SPEAKER_00 0:14

We bring you incredible guests who share their real life experiences of being an entrepreneur so you can have your whole life work. Now, here's your host, Amber Howard.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Good morning, everyone. Welcome back to What Would Amber Do? It really is an honor this morning to be speaking with Jeremy Nicolaitis, who is the CEO of Golden Octopillar, whose mission is for entrepreneurs to create and live free. Jeremy left a dream job working with top filmmakers and studio executives in Hollywood to create a life where freedom and success come together. Jeremy, thank you so much for being on the show this morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:56

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_02 0:59

Yeah, and you're in LA, right? So like a couple of hours outside of LA, that's interesting. It came up on my I have an accountability club in the morning, and one of my friend's sons going to LA for his graduation gift. And it's definitely, I've never been to that part of the United States.

SPEAKER_01 1:14

So Yeah, I mean, I live in, so I'm in Redondo Beach. So I'm out of the hustle and bustle of the city. Um I grew up in North Hollywood and I'm third generation, you know, film industry. Like my grandfather was in in TV and worked on I Love Lucy and Beverly Hillbillies, and my aunts and uncles were all in the business. So there's all that, there's that side, but I much prefer um the laid-back beach life. You know, I live across the street from the beach. I like to tone it down a bit and not be so so hectic. Although no matter anywhere you go in LA, everything seems to be going really fast. You know.

SPEAKER_02 1:51

That's so good. Really cool. I uh it's definitely on my list of places to visit visit at some point in time. And you know, again, just thank you for being here. I wanted to, you had a very successful career, right? Working in film, I've I've kind of checked out a little bit of the some of the projects that you worked on, Blade Runner 2049, like lots of really big you, you know, big projects. And for most people, they wouldn't like like that, would be kind of the place they were tired at, right? They would work in that, and and as if they were being successful, they would stay there. And for you, you chose to leave that career and and start something new. So I'm curious, like, what was the catalyst for that? What was what had you wake up one day or maybe over a series of days and just say, you know, I'm not I'm not loving this anymore?

SPEAKER_01 2:40

Yeah, it, you know, for me, I had climbed that traditional corporate ladder, if you will, that that invisible ladder that we're all taught to climb, right? And I had spent, you know, by the time I hit this, this, this point where I was global creative directive for this post-production company, and I had started that was I I got that position, it was 2010. And so, and I had started that path in 2002, right? So it's just eight years of um climbing a creative ladder. I came in as a you know a junior artist into the visual effects field and got really excited about 3D and started working on 3D movies before 3D movies became big again, right? And I was working on theme park rides and IMAX movies, and it was really exciting. And so I kept climbing, wanting more creative freedom. My goal the entire time in the beginning was absolute creative freedom. And then eventually, you know, you get older and you're like, oh, I need money too. So then the financial part kicks in. And so I climb and I climb and I climb. And I get to this point where I'm global creative director. We've built this company out from 50 people in LA to 3,500 people worldwide. Um working on all the top movies. By this point, you know, Avatar had come out, all the big movies had come out. I'm, you know, they're flying me first class for a 45-minute meeting with the director and producers on Harry Potter, right? I'm like out at the set outside London, and it's like really cool, right? Like the quote unquote cool dream job, right? A cool factor uh is in full effect, right? And and as the dust started to settle on this global expansion, I started to feel this lack of fulfillment. And I started to realize that my opinion didn't matter, right? And that I was never going to get that creative freedom, that I was always, no matter how how high I climbed, was going to be told what to do. And I started to feel like I was in this soul-sucking job. And and I was being treated really well. This had meant like the company treated me well. I was paid a massive six-filler uh six-figure salary. Like I said, they fly, I like I when 3D was blowing up because I had this, already had this experience. Um, I got an agent right to negotiate my contract. So wherever they they had to fly me first class, they had to pay me well. Like I was treated really good, but there was nothing there. It was empty. I didn't have creative freedom, I didn't have fulfillment. I would give, I was burning out and giving up my life. I was working, you know, 18 hours a day, six days a week, flying around the world, and I didn't have a life. Like there was nothing. And then these movies they come and go in like one or two weeks, right? They're really cool. Like you said, you looked into it. It's like all these top movies, and but still in the end, there's nothing there, right? And so that was the point where I was like, I need to do something different.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

It's last week on the show. I shared about, and I've shared this a couple of times, but it's just what's here to say. I have a friend of mine who talks about that human beings are the only species who can live beside their own life and even like beside their authentic self and even be successful doing so. Like if a horse tried to be a cow or a dolphin, like it would die, right? Like it couldn't be successful. And what I hear in your sharing, Jeremy, is like, yeah, by all of the external measures, and I, you know, I'm writing a book about this, by all those external measures of happiness and success that were kind of thrust upon us by society or family, you know, all of the different social impacts on our lives, you were very successful. And and most people, many people I think probably would have just kept in that space. And yet there's this like it when you're living beside your authentic self, there is a lack of fulfillment. There is a lack of satisfaction, there is an empty. And I like that you, it's like there's a void in your life, I think, where your authentic self wants to be expressed and isn't being expressed.

SPEAKER_01 6:48

Yeah, yeah. I don't, you know, it's interesting. I've been thinking a lot about just the idea of the nine to five, right? I mean, you know, nobody really works nine to five in the in a traditional sense, but why we accept this idea that we have to give up our lives, like we we have to work for 50 years so that hopefully one day we can have 10 years of freedom in the end. Like the whole concept to me seems broken and outdated, and but we just blindly do it, right? And I'm I'm I'm saying, hold on, we don't have to go that way. We can we're now at a point where we can live however we want to live, right? We have so much information and knowledge at our fingertips, and so many examples of different forms of success and people doing it different ways that we don't have to go down that path if we don't want to, right? The choice is ours. But I just why do we constantly feel like it's okay to give up today for tomorrow, right? Why do we give up? Oh, I'm gonna work 10 hours today and you know, at least I'll have 45 minutes tonight to watch my favorite TV show, or I'm gonna, you know, kill myself from Monday through Friday so I can have a couple of off days, but you're so tired and burnt out, or still thinking about you know, work that you're not really in the moment, right? You're not living free. You're you're really just shackled to your work life, right?

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Yeah, it's this idea that, like, and and and this has become really clear for me and my journey, you can get pleasure out of the vision, right? Like I hear you talk about you had this vision of having creative freedom and you were working towards that. And and maybe there were even moments on the journey in like here and there where you had it, perhaps, you know, and we kind of operate in life, like this living today for tomorrow, that the pleasure will come later. If we just give enough service or we contribute enough, and this is for anyone, this isn't just for nine to fivers, this is people who are entrepreneurs anywhere in life, where you have it like, oh, I if I give this service and this contribution, the rewards will come later. And it doesn't, I've discovered, and thankfully I discovered it at 42 and not much later, because it's possible I would have discovered this much later. It doesn't work that way. The journey in and of itself has to be pleasurable. It can't just be that the vision for your life or the purpose for your life gives you pleasure, and it might, but how can how can you keep ongoingly be in the inquiry of how do I make the journey to achieve the results? Because that's actually our life.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

Yes. Yeah, yeah. You know what I started doing? Um, it started with actually just getting healthy, but I've I've implemented this everywhere because I everywhere in my life because I really like it. And so I wanted to get healthy, I wanted to lose weight, but I didn't want to have a weight goal. Like the idea of a goal in that respect respect is kind of like um uh a New Year's resolution, right? Like how often do people actually hit their New Year's resolution because they have this goal? Well, what if, this is what I asked myself, what if I changed my lifestyle, I changed the way I lived, right? We talk about just like how the journey. What if I changed how I interacted on that journey? So the side effect was losing weight, right? So now it's how do I my goals? I want my goals to be side effects in in the way that I live my life. Does that make sense? You know, yeah, it totally does.

SPEAKER_02 10:17

Yeah, absolutely. And it's like I love this idea that like the point of having goals is to grow and expand. And you could even say, like, the point of having the goals is to create the life we want, and the results come from like the results come out of that. I think that's really great. And it gives me some like pause to think where can I incorporate more of that into my own life. So thank you for that contribution. Yeah. So on this journey, so I know that it wasn't like leave the film industry and then create golden octofiller, which I really want to know about the name, and we'll get to that in a few moments. But I know that there were some, as Napoleon Hill would call them, temporary defeats on that journey to creating the company that you're CEO of today. Talk to me a little bit about what that was like for you.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Yeah. Um, I'm laughing because I would went from like the top of the mountain to just like the deep dark valley of despair. Like it was I went through so I so I walked away from that that that dream job, right? And I went through what would end up being the roughest time of my life. Some people would say the worst time of their life, but I've learned so much and it it's I've grown from it. But I so I bought a I wanted to, I had this time, I walked away, and I had this time where money was still coming in and I had money. And I was like, well, what let me see how I live my life so then I could decide what I want to do, right? Kind of embrace this idea of I'm gonna, I want to be more fulfilled and do what I love. And so I was really, I had always had photography as a hobby and a background, and it supports what I did in the film business. And I was loving landscape photography. Like I said, I looked up by the beach, I'm shooting all these pictures, and I'm like, I'm gonna start this landscape uh photography business. But how was I gonna make money? Like, how was I gonna replace that income? So I I decided that I needed to own, I started researching successful photographers. I was like, well, how do they do this? What are they doing? And you know, I was like, okay, I need to I need to own a printing business and a framing business, and that way it'll support my photography business and still then I'll also have some passive income, right? This was my my big idea, and so I ended up buying this print and marketing business, and oh my goodness, I had no idea what I didn't know, and and really that was like I like I had just built like this because like I said, like 3,500 people worldwide. I I was like so confident, and you know, I had been you know side by side with the CEOs and everybody building this big global company. I'm like, I could turn around this mom and pop um print and marketing business. It'll be no problem. Um, because it was kind of I it was one that was on the decline, and I knew that I had to turn it around. So but I felt it was gonna be no problem. And I got into this this cycle of trial and error that just started to absorb all my time and money. And and I didn't because I didn't, like I said, I didn't know what I didn't know. And so I'd hit a roadblock and I'd go through this trial and error cycle, and then I would figure it out, and then I'd go forward and I'd hit another cycle of trial and error, and it just continued and continued. And I needed, I had this time frame. I was like, okay, six weeks. I'm gonna, you know, turn around just kind of the workflow and make this business more efficient, and it'll take me four months to get the revenue back up to where I need it to support myself. And it took six months to just to get the business, like the physical aspect of the business working. And it took over a year to get the financial, the financial revenue where I needed it, and never even got to where I needed it, but just to the point where it was making money and bringing in enough income to really stop the bleeding. And by that point, we were out of money, like literally, like the savings were gone, the credit cards were full, we borrowed money from the bank, that was gone, borrowed money from the family, that was gone. I mean, I came home one day and you know, I found my wife crying, my newlywed wife, like we had gotten married during this period of time and crying, and I'm like, baby, what's wrong? And it was, I don't I don't know how we're gonna pay our bills at the beginning of the month, right? And and she was with me when I was in the dream job. So to go from you know, an abundance of disposable income to not knowing how you're gonna pay your bills to like eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and water for lunch, not going out to restaurants. Um, it was brutal. It was really, really brutal.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

You're still married? Yes, happily married. So I assumed. Okay, and congratulations for being able to kind of you know partner through and work your way through that. Cause I I can imagine it'd be interesting to kind of hear her her story and her version of of how all that experience was for her.

unknown 15:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:22

And it's interesting because it it always in our minds, there's like often a gap between what we think about things in our mind and then the reality of them in both ways, like the stuff that we catastrophize is usually never as bad as we think it's going to be. And then sometimes um we it it's it's it's harder and can be more challenging than we kind of think it's going to be, especially if we're not doing like an apples to apples comparison, right? So it's like, you know, what does it look to create a business in the film industry versus like a print shop? And it's interesting because when you were sharing, Jeremy, I was like, I could see the strategizing. And I, you know, I can hear that like you trying to figure it out and the forebrain thinking, and this is the goal. I want to, you know, I want to be free and I want to be, you know, get to be creative and express myself. And then what the brain starts to do is try and figure it out and figure out the how. And I'm just in the process of reading psychocybernetics by Maxwell Maltz, and and just this idea of like spinning the wheel and letting it go. Right. So it's like you, you know, doing all of that worrying before you placed your bed. And he's talking about roulette, like the roulette wheel, this idea that you do all of your worrying before you make the decision. And then once you jump, you you you get stop focusing on the goal anymore and just focus on the journey in the day-to-day process. And the goal will take care of itself. But we don't do that as human beings, right? As human beings, we've got like, and I see this so much for myself, where it's like, I've got to figure it out, I've got to know. And then we spend all of this time efforting in trying to understand how to make it happen versus just like, okay, I want creative freedom. And I want, you know, I want to be able to earn this amount of money and I want creative freedom in my life to be able to do that. And then just leaning back and allowing whatever's sourceful for you, God, the universe, like whatever people's beliefs are, um, to to hand you over your subconscious mind to hand you over the answers to to to how to move forward. Um, yeah. And and that's way easier, but we don't always like it easy, right, Jeremy.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Why yeah, why do we feel like it has to be hard, right? Like that it's and that hard is the answer. You know, so many of us we we think that our efforts are tied to our outcomes, right? And it's like if I the harder I work, the more successful I will be. And they're not connected, right? I'm not saying you don't work hard, but it doesn't matter, your level of effort is not tied to your level of success. And uh it's it's interesting though that most of us think that it is.

SPEAKER_02 18:09

Yeah, it's it's part like it's a very common narrative that we all kind of participate in and perpetuate, right? Um, and my experience has been that it's actually the opposite, and it's very counterintuitive. Yeah, because it's not what we were raised to believe, right? It's not part of those traditional stories or ideas about what it looks like to be successful. Um, you know, successful people work hard. And yeah, you might not be able to achieve your goals sitting on the couch doing nothing, but there's like a whole lot of room between doing nothing and working 18 hours a day and you know, being stressed out and burnt out and um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:52

Well, it's what you do with those hours, right? I mean, there are people we know there are people that work less and make more than what we're doing. We know that there's people that can work the tenth of the amount of time and make 10 times the amount that we make, right? It's not that you know, people like Bill Gates or or Elon Musk work harder than us. They don't work 10 times, 100 times harder than us. And they're not, they might they might know more than us, but I think what they do is they know something that works 10 times better than what we're doing, right? And it's it's that's the key. It's like, what is that thing that works 10 times better? And that's what we all have to find within our own world, within our own journey that works for us and what we want to do, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:40

10 times better. I like that. Yeah, what is what are what and it's typically I think it's habits, right? It's mindset, it's the stuff that's uh I was talking with someone recently about because I I train people in like root cause analysis and problem analysis and all of this stuff. And we're talking about working with coaching clients and and how like whatever people come to us with, you know, whatever people come forward in entrepreneurs and their businesses, um, it's typically not the root cause, it's a symptom. Right? Like whatever people are complaining about is a symptom of a root cause that you're right. Right. And he was saying, but most people don't want to talk about the root cause. They don't want to hear me say the root cause is your mindset. Yeah, the root cause is your paradigm, your view of life that you want to be right about, about the way it has to be. You know, they want me to tell them how I'm going to solve their symptoms. And the way I solve their symptoms is by working with them on their mindset or their, you know, their default context and all of that for for life, like anywhere we've got our foot nailed to the floor about how life is, or you know, how we are or how things have to be or should be.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

Yeah. Mindset is so huge. It's been the the most the thing that's changed me the most, right? And it's is understanding that and then understanding that I can control it and change it. And you have to, and and I know what you're saying because people people either they don't want to hear it or they just don't know it, right? It's so new. It's like a big there's a big gap to understanding that it's it's the way you think and that you can you have to be it, right? You have to you have to become the person that uh creates that level of success. Does that make sense? It's like you gotta you have to you have to be it and you have to do it, and then you can have it, right? But until you be and you do, you don't get the have part, and it's all becoming that person.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

Yeah, well, our doing is a function of who we be, right? And that's I think this is what we talk about. It's simple, but it's not easy. It I think that's what people don't want to hear because it is that simple. And it's the other piece around it's all about if it, if it, if it is mindset and if it is being, then it's actually all up to us. And then we have to like confront, or we get to, we're blessed to, in my view, to confront that like we are 100% responsible for everything that works, it doesn't work in our life. If it's true or my truth, not like it's the truth, but my truth, that it's all inside of our own minds. Now it takes something, you know. I've been consciously and and ongoingly, you know, developing myself in terms of my mindset and giving myself lots of different tools, neurolinguistic programming, cognitive behavior therapy, various different toolkits over the last five years. And but it took something. It took being like in an intensely ongoing conversation to and like being on the court in my life looking at my mind and how is my mind shaping things to really, and I feel actually it's interesting because like to register the accomplishment that over the last few months, like things have definitely shifted over the last five years, but it's been in the last few months that there's like a whole new experience of being human that's evolved out of this, you know, this ongoing work that I've been doing. Uh, you know, one of the my favorite examples of it is gratitude. So it used to be like back in the day, I would like gratitude was not even a thing in my life. I just was so in survival mode. I couldn't, I couldn't see how much I had to be grateful for because I was just so inside the conversation of like what not enough and what's not working, and and my attention was there. And then I kind of went through this space of, okay, well, yeah, I could start to see the things that I have to be grateful for. But I was like not not okay with this idea that I like somehow I had collapsed being great, grateful and being satisfied. And then I met someone who introduced me to the idea that you could be grateful, but yet dissatisfied. Like, yeah, I'm so grateful for everything I have right now in this moment. And there's more I, you know, that I want to accomplish in life, or more impact that I want to have, or you know, I want that home in New Zealand. I want whatever I want. Um, so then like gratitude became this practice, this thing I do. So I'm like writing my gratitude list in the morning and like making sure I'm thinking about the things that I'm but it was like it took building that practice that recently I've noticed like gratitude is just a way of being now. Like it's just like I am just like for the most part, I have my moments. I think you know, we're all human beings, but I like literally get to walk through life because I've rewired my subconscious mind, like I've created new neural pathways. And it's like this beautiful experience of just being in life and and really getting, if I choose to believe, and I do, that everything in my life is unfolding for my greatest good and for the greatest good of others through me, then anything that happens today is a gift from life. Even the stuff that I might initially be like, Gurr, I didn't want that, or but it's like, well, what's what's the gift in that? Like, what is that telling you? What message is that? So I I absolutely am in aligned and agree with what what you're saying. I think uh at the end of the day, it it's it it starts, it all starts from there. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

I I love just being in a in a in a grateful state. It's a it's a big part of who I am and focus on. And um, you know, it's interesting. I if I'm starting to feel overwhelmed and stressed, and um, and you know, you know, we all get to that point. Like you said, you you can't sometimes you're human and you're you're in this, you want to be grateful and loving and happy, but then life happens, or you're tired, or you're hungry, just something, and you get into this funk. I know that when I'm stressed out, that I need to stop, like the my the most important for thing for me at that point, if I'm overwhelmed, if I'm nervous, I'm anxious, I need to stop what I'm doing, and I need to meditate for a second, I need to breathe, like take 20 minutes and start focusing on being grateful and get back to that place where I am energetic and happy. So it's it's actually it's two things. I have to meditate and I have to move, like I have to go outside, I have to take a walk. I have to get back to that state because then I end up making the wrong decisions, right? It's kind of like going to the grocery store hungry. If you go to the grocery store hungry, you buy all the wrong things and you buy too much and you make bad decisions. Well, if I'm in an ungrateful, you know, pessimistic, negative state, I'm not gonna make good choices in my business, right? I'm not gonna do make things for the better, the outcome of other people or myself. It's gonna be more about forcing my way through whatever I'm doing just to be done, right? And like you said, it's it's it's about the journey, not the destination. As as cliche as that sounds, it's so true and so real. Um, yeah, I'm I'm with you on that one.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, well, you're actually like, it's one of the one of my areas of expertise is resilience. And what you're pointing to is like we talk about these four building blocks for resilience, and the first is calming. So literally, when you get act, you know, the conversation for resilience goes something like we go through life and we have expectations about how things are gonna go. And then we we hit an event where there's like a gap between our expectation of how things are gonna go and the reality that we're experiencing in the moment. And in that moment, we're disrupted. Our brain is disrupted, and so we're in our sympathetic nervous system, which is like fright, flight, survival. We don't have any of our tools there. Our brain is literally secreting hormones that are all about survival. So, of course, we're not going to be making good decisions, or we're not gonna be, you know, things are gonna take us longer. And so the first thing to do is to calm, right? Get yourself out. And it only actually takes 90 seconds of breathing to calm yourself and get yourself out of the sympathetic nervous system into your parasympathetic nervous system. And then you've got, then you can look at the disruption with your tools available to you and say, okay, you know, how could I reframe this? Where can I use my influence? Maybe it, you know, depending on whatever the circumstances, maybe I just need to accept what is. And then, like, what are all of the tools that I have beyond that to be able to move through and deal with and get back to kind of some normal, normalized state, not like there's, I think there's one normal place to be, but whatever, whatever's kind of normal for you or whatever. Um, so I think, and I love what you talk about being out of nature. Like I often tell my students to go hug a tree. Like it's just like it's not being about being an environmentalist. And you know, I do love the planet, and I think we should be doing as much as we can and everything we can to take care of it. And it's like about the energy, like, you know, being in nature for me. I I'm with you on that one, especially water, being near water, being in the, you know, being with trees and in nature is very calming, even smiling, smiling, smiling calms. Even if you don't feel like smiling on the inside, the minute you start smiling at someone, it actually causes a shift in your brain chemistry.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

So yeah, I love it. I I go to one of the things for me is, you know, I like I said, I live by the beach. I live across the street from the beach. So, you know, every morning um I try to get out there, or if I'm in this, in this moment, like we're talking about, where I where I need to shift my my my energy back, I go across the street barefoot and I just want to go walk in the wet sand. So I'll either walk or run, but I want the waves to hit me. I want to feel the sand. And that is there's just something, and it's it's you're just so grateful. You're like, oh my God, like what why am I in this state? Look where I am. It's beautiful. I feel good. I'm thinking the touching of the sand and the water, and I just I just love it so much. It makes me feel so good.

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Sounds like like you it's great because it's what I hear is like you get grounded in what there is to be grateful for. Like the minute you cross that road and you're on the beach, you're like, wow, this is my life. Like I get to live across from the beach. I get to, I have this, like I have this available to me. And and for people who are listening to the show, maybe you don't live across the beach. I happen to live across the street from like a for like a forest. It's a little forest, and it's protected land, so it's not going anywhere, which makes me very happy. So I go into Deerfield Park when I find myself that way. So maybe you don't have that, but you could create something. Like, what could you create that would give you that would allow you to ground yourself in gratitude that would allow you to um to connect with all of the things like the abundance in your life versus like because this is it, where our thoughts go, our results go, right? So the quickest way to get more of what you don't want is to spend your time focusing and thinking about more of what you don't want.

SPEAKER_01 30:54

Right. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Really great. So talk to me about golden octopillar. It's like such a great name. I'm like, I'm like, when I was prepping for the interview, Jeremy, I was like, how did he come up? Like, where did that? There's got to be a like, you know, I mean, someone could be like Amber Howard and Associates. Is that even like, what is that? That's a law firm, you know. Like, I'm pretty sure my name, the name that I have for my company is pretty like um, and there, I mean, it's funny, there's always a story behind why we come up with the names. But when I when I heard or read Golden Octopillar, I was like, there's got to be a story behind the name of that business.

SPEAKER_01 31:31

Yeah, there 100% is. Um, so octopilar uh was the one word we didn't correct our first son from saying when he started saying it. So he he started speaking at a really young age and he's and he he spoke really well. He still does, but like he was always talking, he's still talking, he's probably in his sleep talking right now. But he started saying octopillar. And I like octopus, and and so you know, just as a creature, I think they're just so fascinating, and I've always been fascinated by them. So, you know, anytime there's a cool toy, I would buy it, or a picture, and it's not like our house is covered in in octopus, but they're there, it's around enough that he would see them and we'd talk about them. And I think this was around the time we must have been reading the very hungry caterpillar a lot, and he started just out of the blue one day, because I have this big um octopus stuffed animal, like fairly large. I mean, if if you know, it's like probably the length of if I put my arms out from one side of my hand to the other side with all the tentacles and everything, and he had it in his room, and he started calling it an octopillar. I just thought it was so cute, and we didn't want to correct him because we knew eventually it would go away, right? And so at that point in time, I said, I'm gonna buy this domain and one day I'm gonna use this for something. And then, you know, as I was, it was this was after the print and marketing business, and I was building this consulting business, and I needed a proper business entity, and I'm like, oh, I'm gonna use it, and maybe it'll just be interesting enough that it'll catch people's eyes for they would do a double take or they'd ask me about it, and people ask me about it all the time, and but I was like, I need to, I need to, you know, spice it up a bit. I need to make it, I need to make it bigger. And so then I started thinking about like rare gems and stones, and then it just came golden, it just had a nice ring to it. It's like the golden octopillar, and uh, and there you have it, and that's what it is.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

So if you haven't yet, you need to make him like get him cast in something like a golden octopillar, you know, use your creative, creative 3D octopillar, whatever that would look like, and then like that could be like that's awesome. That's such a great story. I love that it's such an interesting for me, because so much of like of my development has been around like giving up the story of our life, right? Like, so like something happens to us, we make it mean things about us, about life, and and so there's a lot of freedom when you can just kind of be with like what's getting yourself grounded in the moment, what's happening right now. You you you talked earlier about getting overwhelmed. I think oftentimes we get overwhelmed because we're not in the present moment just with what's happening right now. We're like, oh, I have to do that and I have to do this, and what about that? And and and so it's like never a present phenomenon. So there's one element in which story for me has not a negative connotation, but it's like story is access to giving up whatever unhelpful meaning I'm giving to the events of my life and really being present to what happened and all of that. But there's that's also this really beautiful like idea of the stories of our life, that our life is like we are a network of conversations, and our life is a collection of stories like the one that you just shared. And and and and it and it's through the sharing of the stories of our life that we really bring each other a lot of like that's joyful. Like hearing you tell that story about your son is like joyful. It it creates a whole world and like it creates and in in the sharing of it and the telling of it, it like it creates who you are as a father and that that's important to you and and who you are as a creative individual. Like there's a I'm present to a whole world in that gets a vote in the telling of that story.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah, yeah, thank you. I love it. I I love just I don't know. I love this conversation. This conversation is amazing.

SPEAKER_02 35:29

I love this conversation too. So talk to me. What do we do with the golden octopoler octopiller? What what happens? Uh, what what are you what are you up to? What are you out to fulfill on in the world? What do you do for entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Yeah, so you know, I I help creative entrepreneurs and business owners um really get to that next level professionally, but really focusing on while doing it while living free, right? And so I focus on creatives because I relate to creatives, I am a creative. I think that naturally creatives are bad at business, the majority of us, because we didn't get into it to be good at business. And that's where you know some of my struggles came is you know, I just want to be free and creative. And you can be free and creative, but you need to have some kind of business element to it, right? So it's like helping with just the foundation, filling in the gaps of knowledge, giving them, you know, something to build their world on, um, but then really focusing on uh working less and making more, right? And and and that idea of we don't burn ourselves out and we're not giving up today for tomorrow. And how can we structure your business in a way that supports the lifestyle that you want, right? And it's different for everybody, right? And you got to get in and you talk to people and you start with a foundation and you model success and and you take action and you work together and you get through it.

SPEAKER_02 36:52

That's beautiful. So you you offer coaching programs or you coach, like what are some of the offerings that you have to support creative entrepreneurs with getting this freedom? So I love it. It's elusive freedom that we all talk about.

unknown 37:07

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

Well, it's it's a mindset, right? And it's and it's about the journey, and it's about the the freedom comes in, and you were talking about it in and you were mentioning it because it was the book um that you're reading, and I forget the name of it that you said, but it's it's like the roulette thing, right?

SPEAKER_02 37:21

It's it's you psycho cybernetics, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Yeah, we my whole thing is like we set we we all over plan, right? We put a plan together, we have a big idea, but then once we start executing that plan, we still focus on it so much every day, every day. But you gotta let go. You have to let go. You have to trust yourself that you put in the work and have the confidence to say, I put in the work, I came up with a plan, and now I'm gonna go and I'm not gonna worry about the plan. I'm gonna just gonna, I'm just gonna do the work, but then have a series of follow-up, right? Like for me, it's like every 90 days, once a quarter, I want to evaluate the plan, I want to check up on it, I want to measure it, I want to adjust it, I want to go through the couple of days of of maybe, you know, if you are gonna worry, be it then, but then you come up with a plan, you say, okay, and then you live again, right? And so that the freedom is in enjoying your life and being okay. So, yes, absolutely, coaching programs. I'm right now putting it putting together a challenge. So I've got a five-day challenge that I'm literally probably it's it'll be everything will be ready to launch next week. Um, and it's the it's the work less make more challenge to get people to start changing that mindset and start seeing that they don't have to, they don't have to give up their lives. They don't have because even though we're entrepreneurs and business owners, we still are stuck with the mentality of the W-2. Well, it's W-2 here in the States, it's just like the the the category that you're on for taxes, but we're in the state of just making money as if we're at an office. I have to work 40 hours a week or 50 hours a week, I have to work from nine to five, and really you can work however you want to work, wherever you want to work, but we're still stuck in that. So we gotta we gotta break it down and and change everything. So I've got this challenge and I'm I'm super excited to be doing it. Um, I have uh my mentor, Myron Golden, and I'm in his inner circle. I don't know if you know Myron, but he's an amazing, amazing human, and um and he's so so good on the mindset stuff, and he's agreed to come in and participate and be to take over for one of the days. And so I'm super excited about that, and and uh it's gonna be awesome.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

So I love it, and um people will be able to find out or sign up on your website because they'll be sharing that in the show notes. Is that okay? Great. So yeah, yeah. For all of my creatives out there, you definitely want to check out Jeremy's challenge. And and I also what I also love is that you you talk about mentors like I I mentor a woman in Nigeria, you know, I have a lot of students here that I work with in in different universities in in Canada. And I just love that idea of like passing it off, paying it, paying it forward, you know, and that your mentor is gonna support you in the challenge and contribute to the people who participate. I I just think that um the I love to hear about that. I was so funny. I was gonna say something negative, like there's not enough of that. But uh, it's like, no, I just like every time I hear that there are people out there who are passing on, you know, and sharing their abundance of knowledge and wisdom that they've gotten from from doing things in their own careers to other people. I think that's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Yeah. And everybody should everybody should have a coach and keep learning and be a part of masterminds. And and, you know, I think the the the the smarter we get and the more we know, the more we realize that we don't know, right? And there's just so much to learn and and grow and and love and be grateful for, right?

SPEAKER_02 40:47

You're making my philosophical heart very happy right now with references to Socrates, Jeremy. I can't, I gotta tell you. Um, you know, it's funny. I signed up for I'm like, I'm in two programs right now that are one's 11 months old. We're in like we're we're in month two. Another one's a year, it just started a week ago. And uh, I'm doing like a course on how to become a TEDx speaker in July. And then last night I was on this call and I signed up for this course. It's a year long, and it's uh it's all about participation, enrollment, and registration. Like, how do you register, enroll and register people into what you're up to in life? And for me, I really saw this as an access to being able, because I've kind of gotten to the point where I've maxed out for the most part what Amber can accomplish on her own, and I need to start building a team. And I've very much been historically someone who is really great at doing things on my own. As a project manager in business, I'm great at building and supporting team and people love working with me. And I've noticed now that I'm an entrepreneur, not so great at like building my team. Like that's a gap for me, right? So it's like an interesting place to be. So, and I was sitting there thinking, I was like, what are you doing? Why are you signing up for like a third course amber? And this, and then I was like, I just really got this is like a hobby for me. Like people would invest, like people finish, people knit, people like do whatever they do. They um, but for me, I I really like I get so much enjoyment out of being in personal development and learning that it's just like, yeah, so what I spend 20, 30 hours a month doing this. This is like this, this, this is what I enjoy.

SPEAKER_01 42:27

Yeah, I'm with you. I enjoy it too. And I think it's absolutely okay. And that's why when we talk about, you know, creating our life and our freedom, that's that's what you like to do. So delegate, right? Like you build your team and you delegate the stuff that you'd rather not be doing, right? And have somebody else do it.

SPEAKER_02 42:42

Yes, there's a whole list on the whiteboard over there that I'm gonna be getting to next week and saying, okay, who who can I teach to do these things? And so great. Well, Jeremy, um, such an opportunity and a blessing to have this time with you this morning. Thank you so much for sharing yourself and and your journey and and all of your wisdom with my guests. And uh I look forward to getting to know you better as time goes on. Just thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

Yeah, thank you so much. This has been a fantastic conversation. I've loved every minute of it.

SPEAKER_02 43:11

Yeah, so good. For those of you listening, you'll be able to check out Jeremy and his website and all of his social links in the notes for the show. And have an incredible weekend, and we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

Thank you so much for joining us for this week's episode. For show info, visit what wouldamberdo.com. And for information about Amber Howard and Associates' offerings and services, visit amberhowdenc.com.