Busting the Busy Myth: Discovering Freedom In A Digital Age with Braith Bamkin

Jeff Kikel: 00:00:00

Hello, Freedom Nation. It's Jeff here for another episode of The Freedom nation podcast. And today on the show, I get to interview break Babkin braith is from Australia. He started his career out in corporate and then moved into entrepreneurship and later into owning a large networking franchise. And through that process, he continued to redevelop and redevelop and re invent himself to what he's doing now, which is speaking, training and mentoring. And it's what he absolutely loves to do. So please make sure you stay tuned. And we'll see you back here after the intro.

FN Intro/Outro: 00:00:43

Welcome to the Freedom Nation podcast with Jeff Kikel. On this show, Jeff shares his expertise in financial and retirement planning from a different perspective. Planning for Your Freedom Day, which is the first day that you wake up and have enough income or assets and do not have to go to work that day. Learn how to calculate what you need, how to generate income sources, and listen to interviews from others who've done it themselves. Get ready to experience your own Freedom Day.

Jeff Kikel: 00:01:18

Hey, everybody, welcome to the freedom nation podcast. It's Jeff here. And today on our show, we're going to talk to Braith Bamkin So Braith is Down Under in Australia, some of our Australian friends that we've had on previous shows, he and I get to talk a little bit today 6am His time 4pm My time, or 3pm my time, but we're on different days at this point. So Greg, how you doing my friend?

Braith Bamkin: 00:01:46

Good, Jeff, man, it's great to be here. Amazing that we can do this in this day and age. You know, the coolest thing was,

Jeff Kikel: 00:01:54

I mean, that's the thing that I tell people when people talk about podcasting, and I want to make this live, I want to make a living doing podcasting. Okay, you may or may not. But what I value out of this is I have friends, literally on every continent around the world. I've interviewed people in China, on European continent, Australia. So I have friends everywhere, and I know any place I go on vacation, I'm gonna have somebody there that I know that we can hang out.

Braith Bamkin: 00:02:23

I know that you'll have a beer with somebody in Australia.

Jeff Kikel: 00:02:27

Very cool. Well, why don't we kick off with your story? How did you get to where you are today?

Braith Bamkin: 00:02:33

Oh, wow. You know, I started working in the 80s. I'm that old. I remember. Back in the old I've been

Jeff Kikel: 00:02:41

Started the same way

Braith Bamkin: 00:02:42

Technology was really new. And I remember the fax machine. And I remember when fax machines first came into offices. And do you remember when the very first fax machines came in, there was that thermal printed paper, like a minute to like, print out one page mean today, people would look at that just laugh when you couldn't take that long.

Jeff Kikel: 00:03:08

But my favorite was when you got the multi page one, and it kept rolling up and and falling on the floor, and yet all crawling all over the floors.

Braith Bamkin: 00:03:15

So I started working a long time ago. But my very first boss said to me, if you want to be successful in business, you need to learn how to help people in their business, because they're not going to want to help you unless you want to help them first. And I remember at the time really not understanding that. But she mentored me over the next couple of years. And it was an amazing experience. And I learned from that time that helping other people was really the way you got ahead in business. And I think that's been my special sauce. And I've worked in corporate and I spent many years in the telco industry. I worked at Nokia when it was super, super cool when those little small phones were coming in. And I talked about the fax machine for a reason. Because through my life, I've seen this progression of technology. And when those fax machines came in, I remember us saying we were going to change the world and we the machines do the work and we'll be kicking back by the beach. And then when I worked in telco we were like wow, this is really cutting edge. Well, we're really going to work less and have more fun, the machines will do everything. But as I've progressed through my career, we've got more and more technology, I guess what we work more, we're working long. We're working harder, and we're slaves to that technology. So I've had this career progression through that through telco that I had a mattress store, I bought myself a mattress store. I own that for many years. I got involved in a networking group, I became the Executive Director of that networking group, and I grew that really big and then out of that, I started seeing that some entrepreneurs and some business people and some humans. What seemed to be more successful than that. Although I've kind of started documenting that, and what it because I'm pretty hard to sign, I'm pretty lazy. If somebody else has done it, I'm not gonna recreate it. I'm just gonna copy what you did, right? Why not

Jeff Kikel: 00:05:11

Use a Texas expression that says VA ain't stealing ain't working hard enough.

Braith Bamkin: 00:05:18

So I documented this stuff. And I started seeing that there were behaviors and language frameworks that really successful people had consistently. And I thought, wow, this is really cool. And I started talking about this to the people that I knew and they were going, Wow, this is really amazing. You've learned a lot of stuff. And people started inviting me on to their company to their, to their leaders. And like, I had never intended to be a keynote speaker. And then it just started growing. And so that became a business. So my keynote speaking business started to really take off. And then I'd had a personal injury. And I wrote a book about coming back. And I use breath work and laughter yoga to bring myself back from that. And that was actually a personal injury brought about by having a bad business partner relationship. So I had a Bell's palsy in the middle of Colombia, and Bell's Palsy is in Columbia, English, but also. So anyway, yeah, that's a whole other story. But, but then my thinking stuff happened. And I mentor people come to me, people wanted me to coach them, but I just didn't feel that was the right fit for me. So people have come to me over the years now I have a sort of a mentorship is. And so that's really cool. That's my progression from the fax machine to technology. Now, technology truly serves me, and I'm on a mission to have people have that same experience as well.

Jeff Kikel: 00:06:41

Well, now, let's talk a little bit about that. Because I think the current revolution that's happening with AI, I think, yeah, maybe the one revolution that we have, that makes us work a lot less, personally, at this point, what's your thoughts?

Braith Bamkin: 00:06:59

Look, 100% Agree, if people use it the way it was intended, because I've observed that come through years of using, people haven't used it to serve them, they become a slave to it, I think I could easily become a problem. If people aren't using it the right way. If you use it the way it's intended, you're going to create space in your life, you're going to create time, and you are going to create freedom in your life. And I know I use that word, because I know that is a podcast, but you will create freedom in your life. So space is freedom, right? So if you use it the right way, you will be able to do tasks very quickly. And I use it all the time, because I love it. But I'm very intentional about it. We call him with a very clear, this is what I'm looking to achieve. This is the outcome I want. And this is the timeframe I'm willing to spend working on it. And I'm also good enough, you know, is good enough type of guy, I'm not a perfection guy. I'm like, if it's 80% there, I'm okay with that I can live with 80% Yeah, because my 80% is probably better than most people's many people. 100% Yeah, but we can spend our life giving that last 20%. But you know, the amount of time to get there is not the investments not worth it. So if you use AI to give you that freedom, then you do have freedom. But I'm noticing already my colleagues and some of my friends, there's they're becoming slaves to AI to AI, and they don't ask the right questions, because it's all about in life. And in business, your outcome is determined by the quality of questions you ask, right? So if you don't ask the right questions, you're gonna get stuff that's not great. And then you'll spend a lot of time massaging it like you ask the right question upfront, you frame it, right? You're gonna get the answer pretty much straight away. But most people just say, write me an email to a grumpy customer. And you get what does that mean? If you don't tell it exactly what why you won't get exactly what you need. And then you got to spend all this time fixing it, right?

Jeff Kikel: 00:08:58

Yeah, well, I found one of the things, especially with chat TPT with what I do with Freedom Day, I mean, there's nothing earth shattering, ugly, new, about what I do. A lot of these concepts are things that have been around for years. It's just I sequenced them a little bit differently. And I call them different things. And so what I had to do, I had a probably a good solid two to three months of training chat GPT to be able to speak my language. And we have one chat. So I created one chat where everything related to Freedom Day is in and it's probably I would venture to say is probably 400,000 words at this point that are in one chat. And then now all I have to do is because it understands it understands my sequencing, it understands the language I use. Now all I do is say, hey, write me an SEO optimized article on bla bla bla. This is it. Boom. It comes out in five seconds and it's real. Pretty much 90% There, all I have to do is go in and add some personal story to it. And I'm ready to get.

Braith Bamkin: 00:10:07

You've nailed it. Because you really, you're teaching it what you want. And you're asking it the right questions and you're letting its prior learning give you the outcome will just go in and start your chats, and they don't. So you've just nailed that. So that's the way you get touch APA to serve you, right?

Jeff Kikel: 00:10:24

Yeah. And that's what I'm experimenting with some of the other ones, I've kind of come across two or three others. And I'm starting to experiment with like Google Bard and a couple of the other ones, but I always fall back to check GPT I laugh because I'm like, I fall back. I've already been using it for six months. I mean, the things really only been public for about eight months. Now. I was the adopter, but you know, I think I can see that is the one place where we can. This is a technology promise that may actually help if you learn how to use it proper.

Braith Bamkin: 00:10:54

Correct. 100%. And I'm the same as the inmate, I've tried other ones, I feel like I'm cheating on chat. GPD when I try other ones, but you know, I go back to it because it knows me and knows what I want. And I've spent time investing in it. And I actually used an AI before chat GPT exploded on another platform. And it was clunky, it was difficult and just touch up t just seems to be that's where it's at moment.

Jeff Kikel: 00:11:20

I tell people, it's my second wife. She tells me what to do. She tells me what to do. And I actually listened to her. Back to my wife, actually, so what is their? I know you're doing a lot of this mentorship. I know you've been involved in BNI in Australia and growing that is there anything that you're kind of working on future projects at this point?

Braith Bamkin: 00:11:48

Yeah, I'm writing a really exciting book at the moment. I'm so excited about it. So my new book is called busting the busy myth. And it's all about how I've seen seriously busy people like, really, truly because people use that word a lot. And that doesn't usually mean what it really means. But I've seen how really successful people have a lot going on, never use the word busy. They never create this framework of business around them. And I've seen people who seem to have a lot of stress and anxiety and challenges in their life. They use busy in two ways. They use it as a shield. And they use it as a badge. So the shield is I'm not organizing my life, my life is just chaos. So I'm using that as a way of deflecting whatever you want from me because I just can't, I'm just not dealing with what's going on. And the second one is the badge. And so people seem to feel they need to say I'm so busy as like a badge of honor. When really what happens when you use the word is you think about when you're you said to your Dad, let's go outside and play dad said no, I'm too busy. What does that make you feel it makes you feel insignificant, or my dad doesn't love me, my dad, I'm not important to my dad. But the reality is, as adults, the word has the same effect because words have power. So when you say to somebody, I'm busy, you're immediately saying, Well, you're not a priority in my life. And if you're not a priority in my life, the information that you bring to me is not worthwhile. So if you are an entrepreneur or a business owner, or even somebody in the corporate world, and you constantly say I'm too busy, I'm busy on this, I don't have time I'm busy. I'm crazy busy. I've Kumi meetings and all that stuff that we use. What do you do? You shut down opportunity. Because if people think you're so busy, there's no point in speaking to Jeff because he's too busy. Because he's been telling me for the last two years, then business opportunities, personal opportunities, family and fun and friend opportunities. They just start to dry up because it's very Pavlovian. You keep talking. You're busy. But takeout for us is let's not bother him because he's too busy. So we won't ask him to that picnic with all the friends on Sunday, because we know he's too busy. Right? So what do you what are you missing out on by using the busy badge. That's and I'm really excited about and I've gone back to the origins of the word and that's I've done a lot of research. It's fascinating. And you know how it's evolved, particularly since the fax machine era since the 80s is when we really started using that word in a different way. And I don't really remember this as well as in the 70s. I wasn't old enough, but you know, apparently that kind of wasn't a thing that people were saying. Yeah, and really since the 80s. It's become a battle. And in the last 10 years, it's really not just become the badge of honor, but it's also become a deflector shield. So I'm really excited. And I've got a keynote that I'm working on with that as well that I'm looking to deliver because I think it's really about your mindset. It's really about how you show up in the world. but it's also about whether or not you're giving space to your life in the world. Because when you don't use that word, you're actually saying yourself, I'm worthy of whatever opportunities are coming my way. But I'm also giving myself space. And I'm not creating because busy has a level of anxiety around it today, the words attached to anxiety. So people who are in a constant state of anxiety, they often say, busy, I've caught myself doing it outside. And it's difficult word to remove from your lexicon, because it's so ingrained in what we say. I mean, I use it as an experiment now asked people Hi, how are you? What's going on? Have business? Yeah, I'm so busy. I got I know what's going on with you. Yeah.

Jeff Kikel: 00:15:43

I purposely did a an exercise. So I do a keynote. And I just, I'm launching a new a new Udemy course on this, that I call procrastination for fun and profit. I love the whole idea behind it as I've used this acronym for years, called idea. So it's identify what needs to be done, delegate, eliminate, and automate the process. And anything that's left over after that is things that I absolutely need to do. And then I just, I basically create personal objectives and key results for that. And I've been using that for years because I used to use Yeah, oh, what's going on? Oh, I'm so busy. I'm so busy. I'm so busy. And I got to the point where I started saying, busy is not a strategy, you know, when I would meet people, so I purposely did this for an entire year, when somebody would say, Hey, what's going on with you right now, I tell you what, I'm having the best day I've ever had, here's what's going on in my life, and didn't say busy for an entire year. And it's now it's pretty much out of my lexicon. I just, I never say it anymore because of that.

Braith Bamkin: 00:16:51

My I'm proud of you. That is awesome. You're the kind of guy that I would hang out with. Because when you use that language, you want to hang out with people like you, right? You don't want to hang out with people. I didn't know the book. The one thing the guy's from Gary Keller. So yeah, I love that book. I'm actually going to the conference later this year in Phoenix, so I'm really looking for that. But

Jeff Kikel: 00:17:16

Those guys are based here in Austin. Yeah,

Braith Bamkin: 00:17:18

Yeah, I know, I know, they, I can't wait to meet them. I'm kind of like, I'm gonna meet Rob.

Jeff Kikel: 00:17:24

I do some training, or I still do some training for people in the real estate business. And so I got to know, Gary, I've been to several of his events, and his partner and the guys that do their training. I've been to several events when I moved here to Austin. So yeah, I love the approach. It's just like, get things done. Yeah, just get it done. Get, I have a list or I have a form that I use, that has roughly 15 tasks that need to be completed, or key results that need to be completed each week. And then all I have to do is just take those and drop them down and do three of those a day. And I know I'm going to complete key three key reveal 15 Key Results a week.

Braith Bamkin: 00:18:03

So I'm looking at making your life, we'll make your life simple, and free. And that's kind of like the point of life, right? Life's not meant to be busy.

Jeff Kikel: 00:18:13

Yeah, by my nature, I'm lazy. So the least that I can possibly work, the better. I had that badge of honor of working 70 hour weeks and all this and wasn't accomplishing anything. And thank God for COVID Because COVID made me slow down and realize there was actually a world outside of work. I found religion and said, No, I'm just not doing that.

Braith Bamkin: 00:18:35

Good on you. That's great. I love your journey. And you're kind of guy I like to hang out with because I love people who have that kind of framework. It's it's a cool framework, but not everyone shares. Because somehow some people seem to think that crazy is important, but it ain't

Jeff Kikel: 00:18:50

Ya know, it? Is it crazy or Kelly a pretty quick and easy. So

Braith Bamkin: 00:18:55

Similarly, I lost a friend to that, who was crazy, busy all the time, and he dropped dead at 40 from a heart attack.

Jeff Kikel: 00:19:03

What's the point? I mean, I want to drop dead like my grandmother did at 93. The woman had been in the hospital five times in her life four times to have four kids and one time when she died. It was there for all of two days. I mean, that's the life I want to live. So

Braith Bamkin: 00:19:20

What what it sounds like

Jeff Kikel: 00:19:23

She was she had outlived every one of her friends and was already starting to hang out with their kids. By the time she hit 90. So yeah, it was like she is hanging out with the younger crowd that was all in their 70s at that point.

Braith Bamkin: 00:19:37

She sounds like a really cool lady.

Jeff Kikel: 00:19:39

She was awesome. She was awesome. And we did a surprise party for her 90th birthday, which was probably not a good thing to do with a 90 year old but she had a hell of a good time. And it was like she was the queen and everybody came to her so. Oh, that's fun. Well, cool. Let's transition to the Fast Five question. Students now ready? Yes, I am ready. Alright, so we're here we go. First question. You wake up in the morning business is totally gone. You have a laptop computer 500 American dollars in your pocket, place to live. So we've been clothing, what are you doing? First?

Braith Bamkin: 00:20:21

I am picking up the phone to my business mentor my life and business mentor, and I'm going to have a chat to her. And we're going to workshop the next steps because you don't have to. If you've got a great network, and you've got people that love you and care about you, you've got always got to weigh out.

Jeff Kikel: 00:20:38

Yep. Awesome. What is the biggest business mistake you've ever made?

Braith Bamkin: 00:20:47

This person is not listening. Having a business partner wasn't that this person wasn't a good person. But we were on different trajectories in our business life. That person was wanting to head towards retirement and I was wanting to grow. And we were using the business with very different trajectories. And it became very obvious after a time, those trajectories had moved so far apart that we were in different places. So that was a very painful and expensive way to extricate somebody out of a business by but by realizing that but if I hadn't have learned that lesson, then I probably wouldn't be where I am. Now. It was a tough, expensive, painful lesson. But it was a good lesson. Because now I know that I am able to do stuff by myself. And I'm awesome. And yeah, I just love the business. I deserve to be in business for myself.

Jeff Kikel: 00:21:46

I'm the same as you. So I had, I've had probably six business partners. I'm right, I'm about a month away from exercising the last one from my life here pretty quick. And it'll just be my wife. And I always say my wife's been my best business partner I've ever had, because she hasn't screwed me. It's the only one that hasn't screwed me over in one way or another during that time period. So life is good. Yeah, like I said, I mean, the people that I had my life at times were there to help me get to where I'm at. But it always seems in that in the end, otherwise it wouldn't end. I mean, basically at that point, so for so

Braith Bamkin: 00:22:23

For some people, but more people have our viewpoint than not in my experience.

Jeff Kikel: 00:22:28

I'm good with just figuring it out myself now. Alright, what is a good book that you would recommend for our audience?

Braith Bamkin: 00:22:36

But I talked about the one thing before, but I'll tell you one that I love. I mean, I love the one thing I'd go back to that often. But one of my favorite books is The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson. I absolutely love that book. Do you know?

Jeff Kikel: 00:22:49

No, I'm not. This is a new one. So cool.

Braith Bamkin: 00:22:51

I love it. I love it. I was thinking I wonder how many people have said this on his podcast. But the slight edge principle is it's really the one percenters 1% That little tiny things that you do today aren't going to have a massive impact on your life tomorrow, but incrementally over time they do. So if I eat McDonald's every day for a week, I'm not really gonna see much I might feel a bit sluggish but not that McDonald's is bad but you know, eating fast food I don't want to shouldn't have use the brand but you know fast food every day for a week, I'll probably eat fast food every meal for three years, you're gonna see a marked change in your life, right? It's it's not going to end well. But if you conversely, go to the gym tomorrow, you're not gonna look like Arnold swats and Saraswathi Nagar the day after. But you do that every day for three years, you're going to see a marked change in your health and your physicality. So it's all the little one percenters. It's like compounding interest, we will tiny one thing is too often in business, I think we're always looking for the big thing to happen right now. But when you, I don't know about you, but when I look back on my business life, it's like, I get two big points. But it's always the sum total of the little things. And I liken it to the actor who says I was an overnight success. So after 25 years of trying to get here type of thing. I did all that work, you didn't fill out what they were doing all sorts of big parts, commercials, whatever. And then they finally they land, the ultimate role and they get there. And so it's really about doing little things over time consistently to get a great result. And it's really helped me to understand that is the way to move the dial a little tiny bit every day. I think you use it, but from what you were talking about before, they probably use a similar principle with the 15 things, little things every day. And ultimately you get to the big thing, right?

Jeff Kikel: 00:24:45

Yep. Well, I mean, it's it's why three key results today gets me to the objectives that I have for the quarter for the annual everything and it's just the three key steps every day. Key Results every day and but you have to identify the right key results in a lot of these cases. I think one of my favorite was I was at a podcast convention and and John Lee Dumas is there who's who's been a mentor of mine for years. The reason I podcast The reason I'm an entrepreneur is because of John show. And somebody asked him, Well, what does it take to be a successful podcast? Or what did you use to become successful? And John said, Well, I got up every day for 2000 days. And I did a podcast I interview. Yeah. And it's like, and I became successful at that point

Braith Bamkin: 00:25:42

Is the first step you got to show up?

Jeff Kikel: 00:25:44

My friend, Mr. Peon says, If you you got to show up to blow up. So

Braith Bamkin: 00:25:50

Yeah, my perfect, what is the tool that

Jeff Kikel: 00:25:53

You use in your business every day that you might recommend?

Braith Bamkin: 00:25:57

Well, I'd love to sign checks every day. But you know, I do that every day. But in the last couple of months, I've been using a really cool tool that I love, love. And that's really rocked my world. And I really encourage anybody who is in sales or personal relationship businesses to really look into this because I'm a judge on the Australian Marketing Institute Awards. And I've just finished that. And the hottest trend in marketing at the moment is personalization, like personalizing marketing, really, like it's hard, like if somebody can do it with technology. But what I use is this thing called Send Spark, I love it, love it, love it. It's a it's a Chrome extension. And I think it's like 20 bucks a month or something. And effectively, what it does is it, you talk, you drop down from the Chrome menu, the icon pops up with a little window, and you record your emails. So I don't write hardly any emails anymore. I record emails. But what it does is, it's super cool, because it drops into your email as like a little talking head picture of you. So people know when they get it, they're not getting a URL link, which I wouldn't personally open because it could kind of send me an email, there's a URL I'm like, but that doesn't look good. I'm gonna I'm gonna junk that just sends me an email. When I see his face talking in that video, I'm gonna go well, I know Jeff's talking to me. So I'll click on that. So I will do the 92nd, two minute videos to communicate to people. And I might put some other stuff underneath that email, but it's reducing the amount of time I spend on email. But it's also getting massive return, right? Because people love it. And they're highly engaged with it. And they think it's really cool. And it's easy to deal with. And if you're doing any reach out stuff, it's super cool. Internal stuff, it's really easy. Instead of seeing that big, long email, because if the email is longer than my screen, you ain't getting me to read it. Right? So I'm opening that. So it's increasingly open rates. It's increasing my response rate. So I love maybe everyone will be doing that won't be exciting anymore. But at the moment, I think that's really impactful.

Jeff Kikel: 00:28:01

It sounds somewhat similar to like Bom Bom, and some of those that were out that were popular a couple years ago. Yeah. Yeah,

Braith Bamkin: 00:28:09

it's similar to Bom, Bom. It's way cheaper. I think it's got more features. Bom was really great. I had used online, and I liked this even better, it's just simpler. It's cheaper. It's just effective.

Jeff Kikel: 00:28:22

I like it. I love it. I've never heard of it. So I got to do a little exploration. So thank you for Okay, last question for you. What is your definition of freedom?

Braith Bamkin: 00:28:33

I really love this about you saw it. For me freedom is being able to like we mentioned before we got on the show that I'm going to Dallas to a three day retreat in Dallas is being able to book that and decide that I can get up and go and know that my business is still going to be here, when I get back and no one will have died, the business will still be going and the cash flow will be happening. And being able to make those choices for me. Because that's something that's really important to me. That is total freedom. I get to do what I want when I want and I have people around me that will support me and my business while I'm doing the things that are really important to me. And I love that.

Jeff Kikel: 00:29:15

Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you for that. That's a great speech to have on that. If somebody is interested in reaching out to you or learning a little bit more about you what's the easiest way to find you with a nightlife

Braith Bamkin: 00:29:26

bitebank And I've got my own website it's really easy to jump on and bright Ben can.com Find me you can find me on LinkedIn. There's buckets of free stuff on my website. So I jump on there if you want to book me for a virtual conference in America I love them I'm getting a lot of these speaking gigs in America I just find it so exciting that people invite me on in America these virtual conferences and and I love it. So yeah, just jump on there. You'll find all the details you need.

Jeff Kikel: 00:29:52

Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, Bray thank you so much for waking up early and getting with us and sharing your knowledge and X Matisse. We appreciate having you on today.

Braith Bamkin: 00:30:02

Jeff, it's been a pleasure, man. I really enjoyed it.

Jeff Kikel: 00:30:06

I'm a Well folks, thank you very much. This is what we do the show's for is to share people like braith with you. We do these every Tuesday and Thursday. So make sure if you haven't already, subscribe to the channel and make sure that you subscribe wherever you're at, or on all the major podcast channels as well. As we run these, we put the best stubs on our YouTube channel with the videos. If you'd like to see it via video, jump over to our YouTube channel, which is Freedom Day with Jeff kichel on YouTube. So thanks a lot and we will see you guys back here the very next time.