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Joshua Latimer Joins Us On The Steve Jobs Inspired Join Up Dots Podcast
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Introducing Joshua Latimer
Joshua Latimer is our guest today on the Steve Jobs inspired Join Up Dots free podcast interview.
He is an man who many people would stop and think “Wow, that was a risky decision to make” when you hear what he did.
When he was a younger man he had a job with the word famous bank JP Morgan.
This was a position that had kudos, status and would have been seen as a great career by many.
But not for our guest today, as when he was 25 he left this safe and secure position to start his own cleaning business.
Well, that doesn’t sound too bad a decision to make, as we hear time and time again in Join Up Dots, he had taken control of his life, and more importantly his time which make such a difference.
How The Dots Joined Up For Joshua
But how about I add that he took this decision when his lovely wife was pregnant with their first child.
Yes at that period in your life when your future is 100% uncertain and out of your control, he did the unusual and plunged into the dark.
But with hustle, and persistence he grew the business until it was generating over $150,000 a month in revenue and then sold it to a national buyer.
During the last two years that he owned his company, he only worked 5 hours / week on the business, but it still grew at 35% per year.
And now from his home in Costa Rica, he now runs twos two internet based businesses with a small team of professionals from all over the world teaching how to bring automatic systems into your life.
So where did he find the resolve and strength of character to leave his banking job at the very time when most people would cling to what they have got?
And do the systems that he teach work with all types of businesses, or only online ones?
Well let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots, with the one and only Joshua Latimer.
Show Highlights
During the show we discussed such weighty topics with Joshua Latimer such as:
How he remembers going into the banking world, and always being aware that he was in the process of building someone else dream and not his own so had to quit.
How he recalls having no wild win coming into his business in the first year of the business, and made only $24,000..which wasn’t easy to support a family with.
Why he looks to push himself in everything he does, and recalls pushing himself to the point in sports when he wasn’t happy until he was throwing up. That is commitment!!!
Joshua feels that we are all standing on the shoulders of giants, and gained huge experience from seeing his father work ethic, but doesn’t believe that work should be as hard as we make it.
And lastly….
How everybody out there has systems in their life that can translate into their businesses. We just need to work at finding the space everyday of the week.
How To Connect With Joshua Latimer
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Full Transcription Of Joshua Latimer Interview
Intro [0:00]
When we’re young, we have an amazing positive outlook about how great life is going to be. But somewhere along the line we forget to dream and end up settling. Join Up Dots features amazing people who refuse to give up and chose to go after their dreams. This is your blueprint for greatness. So here’s your host live from the back of his garden in the UK, David Ralph.
David Ralph [0:26]
Yes, hello, everybody. Hello, world Episode 559. And I feel fine. I’m gonna have a really good time. I don’t know where that came from. Um, it’s, it’s the Bible I’m in today because I feel like I’m doing what I was born to do. And hopefully all of you out there, wherever you are on your journey, whether you’re thinking of taking the leap, if you are halfway into it, or whatever you’re doing. Hopefully you wake up every day with the desire to sing. And I’m going to ask our guests today if he’s a man who burst into song at the drop of a hat, and maybe I can even get him to do it because he is a man who many people would stop and think wow, what that was a risky decision to make when you hear what he did. Now, when he was a younger man, he had a job with the world famous bank JP Morgan. This was a position that had killed us status, and would have been seen as a great career by many, but not so our guest today is when he was 25. He left his safe and secure position to start his own cleaning business. Well, that doesn’t sound too bad a decision to make as we hear time and time again in Join Up Dots. He taken control of his life, and more importantly his time which makes such a difference. But how about I add that he took this decision when his lovely wife was pregnant with their first child? Yes, at that period in your life and your future is 100% uncertain and out of control. He did the unusual and plunged into the dark, but with hustle and persistence he grew his business until it was generating over 150 grand a month in revenue. I’ve been sold it to a national buyer. Now during the last two years that he owned his company. He only worked five hours a week on the business but it’s To grow at 35% per year, and now from his home in Costa Rica, he now runs to internet based businesses with a small team of professionals from all over the world, teaching how to bring automatic systems into your life. So where did he find the resolve and strength of character to leave his banking job at a very time when most people would cling to what they’ve got? And do the systems that he teach work with all types of businesses, or only online ones? Well, let’s find out as we bring onto the show to start joining up dots with the one and only Joshua Latimer. Good morning to you, Joshua. How are you sir?
Joshua Latimer [2:37]
I am doing fantastic. David, thank you so much for having me on.
David Ralph [2:41]
It is lovely to have you here. You are a cheerful looking guy. You’ve got a baseball cap on. You’ve got a lovely kind of American looking beard. I don’t know why it looks American to me. And it looks like you’re having the time of your life. And I’ll be honest, Joshua, I’ll be honest. Over this week, I have been doing a little bit of stalking and I went over to your Facebook page, and I had a look around, nothing untoward going there. But your kids look like they’re having a good time as well whizzing around the garden on little mopeds and scooters and god knows what it seems a divot in your life is it?
Joshua Latimer [3:15]
It is, and you know, family’s definitely number one for me, and even with the JPMorgan story, and everything that you’ve talked about a couple minutes ago, the core gut wrenching why I’ve done all these things, and taking the risks that I’ve taken is really to set my family up to live a bigger life than maybe as traditional and not bigger in the sense of wild success, but bigger in the sense that we take intelligent risks. I want them to watch their father, do things even watch me fall down and get back up and live a life that’s full of joy. And you said you’re going to burst into song earlier. You know, that type of tone that that’s the type of life me and my wife want for our family. And so that’s what we’re going for.
David Ralph [3:54]
Now, are you a singer Joshua, are you somebody that channels the Freddie Mercury I couldn’t think that the person does To you, but would he be the kind of person the Elvis? What kind of singer would you be?
Joshua Latimer [4:05]
Who that? Well, I do play the guitar and I used to be in a band and actually nobody knows this but we had a major label record deal offer when I was 20 years old and it’s a long story, but I used to be able to sing a lot better. As far as what kind of band I’m more of a down south america country, kind of a guy which probably isn’t super in line with your listener base, but that’s more my style.
David Ralph [4:28]
So you know, I kind of LeAnn Rimes that’s my my country’s knowledge.
Joshua Latimer [4:34]
Maybe a Leon rhyme.
David Ralph [4:37]
That’s as far as you can go. So this vibe that you’re creating with your family because it is all important, isn’t it? I think the thing that you said that really resonated with me is you want your kids to see you fall back, bang, get back up. You went into JP Morgan’s. It’s a classic suit. It’s Wall Street. It’s the banking life. Now. I did banking life for years and years and years. I was In The City of London, and I never felt connected to it, I never felt connected to the other people. I never felt connected to the job. I really didn’t care if things kind of went wrong. I just did what I needed to do to get out in the evening. Did you have that same kind of feeling? Was it always it’s only a job? Or was that a career path leading up to it?
Joshua Latimer [5:23]
Well, I think I initially went down that path just due to social pressure. You know, I was the first entrepreneur, my family and frankly, what I did by starting that business was completely mad by most of the people around me standards. And it was not an easy choice to do it. But you know, I didn’t want to spend my life building someone else’s dream. You know, JP Morgan has this empire. And you know that he started that a long time ago, I wanted to build my own dream. I wanted to go after what I wanted. And really, when my wife got pregnant, that’s when I had my back up against a wall moment and I could just see the next 30 years of my life kind of flashed before me and I didn’t want I’ll be sitting in a cubicle with my little tie on choking the life out of me. And there’s nothing wrong with that job that people were great. I love finance and numbers and things like that. But it wasn’t putting me in control. And I really it’s all about freedom if control freedom of time, and now I have location freedom. That’s what I wanted. So that’s why I burned the bridge and went after it.
David Ralph [6:22]
Now, but you did something which so many people do, and they went off to something, but you’ve achieved it. I’ve seen so many times that people go for something. And before they pushed through to even the first shoots by event jumped back into what they were running away from because it was safe. Did you ever have those thoughts? Or was it plain sailing in your life?
Joshua Latimer [6:46]
Well, it wasn’t plain sailing. I always joke that I have a bachelor’s degree in pain and a master’s in suffering. Because you know what? We go through the fire man and when you start a business, you go through the fire whether you want to or not, and you’re correct. When you say that most people will jump back in and you know a lot of us do just enough to fail. We put herself out there just enough to almost make it. And I’ve just never been like that. And I’m not the smartest guy in the world. I don’t have any magic sauce or anything that I put on my food that helps me to figure things out. We figured this out through being relentless, getting out of bed every day, sometimes crawling out of bed every day, but continuing to take steps forward. And if you don’t quit, David, if you just keep going, you almost can’t fail. But people kind of quit the band before you get the record deal. They they go back into the secure world of a job before they can really win and it takes a minute to get some momentum no matter what kind of business you start.
David Ralph [7:46]
I agree with that. Totally. I’m very lucky that this show went off like a rocket at the beginning. But I realised now it was the first stage rocket. It was like get out of the Earth’s gravitational pull was reasonably easy. But then the next bit into deep space has been very hard. Because what you’re doing, you’re going through over kind of fly by night, it’s the people that just do it for a little bit and stop. And then suddenly you get into the big game that the big players and then you really have to sort of crush it and sort of move forward with force and hustle muscle. Now what I would say to you, Joshua, and I asked you this question is, I’ve experienced in my role here that the easy bit gave me confidence, first of all, but because I’ve got that competence, I was willing to push through if I had hit the hard bit right at the very beginning. I don’t know if I’d got the mental fortitude to just keep going if it was hard, straight off the bat. But now I’ve had a certain amount of success. I know it’s waiting for me. Have you felt the same thing? Was it reasonably easy at the beginning? Did it feel like play and then it got tougher? Was it tough at the beginning? Tell us about it.
Joshua Latimer [8:57]
Well, I’ll tell you what I was excited about. Getting I was excited I felt alive just like you did when you probably started this show we have these visions we can we have these moments where we can daydream about what the possibilities are. And then yeah, for the first few months of any new venture, you could call that the honeymoon period. Luckily for you, you had early success, which is fantastic. And that’s very helpful. I didn’t have any kind of wild win right out of the gate. In fact, the first year of our business, I only generated $24,000 in total revenue, and we practically starved to death. And I joke about it now, but when my wife went to the grocery store to buy groceries, and her credit cards declined in front of 20 strangers who walk, watch or walk away and shame. You know, that was a very tough thing, you know, and it was not easy, but you know, luckily for me, my wife is super supportive of everything I’ve ever done. All of the harebrained crazy things I’ve tried to do, I’ve had many businesses, I’ve sold two of them. But in the beginning it was hard and and I get it that that’s why only a small percentage of people can make it through The other thing I would say is there’s different stages to your business. Just like you said, with the rocket, there’s, there’s issues you don’t even know that you’re gonna have until you reach level two. And at level three, or level four, there’s all kinds of financial or cash flow or, you know, employee stuff that you didn’t eat wasn’t even on your radar before. And so as you level up as you widen your foundation and get a little deeper into your business journey, there’s always new challenges. There’s, sometimes you feel like a firefighter because you kind of achieve a little success and you realise, Oh, my gosh, this whole other part over here is on fire. I didn’t even know this building was part of my but then you put that fire, and then there’s another one, and it kind of can feel like that for several years, in many cases, until you get a handle on it.
David Ralph [10:44]
What I like about you, Joshua, from listening to you, is you are real. You’re very much Walton. Oh, I have a lot of people on the show that tell a story that basically it seems like they had a decision. They went for it. They achieved it. And although they’re telling me that story I never totally buy into it just because I’ve been through it myself and I know it’s never that easy Are you is that your sort of unique ability being open and honest walks in all telling it as it is
Joshua Latimer [11:15]
my goal David is to be authentic in I authentically mean it when I say I want to be authentic and you know what I listen to a lot of podcasts I love I consume lots of podcasts and I cannot stand it when people get interviewed and they act like such a hot shot and look at what I’ve done and and all the people listening are saying I could never do that, you know, this guy moved to Costa Rica did this and you know, these guys are full of crap most of them and I celebrate the failures in my life because I look back at them and I say God, you know, I learned so much there and all of us have those times I don’t go home and have cupcakes and lollipops and unicorns with my family. I love my wife but guess what we fight. I love my business. But guess what, sometimes it falls apart and I have to fix it. That is normal. It’s normal and anybody saying anything different than that is living in a parallel universe as far as I’m concerned. And I don’t think it connects and relates with people well, because I want the little guy who doesn’t have a business degree from Wharton. To understand you can make a lot of money and more importantly, have freedom in your life. If you just keep going, if you just get inspired. If you connect with like minded people and work and fail and work, it will happen for you. It doesn’t have anything to do with your level of you know, breed socially and who you’re connected to and having you know, sophisticated you know, mentors in your life it’s honestly I think it’s a mindset, and it has to do with being relentless and just not walking away.
David Ralph [12:44]
Well, will you always relentless even as a small child, were you somebody that saw something and went after it, whether it was you know, sports or or ladies or whatever were you somebody that that went for the end goal? I definitely
Joshua Latimer [12:58]
was and that’s just something that’s hardcoded into me. So, do I have my days where I wake up? And I’m depressed and bummed out and just don’t have any energy? Yes, of course I do. But my default mode is to push and go and go. And when I did play, you know, American football in high school, we were terrible, by the way, but I was the quarterback of the football team. And, you know, I didn’t feel like I worked out hard enough unless I threw up. And that can sound really bad, like a mental illness. But, you know, I like to push myself I have to be challenged, I start to fall apart, and things get too easy for me. And one of the reasons we decided to sell my company was because the business was done. I had built the little machine. It wasn’t my life long $200 million exit or something. But I was bored and I like to go and push and work and grind and go through that fire. I think it’s incredible. And if anybody is as crazy as me, then put yourself in a position to go do something.
David Ralph [13:54]
I know I think what you’re saying is right, and I’m very aware of that already. But the second As I’ve achieved, could be boring. It could be boring. And it’s it’s a weird thing to sort of admit, isn’t it? Because everybody goes, if I win the lottery, I’d have holidays. And I’d sit there on the beach and it gets boring, doesn’t it? So are you somebody that when you look at that, and you look at other people walking around playing golf three times a day, and sort of just driving around for pub lunches, you’ve not that’s just not me, that’s never going to be me.
Joshua Latimer [14:30]
It’s not me at all. Not at all. And here, here’s one of the big life lessons I’ve learned so far, David, is that wherever you are financially, or with success, or status, or prestige, or whatever, whatever, wherever you’re at right now is your new normal. And, you know, I learned very early on in my life, that money did not make me warm and fuzzy for very long. In fact, I think I was 22 years old The first time I made $10,000 in a month, and I was doing mortgages and in that business, it’s really, especially back then it was pretty easy to do that. But that was all lot of money to me at the time, and I was excited for about six minutes, you know, I saw the direct deposit in my account. And I said, wow. And then really nothing. I didn’t have some sort of long term emotional connection with it. I achieved it. I thought it was cool. It was like a sticker. I could put on my shirt and say, Hey, I did this, I did this thing. But really, for me, you know, I’m not going to drive around and I’ll probably never retire. I want to influence people. I want to inspire people. First and foremost, my own family, I want to lead you know, one of my favourite statistics is 10 out of 10 people die. And you know, some people get mad when they say that they say, well, gosh, that’s that’s depressing. Thanks a lot, you know, making me think about my death. But you know what a wise man thinks to death often because all of us have an expiration day and you can’t take your toys with you. your checking account doesn’t go with you. But you know, the impact that you make on those around you and your community can last way beyond that. So I just have a sense of urgency with my life, to be authentic and to work. Really hard, and to try my best to enjoy along the way.
David Ralph [16:03]
I worry about you by Joshua. I do because I’m gonna start wearing a baseball cap and growing a beard because we’ve got a similarity here. I struggled to celebrate as well, I I work and work and work towards something. And when I achieve it, it’s almost like a blink and I just move straight on and people say to me, Oh, are you gonna go out and you know, have a meal or you’re gonna raise a beer above you. Now I don’t I just sort of moved through. And I know it’s the wrong thing to do. So I want you to start celebrating so I’m not sure I’m going to keep to that advice myself. But I think you you need that done. You need to Whoo hoo every now and again.
Joshua Latimer [16:41]
Well, I struggle with the same thing. You know, I don’t practice every single thing I preach. It’s a constant work in progress. And one of my favourite quotes is progress, not perfection. I made a podcast for my podcast yesterday, David called celebrate the little wins. The reason I made it is because I’m on vacation right now as we were record this. And it took me three days to wind to downshift enough to actually enjoy like day four I actually enjoyed my vacation and do I want to be here of course but you know I am a Go go go go person like you are and it takes me a minute to downshift. So I do think it’s important because, you know, wherever you are is your new normal, like I said, and let’s say you got you know, a million downloads your podcasts or whatever your Mile Marker was. That’s exciting for a minute but guess what you do and what I do we move the yardstick we move it to 2 million we move we continuously do that. And I think for family life as well. It’s really important to just pause, hit pause just just for a minute. And just high five, your team High Five yourself high five, your wife and your kids, go buy an expensive steak dinner, make it make it significant in some small way, you know as you’re going through the process because now when I look back at my life, all those struggles, all those little fiery moments that were hard. Those are the things I have nostalgia Those are the things I look back and say, Man, look what I did there. And how amazing was it when we hired our first employee, and how amazing was only had 20 employees, whatever, right. But when I was in it, I didn’t do a good enough job celebrating it.
David Ralph [18:13]
When I started this show, it was purely to grow an audience. That was my first decision. And fortunately, I think because I’ve done things authentically, people stumble across my show, and then it’s not what they expect. And they come back to it time and time again, which is great. And it builds up an audience very quickly. And so people started saying to me, Oh, you’ve got to create a product, you got to create a product, you know, you’ve got to get it out there in the marketplace. And I will say, No, I’m not quite ready for that yet. I’m still learning the nuts and bolts of being a podcaster and creating the show, but I won. And they used to say to me, if you don’t get it out, now, you’re gonna miss the boat. And I used to think there’s 7.8 billion people in this world. And if I’m missing the boat for one boat, Surely there’s another boat that’s gonna come along. Now I had that mindset that people Business Opportunities just come like bosses one after another. And whether I do it in that month or the month after, is gonna be right for me at that time. So I don’t create a monster that sort of engulfs me. You think that’s the same way that you think? Do you see that business opportunities are just commonplace. But once you get your eyes in a certain way, you see them when other people don’t?
Joshua Latimer [19:25]
I think so. And especially the older I get, I’m moving more towards that philosophy. One of my biggest biggest weaknesses is impatience. And because I’m an entrepreneur, I see opportunity everywhere. I mean, I call it the shiny object syndrome. If you’ve ever seen the Pixar movie up, there’s this dog and every time he sees a squirrel, no matter what he’s doing, he’s mid conversation. He stops and he says squirrel, squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. So as I drive around, as I live my life, I see opportunity everywhere. It really can be numbing a little bit. But the things that have worked best for me is when I’ve slowed down, and I focused on one singular thing for an extended period. at a time, in your case, building an audience, and it always works out better when I do that. But I do fight the urge to get too many projects going at once or to get the cart ahead of the course, the cart ahead of the horse, excuse me. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with that for sure, just like you did. And, you know, there are opportunities everywhere and I have a mindset of abundance like you do, there is opportunity, it’s not gonna evaporate tomorrow, if you don’t take action and build some half cocked idea of a product today. If you do it in the right order, when you can really engage and focus on it when the time is right. You’re going to have a better product and you’re still gonna make lots of money then as well.
David Ralph [20:38]
So let’s just talk about your life before we go on to the second stage of the conversation. So you were in America and now are you living in Costa Rica? Is that home or are you travelling the world? You say you on holiday?
Joshua Latimer [20:52]
Yeah, I live in Costa Rica. I have four kids. I’m married my high school sweetheart, right. We got married at 20 years old lived in a trailer park and I delivered pizzas initially, while I was, you know, getting my financial career path going, very, very humble beginnings. But now we do live in Costa Rica. I have monkeys in my backyard, we have a great pool. I have a little office that’s kind of adjacent to my home in a separate building. And it’s been really cool. In fact, David, I didn’t I haven’t worn shoes until this week and over six months, because I wear flip flops every single day, literally every day. So it’s been a crazy experience. I’ve only been there about a year so far.
David Ralph [21:30]
Well, how did your kids deal with the transition? Because it sounds idyllic, but obviously taking kids away. I always say to my kids, oh, we’re going to move and I got no No, no, all our toys are here. Okay, well, we can take the toys with us. Now. Now our friends are here and they just keep on coming up with reasons why they want to stay in the house, which is nice because it’s their family base. How did your kids deal with it when you took them from the States over to which is paradise for adults, but easy for kids as well.
Joshua Latimer [21:56]
It’s been good and bad. And like we talked about earlier, you know, with people on podcasts acting like everything’s perfect and warm and fuzzy. It’s not perfect and warm and fuzzy. And when we did this, it was a huge, huge decision to do this. And there’s tears involved, you know, my parents, my wife’s family, everybody was, you know, bummed out and and we were bummed out, but we wanted to do something different. We wanted our kids to see that the world’s a big place. My kids are all very young, my oldest is only nine years old. And kids tend to be pretty elastic and flexible. And once we got down there, they’ve adapted really, really well the problem adapting has been with me and my wife, you know, cultural differences, just the, the mentality. There’s so many different things down there, everything is uncomfortable. We’re learning Spanish, of course, which is amazing. So regardless of how long we stay down there, this is one of those things that we’ll remember for the rest of our life. And it’s just an outside of the box way to live. And you know, a lot of Americans and this is very true, especially for America. Europe is a little bit different because you guys are more integrated culturally but Americans think the whole world revolves are on Americans. And it doesn’t, it doesn’t and there’s a lot of people all over the place doing stuff every day. I want my kids to see that I don’t want them to live in a bubble. So to me it was a strategic thing. It was an adventurous thing. And we just went for it man and then we’re not married to the place forever but we’ve put a year in and we’ll see what the next year holds later.
David Ralph [23:21]
So you have got a business that is transferable you literally lift up your laptop and take it with you because you’ve got a team of professionals from all over the world. So is it totally movable? Could you go tomorrow and just move it with you?
Joshua Latimer [23:35]
Yes, I could. And that is one of the that is the biggest blessing of my current business setup is location freedom you know, if I have you know, good internet I can I can make money I can I can do my job, build my business and with my original business was a brick and mortar local hometown cleaning business, you know, in 25 employees, we we clean stuff and the location freedom just wasn’t there for that. So this is Kind of the new chapter in my life I’ve been doing this software game and some of the things I’m working on for coming up in a couple years. But we’ve only been in Costa Rica one year. So it’s very new still to me. But I don’t take it for granted at all. Because you know, success and failure aren’t permanent. You know, you hear failure isn’t permanent. Well, either success, so I’m trying to keep my eye on the ball. I’m trying to work hard, but I am trying to enjoy my flip flops along the way.
David Ralph [24:23]
But let’s play some words. And then let’s move into the second stage of the conversation. Jim Carrey
Jim Carrey [24:28]
my father could have been a great comedian, but he didn’t believe that that was possible for him. And so he made a conservative choice. Instead, he got a safe job as an accountant. When I was 12 years old. He was let go from that safe job. And our family had to do whatever we could to survive. I learned many great lessons from my father, not the least of which was that you can fail at what you don’t want. So you might as well take a chance on doing what you love.
David Ralph [24:54]
I’m always interested about your parents point of view. What was your dad doing when you were growing up? Has that translated to what you’re doing now? Or is it just a totally different ballgame?
Joshua Latimer [25:05]
My dad is the hardest worker I’ve ever met in my life. And you know, when you’re little and you come from a blue collar family, we teach our kids, you know, son, daughter, the way that you’re successful is by working hard. The way you make money is by working hard. And you know what, he wasn’t wrong. You know, we all are standing on the shoulders of giants and my parents worked and sacrificed and slaved my whole life with a non entrepreneurial mentality. They did the best with the raw material they had and their current understanding. And, you know, their family was poverty. They took it out of that worked hard. My dad’s achieved a lot of success in his job. But, you know, I’ll tell you, my dad does not like his job. In fact, he hates his job. But he goes every single day, he doesn’t call in sick. He gets there early, he stays late. He’s that guy. And so I got to watch him do that. Now, that taught me lots of things. It taught me that you can still hate what you’re what you’re you’re deal is like Jim Carrey’s quote, I love that quote you just played, give me goosebumps listening to it, because my father, we have a very close relationship. Now he’s becoming more entrepreneurial now. But he’s older in life now. And so I’ve learned that you really don’t make money by working hard. You make money by providing value to the marketplace. But my father didn’t know that no one taught him that he didn’t know. So you know, for example, I told my kids, we have a gardener that works on our house in Costa Rica is a Nicaraguan guys a sweet, awesome guy, super good personality, he makes $20 a day to do that. And that’s a good pay rate for where we are, and he works his butt off. And so it’s very obvious you don’t just make money by working hard. It’s more complicated than that. And my dad didn’t understand that. But he did understand that he was going to take care of his family and meet his obligations. So my work ethic, the level of integrity I saw with my father has translated very well, but I’ve also had massive opportunities to meet other people and to be mentored by people who have 10 levels. Above that, because of the foundation that my father laid, so lots of respect for my dad, but at the same time, I’m taking it up another 10 levels with my life I call it changing your family tree. And that’s what I’m trying to do by being entrepreneurial and the way that I raise my kids.
David Ralph [27:15]
I think you’re absolutely right my dad is nearly it be at this year. And he is on the go over time. He’s always up a ladder is over. And we’re saying dad, yeah, you’re almost at now. And oh, does write me off. Don’t write me off. And he’s just got this work ethic. But I couldn’t honestly tell you if he’s ever enjoyed the work he’s doing. Now. He’s kind of retired. He’s become like an odd job man. And he’s just constantly going around to people’s houses and putting shelves up and doing bits and bobs because he likes doing that. But so incredible work ethic, but I don’t know if he really has ever enjoyed what he’s done in his life. It’s a it’s, it’s reflective on my own journey. I spent so many years going to jobs that were just okay. I didn’t think dislike them. I didn’t like them. They were just okay and paid well, and I’m not gonna let my kids do the same. So you are creating a legacy, aren’t you by changing your family tree, which can pay out amazing fruit for generations to come?
Joshua Latimer [28:16]
Absolutely. And you have to recognise the different generational trends. There’s different generational trends, okay. And so you look at the Industrial Revolution, and the way that the economy was the way that poverty was, and you know, the idea of a job really didn’t emerge heavily. Until then, you know, people didn’t go for eight hours with a lunchbox and then come home after eight hours and get a piece of paper with, you know, a paycheck on it. That wasn’t normal for like all of human history until the last like hundred years, right? So you watch that, and you can see that things shift and pivot and change. And with us with the digital age, with the rise of the Internet, with software and the access to tools, the access to knowledge, things are just changing. And you know, my father didn’t grow up in that and you know, I have to adapt For what is currently available and the opportunities we have, are under believable never in the history of the world, David have people had no excuse to not chase after they want. I don’t think your dad’s generation and my dad’s generation, being happy wasn’t part of the equation that wasn’t something that you focused on. It was, oh, if you’re lucky, you’re happy. But obligation was their focus, I will take care of myself, I will feed my family, I will do this, I will do that. So their own personal happiness was secondary. Now. We are beyond blessed. And in the Western countries, I say that we all live in excessive luxury. Even poor people in America have excessive luxury if you compare it to Africa. So I just think that we have a unique opportunity due to technology and some of the things that have happened in the advancements to really chase our happiness in a way that wasn’t is easy to do before you know when you’re just trying to survive. You know, living your dream isn’t part of the conversation. Did you hear what I’m saying?
David Ralph [29:57]
I know exactly what you’re saying. And I’m sitting back just sort of bathing in it, because I think you’re absolutely right. I don’t think there was ever a choice or happiness, I think it was just survival. And in this country, we have a big class system, which I suppose isn’t around as much as it used to be the working class, the upper class, but it’s still there. And I think people hold themselves in that position, just because they don’t believe as another wave is not a doorway that is opening up in front of them to just move to where they want to go in their lives. But you can, can’t you I say to my kids, my wife says to me, because my three eldest, they’ve moved out, and we’ve got the two younger ones 11 and 14, still with us. And my wife says, Oh, you know, Gemma, our oldest one, she’s got a job opportunity in California now, so we’re not gonna see her very often I go Skype, Skype, Let it go, let it go. You know, it’s a lovely place to go. We can have holidays over there. And she was saying, Yeah, but it’s not the same anymore, is it? And I said, You’ve got to let the kids move to wherever they want. The beauty now with technology is you never say goodbye to them, you can actually save them. The fact that you are where you are, I am where I am. And we’re having this conversation. Literally, you know, 1015 years ago, we would have had to travel, but you don’t have to now do you, you can do whatever you want, wherever you want. All you need to do in your heart, in your mind is have a fortitude of going for it and actually deciding what you want, and going after it and getting past the obstacles and I’d be I’d be well happy if my son ended up as a shark diver in South Africa or whatever it may be. We only saw him six weeks a year, but he was happy. I think that is what you want from him, isn’t
Joshua Latimer [31:41]
it? Absolutely. It’s exactly what we want. But all of us are many people are trapped by self limiting beliefs and incorrect mindset. You know, most of the battle with business and personal development is between your ears. And if you grew up in a family where your father was hammer, now you’re gonna go to college, you’re going to get a good job. You’re going to do this You’re gonna do this. Most people conform to that. And they go down the traditional path because it’s too terrifying to break that mould. But you know what the opportunity is in front of everybody, the education that’s available for free. Can you imagine you could practically become a lawyer just by studying YouTube videos and reading log books that are available for free online. I mean, things are so different now. You have to snap out of the stupor that’s been placed on you by the other people in your life now. Yes, they love you. Your parents love you, they, they told you to go to college and get a job because they’re trying to protect you but, but we have never had the opportunities that we now have to really seize what we want. You’ve never had the opportunities that you have, like you do now to offer the world your special expertise. Everybody has something inside of them that makes them come alive, that really they’re just awesome. And whether it’s inspiring someone encouraging someone creating content, being an artist, being a business person, being a leader, a manager, whatever. Everyone has a thing and you You can deliver that thing to billions of people through technology. And you know, it’s real. I mean, the people out there crushing it making a million dollars a month online, they’re real people. They’re not geniuses, they just have a different mentality. And the battle starts between your ears. It’s all about your perception of your own self, and breaking out of those self limiting beliefs.
David Ralph [33:22]
So how have you done this? And how have you gone from brick and mortar business, which is kind of old school to be able to create two internet based businesses because that is what everybody wants? Now, they want an internet based business because you can connect globally, there’s very low overheads. It’s very risk free really, you know, his time and effort more than anything else. Did you struggle with that sort of self limiting belief that you could do it at the very beginning? Did it go easy for you tell us about it.
Joshua Latimer [33:51]
I think my first experience with online stuff was when I wrote a book now I had a window cleaning business we did pressure cleaning and other things, but window cleaning is What we started with, and I wrote this book called window wealth. And it was for window cleaners, it was how you know how to make, I think at that time, my business was doing about 50,000 a month in sales. And so I said, I’m gonna write this book and teach people kind of what I’m doing and why it’s working. Because in the window cleaning business, it’s very difficult for them to scale and all that I won’t get into the nerdy business side, but I wrote this book, and I just threw it on a website, and I sold it for 150 bucks. And I thought had this you know, it’s pretty expensive, but you know, let’s just see what happens. Well, I sold like $30,000 worth of this this ebook thing over the course of like, a year with almost no effort, and I think that’s when I said, Wait a second, you know, this is a very nippy book. It’s not professionally edited. I made it on my computer and did it all myself and I, you know, just self taught and how to build landing pages and stuff. But I had a big big lightbulb moment go off and said, you know, what, what if I really focused on this, these types of business, what if I really dug in, you know what would be possible if I can do this kind of barely trying You know that that was for me, you know how the light bulb went off?
David Ralph [35:03]
That’s that’s kind of rare, isn’t it to have that kind of almost fluky success straightaway, more often than not people, you know, struggle a lot. I’ve actually some of my internet based businesses that I created six years ago. This is absolutely true. Joshua, I had to pay my tax yesterday, and I hate paying tax I really do. When I was when I was a corporate guy, it was kind of a one I took it before they gave you the money so you never felt like he was paying tax. But now you got to save a bit each month and make sure that it’s all okay anyway, just as I actually wrote this, this online banking format and send it across to pay my tax, I looked at my bank account, I thought, Oh, it hasn’t gone down. Why is that? And then when I realised this website that I’d created probably six years ago, suddenly chipped in with a an accrued balance had been building up over time straight into my bank account. I was back to the same level. Now. Vat is what people want in life, isn’t it but it takes so long to get there. If you have to put so much effort in so I think yours was a bit fluky to you or was it inspired?
Joshua Latimer [36:06]
With my with my ebook? It was a little fluky. Yes, but I had to do the work, you know. So to be clear, I stayed at my office late and had to write you know, 70,000 words or however many were in it, and make the little videos that went with it and do all this stuff and it took time, you know, you can’t have a fluky success unless you put in the work. So you got to put stuff out there, you got to share your talents and gifts with the world and see how the market responds. I didn’t make all that money in one month. You know, it was out there for over a year and it just but it made sales while I slept just like what you said with your six year old website. That’s what’s so awesome about technology is in the traditional model, you have to go trade an hour of your life and get $1 and then go trade another hour of your life and get $1 but with technology and the things that we can do online, you put in the work up front, its front end loaded with work, but the residual effect when you automate it is it gives you a Little pennies every day for a really, really, really long time. So there’s a high multiplier on your efforts when you leverage technology the right way.
David Ralph [37:08]
Now your business is now about bringing automatic systems into your life. Now one of the questions I asked in the introduction was, do the systems that you teach work with all types of businesses or only online ones?
Joshua Latimer [37:21]
are here here’s the gold nugget, and I hope people hear me on this. The question is not, I don’t know Josh, should I should I systemize my business? Should I or should I look Should I dig into what systems mean? That is the incorrect question. The reality is this, David, everybody listening to this, even if they don’t have a business has a fully systemized life right now, already. Okay. Everything we do is a routine a pattern, right? So the real question is, are the current systems in my life or business are they serving me well? Are they moving me closer to what I really want more than anything? That is the mind bomb. That’s where your head goes. You know and you like, if you can Get this. That is the question. So also system is is a pattern or a repeatable process and how you do something. So the way you answer your phone, the way you make a sale the way you do or don’t follow up with a customer after you sell them stuff, if you sell someone something and never follow up again, well, you have a system, it’s a zero touch follow up system. Right? So everybody’s the way we talk to our wife, the way that we get up though, if we exercise or don’t exercise, those are systems. The trick is, is to be more intentional about identifying what we do right now, and then saying, Hey, you know that that’s not good. You know, I say, I want to live this type of life. But I do this every day. This isn’t compatible with that. What do I got to do to fix it? That’s the beginning place.
David Ralph [38:46]
In Join Up Dots I was very aware of at the very beginning that I was doing stuff multiple times, and it was killing me. And I was just looking at it thinking this is never stopping. This is a tsunami of work. And so I systematically went through it. Everything and if I did it twice, I think to myself, How can I do that. And it could simply be if I was writing a line of an email every single time, I would just cut and paste it, I would just have a file back and just copy across. And then it went to the fact of setting up templates, you know, very simple stuff. And it’s worked on every single thing. And I’ve taken Join Up Dots literally down from seven days a week to just one day a week. He’s just a Thursday job. Now all the other time is free to create businesses income, deal with clients, whatever I want to do, but it’s very much on my terms, so everyone can do bits can’t buy and I think it ties into the sort of Tim Ferriss methodology but he talked about in the four hour workweek where you literally create businesses with yourself at the door so you can step away and live and let it run like a very friendly Frankenstein creating income for you.
Joshua Latimer [39:55]
Absolutely, and it starts with being intentional. Now you took responsibility for your life. You took responsibility for your podcast and you made it happen. So, you know, the funny thing about systems is in the beginning, you actually create more work for yourself than if you don’t, you know, really get systemize with stuff. But the reward later is so huge. I mean, you’re doing one day a week, and you have this incredible show. And it’s reaching all these people, inspiring people. And you’ve got that down to one day a week. So the trick is this, identify what you do now, identify what you want, and then start making little anybody adjustments to create what I call space for yourself. So when you make an email template, you’re actually going to invest an extra 15 minutes right now, so that you can save, you know, five minutes over and over and over and over again forever, right? So the trick is to create these little bits of space for yourself, and I call the low hanging fruit, all the obvious stuff, you know, what, what time do you get up in the morning? What do you do first? You know, do you focus on one task at a time, whatever. But the Will you take this space, this newfound space that you create and then you start reinvesting that time on higher level tasks. You know, all of us do things in our businesses that could be delegated to someone else. Or you could get a virtual assistant or you could hire someone and stop living in fear. And when you start doing that, you have more time Well, now, here’s where the rubber meets the road. You take that new phone time, and you invest as much of it as possible on high level co executive style, thought processes. You know, you look at the roadmap for your business, you really dive deep into your customer experience and really dive deep into your products and your offerings and how to make them better. That is what us as the CEOs of our businesses need to be spending all of our time on, but we waste inadvertently, tonnes of time doing low level stuff because it’s not systemized in or optimised correctly. And we’re not intentional about it. We don’t even stop to think about how we do what we do.
David Ralph [41:51]
Now, that’s all good. And I agree totally with that. But how do you take that concept and create it into a business? How do you create it way that teaches people to systemize stuff.
Joshua Latimer [42:04]
Well, I my business when I teach people is specifically towards a niche. So I work with service companies, I help local hometown businesses, be more profitable, grow their businesses rapidly without being a slave to it and wanting to you know, pay to have panic attacks every day. So my boot camp that I have is specifically for those types of businesses. Most of them are in the States. I have some clients in Canada and Australia as well. But it’s very custom tailored for that. So for an online entrepreneur, all of these principles are completely applicable to you. But my specific product is is handcrafted for the local guy out there fighting the good fight trying to you know, get home to have dinner with his wife because things are totally out of control. And I help them visualise an architecture out the guts of their business and understand Alright, we need to do this and this and this and so step by step by step college level deep business course on How to stop being a slave. You know, like I said, My brick and mortar business, I only worked five hours a week in that business the last two years I had it. And it’s not because I’m a genius, it’s because I was super intentional about every moving part in the business. And I can help people in similar situations achieve the same results I had.
David Ralph [43:17]
So it’s not an online course is not a sort of group coaching you actually you’re there
Joshua Latimer [43:23]
is, you know, it is an online course. But the course material is really focused on those types of business owners. You know, it’s it’s over 50 videos broken into modules with workbooks and handouts and audio stuff and all kinds of deep teachings and trainings, broken into these little chunks of modules. But it’s really been built and designed for service businesses.
David Ralph [43:45]
So it is totally scalable. That’s what I’m drilling down to. So you don’t actually have to do any more work other than maintenance on the content.
Joshua Latimer [43:54]
Well, I am very, very active in the fate we have a private mastermind Facebook group for the people on boot camp, and I Do do some individual coaching calls with people. But I won’t do that for, you know, I have a plan on my roadmap to have certified automate, grow, sell, you know, coaches that will even take that off my plate later. So it’s completely scalable. Absolutely it is. But it’s a young business too. We just sold our first 62 spots into that, you know, within the last few months. So it’s something that’s, that’s young and fresh, but I’m designing it from the beginning to be scalable.
David Ralph [44:26]
I think this is the way forward for everyone. I’ve got a platform called dream starter Academy, where we teach people basically to find their thing, go after it, how to create a business and it takes you through every single step. Now I’ve been running it for literally a year and a half, not really promoting it because what I wanted to do was understand the value that I could provide into it, to make sure that the members who are in there were getting what they wanted so that when I opened the doors, I knew that everybody was going to you know, get the home win, but I would hope for How do you know that you’re going to be offering the right value when you first open the door?
Joshua Latimer [45:07]
Well, there’s lots of reasons I know for a fact I’m offering the right value. Number one, I am extremely passionate about my content, my subject matter. And I know what I’m talking about. And that is a big thing. I see a lot of online businesses where people, they try to offer a product when they themselves really aren’t there yet, or they don’t have a full understanding of their own offering. So I’ve done this, I’ve lived it. I’ve literally went from the trailer park to you know, almost 200,000 a month in service businesses, I understand the guts, the market structure, all the moving parts, I love it inside, no it inside now. And so it’s easy for me to provide value to someone who’s struggling. The other way that you know, you provide value is making sure that you’re selling your stuff to the right people. You know, with my boot camp, typically I get on the phone with people and make sure they’re a good fit. Because the last thing I want David has to have someone get in there and have an unmet expectation or have it really not helped them or not scratched edge, that’s terrible. I want nothing to do with that. So if you if you’re passionate and you have competency in whatever it is that you’re doing, and you couple that with getting in front of the right people, it’s it’s magical. It’s amazing. I mean, everybody that’s in this thing is thinking me I had a husband and wife You know, break down crying thanking me people are almost doubling their business in six months. And those results are happening because it’s the right person with the right material in that’s really the powerhouse formula. Absolutely. Well,
David Ralph [46:31]
let’s play some words now that are legacy. They’re never gonna get boring. I’m gonna play him again. I would love to know your big story. Here. Steve Jobs.
Steve Jobs [46:40]
Of course, it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards. 10 years later. Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well worn path. And that will make all the difference.
David Ralph [47:15]
But it’s quite obvious to me that you are a man who follows his own heart. And you will do stuff that is right for you, right for your family, but may not seem right at that time, would I be right?
Joshua Latimer [47:28]
You’re completely right. And Tony Robbins says something similar. He says that the level of uncertainty that you’re comfortable living with is directional, directly proportionate to the level of success you have. And I know that’s a little bit of a mouthful there. But essentially, you know, if you want to live a life of predictable certainty, you’re going to have a low level of success you just are that’s just the way the universe works. And the universe owes us nothing. We have to take responsibility for our own life. We have to take risks or as I like to say intelligent risks. And you have to put yourself out there, man. I mean, I put myself out there. And the more I do that the luckier I seem to get, you know, like Steve said, you got to go for it. You can’t live in fear all the time. It’s just slavery. Look, you can do it the person listen to this, you really can do it. I’m not a cheesy podcast guests telling you cheese. This is real. You can do it. You just got to go try. You got to put yourself out there. I actually had an article of meat that’s on Forbes magazine online right now. I had no idea that was gonna happen. I did this show with this other podcast. He ended up writing an article about it. And now I’m on Forbes Well, I’m nobody, okay, I’m nobody special. But I put myself out there. I do interviews. I make my own podcasts. I create digital products. I have a software company, I work my butt off, moving in uncertainty. And when you do that really good, weird things will eventually happen to you.
David Ralph [48:53]
So what is your big dot story? Joshua, when you look back over your life and there’s normally a moment or a conversation or one incident that starts to point the way. Have you got one?
Joshua Latimer [49:05]
Yeah, I think when I was younger, I did not have a level of focus. I didn’t have the maturity. But what happened to me was I got mentored, and one of the guys that recruited me to work for JP Morgan, he was an entrepreneur before he worked at that bank. And he always saw something in me, you know, and so I had this youthful zeal you know, I was always excited willing to try new things, but I didn’t have the discipline side in place yet I didn’t have the maturity the focus you know, the the the lengthy effort on one singular task, and he pulled me aside one time and just said, Josh, and you got a lot of potential. You’re talented, I see all this enthusiasm, but if you can’t learn to really focus on something, you know, follow one course until success focus, right john Lee Dumas boy says that it’s not going to work, you’re going to fail. And you know, then I took that very seriously. I did my best and I met another mentor, a guy who had built a company for over $50 million One of my cleaning businesses. And you know, I kept seeing this pattern. And so when I look back at my dots, the one singular pattern that I’ve personally experienced from successful people is that they had a unique ability to keep their eye on the ball for long enough to win without getting crazy distracted on 10 different things. And when I looked at even today, when I work with small businesses when they’re not making enough money, usually what they try to do is offer more stuff, offer more services or products, rather than going deeper on their core offering. And this is a huge thing for people to understand. really successful people have the ability to focus and lesser successful people go really wide rather than deep.
David Ralph [50:42]
Love that. I absolutely love that. And if you if you don’t quite understand that at the moment, you obviously haven’t gone into the environment. You’ve got to move through the environment to understand these kinds of nuggets of gold and I’m sure that the people listening now who take the leap and start creating on business, you’ll come back to this show in two years time, and you’ll go, oh my god, I know what that means. Now, I absolutely know what that means. And it is as simple as that, isn’t it? Joshua, you’ve got to find your unique ability, you’ve got to find your tribe, you’ve got to do your own thing. And instead of just throwing everything at the wall and hoping that you can stick, you’ve got to throw one thing, see what happens to it, and then fine tune it and then see what happens and fine tune it because there’s something in there that the market will want 99% of the time.
Joshua Latimer [51:32]
Absolutely, man, and there’s riches in the niches, you don’t have to have a billion dollar company to succeed. You know, if you need $4,000 a month to live the life that you want. It’s not that big of a deal to put together a realistic plan built around your passion and your expertise and leveraging digital media to really get that like this stuff is so possible. I mean, never in human history could a stay at home mom, create a side business with a blog or whatever and pay you know, they’re they’re living living expenses. It’s amazing. But you can’t live in fear. And it starts with action. You got to execute, you have to do stuff, you have to stop only listening to podcasts all the time and perpetually learning, and you have to do stuff. I always tell my kids do hard things, do hard things. Because hard things are awesome. Easy, things are never awesome. You know, you got to put yourself out there and just go through the fire. Don’t be afraid of it. You’re gonna love yourself for doing it.
David Ralph [52:27]
Well, this is the end of the show. And literally, I could have kept this one going for about two or three hours. But this is the bit that we’ve been aiming for. We called a sermon on the mic when we send you back in time to have a one on one with your younger self. And if you could go back in time and speak to the young Joshua, what age would you choose and what advice would you give? Well, we’re going to find out because I’m going to play the theme tune and when it fades, you’re up. This is the Sermon on the mind
Unknown Speaker [52:58]
with the best bit
Unknown Speaker [53:03]
My
Joshua Latimer [53:14]
dear Joshua Latimer, at 24 years old, you are not as smart as you think you are. And your future success will not happen just because you’re charismatic and you can connect with people. You need to slow down. You need to be a lot more patient. You need to begin with the end in mind, and you need to humble yourself and put a lot more discipline in your life. It’s really not just the raw natural talents that you have Josh that are going to help you when it’s your ability to serve other people to slow down and to be diligent and professional and high level in the way that you manage your own personal time and doing the things that are boring that you don’t like. Once you figure that out, Josh, things will start to work.
David Ralph [54:00]
Joshua, what is the number one best way that our audience can connect with you?
Joshua Latimer [54:05]
I think the best way is just to go to automate, grow, sell calm. And there’s actually a new site that will be up shortly for that. And it will have connections to all the other stuff that I have my podcast and everything, where I
David Ralph [54:17]
have over links on the show notes. Joshua, thank you so much for spending time with us today. joining up dots, please come back again when you have more dots to join up because I do believe that by joining up the dots and connecting our pasts is the best way to build our futures. Joshua Latimer, thank you so much.
Joshua Latimer [54:34]
It’s an honour and a privilege, David, thank you.
David Ralph [54:38]
Joshua Latimer lived in America has gone to Costa Rica. He’s built businesses, online businesses, but what was the nuggets of gold nuggets was, it’s doable. There’s no great master plan. If you just find something and keep on working towards it, you will achieve success. I believe that he believes that it’s not true. Rocket Science, there’s gonna be troubles in the water. You know, it’s gonna be difficult time. Yes. Financially, it might be hard, but there’s nothing you can’t get around and you will get the dream life you really will guys, whatever you’re doing out there and just take the earphones off and think, Ah, that’s never gonna happen. Believe me, you don’t find any bigger idiot than me. And I’ve done it so you can as well I’m not saying you idiots. But believe me, you’ll be one step ahead of me. Thank you so much for listening to this. Thank you so much for everything you are doing in the background of Join Up Dots, all the emails you send to me the tweets, and then sort of connecting. Thank you so much. I’ll see you again soon. Cheers.
Outro [55:41]
David doesn’t want you to become a faded version of the brilliant self you or wants to become. So he’s put together an amazing guide for you called the eight pieces of advice that every successful entrepreneur practices, including the two that changed his life, head over to Join Up dots.com to download this amazing guide for free and will See you tomorrow on Join Up Dots.