In this episode of Tactical Empire, Jeff and Shawn discusses potential life changes, focusing on the idea of transitioning from corporate jobs to self-employment. They explore the challenges and benefits of making such a decision, including financial security, job volatility, and the importance of having a strategic plan and side income before fully committing to a new venture. They also highlight the potential personal and family benefits of having more control over one's time and work-life balance. The episode emphasizes the importance of careful planning and mentorship in successfully navigating the transition to self-employment.
In this episode of the Tactical Empire, Jeff and Shawn discusses the challenges and strategies of transitioning from a corporate career to personal entrepreneurship. They delve into the emotional and practical considerations of making such a leap, emphasizing the importance of side income, thorough planning, and understanding the evolving job market. Additionally, they highlight the benefits of increased family time and autonomy that come with entrepreneurship. The episode also explores how to realistically set financial goals and plan strategically for long-term success and stability, offering mentorship and coaching to those considering this significant life change.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:44 Family and Personal Updates
02:48 Discussing Potential Life Changes
04:13 Deciding to Leave a Corporate Job
06:24 Strategic Planning for Financial Freedom
16:09 Balancing Work and Family Life
23:37 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
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Jeff Smith: [00:00:00] Welcome to another episode of the Tactical Empire. I'm joined by Sean Ryder today. What is going on, Sean? How are you?
Shawn Rider: Oh, my man. I am fired up, ready to go. Little bit anxious, nervous. I don't use those terms lightly. Had a good call with you, uh, yesterday about some potential, I say some potential changes, like a big change, uh, for me and my family.
So I appreciate your time there yesterday. I think we're going to dive. A little bit into that topic today. I don't want to be ominous and, and beat around the bush, uh, but nothing's official yet, but we'll kind of talk about hypothetical scenarios and, and how you would go through mentoring someone through it.
But before we get into that, how are you, man?
Jeff Smith: Oh man, living the dream. I've got, we've got family coming in today and tomorrow, maybe, uh, my mom is coming down, my sister and brother in law are coming down for, uh, [00:01:00] my, my son is turning eight this weekend. So we are. We are looking forward to that and, uh, trampoline park or something, I believe.
And then, uh, all the stuff for him. So, usually gets the shaft because it's so What's that?
Shawn Rider: My daughter was asking to go to the trampoline park. We've never been, but she heard about one. It's like a little over an hour away. And then, uh, uh, my kids godparents, me and Kate's good friends, brought, um, Gift cards over last night for this play.
So of course my daughter wakes up this morning. It's like, can we go? It's like, I'd love to just pick up again. We got, we got some stuff to do today. We got to plan that one out a little bit better. So maybe we'll be there in the next couple of days. It might take a week or two till we could, uh, get up, get up an hour North.
Cause do you want to, I mean, you don't want to go and spend 30 minutes there. Like you want to spend hours. So we got to plan like a whole half day.
Jeff Smith: So
Shawn Rider: I felt on the best. With [00:02:00] a daughter, especially like, you don't want to tell her no first thing in the morning. She gets into a fit because we tell her no trampoline park today.
Anyways,
Jeff Smith: I I, I can feel that I've been, uh, being asked to take them to go ice skating for fucking a week. So, and I've just like, no, that's an undertaking. We, we have ice skating. There's even. There's even one place to outdoor ice skate.
Shawn Rider: Okay.
Jeff Smith: Hey, we're Texans. We've got this shit down pat. We can make snow.
We can do anything down here.
Shawn Rider: Somehow you guys learned how to freeze sand. Yeah, when I was growing up, I thought Texas was just all sand. Sand is all, boy, this is. Well, look, we've talked a lot about the year. We talked about how to plan for 2025. Uh, we talked about potential changes. Um, one of those changes [00:03:00] that people might make, let's say, let's say they have a spouse that owns a business or they're an investor or they have the bigger W 2 income job and they, they have kids, but one of the other spouses, of course, the family probably maybe has a good income, maybe doesn't, but they want a little bit more freedom.
Um, how do you go about deciding that a spouse should step away from? A corporate career or, or maybe take at least a year to see what they can do without that cushy, nice, guaranteed. I use guaranteed lightly, right? Cause people can get by full time. But, uh, when you've been with the company for a long time, like what are some factors, what are some thoughts?
How do you help people bridge that gap and maybe motivates not the right word because people have to make the decision when they're comfortable with the decision, but how do you. How do you help someone maybe focus in on actually making that decision regardless [00:04:00] of the feelings, emotions, scarcity, scared thoughts that creep in when someone steps away from something that's comfortable like that?
Jeff Smith: Yeah. I mean, I think this question has evolved a little bit in the last 10 years, especially cause I mean, job security is not what it used to be in, uh, even in the corporate world. Um, so like, well, most, and I speak from, I was in the corporate world for 18 years. So just putting context behind this, I worked for a fortune 50 company for 18 years of my life.
Um, so putting some context to what I'm saying, it's not all been real estate and businesses my entire life. I did them congruently, actually. And so like, that was part of my jumping off point. I am not a burn the boats type guy. I've said that on numerous episodes. Um, I, just because I don't think that I could in good faith, advise [00:05:00] other people to do that when I don't see the bridge.
Um, there's a lot of coaches and mentors and shit out there that do that. And they're like, go in all and chips in on yourself, blah, blah, blah. Me, I like to strategically have a plan to exit and I like to have some side income coming in. I like a, I, I like an established thing rather than like, I'm going to quit on Friday and I'm going to start something brand new from zero revenue on Monday.
Like that, to me, is a dangerous thing. And I definitely don't tell men with families to do that ever. Because the stress that it causes, like you, you can burn the whole fucking house down doing that stuff. Like, I'm not trying to be the wedge in between someone's marriage or anything like that. So strategically.
I want you to have like a runway and, and not just money, but a plan. And, and like, what is the plan? Um, do you have income [00:06:00] sources of any kind? Uh, I mean, it could be anything. It could be investments, but like businesses are obviously. Like better if you're younger, certainly. I mean, if you've got enough money invested, hell yeah, do it good.
But like, if you're 30 years old and you've got 50, 000, like that's, that's not going to, the interest on that is not going to carry you. And so, um, you, you have to think about what you're going to do. The cool thing is like, when I talk about the, the landscape of the job market changing, I think, I think jobs are more volatile than doing things yourself now.
Um, a hundred percent, because the more control you can get over it, like let's, let's just use an example. If I make 10 grand a month at a company where somebody else employs me and I'm having like performance reviews and then they're budgeting on everything and they're looking at their payroll and they're looking to cut costs, or I make 4, 000 in my side hustle by myself.
Like I'm, I'm really more comfortable with that [00:07:00] 4, 000 and taking that to like eight than the 10, 000 of working for an employer for 10, because like that 10 has me sweating always. Because I know that like, for me, I'm, I'm, I'm just a realist. Like most people go to work and they're like, everybody loves me.
I'm a great performer, blah, blah, blah. But at the end of the day, I mean, I've been around long enough to see the rubber meet the road and like, you don't matter. Um, and, and that's a fact or, or you get too expensive and they let you go. Like businesses are not much different than sports teams. Like you could have the fucking all star of the league, but if he, Is at a price point where you see this in the NFL constantly because of Salary caps and everything else like if i'm if i've played 11 years and i'm guaranteed 22 million dollars I have now become too expensive because you can go get six of me At a lesser price to fill that deal.
I mean We kind of saw that this year in a different [00:08:00] arena. Uh, it quite frankly and um, So
Shawn Rider: are you talking?
That's good shit.
Jeff Smith: I've seen that happen. But, um, but I also know, uh, because of being in the corporate world, the volatility of what that looks like, I mean, it takes one bad boss, it takes one bad performance cycle, it takes, like, any variety of things to happen until you're not as solidified in what you're doing as you think you are.
I mean, honestly, that's where a lot of, like, The pursuit of control, the pursuit of financial freedom, the pursuit of everything that we teach and preach in the tactical empire came from was me watching the life cycle of these people in the corporate world and, and we would go through a year and we would get our annual reviews, we would get our bonuses, and then we would get a three to 6 percent raise, right?
And everybody would be [00:09:00] happy as fuck and they'd go out and they'd buy their next three series BMW lease. They would upgrade one fucking hundred dollars a month on their car payment and they would spend everything that they made, right? And it was, it was just a recipe for like, they were fat and happy, like thinking this road was never gonna end.
The train was never gonna stop, no matter what, right? And then you reach some hard economic times and the company returns some bad numbers. And then Or they go into a completely different system and they bring in an external auditing team to restructure the organization and that in just like any other organization they're like well we can cut this entire division and next thing you know 500 people aren't employed right and and so those are the same people that just took a couple thousand dollar raise and we're super super happy with it and we're just looking towards the future.
To how much is my 401k going to be worth in 20 years, blah, blah, blah. [00:10:00] And like thinking that all of these things were like afterthoughts and guarantees when, when the reality of it was like under the surface, if you were willing to kind of take off your rose colored glasses, you knew that like. The only people watching out for you and your family are you, and you need to plan for that, and, and you need to buffer yourself against all the, all the things that you don't have the power to choose within.
And so, like, it, the, the fact of the matter is, and as hard as this may sound to people, like, if you work for anybody else, it is that person's decision whether you work there tomorrow or not. And like. And, and so, and, and to be fair, like most people are good hearted. They think that their relationships with people are going to save things.
But at the end of the day, business is [00:11:00] fucking, it's ruthless and like, it's a numbers game. And if the numbers don't work, it doesn't matter how much your relationship means in some cases or I've seen businesses that it's going to actually take them under. And so the owner has to make a decision to like part ways maybe with that person or switch things up, right?
Like it's just not financially feasible. And so like hard decisions have to be made every day in business and people. Take that for granted to an extent and, and most people that work for businesses just try to take as much as they can get out of their performance and it, and don't understand that there's a lot more involved in that decision making process and nothing like I would be out there hustling and trying to figure out how to get my income up on my own, developing skills.
Developing side businesses, whether I was buying [00:12:00] businesses or investing in other things to get my income up to give me that safety and security of like, Hey, we can still do this. We could still work this job. No problem. That's that's if, and then there's like a stress meter, right? And, uh, and I hate my life meter.
And, uh, so that meter is constantly toggling as you're building this outside income. Or these sources of income. And, and so like, and once that meter reaches a comfort point, like I said, like if you're making 10 K a month at the job, and then you've got your, your investments or something else kicking off 4k and you can see the path to get it to eight.
Like, you have to understand that you're no longer a W 2 person if you take that leap. So you don't need as much money because your tax, taxable income is going to change. Your tax rate is going to change. The, the write offs that you have are going to change. So that 8 might be equivalent to the [00:13:00] 10 or exceed the 10.
So like, that's where, I think people don't understand all of that and all of that goes into the planning. Like for me, like I would be as granular as I could be, but maybe like, maybe that four needs to get to 4, 500 before you'd feel really comfortable doing it. And then you see the path for three months or six months to hit the eight.
And then, and, and you also have that runway of capital within your account or liquidity. Yeah. Thank you. Like we can live off of this for one year if I went to zero and we're not at zero, we're at 4, 500 a month or whatever, right?
Shawn Rider: And my, my argument always too is like, if you've, like you said, thank you for clarifying, like not just going cold turkey, especially if you're married with kids, like going from your job to zero and starting, starting your next thing the day after you quit, uh, having something already up and running, like to use your numbers and example, if you're making 10 and you can pull in four on the side [00:14:00] and that four.
Came in without your full undivided attention. Like you have to put some sort of utility number on what if I went full focus in this thing, that four is going to quickly go to eight. Faster than I went from zero to four. And, and, and so that's the thing that sold me on 10 years ago or whatever it's been leaving, teaching to go full focused into my gym.
So we're just in a different going back to my family situation. We're in a different situation right now. We are established, married, have kids. We have businesses, we have investments, so we have that backstop. Um, so for us, it's more of like a short term, and this is what we discussed with you yesterday, is like a short term play.
If someone made a decision to walk away from a job, uh, that short term, uh, potential, let me say potential financial monthly pain, but we have money to back it up and like, I just don't [00:15:00] see how if we put full focus into one thing, that that thing wouldn't grow faster. Right? So having that sense of belief in yourself is super important.
Um, and, and sometimes, I don't want to say fake it till you make it, but you have to tell yourself the right story. Like, do you trust in yourself? Uh, and I think you have to be your biggest cheerleader and say yes. And I just don't want to fast forward five years from now having not made that decision.
And then what you explained happens, right? You invest five more years into a company, that company maybe invests in you, but if the numbers aren't working, they will cut you off tomorrow, no matter how good you are. And then you lost five years of focus, growth, in building your thing. And this is interesting too, because, again, I'm trying not to give too many details, but like, my uncle, 20 years ago actually worked for this same company that my wife does.
And he was a top performer and then one [00:16:00] day got fire top, top performer, got fired. Right. And they'll find any reason to let people go. So it's real interesting. Um, one thing I want to shift gears here on Jeff is like, what are people not thinking about on the potential positives outside of building the thing?
And so let me clarify my question. Once someone takes that leap, especially if they're married, especially if they have kids. What are they going to gain for themselves, their marriage, and their kids that they may be missing because they're solely hyper focused on making the numbers work? What, what did you gain?
Not only when you left corporate America, but when you Left building someone else's business and went all in on building your own. What, what have you gained as a man and as a husband and as a mom? Just, just full autonomy. And like,
Jeff Smith: I mean, I [00:17:00] don't know, this was a tough one because it's like, it's a level of pressure
that I don't know that most people are ready for. For, from like, so there, there's that. But also like, for me, I would never trade it like, for anything. Because The, the ability to do and dictate my schedule the way I want to and, and do everything I want to with my kids. I mean, that's why we are fucking nomads at this point, because like, I want to be free to experience every single thing with my kids and like, that's the thing that I tell people that work all the time, because like, if, especially if you're working for somebody else, because like, And you've got to be careful on certain things.
Like if you're doing the 10, 000 plus the 4, 000 and you, you're just increasing your lifestyle spend to 13, 000 a month, you're in a worse [00:18:00] situation than otherwise. And so like, you have to understand that. Um, and not let the lifestyle creep thing happen because that will chain you up faster than anything else.
But, um, I, I think people miss out on their, their, ultimately, more than anything, they miss out on their children's life in, in their young age. I mean, we talk about that all the time in the group. Your kid's never going to be five years old today ever again. So like, how are you spending your time today?
Because you'll never get today back. And so most of us kind of go through the motions where we, we never get second grade, third grade, fourth grade, fifth grade back, and, and we've got these far out plans of like, we'll do this Sunday or when we get to this number, we'll do that, or we're going to take this vacation someday and, and at the end of the day, you don't ever do it before because you're so conditioned to scarcity of like Well, we're not there yet.
We need to have like a little bit more money in the bank account. We need to [00:19:00] put a little more money in our 401k. And, and ultimately, I mean, a friend of ours died 24 hours ago out of nowhere. He was like 50 something, two, three, something like that. Dropped dead, has kids, has grandkids, um, healthy dude. And, uh, so like when you really think about like what you're giving up, you're, you, you're potentially giving up all of it, like everything.
And, and so like. At the end of the day, what would you trade it for? Most of us have like all these money goals. Other people don't, but like, I think that, like, the time is what matters and is valuable. I say all the time that, like, I'm perfectly content, like, finding my way in developing my financial, like, position that I want to get to.
Um, because I'm constantly strategizing and gaming how I can get to where I want to go because I still have lofty, lofty financial goals, [00:20:00] but I also want to do it my way. And not from a control standpoint, just from a boundary standpoint, like I am not willing to give up the next 10 years of my kid's life to go to 300 million.
You could come to me right now with an opportunity and say, Hey, here's what you're going to do. Um, I'll put 300 million in your bank account right now, but you're going to fly 36 weeks a year, Monday through Friday. I wouldn't do it. So like, and, and so I think where people get lost is they just don't see the value in themselves.
And they're like, I could never do it. But like what they have to understand is like, if one man can do it, one family can do it, you can do it. Like you guys just have to figure out your way that works for you. And, and like, it's not, [00:21:00] it's not rocket science. It's just like what getting clarity on what you want and nobody that works for anybody else has any idea what the fuck they want because they are serving the master.
Constantly, like we're serving the government to get the government, their money, and then at the next level, we're serving our bosses or our employers to make sure we're not on their shit list. Or when, when the budget hits at the end of the year, that when we need to eke out another a hundred grand, that.
They're looking at the chopping block of who's there, and you aren't the first one on there. And like, all that does is shift focus on like, what you want. Like, oh, maybe I want to go take a month off. Maybe I want to go travel with my family. Maybe I want to do X, Y, and Z. And, and most people when they hear that, it's so out of the realm of possibility for them.
They're like, yeah, he can do that, but I could never do that. And I'm not just talking about living in an [00:22:00] RV. There's a lot of people that couldn't do that. It's too small. But, uh, uh, but, uh, but I mean like the freedom of like, what if we took living in an RV to living in like a luxury Airbnb a month at a time, 12 different Airbnbs in a year,
Shawn Rider: now you're speaking my love language, man, I wholly agree with you on the, like, seriously, I don't think if someone, some people will call me stupid, like if someone had me 3 million and said I had to be away from my family more than I was with them this year, like.
It's not worth it to me. I want to work what's in our control to build the backstop that we need. So my goal is to not retire at 65 and then take my vacation. Like very, very soon. And we kind of do this because we bought Airbnb so we can go vacation. Like, I want to be able to go book an Airbnb in some other country for a month.
We have not done that yet as a family, but that is certainly a goal, especially if we're not tied to a corporate company at all, that [00:23:00] will happen next year or two. Ideally. So I, you're, you're speaking my love language, man. Obviously everyone's situation is completely different. If you have the backstop.
And you can take the short term hit on the income. Cool. If you don't have the backstop of the assets and cash flow from other sources that aren't corporate. You might have to put together a little bit more of a plan and wait on your time, uh, and then make that best decision when the time is right. But, uh, man, I've seen people in all sorts of situations.
It's interesting when we go through it ourselves and just need to mentor ourselves or get mentorship from you or other members of the group, uh, for that reinforcement. So I appreciate your time. Is there anything else you want to send the people on, on this topic?
Jeff Smith: Yeah, I mean, this is what we can teach you how to do.
Like you come to us, we will, we will coach you one on one all the way through the entire framework of what you want to execute on. And, and like I said, it's not going to be bullshit. We're not going to tell you to like rip the bandaid [00:24:00] off and go scorched earth. And we certainly wouldn't do anything that is like, Detrimental to your family.
Cause ultimately that's not what you're trying to create. We would lay out a vision for you three to five years down the road. Where do you want to be? What do you want to be doing? And then go backwards from that. Like, where do we need to take your finances? What do investments need to look like? What kind of asset classes do you need to get involved in?
Like, do you need, because there's nothing wrong with buying a business, it, even if you're going to work in it and, and just like becoming your own boss and stepping into that rather than working for someone else, because then there's a pathway. Right. Then we can, then we can build the processes and put the people in place so that you can go where you want to go.
So like, I, I mean, like that's a stepping stone as well. Like, okay, I make a hundred grand working for someone else. Can I buy a business where I could make a hundred grand if I sit at the front desk the whole time? Like that, that can be that bridge that you're looking for sometimes too. So I mean, like guys, like [00:25:00] literally, We are like, I think this is one of my superpowers is like strategy to like lay out the framework for you to live the life that you want to live.
And then like how to fast track it. Cause I think a lot of people just have blind spots naturally. That's why we ask for help. That's why we get coaches from other people. That's why we get third party perspectives. Because like one thing that you mentioned in here is like, you think you've got a business and you're going to, like, if you, if you dedicate your time to it, where could you take that business?
Um, if you dedicate full time and full resources to it, right? Uh, most people that are asking that question have established businesses that had been around for a long time and don't have necessarily the growth upside that you're talking about that you've got at your disposal, because you've got a growth.
You've got a business that's in its infancy of growth cycle. So it's not as much pie in the sky. Like if I took a 15 year business and I [00:26:00] was like, I'm going to go triple that revenue this year, because I'm going to step in there for fucking 20 more hours a week. That's a little dicier, right? We've seen that happen and it not go that way.
Like, but, but like what you're talking about is like, I've, I've seen a business with zero P and L's that's got a base to it, has exponential growth potential. That yes, if I go spend some more time in there, like who knows, the sky's the limit. You might be able to triple that business in a year and it's not necessarily, I mean, I really think that that's realistic and like from an advantage standpoint, you've got a different vantage point.
That said, hit us up if you want us to walk you through a strategy session, we can help you with stuff like that. Follow us on the YouTube channel, uh, Tactical Empire. We've got tons of content out there. If you want to dig into it about all this stuff, educational content, um, [00:27:00] shoots on her eye message. If you're interested in getting into their inner circle, we're looking for more people and, uh, it's a great group of people that will support you through winning and doing what exactly what we kind of laid out here on this episode.
Like the pursuit of more freedom for you and your family. It's not necessarily designed to step out of W 2 income, but we can certainly walk you right through that. Um, so let us know and have a kick ass week and we will talk to you soon.