thing, that became both of us doing it.
AMY: Yeah. So, I guess that's a great point. So we can be very honest on this podcast, for years, I was the one who controlled all of it. That is true. And I have a controlling personality. And so I want to know where the numbers are at all time, like to a fault, probably. Or Hobie, why do you think you took such a backseat to that?
HOBIE: Again, I think that's personalities. That was your thing. I had no problem literally handing over a paycheck or—
AMY: But why? Like, I can’t even fathom that.
HOBIE: I just thought—it's not something that I really thought about. I knew I was going to be working, so I just worked. I'd concentrate on just being as good as I could be at work.
AMY: Yeah. Yeah, that is something Hobie and I will never understand from each other. But I will also say Hobie is not a natural worrier like I am. Would you agree?
HOBIE: Yeah. I think it's—there are specific things I worry about, and they are life-threatening type of things.
AMY: Like if the world ends, and you got to make sure—
HOBIE: Yes. We’re good.
AMY: Hobie’s a prepper. Everyone just already knows, my audience knows you're a prepper. So don't worry. If the world ends, come to my house in Nashville—
HOBIE: No, don’t come to our house.
AMY: Okay. He hates when I say that. He’s like, “No. This is the stuff that we're going to survive on.”
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: But I invite everyone, just so you know.
HOBIE: Oh, okay.
AMY: All my girlfriends know to come over here if the world ends, because I’ve got—
HOBIE: “I don’t know where Hobie went. He was right here.”
AMY: —I’ve got enough food for twenty years.
HOBIE: Mm-hmm.
AMY: Yes, okay. Moving on.
As you all know, one thing that makes me show up for work every day is because I want to help entrepreneurs create more lifestyle freedom, whatever that means for you. So maybe that's being your own boss or retiring your partner or having more time to spend with your kids or working from a beach or buying the house of your dreams. Whatever it is, I want to help you get your business to a point where you can do that. So, babe, let's talk about how having an online business and selling digital courses has really allowed us to create freedom around the things that are most important to us. And to take it one step further, do you remember in the early days of my business, if you ever, in a million years, imagined that it would allow us to have the life that we have today? So we might be in a crazy place right now, a little bit unsettled, but in a million years, would you have ever guessed—like, think about when we were at your firefighter graduation.
HOBIE: Oh, my gosh.
AMY: My business was just starting.
HOBIE: Yeah.
AMY: You were graduating as a firefighter, getting paid hardly anything. If someone whispered in your ear, “You will literally have the life of your dreams,” would you have—
HOBIE: Look, even Scout’s excited.
AMY: Scout just came to the conversation. —would you have ever imagined we were here now?
HOBIE: No.
AMY: And why not?
HOBIE: Because we were so knee deep in one foot in front of the other that we couldn't have projected—at that time, I can't even imagine projecting what the future held, because we, for so long were, you were tooth and nail and trying to learn everything about a business that really didn't, a lot of it didn’t exist when you started—
AMY: Mm-hmm, right.
HOBIE: —this business. So you had to figure all of that out. I was in a whole other—for the first time in my life, I was in an arena I had never been in before.
AMY: Older than most.
HOBIE: And way older. So I felt like I had everything stacked against me, so I had to be perfect to jump in front of the line and get ahead of all the youngsters.
AMY: Yeah. So for—
HOBIE: So both of us were stressed out, worked like crazy, and who would have ever—I could have never imagined we were ever going to be at a point where it was like, huh.
AMY: And I guess I wanted to bring that up. I knew the answer. I knew Hobie and I both couldn't imagine having the life we have today, because if you're listening and you're like, “Amy, I can't even hit my first small goal yet. I can't even imagine getting to a place that I have the house that I want or have the lifestyle that I want,” I couldn't, and Hobie couldn't imagine it either. And maybe you don't need to. Maybe it's just that, just believe in yourself just a little bit more than you don't so that you can keep getting up every morning and pushing forward and doing the things you need to do to serve the audience you want to serve, but also to create the life that you really want.
And one other thing I want to mention—and, Hobie, I've already mentioned this in what I'm calling Shorty episodes. Did you know that I'm doing two episodes a week now?
HOBIE: No.
AMY: Yes.
HOBIE: You crazy nut.
AMY: I know. But on Tuesdays I do an episode, but we call it a Shorty episode. Ten, fifteen, twenty minutes max. And in that episode, I talked about how I wished that I would have worked less back in the day. And I'm sensitive to say that because some people could say, “Oh, you say that now, but you would never have what you have today if you didn't work all those hours.” But don't you think that I just was fearful and that work was my identity, and so I thought I had to work all those hours? Don't you think I could have went to a four-day workweek five, six years ago?
HOBIE: Maybe.
AMY: Why “maybe”?
HOBIE: Yes. Yeah, I think it's just difficult. I agree. It's difficult to say for sure yes. That's the—yeah.
AMY: It's a hard one, right?
HOBIE: That's hard because, you're right; it took you identifying that as everything to put the amount of work that you put into it. Could you have? You could have, but it's all—
AMY: You're not sure if my mental space was there?
HOBIE: —would you have possessed the confidence to be, like—
AMY: Oh, gotcha.
HOBIE: —“Oh, I can skip a day”?
AMY: Okay. So here's the thing. What I am saying is, absolutely, if I worked on my mindset way back then, right?
HOBIE: Yes. Oh, my gosh, yes.
AMY: That's the thing.
HOBIE: If mindset, to me, could have been a quarter as important, 25 percent as important as business planning—
AMY: Yes.
HOBIE: —holy crap, you could have been, you could be in another stratosphere right now.
AMY: Okay. So, that's—wow, I've never heard you say that. But back in the day, I guess the biggest takeaway I want you all to hear is that I didn't value mindset as much as I do now.
HOBIE: Right.
AMY: You all know that I believe what you think creates feelings, feelings create actions, and actions create your results. And I didn't know how powerful that was. And I've always said, Tony Robbins always says, that being an entrepreneur, 80 percent of it is what you think. It's your mindset. I would say that back then, but I don’t know if I totally believed it. So if you took anything away from this episode, my hope is that you realize what you think about yourself, about your worth, about your ability to create what you want to create is far more important than the strategies that I teach you about how to create courses and build your email list and do amazing promotions and all of that. What you think is more important than even what I teach you.
HOBIE: Yeah. I think together it's a pretty coupled pair for success.
AMY: Yeah. You definitely need both. But I can't necessarily change your mind every day, and that's where I want you to really focus so that when I teach you strategies, if you join Digital Course Academy or List Builders Society or whatever it might be, that those strategies sink in quickly because you are open minded to taking them on and doing them.
HOBIE: Nice.
AMY: I mean, I don't know where it's coming from, but that's—
HOBIE: Boom.
AMY: —Stop it, stop it. So that's, basically, what I wanted to share.
HOBIE: Where did that all come from?
AMY: Okay. I don’t know. I don’t know.
Hobie, I love you to the moon and back, you are my favorite person in the entire world, and I would not be where I am today without your support every step of the way. So I love you, and I thank you for everything.
HOBIE: Well, I love you.
AMY: If you're not seeing the camera, we just kissed.
HOBIE: We did.
AMY: Okay. That's awkward. That's awkward on a podcast.
HOBIE: No!
AMY: Okay. Anyway—
HOBIE: The world needs more love.
AMY: You're so very right.
Thanks for being here.
HOBIE: Thanks for having me. I love you.
AMY: Love you.
Oh, my goodness. Hobie Porterfield definitely just makes me just so very happy when he joins the show. And here's what I hope that you take away from this. If you're in a relationship, there will be times and moments where you need to lean into the support of your partner, and it won't always be easy. And if you're not in a relationship, then I hope the pep talk and the reminder that I've been where you are gives you a boost of inspiration. You know how they say relationships are hard? Well, so is entrepreneurship. But as you grow as an entrepreneur, so does your ability to handle the tough days. So hang in there, set your boundaries, lean into your support, and know that the freedom to focus and put your time and energy into the things that are the absolute most important to you, that will come. That's what is waiting for you on the other side. And one day very soon, you'll find yourself thinking about now versus then. And I know, I just know it in my bones, that you'll smile.
If you haven't already, please share this episode with a friend or with a loved one. And if you'd be so kind and leave me a review, I'd be so grateful. I love reading what you like hearing on this episode so I can tailor each and every episode for you.
Thanks for joining Hobie and I today. I'll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.