361: How To Find What Makes You Happy (Hint: It’s Not Financial Freedom) With Steve Chou

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You’re listening to the My Wife Quitter Job podcast, the place where I bring on successful bootstrap business owners and dig deep into what strategies they use to grow their businesses. Now today I’m going solo to talk about business, family, wealth, fulfillment, and the delicate balance between them all. You’ll learn about my philosophies on happiness and specifically the factors that contribute to happiness and my reflections on life after quitting my job many years ago. But before we begin, I want to thank Cleovia for sponsoring this episode.

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Always excited to talk about Klaviyo because they’re the email marketing platform that I personally use for my e-commerce store and they depend on them for over 30 % of my revenue. Now you’re probably wondering why Klaviyo and not another provider. Well Klaviyo is the only email platform out there that is specifically built for e-commerce stores and here’s why it’s so powerful. Klaviyo can track every single customer who’s shopped in your store and exactly what they bought. So let’s say I want to send out an email to everyone who’s purchased a red handkerchief in the last week, easy.

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Let’s say I want to set up a special autoresponder sequence to my customers depending on what they bought, piece of cake, and there’s full revenue tracking on every single email sent. Now, Klaviyo is the most powerful email platform that I’ve ever used, and you can try them for free over at klaviyo.com slash my wife. That’s K-L-A-V-I-Y-O dot com slash my wife. I also want to thank Postscript for sponsoring this episode. Now, if you run an e-commerce business of any kind, you know how important it is to own your own customer contact list.

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And this is why I’m focusing a significant amount of my efforts on SMS marketing. SMS or text message marketing is already a top five revenue source from my e-commerce store. And I couldn’t have done it without Postscript, which is my text message provider. Now, why did I choose Postscript? It’s because they specialize in e-commerce stores and e-commerce is their primary focus. Not only is it easy to use, but you can quickly segment your audience based on your exact sales data and implement automated flows like an abandoned cart at the push of a button.

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Not only that, but it’s price well too and SMS is the perfect way to engage with your customers. So head on over to postscript.io slash Steve and try it for free. That’s P O S T S C R I P T dot I O slash Steve. And finally, I want to mention a brand new podcast that I recently released with my partner, Tony. Unlike this podcast where I interview successful entrepreneurs and e-commerce, the profitable audience podcast covers all things related to content creation and building an audience.

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No topic is off the table and we tell it how it is in a raw, entertaining way. So be sure to check out the profitable audience podcast on your favorite podcast app. Now onto the show.

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Welcome to the My Wife Clutter Job podcast. In this episode, we’re gonna talk about happiness and fulfillment in the context of your career, your business, and your life. Now it’s actually been a solid five years now since I resigned from my day job, so I wanted to take a moment to reflect on my experiences with unemployment and how to find out what makes you happy. And here’s the thing, most people have this rosy vision of quitting their job and being their own boss, but personally, my transition when I first quit was not entirely smooth.

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And for those of you who think financial freedom is the answer to all of your problems, you might want to think again. And in fact, at one point, I considered taking on another day job at a startup because I had this void in my life. But one major positive about quitting is that it has had a profound effect on my business success. Because I have a lot more time to spend on work, I’ve been able to make numerous improvements to both my e-commerce store and my blog. So for example, in the last five years, my businesses have grown dramatically.

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I’ve tweaked my tablet and mobile sites to drastically improve my conversion rates. I redesigned my e-commerce store. I rewrote four months worth of email autoresponder sequences to convert customers on autopilot. I started doing SMS marketing. I started creating Facebook messenger bots. I created a YouTube channel. I have an Instagram profile. I’m tweeting three times a day and hell, I’m even on TikTok right now. Now for my blog, I’ve been putting out longer, more comprehensive posts, which have done exceptionally well. And the same goes with YouTube.

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but even though I’ve been cranking on the business front, I’ve also been struggling with a couple of things that I’m gonna talk about in this episode. So first off, here’s my take on happiness, success, and stress. Now, whenever I speak at conferences, and it’s been a while now due to COVID-19, a lot of people are always amazed at how lean I run my businesses. Now, I don’t have a staff, nor do I have any desire to build a large team. Now, for mywifequitterjob.com, I basically have one assistant

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who helps me edit podcasts and my videos, but that’s pretty much it. I handle my online store course all by myself. I answer all my own emails and I basically help all the students on a personal level. I write all of my own posts from my blog and I produce all the content from my podcasts and my videos and my TikToks as well. Now, a while back, I actually spoke at FinCon with my buddy Noah Kagan and after my speech on how to make 60K in 90 minutes with an online webinar,

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Noah Kagan asked me, he said, Steve, why don’t you up your game? Why aren’t you scaling your businesses to maximize your profit? Why don’t you hire more people to handle all of your stuff? And my simple answer to him was, I just don’t want the added stress. Both of my businesses each exceed seven figures. And if you look at my lifestyle, I barely spend any money at all and I have tons of free time. And outside of the kids, I have very few expenses. So in short, my businesses generate

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way more money than I need to live. So with scaling my businesses generate me a lot more money, hell yeah. But would it make me any happier? I’m not so sure. And here’s something that I’ve come to discover. I’ve come to discover that great success comes at a huge sacrifice. Now ever since I started my podcast, I’ve actually met and hung out with many successful entrepreneurs, but I consistently get this feeling that the more successful you are, the lonelier

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and the unhappier that you actually get. In fact, most of my uber successful friends have been forced to sacrifice their social and their family lives to grow their businesses. And believe me, I’ve thought a lot about pressing down hard on the gas pedal in the past. As an undergrad at Stanford, I was a member of a special group called the Mayfield Fellows. Now only 12 students are selected per year and you are provided with special resources and access to venture capitalist mentors to start your own company. And over the years,

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many of my Mayfield fellows have had eight, nine, and even 10-figure exits. For example, Kevin Systrom of Instagram is perhaps the most successful Mayfield alumni. And another Mayfield fellow friend of mine, Steph Hannon, was the CTO for Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. Now, when you put a bunch of driven people together, the pressure to succeed is intense. Anyway, whenever we have our annual retreats, I often feel inferior

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Because while I’m out there selling hankies and digital courses, everyone else is creating life and world-changing companies. Now, I know it’s probably not the right way to think about it, but my ego wants to start and scale to a much larger company. And I often have to remind myself of the costs. Is the prestige worth it? Are the sacrifices justified? Will creating a large company actually make me happy? Which always leads me to think about achieving balance.

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Now for me, I know that there’s four aspects of my life that I must maintain in order to feel fulfilled and happy. So number one, my basic needs must be met. Can I afford to buy whatever I need to buy and can I support my family? Do I have enough money to kick back and do what I want? Two, my mind also needs to be stimulated. Do I find what I’m working on interesting and fulfilling? And am I using my brain to its fullest capacity and potential? I also have to feel close to my family.

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Am I spending enough time with my wife and kids? And am I involved enough to be an integral part of my kids’ lives? I also require social stimulation. Am I interacting with interesting people who share my goals and ideals? And do I have peers that are constantly challenging me to do better? Now, over the years, I’ve actually discovered that once a minimum threshold has been met for a given category, the categories that I just mentioned, further gains have diminishing returns.

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So for example, if I go out with my friends two or three times a week, that’s generally good enough to satisfy my social needs. Going out any more often than that isn’t going to improve my social satisfaction, and the same goes for all the other categories that I just mentioned. Now, the secret to happiness in my mind lies in achieving the appropriate balance that matches your specific personality. But how do you figure out your need thresholds for each category? Well, here’s what my current situation looks like, and you can figure this out

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for yourself. And just a quick note, my life is not entirely balanced yet, but I’m actively working on

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If you sell on Amazon or run any online business for that matter, the most important aspect of your long-term success will be your brand. And this is why I work with Steven Weigler and his team from Emerge Council to protect my brand over at Bumblebee Linens. Now what’s unique about Emerge Council is that Steve focuses his legal practice on e-commerce and provides strategic and legal representation to entrepreneurs to protect their IP. So for example, if you’ve ever been ripped off or knocked off on Amazon, then Steve can help you fight back and protect yourself.

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Now, first and foremost, protecting our IP starts with a solid trademark and Emerge Council provides attorney-advised strategic trademark prosecution, both in the United States and abroad for a very low price. And furthermore, the students in my course have used Steve for copyrighting their designs, policing against counterfeits and knockoffs, agreements with co-founders and employees, website and social media policies, privacy policies, vendor agreements, brand registry, you name it. So if you need IP protection services, go to EmergeCouncil.com and get a free consult.

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And if you tell Steve that I sent you, you’ll get a $100 discount. That’s E-M-E-R-G-E-C-O-U-N-S-E-L dot com. Now back to the show.

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So here’s aspect number one, which I call wealth, and I give myself a 4.5 out of five. Now first off, I don’t actually consider myself rich, but I do have more than enough money to do whatever I want. If I feel like going out to eat at nice restaurant, I don’t blink an eye. If I want to take an extended vacation on a cruise ship in a two-story suite, not a problem. If I want to attend a couple of NBA finals games, no sweat. As long as I don’t do anything stupid or spend my money recklessly,

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I can easily generate enough income to cover my basic expenses and anything that I want to do. So back when Noah asked me why I haven’t tried to blow up my businesses, two immediate thoughts popped up in my head. One, scaling any business requires hiring a team. And managing team members always makes things more complicated. Now at Bumblebee Linens, we have three employees. And while they’ve generally been pretty good, dealing with different personalities and keeping everyone motivated

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has caused a good amount of stress. And then two, life is always much simpler when your business is small. And right now I can actually take care of almost everything by myself. And in the worst case, I could keep everything running on my own and not have to worry about juggling a bunch of different moving parts. And finally, there are diminishing returns in the money department. Would I welcome more money in my life? Of course, but would money make me happier? Probably not. So right now I think I’m pretty good in the wealth department.

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and I will continue to grow my businesses at a steady pace. Aspect number two, mental stimulation. I give myself a four out of five in this department. And I’ve mentioned this many times in the past, but my mind requires constant stimulation. And one of the main reasons I worked as a hardware engineering director for so long is because designing microprocessors requires a decent amount of brain power. And at my day job, I had the pleasure of working with brilliant people from MIT, Stanford, and Cal.

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Actually Cal sucks, I don’t count Cal as one of those colleges. But anyway, there was one point early on in the company where 80 % of the employees had advanced degrees from the top five colleges in the nation and it made me appreciate working with people so much smarter than myself. And unfortunately for me, selling hankies, blogging, podcasting, YouTubing, teaching my class isn’t really enough to satisfy my intellectual needs. So when I quit my job, I actually tried to fill the void

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with a couple of software projects that I silently worked on in the background. And that’s how I covered myself in this department. And today I write all my own plugins and that sort of thing. And that’s done a pretty good job of keeping me satisfied and mentally stimulated. Okay, aspect number three, family. I give this a five out of five and family is the main reason why I decided to quit my job. My kids are at an age right now where they still adore me and they actually want to hang out.

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So instead of sitting behind a computer in an office all day working for the man, I made the decision to sacrifice a little mental stimulation for an active role in their lives. And here’s the thing about my kids, while I love them to death, I’m not the type of dad that can spend every minute with them because they drive me nuts. So instead my goal has been to simply be present in their lives. So for example, I make sure I’m around to help them with their homework. I make sure I’m around to play with them if they want to play.

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and then make sure I’m around to attend their soccer, volleyball, basketball games, whatever they want to do. And I might not be hanging out with them every single minute of the day, but I’m there if they need me. Aspect number four, social stimulation. I give myself a three out of five, and this is actually one aspect of my life that I’m currently struggling with, and it might have something to do with COVID, but right now in my life, there is a lack of social stimulation. Whereas when I was working on my day job,

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I was in constant contact with brilliant people every single day. And these people would challenge me to do better because I knew that they were smarter than me. But once I quit, this interaction abruptly stopped. And after quitting my job, I found myself sitting in front of my computer alone. In fact, the lack of interaction with smart and driven people is one of the main reasons why I considered joining another startup company shortly after quitting. But I knew deep down going back to work wasn’t the right choice. And today,

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I have to make an active effort to meet up with other like-minded entrepreneurs in my area. I also try to attend as many relevant conferences as I can. Heck, I even started my own conference over at Solo Summit to help fill this void. But overall, I think that I’m in a pretty good place, and meeting three out of four of my happiness attributes isn’t bad at all. And currently, I would have to say that my biggest struggle is keeping my ego in check.

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I know deep down that I could achieve much greater things in life and business if I were to just put the pedal down to the metal. And part of me always wants to be wildly successful and to be known for accomplishing amazing and impactful things, kind of like my mom who has discovered a cure for a rare disease. But at this point, I’ve got a decent handle on what makes me happy. And it’s just a matter of executing on that plan. But I am curious for anyone who is listening to this episode.

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What are your minimum requirements for happiness? I would love to hear your thoughts and how you rate your four happiness parameters right now. Hope you enjoyed that episode and I was serious about wanting to know your thoughts on this episode and how you rank these factors in your life. So please leave a comment below this episode or just email me over at steve at mywifequitterjob.com. For more information about this episode, go to mywifequitterjob.com slash episode 361. And once again, I want to thank Postscript.

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which is my SMS marketing platform of choice for e-commerce. With a few clicks of a button, you can easily segment and send targeted text messages to your client base. SMS is the next big own marketing platform and you can sign up for free over at postscript.io slash div. That’s P-O-S-T-S-E-R-I-P-T dot I-O slash div. I also want to thank Klaviyo, which is my email marketing platform of choice for e-commerce merchants. You can easily put together automated flows like an abandoned card sequence, a post purchase flow, a win back campaign.

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Basically all these sequences that will make you money on autopilot. So head on over to mywifecouterjob.com slash KLAVIYO. Once again, that’s mywifecouterjob.com slash KLAVIYO. Now I talk about how I use these tools on my blog. And if you are interested in starting your own e-commerce store, head on over to mywifecouterjob.com and sign up for my free six day mini course. Just type in your email and I’ll send you the course right away. Thanks for listening.