S5E80
· 01:02:34
Hey. It's Matt. Welcome to Money Lab. I'm in the brewery today. And if I'm being honest, I don't have anything to talk about.
Matt Giovanisci:And you're like, why the hell did you hit record? Well, because I wanna talk about something. Right. And I have an inkling of an idea. I wanna title this episode, how to eat it how do you eat an elephant?
Matt Giovanisci:This is something that I've been kind of thinking a lot about recently, and I'm recording this in April, mid April. We are really not even in pool season yet, but things are starting to pick up. And I am practicing this idea of doing less doing less, but more with that time. And so far, it's been kinda nice. It's been really stress free, and it makes me really clear on it on on the business, and it has allowed me to kind of think more about what I wanna do with the rest of my day.
Matt Giovanisci:So let me explain what I'm what I mean specifically using an example of of today, for example. Alright. So today so so, okay, I have been doing a lot of work in my brewery. I've been changing I I got a new big piece of equipment, my new glycol chiller, and I'm, like, kind of revamping my entire strategy on how I ferment, and I I started doing all these things. So I have parts ordered and things are taking their time, and the old me would be really impatient.
Matt Giovanisci:He would order all the part he would wait to order all the parts at once and then pay the extra money for the fast shipping, and then set aside an entire weekend or, you know, take off days to spend in the brewery and just work on a single project until it was complete. And that sort of brute force, you know, all or nothing mentality leads to burnout. It's what I truly, I believe that. One of the one example of that of that of me doing that, and I was just talking about it today with Steph, I built, standing next to it now, I built a keezer. It is a chest refrigerator or chest freezer that I converted into a refrigerator, and I put 6 tap lines into it and I can hold 10 kegs.
Matt Giovanisci:And I spent 5 days building it. Steph went out of town for something back in 2021, I think it was, and I researched everything, bought all the parts, got everything in, and then, like, just for 5 days straight, that's all I did. And I'm proud of it. I I I completed it, but it and and I I don't remember being stressed out about it, but it was something that didn't exist that I made exist. And it's great that it exists.
Matt Giovanisci:It's been one of the most useful things I've ever built. However, I have this same mentality when it comes to working on Swim University or literally insert project name here. I have always been somebody who set aside would set aside an entire day or or even think through an entire week of, like, this is all I'm going to do, And I really wanted that. I really wanted to I really wanted my life to operate that way. In fact, when I started Money Lab, that was the purpose of Money Lab, was to allow me to to sink my teeth into a big hairy project where I didn't have to think about anything else.
Matt Giovanisci:I could only think about that one thing, and I would do it until it was done. Unfortunately, every single time I did a project like that, I would burn out, or during the time of that project, I would be a complete zombie because all I could do was think about that project. One of my superpowers is being incredibly focused. I can I can focus? My father would argue that he is very focused, but needs some green help, if you know what I mean.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't do that. I don't I don't I don't take anything. So for me, I just have that natural focus because usually I'm doing things that I actually want to do. And even, truthfully, things I don't wanna do when I used to work in retail or anything else, like, I have to just get super focused, and it was kinda fun. So I crave that as a person, as a as a worker, is this is this big, big project all encompassing, shut the lights, shut the doors, like, let me just, like, patch in.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? It's kind of like how programmers can be sometimes. I I feel I do that too. I get very patched in. But recently, I've been limiting myself to the number of hours that I patch in, because for no other reason, it's just that I have other things that I wanna do, and it's sort of a I it's a practice that I have to get better at because I I need to make room in my life for other things.
Matt Giovanisci:Those other things are projects too. It's just they're they're they're very different. So I'm practicing that right now, and one of the things that I'm practicing or one of the things that I did today, as a matter of fact, there's a thing that I'm building I've talked about on the show before. There's a project that I'm building where somebody will be able to go to our home page, enter in you know, ask, it'll ask them a few questions, ask for their email, and then it will create them a custom pool care plan for the summer. And when I had the idea and I sat down and I thought about all the things, I everything in me triggered.
Matt Giovanisci:It was that that that project get her done mentality of of, like, just clear my fucking schedule. I'm gonna work on this from 8 in the morning until 8 at night, nonstop until this is finished. Like, I can brute force this done. And on top of that feeling, there's another feeling of, like, I want this to be amazing as well, and that is something I can't quantify. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:It's not it's like, what does what does that even mean? Those two things compete against one another and cause me to become overwhelmed. And that's ultimately what happened. And I decided to table it for a second. This also happened with the April fools urine detector bottle thing.
Matt Giovanisci:I got it in my head. I planned everything out, and I and everything in me just wanted to do everything fast, but there were things out of my control that sort of paced me out. Meaning, I had to wait for the bottles come in. I had to wait for my friend to get the bottle. I had to wait for this.
Matt Giovanisci:I had to wait for, you know, logistical things that I had to wait for, and I wasn't able to do everything in one day. And in in most cases, when when that problem arises, I would have planned everything out, ordered everything I needed to order, wait for it all to come in, and then sink my teeth in multiple days, just think nothing about that, terrible sleep, zombie like, you know, zombie like appearance and posture and all that kind of stuff throughout the day. I'm not saying that that's unhealthy. I'm just saying that it left no room in my day for anything else. That was it.
Matt Giovanisci:And in fact, sometimes in fact, most of the time, if something interrupted that, it would piss me off. It would piss me off. Case in point, if we run out of food, we have a we have a thing in our family, Steph and I, where we alternate food shopping. So she goes 1 week, I go another week. You know?
Matt Giovanisci:So we just alternate. We both hate food shopping. We've tried doing the delivery stuff. We hate that even more. So So one of us just has to go.
Matt Giovanisci:And when it was my turn, but I was in the middle of a project like that, it would it would it would piss me off. In fact, sometimes, I would wake up so early. I would wake up when I say so early, you know, the grocery store doesn't even open till 8. But I would wake up, do work, go to the grocery store as soon as it opened, run like a chicken with my head no. Not a chicken with my no.
Matt Giovanisci:Determined. I had my list. I will go through. I'll get it done, and I'll come home to get back on the computer. Don't fucking bother me.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm back on the computer. Like, that's how determined and focused I can get. Sometimes I get these really big ideas, and opportunities come knocking all the time. I always wanna pursue them. They always sound fun, or at least I say they sound fun.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't know if they truly believe that, or a new idea comes up and I'm like, that's a great idea. We should do that. Yeah. We should do all of the things. Right?
Matt Giovanisci:I mean, yeah, but we can't. Like, I can't. And then I've told this story before. I am sure I've told it on the podcast before, but the first time I ever heard the phrase or or I heard this anecdote of, like, I'm actually don't even know what this is. What do you call this?
Matt Giovanisci:But how do you eat an elephant one bite at a time? The first time I heard that was from my father, and it was during it so I I was I was this is how crazy this is. I was still living at home. Now I haven't lived I moved out of my parents' house when I was, I wanna say, 20 3, maybe 22. So, yeah, I've not lived with them for a very long time.
Matt Giovanisci:But I was living with them, and I had started Swim University. And I was working on videos. I was working on, you know, creating a video for some university. And before I had even published anything on the YouTube channel, I had this idea where the intro of the video was gonna be the, from the point of view of a guy running and or a kid even running and jumping off a diving board or jumping into a pool from, like, that POV of that person, jumping into a pool. When they jumped in the pool, you know, a bunch of bubbles would rise up in front, and then it would reveal the student university logo behind that.
Matt Giovanisci:It's just a just an idea. It's a visual idea. And this is before GoPros, so I didn't I had I was telling my dad this idea, and I was like, okay. We need to get this, and I need to find a place to get a pool. We need to hire or hire an actor, and I gotta, fake learn how to use after effects and blah.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? I was like, just I just kept telling him the idea and then telling him all of the things that I needed to do in order to achieve this thing. And it was, like, be becoming overwhelmed, and 2 things came out of that conversation. The one thing came out of that conversation was, well, that sounds like a lot, and you're not gonna be able to do it in one day. And then he taught me the phrase, how to eat an elephant one bed at a time.
Matt Giovanisci:Oh, okay. Yeah. I get that. So break it down into the into easy digestible chunks, and then over time, you will have devoured it. Same with, like, Rome wasn't built in a day kind of vibes.
Matt Giovanisci:But the other thing that came from it was, why are you doing that? Like, is that the most important thing you could be working on? Like, you're you haven't even written a script for a video. You're thinking about the most complicated title card? He's like, I don't think anybody cares about that.
Matt Giovanisci:I think only you care about that. And it's like, he was right. Our title card today, I absolutely hate. I did it, but it's the quickest and easiest thing. However, you've used it for, like, I don't know, 5, 6, 7, 10 years.
Matt Giovanisci:So, clearly, no one gives a shit. No one would notice. Maybe a handful of people would be like, wow. You changed the title card. And only the people who even know how to call even to call it a title card would notice it.
Matt Giovanisci:So this happens a lot. This is still something that happens to me all the time where I will get an idea. I will think it's the most important thing. I get excited about it. I wanna start it.
Matt Giovanisci:I drop everything to do it. And ultimately, at the end, not every time, of course, but sometimes at the end, I would go, okay. That was fine. You know? No celebration.
Matt Giovanisci:No milestone reached, just done. Just done the project, next project. And then other times, I'll be like, was that really worth all that? And, ultimately, no. One of those instances that happened recently, and it really pissed me off, was the urine bottle.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I'm glad I did it. I thought, you know, it was it was fine. It's a fine little project we did. But you watched it happen or you listened to it happen in real time. I had the idea on this show.
Matt Giovanisci:I executed the idea. And at the end of a month, at the end of March, I launched it. So I worked on it for March. It was very important to me to do it. I knew exactly how to do it.
Matt Giovanisci:And at the end and then it and then it launched. At this time of recording this, I've sold a little over 200 bottles, which is not terrible, but, you know, over 200 empty bottles, which is, you know I mean, if you know the size of my audience, it's not that big of a deal, but it's still kind of a big deal, I guess. And then Steph said to me, like, yeah. That you know, you did it, But we could've done this other thing. We could've we could've done this other project, which we had been talking about beforehand, and it certainly would have made us way more money and would have had would have been way easier.
Matt Giovanisci:And I sat there with that comment, and I just felt like a piece of shit because I was just like, what what is this? What is this that I do? I I get an idea, and I just fucking run. And these 2 these these themes tie together with the elephant thing and just like chasing, and then it's very similar to shiny object syndrome, where I just chase the next idea or chase the dream or, you know, whatever it is. So that was a a very recent, very clear lesson on priority and what it is that I like, what student university actually is and what levers are really important?
Matt Giovanisci:Like, okay. Yeah. You did something, and it made money, but not really. There's a many there's many other things that I could have done in that month that would have been, oh, again, a lot easier and would have made more money. That's very clear to me now, and I didn't do those things.
Matt Giovanisci:And that's, you know hey. It's what it is. You know? Hindsight is 2020. So what does that mean?
Matt Giovanisci:What does that say? What does that, how does that get us to where we are today? How does that get us to the concept of the elephant? Well, like I said, this goal, this new idea that came up on the podcast as well, I I told Steph about it. She was like, that's a great idea, and I think that that's worth your time, that it's worth doing.
Matt Giovanisci:And I go, yeah. Okay. I agree. It's much simpler. It it has a lot of benefits to it.
Matt Giovanisci:And so but I I was like, okay. So idea is at least the company's on board. The validation is complete. This is unlike the urine bottle thing. I did not talk to Steph about that because I I probably because I knew she would be like, that's good idea, but, like, not like, it's a good idea, just not an idea that we should do.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, okay. Could've said no to it. So this new idea is simple, but I thought, alright. I can knock it out in a day, and I can't, and I couldn't, and I was getting overwhelmed by it, and I was trying to make it so big. And so what I did was I broke it down in into steps.
Matt Giovanisci:I went in Asana. I created my what I do is I create a master task. It's, you know, create this, whatever the project is. I could create a project and then break it down there, but it's short. So and then I wrote down every step that I needed to do in order to complete it.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I wrote everything down, and then what I did was I scheduled myself those tasks each day. Sometimes, the task was to simply, like, copy and paste some stuff into a notepad or something very, very simple, but, like, it would get me one step closer to completing the project. But it was incredibly simple, And I spaced it out one day at a time. And I didn't put anything on there that I knew would take, you know, more than a few hours. So I really chunked it out.
Matt Giovanisci:Now I this is maybe a a personal brag to some. Like I said, I am I'm one of my superpowers is being really focused. It also, by the way, like with any superpower, has its downsides. I become a zombie and I am and everything else in the world pisses me off and, you know, it's like there's a there is such a thing as, like, being too focused and being too driven. It does have its consequences.
Matt Giovanisci:So I decided to take this project and chunk it out. And I had to be okay, and this is a practice of mine. This is what I'm practicing doing as a person. I had to be okay with only doing that task and then stopping, knowing full well in that moment that I could keep going. Like, hey.
Matt Giovanisci:It's only 10 AM. I did the task I was supposed to do today. What now what? It's like, literally, it's not this. Go do something else.
Matt Giovanisci:And that may sound idiotic or crazy, but it is a practice that not everything I do has to be built right away. And what it's also teaching me is that I am much faster at doing things than I usually anticipate. Now some tasks have taken a few days, but I've been limiting my hours. I've been limit limiting my computer hours. And I work at a laptop, but I keep my laptop plugged into my I have 2 monitors that I plug it into, and I keep it plugged in.
Matt Giovanisci:And I kinda have this, like, personal rule for the month of I can't move it. I can't bring it upstairs, because I am in the basement. That's where my office is. And so that means that I have to go into the basement to do the work, and the basement's freezing cold. And it's very nice outside right now, and I'm stuck in the basement.
Matt Giovanisci:So what I try to do is go down there, complete only the things that are important, and then come up and then pretty much not go down there for the rest of the night. And then do other things that I wanna do, like the brewery work that I'm currently doing or this other thing, which I wanna get to in a second. There is so so that feeling is really good, but that feeling only really works when you don't have a bunch of other things vying for your attention. Now I've mentioned, I don't have children, which I know can be an attention suck, and I don't mean that negatively. But there are things that I've noticed, especially this year.
Matt Giovanisci:Now that I only have these 4 hours a day or I've I'm only giving myself these max 4 hours a day. I'm noticing things that are just taking up space in litter those literal hours and mind space. Since I started doing this practice, I've been sleeping so much better, by the way, because now I've always been a really good sleeper, but I've been sleeping so much better because I'm not thinking about work constantly. I'm not waking up in the middle of night thinking about work. Sometimes I'll wake up in the middle middle of the night, and my brain just kicks in, and it starts, like, trying to solve problems in the business.
Matt Giovanisci:And I'm like, I can't fuck. And then I'm like, I can't I have to put on TV, kinda like force myself to go back to sleep. You know? That's been happening in the last month or 2 since I started this, like, you know, urine bottle project that I've been, like, kinda nervous about the business, all the SEO talk and everything that's going on and, like, the world changing AI. You know, it's like all this stuff is it it, like, you know, it feels like it's threatening my business, but when I just ignore it and I just look at the business itself, I'm like, oh, it was fine.
Matt Giovanisci:It's not it's not really threatening it. I'm just reading too much. You know? So I'm noticing these things that are stealing that mind space, that attention, and I'm starting to release them. Now this is kind of like this kinda goes against what maybe makes sense, but there has been a lot of opportunity that has been, you know, asked of me or that have been offered to me, I guess, from various companies and various people who see what I do and go, I wanna work with that guy or I wanna partner with that guy or, you know, this I think this couldn't really make sense.
Matt Giovanisci:And it could be a very light partnership or it could be a very intense one. And it could be, you know, just an affiliate partnership or, you know, I'm partnering with a a a developer for my app and all these little relationships. And they're just some of them make complete sense and others are just like, yeah. They all well, you know what? They all make complete sense.
Matt Giovanisci:That's the that's the problem, is that they're all worth doing. But I literally can't do all of them. And the more that I just stack up, the more that my attention and focus goes gets spread thin, and then I'm not able to complete the job at hand. I'm on a Zoom call. I can't I I can't do this other thing.
Matt Giovanisci:Or then I go, okay. Well, I only have 4 hours a day to work on my thing. Well, one of those hours are gonna be taken up by doing this random podcast or doing this Zoom call or you know? And it's just like all of those things are extra things. If I didn't do them, if I said no to those opportunities, my business would be fine.
Matt Giovanisci:My life would be fine. In fact, it would have less stress. And the things that I'm saying yes to aren't the the the the the the crazy part is just, like, it feels like they're so easy, though. You know? I I could do them.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, wow. How easy would this be? How fun would that be? How cool would this be? And then they just keep fucking stacking.
Matt Giovanisci:And then by the time they're all done stacking, it's like, oh, yeah. Remember you have to go, like, film a bunch of videos? I'm like, oh, fuck. Yeah. You're right.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, okay. I'm gonna push that to another day because, like, I have 2 Zoom calls today, and it's like, I'm not gonna be, you know, whatever. It's like, alright. You see what you did? You stacked and you stacked, you spread yourself thin, and you really gotta come back.
Matt Giovanisci:You gotta learn to say no. And then and then instead of trying to, you know, barrel through the project, You chunk it out and you do it piece by piece, and the thing will be better for it. That's the irony too is that me sitting down and trying to fucking knock things out all in one take makes for a shittier product, a shittier end result, when if I just chunked it out, I got to sleep every night, come back with fresh eyes, things I can make things better because now I'm not stressed. I'm not overworked. I've gone and done other things.
Matt Giovanisci:I've gotten a little bit of perspective, the minor perspective just from being elsewhere in the world, coming back and going, oh, you know what? I could I know a better way to do this. And then only spending a few hours every day forces you to only do the things that are important because everything else just feels like a waste of time. Trying to overdo something feels like a waste of time. So you end up, because you're, like, limited, stripping away all the nonsense and getting to the core of what needs to be done.
Matt Giovanisci:And then you end up knocking it out way faster than you think, and then by the end of the week, you get a whole project done. And it was like, woah. Yeah. That that could have taken me 40 hours, but it really only took me 8 just because I spaced it out and I reduced the amount of work I needed to do and only focus on the core things knowing that I can keep improving over time. That's the elephant.
Matt Giovanisci:That's how that's how you eat an elephant, one chunk at a time. And it's much easier to to eat an elephant one bite at a time when that's all you have to really worry about for the day. My job is to eat an elephant, and that's it. I can only eat so much in a day, then I'm gonna do something else. And giving myself a little mental.
Matt Giovanisci:And and that's the other thing too is, like, the other thing that you do, I think it has to have some sort of mental freedom. Like, I think having a family is that. There is some you know, I remember and I've talked about this before. I remember Andrew, my old business partner, saying that he was looking forward to having kids because it would have forced him to basically do what I'm doing right now. He'll have to spend time with his kids, and so he'll have less time to work.
Matt Giovanisci:So he'd be forced to only work on things that mattered. I haven't talked to him about it, so I don't know if that actually paid off for him or not, but made sense. Now that leads me to the next part of this, which is how do I apply this level of thinking, which, again, by the way, goes against a lot of what is being taught right now. A lot of what is being taught, like, we go through an ebb and flow, it feels like. Again, I'm just sort of as a barometer check, but it sort of feels like we're back into hustle culture.
Matt Giovanisci:It used to be, you know, hustle culture was a thing. You know, the Gary v's Gary v of the world came up. Everyone was gung ho. Everyone was pushing. Everyone was hustling, me included.
Matt Giovanisci:And then there was a movement, the minimalist movement, the less is more movement, the chill vibes, the, you know, whatever whatever. That happened. And then there was another period, very you know, this this cycle of hustle culture again. I think fueled by the, the Alex Hermozes of the world and all these other fucking, you know, just like bros trying to get it. Same with Gary v.
Matt Giovanisci:Bro's trying to get it. Hustle, hustle, hustle, shorts, TikToks, build the business, blah blah blah. And then where are we at now? Feels like 2024, we're starting to head back into chill cycle. I only know this because I go through those cycles too.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like I'm part of it. You know? The the SEO drop just forced everybody to fucking chill out. The, the post pandemic, you know, what have I been doing for the last 4 years, 3 years? YouTube or Exodus, what are we chasing here?
Matt Giovanisci:The the rise of TikTok in short form and pushing the fucking shit out of that. And now everyone's like, goddamn it. Like, at the end of it all, like, what am I really getting from this? Feels like just burnout. Thankfully, though, in my particular business, even when I push and release and push and release, the business has been steady.
Matt Giovanisci:The bit again, I've said this on other shows. The business just doesn't want the push. It just doesn't need it. Alright. So I'm just forced to here I am to run what I said on the other show, a calm company.
Matt Giovanisci:So fine. I'm willing to embrace that. I'm 40 years old. I don't need to be going hard anymore. I'm not a young buck.
Matt Giovanisci:I have I've set myself up. Right? I feel pretty solid financially, relatively relatively, I guess. You know? The the the business always worries me, but that's the thing.
Matt Giovanisci:It's like, I gotta not worry. That's the that's the thing. So what is it that I truly want? I still like, I love working. I love it.
Matt Giovanisci:I love getting shit done. I feel fucking great when I when I'm productive. I feel terrible when I am over productive or feel like I'm spinning my wheels. This has happened in other aspects of my life. 2 places in particular where I've where I've kind of gone and done the, you know, trying to eat the elephant all in one go.
Matt Giovanisci:So, obviously, Money Lab was that. It was doing these, like, huge challenges, these, like, you know, just incredible focus, incredibly born you know, like, zombie like approach to focus and hard work, and then after the challenge is over, a crash. You know, regain, rebuild, and then fucking do it again. This happens in 2 aspects of my life. The first one is weight loss health, weight loss specifically.
Matt Giovanisci:I very much, for the longest time, would go on, you know, crash diets or challenges, you know, either a workout challenge or whatever. You know? I'm only gonna eat this thing. And ultimately, the same thing would happen where I had to go food shopping and and not necessarily that, but I would be invited to go out for a beer or I'd be invited to go out to dinner. And I'd go, well, that's gonna fuck me up, isn't it?
Matt Giovanisci:If I go out to dinner tonight, I'm gonna have to eat salad, and it's gonna suck. My night's gonna suck. I'd rather just stay the fuck home and not go because I am so dedicated and focused. Made my life miserable being that way, by the way. So now I've taken a different approach.
Matt Giovanisci:I've broken it down, and I've talked about this on the show. I've broken it down into just daily get her get it get them get them done. Short, easy things to do. You're listening to one of them right now. I am just getting I'm just walk pacing in the brewery, getting 10,000 steps a day.
Matt Giovanisci:Actually, way harder than it way harder than I thought I was gonna be. But I don't beat myself up if I don't get it, and that's I think the important part is, like, hey. If I got to 6,000 steps a day, it's like, fuck. At least you'd walked. At least you weren't at, like, a 1000 steps, I guess.
Matt Giovanisci:You know? That means you're in bed all day, essentially. So I'm like, alright. So I don't get it every day, but I try to. Just like I'm not gonna hit 4 hours a day.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm gonna try to. You know? Some days are gonna be 5 hours. You know? If especially when things aren't working or something's going it's like, alright.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm just gonna throw another hour at this. But you know what I mean? It's like you just do what you can. Some days I wanna overdo it, but the thing is is that with health and weight loss, you overdoing it in a day doesn't actually work. I can't work out all day and expect anything to move faster.
Matt Giovanisci:It's not the way the body works. It's a daily activity, and it doesn't need to be much. In fact, less is more. So understanding that and and being comfortable this is the this is the big thing. I used to always think, alright.
Matt Giovanisci:It's April. I can lose £20 by June easy. Like, I can do that. I've seen people, like, do lose, like, £40 in 4 months. I can do £20 in 2 months.
Matt Giovanisci:Like, I could do it. Let's go. That that level of weight loss requires, like, an intensity and a focus that also isn't sustainable, just like pushing in my business isn't sustainable, doesn't actually move the needle all that much. Because, yeah, you might lose £20 in 2 months and you're gonna feel pretty great, But I hope I don't have to eat this shit for the for the for the rest of my life, and then you just go back to eating what you were normally doing and nothing changed. And so you go back.
Matt Giovanisci:Those £20 come right back. That happens all the time. Happened to me all the time. All the time. Any derailment was a fucking derailment.
Matt Giovanisci:So now derailments happen. You know, I'm in the middle of working. Gotta go to the grocery store. Okay. I have the freedom and time.
Matt Giovanisci:The thing is is that it's time. That's that's really the common denominator is that it doesn't have to get done in a week. It literally can't be done in a week. Like, weight loss can't be done in a week. You know, building a multibillion dollar business doesn't happen in a week.
Matt Giovanisci:Building a $1,000,000 business doesn't happen in a week. Doesn't even happen in years sometimes. I know we hear those stories that it does, but, like, it doesn't. And yet I'm constantly trying to push. I did the same thing for weight loss.
Matt Giovanisci:There is a third area in my life where I have the same problem, and I'm trying to rectify it. And that is this house. I built this brewery. And when I say I built, I mean, I paid contractors to build it for me, and I was the general contractor. I gave myself 30 days to build this.
Matt Giovanisci:Stupid. I did it. I did it in 40. And when I tell people that and what they see, it is pretty amazing. Again, my superpower is focus.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm also very organized, and it was incredibly fucking stressful, like, incredibly stressful. I was tackling a project I had never done before. I I had to learn so much. I got to use my powers, but in a whole different realm. It was really difficult.
Matt Giovanisci:I am glad I did it, but in hindsight, I would have, you know, done it I would have done it differently. I would have taken my time. And if I had taken my time, this place would be better than it is. Now that said, people are usually impressed by this place, by this garage, because it is impressive, I will say, But I know I could have done it better if I had just taken my time, and I probably would have done a lot of things myself. And that's this area of my life that I wanna kinda talk about because I've been thinking a lot about it, and I think it relates to business in a very specific way just like weight loss does.
Matt Giovanisci:I own a home that is older. It was built in the, late eighties, and a lot of things that were done in this home were done by homeowners, and so there's a lot of problems. And, you know, we've lived here for almost 4 years, and I personally don't know how to do anything in the house. Like, I I mean, I can't build anything. I built a keezer.
Matt Giovanisci:I can hang shelves. I can, you know, kinda, like, put some shit together here and there, IKEA furniture, but, like, you know, that's pretty much it. I don't know how to garden. I don't know how to take care of ponds. I don't know how to build anything out of wood.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't know how to fix drywall. There's a lot of skills that I do not have. Yet, I used to tell myself when I grew up with my father, my father would did a lot of stuff in the house out of necessity because he could afford to hire contractors. And I used to say he would ask me to help him. I never wanted to.
Matt Giovanisci:And he said, when you get a house one day, you're gonna have to do all this shit. My aunt my reply would always be, nope. I'm gonna make enough money to pay somebody to do it for me. And that's honestly the path that I took is I I did I did end up fulfilling that. That was kind of always been my dream, and it really started from mowing lawn days.
Matt Giovanisci:I hated mowing the lawn. Hated it. Hated it. And I understand why. It's not my lawn.
Matt Giovanisci:I take no pride in it. It was just a chore I had to do for not for no money, by the way. I didn't make any money. It just sucked. It was hot.
Matt Giovanisci:My my dad didn't even have a a a a it was like a push llama. I had to push it. Like, it wasn't even what do they call it when they, like, kinda automatically go? Like, self you know, not a riding lawnmower. God, that would be awesome.
Matt Giovanisci:But, no, it was, like, physically, I had to push this fucking thing up our yard and whatever. So I've never mowed a lawn since. I've never done it. I know how to do it, I guess, if I'd had a lawn I don't even have a lawnmower. But, again, decided to focus on making enough money to pay other people to do it.
Matt Giovanisci:That said, I have always wanted my own home. Always. Maybe it's because I grew up in a household where both my parents were in the home industry. My mother, a real estate agent, my father, a kitchen designer. So the idea of home renovation and owning your own home was around me constantly.
Matt Giovanisci:And it was like a it was a goal of mine, in fact, for my whole life. My first house, I bought when I was 25. I was the first person to own a house, out of all of my friends. Now it was a brand new it was a condo, so it wasn't it's like it wasn't a single family. It was a condo, and I had no business buying that motherfucker, but I bought it.
Matt Giovanisci:Well, the bank bought it, and I just paid the bank over time. I sold that property, recently, actually, couple couple years ago. Thank god. Now in that house, I again, I could paint walls. I could install light fixtures, like, you know, little minor things like that.
Matt Giovanisci:So in this house, I've just been hiring contractors. But what sucks is is that we gotta it's it's not a small house, I'll say, and there's a lot of things that need to be upgraded. I would like them to be upgraded yesterday, but that's not how this works. And so I started to think, what am I gonna do with the extra if I am only gonna work 4 hours a week, let's say, Sorry. Not 4 hours a week.
Matt Giovanisci:I'm not Tim Ferris. 4 hours a day, 5 days a week on the business that brings in the income. And, again, if I only do the task that that that business requires me to do, mainly publish content, make products better, end of story. Like, that's pretty much all we have to do. That is that business with little bouts of creativity here and there.
Matt Giovanisci:I won't I wanna say that. What else will I do with my time? Well, I I wanna brew more, and I will have that time to brew. But, again, brewing is also one of those things that, like, it's not an all or nothing thing. It takes time.
Matt Giovanisci:Right? So you're kinda forced logistically not logistically, but you're forced through time to, like, just kinda wait. You know? Alright. Let's make let's make some wort, throw it in the fermenter, clean up.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright. You gotta wait a couple weeks. Alright? You gotta find other things to do. So I thought, what if I learned some house stuff?
Matt Giovanisci:What if I learned some contractor skills? Because they would certainly be useful just in this house alone. I don't I have no plans on owning multiple homes. I have no plans on fixing other people's houses or flipping houses or any of that stuff. I just hate being an idiot.
Matt Giovanisci:I hate being somebody who doesn't know how to do something. My whole life, like pools or, my whole life, like pools or, you know, building a website or making content or all of these skills that I've gained over the years, I recognize that most people can't do those skills, and most people can do contractor skills. And so I am the reverse. It's like I have a highly specialized set of skills, alright, taken. Sean, that we in the essence.
Matt Giovanisci:Alright? But they don't translate to my home in any way. So I'm kind of like again, I'm like, I I can make you a beer. I can make you food. I can make you a website, but I can't make you a laundry room.
Matt Giovanisci:I can't make you a bathroom. I don't know how to do those things. But because I am in this house, I would say 95% of the time, I love this house. I want this house to be better. And I think I wanted like, I'm very proud of the brewery, but there's a piece of me that's like, well, I didn't do a lot of the things in here besides, like, just the brewing stuff, which is really most of the things you see.
Matt Giovanisci:I did those things. But everything else, it's like, well, I didn't install the lights and, you know, all these other things? I didn't put the drywall. You know? I didn't know how.
Matt Giovanisci:So this when I first moved into this house, I knew how to paint because I painted my old place before. And so I was like, we had these we had the basement where my office is gonna be, and I'm like well, as soon as I went down there, I'm like, I'm painting the whole basement. I'm doing it. I was like and she was like, okay. Meanwhile, we're built the brewery is being built.
Matt Giovanisci:And, like, I'm just trying to do everything in the first, like, 6 months of being in this house and also trying to run a business. Also, it's the pandemic. Like, I figured I had the time. Like, let me go nuts. And I started painting, and I just got, like, so overwhelmed because it's a textured wall, and I didn't grow up with textured walls.
Matt Giovanisci:And I was like, oh, this is different. I don't know what I'm doing. I already started. Oh, no. I'm an idiot.
Matt Giovanisci:And I got overwhelmed, and I was just like, I can't do this. Hired a contractor. Sounds like pretty lame, but, you know, I just, like, couldn't do it. And that always, like, bothered me because I'm like, man, I feel like I could do this, and I would be really proud of building something. Like, I'm proud of building the keezer.
Matt Giovanisci:And I've made mistakes, but it's done. And and and and if I had to build another keezer, I know how to do it, and I know how to do it perfectly. So I just don't happen to know how to don't need have a need to build another keyzer, although in the future, I probably will. You know, if this one ever craps out, I'm gonna have to do it again. I want that skill.
Matt Giovanisci:I want the skill of being able to patch drywall myself. I want the skill of being able to paint without painters tape. I want the skill of being able to take care of my home in ways that feel prideful to me, that I'm proud that I did it. And the same thing about the elephant is that I just can't approach these house projects with the same fervor as an online project because the difference is is that with online projects, at least with those, I knew what I was doing. It was in my skill set, my wheelhouse, and so I knew I could work hours.
Matt Giovanisci:I could barrel through it and get it done. And every time I try to do that on the house, it bites me in the ass. So all of these things all of these things that I'm talking about, 4 things now, my business, my brewery, my body, and my building. I'm trying to think of a 4 b. What's my home?
Matt Giovanisci:A I was gonna say abode, but that doesn't make sense. My my I can't think of a b word. Building. It's a building. Should it be called a build?
Matt Giovanisci:Gallagher. All of those things are long term projects. Long term. I gotta stop thinking in terms of weeks months and start thinking in terms of years, decades, and then I'll be dead. I only have, you know, probably another good I don't know, 20 to 30 years of of being able to do anything.
Matt Giovanisci:I don't know. Who knows? I don't know. Maybe some guy will come out with a maybe that guy that's trying to, like, keep himself, you know, reverse his age, maybe he'll come out with something. I don't know.
Matt Giovanisci:But I I I just can't think in terms of, like, 30 day challenge, get this room done. It's like, no. I gotta do it. I gotta I gotta look at the project. I gotta plan everything out.
Matt Giovanisci:Okay? Let's I mean, sitting down with a notepad, planning everything out, and then breaking it into chunks. You know, taking the elephant, chopping it up into bite sized pieces, and then over time, slowly eat those pieces. And then by the time you know it, something will have been completed, and it will feel effortless. That goes for my business, that goes for my body, that goes for my building, and it also goes for my brewery.
Matt Giovanisci:And that's something I didn't really talk about in this episode, but I tend to do a lot of things in this brewery, and I get very overwhelmed when I don't finish them. Sometimes I try to brew 2 to 3 beers a day just because I'm like, I only have this Saturday, and I wanna I can't go out. I promised myself I was gonna brew, and it's like, that's insane. A brew day for me is realistically 4 hours. That's if I don't clean.
Matt Giovanisci:I can clean the next day or 2 days from now. It doesn't have to get done on the day. You know? Everything doesn't have to be perfect in order for me to brew. And I constantly feel like I need those I need all the pieces in place to do the project.
Matt Giovanisci:And so this is an episode, if you've gotten this far, for anybody who feels the same way, Is that thinking about the comm company idea and take you know, lumping that in with the 4 hour workday idea and lumping that in with the eating an elephant one bite at a time idea and all of those ideas. I think 2024 and beyond for me, I'm trying my hardest, is to just be chill. And I know that people who are listening to this may not have the luxuries that I have. They don't have there are still there are still goals that need to be achieved. And I would say I also have those, but trying to get them faster will only get them slower.
Matt Giovanisci:The thing is is that when you, or at least I feel, when I chunk things out and take and take it one bite at a time, I end up feeling incredibly productive because I'd be like, wow. I did that. That happened, and it didn't actually take that long because it was all very much deliberate. And it wasn't running around like a chicken with your head cut off or feeling stressed out. That's like, the stress, the reason that this brewery feels like it was really, like, it's it's like I could appreciate it, but I really it's like sometimes I have a hard time with that because it was so stressful to build.
Matt Giovanisci:And, again, had I done it if I was 40, like I am now and had this mindset and would have been like, alright. Here's the garage. I'm gonna do some stuff myself. Like, I'm gonna little bits at a time. I have the plan.
Matt Giovanisci:Here it is. Blah blah blah. You know? Still get still get still able to work, still able to do this other stuff, hire a contractor when I need it, take my time. By the time I real I would've had a brewery.
Matt Giovanisci:I would've been fine. No time would've been wasted. It's like, you know, it's like it's like driving to a destination. It's like, dude, if you just like like, you driving faster doesn't get you to the place any faster. And if it does, it's, like, what, a minute faster?
Matt Giovanisci:Like, it it's never that. It's always like, just go the path, and you'll get there when you get there. And that's all I gotta say. So I don't know. Hopefully, this is helpful to someone.
Matt Giovanisci:If not, it's helpful to me because I got to talk it out, and 2, I got to get my 10,000 steps in. Thank you very much.
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