Podcast 167. The Importance of Content Marketing in Your Business with Mike Gardon

Average Joe Finances:
0:00

Hey, welcome back to the average Joe Finances podcast. I'm your host Mike Cavaggioni and today's guest is another Mike, and it's Mike Gardon. So Mike, super excited to have you on the show with me today. Thank you so much for joining us.

Mike Gardon:
0:11

Thanks for having me. I feel like we got, Mike and Mike on ESPN going here.

Average Joe Finances:
0:15

Yeah. There you go.

Mike Gardon:
0:16

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
0:16

Okay. Hey, so I wanna start things off the same way I start every podcast episode, and we wanna know more about you. So could you share a little bit about yourself? Share your story who is Mike Garden?

Mike Gardon:
0:27

Yeah. I started my career as a futures and derivatives trader in Chicago. Really learning the ropes of investing minute to minute. I actually would say that it's more akin to gambling than investing in, in that kind of timeframe. But I started there and eventually moved my way over into the world through a few different startups and some success and some failure into the world of content marketing and internet market. And I was fortunate enough to help build a company out in Seattle called reviews.com. We sold that company to a private equity firm in 2016. I spent a little bit of time doing some consulting for a Fortune 500 insurance company in the area of innovation and new product development, and then eventually transitioned back into the world of internet and content marketing for myself. So now I am the CEO of a company called Rejoin Media, which is basically a small holding company. You could think of it as a very small private equity company where we go and invest in digital businesses websites. And e-commerce companies and hold them as a portfolio. And this is really a lifestyle business. It's not a massive growth business, and that's really on purpose. I designed the business to fit with my lifestyle and what I want holistically out of life rather than, The rat race of grow grow. And so it, it affords me the opportunity to pick and choose what I focus on. And luckily enough, I found a calling with one of our portfolio companies, and that is career cloud, careercloud.com. Where I'm also host a podcast, I write a newsletter, and I generally talk and help people through becoming more intentional about with their career. So that may be managing through a career change or just getting more control and intention over the time we spend trying to earn a living and make a dollar and trying to get more balance and fulfillment.

Average Joe Finances:
2:27

Wow. Mike what a background. You've run the gamut in kind of a bunch of different directions. To go from being a derivatives trader and then moving on to that to building businesses, right? You built the reviews.com and then sold it. That's pretty amazing. You don't hear too much about, about that, like going from doing trading to that. But then after that you got into internet and media marketing and which is something I'm trying to get better at myself when it comes to marketing myself and marketing like what I'm doing. I guess I got pretty good at doing it with the podcast cause the podcast is done well, but like everything else is eh, yeah. But that's fantastic. And then after that you you got, you, you did some consulting, right?

Mike Gardon:
3:03

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
3:04

What made you go from doing consulting? cause I know you were probably getting paid quite well when you were consulting to get back into, to this marketing game.

Mike Gardon:
3:13

Yeah, so I think the only real tie through my career, and I guess the only thing that I really consider myself good at is figuring out change and how to change and adapt. I think that's the thread through everything. I'm a guy that while I haven't had a calling I haven't said like I am a doctor or I am, gonna be in product marketing or whatever alignment in what I do matters. And I had a really hard time like figuring out and articulating that. But in between the reviews.com startup. Which was go raise money. Flying, traveling to the consulting. I took the consulting gig, which was in my hometown as a way to pause and settle down. And this is when I was building a family. I had two young kids at the time, adding a third at that time. And I took it as a job and I said, you. I don't think I'm probably a great big corporate type person, but there's a lot that here that I can learn to get better at. And I went in and I said, I'm gonna give myself three years, and at the end of those three years, I'm either gonna run one of these spin out companies or I'm gonna start my own thing. And just as I progressed in that role, the bureaucracy and the hand tieing and there was a feeling that this just isn't right. And so I said about a journey and I had runway and I had a job and all this stuff, but I said about on a journey that said, how can I design my ideal work life that gets me fulfillment and lets me have my creativity. Money is not really a huge thing. It's more about owning my work product and Being able to facilitate my family, my wife is a doctor. Her job comes first in our household as it should be. She really helps, she helps people and and all that kind of thing. So I said about basically creating a side hustle to say, Hey let's get a second in income stream going. And I went back to what I knew at the time, right? I knew I had some experience in content marketing and search engine optimization, so I just went back there as a constraint. It's like, why start from scratch doing something else when I know something here. And it's a principle, going forward for change. And I just said how could I, what would this look like to build this up to a point where I could walk from my consulting job. And fortunately enough, I took the steps and I took the time. I took a year and a half to build it to a point where I was in a position where any little thing, could just cause me to say I'm out of here. And the moment in time was I had a boss that brought me in. Great guy. But he was like, we pay you a lot of money. And you have to put up with some of this bureaucracy. You have to fight some of these fights. And I am just not that way. And that was the golden handcuffs moment where I really realized like, that's not a good enough reason to be here. And so I left got the company to a point where I could get that off ramp and not really put my family at risk or have any, clawbacks or downsizing of our lifestyle or anything like that. And I haven't looked back. I am, that was the end of 2018 and I am happy and I'm content in the creativity and the fulfillment that I get out of work.

Average Joe Finances:
6:21

Yeah. Wow. Mike that was a loaded to that question.

Mike Gardon:
6:24

Sorry.

Average Joe Finances:
6:25

No I really appreciate it because I'm sitting here taking some notes as you're going. There's so much to take away from that, but I would say probably the biggest thing is I feel like you realized that, you needed to get that personal fulfillment that you wanted, but also you wanted to be able to, be around your family a little bit more and not, as stressed out, cause I feel like. You having to go fight some of those fights that, that, that was described, the bureaucracy of that. Sometimes, it's just tedious work and it puts like a a mental fatigue on you. I know, like I dealt with this throughout my career in the Navy and it's one of the reasons why I retired at 20 years instead of staying longer is just like I felt, I'm just tired, right? I wanna be able to do my own thing, spend more time with my family and all of that. And that's why I decided to go, full-time as an entrepreneur. And that's why I was really interested in having this conversation with you today because there's a term that you use called being a dadpreneur. And it's funny because I have a friend of mine from way back when back in New York, that her moniker online is like the the messy mompreneur, right? So I think it's funny now to see, dad entrepreneur being, being used as well, and it just it made me think as I was reading through your bio and everything, I'm just like, you. That's, maybe that's what I need to focus on more, is just being like the dad who's an entrepreneur. And have that first, but anyway I'll get away from all that. You had mentioned a couple other things like part of that bureaucracy that you were dealing with is you felt like you had those golden handcuffs, right? It paid well and it was like, have to fight this quote unquote good fight. And, , the money's gonna keep rolling in. And that's that golden handcuff. And it looks like you found the keys cause you took them off and you moved back on right. To do something that you enjoyed doing, which was the the content marketing and SEO. I don't think people realize how important that is, especially SEO. The search engine optimization, because, that's one of those things can, that can actually help take your business to the next level. It's it makes you easier to find, if your website is modeled properly and you have the right keywords and the right places it can go a lot further. I just started up a new business and I focused more on SEO and everything else that I was doing, and. This new business that I launched this week is getting more website hits than average Joe Finances and other websites that I've created, that I've had for years. And I'm like, huh, okay. So it's, it does make a very big difference. So obviously what you're doing is something that's gonna be very useful and helpful to other people as well. But also, for yourself, and it's something that you enjoy doing if you're not getting fulfillment out of what you do. and why are you doing it right? That cause that carries with you like you, you bring that home, right? You wanna do that. So now you also you do career cloud radio podcasts, right? For Career cloud.

Mike Gardon:
9:04

Yeah.

Average Joe Finances:
9:05

careercloud.com. You're the host of that podcast, right?

Mike Gardon:
9:08

Yes, I am.

Average Joe Finances:
9:09

Okay, so tell me what you like about being a podcast host?

Mike Gardon:
9:12

It's really who you meet and rub shoulders with. Again I acquired the site in 2017 or something like that, and the gentleman I bought the site from had a podcast going and it was really focused on job search tips, interview tips, resume tips. It's really important stuff, but it doesn't get me jazzed up. And so my first step was to get the site from an advertising and traffic standpoint, set up and making money. And once that. Complete. I had my eyes on, taking over that podcast. And so I think it was really last year, last May, maybe I took it over and I just wanted to start having conversations and I would figure out the direction I want to take it. And now I'm having conversations with people who have done some really interesting things to change their careers that. That's what gets me jazzed is like having, I want it to be an inspiration to listeners to say, yeah, I can do that too. And it doesn't mean you're gonna start a business or quit your job and move to Hawaii, right? Like you're out in Hawaii, right? Yeah, but it does mean what are the things that I need to do to get more control in my day-to-day job, so it's not so stressful. So I have time to be there for my family or to be there for whatever else gives me fulfillment or it's getting fulfillment out of volunteering or creating a side hustle pro, just a project, right? That jazzes you up and gives you energy. So that's what it's about for me is in having those conversations, meeting people, making connections, and inspiring our listen.

Average Joe Finances:
10:47

I absolutely love that, Mike, because it's one of the things that I feel like as a podcast host as well. One of the selfish things we get to do right is when we get to have these conversations. One, you get to ask the questions that you want to ask. Two, you just, you get to talk to some people that have some really amazing stories. Like your story's amazing, right? And sitting here, I get to have a conversation with. About what you've built and how you've built it. Not only do I get to learn and benefit from that, but my listeners also get to learn and benefit from that and say, you know what, maybe this is something I might be interested in. I've been listening to this podcast for a while and there's been a lot of stuff about real estate. There's been a lot of stuff about investing and, all over different spots. But, maybe this might be something that I might be interested in. So it's nice that you get that kind of flexibility. And then I like that you changed it up to, to make it more of a conversation. Because that's what I like to do here too. I like to have a conversation like the two of us are just sitting down having a cup of coffee. I know it's a little bit later where you're at, but where I'm at, I'm still drinking coffee. I know you saw me sipping this whole time actually out of my giant mug because like a lot of coffee, 20 years in the Navy will do that to you, right? But yeah, just being able to sit here and have this conversation with you, man is just fantastic. And I just wanna say I really commend you for everything that you've done. And, I feel like the biggest thing that I'm taking away from this is, half fulfillment in whatever it is that you wanna do. If it doesn't bring you joy, what is it bring? Stress, pain, like, why do you want that in your life? I've said this a couple times on this show, that, no matter what you're doing for your nine to five, or if it's a side hustle that you've turned into your main hustle, if you really enjoy what you're doing, can you really consider that work? So it's really try to get yourself into something that you enjoy doing which I feel like you've unlocked unlocked that door and kind of busted right through it. Now I would say though that, one of the things I wanna ask you is because like a lot of times, like when you're trying to figure that out and you start looking at all these different options that you can go into and figure out what you want to do, that's a lot of stuff. And I feel you could just completely get overloaded with information. So how do you, a, how do you deal with something like that where you're just overloaded and you're trying to figure out what path? you want to take your journey on next?

Mike Gardon:
12:57

Yeah. It's difficult and unfortunately, I think it's one of the main problems with essentially everyone, when you come out in the work, you go to college or you don't go to college, you come out in the workforce and if you go through college, there's never any discovery or apprenticeship. These are the things that I could potentially do with my life or there's no process around aligning, what your natural skills and abilities are with what you're gonna do for the rest of your life. It's get out there and then figure it out. And so what I think I've learned, and this was by trial and error was I need a pro, you, you need a process to see a lot of opportunities and then whittle that down over time. And you can you can do that like in the world of human-centered design, this is called like divergent converge. And I remember having this conversation in, when I was in college with my dad. And I'm like, I don't know, but I know I'm gonna do a lot of different things and I'm gonna find success. And so there's this kind of principle, like in investing, right? Like when you're thinking about the greatest investors in the world, like they're always talking about their stock portfolio, right? And the idea, they don't bet on one stock. Usually, they have a number of them in a basket because there is uncertainty. They do not know the future. They're the smartest people in the world, right? But they do not know the future. And so you have to have a process for setting yourself up with a number of options. as we progress, like the more uncertainty we have, the more options we need. And as we progress to certainty, we need less options and we need to then start betting bigger and heavier on that pathway. So I think one, one of the things that you can do, like when you're young and starting out, and you can do this when you're older as well, but it's easier when you're younger, is try to figure out like a way to see three to five d. Job types or career possibilities. And you can take this to skill development too. It's like you can build skills in any place that you possibly want, but you can't build them all. And so you have to make a decision. And I find that three to five is the magic number three, probably being closer to the number of different avenues that you can pursue and investigate. So just an example from my career changes I built a startup kind of in between that I didn't really talk about that eventually failed. And I was coming out I don't know what I'm gonna do. I'm about to move. We're having a kid. I like this idea of startups. I'm a good jack of all trades, I'm good learner. I can figure things out, but I need to figure out like, How to get in touch with some startups. And then my idea is I'll eventually full-time join the one that I, that's most aligned with me and has the best kind of path forward. And so I just created a freelance consulting company and hung up my shingle. Hey Mike Garden is now a startup consultant, helping with like capital raising and whatever else, a growth company would need. And I got, my goal was get three. I somehow within 30 days, got three clients, was making, as much as I was in my startup, that failed from a salary standpoint. And I eventually joined full-time, the one that was going really well and that I had an aptitude for, which was reviews.com. So I think you can use that mindset to think about where to focus. And then I think the other piece of this that's hard, but it's really important is to use constraints. And the constraints that you need to use are your sources of advantage. So I'm working on this map, the advantage map where I am talking to coaching clients. Where are all like, I think basically think there's like a sources of advantage and knowing them really well for you. So like personality, things that give you energy, obviously what you like, but also how you take action, your judgment, all of these things. And I'm mapping how you can get feedback on all of those and then using those constraints to play a game, right? Find a pathway, take a job that you're going to be set. To excel in, because when you excel in something you like it more, you're gonna pour more energy into it and be better. So the option overload thing, like a lot of times to solve that it's place constraints. Think about where you're set up uniquely within advantage and don't play games where you're at a disadvantage.

Average Joe Finances:
17:13

Okay. Yeah, I absolutely love that. Like when you first started this off, you were talking about, when you see like some really great investors when they're talking about their portfolios, right? They have this huge diversification, right? They don't put all their eggs in one basket. And you're saying, like when you're younger, you do the same thing with your career choice, right? Have these different options., find the one that's gonna give you the most joy. Your best return on life. I guess you could call that ROL, Return on life. Yeah. And then go down that road. But you, when you're younger I like how you're describing this because, especially for a young college student or somebody that's, going at a high school into the workforce, figuring out this while you're young, because you have a lot more room to, to make mistakes to, if you get into some financial issues, you've got more room to recover from that than when you're older and trying to figure out when you're gonna retire, right? So I, I think that's one of the key things here. If you're already like halfway through your career, it's probably not to try to change unless you can find something that's going to continue paying you what you're making or better. But find the thing that's gonna give you that, that ROL.

Mike Gardon:
18:16

Yeah I just wanna cut in real quick and just add Yeah, sure. Sure. It's the idea of like advantage mapping mapping, like where you have an advantage is very distinct from find your passion, right? I might be really passionate about basketball and I'm just not equipped to have an advantage play in the NBA. So there, there's more to it than that. And there's also a feedback loop where it might not be your passion, but if you have a natural aptitude for it and you find other activities that go into that, that give you energy rather than suck energy, and you can find like some early success. And you like the topic area or whatever, like you can build a really good, fulfilling career doing that. And it's not, yoga or basketball or whatever. So I just wanted to make that distinction.

Average Joe Finances:
19:02

Yeah, no, that, that's fair. And I appreciate that. So when you're talking about this map, this advantage map, right? Is this more of I guess it's kinda like a pathfinding. It's gonna help you like, find that right path for you to actually travel forward. And like you said, it doesn't have to be something that you're necessarily a hundred percent passionate about, but it's got to be something that you're good at, right? It's got to be something that you can tolerate and it's not gonna stress you out to death. And a lot of times, I feel like some people. They're able to do that, they're able to find that. I try to tell myself I don't wanna just settle on something. I wanna make sure I'm doing something that I do enjoy. It doesn't have to be like the thing that I'm 100% passionate about, but I wanna make sure I'm getting some type of fulfillment, like you said out of it as we go forward. Now the other thing, while you're doing that especially if you're doing something you don't enjoy, that's why I always talk about hey, figure out what you wanna do on the side or invest and everything else. That's why I love side hustles. While I was in the Navy.

Mike Gardon:
19:56

Absolutely.

Average Joe Finances:
19:57

I started doing some side hustles that have now become my main hustle since retiring and getting out of the Navy. Do you have any recommendations for somebody that would let's say they're in a career field that they don't exactly enjoy, but they wanna maybe take your map that you're talking about and use that on their side hustle to figure out what they want to do when they're ready to move on from that particular career field?

Mike Gardon:
20:19

Yeah, so like the idea of the map is foundational for anyone to think about. Think broadly and creatively about where they can use their unique, skilled abilities and other sources of advantage, right? So if you go through the process you're, people come away with oh, I didn't think about that. And the idea is then you take, you cross mingle them, right? And I think if you're in your job and it's not super fulfilling, and you wanna explore, right? It's a useful exercise to think then like, how can you, the next question is okay, that this specific advantage, like how can you then leverage that advantage to find more fulfillment or make an income stream or whatever, like the easiest way to do. The easiest way for most people is you have one of the sources of advantages just, what are you good at and what expertise do you have today? And like everybody in a job has some type of expertise. And the easiest way to find to have more, control and tiptoe into entrepreneurship is to literally be a freelancer. Find one other company or person that is gonna pay you for exactly what you do already and you're a freelancer. That is the basically the smallest possible, least scary thing that you could do. So that's one avenue. The other is there's so many that you can't even, you can't even think about all of them, but. You listen to what people say about you, right? For the longest time people told me Mike, you're a pretty good like public speaker. And I'm an introvert. And I was like, ah, whatever. And I never felt it and listened to it, like in here. I was always thinking up here what are the, but as I, now, I'm a podcaster. You got to have public conversations. and I'm figuring out how to monetize that through advertising and all this kind of stuff. So it's this idea of just leaning into and getting like just that beginner's mind of, I don't have to be an expert here, but this is a learning experience, right? Using your side hustle as a learning experience to say it. The worst thing that can happen is that you use a side hustle. It doesn't work, but you learn. Like that is the worst thing that's gonna happen. It's not gonna kill you. It's not gonna bankrupt you. So get started. Figure out what you wanna learn, what you want to explore, and as you do that, you just start thinking you'll figure out how to monetize it. If it's really aligned with your advantages and you start to be good at whatever that is, you're going to figure out how to monetize it. We live in an age where any individual can be a solopreneur. And create and market and build an income stream by themselves off of what they already know or what they're currently learning. So it's about starting following your interests, your curiosity, and using your advantages to get there.

Average Joe Finances:
23:07

Yeah, Mike, I love that. And you know what I would say that I would not have guessed that you are an introvert at all.

Mike Gardon:
23:13

I am.

Average Joe Finances:
23:14

You're very, you're quite well at this. I am very much an extrovert. I'm the guy that went, if you go to networking events, I'm like the social butterfly that has to talk to everybody before I leave. So yeah that's fantastic advice. I've seen so many people, especially over. The course of the pandemic, right? Freelancing has become such a big thing, and you've seen like this the Great resignation is what they call it, right? Where people are leaving their nine to fives, to go out and freelance and do the same thing that they were doing in their job. But they're doing it on their own now, and they're, they are their own boss. And I feel like there's that, that self-gratification you get when you're the one creating your own schedule. You're the one creating like what you're doing work-wise. And I agree with you that there, many people can go out there and become a solopreneur and create income streams and and even get it to the place where it's gonna replace their current. Now there like how you described that, you can make mistakes with your side hustles and it's not gonna be the end of you, but I, it's a learning experience and I like that because I talk about that a lot with other real estate investors too. Like when you get into a bad deal or something like that, or things didn't work out the way you thought they were gonna work out. You don't just tuck your tail and run otherwise you wouldn't be a real estate investor, right? You take that and you learn from it. It's a learning experience and we call that getting a master's degree in whatever that is, right? So you got a good education in whatever it was that you failed in and so we don't really call it failure, we call it education. So I really like that you tied that into this as well with a side hustle cause that. A hundred percent true. If you get into something and it's not working out, you're learning from that experience. What matters is that you don't go and try to do the same thing again, because you should have learned that it's not gonna work. So I think I think that's really important. Okay. So a couple other things that I wanted to ask you about. When it comes to not only. Doing like a side hustle or anything else, but let's say you're in your own career field and you enjoy what you do and you wanna try to focus on boosting that up. Like, how do you invest in yourself to get better at your craft and get better at what it is that you do, that you enjoy, or what you do that brings you the best return? cause it's your career field and that's what you do.

Mike Gardon:
25:21

Yeah. So f so first off let's throw it out there. Career and personal finance are ex, are inextricably linked, right? And when we really get down to brass tack, people ask what's your biggest asset? And people talk about their homes and their real estate portfolio or something like that. For most people, their biggest asset is themselves and their ability to earn a dollar. And if all the dollars that you're gonna earn in your lifetime and bring it back, back to the present and do a d a DCF cashflow analysis. It's like a $2 million asset for most people. So that is where most people should start investing actually. I believe because you have a 2 million asset, and the way that compound interest works is the bigger your asset that you're compounding, the more you're actually adding and making. So the idea of paying $2,000 for, some type of horse, right? That's going to get you net you another 20, $30,000 per year in income is a slam dunk when you think about, return on that. It's a similar process. It's knowing who you are and what you're good at. So Warren Buffet talks about circle of competence and knowing. Knowing what you know and forgetting what you don't know. And the idea is that you know a lot less than you, the entirety of the world, right? So stay in that circle of competence. So using the advantage map or something like it where you're talk, where you're talking about your personality and you're taking, different as assessments and doing the work to figure out where your kind of highest point of leverage is within your career and the thing that you're really known for, and then it's deciding. So once you figure that out, then it's deciding what are the skills that are tangential to that, maybe just outside the circle of competence, but that are additive and not subtractive. So like a, an example that I give. So many people I guess a couple years ago and still today, it was always like anybody can learn to code. You just have to be curious. And thought that, and I messed around with a couple of, like coding boot camps once in a while and I came to the conclusion, I'm like, that is not something that's anywhere close to leveraging my particular circle of competence, like I'm always going to be in a position where I need an actual expert in that to do something for me rather than me doing it. So for some people trying to figure out what they're good at or what they like when they're young, that's a good pathway, but it's a very bad pathway to do that. And so the filter of where to invest your time and energy into skill building comes from still that foundational base of knowing your advantages, knowing your circle of competence, finding your high, what I call your highest point of leverage, and then looking out at the skill landscape picking because now you're in control, right? You have a plan of how to ladder that up, and you can now look into the future and see if I add X, Y, and Z, I can get to this particular area that I want to get to with my career.

Average Joe Finances:
28:26

Wow, Mike. That is that's some really good stuff because, I feel like a lot of us get lost in the we wanna focus on, how to build our income. We wanna focus on, what can we do on the side to make things better? What can we do to make ourselves better at work? But we don't focus on the the actual, how do I make myself better at what I'm doing? And I feel like that's one of those things where you could really. Focus on yourself, focus on in making yourself better at what you do. And I'm going back to that f word that you said earlier. Fulfillment, right? What's gonna give you the most fulfillment out of that? And I feel like it's more of a , and this happens a lot on these episodes. Like with most people that I talk to, it's I feel like it's your mindset, right? I feel, you need to have that that free thinking mindset. You need to have a curious mindset right? And then you have to be willing to do what it takes to actually, move forward and do that. Yeah. I feel like once you change your mindset and once you figure it out, up, The rest starts to get a lot easier. So I man, that, that is fantastic. I wanna transition this into something now that I call the final round. It's where I'm gonna ask you the same four questions I ask everybody that comes on this show, and it's gonna help our listeners understand how you, Mike, how you are when you're put in a tough position or when you, with any situation that you've dealt with that may have been like a difficult choice to make. This helps give us a little bit more clarity into who you are. So if you're ready to go, we'll get this party started.

Mike Gardon:
29:46

Sounds good.

Average Joe Finances:
29:48

All right, Mike, so the first question right off the bat is a doozy and that's what's the biggest mistake you've ever made in business.

Mike Gardon:
29:55

Yeah, I didn't quite know where this conversation was gonna go. We talked a lot about. Finding opportunities and creating opportunities. I guess, I call it seeing at bats and that's actually, I feel like my bus biggest mistake is early on in college and very early on in my career, like I didn't have a process to go see the world and experience the things that I could possibly do to find fulfillment with my career. And as I, I think most people don't have that calling right away, and they don't know what they really wanna do. And so I think that's my biggest mistake. If I could have done that a lot sooner, I could have got ahead and grown a lot faster than I actually did.

Average Joe Finances:
30:36

Yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Now if you could, can you describe to me what do you mean by these at bats? Are these like the different opportunities that you you could have put in front of yourself.

Mike Gardon:
30:44

Yeah. So again, I think about this diverge, converge, right? And the, yeah, the infinite number of possibilities that we could potentially do with our lives to, to make it earn a living and find fulfillment. And an at bat is just each one of those options, right? Like I just didn't have. Thought process of how I would operationalize that, how I would go out and see all of these different things. How I would go, I could have gone out and found people that are working in all of these different industries and I could have shadowed them and I could have, there's a lot of things I could have done right now, looking back, I just didn't get enough at bats early on. And I think, again, I, going back to one of the first things I said in the episode, I think higher education is failing people. in this because I think the faster we can get all get aligned with what brings us fulfillment and what we're good at and what we have advan natural advantage in the higher productivity we're gonna have overall. And the higher work satisfaction.

Average Joe Finances:
31:36

A hundred percent. A hundred percent. I love that. Okay. The next question, Micah, ties into that, that last one that you just that last answer you just gave. But what is something that you've learned that you wish you knew when you first started?

Mike Gardon:
31:48

Figuring all this out, figuring out what you wanna do with your career is a lot more emotion based and heart led than I thought. I was very, I still am very analytical and very logical, and I've had to really work hard at listening to my body on certain things and like there are oftentimes, it's actually become one of my investment criteria for different things is do I feel like this just has to happen? That's an actual investment criteria because it's a heart led thing. If I come across something where it just feels like it needs to happen and we need to give this a shot no matter what the outcome I'm gonna do something like that. You have to listen to both. You have to listen to what your body's telling you to get out of situations and to go towards certain paths, and then you have to use your analytical mind to set up a process and a plan to make that kind of become a reality.

Average Joe Finances:
32:47

Yeah. Wow. That's I love that because I, we didn't really talk about that too much, it is very important to understand how much your emotions play into those decisions that you make, especially from very early on. This even goes back to what you were talking about with having those at bats, right? It's that emotional touch that goes along with it as well, that. Affects your decision making. And talk about this a lot on this podcast too, with the emotion that's tied to purchases and investments. There's always emotion that's tied to that, right? And you might say, oh no, it's whatever, it's just an investment property. I'm not emotionally tied to it. When you sign that check, I guarantee you there's something triggered inside of you that's affecting your emotions. No I appreciate that perspective for sure. Alright Mike, so the next question. Do you have any tips or tricks that you would recommend to someone that is just getting started today? So let's say that young college kid or that young student that just graduated high school and now wants to go into a trade what would you recommend to someone like that?

Mike Gardon:
33:45

I think it's mostly don't overthink it. Just start. So find your opportunity. Like we talked about before, and then go take action and get feedback and knock them off and cross them off the list. Don't think about all of them at the same time. You learn a lot faster through action than overthinking and analysis. And so that's part of partly the heart led the emotion piece. Just go do it. It's messy. But I think the more action you take and the better you get at taking action, the more you're gonna l, the faster you're gonna learn and the more you're gonna progress.

Average Joe Finances:
34:18

Again, a another fantastic answer. I love that. Taking action. That is huge. Okay, the final question of the final round. This kind of doesn't tie into all the other ones. This is more of an opinion but I know you probably have some great recommendations. Mike, do you have a favorite business investing or real estate related podcast or book or both? I did that backwards. I usually say book or podcast, but yeah. What kind of books or podcasts do you like?

Mike Gardon:
34:42

God of so many good books. So for podcast, I listen to the Investors podcast. It's hosted by a guy named Preston Pish. Actually, there's a few different hosts but the investors podcast they do a lot of study of billionaires. They have really great guests on, they do talk about some crypto and Bitcoin and stuff. Also, but I feel like what they're doing is tapping into the biggest and best investment minds in the field. And I. We can all learn something from studying those types of people. After I drop my kids off, that's usually what I'm listening to. And I got a lot of books behind me. Like Ray Dalio's Principles is a book that I think is really interesting from the standpoint of like alignment and operating your life in a way from a set of principles. So it doesn't feel. Haphazard, and the book that's probably been the, had the most impact on me is actually called The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin. And I have some things on my podcast in our YouTube channel about the impact that's had on me. But it had came at a really critical point in my life. And so that one's always got a special place in my heart.. Average Joe Finances: All right. Yeah. Fantastic. Great recommendations, great podcast recommendation. Great book recommendations. I've heard principles recommended on here before. But yeah, so the art of learning that's another good one that I'm gonna have to go check out now, add that to the list awesome. All right, Mike. That is it for the final round. You survived. So thank you so much hey, I do have one more question for you though, and this is the most important question of all because people were listening to this interview and they're like, man, I really like what Mike is saying, and I don't know which Mike they're talking about. It might be you, it might be me, but it's probably you. But they're like, we really like what he's talking about. We wanna learn more about him, what he's doing. We want to maybe go check out his podcast as well. Where can people find that information about you? Do you have a website, social media, anything you could share with us today? Sure. So there's a few different places, but my last name is spelled G A R D O N. And you can find, you can subscribe to my newsletter at michaelgardon.com. You can check out everything we offer at Career cloud at careercloud.com, including the podcast. There's links there and then, personally I'm fairly active on LinkedIn and a little bit on Twitter. My Twitter handle is mngardon, M N G A R D O N. And you can find me on LinkedIn by just searching my name. My dms are open. I think anyone can message me on LinkedIn. So if you, if there's anything that you, anybody heard or has questions on, please don't hesitate to chat and ask.

Average Joe Finances:
37:07

Fantastic. So I will make sure I have all those links in the show notes to make it easier for everybody. Hey guys, you could just go click away, copy and paste. Just don't do it while you're driving. Mike, this has been fantastic, man. I feel like I learned so much just from this short conversation that we had. I've got a whole page of notes here. I got a lot of stuff to think about after we end this call. But this was really refreshing and a good change of pace from what we normally talk about, but it's good to get these different perspectives. So thank you so much for taking the time today to have this conversation with me.

Mike Gardon:
37:36

You bet. Thanks for having me. This has been great. Great to meet you, and I'm excited to follow your progress in everything that you're doing as well.

Average Joe Finances:
37:43

Absolutely, thank you so much. And hey, to my listeners, thank you so much for joining me in our special guest, Mike Gardon, on the Average Joe Finances Podcast. Go leave us a five star review and tell us what you liked about today's episode with Mike. Aloha from Hawaii and have a great rest of your.