[00:00:27] Jay: Hi everyone, welcome to the First Customer Podcast. Today I'm lucky enough to be joined by Jake Phillips. Jake is on a mission to make a difference by building brands that connect humans to the services they need and businesses to the humans they exist for. Quite a mouthful. Jake, hello buddy, how are you?

[00:00:42] Jake: I'm good, Jay. How are you, my friend?

[00:00:44] Jay: I'm good. you're CEO and brand design strategist at Touchpoint. tell me a little bit about Touchpoint.

[00:00:51] Jake: Yeah. so it's kind of like what you said a little bit. We do a lot with humans. Touchpoint is a design agency, though, where we focus on helping rebrand small businesses and nonprofits. And really, at the end of the day, it's connecting humans, you know, with the services that they need for. So it's at the core of, you know, being able to connect these dots and utilize the brand image in a way that helps tell your story and connect with your ideal audience.

[00:01:15] Jay: Love it. let's take it back a little bit. Where did you grow up and did that You know, experience growing up have anything to do with you being an entrepreneur today.

[00:01:25] Jake: Oh, man. Yeah, it's I honestly, I'll take you back. But I think every entrepreneur in a way, their whole life is compounding. On all of their experiences and they get to this point and it's a combination of all the things so in my situation it's very similar to that. I had two parents that were also entrepreneurs or in their own businesses i'm in Philadelphia at the moment, but I grew up, Delaware County, which is a little bit outside of Philadelphia And two little places so maybe some people have heard of it, but it's Alden.

That's where I kind of grew up and yeah, my parents They had a few businesses. One was in general contracting and they'd been doing it, you know, their whole life, and it's now trying to turn in more of a side business where they've always got the skillsets. They can always pull out some jobs when they need to.

But, the other was a sweet chocolate factory. It was called Sweet Dreams.

And I feel like there was a. I think they had about seven or eight years where they had it and it was, in my life, when I was about nine, maybe about like eight to sixteen, I remember going in there and just eating all the candy.

So that's how I remember as a 

childhood. 

[00:02:30] Jay: Yeah, that's like the perfect candy time.

[00:02:32] Jake: Yeah. man, I remember we would, I'd be on rollerblades and I would just be skating around the back of the store. They'd be making candy. So I had a dream growing up, you know, with all that. And it was interesting. So I didn't know it at the time, but that's the kind of the environment that I grew up in was entrepreneurs and just people that were, you know, taking their passions and fueling it into some kind of business that it's what they love to do.

and then over the years, things have kind of evolved. And I think at the core, everything has always been business focused and. so I can tell you a little bit about how the journey went and we can talk about colleges and all that thing. But I want to give you that base because my parents are the, those are kind of the seeds of how my, almost my thought process and how my foundation was built.

Because I think it's, it takes a certain type of person to be an entrepreneur. I don't know if it's something like I never wanted to, I never wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I didn't know what an entrepreneur meant. I always thought it was a salesy car guy. And in my head growing up, I went. I don't want to do that.

It was so business focused. And kind of growing up, my life had always been more immersed with connecting with people. I was in, I grew up doing creativity and design. And so it was never about turning it into a business. In my brain, it was always something that stemmed from loose imagination and just storytelling.

And I hit this crossroads, and we could date into college, but I hit a crossroads where I went, Huh, I think this can be, this should be a business.

[00:04:06] Jay: Right. Yeah. No, I love that. And let's, well, yeah, so you went down to Savannah for college, I think I saw. 

[00:04:12] Jake: yep, Savannah College of Art and Design down in, Savannah, Georgia, right on the coast.

beautiful 

[00:04:17] Jay: place. 

[00:04:18] Jake: Yeah. that college, one of the best colleges, I mean, they have their top tiers in terms of architecture and dear industrial design and interior design, all these things, they're very good.

But at the end of the day, it's the atmosphere that, you're in. And so their environment. Their buildings are all immersed into the city and the atmosphere of Savannah and Savannah. I don't know if you've been there or Charleston, maybe

you got it's the spanish moss and the oak hanging over the trees.

It just like everything is a wonderland

great environment to get your imagination flowing, So that was scad and called scad but industrial design was my focus. there and what I Four year degree graduated, from Savannah,

[00:05:00] Jay: What's industrial versus regular design? Is it just, is what it says it's for a commercial kind of use? Is that what industrial design means?

[00:05:07] Jake: you know, it's changed a lot because technology is changing so much. So if you think of pure industrial design, you can think of like a toy designer

where

industrial design is the broad umbrella where it was, it's making consumer products.

So under that you've got phones, you've got cars, you've got toys, but a toy is the almost one of the purest forms because there's no screens in technology.

So if you're making something, it's functional, it's for a human, it's for, you know, so I would say that's the term. And then now that we've got screens and all the devices you're changing, you're starting to see the terminology to user experience and product design. Now there's a product designs where they design digital screens and a lot of the graphics.

And then there's product designs that are also industrial designers. So there's a, I think they're having identity crisis 

 in the industry, but at my time it was industrial design, which at that time it was all consumer products. It was all 3d design of an object and understanding the complexities of how it fits into the market and consumers and how it ends up in your hands at the end of the day as a consumer.

[00:06:17] Jay: Very interesting. Alright, well,

walk me from that, I mean, you know, how did you go from that to, you said you had your aha moment, but, what kind of experiences along the way led you to that aha moment?

[00:06:33] Jake: Well, yeah, it's, I'm thinking, I like in my head, I know that. And. it's all internal. A lot of these things are internal as you're going through your journey. I think on the surface though, like externally I was just looking to get a job out of college, right? Looking to just figure out how I would fit into society, you know, do all, how do I, it wasn't even that I fit in the mold.

It was that I wanted to cool. I just, I got this great degree. I've got these awesome hard skills, some thinking skills. let me go use them. Like who needs these services? So I was in a mindset where I was, you know, trying to pursue a career within industrial design. And I think in college. The more narrowed in and focused you are, you have an idea where it's like, that's how I'm going to get a job.

Like if I'm industrial designer and I'm all I'm an interior designer, Oh wait, I'm also an architect. all the things get blurred. So you had to really get dialed in and focused. So that way, when you were interviewing or you were at a job, you didn't, you were hired for that skill. So there was a mindset that started to be instilled where I had to get very niched in on who I was and what I had to do and how I got the job and how I'm valuable in this world.

so out of college, I ended up getting an internship, local, product firm, Bressler group right in Philadelphia as well. And. In that experience, I learned so much about what that world of industrial design really was. And, you know, I learned incredible things. but I think part of, internally, there was something that didn't, that wasn't registering.

There was like some kind of tension and resistance to the industry. I didn't know what it was. So from there, that mini internship kind of inspired me. I ended up having an opportunity where So my journey is all these diverse opportunities that have built, but I ended up moving to England, had an opportunity to live there for a year and taught design to students that were, there's a place called Marlborough College.

And if you flew into London, took a train west two hours to Swindon, a cab down to Marlborough, you'd be right there. And I got, the honor to be immersed into a, you know, another environment, another culture and teach design to students that, you know, spoke. British, not English. They're American and there are different things

and the theories are different on how, how you teach and how you learn and like America is a little bit, I think our culture is a little bit more broad, a little bit more loose about how you can go, how you can stumble across your journey.

I think in British culture, they're very driven and tight with, we're going for this, these reasons. So it's a little bit more of a narrow focus and there's a lot of theory based. And so that experience is almost what jump started me to start to rethink things. Because if you have to consider it, I know it's, I'm young at that time, but I just went to school to learn all these hard skills.

Not to teach them,

[00:09:33] Jay: Right. 

[00:09:34] Jake: not to, and I had done a lot of workshops and done things in the past that have helped me develop skills for this, but it kind of really opened the doors for me, in terms of an opportunity that said, Okay, this is design. What does it mean to me? Because I have to teach it to you, like going and being hired for something is one thing, going to teach someone else how they can express their own things and learn these things, that kind of broke the doors, and then it really made me redefine Who I was and how did what design meant to me?

So long story short ended up moving back to America kind of settled in back to my hometown Live with the parents the whole like right. All right. Now i'm going to go figure it out for real Identity crisis is already starting to bake inside me, right? Like, I remember two People, you know that specifically I ran into coffee shop.

One was an old teacher Another was a friend at a local gym and those are the two people that started this conversation inside me They were like, hey, man, why don't you just start your own business? Like I love what you're doing You're just you're always out there. You're always doing stuff and That's sat there like planted seeds where I went.

I don't want to start a business that's not what I want to do I never knew it for what it was.

And I was pursuing jobs. I was getting, I was hustling, right? I, once I was back, I was freelancing. I was contract work. I ended up working for, you know, a marketing consultancy firm, all these things that I was just learning and grabbing and absorbing.

so about. Two ish years later, is when here's the real story. I met a friend of mine who sat me down And had a conversation about business and wrote basically the pros and cons of you know Working for someone else or being a freelancer Versus owning your own business. And what does it look like when you?

Put your energy into something. If you're doing it for someone else, they benefit on the extra efforts and things you do. And here's what the tax situation. So he wrote down here's a hundred K. This is what it looks like on a piece of paper. If it goes from someone else, this is what it looks like in your pocket.

Oh, this is how I own. I don't own the car. The business owns the car. I, there, there was a conversation that really upstarted what an entrepreneur really meant. and ever since I filed the paperwork later that week and that launched that journey So that's how that kind of thing started for me Was obviously immersed in a lot of experiences to build confidence

to understand the opportunity But also the skill sets the thinking powers all the different things that I needed.

that was a lot of words, but

[00:12:05] Jay: now, that was a great, it's a great, That was a short summary of a lot of stuff. so what do you think did hold you back from eventually starting your business for so long? Like, what do you mean, was it just needing those different experiences and kind of unlocking each of those gears that, you know, the pins in the tumbler of the lock as you went?

Or like, Was there some way you could have shortcutted that earlier, or did you need those experiences to kind of eventually make it click?

[00:12:30] Jake: Yeah, that's a great question and You know, I think over the past few years is that's a question I've been reflecting on ever since I'm like, why didn't I just do it earlier? And I think ultimately anyone will probably say you needed those experiences to get to where you are, period. Right. So that's the short answer.

the answer that really transformed me to be able to have the ability was. For me, that foundation of school taught you hard skills and all the experiences I had taught you hard skills. and this is how you were going to get a job with them, not how you were going to make money with them. So there was a level that I was like, great, I have these things.

And I'm going to, I'm going to take the craft of them and expertise as high as I can, but that's to get a job and work for someone else. Cause that's what they need on their team

to own your own business. You have to make sacrifices with where, how the business needs to move and stay in action.

So there was a handoff that I didn't mentally have from the environment and my journey so far. So, and I didn't know that it took external people to kind of nourish that. Cause I was, it's like, I was so meaning early on in my business, I was fighting to figure out how to be profitable and how to be sustainable.

And at that time it's not that I wasn't doing the right things. It's that I was being a perfectionist with my craft and it wasn't serving the people that it was now I needed to transition. It's not about me anymore. It's about the people that I'm serving. That was the biggest mindset shift.

[00:14:05] Jay: Yeah, I like that. one of the marketing people I've worked with, that was one of the biggest things that, I mean, even after I'd run the business successfully for years, was to stop writing marketing material and pitching and selling from my perspective. Nobody

cares. Nobody 

[00:14:23] Jake: Yeah,

Yeah, 

[00:14:25] Jay: you can do.

It's just, it is 100 percent what can you, I mean, it's, and like, when you think about it from a self consumer perspective, it makes 100 percent sense. Like, when you go to buy something, a car, you go to rent a place somewhere, like, you don't care what that

person's offering, you're just like, does it fit what I want?

Does it give me what I need? And I think once You know, business owners start to kind of digest that and think from that perspective instead of like here's all the, you know, the vomiting their pitch out constantly and starting to go What is that person's problem and how can I let them know that I can solve that problem for them?

I think it's a big shift. 

[00:15:03] Jake: and let me paint that picture so you can see it because this is the thing that I didn't know. There's expertise and there's your client's pain points. And I was fully focused on my expertise, my craft, the hard skills. And I never once saw my clients pain points in a business. If you focus fully on the pain points and there's no crap, you can't help anything.

If you're only focused on yourself, you won't help your clients. You have to be right in the middle. And that's like the gold mine. If you find that, whether it's content, you're marketing, whether it's the business and what you're serving, whatever the products and the offers are, everything has to be in that middle because that's their language.

They have to see that. So you, that's the crossover. And I'm like, I've got that in my head. I'm like, man, anything I create, everything I give, everything I share, it's always attention to both of those. absolutely.

[00:15:52] Jay: Yeah, and I would add one more Stop on that cycle, which is the product itself, right? Because one thing that I've What I've seen and learned is that, expertise that you have currently, pain points, and then the actual product you're delivering, all those things kind of change over time and they feed

each other, right?

Like, your product should morph and change and iterate and get better as you learn. The pain points as you craft your expertise, as you do all those things. And it's just like a big, once you get that loop in motion where your product is constantly evolving and like, you're not changing it every second or trying to please everybody, but you're continually kind of improving it to address those pain points that you learn about. Your expertise gets better, you hit the pain points better, and your product gets better. It's just this cool cycle that kind of just you get into and I think that's kind of what you described there. So that's awesome. if you had to start over again tomorrow, and this isn't a what would you have done differently question.

This is more of a, you know, if you had to start over tomorrow, what would be step one for you?

[00:16:53] Jake: Well, I think, I don't think it's, well, I'm trying to think through in steps of, man, if I had the business already, what would I do? I think there's steps there. Oh, I would start the process of exploding everything earlier.

But I think if I didn't have the idea, I would be wanting to fully immerse myself in different experiences.

Do you, what do you think is, you know, an easier, Yeah. A better answer to talk about before you had the business to find the business idea or once you have it How do you pursue it?

[00:17:23] Jay: I would say that the question is typically geared towards If you have the experience in something like you did with consulting and freelancing and you've built this kind of Resume up of things that you can deliver What would be step one for you to start a business? Using that experience that you've accumulated over the years

[00:17:44] Jake: All right. So what I would do is I would completely drop any Perfectionist habits where you're like this thing has to be perfect because early on, You have that tendency you want to this is your baby like you had the idea you've created this thing So it has to be perfect. You have to launch It's got to be but here's the thing if you hold on to it too long it you don't have the opportunity to start and it may not it's not that it won't be perfect It's that it wouldn't be effective Like it may be a hundred percent perfect in your head, but it still may be missing the mark and you would never know.

So no matter what, it's a trial and error and it's a give and take. And so just re like, as I launch my own things, you know, internally, whether it's new updates or new features. You are going to put them out there as quick as you can to the best of your abilities, period. And then you're going to evolve it as you go because if you, it's going to help, it's going to improve.

So if you start to become too close, you know, too perfect with it and hold it, it's not going to allow you to take action. And the thing that you need early on is to stay in motion and to take action. Doesn't need to be perfect. You don't even need to announce that it's perfect,

but you need to announce that it's going to solve a problem and to be effective, and you don't know how it's going to hit yet because it's all in your head.

An idea on paper is one thing, in your head is another, out in the real life is a whole nother thing. So in that incubation process early on, you have to value that motion. Is way more valuable than any type of perfection.

[00:19:19] Jay: Yeah, no quick to market and I that's a great answer One of my favorite Kind of sayings about products and even productized services and just business in general. It's like you can disprove an Idea before it gets in your customers hands, but you can't prove it until it's in your customers hands, right?

So you can say like that's you can say like that's such a dumb idea Like it'll never work and like it maybe won't

But you can't say it's a great idea and it's gonna sell a million because if anybody could do that They would just you know Everybody would be millionaires and we could just like we would know that it'd be perfect before we even get it out there So like you said, it's a great point Perfectionism is has its place but probably not when trying to get feedback on what you're delivering to your customers.

I love

[00:20:00] Jake: and it depends on your business though, too I want to point out like for me, you know, i'm in consultancy world, right if it's in a product business world That's there are different businesses as well. But my business is driven on relationships

And I don't have products that I'm selling. I have services, right?

And it's a little bit different dynamic, so it depends on your business, but at the end of the day, you gotta stay in motion. that's going to kick. Yeah. It's going to kickstart any business for sure.

[00:20:26] Jay: Yeah. And I think it does carry over to the product world as well. Just, and again, there's variations there, right? Like if you're building rockets that have people on them, it's probably better to be perfect as opposed to like,

you know, 

[00:20:36] Jake: Again,

right depends on your 

business 

[00:20:38] Jay: depends on your business and then, and who's running the company, I guess.

But yeah. So, all right. Let's switch gears a little bit. What are three, and one of my friends is big on longevity, and that kind of stuck with me, you know, instead of just like health, like, I have five kids, like, being around them for a long time is very important to me, so, what are three kind of things, physical, mental, emotional, health wise, that you do, or you strive to do, to kind of keep your longevity up?

[00:21:02] Jake: So i've always been A competitive person into sports athletics all those things So I find different outlets in that just in general as you know, my own outlet so I play baseball it's not softball it's a baseball league in delco and that That keeps me dialed in to the athletic behavior and things that I enjoy and the competitive piece.

but internally, as a practice that I've learned as a, for owning your own business, you, if, at the end of the day, if you only have 40 percent of your energy that you can give, even if you're giving 100 percent of it to your clients and to the world and to your people, it's still 40%. And that is, it's one of the hardest lessons I've had to learn.

but at the end of the day, I have to take care of my own energy. So, I know you're talking about health, but you call it what you want. But at the end of the day, it's your energy. It's that piece. So, I've had to, I've had to learn how to value that more. And it's been very hard over the years because I'm someone that is always others centered.

So I will always prioritize others and I've had to learn how to say no and all these things. But, on the, along that journey, some of the things that have helped have been internal meta, meditations. And meditation, I mean in the loosest form. I mean in the practice that... You had time to yourself devoted towards being at peace being just being in the present moment.

And that has taken forms in many ways for me. Like I've recently had a friend that's in the UK, and he's inspired me to do an ice bucket or ice bath challenge.

And so I did kind of, I was gearing up for the 30 day ice bath challenge and I got about halfway through.

And that challenge, has taken meditation on a whole new level.

I've done the practices where, you know, you're sitting quiet in your home, you're doing your thing. I haven't been able to find traction with them internally for myself. Ice bath has been great. but at the end of the day what i've learned how that applies is in those pure blissful moments where you are the priority of your own worlds, they apply in those crisis moments.

In your world

where you can go i've practiced this situation. Everything is on fire Except me and i'm going to go put the like it's like there's an internal confidence that will help develop From you prioritizing yourself. So that's the biggest practice that i'm slowly trying to find consistency and find the rhythm I think i'm trying to think through second thing is I'm going to put it, I'm going to circle it around personal development.

I think entrepreneurism and a friend of mine had said this, but entrepreneurism is just a business disguised as personal development, especially if you are not working for someone else necessarily, because any lesson, any mistake, any failure, anything you that helps grow your business helps grow you.

and it applies for. Kind of everyone, but in the situation of me, personal development, every time I increase and level that up, it helps me do my job better and it helps solve, you know, stronger pain points for my clients. And so a huge healthy habit. On my end is continuing to build that database to start to absorb information to Be open minded and new perspectives and just knowledge.

So that's reading that's learning that's podcast However, you need to have that look sometimes it's just conversations With yourself or your other people, right? Like, I think that's been a huge, a huge habit of mine. I'm going to say it's similar to you, as well. Like, do you find that, do the, I mean, obviously these conversations are helping, you know, increase your understanding of certain industries, but personal development in your area is, I'm going to guess it's pretty huge.

[00:24:48] Jay: Yeah, it's I mean, I love that answer. and as you were saying that it kind of It's easy for me to stagnate because like I said, I have a lot of kids, right? So it's you have to balance like being a good dad versus like all the things you want to do There's like some comic the other day is like he's like if you see a dad You know who's ripped and like has zero percent body fat like he's probably not a good dad, right?

like it's there's you know, obviously there's some caveats there, There is like some truth to where like you have to give Some of that. I mean i'm a huge hobbyist I'm a huge like I love like, you know Programming and I love building stuff and I love doing arduino stuff and astrophotography and being a pilot and also there's stuff that I love to do but I think you're dead on like that fire to constantly Improve yourself and

it can be in any form like you said.

I mean, I learned a lot to your point I learned a lot from all everybody I talked to on these calls I mean, there's things from this call that I'm gonna take away from it and I'm gonna go Wow, that's pretty cool that Jake does this and everything and this is the way he does handles his business like that and also I have Monthly standing calls with and I came over I heard that somebody suggested it's a great idea. I have monthly standing calls with Successful business owners that are just friends of mine And we get on a call and we just, 

I have two today, like later this afternoon. We just get on, we talk about what's going on with their business. Like what's, you know, how are they doing with sales? Like what's going on?

And it's not like a tactical conversation. It's more just like, what are you doing? How are things going? And just like sparking those things. And I'll go away and start an entirely new effort or initiative in my company because of something that I talked with a smart business owner, like you.

So, yeah, 

your point, I love, conversation can be, Just as educational as a podcast or a YouTube video or whatever. You just gotta, you know, It's like the thing, some of your five, you know, closest people in your life or whatever, right? Like you're, that's, like, if you keep

[00:26:39] Jake: That's true.

[00:26:40] Jay: people in your life and really smart people in your life that are doing better or, you know, as well or better than you are, then you're gonna improve.

Like, there's no way that you're gonna be worse off. By having really successful people in your network that you talk to. So, yes, I totally agree with that.

[00:26:54] Jake: That's great. Absolutely.

[00:26:56] Jay: number three? you had kind of act, you know, sports,

[00:26:59] Jake: got to give you a third one.

[00:27:00] Jay: I want a third one, because I like that the first two was almost two, like sports and, kind of internal meditation stuff, but I

would love to hear another one, because 

[00:27:07] Jake: I'll give you it.

[00:27:08] Jay: far.

I'll give you one more. a Predominant, this is a very tangible habit that I have dialed in this year. I have I'm one that is a You call it what you want But hyper high function and high performance ADHD all the things that are my brain is like moving so fast so I Running your own business is very hard because there's a lot of hats that you sometimes have to wear and there's a lot of things going on all at the same time.

[00:27:36] Jake: And so focus has been one of the hardest things for me because I have to do all the things, but they all can't happen at the same time. So I've had to learn how to really dial in my time. So figuring out the right tools, and the right. Format and the right rhythm and the right routines to be able to capture and understand what my time looks like and like my time Is very valuable, but I also need to know more than that So this whole year and these past few years have been the practice of understanding how does Jake do his time?

But how does he because it's always been spontaneous. It never really captured it. So there's a tool that I use what is it called? Toggle.

I don't know if you have toggle or not. toggle is a typical time tracker that a lot of people do. You know, how long did I work on this client project? How long did I do this?

Fine. But that's not really how, like I use that. But what I'm using for is to actually dial in. Where my energy is being focused. So I'm very tight with my calendar. And even if I, if we go, like, let's say I hop on a call, it's an hour, but it goes on a little longer. I might extend that in my calendar. So that way everything is fine tuned and everything is accurate to real time because my brain is too optimistic.

So it's like, yeah, I'll get that 

[00:28:51] Jay: oh 

[00:28:52] Jake: 30 minutes and it takes four hours, you know, so I don't know 

[00:28:55] Jay: How do you stay consistent with that? how do you make

sure 

[00:28:58] Jake: by 

[00:28:59] Jay: five days in, ten days in, a month in that you're not just kind of like falling off of it? Because I try. I use Clockify sometimes to like break down my day. And I don't, I'm guessing it's because it's it feels like work which is why, you know, if anything feels like work now I typically try to delegate it but 

if, how do you stay up with it?

[00:29:20] Jake: All right. This is where now I've used it before and I never got traction. This is where I've gotten traction. It's not about doing the activity or tracking the thing. It's about having intention the next time you do the thing. So like the, where you need is to find the pattern of repeat. So if you do this specific activity and let's say you're, let's say I'm making a logo and I'm, let's say I'm just doing a mood board.

I'm trying to capture the visual direction. If. that's the same process. Every client I have when I'm doing branding, I need to gauge that. I need to find what that window is. So early on, I had to start to track that and I would put, I'd go, I'd write it. I'd circle it on my calendar and my thing.

I'd say, this is the last three clients that I've done this thing. This is what we're aiming for this time. This is what we're aiming for next time. So That goal of intention for that repeat activity is how I'm changing it. If it's a new thing, it's very hard. Like obviously I can say, yeah, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna X activity, whatever that might be.

and let's say it's, it could be some kind of business development on the front end, but you don't know until you give it a, until you give it a very specific tangible, like you're either tracking time. I'm going to do this in an hour block, or I'm going to do. 10 of these in period and you once you're finished you're done So i've had to I think intention is what's allowed me to track it, but also Improve it because it's not just tracking that I don't want to track it.

That's so like that's the last thing I want to 

[00:30:48] Jay: Yeah, that's why I think I fall off because I, it feels like I'm just, it's like soul crushing for me. cause I, I do

love to know. I love to like, you know, I love the track, how much time I spend with the family versus the podcast

versus actual like, you know, day to day business work versus personal, you know, development stuff.

Like I love like those four categories, but. I feel like I get mired down in the tracking of it. I get I just get

[00:31:14] Jake: let me paint this for you though because that's where I struggled I use google calendar and I have toggle but I can Integrate both of them. So my Google calendar shows up in toggle. And all instead of putting in the activity that it already has a Google counter, I'm just copying in the entry.

So that way I can adjust it if I have to. So it's very real time and I can backlog it. You know, I basically do it every day or every couple of days and I can go back. If I'm doing it 33 weeks out, I'm going to forget what happened in week one. And I won't really remember if I have to adjust it. But that's the physical activity that allows me to track it.

And then at the end of the day, you know, I can then go into toggle and when it's a repeat event, I can look at it and understand with intention. Hey, how much personal time did I, you know, spend with my kids, right? Or whatever it is. and then you can increase it and say, I didn't spend enough because it's, you know, it's, again, you don't have to be a perfectionist, but you want to improve where your energy Wants to be 

[00:32:15] Jay: I think that's a really good point. I think that's helpful. for me specifically So sorry everybody else if that doesn't help

[00:32:20] Jake: It's not for the you. Yeah,

[00:32:21] Jay: podcast is for me. it's a ruse It's all for my personal development.

[00:32:26] Jake: I Love it. 

[00:32:27] Jay: But no, I think it's a great point Because, like, for example, my morning routine, my, you know, five for five, my, get up at five workout, stretch, meditate, journal, like those things I do every day, I kind of have that dialed in as far as

time goes, so just knowing how, what the intention of those, that block is, I should be able to kind of have that knocked out every day.

I don't need to do that every day. If I could plan that out for a month and that should be the same thing. And like you said, if you need to adjust it, then adjust it. but also, you know, yeah. I will say, I have a lot of the firsts, right? Like I have a lot of things that are just like, I gotta go do this and I gotta go do that, and I gotta, you know, hop on this call for this.

And you know, there discovery calls may last 20 minutes or an hour. I have to run to the store, I have to, and those things I think eat into my ability to kind of plan it out going forward. So I struggle with that part of it, but I do think, like you said, the intentions of what the time should be spent on, will be super helpful for me.

So, let's, let's

wrap with one question, mystery question. So

non business related,

 If you could do anything on earth and, you knew you couldn't fail, what would it be?

[00:33:37] Jake: Oh, look at that mystery question coming in strong

[00:33:40] Jay: one, right? It's one of my

favorites. I love the silence afterwards.

[00:33:44] Jake: yeah, I bet 

[00:33:46] Jay: it to non business related because everybody just goes, Well, I'll just make my business bigger. But like, I'm thinking bucket list item.

Things that, you know, you're kind of, you know, you're afraid you'd die at, like, what are some, what

is one thing that you would do if, you knew you couldn't fail?

[00:33:58] Jake: yeah So I think my brain goes in two ways One, I'm going to tell you one, because one, my brain goes, Oh, I'm a competitive person. Let me just nail that thing, right? Like there's that side and then there's the side, like if I were to pursue not failing and resources, money, weren't a thing, it'd probably be some kind of social venture and it would dial into.

Probably inspiring, empowering the next generation. I'm very someone that's obviously I'm driven, but I love what I do. I'm very connected to what it is. My passion is. It's not like they're distant. So one extra step in 10 years, 20 years out in the future, I want to take what I have and dial it into helping inspire the next generation, helping create workshops around the world, traveling studio, all the things, right?

Because I think that will help. Jumpstart and value the creative leadership pieces that if I couldn't fail that's it's already going to happen But it that's my 

[00:34:55] Jay: Right. Yeah. 

[00:34:57] Jake: If I were to do something where I couldn't fail I would have to pursue something incredibly extreme and I mean,

I'm, I would have to be a Guinness world, Guinness book of world record, first off, like, it would have to be breaking some kind of record. It wouldn't be, let me just jump out of a plane. Like,

I want to do that no matter what. But let me jump out of a plane without the parachute. Like, I think we'd have to break the rules here and try to really figure it out.

Now, I wouldn't want to survive with like, you know, broken limbs. But I

[00:35:34] Jay: I mean, that would count as failure, I think, if you hit the ground. we'll count

[00:35:37] Jake: I'd want to go into space. And breathe. Like, take a selfie in space from the stratosphere, and then hop back, fly down to Earth.

[00:35:48] Jay: I, that's one of my favorites because it's probably mine, as well. and I don't... I don't know if I can get this wide enough to show maybe there's my so I do astrophotography That's one of

my that's one of my that's one of my prints. That's Andromeda and I have it

actually since I moved back to our house Recently my telescope has not been outside.

It's on the other side of my desk. It's a giant Computerized

[00:36:11] Jake: rig so I'm oh, yeah, bro. I'm like, So you can capture me from the telescope. 

As 

can take your selfie. I can take a picture of you taking your selfie. podcast in 

[00:36:21] Jay: podcast in space Wow. Podcast in space. I was going to do one in the flying, but in space is a different, yeah, maybe that's maybe that'll be the

next iteration.

That'll be my, that'll be my thing. I'll do if I can't fail. All right. Well, you

were awesome, Jake. If people want to find you, if they want to find, your company, well, what's the best way to do that?

[00:36:38] Jake: Touchpoint Design. We are, you follow us on socials. The one that probably everyone has most is Instagram. we are at touchpoint underscore, design. and you can find me, I guess we can link it in the show notes too.

My last name's a little funky. It's Kleinman Phillips,

but we'll link everything in the show notes, but, follow Touchpoint, follow me on socials.

And come on, grow your knowledge of information and start a conversation.

That's what we're all here 

[00:37:05] Jay: it. Well, Jake, you're fantastic my friend. I will put everything in the show notes And other than that man, stay cool. It's hot as hell out there today. I think I saw it's gonna be a record high today so,

[00:37:14] Jake: Oh God, 

[00:37:15] Jay: it's gonna be hot. It's gonna be hot I think

we're gonna get lots of record highs from here on until you know, we figure this

thing out, 

[00:37:21] Jake: records. 

[00:37:22] Jay: Not the records you want to break.

[00:37:23] Jake: No, we don't want to break those 

[00:37:25] Jay: Those are not the records you want to break. All right, buddy. I'll talk to you man. Have a good rest of your day See

[00:37:29] Jake: Thanks 

Jay. I appreciate it. See. 

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