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The Futur with Chris Do
Quit Client Work and Work Less for More Money - With Rich Webster | Ep 359
01:07:24
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- [00:00]
Rich Webster
I was hiding a huge part of my personality from the world the entire time that I have been an entrepreneur. As soon as the wall came down, everything got a million times better. The more that you can be in alignment with your life and your business, the more money you can make. I'm Rich Webster and you're listening to the Future.
- [00:21]
Chris Do
When I first met my next guest, he was going through a lot of different explorations and changes to his life and his business. But the thing that's been very consistent with the way he's approached his life and his business is to work less, earn more, and just prioritize his time. And so it's been a number of years since we first talked, but he's gone through this beautiful evolution of a person who does service work, a person who does teaching and service, and now mostly teaching, coaching, and doing zero service. Rich, welcome to the show.
- [00:50]
Rich Webster
Great to have me, Chris. It's great to be here, Chris.
- [00:55]
Chris Do
Yeah. Okay, so rich people may know you of some other names. Well, how else might they know of you?
- [01:01]
Rich Webster
You maybe know me from the Internet as richwebs. I've kind of built an audience on Instagram, but if you don't know me from there, basically my kind of TLDR life story is I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a designer, I'm also a writer, and I'm just a big fan of building, like highly profitable solo businesses. I have a couple in my history. First one was an agency. I ran that business for a decade. And I gotta say, this business would not have reached the peak that it reached without Chris Do. So we can maybe talk a little bit more about that later on. But at the end of its road, it was making half a million bucks a year in profit. It took me 10 to 15 hours a week. And I basically had kind of designed this like perfect system, leveraged agency business. But as great as that sounds, that business doesn't exist anymore. I actually shut it down officially a year ago. And then thanks to Chris Do, I started writing online and built up this audience and kind of took all the lessons I had from running that business, all my systems, framework secrets and package that up into a course which kind of teaches people how to do that. And yeah, now I basically write, create and do consulting and mentorship for folks that run similar businesses to me. So generally speaking, six figures and up, trying to just design really lean, mean, one person businesses with, you know, kind of just a small team of freelancers that support them.
- [02:32]
Chris Do
Let's try to forecast what we're going to talk about. It's not always easy to do at the beginning, but let's see if we can do that. So what do you think is the most interesting or compelling part of where you've landed so that we can set that up as the hook for people to tune in? Like, why should people watch this episode?
- [02:48]
Rich Webster
I would say two things worth talking about are why I decided to shut down a design agency that was making half a million bucks a year that only took me 10, 15 hours a week to run. And then on top of that, why I had a deep, dark secret for over 13 years that I never shared with anyone and why I'm sharing it now and what it's done to my business.
- [03:14]
Chris Do
What is that business called now?
- [03:16]
Rich Webster
What is. Oh, what is the business called?
- [03:18]
Chris Do
You're supposed to mention that.
- [03:20]
Rich Webster
Well, it's called Work Less LLC is the name of the business.
- [03:25]
Chris Do
It kind of sucks, but I don't.
- [03:26]
Rich Webster
Go by the business name too often. Mostly people just know me as my name Rich.
- [03:31]
Chris Do
All right, let's go into this. So when you're leaving an agency or you decide to purposely shut it down doing half a million dollars a year, what are you going to do now for money? I mean, how much money does it make?
- [03:45]
Rich Webster
So, okay, well, this is a great point. And I think that at a certain point, a lot of entrepreneurs get to an inflection point. So I see it consistently. I don't know, it took you probably a bit longer, Chris. For me, it was about a decade when I felt like there are diminishing returns on me, continuing to devote my time to my effort and my focus, to the business that I had built. It had kind of reached the form where it was. It was grown up, right? It was ready, it gone off to college, it was doing its own thing. And for me, that was like trying to reach the limits of how much profit I could make as a one person business while still optimizing for time. So at the end of the road, for me, that was like half a million bucks a year in profit. This would not have happened without Chris, by the way.
- [04:32]
Chris Do
Chris.
- [04:33]
Rich Webster
Chris was actually the last piece to create this business. The one piece that I was missing that Chris helped me with was actually delegation. I had figured out price, I had figured out delivery, all this stuff. And then just once Chris slotted in, it was perfect. So I had essentially built this lifestyle business, for lack of a better term, where I was working 10, 15 hours a week. That time was spent only doing the stuff that, that I'm the best at. Right. I basically said, if it's not the thing that I am the best at, that only I can do, I'm not doing it. And at the end, that was like 10 hours a week. And I ran that as a lifestyle business for probably, I don't know, two, three years. It made more and more money. And yeah, towards the end of it, what happened was I was like, okay, well, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm a creative person. What's next? And believe it or not, Chris, that's where we intersected. You probably know that. And you gave me advice which changed my life, which was to start talking about what I've been doing online. Because for whatever reason, like, I was doing stuff that other people weren't doing. So I made the commitment. And I don't even know if you remember this, this was like three or four years ago to just post every day online for a year. And I had no expectation of growing an audience, building a business, nothing like that. Like, I was literally just brain dumping every day and just talking about how I think about entrepreneurship, how I like to run businesses, why I like it, you know, like, what are the kind of tricks and tools and stuff that I've learned? And it ended up taking off relatively quickly and there was interest. And then from there I was like, okay, well maybe there's a path to do something with this.
- [06:19]
Chris Do
You left your service business and you're full time educator, coach, consultant or something like that. How much money do you project to make at the end of this year?
- [06:28]
Rich Webster
This year I'll probably make above seven figures, but not high seven figures.
- [06:34]
Chris Do
So what you're talking about is a million plus.
- [06:37]
Rich Webster
Yeah.
- [06:37]
Chris Do
Okay. I just want people to know that because oftentimes when people say I stopped doing this, they're like, oh, yeah, because you couldn't hack it. These are very deliberate, intentional choices that one makes when you're like, what else can I be doing with my time? Let's do this. Now. Let's break this episode into two parts. The life before the big change and the life after. And we can get into all the nitty gritty because I think so many of the people are going to be listening to this, are in the exact position that you are in that you want to run a small, lean business. You call it a one person business, but obviously there are more than one person in there. So let's define. What do you mean when you say one person business?
- [07:13]
Rich Webster
Sure. So I think of it as me and no employees. So whether the leverage exists from working with freelancers or contractors from creating systems, from using tools, dare I say AI. I'm actually not like the person to talk about AI with. I'm like a boomer. But, but all of those things, you know, it's basically a business that's optimized for profit, where there's one person at the center of it. And there are a lot of benefits to running your business like this. Mostly you can make a ton of profit. But there are downsides too, right? Like generally these businesses are not sellable businesses. They exist to create cash flow. Often they can kind of create a good situation for you in terms of how you live your life and balance and things like that. Um, so you're not killing yourself, but they have a lifespan. So my agency, right, the one that I was running was not an asset. When it was time to shut it down, there was, there was no fair market value for it because I'm at the center of it, right? And as soon as I'm gone, there's nothing else. So you have to think of it as a double edged sword. And like, you know, what are, what are you optimizing for with your business?
- [08:26]
Chris Do
Yeah, okay, that makes a lot of sense. So what you're saying is there are people who help you do the things that someone else is better suited to do that can be done for less money than what it costs you to do. But you're not having them on payroll, so it's not a recurring expense to you unless you need it. There are pros and cons to this. I want to tell everybody this because when you have people on staff, well, maybe you can talk about it. I'll talk to you. What is the pro of having someone on staff? What are the downsides? And then we can flip that and say, well, why is it better to work with contractors?
- [08:56]
Rich Webster
Why don't I start with why is it better to work with contractors?
- [08:58]
Chris Do
Okay, I'll do those staff side, let me do that.
- [09:01]
Rich Webster
What is the benefit of having people on staff? But I'll tell you the benefit of having contractors is when you hire an employee, your expenses have ratcheted up to a new level and they will never go lower than that. Right. Once you bring someone on and you're putting them on payroll, you have up leveled to a certain point where you will always have this amount of monthly expenses. And with most kind of solo businesses, creative businesses, stuff like that, revenue is lumpy sometimes, you know, it goes up, it goes down, it goes up, goes down and you have your expense that is fixed throughout that process. And What I see happens a lot of the times is there becomes a temptation to take on projects to pay the bills that aren't actually aligned or aren't actually super profitable. And that really distracts your focus away from doing good work and working with clients that are ideal. So the way I think about it is when you work with contractors, you can essentially scale up and scale down with the revenue so that your expenses are kind of always aligned with it. So as you make more money, you can ramp up the expenses. And if you have a slower month, the cash flow is a little bit lumpy. You can fix it that way. So that's why I like it. Now you tell me the downsides.
- [10:15]
Chris Do
The downside is you're working with a bunch of mercs, and they're not always available for you because they need to make money, too. So when it's slow for you, they're doing work all the time, and you never know if they're fully paying attention to your work or not, because that's part of the gig. It can be more expensive to work with contractors because they have to charge you more money, because there's unpredictability to this. So sometimes they're not available, sometimes they're not solely focused on you. And you don't really have a partner in crime because there could be moments when you're going to your dark tunnel and you're like, what am I supposed to do? You're not going to call Joe or Mary contractor and say, hey, you know, I'm typically the guy who sends you money from time to time. What do you think about my business model?
- [10:54]
Rich Webster
What do you think about my life crisis?
- [10:56]
Chris Do
Yeah. So it's a solo endeavor. Right. So let's talk about some of the. The pros and cons of having someone on staff. Okay. The big con you've already mentioned is you have consistent expenses. And you're right, it never goes down. In fact, it just goes up because they. They want to raise, they want to grow, and they need to make more money. It's businesses to continue to pay their people more money even if they haven't acquired new skills, even if they haven't taken on new responsibilities. Here's another con. You can, you can just not rebook a contractor. There's a finite start and end date, and there's no expectation that it has to go on beyond that. Whereas when you have an employee, you have to deal with local labor laws. There's. There's proper ways to dismiss somebody. There's sometimes severance that's involved. And there's a lot of emotions that get involved. And for a lot of creative folks, firing someone is such a painful process. That's enough for them never to hire someone because it takes an emotional toll on your psyche, your body, your spirit. You feel it, you feel aching, you've lost sleep over this and you're avoiding that kind of confrontation that ultimately has to happen. And I'm guilty of this myself. I'm not talking about a theoretical thing. This is something I go through every single time we have to let somebody go. And the mistake that we all make is we hire too fast and we fire too slow. So there's this period of actual productivity and then there's these weird parts of ramping somebody up and then also whining somebody out. It could take weeks, sometimes months or even a year. Especially too, if someone has a disability, if someone's part of a protected minority group or they're going on maternity or paternity leave, you can't get rid of people then. So you have to kind of just wait it out. So there's a lot of that. Now let's talk about the pros. Number one is you have someone who's in your corner who's dedicated 100% of their mental creative energy to helping you grow your business. That's a theory. That's what it's supposed to be about. And you can invest in them so that they can level up, you can teach and train them so that eventually their skills far exceed the price in which you're paying them, and then move into senior management position so you can delegate more and more until you actually just disappear out of the company. And the company can continue on without you, which is probably leading to the next pro. In theory, then your agency, your business can be sold because there are assets, a book of business, there's a system in place that can survive without your input in it every single day. And the benefit is you can have best in class people working with you that become an asset that is actually part of your pitch and selling process. If you say, I hired the best copywriter, I've hired the best designer, they're available for your project and only for your project. That's a, that's a big plus. Also, some big clients will not hire you because they need to know who's working on the project, government contracts or sometimes like that, things that have IP that they have to be very protective of. The most extreme case is the Apple. Apple asked shy day to create a new agency and bring all the Apple team over and create a new agency called Media Arts Lab. And. And they have no other client except for one. They only have one client, and it's Apple.
- [14:00]
Rich Webster
Is that a pro or a con?
- [14:01]
Chris Do
It depends on how you look at that. I mean, could you imagine how much money Shy Day is making off this one client? So what they're saying is, we want exclusivity, we want secrecy, and we will pay you whatever's necessary. So they create a new building, they firewall the whole operation. They have dedicated teams, and it's a beautiful revenue generator. And for some people who love, I guess, who love routine and predictability, they kind of know the voice of the brand. They know what's expected, and they don't have to sit there and stress out over it. And they know that the. The. Their job is pretty safe because Apple's not going anywhere, in theory. So those are the pros and cons. Now, I have to say this, from our very first conversation together, a couple of things that stuck out about you. You are extremely disciplined, borderline militant about how you spend your time. And you were telling me, like, I'm super crazy and maniacal about this. So let's talk about your philosophy on managing your time.
- [15:02]
Rich Webster
I would love to talk about it because I've actually evolved on it. Okay. I think that this is.
- [15:08]
Chris Do
So tell me where it was before. You get to tell me where it's at.
- [15:11]
Rich Webster
So I've been a huge advocate for time tracking when we met, and I was super serious about it. I think that time tracking is one of the most useful pieces of information that an entrepreneur can have, especially if it's just you. Because basically, what are your resources, your time and your energy? And you have money, right? But at the end of the day, you have a certain amount of hours and within those hours to get even more granular, you only have a certain amount where you're really amped up in your energized. Unless you're one of these, like, super energized people. There's some. There's a small section of the population that only needs like three, four hours of sleep. I'm not one of those people. So for five, six years, and when we met, I was tracking my time down to the minute. Anytime that I was working. Now, I wasn't always. I wasn't tracking my time when I was sitting around watching Netflix or going for a walk or anything like that. But if it was related to business, the time was tracked. And I've been a massive advocate of it because time Tracking is important because at the end of the day, you only have time. As an entrepreneur, that's your resource and how you allocate that time determines how much money you're going to make. You can spend your money on a client and if you don't have clarity, it's the difference between, okay, well, they paid me, I'll give you an example. They paid me $5,000 for a project. And if you don't track your time, you look at that and you compare it to a thousand dollar project and you just think, okay, well, 5,000 is bigger than a thousand, therefore I should do more of these $5,000 projects. But you might track your time and you realize that the $5,000 project took you 50 hours, right? And the thousand dollar projects took you one hour. Very extreme example. But what that really tells you is you have an effective hourly rate, which is the value of your time. And if you don't understand that all of your decisions are going to be just made on what has the biggest number, right? As opposed to like what is the value of each hour that I put in. So time tracking creates awareness. Basically, one of my buddies, his name's Patrick McAndrew, shared an insight that I think is, is genius. And this is why I started rethinking all this stuff. So there are things like, you know, an aura ring, right? So you put on an aura ring and it's really helpful because it tells you how much you slept, you know, whether you were disturbed by eating, you know, a big pizza before you went to bed or something like that. And that data is really helpful and you learn a lot about what patterns are helpful and what patterns are not helpful. But at a certain point when you start wearing these kind of wearable things, you get to the point where you check your ring and your stats to see, did I sleep well last night? As opposed to just waking up being a human and feeling, do I feel like I slept well? Do I feel like I'm energized? And I've been guilty of this in the past, right? I'll check my aura ring or whatever and be like, oh, I only slept six hours. Wow, I must be tired. And it can become a self fulfilling prophecy. So I see all of these tools, you know, your wearables, your oura ring, your time tracking as essential for creating awareness and building good habits, okay? But there's that book what got you here won't get you there. At a certain point, time tracking will not get you to the next level. Your wearable won't get you to the next level. Because at the beginning, like most entrepreneurs don't know where their time goes. Time tracking allows you to understand the value of your time, how to spend it. Like you can use it to calculate different levers in your business, like how much money you can spend on delegation. Like what you can devote your time to different projects and clients. But after you do it for a long enough period, time tracking basically becomes internalized. So for me, I did it for five years. You don't need it, need to do it for five years. But I can time track without tracking time. And the benefit of this is once you have this, you can start using internal awareness and instead of focusing on start the clock, measure it. You can shift right and listen to your body and listen to how you feel. And the one big downside of time tracking and why I think it is helpful up until a certain point and then you need to let go of it, is time tracking is focused on spending time on things that are revenue generating, right? Like the goal is to spend as much time increasing your effective hourly rate. There are a lot of big things in business that will not make you any money upfront. And if you're focused totally on tracking your time and in living in the short term, you don't actually ever get to experience that. So why I let go of the time tracking is because I've started spending more time on more kind of long term leveraged things. And if you're in the day to day of just how many hours did I work, how much money did I make? Divide the number of money by the number of hours. You don't get those big hits, right? So it's what got you here won't get you there.
- [20:22]
Chris Do
This is excellent. So I'm going to drop two quotes, I think to help people encapsulate or understand everything that you just said. We know in the fitness industry that if you don't track your calories in your workout, you're really not sure what you're doing at all. And the fitness thing is the best metaphor for this because it's calories in and calories expended through working out. And so a coach doesn't even need to look at it. You can just look at your numbers and say you're not going to hit your goals. And they can tell. And the quote is, I think from Peter Drucker, what is measured improves. And so it makes a lot of sense in that some portion of your solopreneur lifestyle business, you must track everything. Track how you're spending money. Track where revenue comes from, track where your leads come from, and track how you're spending your time. So it provides analytical data, not just feelings about what I'm doing and where we're going. As a business quote, number two is, I think it was from Ron Baker and he said that revenue is vanity, whereas profit is sanity. So you have touched on that where if you bring in a lot of money, it's like, I am most excited. I'll do more projects like that. End of the year, you realize I'm almost bankrupt. What is going on? Because the big numbers are very alluring until you see the amount of work that's required to fulfill that work. And so you have to pay attention to this because the data is power, information is power. Okay, I love this part. And this is the transition here where you said, you know, at some point you reached this moment when you realize always tracking, optimizing for effective hourly rates, or your ehr will just be short term and you'll not invest in the long term. And here's the example, and I'd love to hear what you think of is long term things. Okay, let's say somebody calls you up and says, rich, we want to invite you to a dinner. There's a bunch of people that you might like to get to know and potential clients. You're like, nah, I don't see anything here. I'm gonna spend two hours driving there, an hour, two hours there, and then whatever. I don't see any benefit from it because usually in these dinners, nothing comes up immediately. And you might forego that. You might say, well, it's gonna take me a week to really consume this book. And you won't do that. And you know what? Somebody's inviting you to do public speaking, and they're, they don't have a budget, but you know, they'll cover your expenses. And you're like, ah, that's a lot of time. I'm gonna have to spend like a month and a half developing a talk. I don't know. Those are some things that are much more beneficial to you long term, in my point of view. There's a lot more, but I'd love to hear what you're seeing, what you're thinking about.
- [22:55]
Rich Webster
Yeah, I think that militant. Anything is useful up until a certain point, and then it's very, very destructive. Right. So counting calories is super helpful for awareness in your, you know, the example that you gave. But at the end of the day, you know, if you're this person who is so obsessed with your calories that you can't go out and enjoy a meal. It defeats the entire purpose of counting calories. So the same thing with tracking time is why am I using it? Right? It's to grow a business. It's to have, you know, a life and a business that I'm happy with. And if you're missing things like, you know, you gave a perfect example, relationships, right. If you're optimizing for effective hourly rate, people and relationships are essentially not on the table, right? Going out to a networking dinner, connecting with someone. But what I found, you know, in business, looking back on the patterns, is people relationships are actually the biggest lever movers. You know, when I was running my agency, it wasn't the hours spent by doing the design, doing the strategy, it was actually the relationships that I forged with people that would sometimes be one client that turned into 10. Right. So if you're constantly just picking at only do things that generate revenue in the short term, you'll make a lot of money. But some other examples, relationships are a huge one. Second one is things that compound over time. Okay, so it's something where there is very little upfront benefit. Something like building an audience, right. Spending time doing that. The EHR sucks. You know, all the benefit is in the long tail. And if you're only focused on short term ehr, it's not going to benefit you. Public speaking. Another great one, Another perfect example. And this is one that I have evolved on as well. Catching me in an evolution state right now. Chris writing a book. Okay. I was approached when my course started popping off by a book agent and he essentially pitched me on. I think this, you know, this idea is amazing. I love your writing. I love how you think about business. Let's turn this into a book and let's, let's like, you know, send it out to the world. And I started doing a little research, kind of got halfway through the process and was like, what am I going to make like $3 a book from this? The EHR on this project sucks. And as a result, I'm just going to go back to my $500 an hour EHR, which is going to benefit me more in the short term. But what you miss out is the long tail. And you know, ironically I'm now working on a different book and it's only because I've shifted this so I've taken all of the insights, all of the awareness that I have from knowing the value of my time and knowing what moves the needle. And now I Can approach that with kind of holding two things loosely, right? Being effective, being efficient, and then also planning for the long term and kind of making bets that are not going to pay off in the short term.
- [26:01]
Chris Do
I like seeing your evolution. That's why when I pinged you to check in on you to see how things are going, you're like, oh, a bunch of things have changed since we spoke last. And I was like, maybe we need to do a podcast, because I can always predict these things. Maybe, maybe. So here's my general prediction for folks. When you do service work, you'll want to do strategic work. That's a natural evolution. And once you taste what it's like to be hired as a consultant and pay for your thinking, you'll say somebody else needs to do the making parts. Even though you used to love it, you love this idea of thinking more and getting paid for it. And then when you get into sharing your thought leadership and it starts to lead you down another path where you're creating kind of knowledge or information products, eventually, if that works, you're not even want to do the other service work because it feels so rewarding, fulfilling to help people and to be paid for it. And so eventually you're going to give up all the service work and you just go 100% in on coaching and content creation. It seems like that's kind of where you've netted out and I've seen many others before you do the exact same thing. Let me ask you this question though. In the time in which we were talking together and I was just helping you out with your business, I'm curious what your thought process was then and what, what you see now. Looking back on the old rich, I'm curious.
- [27:20]
Rich Webster
So looking back on that business and I think this is a perfect seg into probably what has been the entire theme of my 2024, which is what I'm calling work, life, alignment. Okay. And for me, looking back on that business, I see a business that was profoundly, profoundly misaligned. And it's not for the reason that you might think it was. The business itself was doing great. It's not like I hated waking up and running it or anything like that. It made money. It was pretty, you know, pretty leveraged. It was, it was a great business. Right. But the big missing piece is that I was hiding a huge part of my personality from the world the entire time that I've been an entrepreneur. And that reality is that I'm a person in long term recovery from addiction. I've been in recovery for 13 years. And from the time I started my business until last year, no one knew that. Christo didn't even know that when we were working together, it was a complete secret. So I had essentially created a firewall between me and my business, where the business is over here on one side, just this tiny compartmentalized thing. It was a lifestyle business. The goal of it was basically charge the most amount of money, work the least amount of hours so that I could bring myself and my money over to life, which is where I'm a person in recovery. I have this active community of people that I work with, that I help. I have all these hobbies, all these things that I'm excited about. But there was this massive firewall between my life and my work. And the past year has basically been about bringing down that wall and aligning those two things. And I think the reason why I'm excited about the work that I'm doing now is because I finally integrated those two parts of my life into one.
- [29:13]
Chris Do
What are you addicted to currently?
- [29:17]
Rich Webster
Nothing other than my phone, but yeah, man. So basically, my story is that I grew up, and on paper, I was probably like, the most ideal child possible. I was a straight A student. I played three sports. I was, like, active in clubs. I had a ton of friends, all of the above. But throughout that entire process, I always felt like I kind of had this hole or this void or something. And when I was 15 years old, for the first time, I smoked weed. And that was like, something exploded in my brain, basically, and I was like, oh, okay, this is actually the solution to all of my problems. And if I can just do this every single day, forever, then this void isn't here anymore, and I'll just be able to go about my life and everything will be fine. Fine. And from that point onward, I basically, like, speed ran the destruction of my entire life. So I started out, you know, like, smoking weed, being, like, a normal high school student type of thing. But it very quickly escalated to, like, prescription opiates, illegal opiates. And by the end, I'd basically used every single drug under the sun. Think of, like, whatever bad, naughty thing that you can think of. Like, it's been in my body, but my drug of choice was opiates. And this was at a time where, like, this was the early 2000s. You could walk into any house in suburbia, open up a medicine cabinet, and there's, like, high octane prescription pain medication across every household. So I kind of fell backwards into it. And as a result, Things got bad really fast, you know, So I started using drugs when I was 15. I got clean at 21. So basically, it took me six years to completely dumpster my entire life. So I got kicked out of college, could not hold on to any jobs, could not hold on to relationships, Moved back in with my parents. And I'll tell you what, Chris, this is something that only. Only a person who has experienced addiction will be able to relate to this. But I believe this honestly. If I could hold down a job at a coffee shop making minimum wage and still use drugs, I would still be doing it right now. But the addiction was so bad for me that I couldn't even stand behind a counter and pour a cup of coffee because I would just keep getting fired. And at the end of the day, what it looked like for me just to paint a picture was essentially like a full spiritual death. So I believe that everyone has some, like, for lack of a better term, like light inside them, some spirit. And there was none of that. It was completely turned down. You know, I was kind of like a walking zombie. I couldn't wake up without using drugs. You know, had having to spend hundreds of dollars a day to support the habit, doing all kinds of not cool stuff in order to make it happen. And that was my life from 16 to 21.
- [32:34]
Chris Do
Thanks for sharing that with me, Rich. I know you're talking very openly about it, and it's been a big part of your journey in tearing down the wall that exists between life and work. And I think you're discovering something about yourself and the community that comes to you because they are feeling. I. I think they understand what you're going through because they're going through it themselves in some way. I'm really happy for you. And you've done what very few people can do, which is by the time you're 21, you're like, wait, this is not my life anymore. How did you get clean? And how do you stay sober?
- [33:05]
Rich Webster
It's a great question. So for me, the end of the road was for the final two years of my addiction. I was in this pattern where I was doing everything in my power to try to control the addiction on my own. So I would come up with all of these rules and strategies and things to try to make it happen. I'd be like, okay, well, I'll only do drugs on the weekend or only after sundown, or only these specific substances are okay, and these are bad. And what, I would just fall flat on my face every time. You know, like one day I'm following the rules. And the next I'm back to exactly where I started. And that was a process of about two years where the consequences just kept getting worse and worse. Life just continued to circle the drain for me. But I felt like if I could just figure out how to use drugs successfully, then all my problems would be solved. And that was the quest that I was always trying to figure out, was like, if I can just manage it. And at the end, the moment for me was essentially where I surrendered and I was sitting in the back of a car using, and there was some voice that like appeared. It was in my head. I don't know if it was mine, I don't know if it was something else, but it said to me, this isn't working anymore. We need to do something different. And that day I checked into rehab and I credit that to nothing that I did on my part other than running my life into the ground. Because up until that I had been trying to make it happen. And for whatever reason on that day I had had enough and I was ready to do something different. And yeah, basically got shipped off, went to rehab and started my recovery journey from there.
- [34:59]
Chris Do
Wonderful. So couple different things here. Did your parents know you were using?
- [35:05]
Rich Webster
Oh, they found out.
- [35:10]
Chris Do
And did they still accept you, support.
- [35:13]
Rich Webster
You afterwards while I was using or when I got into recovery while were you using? Yeah. So I was living in their house, so they were basically paying for me to eat. But the consequences continued to get worse. So like the end of the road was the next step was I was out.
- [35:30]
Chris Do
Yeah. I just want to talk about this briefly, which is you love your children when they are on a quest to self destruct. It hurts too much to watch them do it. And if you're powerless to do something, then you say, I'm not going to enable you to continue to doing it around me. And sometimes we need that. As hard as it may be for the person that's going through it. I need your support and love right now. But you kind of have to hit rock bottom sooner than later. And I have members in my family who've had really bad drug addictions, were homeless for a while and had to deal with the tough love after trying to get help. Couldn't do it. They needed to hit rock bottom and thankfully they're also kind of recovered. There's this beautiful thing you say to yourself, or some voice says, this isn't working anymore. I've had a similar voice. It was my voice, but I don't give it to any kind of defined powers. My voice, like, this sucks. This is not going to go well. I want to change the next day. I make that change. It sounds like you're. You had that same moment. You go and check yourself in. Are you going through withdrawals and all that kind of stuff while in detox?
- [36:35]
Rich Webster
Yeah. So I started off, they put me into a, you know, medical detox for five days, where basically they kind of taper you off of the drugs and a supervised environment so you don't end up with any kind of, like, emergency situation. And yeah, from there, ship you over to rehab. You're stuck in there with a whole bunch of exciting characters for 30 days, kind of just absolutely feeling like garbage and trying to piece your life back together and kind of wondering, like, how did I get here? Like, how did things get so bad? Things. Things were pretty good for a while. I'm now sitting, you know, I got. Got sent to a rehab in northeast Philadelphia. It was. It was pretty crazy. And. Yeah, but throughout that entire process, there was, for whatever reason, I had made this internal decision that I was done and I was going to do whatever it took in order to stay in recovery. And I can only attribute that to the two years prior to me finally, like, going into treatment, where I had ran through every possible scenario to try to make this happen. Like, like I said, Chris, if there were no consequences, like, I guarantee I would still be at it or be dead. You know, like, that is where my disease took me. So by the time I hit the end of the road, the rock bottom, if you will, there were no other options. I had. All my smart ideas had been played out and hadn't worked. And I was like, I just need someone else to tell me what to do. I'm willing to do whatever you say, but I just can't run my life on my own.
- [38:12]
Chris Do
It's interesting that the. The way that you get out of this is you run out of resources. So people who grow up in affluent families who are maybe have some source of income, this thing never comes to an end. They just keep on this path because there's kind of no end to it because I'm such a noob. And when you said you probably have never done a drug. Alcohol has not ever entered my body because when I say I'm straight edge, I'm straight edge. So I don't know. So you go into detox, they. They. They kind of taper you off. What are they using to taper you off? Is it some other drug?
- [38:45]
Rich Webster
Yeah, there is like a handful of Cocktails. So this was 13 years ago. Specifically, I think the drugs that they were tapering me off were like, Suboxone, some kind of, like, barbiturate thing, and then a couple of, like, psychiatric meds that they give people so that they don't, like, you know, stay up for 48 hours or 72 hours straight. Like, basically. So you'll sleep and stuff like that.
- [39:09]
Chris Do
Yeah.
- [39:10]
Rich Webster
And then after five days, basically all, like, for me, that stuff was all done, cut off completely. And the day of that stopped is essentially my recovery date, which is June 26th, 2011.
- [39:22]
Chris Do
Wonderful. And you've been sober since?
- [39:25]
Rich Webster
Oh, yeah.
- [39:26]
Chris Do
Okay.
- [39:26]
Rich Webster
100%.
- [39:27]
Chris Do
Wow.
- [39:27]
Rich Webster
Coming up on 5,000 days very soon.
- [39:29]
Chris Do
Wow. Wow. You take it a day at a time. Is that the idea?
- [39:32]
Rich Webster
A hundred percent, yeah. When I got out, I joined recovery community, and I've basically been active in that for the last 13 years. And that's kind of been like the saving grace kind of operating system that's really allowed me to do everything that I've been doing, like, in my life in entrepreneurship, and it's been the secret operating system. And despite that, I never really shared it with anyone because I had all of these reasons in my head as to why I didn't want to share my story publicly.
- [40:08]
Chris Do
Yeah. A couple other questions on this, and we'll get back to the business stuff. And some other observations are having. Did you have a sponsor?
- [40:16]
Rich Webster
I did. I still do.
- [40:18]
Chris Do
Okay. Same person or different people?
- [40:20]
Rich Webster
It's been different people.
- [40:21]
Chris Do
Okay. Did you meet somebody in those cast of characters who are going through recovery themselves that wound up becoming something that influenced your life in a positive way?
- [40:31]
Rich Webster
I have met a thousand people in the world of recovery that have influenced my life in a positive way. When I say it is the most important thing in my story, the missing piece of the puzzle that makes everything click. Yeah. I would not be here without, you know, my recovery community. My wife is also in recovery. It is just, like, so ingrained in everything that I do.
- [40:56]
Chris Do
Can you share maybe one story of somebody who had said something, done something, where you're like, wow, that really. That. That hit me?
- [41:03]
Rich Webster
Yeah, I'll try to. So I'm in a fellowship that is anonymous. Right. So there's a certain degree of things that I can't share. But I'll tell you, one of actually had two really great mentors throughout the process, and the first was really inspirational to me because he was also an entrepreneur, and he was not running an online business or anything like that. But, you know, a lot of Times in the recovery world, they say, like, find someone who has what you want. And when I met this dude, I saw that he was running a business, and he seemed like, not only was he successful, but he was extremely happy. And he seemed like he had principles and values and, like, friends and all this stuff. And this was really my first kind of entrepreneurial role model as I was able to see someone who was able to navigate the world of business in a way that was kind of more principled than what I had kind of seen in TV and things like that. And that was, like, where I learned the first things about. About business. He ran a bunch of, like, he had real estate in Philadelphia. He had a. It was a barbecue shop. And I was just paying attention and I was taking notes and I was kind of soaking it in. And then my second entrepreneurial role model was actually the person who taught me everything that I know about design. I didn't go to design school. I never really thought that I wanted to be a designer or anything like that. But I met this dude and we're still friends now, and I literally just sat behind his shoulder watching him in InDesign for probably two years straight, just, you know, asking him not only like, hey, what's that keyboard shortcut that you did? Or hey, like, you know, like, why'd you pick that typeface? We're really asking him to explain the why behind the decisions that he made intuitively. And I feel like I learned more from that mentorship than any other kind of design books or training or anything. And I was basically just picking this dude's brain. So the reason that I'm in entrepreneurship now is because I'm in recovery. Like, that was the secret path that led me to here.
- [43:23]
Chris Do
Great. So you just connected the dots and you've answered the question that I was going to ask you, which is how does one go from rock bottom being sober to having a business doing now a million plus a year? So two people, it sounds like. And it's kind of interesting how you selected these two. One about entrepreneurship and one about design or design entrepreneur. And learning from these two people and informing what you're going to do. How long does it take you for you to actually get some traction with your own design business post recovery?
- [43:52]
Rich Webster
That's a good question. So I basically started out and I had no. There was no Christo. Well, I mean, you were alive. But when I started. When I started the business, the amount of resources that were available were very slim. Like, I really had to go out of my way to try to even understand anything about running a business. Like, it was not readily available the way that it is now with YouTube and courses and all that stuff, it was harder to find. So what I did was I essentially just said yes to every single paid opportunity that was thrown in front of me for maybe the first, like three, four, five years of running my business. And a lot of times, like, I would get paid to do something that I didn't know how to do. And I always thought that was the best thing. Someone would be like, hey, can you, like, animate this thing for me? And I'd be like, sure. All right, now I'm on the clock getting paid to learn and deliver this thing. And a lot of it was just like, not structured, you know, trial by error, building relationships, working with people, and really just building up like a book of business organically. Because for the entire decade I was running my business. I was not. There was no social media. It was all like, irl, real life relationships. I didn't have an Instagram account, didn't have a Facebook page. You know, I had a website that was basically just like a little portfolio, but it wasn't a sales page. And it all happened really naturally and organically by just continuing to do good work and build relationships.
- [45:25]
Chris Do
I want to go back to the whole revelation or the transformation of the evolution of Rich Webster. I remember in one of our earlier coaching calls, you said, chris, man, if somebody could help me do this, it'd be fantastic. I don't know if you remember this conversation or not, but at that point, I think you were just still kind of bumping around on Instagram. I think you had under 15,000 followers, and you set a pretty modest goal. Like, if I could just get to here, that'd be fantastic. And you're plugging away at it, and you're also plugging away at Twitter and then something happens. So do you remember this conversation at all?
- [45:59]
Rich Webster
I don't, so you got to clue me in.
- [46:02]
Chris Do
Yeah, so I have the transcript from it somewhere or my notes. I mean, it's not that important. It's just like saying, I see the importance of media. I want to get better at it. I understand how it's going to help me grow in my service business. And then later on when you launch your course and build your personal brand becomes really important. So I think at that point you must have been less than 10,000 followers or right around there. How many followers you got on Instagram now?
- [46:27]
Rich Webster
Now like 300,000 and some change.
- [46:30]
Chris Do
And I saw a pretty Rapid ascent. There was something that you're doing. I don't want to say, but you'll say it, probably that you started doing, and then all of a sudden it started to skyrocket. Do you. Do you know what point that was and what you were doing?
- [46:43]
Rich Webster
You. You got to fill me in. I.
- [46:47]
Chris Do
Okay, so you're starting to post carousels.
- [46:50]
Rich Webster
Yes.
- [46:50]
Chris Do
And then that's working. And then you start doing these simple line animation things in your voice. You don't remember this? I know your count better now. I do, yeah. They started doing this, and then all of a sudden I could see, like, some of them went viral.
- [47:05]
Rich Webster
Oh, crazy. Yeah. No, one of them had 30 million views. Like, Kim Kardashian shared it. Like, it. It freaking popped.
- [47:11]
Chris Do
That might have helped a little bit.
- [47:14]
Rich Webster
I gotta say, none of the people that Kim Kardashian brought me have bought anything. So.
- [47:22]
Chris Do
How do you know, though?
- [47:23]
Rich Webster
I mean, I talked to most of the people that buy stuff for me.
- [47:26]
Chris Do
But did you find me through Kim, Doug? No.
- [47:28]
Rich Webster
They're like, the Kim funnel did not pay off.
- [47:31]
Chris Do
Okay, so tell me a little bit about your transition. Also from. We talk about. There's a. There's a term people will use. It's called performance marketing or direct marketing. When you create a piece of content in the spirit of trying to get business. And then there's something called brand building, which doesn't have an immediate effect. And the more performance marketing you do, the less powerful your personal brand becomes because you're selling all the time. And so you're saying, you know, sometimes we have to take a longer view. We have to do things that don't pay us up front, that we can't see the immediate return, but it opens certain doors. So what has changed in your life and your business having grown from, say, 10,000 followers to 300,000 followers on Instagram, what doors that are open for you?
- [48:15]
Rich Webster
It's interesting because the best part about this story is going from 10k to 300,000 Instagram followers did nothing for my agency business. And the reason being I wasn't talking to agency clients. I wasn't saying anything that would resonate or, you know, interest someone who wanted to hire someone for creative services at all. I was really speaking to entrepreneurs. And as a result, I attracted people who own businesses, business owners. And basically I spent most of that time period not necessarily pushing super hard to sell anything, but really just like sharing my insights and what I was thinking about. And I had this entire 10 year backlog of basically, like, thoughts and insights and Systems and ideas and strategies that I just felt like were backed up and I needed to get them out. And I was just using social media essentially, as an outlet to do that. And the beauty of it is when you run a design business and, you know, a little bit, you can use all of those skills that you used to help clients with on your own stuff. So for me, where things, like, really took off was I've always been a good writer. I'm a clear writer. It's just been a skill that I've always had. And when I combined that writing with the design and the visuals and. And, you know, working with an incredible animator, it just, like, freaking exploded, man. Like, people resonated with, I think, the simplicity of the message. They resonated with the depth of the message because, you know, you can post, like, productivity platitudes all day long and it won't resonate with people. I think when you have depth and you have a story and you have experience, people can sense that. Right? And just the energy of the work so that the design, the taste, the aesthetics, my voice, people resonated with that as well. And all those things kind of came together into this, like, great package, which just, like, really blew things up. And, yeah, I think probably the ascent from, like, whatever 10k to 300k, the last 150,000 or 200,000, happened in the period of maybe like, three months or something.
- [50:38]
Chris Do
Yeah, I saw that. It was really amazing to watch and just kind of see from afar and cheer you on. Now you were sharing things about your general philosophy about working less, making more, creating greater impact, and then teaching people the systems and processes you built. And you do that through social. So that I'm assuming here, but you tell me if I'm wrong, that leads people into a evergreen course that you make, and then it brings people into community that you coach. And that's the business now, right?
- [51:09]
Rich Webster
So, yeah, basically the business was. This is kind of an interesting path in terms of how it all played out. So my agency was running. I was committing the, like, 10 hours a week to keep that thing humming. You know, work, make my clients happy, all that good stuff. And then on the side, I had reached some traction and decided that I wanted to create something that would capitalize on this attention. And I created this course, and it was called how to Work Less. And I highly. If you're ever going to build a course or anything online, I highly, highly, highly recommend doing it this way. Chris recommended that I do this. You suggested that I started with a workshop. What I ended up doing was instead of just like, renting out the studio, getting the big lights, you know, like having a DP hired and the whole crew, I actually just taught the course live. And the first time that I bought it, it was not to a ton of people. I think maybe only 13 people took it the very first time. How much was it at that time? I think it was like 800 bucks or something. Yeah. And it was with me 12 sessions over a month. And the crazy thing was what I thought people wanted and what they actually wanted were not the same at all. So I thought, oh, I'm this, like, productivity guy. I'm going to tell you how to, like, track your time and be super organized and, like, you know, more efficient and manage your energy and focus and all this stuff. And I talked about that. And at the end, I had these, like, two bonus lessons where I was like, and I'm going to show you how I apply this to my business. When I did those two, everyone was like, that's me leaning forward.
- [52:55]
Chris Do
Yeah.
- [52:55]
Rich Webster
They're like, I'm interested. Tell me more. And that was the signal that I needed to basically, like, strip the entire thing down and redo it. And the second time that I taught it, it was basically my philosophy on business and entrepreneurship. And that's when things really took off. And I taught it live five more times. Like, 400 people have taken it. And after iterating each time making the product better, I was like, okay, this thing is ready. It's like it's dialed. The freaking results are off the chain. Like, you know, everyone's made a ton of money doing it. Like, fix their businesses, all this awesome stuff. The testimonials speak for themselves, but it's only because I committed two years of my life to making this thing the best possible course ever. And if I had just said, Well, I got 10,000 Instagram followers, let me just, like, record some shit that I think people want and post it, and then it doesn't sell. I would be like, well, what happened? You know, you need to actually validate what you're doing. So the only way to get to the place where, like, you've got a successful product is to treat it like a product and not like this thing that you think people want. You need to actually test it. So anyway, I did that. After the sixth cohort, I decided, this is perfect. It's, you know, it will only be incrementally better to the point where, like, each hour I put in will not make it, like, 10% better. It'll make it like 0.05% better. And then from there I basically like, was like I, I was running my agency. You know, our minimum rate was $60,000. A lot of times projects would be in the six figures. I gotta sell something more expensive. And that kind of transitioned to what I also do now, which is more like mentorship slash consulting. And I think the beauty of that work, and I really only work with entrepreneurs that are like minimum making six figures, like that's kind of my, my cutoff there. The beauty and why I call it like mentorship and consulting is the mentorship comes from my recovery stuff, right? Like I know how to help people. I have this well of expertise that I had been tapping into the entire time, but just wasn't aware of it. Right. Like, I understand empathy. I understand what's really important when you've been basically to death and back. I think you have a unique perspective on business and on life and what really matters and to really be able to connect with people and help them. So I love the mentorship aspect of it, but at heart, I'm essentially a consultant. That's what my agency turned into when you get down to 10 hours and it's no fat, just the meat. It is selling thinking and strategy and insights and being able to combine those two things, which is essentially like my decade of entrepreneurship and you know, my philosophy on business and how I think about it with the recovery has been like the missing piece. And that's where everything kind of locked in for me.
- [56:21]
Chris Do
How do you price this mentorship in coaching or consulting?
- [56:25]
Rich Webster
Well, okay, I can tell you the price now, but this is an artifact that is locked in time. So if you're watching this next year, it may not be the price, but it's basically 12 grand for six months to work with me. And it's in a like group setting. It's not one on one.
- [56:44]
Chris Do
When you finish doing the prototyping and testing of the product itself, did you go back and rerecord it as here's the standalone course that I can sell this.
- [56:52]
Rich Webster
I thought I was going to, but it turns out that I didn't need to. That like the energy of the live recordings were actually more beneficial for people than me, like setting up a studio and awkwardly going through slides like in my house. So I actually just, you know, took, you know, I basically take. Done it five times, the best possible takes, you know, and kind of packaged it all together, edited it up and that was it.
- [57:21]
Chris Do
And how much does that course sell for?
- [57:24]
Rich Webster
3 grand.
- [57:25]
Chris Do
So you took the live zoom recordings edited together and put. Put. Structured it as a course, and then people pay for that?
- [57:32]
Rich Webster
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's basically structured as. Because it was live, it's essentially like a four week journey. And, you know, there's two lessons you go through every week, and you're kind of going through it. Like, I just encourage people to, if they're gonna buy something, to actually do it. So I'm like, let's put everything on the calendar, schedule it out. Like you're actually doing this thing live. Do the assignments, like, get it done. So it's. Yeah, it's like eight lessons over a month, and then you basically have it all.
- [58:03]
Chris Do
I think that gets us caught up to speed here. I'm just curious, is there, is there anything else you think you want to tell the audience?
- [58:11]
Rich Webster
So the last thing that I want to say is just around this idea of work life alignment. So for me, I had this like, super huge, huge part of my life that I had basically put a firewall up on. And I told myself all these reasons why I shouldn't share it publicly. Like, oh, there's the stigma of, of addiction, like, you know, or like that you're a criminal or whatever. Two, like, it was just really special and personal to me. I didn't, I didn't know if I wanted to combine that with the world of commerce. And then I just, like, had told myself that, well, I don't want to, like, monetize something that's so important and so special to me. Like, oh, here's like, my recovery story. Now buy my $49 course on how you can start your recovery journey. Like, I just never had any interest in doing any of that. But what I realized was that was all cop out, right? These were all just lies and excuses that I told myself because I just didn't want to be vulnerable and be honest with people about my story. And the irony was that was massively, massively throttling me from just a. An energetic perspective and what I was able to bring to work. So basically, as soon as I started telling this, this story to my clients, to the world, it was like I had picked up jet fuel and I had realized that, like, all these recovery things that I've learned, I had been bringing to work, but it actually takes a ton of energy to translate and kind of sanitize something for, you know, for an audience. So I might, like, have some story that, like, was from my, from my recovery journey or from my addiction or whatever, and I would be like, well, okay, how, you know, use the processing power, sanitize it, turn it into a story that has nothing to do with that. And that was massively throttling me because I was constantly having to just like, negotiate between these two parts of my brain. And as soon as the wall came down, everything got a million times better. The results I was able to get from my clients were so much better because I could actually go deep with them and get to the root cause of, like, what's going on with them, what are their issues? And at the end of the day, like, there's a deeper reason why we are all good at whatever we're good at. And for the longest time on paper, you would think, okay, well, the reason that Rich is good at business is because, you know, he worked really hard and you know, he tried and, you know, like, never gave up and all this stuff. When in reality, if you pull back the curtain, like, the reason why I'm good at what I do is because I have 13 years of living this life of recovery. And I believe that everyone has this deep reason that, you know, is the reason behind why they're good at what they do. And it's totally personal, totally unique to them. And the hack is secret is the more that you can be in alignment with your life and your business, the more money you can make. You know, like, the world doesn't need more throttled closed off people. Right. I think AI and social media is doing enough to make us not be ourselves right now. And my pitch is basically just like, we all have these stories, we all have these things about us that we feel like we're not comfortable sharing. But if you can take the time and really do it and really integrate it and kind of like bring your life and your work together, the results are immense.
- [62:05]
Chris Do
I think what you're talking about speaks to me because I talk about how we show up as a person, Persona, a fragment of who we really are. It takes some courage and fortitude to be able to say, you know what? I've been been only showing you 10, 15% because it's presentable on camera, it's. It's palatable for people. And then when I show you into the dark side, my, my dark history and my shadow self, something sometimes people feel shame or guilt over, and we release that. We think the reaction is going to be the world's going to stab us and want to destroy us. But in fact, there are a lot of other people who you give strength and voice to who are still in the shadow they're not quite ready to say or come out themselves, but then they find power and strength in what you're doing, and so they're drawn to you. The very fact of us holding back the vulnerable shadow self is the thing that keeps people away from us. And I'm not saying that everybody on your first year of recovery just go and blurt that out, or you're two years into a struggling business for you to go and say all that stuff. There's a time and place for each one of us. It's different, and you'll have to figure it out. But you're testifying to the fact that, you know what? I was running a life and a business that was misaligned with who I was. And when I finally became clean and talked about it, it freed me. It's like an empowering thing. And then now you don't feel like you have to show up as half or 3% or 5% of who you are. You could just be 100% you. I wrote this line recently when I was presenting on stage about personal branding. The line is, the more you you are, the more you are. And it seems like you are 100% a whole person, not a person with a whole.
- [63:42]
Rich Webster
That's beautiful, Chris. I love when you quote yourself. I think it's I. Chef's kiss. Yeah, I'll say in to get to zoom out to the meta level, because I've heard you talking a lot about this recently. There's this YouTube video that has, like, a thousand views on it. Like, I don't think anyone's seen it except for me, and maybe I am half of those thousand views, but it's by this dude named Joseph Arthur. He's a musician. And the video is about this concept called strategic originality. And it's basically the idea that, like, in 2025, being yourself is basically the only strategic advantage that's going to be left. Anything that AI can munch up and swirl around and spit out is going to be done a million times. And the only thing that's going to last is us being humans and being ourselves. So the way I see it is if you know who you are and you have the courage to share it honestly, you're going to be rewarded. And if you don't, it's probably not gonna be great for you.
- [64:57]
Chris Do
Yeah. But I think even beyond the reward, it's freeing. It's like, you don't have to, like, hide the secret, because carrying a secret around is a burden in itself. And it just maybe you Just feel lighter, maybe more joyful.
- [65:10]
Rich Webster
Thirteen years was. Was a long time to hold it in. And when I look back on it, I know that everything was supposed to happen at the time that it was supposed to. But if I had done it, you know, from the beginning, I can't imagine where I would be now.
- [65:26]
Chris Do
Do you think your. Your life would be. Would. Would you, if you could, want to shorten that time of holding onto this piece of information?
- [65:36]
Rich Webster
I think in hindsight, everything has played out perfectly to get me where I am right now, and I'm very, very happy with it. But I do believe that there was a time period early on where I was not ready to handle the responsibility of speaking publicly about this stuff and, you know, like, being a face. And I think that at a certain point, I crossed that threshold, and maybe if I had done it, then I would have been able to help more people. But listen, dude, I'm 35, you know, God willing, I have a long life ahead of me, and, you know, it starts now.
- [66:17]
Chris Do
Rich, it's been a real pleasure talking to you. I appreciate your honesty, your transparency, and it was just really super awesome to catch up with you and see this arc that you've been on. It's been super exciting to witness it from afar, so I can't wait to see what happens in the next couple of years. Best of luck to you.
- [66:33]
Rich Webster
Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it, man. I will say Christo plug for Chris. I would never have built an audience online if it weren't for Chris. I would not have the business that I have now if it weren't for Chris. So I just can't thank you enough, man.
- [66:48]
Chris Do
Thank you, buddy. If people want to go, and people are so inspired to chat with you to have you be their business mentor and coach, where should we send them to?
- [66:57]
Rich Webster
Just go to Rich Webster co. All of the stuff is there. I sent out a weekly newsletter. Like, 30,000 people read it. You'll also see my Instagram on there. If you want to just start there. But if you want to work with me, there's a video on there. You can check it out, and if it resonates with you, just send me a message or something.