Podcast 7 – Making Work Fun!

Hey everyone. It's Matt Shiebler your host of the Interactive Entrepreneur sponsored by Interactive Accountants, where we help minimize your taxes and measure your success. Today's gonna be a solo cast. And what I wanna speak to my fellow entrepreneurs about today is making work fun. As an entrepreneur, sometimes we run into these ruts as I'll call it where work just isn't fun and it's work.

And what can we do to get ourselves out of these ruts and get back into the groove for lack of a better word, to enjoy what we do. Now for me, believe it or not, I actually really enjoy doing this podcast. And that was one element of my work that I recently implemented. Cuz obviously the Interactive Entrepreneur is a new podcast and I really like doing this.

So I added this to my workload and it's fun for me. I really enjoy, you know, sharing my. Experiences as well as talking with other entrepreneurs and having them share their experience with our users on the, on the, uh, podcast here. But what is it that we can do as entrepreneurs to make work fun again? So I'm just gonna throw out a couple suggestions and let you know what we're doing as well here at, uh, Interactive Accountants.

Well, one of the recent, uh, things that we did and I've spoken about it in the past is we did a team retreat where everyone got together and it was at a, you know, remote location where we, we actually did have to fly in. Um, but at the. That doesn't necessarily mean that you have to, you know, pick some exotic location or anything like that.

If, if you know the budget's a little tight, it could be just be, you know, like maybe, uh, at the park and you rent out a pavilion and, and have a barbecue, um, and have these little team retreats where you get together with your staff. , you know what I mean? And you can do some training. You can just have some fun, you know, maybe you wanna play corn hole or, you know, have a couple of, uh, you know, cocktails of your choice, whatever it may be.

And, you know, just enjoy the time together outside of work. Some other things that I was reading about is maybe doing like a pot. Where, you know, everybody brings something to the office that day, or if everybody's remote, which is what's happening a lot nowadays. And we have, um, at Interactive Accountants, we actually do like a team lunch on zoom once, once a month.

Um, and you know, it gets a little monotonous. Sometimes I'm not gonna lie, but at the same time, it's also a nice time where we connect with one another and we are not talking about work. Talking about, you know, kids and, you know, stuff going on in our lives. And you know, whatever's happening in the news that day, perhaps, uh, some companies that are larger could actually form like a, a softball team or some type of sports team of their choice and, you know, get together after work or on the weekends and have some fun that way.

If you are. You know, into exercise, maybe a couple of your fellow employees want to join a gym together and you can exercise together or you can, you know, if you're more of a techie company and, you know, maybe you wanna introduce, um, some type of, you know, something fun that employees can do while they're having lunch, you know?

I wouldn't suggest the dart board because maybe those things start getting thrown at some of the other employees, but, you know, maybe you want to introduce, um, some like a chess game or maybe connect four even, or something simple, like, uh, you know, a poker game that doesn't involve money so that, you know, there's no hard feelings there, but, um, things like this that we can implement in our company to help make work fun.

Now as the boss of the company or as a, you know, a, a C level entrepreneur, what else can we do in our lives to make work fun again? Now, when I first started Interactive Accountants, uh, it was a real exciting time in my life. and you know, the first client I got, wow. I was super stoked about that. And you know, now having been in more seasoned as entrepreneur, when we get a new client, I'm very happy about it, but I, but the feeling of that first client that I got when I first opened our firm here versus the feeling today, when we bring on a new client, it's different and.

I would love to get that feeling back. I would love to feel as excited as I did when I got my first client with every client I get today. Uh, however, you know, with maturity and, you know, experience it's, it's going to change. So what is it that we could do as entrepreneurs to sometimes, you know, get that excitement back in our life.

Um, for me as an entre, This is what I'm doing right now. The things that I don't like doing, I am completely delegating now to staff the things that I do like doing like this podcast, as well as doing some tax mitigation, work for our clients, as well as. Mentoring my staff, as well as going out there and trying to hustle new business.

Those are the things I really like doing. And that's what I'm focused on. And I have communicated this to all my employees. I've told them flat out, look, everyone, this is where I'm going to be focusing my efforts. Which means you as employees need to be focusing your efforts on these other items that I used to help you with.

Now, I have taken the time to mentor and train a lot of our employees to, to handle those other tasks. Um, but I am at a point now where I am pass, you know, I have to say 80%, I'm gonna say 80% of those tasks have been given up. I've still probably hold down to about 20%. You know what I mean? Uh, it's hard letting go of a few things, but I'm on my way.

And by doing that, I have freed up a lot of my time to focus on these things that I truly enjoy doing today as a profess. I love mentoring my staff. I truly enjoy going out there and networking or meeting with a new prospective client. And I really enjoy helping clients mitigate their taxes and I'm, and I'm, you know, not to, not to, you know, shake my own tail, but I'm, I do a pretty good job.

I'm not the best, but I do a pretty good. So those are the things I like doing. Those are the things that I believe at this stage in a game is where I am most valuable to my company. And there are employees at my company that are more valuable doing the one to one financial statement, valuations, whatever it may be then me.

So whether you are. An entrepreneur, that's manufacturing, you know, let's say beauty cream or you're an attorney that's working divorce cases. I would cur I would strongly suggest that if you are feeling that work is not fun anymore, that you take some time and just do what I do, what I do, which is I do a balance sheet.

Right. So. Asset side. This is what I really like doing liability side. This is what I don't like doing. And anything that's on that liability side that you don't like doing, find someone that enjoys doing it. Cuz there are, there are people that enjoy doing the things we don't believe it or not. And that may be a virtual assistant that may be.

A new hire that may be challenging someone within your existing organization to take on that role. But freeing yourself from those liabilities is in my opinion, what's gonna make us happy.

I don't mean to toot my own horn there, but I just figured I'd throw that out. So if you are an entrepreneur and you are finding work, not fun, then you need to take some time and figure out what it is you enjoy doing in your. And then just do that. It may mean that you need to give up some of the company.

It may mean that you need to hire someone. It may mean you need to challenge someone in your existing organization, or it may mean that you know what you and Jim, maybe you're just not having any fun at. Maybe you wanna try something new and maybe now's the time to sell, you know, those are some of the experiences that I have seen in working with other entrepreneurs for 20 years, as well as being an entrepreneur myself.

If, uh, if you wanna chat more about making work fun. Please feel free to reach out to me at (305) 517-3977. That is the office telephone number for Interactive Accountants, where I Matt Shiebler work. Or you can email me, Matt IA dot that's Matt M a TT. I like Idaho a like Alaska dot T a X. Once again, everyone.

Thank you for listening to the Interactive Entrepreneur sponsored by Interactive Accountants. I really hope you enjoy today's solo cast. And I really look forward to speaking with you guys. Making work fun. Have a great day, everyone.