Create Your Own Luck With Shawn Reynolds

Entrepreneur, Wannabe Pro Athlete, Dad and Perpetual Student of Life – Shawn Reynolds

Here’s what you’ll learn from Shawn about Creating Your Own Luck:

– The art of getting things done when you’re buzzing with a million ideas from all sorts of directions… without spreading yourself too thin.
– When FEAR can be a great motivator.
– How to know what kind of advice is OK to ignore.
– THIS will help you notice you’re on the verge of burnout before it’s too late.
– What is “Eisenhower Matrix” and how to use to skyrocket your productivity without running yourself to the ground.
– How to get a mentor when you’re Mr. Nobody.

Tune in and listen: Create Your Own Luck With Shawn Reynolds

Shawn’s Website:

ReynoldsBros.ca – 3 brothers, with a passion to do it right

Follow Shawn on Twitter.

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I'm Jaime Masters, and today on the show, we have Shawn Reynolds. Now, he's from Canada, so you can check him out at ReynoldsBros.ca. And when you check him out, that's one piece of what he does, but he is a ridiculously amazing serial entrepreneur, producer, actor, all sorts of things, and I'm so excited to have you on the show. Thanks so much for coming on.

Shawn Reynolds:	Thanks so much for having me.

Jaime Masters:	I was looking through the list of the things that you do, from tech to gutters to - None of it sort of makes sense when you put it all together, so you tell me how the heck did you get into so many different industries.

Shawn Reynolds:	I have a million ideas. I wanna do a million things. When I was a kid, I was quite the salesperson. I was selling hockey pools door to door when I was about 10 years old, and I was doing ski trips when I was about 14 or 15, getting free ski trips, and by the time I was 19, I had a four-plex apartment building. I was a landlord. 

	So, I always had that in me, and I had a creative side and was an actor. I was doing commercials. I was doing plays. I was doing movies. Some of them great, some of them not so great. And it sort of just amalgamated. I became an actor, but I was always running my own business on the side because, as an actor, you're just waiting for somebody else to give you an opportunity, and I don't like that. I like moving the chess pieces and not being the chess piece, if you will.

Jaime Masters:	Yes! I just painted a picture that says that exact same thing. So, how do you deal with that, though? Because it's one thing to have ideas. You're like, "Oh, I have a lot of ideas." No offense, but a lot of people listening have a lot of ideas also. Taking action, actually creating companies that are actually successful very different thing. So, how have you actually aligned that to be able to get these things done?

Shawn Reynolds:	I guess you have to have the chutzpah to it, and you don't want to just - I'm always afraid that some amazing idea I have, somebody else is gonna come up with it or somebody else is gonna jump on it, and I guess there's a fear behind that, which is a good thing. It makes it so that you fight for that next sale. When I was an actor, I worked my butt off to get that audition and be prepared with that accent. 

	So, fear can be a really great motivator. I know people think of it in a negative sense, but I think that it keeps you moving in the right direction. And I've always been really collaborative. I come up with a great idea, and it's not like I'm trying to hoard it to myself. I've always said, "Okay, you know what? This is gonna be a-" I'm a real connector, so I'm like, "This person'd be really great for this,' or, 'I should bring in this person." I like working with people, so those days where maybe you feel like, "I don't have it in me today"

	It's really interesting. I'm working on producing a movie right now. It's just at the creative stages, and my collaborating partner just sent me a text saying, "Full disclosure: I don't have it in me today." We got together. I tend to send texts back saying, "We're gonna do this. We've got some stuff to do," and it ended up being one of the best meetings we had. We got things in order. We went in there with nothing, and we're just trying to get the show bible together right now. So, again, you could have gone in with fear and said, "I'm not gonna be able to do anything. This is gonna be a waste of a meeting," and it ended up being the best thing we could have done.

Jaime Masters:	So, how do you not spread yourself too thin with this, just in general, especially other partners and issues? There are so many things, and then you're wide instead of deep, and you're not "successful."

Shawn Reynolds:	I totally agree with you on that. That is a challenge for me because I end up taking on too many projects, and instead of doing three things or two things really well, you start diluting it. You're not putting the real attention on what you have. And so, it's reevaluating what's most important, what you're most passionate about maybe, what you're gonna get the most dividends out of, and having to maybe put something on a shelf.

	Sometimes, timing is the right thing. You look at a company like Apple with Steve Jobs. It was a timing issue, at different times, for them to bring that together. And so, with you, you have to look at the financial environment, what people are looking for, and maybe what's pushing you forward. Sometimes, you need that creative piece that maybe isn't gonna give you any financial dividends, but it's gonna keep you motivated to do these other things.

	But I totally agree, working on too many things, why do five things terribly when you can do two things really well?

Jaime Masters:	I love that the serial entrepreneur in a bazillion niches says that. Thank you! But how do you make those decisions? Do you go after one piece? I actually wanna loop in what we were talking about before, which was burnout, because you also have an issue that flares up that causes you to be in the hospital. So, how do we mitigate how much work we're pushing ourselves to do because this fear is pushing us, and dealing with not burning yourself out, and taking the path "slow and steady wins the race?"

Shawn Reynolds:	I've got a great wife who keeps me on the straight and narrow.

Jaime Masters:	So, we all need great wives? Darn it!

Shawn Reynolds:	It's the people around you. I have a board of advisors around me. One is a former Dragons? Den, which is a Shark Tank. You guys do the Shark Tank. Two of our former Shark Tank people are now on the Dragons? Den  Robert Herjavec and now Mr. O'Leary.

Jaime Masters:	I didn't even know that. Oh, jeez, I didn't even know. You took them.

Shawn Reynolds:	And I know both those guys from just being around the industry here, really great guys. So, I've got great people around me. A board of advisors has sort of helped me make those decisions because sometimes when you're in it, it's almost like being in a forest of trees and you really don't know which direction. It's easier to give advice than it is to take advice and have people who can see you and go, "You know, Shawn, I think maybe you should cut back on this, or maybe put a little more focus on this. Put this on the shelf, and then come back to it."

	I'm always open to other people's advice. It doesn't mean I take every piece of advice, but I wanna have the information, and if somebody can see something that I'm maybe not seeing from my vantage point, tell me about it. My ego's gotta take a back shelf to things.

Jaime Masters:	Well, how do you know, then, if it's true for you or not? So, they give you advice. You said you take it or you don't take it. How do you make that decision?

Shawn Reynolds:	So, this TV show idea that I wanna do, I had just sold my company a year ago. I owned a large sports academy. Nike Sports Camps acquired that. I had to stick around for a year as part of the acquisition, and that just ended literally like two months ago, and my wife was like, "This is great. You can focus on the construction company. It's a family construction company. Really sink your teeth into it." And this TV show idea has just been percolating, just bubbling up, and I can't get away from this idea. I'm driving around, I'm waking up, and I'm writing down ideas, and I'm doing it despite the fact not wanting to do it because I'm so excited by it.

	So, my wife thought it was not a great idea because she thought I should really take a break and recharge the battery a bit, and so, instead of doing this as a full-on producing every single day, we're meeting a couple times a week. So, I'm taking it on as a hobby, but it doesn't mean that I can't be driving to meetings. It doesn't mean I can't be going to play tennis or jog or whatever and not be thinking about this thing and moving it. I think of it like you're on the football field. You're moving the ball down the field, and that's what I'm doing with this.

	You alluded to it a couple minutes ago. I have Crohn's disease. So, it's an autoimmune disease. If I get stressed out, if I don't sleep, if I have too much on my plate, I end up with a flare, which is like swallowing glass when I try to eat. It's really painful. And you wanna be effective as a business owner and entrepreneur, and it makes it a real challenge.

	So, two and a half years ago, I had surgery, and they cut out two and a half feet of my bowel. I was down to 122 pounds, and I'm a 150-pound guy. You're trying to be effective. I was running my business from a hospital bed, signing checks, and nurses would come and say, "Hey, off your phone, enough of this" kind of thing.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, that seems bad.

Shawn Reynolds:	Yeah. And part of that is because I push myself too hard, so you have to be self-aware and say, "I'm not feeling great.: When that surgery happened, that was my second surgery. Two and a half years ago, I just had our first child, so three weeks after he was born, I went in for surgery. I had a business which was having - you go through ebbs and flows. It was a challenged time. And so, I started doing mindfulness meditation. I think that's made me a better entrepreneur. It's made me a better person. I'm less reactive, which is part of being an actor, when I used to really focus on that, like going off your gut.

	So, it's got me being more aware. I changed my diet dramatically, really got off sugar and gluten. I know what I'm eating almost every day. I start off with a great smoothie and have one of those amazing blenders. Because if I don't take care of me, the whole thing falls apart.

Jaime Masters:	Well, that's what we're told. And what's so tough, though, is that - not that your disease is an asset in any way, but the fact that it is so prevalent makes you have to pay attention, where instead, other entrepreneurs will just run themselves to the ground, and then end up in a hospital and be like, 'Oh, I had no idea, completely clueless that I was running myself into the ground."

	And so, how do we stop ourselves before we get to that point? Does that make sense? Especially if it's not a physical sensation, "Oh, my gosh, I'm doing too much. I now feel stress, and now it feels like glass.' You would notice that. But other people don't even notice the stress that just piles on and piles on and piles on until it's 'too late.'

Shawn Reynolds:	The thing you need to be doing, you have to really be keeping track, like, "Am I getting seven hours a night sleep? What am I eating?" I use this great app called Evernote. So, I'm a list guy. I have tons and tons of lists, so I keep lists on how I'm feeling, how's the sleep going, how this is going. I'm not perfect at it, but at least I've got that as a barometer.

	I started doing this thing probably about a year and a half ago. I started using the Eisenhower Matrix. Are you aware of that?

Jaime Masters:	No, tell me more.

Shawn Reynolds:	So, Eisenhower, who's obviously a famous American, they say he was one of the most productive guys out there. He had this matrix. So, you put it into four different quadrants -

Jaime Masters:	Is this the important-urgent thing or no?

Shawn Reynolds:	Right, exactly.

Jaime Masters:	I didn't know it was his.

Shawn Reynolds:	So, important and urgent, important not urgent -

Jaime Masters:	Can you give me an example? Because this is the thing. I think most, and I could be wrong, so we can definitely explain it in case people don't understand what it is because I didn't know the name of it for sure, but give me an example of something you do. Because we've heard of this, or a lot of people have heard of this, but don't actually do it. Very different when you actually do it.

Shawn Reynolds:	Yeah. So, for me, my lists were this long. Like I'd have a list, and it continued going, and then you don't know the top of the list from the bottom of the list and what's important. For me, as an entrepreneur, every day, you have to get up, and you have to be your own boss and go, "Okay, Shawn, what are you gonna do to make your company move forward, make you move forward?" like all these things, right? So, I have a personal Eisenhower Matrix, and I have one for business, and I look at each one in the morning. And I look at it, and that really gets me focused on what's the most important thing that you need to do from a personal standpoint and from a business standpoint.

	And so, in the important - well, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna bring this up right now.

Jaime Masters:	I was gonna say I wanna see it or a template or something so people can look at it.

Shawn Reynolds:	I can break it down, and I can talk about real world items.

Jaime Masters:	Please, thank you. Pull back the curtain of actually what happens.

Shawn Reynolds:	So, "important and urgent": We're using a new CRM for our construction company, so the QuickBooks transition to move all of our clients over, we wanted to get this done for Labor Day, and we're moving into this. This has to go over right now. That's a very important item. We have a big home show coming up. That's an important and urgent. 

	For this show I'm working on, although it's a hobby, we wanna get the character breakdown for each of the characters that we wanna include in the show bible. The show bible just sort of breaks down what the show's gonna look like, the characters involved, all the episodes. 

	So, if we go into the next quadrant, which is "important but not urgent,' so this is where I can decide when I wanna do it, but it's important. We need new credit cards for all of our new employees. Right now, we're passing them around amongst employees, and we've got debit cards and all that sort of thing, but that has to happen. It's unprofessional. People are having to bill things that they shouldn't have to bill and taking their eye off the ball. Important, but if that week's another week and a half, two weeks, not a huge deal, right?

	And then, there are some things that I'm trying to learn as well, some new things to make me better at what I want to do, those are important, but if this takes me three weeks, four weeks to do that, it's gonna get to it. You see it every day, and you look at it, and you're, "Okay, Shawn, maybe it's time to move this up into the new quadrant," or else it just sits there. It becomes stale.

Jaime Masters:	How do you look at all this, and how do you pick? So, do you start with a brand-new one each day, and then you write it in?

Shawn Reynolds:	No.

Jaime Masters:	Oh, it's the same -

Shawn Reynolds:	And I can send a note to you folks, but I go under here - and hopefully this can be seen - and I go "important, urgent," like, "Let's do this," and I scroll down. Look at this list. It's a pretty '

Jaime Masters:	So, that's the thing. Every day, you're looking at the craziness.

Shawn Reynolds:	The other thing is, too, I put little checkmarks beside each, so it feels great to feel that I have to find a way so that the checkmarked ones go to the bottom. Then, I can be like - I wanna feel like, at the end of the week, I've gotten stuff done, and it's not just a list I have to do. From a mental and a positivity standpoint, "Hey, Shawn, you did some great stuff." I keep talking about myself in the third person.

Jaime Masters:	I love it. I do that with my children. It's hilarious.

Shawn Reynolds:	So, then, you go "important, not urgent," decide when I'm gonna schedule that, so I move that down, and then we go down to "not important, but urgent." That's maybe something you can delegate to an assistant and an employee. And so, I look under here. Our AdWords account; there's a new keyword thing that I read about that I thought would be really great to make us more effective. I want that enacted. Again, not super urgent, and this is something I don't need to do. I can tell a person, say, "Listen, here's this article. Read up on this. Get on the phone with the advisor from AdWords. Let's get this done.'

Jaime Masters:	So, is it like a brain dump for your entire list, though? Because that's the other thing. That's a big list. So, you don't use like a project management software or anything like that?

Shawn Reynolds:	No, I tend to use this right now. And the thing is, the one thing I need to do is you're seeing a lot of checkboxes on there, so I'm getting stuff down, and I have to move those down, like cut-and-paste or maybe something, but move them down because I wanna be able to see, a month from now, where I'm at and see what I've gotten done. And eventually, you're moving that maybe into the, "Hey, this is what I've accomplished for the month of September' list."

	And the last list, which is the funniest list, is "not important, not urgent.' Delete it. If it's not important and it's not urgent, that's not really on your list.

Jaime Masters:	Give me some examples of that, too, because nobody wants to delete anything from their list, ever. They put things on, and they never take them off.

Shawn Reynolds:	I delete it.

Jaime Masters:	Darn!

Shawn Reynolds:	People are always asking you to come and speak at things, and sometimes, those things you have to say no to, and it's not important, not urgent because there are 10,000 things ahead of you. So, you just write back to them and say, "Hey, folks, not this September, but can we look at this for January?" So, you can have that on there, and it can be something you look back to, but this is now in their court to reach back to me. When people play tennis email with you, and they've emailed you, and you email them back, and it's now in their court, and that's because some people use that as their list.

Jaime Masters:	Yep, that's why we have Boomerang nowadays, "Oh, I don't wanna see this right now. Go away."

Shawn Reynolds:	So, it's just like I'm throwing this back to you. I don't even want to have to think about it. Well, I can put that on my "not important, not urgent" list, as opposed to leaving it in their court, because you wanna be polite with people's time, and there's people out there that are just getting started, and there were people that were so, so helpful to me. I stood on the shoulders of so many other people to get to where I am today, and you wanna be respectful of that. I think karma's a really important thing in life and in business.

Jaime Masters:	That's really cool. Especially everybody listening's like, "Ooh, let me ask him for advice. He's gonna give back." We get questions about this all the time, though. You have a board of advisors, and people are like, "Oh, well, who would want to mentor me? I'm a nobody," or whatever. It's hard to have them ask. Does that make sense?

Shawn Reynolds:	Yeah. You can ask a girl out, ask a partner out. If you take the first no, you shouldn't be an entrepreneur. The first no means, "Maybe I ask it a different time." Like people reach out to you, and sometimes, it's like it was Labor Day long weekend. If you were reaching out to me, we were at the cottage. We were doing that. I had my little 2-year-old, my wife. This is not the time to reach out to me around that time. And people that I wanna get advice for that are on my board of advisors, I had a couple questions. I'm like, "I'm not hitting them up now because this is not gonna get an answer, and if it is, it's not gonna be the real great answer that I want." So, don't be afraid to ask more than once.

	And I'll tell you, one of the guys on my board of advisors, who was on the Dragons? Den, I kept trying to meet this person. I wanted to meet with him. I wanted to meet with him. "[Inaudible] [00:18:27]," he kept saying very politely. This guy would get back to me within five minutes. He owned so many businesses. I don't know how he does it, so much respect, but said, "Shawn, I get about 15 requests a day to speak at universities and colleges and people and all this," and I said, "Listen, it's the fall. I will come and clean out your garage. I will rake leaves. What do you need to do at your house right now? Let me come and help you so that we'll just talk while you do what you need to do," and he said yes, at that point.

Jaime Masters:	How long ago was that? When was that?

Shawn Reynolds:	That was probably about two and a half years ago.

Jaime Masters:	So, you were really successful already, and you're like, "I'm gonna go rake your leaves." That's amazing.

Shawn Reynolds:	But if somebody said to me, "Shawn, listen." We got a ton of toys in the basement. I gotta get that cleaned out. Nobody else can do it but me, right? There's those things. An assistant can't do that. If somebody said, "Hey, listen, let me come and help you," I'd rather sit and chat with somebody. I'm a people person. I wanna talk to people. Who doesn't wanna have somebody else come and move some boxes or help them rake. Raking leaves is kinda boring.

Jaime Masters:	That's genius, though. This is the funny thing is that having that little different spin on it makes all the difference in the world. Giving the value first, technically "Oh, let me help you," actually got amazing human beings even after you've already been successful. That's so -

Shawn Reynolds:	I'll give you another great story, another example, Jaime. So, I was in Jamaica, and a friend of mine has this amazing villa. JFK had his honeymoon there, Paul McCartney spends his time there, and Ralph Lauren is there all the time. I grew up. It was the saddest thing. I thought it was pretty cool, and I was like, "It'd be really great to meet this guy," and he is, out of all the people that are there, he wants his own time. He doesn't wanna really be bothered. He's there to relax. And I noticed his wife always sort of in the ocean, and I thought, instead of going to the horse's mouth, you maybe go in a different direction.

Jaime Masters:	You hit on the wife. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Shawn Reynolds:	When she was in the ocean, I started chatting. Her son was a movie producer. Next thing you know, she said, "Oh, come back to our villa, and we'd love for you to meet our son." And it wasn't disingenuous. We had a great conversation, which made her want to chat with me, and we ended up having a great conversation, and her son and I ended up exchanging numbers, and it was pretty surreal to sit and have a sangria with Ralph Lauren. So, there's more than one way to skin a cat.

Jaime Masters:	Thank you so much for saying that, too, because that's the other thing. I think people assume, "Well, it's gonna be that push away. It's the whatever-it-is." They're human beings, and if you strike up a conversation, whether it led to anything and/or not, because I'm sure you do this all the time, and sometimes it doesn't lead to things, and that's okay, too.

Shawn Reynolds:	And I might just be busy today. I had a rough day. I had a fight with my partner, whatever. Reach back to them in three more weeks, and say something interesting in that email, "Hey, I read this great article that might interest you." Come to the table with something, as opposed to just being somebody who's just asking for something. What are you bringing to the table? Read up on this person. Find out what their issue - like the person from the Dragons? Den loves tennis. I was a tennis pro. I started tennis academies. I started sports academies. One of my things was, "Let me bring you out for a lesson." I get free tickets to the tennis open here. Come to the table with something.

Jaime Masters:	So, it's easy for you to say. You have a thousand different things, "Oh, I'm a movie producer," "Oh, I do tennis," like it's kind of insane to see the difference of all the stuff that you do. You have connection points with everybody, apparently, in some way or another. We're just talking. You're like, "Oh, your hair, hair and makeup." Then, we started talking down that path. It's crazy the way you do that. Is that innate for you? Are you just automatically good with people in general, or is this a learned skill?

Shawn Reynolds:	I love to chat with people. Before we started this, I could have talked to you for another hour because - I don't know - I find people really interesting. I'm sure this is why you're here doing this. I love getting to know, "How did you get from Point A to Point B?" I'll talk with the checkout lady at the grocery store, and I'm just like, "What's going on in your day? What's the most interesting customer that ever came into your checkout line? What's the funniest combination?" 

	I don't know. I think everybody has something to bring to the table, and if you're a curious person, what do people wanna talk about? They wanna talk about themselves. I love the fact that I'm here chatting with you today, like the fact that you want to hear about me and what I've done. Everybody, the most successful person = Obama, Trump, Ralph Lauren = they wanna chat about themselves in some capacity or something that they wanna talk about. People wanna be heard.

Jaime Masters:	That's such a good point. And that's the thing. They're just humans. That's one of the reasons why I have the show because, beforehand, again, small-town girl. I'm from Maine, so I'm cold [inaudible] [00:23:36]. And I used to put everybody on a pedestal and be like, "Whoa." They're human beings, and human beings, usually - unless they're super, super crazy introverted like interaction, in general, and you're using that to your advantage.

Shawn Reynolds:	In fact, <p data-wpview-marker="%5Baudio%20breakup%5D">.</p> [00:23:51 - 00:23:58] because you're apples. Remember, these guys are having some of the same problems you're having. They might have more people, but I've been inside some of these businesses. I know people inside these businesses. They have problems the same as yourself and your audience, on a larger scale. Think of it like a cruise ship. They're trying to move this cruise ship, and it's moving so incrementally. We're a speedboat, and we can make these turns much more quickly.

	So, they might have a larger bank account, but they've got big problems, and we have a lot of things at our disposal and things we can do that make us, at times, in a better position to be successful.

Jaime Masters:	I love that this took this turn because we weren't gonna talk about mentors in any way before, when we were talking about stuff, but because you've built so many different types of companies, what would you suggest for people who are in the first like two years in business to really try and develop it? Because you're right. There's these ups and downs and things, and they're trying to hold it all together but not having the skill set. So, of course, getting a mentor, really, really important, but what would you suggest, especially on the business development side of things to try and handle it all and not over-stress? And I know it's a general question, but that's why I want you to tell me what you think.

Shawn Reynolds:	I think it's important to set goals for yourself. I'm a list guy, like I said, but the day-to-day can catch up to you. Emails and phone calls and all those things, is that moving your business forward today? Is it really? Is that email back to that person? And before you're doing things, creating that list and going, "These three things are paramount to me moving forward. Me getting on the horn with this person, because they're gonna help me move my business forward, is important."

	So, creating a list and having - you can go through that forest, coming back to that forest analogy. As long as you know you're moving north, you might have to move east and west along the way, but you're still moving that direction. And you might have to change course and change your game plan, but if you go, "By the end of this ?" My sports academy company started off with me and six kids on a tennis court 10, 12 years ago, and by the end, we had pushing 2,000 kids, 50 instructors, 5 locations, 30 after-4 programs, and then Nike Sports Camps just comes in, and we turned that into 70 locations across Canada. They're a huge company, obviously.

	The thing is, I started off going, "Hey, I wanna turn this from six kids. I wanna make this 25 kids. I wanna make this a camp." So, you can have that big thing as, "I wanna be the next Apple, the next Google." That's great. That's looking at you at a planetary point of view, but let's get back to the forest again. You wanna get to the end of this forest. Let's get out of this forest. And that might be, "I want to start a camp. I want to make it so that I can stop working my fulltime job in six months, in a year."

	So, having that goal, and your goal might not be money. For me, money isn't the end-all, be-all. If I can find a balance between creating, let's say, film and TV projects, running my businesses - running my business with my family I find so redeeming because it's a collaborative. I'll make less money to be able to spend time with my son, spend time with my wife. I don't know. I wanna have a ton of money in the bank, but people have to understand what it takes to get there. It could mean a divorce. It could mean not getting to know your kids. It could mean putting yourself in the hospital to do that.

	I'm not saying that has to happen, but you have to give your all if you wanna be one of the best. And I wanna be really great. I don't know if I wanna give up every everything for that.

Jaime Masters:	Life first, yes! So, to me, did you know that? So, when we're looking at - I'm not gonna call it balance because what you're doing sounds actually pretty gosh darn impressive, the fact that you can prioritize those pieces, especially with all the different things that you have going on. But did you, especially when you first started with six kids, did you vision or did you really project like, "I can see this being huge, and I wanna sell it one day?" or was it always incremental?

Shawn Reynolds:	And I'm gonna be honest about this. You know what? It was myself and six kids on a court. I was a waiter and actor at the time. So, I was in the big city of Toronto. I'm from a small town, a little mining town up north called Sudbury, and didn't have a ton of money in an account, and sort of was doing that. And it started growing, and it started growing, and I didn't have a thing of thinking, "This is gonna be great." I was gonna be the next Ed Norton, the next Tom Cruise. That was what was gonna happen.

	And it started growing, and it started growing, and the other side of the coin was growing, and I just saw I didn't have to be a waiter anymore because it started growing. And then, I had people working for me. I had instructors working for me, and I didn't have to be there. I could manage them from my pocket, from my phone.

	And so, I don't know. I kinda had to have some success for that to come about. That being said, I'm a hard worker, and I feel like a really lucky person, but I've always worked really hard to get lucky. Here's one thing I'll tell you. I had one of my locations shut down our lease for us to run one of our tennis locations there, and it was the end of the world. It was a big door closing on me, but it was the best thing that ever happened. I got in with a private school, which led to all these other private schools, which Nike wouldn't have happened if that hadn't of happened.

	Now, when something bad happens from a business standpoint, I go, "What's the silver lining in this?" because the things that were the worst things that could have happened ended up being the best things that could have happened. Who would have thought?

Jaime Masters:	Well, what's so crazy, though, is it's easy to see when you look in hindsight, and it's so hard when you're in that forest and going, "This sucks!" Maybe when I'm out, I can look back and be like, "Oh, that was a beautiful forest," but now you're like, "Ahh!" How do you bring that into your crisis or whatever mode you are in now?

Shawn Reynolds:	I had to have it happen a couple times for me to go, "Okay, this might be a good thing." So, I had to learn from example, I suppose.

Jaime Masters:	A little stubborn, hardheaded entrepreneurs, you gotta get slapped around a few times.

Shawn Reynolds:	And then, I had my brothers around me when I was really down and out. I had my advisors around me. I had people where I'm like, "Oh, my god, I have to go in for surgery, and I'm having challenges for my business, and this is happening." There were times where I was like I'm in a hospital. I was having trouble walking up stairs. I was gonna have to come and take care of my little one. I couldn't pick up my little one for the first six months after surgery because they cut out my gut and stuff like that. 

	And so, I was coming back home to run a business, to have a newborn, do all these things, and I was afraid. I was really scared. And my brother showed up one day at the hospital, and he said, "Okay, let's walk these stairs. Let's see that you can," because we have a two-story. "Can I do that?" And he's like, "Yeah." And I was on a morphine trip, and that can really play with your emotions. I was crying in the hospital, just feeling like I can't. I'm like, "I can't take care of me. How do I take care of a newborn with my wife?"

	So, I'm trying to be as honest as possible of the things that people go through.

Jaime Masters:	And what's so funny is that we are such resilient human beings. And you're telling this story, and I have extra bones in my body, which is interesting. I'm a mutant. And I had them removed, and I couldn't walk for a very long period of time, and was on crutches, and was crawling up stairs, and had small children also, which sucks, and business, and everything else.

	And what I see with entrepreneurs, especially with clients of mine, they're like, "Well, I'm gonna do everything now." Even when I moved to Austin, I launched my book the same month, got a divorce the same month- we're still friends; don't worry, all is well - and moved across the country in the same month, because that's smart. But I see entrepreneurs doing this and going [gasping sound], and then we pile up, and when you pile that much stuff up, no human being can handle this stuff. And then, we look at ourselves and go, "How come I couldn't handle it?" Because nobody can, no matter how resilient. Thankfully, we can come back from it, but those crisis points really matter.

Shawn Reynolds:	Well, speaking to that, I think back to I was a waiter-actor for a while, and do you know how much I learned being a waiter, the amount of things I learned being a waiter that translate to what I do now? You think about that. You have to prioritize clients coming. We were right beside the hockey arena. The leagues would come in, and I'd have people wanting to get in and get out, so you have to look across the room and go, "Okay, that cute couple over there, they don't need me. They're being cute with each other. Get them the bread and water." 

	Get that done, but that businessperson that's in all the time, and you know that they are on you, even though you should see the couple first because they are the next person to see, you gotta prioritize what is most important. And that goes to, as well, is it the best time to move across the country? Is it the best time to do this? It's like going back to the list thing I said, and sometimes you can't control that. Well, I did control the surgery to a certain extent. I said the baby has to come first, and then we're getting the surgery done.

	It's funny. I was in a hospital bed. I was on the side in pain, and when the nurse came in to see if my wife was all right, I thought she was talking to me, and I said, "Oh, I could have a little bit of water." It was the most embarrassing moment.

Jaime Masters:	Oh, wife, labor, all that, but I'm -

Shawn Reynolds:	Wife giving birth. But prioritizing, if you can do that, do that. Don't put everything on yourself at once because that's not gonna help anybody.

Jaime Masters:	It's just tough because they all want it all done now. We're not so great with patience, a lot of times, either. You have all these ideas - the fear of missing out, like you were talking about before - and we have this compulsion to do and to have it be done, ideally, yesterday. And so, mitigating that and priorities and giving ourselves a freaking break once in a while so we don't end up in the hospital, it's hard for anybody to manage in general. So, how have you? I know you talked about meditation a little bit beforehand. I talk about meditation quite a bit. How has that really made a difference for you?

Shawn Reynolds:	A lot of times, things are happening. I'm half French Canadian, and I'm half Irish, so I'm a pretty reactive person. And so, my gut's telling me, at times, it's not the best thing when you're married, when you have kids. You don't wanna bring that emotion out. And it gets me to go and sort of see the strength behind what's happening and go, "I can feel myself. I'm getting upset. I can feel it welling up in me, and I want to get upset now." And I now am going, "Oh, I'm upset. Let's try breathing that center a little bit," or, 'I'm gonna go for a walk.'

	I'm not perfect at it, but the longer I do it, I've gotten better. There's this great app called 10% Happier. It's with an ABC correspondent, Dan Harris. He had sort of a panic attack during doing the nightly news, and it got him -

Jaime Masters:	I think I saw that, yeah, that video.

Shawn Reynolds:	It's a really great app. He has this thing called "One Minute Counts." Everybody feels like you have to get in there and stop thinking. That's not what it's about. It's about going, "Okay, I'm gonna breathe. I'm gonna follow my breathing." Then, eventually, you're like, "Oh, my list. I have to go back to my list." I come up with so many great ideas when I'm meditating. 

	And so, I have to go back to my list, and instead of doing that, going, "Okay, I have a thought. Go back to the breath." For me, I think of it when I used to go to the gym and go, "Okay, that's an arm curl. It's one rep. I'm gonna come back to the breath." Another thought came on board, and instead of me getting upset, which I used to do, he's like, "Okay, we're gonna come back to the breath, another rep." 
	
	And eventually, you start getting better at this. Your brain gets better at it. My mom says to me, she goes, "Oh, I just can't do meditation." I'm like, "I couldn't surf the first time until I took a lesson." I took a lesson. I learned how to surf. I used to be a tennis pro. Let me tell you, if I get you out there for five minutes, I'll give you three tips. I can guarantee you're gonna be hitting the ball back, and I can guarantee it.

Jaime Masters:	See, okay, this is why I have to bring this up. We just had a retreat with one of my mastermind groups, and we talk about meditation, and I have a muse, biofeedback. I have crazy things. I show my meditation bench. You can tell the people that are like, "Okay, she's crazy," which makes sense, but it's the evolutionary process of that. 

	So, I love hearing from other people to go, "Oh, I never really was-" I wasn't a meditation person either, but it's scientifically proven, and we're learning so much more about that, and I really think just the stress side of things for business owners, they need to mitigate that because if they can't, that's when the stress response just keeps going up and up and up, and that's what causes so many more issues.

	And so, it's hard to try and get somebody who is so resistant to be open to just testing, but like you said, it's like a muscle. Please, people, please listen to him and practice.

Shawn Reynolds:	Yeah, and one thing to add to that, Jaime, is with my business when I used to be a solo entrepreneur with the sports academies, it used to be like, "Okay, am I gonna make payroll this month? Am I gonna make payroll?" And then, I'd get in this loop in my head. I'm like, "Okay, I'm gonna make payroll. I'm not gonna make payroll." And then, with the meditation, "Okay, I've got this loop in my head going on. Is this helping me whatsoever" Is me saying this 10,000 times?-

	Write down on a piece of paper. Let's do a meditation. Let's get that out of there. And then, it's gonna keep popping back, but it's gonna be less frequent. Me thinking about the fact that, "Is payroll gonna happen?" either say to yourself, "I'm gonna call my bank and see if I can get that line of credit extended," or, "I'm gonna not pay myself this month," or whatever the heck that was when I was starting my business out. You telling yourself, and freaking yourself out, and amping yourself up more, and stressing yourself out because being an entrepreneur, man, is like being on that high wire by yourself.

	My wife doesn't know my day-to-day. She's great to bounce things off of. She's so intelligent, brings so much to the table, and I'm a better entrepreneur for that, but she doesn't know the minutiae of what I go through. My employees, they get paid every month no matter what. They do not know the minutiae of what's going on. Only you do, as a solo entrepreneur. But with that, it can get you out of your head a little bit, and my board of advisors can help walk me through those problems.

Jaime Masters:	And it makes all the difference in the world on how you feel, and it depends on what you think, and most of the stuff is habitual that we don't even realize, but you have way more control than we give ourselves credit. We just assume that it's a mishmash in there. And don't get me wrong, it is.

Shawn Reynolds:	And you have those things that play on loops, those things where you keep - even for myself, if you write down on a piece of paper the things I've had that are successes, yes, they're great successes. Does it not mean every morning I get up going, "Hey, I'm the underdog, and I want to be the best, and can I be the best? Can I do this? Can I bring this to however many multimillion dollars I wanna do?" There's that little thing in my head that still talks to me on certain days or every day for a week in a row. It's that loop thing, and you just have to go, "No, no, no, that guy, I'm not listening to him."

	I do affirmations as well. With this new job, I have to drive a little bit more, and I picked five things. Some have to do with my health, some have to do with my business, things like that, and you keep telling yourself stuff. I've always told myself I'm a lucky person. I had that surgery, and I said to myself, "I have all these people who came to visit me. I live in a country where this got paid for. My wife has really great benefits. This got paid for. I got out of surgery quicker than I thought I would be." If you say you're lucky, let me tell you, you're gonna find the things in your life that you're lucky about. It's almost like when you get a car, a silver RAV4 or a blue Porsche. How many of those are you gonna see in a day?

Jaime Masters:	Exactly, yes!

Shawn Reynolds:	If you tell yourself you're lucky, you're gonna see why you're lucky every single day.

Jaime Masters:	There's a Derren Brown video about luck. Do you know who Derren Brown is?

Shawn Reynolds:	Oh, yeah.

Jaime Masters:	He's amazing. He has one on luck. You have to watch it because it's the people who think they are lucky versus the people that think they are unlucky. They literally will put money in front of the people that think they're unlucky and they won't see it. They had to put - well, I won't tell you that. But I was like, "This is so perfectly true that when you're not paying attention ?" 

	Like I said at the very beginning before we started recording, you're like, "Oh, I prepared," and I was like, "Well, luck favors the prepared mind," one of my favorite quotes. And it is. It's like you're just paying more attention and really making sure that you understand that luck comes to you, and if I pay attention to that, it's way better than paying attention to the other crap that goes on in our head. Why would you not wanna be happier? It's so silly.

Shawn Reynolds:	And you're gonna come up with so many great ideas by - if you tell yourself every morning that you're lucky, like we're above ground. We were born in this country - well, you in the United States.

[Crosstalk]

Shawn Reynolds:	We were born in a great, great place with great people around us. We're pretty darn lucky, and I think reminding ourselves of that every day is important. You look at what's happening down in Houston. I'm sure those people are thinking to themselves, "Hey, my house is still standing," or, "My family's okay." We have a lot to be lucky for, and I think that we have to remind ourselves of that. And there's gonna be those days, like there were days in that hospital where I didn't feel - I'm saying this now - and there were certain days when I was not feeling lucky, and I called somebody, or I cried it out, but you get through that. You just push through that, and then you move on till, "Hey, I am lucky."

Jaime Masters:	Thank you for being so real on this. I know we're actually going over than what we normally do because this stuff is so important, but it seems so "intangible," and yet this is some of the threads that I see of the people that are successful is because it is a personal growth thing for sure. As you start growing, and a business is one of the best ways that we can grow as humans because we're faced with a whole bunch of crap, that you kind of have to.

	And so, seeing what you actually do, and you actually being very vulnerable about, "Yeah, and then I cried," okay, it's fine, people. People do that, and you feel better afterwards. Huh, who knew? That's huge.

Shawn Reynolds:	Luckily, I get paid to cry on TV and stuff. I don't get paid in a hospital bed, but it is what it is.

Jaime Masters:	Oh, my gosh, that's amazing. "Tap into the pain." Oh, man. So, I know we have to start wrapping up, unfortunately. We should have you back on the show. I know, tonight, you have like 1,000 people at a film festival and craziness, so thank you so much for making time in your schedule also.

Shawn Reynolds:	If you get on a plane, I'd love to have you out as one of my guests.

Jaime Masters:	That's what I said. I was like, "I'll just cancel all the rest of the interviews today. I'm flying to Toronto. If I can meet Ryan Reynolds ?" Wait, your brother or Deadpool? Maybe. We were chatting a little bit too much beforehand. So, you're really good at this, so getting me off topic, man.

	So, the last question that I always ask is: What's one action listeners can take this week to help move them forward towards their goal of a million?

Shawn Reynolds:	I think really setting goals for yourself. Setting a goal is important. Putting those steps behind the goal, having that and knowing where you're gonna go that week because life can get you off course really easily, you have to write down, "What do I want to accomplish by the end of the week?" and then work backwards from that. And from week to week, that's gonna change. For me, some days, it's creating this new series. What do I wanna move forward? Most importantly, put those steps behind that. Those steps will change along the way, but if you don't have a map to where you're going, [clapping sound]. What direction are you going in?

Jaime Masters:	Lost in the woods.

Shawn Reynolds:	Stay positive. Know that anybody can - I'm [inaudible] [00:44:31] with like 300 bucks in my pocket.

Jaime Masters:	See, everybody's like, "I wanna be like you! I wanna do crazy fun stuff, and serial entrepreneur, and do this, and do -" So, thank you for inspiring everyone and letting them know tangible things to actually do this.

	And I love your little template that you have on that, and everybody, go check out - I'm gonna check out 10% Happier because usually -

Shawn Reynolds:	I'm gonna send you a link to the Eisenhower Matrix. It's a great thing.

Jaime Masters:	Perfect. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. I know, actually, you said they could follow you on Twitter, and tell us more about where we can find more about you.

Shawn Reynolds:	Sure, yeah. Shawn_Reynolds, send me a hello. I love to chat with people. And come to the table. Like I said before, come to the table with something interesting. We can start a conversation.

Jaime Masters:	Ooh, that's a challenge. I love it! And then, forward it to me because I wanna see what you come up with. You guys better be smart. We have to show him how smart my audience is, okay? Come up with something interesting.

Shawn Reynolds:	I'm a big fan of yours, by the way, Jaime. I've been watching you for a long while, and the people you bring on. I'm out here, and obviously I have a certain success, and I'm writing stuff down with some of the people you have on. I know you recently had the gentleman who had lost his eyesight who I'm such a big fan of. He meets me with my Crohn's. I was just like, "We all have our challenges."

Jaime Masters:	Yes, and then you're like, "I am so lucky." And then, he thinks he's so lucky. Man!

Shawn Reynolds:	He inspired me. I was like, this guy, I want him to be one of the guys on my advisory because he blew me away.

Jaime Masters:	I'll have to connect you guys, and all will be well in the world. So, thank you so much for coming on the show today. I so, so appreciate it. I hope you have a fantastic night tonight, too.

Shawn Reynolds:	Thank you very much. Enjoy your day.

Tags: Actor, Author, business goals, Eisenhower Matrix, entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, Family Business, jaime masters, Mentor, millionaire entrepreneurs, Motivation, podcast, serial entrepreneur, Shawn Reynolds, top entrepreneurs

Categories: All, Featured Millionaire Interview, Goal Setting, Mentoring, Mentors and Mastermind, Millionaire Interviews, Motivation, Personal Development, Productivity

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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