How I Lost My Purpose After My Company Died

Sean Weisbrot: Welcome back to another episode of the We Live To Build podcast. I'm your host, Sean Weisbrot. I'm the founder and CEO of We live to Build. I am a founder and investor and a consultant, and I've been doing business since 2014 all around the world. I got my start in Asia and at the time of doing a startup company, I decided to start this podcast because my degree is in psychology and I wanted to explore more about business and learn many different. Points of view from people running businesses at different stages, at different points in their life, from different backgrounds and with different philosophies. Over the last 200 episodes, I've explored the depths of the minds of so many incredible people that I'm very proud to have had the opportunity to speak with.

Sean Weisbrot: And in this episode, I'm going to share a little bit more with you about the process behind the podcast as well as what I've learned and where we're going next. So thank you for sticking with me for 200 episodes. Let's get into it. It's been a long time since I've done a solo episode, and the reason is because I much more enjoy having conversations with a guest. But I do know that sometimes the audience likes to hear from me or from the creator because. They get a chance to know a little bit more about them. In the past, I used to do a solo episode every six months as kind of like an update of my life, and so I want this to have elements of that, but also a more overarching look at the podcast as a whole, why I started it and, and where it is now and where it's going and, and why all of those things are, and some other things I've been thinking about in my life.

Sean Weisbrot: So I started it four years ago in August, 2020. And the reason was because I wanted it to serve as a way for me as the CEO of Nerv to be able to have a place that people could come and find out more about me and the software. And the goal was that the guests would be CEOs who would eventually like and know and trust me and therefore try the product that we were developing by the time the company. Was forced to shut down. We had over 200 CEOs that really liked the podcast and were interested in trying.

Sean Weisbrot: After that happened, I found myself like struggling to understand what the purpose was for the podcast because it had a clear goal and now that the company it was meant to support was gone, it kind of lost its shine. And I was also dealing with, I don't know if depression is the right word, but I was dealing with not knowing. What my purpose was anymore. I had spent four and a half years, this is August 22, what we shut down. I had spent four and a half years of my life working on that company day in and day out. I had quit any other business that I was involved in.

Sean Weisbrot: I wasn't investing in other companies at that time. It was literally just me and Nerf and the team and the podcast and my now ex-wife. So when the whole thing happened with the startup, I was just moving to Portugal. I've been here almost two years now, and during that time I was trying to figure out who I wanted to be in Portugal, and I thought I was moving to Portugal with a secure job that was the company, and unfortunately that was ripped. Away from me very suddenly. So I thought, let me just keep doing the podcast anyways because I don't know what's gonna happen. Right? When I started the podcast, instead of calling it the Nerve podcast, I called it, we Live To Build, because it was an extension of my personal interest. Of connecting psychology and entrepreneurship, and I had a feeling that if the company were successful and we sold and I walked away, or if the company failed and I walked away by naming it something different, I would be able to maintain control over it and therefore could do it.

Sean Weisbrot: With it, whatever I wanted to. So I was trying to find myself in Europe, trying to figure out my place in Portugal and trying to figure out the purpose of the podcast and trying to figure out where I was going with my life because I had just turned 36. And as I'm recording this on June 6th, 2024, I'm approaching my 38th birthday.

Sean Weisbrot: I tried multiple different businesses. I tried to tie the co, the podcast into that. I tried to consult agency owners that didn't really go anywhere. I tried to get back into, uh, making another software. I tried that didn't really work. I tried to advise, uh, startup founders. That didn't really work. I tried investing in a whole bunch of companies, and those companies are still very early and haven't really produced any income.

Sean Weisbrot: I finally found e-commerce consulting, and that's what I've been focusing on for the last almost year, and it's been a great business because it took me back to the roots that I was in, which was consulting. I found that consulting was really easy for me because I can meet a lot of people very easily and get them to trust me and then build relationships between them and other businesses that provide services, and that's really how I've been making my living since the. Podcast, uh, is still around, and the software company died. And as of the beginning of this year, I also started to monetize the podcast, which has been great because until now I've been spending almost a thousand dollars a month on the podcast. And it costs a lot of money to run, but it wasn't producing a return.

Sean Weisbrot: Where originally I didn't mind because the goal was to get people to become, you know, customers of the software. But without that end goal, uh, the company, the podcast needed to become its own company and create its own, uh, thing. So for the last, uh, five months or so, I. As I was approaching the 200th episode, I was thinking very much about how can I professionalize the podcast, and I realized I didn't have every single guest's thumbnail or every guest's image. I didn't have, uh, episode descriptions downloaded. I didn't have all the audio files and video files and transcript files, so I spent like a month putting all of this together. In a cloud drive so that I could have everything like clean and standardized and comfortable. And then I realized the, the guests I'm getting are great, but I want a wider variety.

Sean Weisbrot: So I started reaching out to more PR agencies. I started, you know, spreading my wings and trying to get access to a wider variety of people. And I've been starting to do that and that feels good as well. Um, especially now that, uh, you know, the podcast is producing income. I also. I started promoting them on, uh, TikTok and Instagram. I'm now starting to do five to seven minute clips because I realized that a lot of people aren't really gonna know me and so they need to see little snips and if they like them, then they're more likely to come and, you know, be. A subscriber. I also started looking at the, uh, the categories that the publishing is being done under, right?

Sean Weisbrot: Like I had, uh, science and technology, and that's wrong. I should be on people in blogs or education on YouTube, for example. I double checked to make sure I was on all the podcast directories. I checked to make sure that my sound is good, that my. Video is good. I even bought a new camera that's a 2K camera, although this one is fast becoming obsolete, and I'm looking this year to buy a 4K camera.

Sean Weisbrot: So I've just been thinking for the last few months, how can I make this something that's gonna scale because I know that the content is good. And I know that people who I interview tell me that they really love the opportunity, they love the experience and, and the thoughtfulness that I bring to the interview. So I knew that if I'm going to grow this thing and make it something that millions of people can love, then I need to seriously upgrade everything about what I do with the podcast. And so I started looking at the thumbnails and the titles and. Just looking at to, uh, paid media, uh, you know, in order to promote these episodes to people who didn't know that we existed.

Sean Weisbrot: And to that end, I'm gonna be interviewing someone who's worked for Clear Channel Radio and iHeart Media who focuses on paid media. And that episode's gonna be coming out in the next few months. There's a lot of other things that I've done, like the descriptions and the timestamps, you know, for the chapters and, and all of this. And standardize everything across the video and the audio sides, and been learning more about, uh, how to edit better. Uh, I'm not doing the editing. I have, uh, an editor. I've been buying courses for him to learn more about storytelling and animation. Not really animation or, but like emotion and, uh, driving, you know, what the audience is supposed to feel and when they're supposed to feel it.

Sean Weisbrot: And so we've been very, very focused on taking what we have and making it something even better. Why is this important? Why am I telling you this, and why should you care? Point blank. If you run a business or you have a personal brand, you have some unique angle or unique special experience or skill or thought process that you, you know, wanna share with the world. This is a great way, although it's very hard, it's a great way to build an audience and get people to know you, like you, trust you, and then. Maybe they buy from you if that's what you want. Or maybe get sponsors if that's what you want. I've been learning so much about connecting the podcast to everything else that I do because it's really important.

Sean Weisbrot: And when I was running it for the purpose of my business, I saw that the guests I was getting were great for me. They were coming to me. I. They were interested, they were unique, they were running cool businesses, and they wanted to try my product. So if you're running a software-based company or if you're running a service-based company, podcasts are a great way for you to be able to learn from your clients who are. Guests first, right? You bring them onto the show as a, as a guest, and after you've talked with them, you get to know more about them. You show your authority, and then after the interview is over, you talk to them more. You keep in touch with them, and maybe they turn into a client, maybe they don't. If not, no big deal.

Sean Weisbrot: There's a number of, you know, guests that I've had who've never. Become clients, but we keep in touch and they, they initiate, they go, man, and this is such a, a really great conversation. I really enjoy talking with you. I'd love to keep in touch with you and it feels good to know that the guests really like me and, and really are interested in the conversations that I'm able to help them generate. And I hope that the audience, you guys are able to enjoy what it is that I do as well. So that's kind of where we were. Where we are now, where we're going is I wanna put a lot more energy into paid growth over organic growth. I mean, I've done all of the SEO, I've done all the keywords, I've done all the descriptions and the timestamps and the chapters and, and the backlinking.

Sean Weisbrot: And I've been, you know, working on improving the thumbnails and the titles and like all of that is fine. But if nobody knows that I exist. I'm not gonna grow and I have seen growth, but it's so slow that the only way to make it happen on a reasonable timeline is to advertise. And so one of the reasons why I've been monetizing the podcast is I don't need this money, right? The, the hundreds of dollars or thousands of dollars a month that comes in for the podcast, I don't need that money. Right. I have a business. That business brings me money and I live on that money. So the money that I generate from the podcast, I wanna put a hundred percent back into ads so that I can get as many people as possible to know who we are and what we're doing.

Sean Weisbrot: Right? And it's not just me, right? I have two, two full-time editors. And I have, you know, a designer and I have a web developer, and I've got a few other people that I work with on gigs here and there. And so it's really important for me to be able to feed them. And if I can grow the subscribership, then they can have better access to tools that they need. And once I. Can have the podcast make even more than I can afford to build my own studio. And then they'll have more camera angles to work with, or they'll have higher quality cameras to, to work with and better lighting and better sound. Um, and that means we'll be able to provide even better quality, uh, you know, content for you and maybe even attract better guests and maybe even sponsors that will be able to help you and your business on your journey towards whatever it is you are striving to do.

Sean Weisbrot: So kind of to reiterate, a podcast is super important for the growth of your business. And if you don't have a business now, that's fine, because you can build a podcast first and you can build a business off the podcast where you can have a business and you can build a podcast to create a lead generation tool for your business as long as you do it in a nons scammy way, which is very easy to do, but you shouldn't. Um. So how about me outside of the business and outside of the podcast? So been in Portugal almost two years. I've just got my healthcare card. I'm looking to get my own apartment really soon and I'm hoping that in that apartment I'll have two bedrooms so that that second bedroom will actually be in a studio where I can do my daily work and record so that I can have better lighting, better mic, with a boom arm.

Sean Weisbrot: 'cause right now you see it sitting down here. I want it to be above me. Um, and I want a better camera. Because you may have noticed in the most recent 15 or 20 episodes that there's this background light and light from above, and these light sources are not great. Um. So I wanna, I'm, I'm working towards growing my business and growing the podcast revenue so that combined I can put together, you know, the, the money to feel comfortable with paying, because in Lisbon, unfortunately, it's very expensive. So where I'm living in the city, the kind of two bedroom, two bathroom apartment that I want to get is gonna be over $2,000 a month, which is quite expensive for where I live. So. For me to be able to do that, I have to justify that in order to justify it. Part of it is, well, it's for the podcast. The podcast is generating revenue and you know, the, the $1,500 chair and the thousand dollars desk that I want are to be able to focus better on the podcast or better focus on the, you know, the business, uh, so that I can sit better.

Sean Weisbrot: I can feel better. 'cause you also may have seen, when I'm running the podcast, I'm leaning forward, right? I'm leaning closer to the mic and that's not very comfortable. I wanna be able to sit like this. But if I sit like this. I'm too far from the mic, so you're not able to really hear me very well. So it's important that I fix the ergonomic situation because when I was younger, I actually hurt my back because I was sitting on my couch in China for a number of months and I was sitting incorrectly, and I had a gut because I wasn't exercising so much. That was when I had my concussion and I was recovering, and I ended up actually getting a bulging disc in my, in the middle of my back on the left side, and it's still with me 10 years later, unfortunately, 11 years later, and I need to get a massage all the time in order to get it fixed. Anyways, I'm rambling.

Sean Weisbrot: So, uh, one of the other things I've experienced in Portugal is that the quality of life is really good, right? There's a lot of really nice food and the water's really clean. The soil is clean. I. The lifestyle is very suitable for families as well as young working professionals. So Portugal is a really great place to live. And with that in mind, I'm actually in July getting ready to renew my temporary residence permit. Um, the first two years are gonna be done and I'll have three more years, and when that's done, I'll be able to get a permanent residence and if I want to apply for a Portuguese citizenship. So if you're not living in Portugal now.

Sean Weisbrot: You've been thinking about living in Portugal? Think carefully before you do it because it requires a lot of dealing with headaches. Um, I, I'll try to spare you the details, but for me to get a healthcare ID card by myself, I. Took me about six weeks. It was a lot more effort than it should have been. And so, uh, you know, if you're not coming here because you have your own business, then it'll be harder. But a lot of people come here and they wanna find a job that is with a local company. And when you do that, your life is a lot more complicated with the government, they make it a lot harder, and the process to get the residence permit is a lot longer. So I was very fortunate that I came here at a, at the time that I did where. I have my own company and therefore I'm not coming here to get a local job. And therefore they like me because I'm literally earning money outside of Portugal and bringing it in and spending it here. So they like when you do that. So if you have that kind of situation, Portugal is probably really great for you.

Sean Weisbrot: I found that Portugal has a lot of social opportunities, so I, uh, play board games. I'm actually going to play board games in about an hour. Uh. You know, I play board games two nights a week. There's table tennis. I'm doing table tennis training as well as social table tennis. On the weekends, uh, there's a lot of hiking. There's comedy shows in English, Portuguese, and Spanish. There's language exchange events in English, Spanish, Portuguese. Um, I actually met a bunch of people playing table tennis and I've created now a Chinese speakers group. So usually once a week we will arrange a dinner. And inside of our WhatsApp group and in the dinners, there's only one rule.

Sean Weisbrot: You have to speak Mandarin. And if you can't, then we're sorry. We're not gonna teach you. So you have to be an advanced speaker, whether you're a foreigner or you know, whether you're a native. Um, so you have to be able to speak Chinese really, uh, at a high level. Um. So there's just a lot of really great opportunities as well for walking and hiking and biking. And there's archery and, and there's multiple golf courses, and there's bowling ranges and uh, or bowling alleys and massage places, and there's festivals and live music performances of salsa and flamenco and samba. And, you know, there's also fado, which is the Portuguese one. So there's, there's just always so much to do here.

Sean Weisbrot: That you never get bored. Um, but on the flip side. If you want a relationship, um, it's quite difficult to date here and I've talked to a lot of guys and girls that live here from, uh, from here and from other European countries as well as countries outside of Europe. And the consensus is pretty similar that we're all struggling to date here. So that's really one of the downsides because I was living in Asia, um, dating in China and Vietnam was pretty, uh, interesting. It was pretty. Simple and straightforward, but I feel here that it's none of those things, unfortunately. So I've quite struggled with that. So, so yeah, Portugal can be a great place to live.

Sean Weisbrot: It's really warm in the winter and it's, it's, uh, hot in the summer. Um, there's not too many days of rain, but, uh, you know, it, it can be quite hot for a lot of people. It can be quite cold for a lot of people, and, and when it rains, it just rains all day. So that can be quite frustrating for some people. The cost of living is rising pretty fast. So if you're not increasing how much you're earning, then you know you're going to, uh, have a problem being priced outta the market. To be honest, I thought I was gonna move to Portugal, you know, a few years ago in my mind I thought I was gonna move to Portugal and I was gonna buy an apartment in the city and a house near the beach.

Sean Weisbrot: And that's hilarious because if I actually ended up doing those things, it would cost me well over a million dollars to be able to do. Um, you know, the, the kind of place that I wanna buy inside the city is five to 700,000, where five years ago it would've been like 150. To 200,000. So the people who bought 5, 6, 7 years ago are super lucky. And the people that are here now that wanna buy their SOL, they're just not gonna buy anything unfortunately. So I, I feel like personally, I'm on a good journey right now. I've quit sugar a few weeks ago. I've quit caffeine as of a few days ago, and I'm very lucky I haven't had any withdrawal symptoms.

Sean Weisbrot: And I am exercising a lot more. I've started mobilizing my joints again and stretching again. And I'm still doing meditation. I'm thinking of joining the yoga studio again. So all in all my personal, my professional life, I was coming together. Things are moving again. I'm quite happy about all of it, and I've met a lot of really great friends in Lisbon and have a lot of opportunities to travel around Europe and, uh, you know, to do social stuff inside of Lisbon. So all in all, everything's going well. Everything's firing on all cylinders, despite the little setbacks here and there that we all encounter. And I want to thank you again for the time and energy you've put into listening to me today and to the other episodes that we've done. I hope that you are, uh, enjoying what we're doing and we already have.

Sean Weisbrot: I. Another 15 episodes scheduled and ready to publish, and by the time those episodes come out, we'll have episode 230 or 240 ready to go because we are having so many guests come to us wanting to be interviewed, and we have so much potential for the future that we are firing on all cylinders. We're putting all of our energy into doing this, and I hope you'll see that I'm focusing on growing as a host and growing as a content creator. As we go. So thank you again. I'll see you next time. Thanks for sticking with us to the end. I hope you liked this episode. And click here to check out our next episode with Brian Ferris, number 201, where we talk about customer motivation and why you need to be thinking about why your customers are using your products so that you can build the best damn product ever. Thank you.