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In today's episode, we help Grant make time for his online business. FULL TRANSCRIPT Jocelyn Sams: Hey y'all. On today's podcast we help Grant make time for his online business. Shane Sams: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast, where life always comes before work. We're your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams. We're a real family that figured out how to make our entire living online, and now we help other families do the same. Are you ready to flip your life? All right, let's get started. Shane Sams: What's going on everybody? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast. It is great to be back with you again today. We are super excited to welcome another member of the Flip Your Life community onto the show so that we can help them take their online dream to the next level. Shane Sams: Our guest today is our good friend Grant Downes. Grant, welcome to the program. Grant Downes: Hey guys, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. Jocelyn Sams: We are very excited to talk to you today. You are coming to us from your vehicle, is that correct? Grant Downes: That's true. So, I am securely fastened here in the van in the garage, which hopefully will insulate me from the kid sounds that are upstairs. Shane Sams: Hey, listen, there is no better acoustics, or there are no better acoustics than inside of your car, inside of your garage. When I first started creating our courses, the very first course I ever created, it was the same thing, it was just chaos, kids running around everywhere. I tried every room in the house, from the basement to our bedroom. Jocelyn Sams: And then you listen to it back and it's like oh, kids screaming. Shane Sams: Oh, just terrible. I can hear kids. So, I went out and locked myself in the garage, got in the car, sat in the back seat in the middle, so I could be as far away from anything as possible, and it sounded great. So, if you're struggling to find a place to record anything, go to your car. Jocelyn Sams: And just remember, please do not run it inside your garage. Shane Sams: Yes, don't turn it on if it's cold. We don't want you to do that. Grant Downes: Yeah, pro tip. Shane Sams: And don't record while you're driving, that's, unless you got a lapel mic or something like that on so it's all good. Jocelyn Sams: All right, so you are at home. You have a family. Let's hear a little bit about them and your background. Grant Downes: Yeah, so I am in eastern Ohio. I live with my wife, Sarah, and my three kids, Charlotte, Henry, and Brenna. I grew up on a tree farm kind of around agriculture, a beautiful 300 acres of rolling farmland here in eastern Ohio, went to school for horticulture, which is basically plant stuff, and then worked kind of a couple different jobs in the plant industry. So, I worked at a nursery for a long time, did a little bit of landscaping, also spent time in agriculture, actually, a feed mill. Now I work as a pesticide and fertilizer inspector for the Ohio Department of Agriculture. Grant Downes: And then what's really awesome about that position, actually, is that I am based out of my house. So, I have a nine county territory that I run around in, and I do inspections, and I meet with people, and investigate complaints, and give tests, and all sorts of things. But I come home every day, start at eight AM in my basement, run out and do what I'm doing, come back home, and then I'm done by 4:30 and I'm already home, so it works out pretty well. Shane Sams: So you're not actually working in your home a lot, you're actually out on the road like going to farms. Do you inspect like the plants, or do you inspect like the chemical barrels of chemicals that they're doing? Like, what do you do? Grant Downes: Not so much plants, but sometimes products. Usually people in licensing is most of what I deal with, and then typically I spend four days in the field and then Friday is an office day. Although, like yesterday, for example, I was at home writing a report. So, I sat in my basement all day and wrote a report. Shane Sams: How does one get into horticulture? Is that what it's called? Agriculture? Grant Downes: Yeah. Shane Sams: That's, like, what makes you obsessed with I want to know everything about plants? Like, that's my job. What is that? Grant Downes: You know, it varies. So, agriculture and horticulture are a little bit separate. Horticulture is more like garden plants, and greenhouse plants, and nursery plants, whereas agriculture is more of your corn, beans, animals, livestock, that sort of thing. Grant Downes: So, I've been in a little bit of both. When I grew up on that tree farm, so that was like growing an ornamental product, basically, and so that's more on the horticulture side of things, but agriculture kind of goes hand in hand. You're still growing, you're still formulating a plan of fertilizer, you know, whatever the case is. So, growing is growing, it just depends on what specific direction you go in. Shane Sams: You know, everybody gets like, all these people get like obsessed with their lawns, and they want everything to grow perfect, they want every blade of grass to be green and every garden plant to look good. I just look outside and I'm like, as long as it doesn't grow too thick and it all looks kind of green, I'm cool. Like, I'm cool with that. I'm not a big, I don't have much of a green thumb, and Jocelyn, I'm pretty sure, has killed- Jocelyn Sams: Oh, my goodness. Shane Sams: ... every living plant we've ever owned. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah. I'm like the worst when it comes to plants. People give me live plants sometimes and it's very nice, I'm very appreciative, but I cannot keep them alive. Like, I forget to water them, and I don't know, I'm not very good with plants. Shane Sams: Plant murderer. Grant Downes: Yeah. Shane Sams: Every morning I take my dogs out to let them go out and use the bathroom, all that stuff. Jocelyn Sams: And kill our landscaping. Shane Sams: And kill our, they kill our landscaping, which apparently that's not good for your plants, and I always sit there and look at our landscaping, and I'm like, can I get all fake plants? I look at my lawn and I'm like, can I just turf this like a football field so I never have to. Grant Downes: You could. That's an industry. People have artificial lawns. Shane Sams: Hey Jocelyn, I've been telling you about this. This is totally going to work, so- Jocelyn Sams: It may be worth the investment, you know? It's very expensive to mow all this grass. So, anyway. Grant Downes: Yeah, well, just put in some field turf, it will be fine. Shane Sams: All right, Grant, I'm not going to lie, sounds like you have a pretty sweet set up here with your day job. So, tell us a little bit about why you wanted to start a website, what is your website, and what is the purpose of it? Grant Downes: Sure. So, I do have a decent set up. I mean, it's really about as like home office working as you can get. I get to go out and I can meet cool people, and I do nice things, but I'm also working a strict 40 hour a week and then I'm off and already home for my family. I think the online business thing would just be a continuation of that process, except it would even be more of what I want to do, instead of what my department wants me to do. Grant Downes: And so then, you know, my online business that I have got going on, it's called SustainableFamilyHome.com, and the whole goal is to provide people, you know, just kind of like us, busy families with young kids, a opportunity to find little ways that are easy in their life to become more sustainable. So, things like doing a little bit of gardening, composting, using reusable water bottles, you know, little, easy, incremental changes that are not hard to make that will help just be more sustainable over time. Shane Sams: Okay, so what sent you down the journey for SustainableFamilyHome.com? How did you get into online business, were you running around inspecting and licensing listening to podcasts, or did you read a book? Like, what was your first step into the waters of hey, I think there might be another way to make a living than what I'm doing right now? Grant Downes: Sure. So, actually a couple jobs ago, before I was with this inspector gig, I definitely had a career crisis. I wasn't super happy in what I was doing. It was a small company and there was no room for advancement, and so I was starting to look outside of what was available in that framework. Grant Downes: Discovered The 4-Hour Workweek, flipped through that very quickly, it was really fascinating. That kind of led me to Pat Flynn and then eventually to you guys, and just thinking I would love to have, even if it was just a little bit of a side income, something else that could provide for our family, you know, pay for a vacation. And then, sure, if it was successful enough, allow that to build up into what could be a really cool, self determined full-time job. Shane Sams: So, what did you like about The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss? It's funny you say that, because I find that's a common thread between most people that want to go down this path. I read The 4-Hour Workweek, you know, after I discovered there was a thing called online business, of course I saw this book on a shelf that said wait a minute, four-hour workweek? That sounds awesome, right? Grant Downes: Sure. Shane Sams: And, but I started reading it and it really does lay the case out, like, hey, the world is different now. You don't have to do the 40-hour workweek. You don't have to have an employer. You don't even have to stay local. You can reach out to anyone in the world and kind of make a living online. So, what was it that sparked that in you? Was it to make more money? To do more of what you wanted to do? Or just basically, hey, I want total control of my time, not just average control of my time? Grant Downes: Sure. I mean, definitely a couple factors. I am very much an analytical and processes person, so through that story, what if, the book, you know, he really laid out okay, all these processes, it was a lot of outsourcing, it was a lot of okay, setting this up and let it run, and set this up and let it run, and it works together. I love that sort of process system scheme. And so, that was fascinating. Grant Downes: And then, you know, just the concept as a whole. Like I mentioned, at that time I was not happy with my job, had a manager that was not a manager, and was really just looking for something else, and just think wow, you can really be autonomous, and put these systems in place that can lead to something awesome. So, it was really, I don't want to say a light switch, but it was definitely an open way of thinking about something different. Shane Sams: The thing about The 4-Hour Workweek that always gets me is people, the book is actually not saying you're only going to work four hours a week and make as much money as you want. It's saying that at most four hours of your week will be spent on stuff you don't like, right? Grant Downes: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Shane Sams: Because it does take a lot of work, it does take a lot of hustle, and it does take a lot of guts to even start a website to do your business, or to try to replace your income and do something different. Shane Sams: I love this quote you put in there from your dad in the ... we have this form that everybody fills out when they come on the podcast, and it says, "My dad is a great role model for me, and is the hardest working person I know." And then you talk about how online business seemed like a dream big dreams. But then later you said, "It reminded me of a quote my dad said growing up, 'You have champaign tastes and a beer budget.'" Like, what does that mean? Like, why did you put that in here? How does that relate? Grant Downes: You know, that's funny, it used to be for sure, I really wanted to buy big things, and even now, like at Christmas time, I don't want a little bunch of tiny little gifts, I want one nice big gift. Grant Downes: But regardless, the way it ties in now is with time, and that's kind of, I think, what we're going to get into a little bit more here is that I have a lot going on. And so, with my champaign tastes I want to do everything. I really want to be involved in a lot of things. I want to make positive contributions all over the place. I want to experience tons of different things. Grant Downes: Like, last night I went to do a mountain biking group ride because I never have been mountain biking and I wanted to try to ride some trails. So like, that was just something else I worked in. Grant Downes: And my beer budget is I only have so many hours in a day, and then that's something I know you guys have stressed a lot is we need to get control over our hours. And so, okay, I've got to fit what I really want to do into my budget of time. And so, I think that's one of my biggest struggles that I'm still continuing to work on. Jocelyn Sams: Okay, so you are a dad. You are an employee. You are a business owner. You are an aspiring mountain biker. Did I say that already? Shane Sams: You're apparently on the village council as well? So, you're a politician? Grant Downes: Yes. Politician is a strong word. We're pretty apolitical. We just really run the town business and get things done. Shane Sams: How big is the village? How big is it? Grant Downes: So, our village, Magnolia, Ohio, is about 1,000 residents. Shane Sams: Oh, okay, so this is a real village, like straight up village, right? Grant Downes: Yes. Shane Sams: But you're going for mayor, it says, of the village too. So, you're going- Grant Downes: That's true. So, I am going to be on the ballot here this coming November for mayor of Magnolia. Our previous mayor retired, or is retiring, I should say, after four years, and he's kind of elbowed and nudged, and said, "Hey Grant, I think you should give it a try." So, after thinking about it for a while I decided to give it a try. Jocelyn Sams: Okay, so you're also a coach of a youth soccer league. Shane Sams: Oh, my gosh. Do you breathe? Grant Downes: Yeah. Shane Sams: When do you go to the bathroom, or eat? Grant Downes: Very seldomly, seldomly. Shane Sams: Right. I mean, this is, it reminds of like Lord of the Rings where he goes, "I feel like butter spread, too little butter spread thin over a piece of bread, right?" Do you ever feel, it seems like you feel that way right now, like you just have, well, I do this, and I do that, and I'm constantly going from eight AM until midnight, and then I have no time left for anything else. Jocelyn Sams: Yeah, and so it's not very surprising that you say you feel like you don't have a lot of time. I mean, I totally get this. But let me ask you, what's your vision for your website? Like, what is your plan? What do you plan to sell? What products? What services? Grant Downes: Well, so far I do have a website up and running. It's basically 15 different blog posts on various topics, kind of what I mentioned earlier, composting, reusable water bottles, you know, things like that, that are easy to incorporate. Grant Downes: Each post basically walks somebody, if you had never done anything before on gardening, let's say, I have a bunch of how tos, exactly what you need to get started, and then embedded in those posts are Amazon affiliate links. So sure, that's basically my only way to receive money from someone right now is if they did make a purchase through one of my links. Grant Downes…
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