From Hollywood Glitz to Solopreneur Grit: Paul Durelli’s Automation Insights

Brett Trainor (: 00:01

I'm Paul Dorelli. Welcome to the Corporate Escapee Podcast.

Paul Durelli (: 00:05

Thanks, Brett, Trinair.

Trainer, sorry, we talked about that prep trainer. thanks for having me on your podcast. we've talked a few times already prior to this, as you know, because I joined the escapee collective, after stumbling upon you on a tick tock and all of the great information you've been sharing with your audience. And I was drawn to it because, as we've mentioned before, I've kind of, I'm a little further along in the journey of leaving corporate. And then we had a few conversations and

Your group on the slack has been growing, your channel has been growing, and it's been a fun journey to see all of this mushroom up a little bit.

Brett Trainor (: 00:46

Yeah, I appreciate it. And I said, think your background's fascinating. You've been helpful to me here in the short term. So I'm looking forward to definitely longer, longer relationships, see how we can collaborate. But no, so it's good to have you on the podcast. And what I like to do usually is just, I definitely want to touch into your escapee journey. Cause again, part of what this podcast is, is just to show people what's possible out there, right? It's I'm in corporate now.

Do I have to open a restaurant? Do I have to start Google or Facebook? Nope. There's a lot of options. So I think what you're doing is fascinating. So we're going to get into that. Then we're to touch a little bit on our, call it the personal development of the solo business owner and how we should be thinking about automation and AI and some of those tools as well. So folks out there, you get a two for one today. We get an escapee journey plus a subject matter expert. So make sure you stick around to the second half when we get into that.

Paul, why don't you start just what are you working on today? Who are you working with? And then we're going to go back in time a little bit to talk about how you made that transition.

Paul Durelli (: 01:52

So, initially my background was that I helped build several seven and eight figure marketing agencies here in Los Angeles that had contracts with all the studios, Disney, Warner, Lionsgate, all of them, right? And I got known for building these things from the ground up and then I got requested to come do it for other agencies. And that's how that whole name Digital Kahuna actually came about.

a joke because they used to call me the big kahuna and I would joke around and say no I'm just a digital kahuna so you know that was a running joke for a little while there and then I decided I should probably save that domain which I did and that's kind of how that whole thing came about but as colorful as that sounds the reality is is particularly here in Los Angeles in the entertainment industry there there is a good measure of dysfunctional nepotism and

It's not all rainbows and unicorns like everyone thinks. We've also discussed it's not just in the entertainment industry. The fact of the matter is this exists across corporate America.

I think on a broader scale than everyone was willing to admit before. And that's why I was so enamored when I stumbled upon you, because you were being so vocal about it. And then several other people are being vocal about it. You know, on LinkedIn, see people being vocal about it. On TikTok, several social media, right? It's kind of a semi -viral topic going on right now about people not willing to put up with toxic work environments and all of these

And really what I've my observations have been that it's just certain organizations are being led by people that have failed to graduate from schoolyard antics and they're really Operating. Yeah, it's and honestly, it's actually painful to bear right? as adults you you like we think like we've all learned all these rules and modus operandi for dealing Communicating with people at an adult level. However, some people just never really

Brett Trainor (: 03:54

Yeah, you're right.

Paul Durelli (: 04:08

graduate to that or they resort back to, you know, schoolyard antics, bullying, shaming, all of the things that are undermining each other. And, you know, and I've said this to people, here's the thing is when you're younger, you tolerate that to probably an unhealthy degree because you're trying to stair step your career.

So you button your lip because you're trying to make headway and you don't want to disrupt your steady paycheck, right? That's kind of like the foundational reasons that you're which are not wrong But you know as you journey further along in the journey

your tolerance threshold for that stuff, those shenanigans and the undermining and the toxic environment, your threshold dwindles, you know? And then, you know, the insulting of your intelligence with things that are not true or accurate or correct or just flat out bull twinkie and baloney.

And you know there again, it's one of those areas where you when you're younger you tolerate it and as you grow older your ability to tolerate it dwindles, know, whether it be in the corporate environment or even just in any adult environment, think, you know, that's what I've noticed and so after leaving the the entertainment industry I built and sold an online pharmacy with a doctor and engineer that had intellectual property and then I did

Audio Digest Foundation, was the continued educational coursework for all the doctors, nurses, and nurse practitioners across the entire clinical compendium. That was a big lift. But there again, and in both those two environments I just mentioned, I also ran into low brown knuckle -draggers that were sub -evolutionary, that were doing undermining toxic shenanigans. And then I did it for a bank

Paul Durelli (: 06:10

asked me to do some back and I want to mention names here. Yeah, I already did. But it doesn't matter. The point being is like it exists brought more broadly than people maybe previously were willing to admit.

Brett Trainor (: 06:13

Yeah, that's fine. We all get it. It's.

Paul Durelli (: 06:29

So I've done a lot of enterprise level work and then I've done a lot of independent people's work as well people that need Independent solutions. So I've seen the gamut and so I still do a little of both right some people from different verticals approach me because of my background and they want me to do certain things for them and if it's a good fit then I on board and I'll do those things at whatever Set price I think is reasonable and win -win formula now At the same time I stumbled on you

I finally decided there was high time I started building out my own trainings and for systems and things that I do actually this is how this came about Someone asked me to help them build and monetize YouTube channels which I did three YouTube channels that got monetized and The teams that I built in the Philippines to do that were complimenting me on my workflow systems Because they were they're freelancing for other

YouTube channels and media verticals too. And they were complimenting me on the fact that I had things so very well organized and streamlined. so I kind of had the light bulb moment then that I really should put this into a training for people that want to streamline and automate their workflow systems, whether it be for marketing their own product and services or whether they're in collaboration with anyone else. So then I

Created, know the what the first course which was integrating AI with outsourcing and then I stumbled on some writers that were very I'll say disenchanted by the fact that that we got into a conversation and the conversation was

I asked them about where the new contract with the studios landed for the writers and they said to me, well we got 85 % of what we wanted in the new contract and the other 15 % the studios held on the language that would allow them to replace the writers with AI. So you can imagine they're very disheartened and disenchanted with that prospect.

Paul Durelli (: 08:40

But I said to them, I said, well, I think you're looking through the wrong end of the telescope because if the studios can use AI to replace you, you can now use AI to replace the studios. And with AI animation being what it is now coming of age, really, you can, you know, with a couple of outsourcing cohorts and the AI animation and chat GPT and Airtable and Make and all of these things that are available now to be able to create, I mean, you

literally do what required know droves of teams with a small team of five or ten now you know and the right software implementation and so huh

Brett Trainor (: 09:19

It flipped in the switch. I said flipping the switch a bit, right?

Paul Durelli (: 09:24

Exactly Yeah, flipping the switch turning the tables on the whole situation 180 degrees and leveraging these new systems and opportunities to your advantage and you know, and it's actually even better than that because you know, I've expressed them this also allows for You know removal of the the gatekeepers and the ivory towers in the past You had to go through this litany of gatekeepers and approval process and you know ivory tower

And now with AI and automations that are available all of that's crumbling. You can literally leapfrog all of those Barriers that may have existed before but you just have to be willing to roll your sleeves up with technology a little bit which I know For a lot of people that haven't had a good healthy introduction to technology and workflow systems that can be very daunting Understandably so and that's where I come in. I can really help ease the pain of that because of my background

and experience in doing this in multiple verticals.

Brett Trainor (: 10:28

Gotcha. So much good stuff there. So let's unpack this a little bit first. We don't have to go back, but all time classic rant against corporate America. I applaud you for your knuckle dragging. mean, I've got to borrow a few of those terms. So it's good to see it's just not in corporate. It's any big entity that's going to give us a problem.

Again, I do want to touch back on your journey at some point, but I think you went into an area which is fascinating and I think really important for solo business owners, right? As we've transitioned from corporate, we probably use technology, whatever we needed for our job. But as we now move into a solos business where basically we do everything, right? There is going to be opportunities and needs to outsource or more automate, right? What's that old saying?

eliminate, automate, delegate, right? In that order, if you can do it. But I think it's important for folks. Again, probably people exiting corporate right now are like thinking, as we talked offline that, you know, corporates here and me starting a business seems like it's across the country or another world. And it's not that hard, but I think figuring out and how to, again, it's use some of the corporate principles of process, right? Those types of things.

Paul Durelli (: 11:19

for sure.

Brett Trainor (: 11:43

I took us down a little bit of a rabbit hole, but I'm thinking about this as one of the things I'm doing right now. I'm doing everything on my own. do. I really don't have a ton of automation and I know you look at me and when you have conversations, you don't cringe, but Emily, you're like, you can do better than this Brett. There's opportunities to automate and, and streamline. So maybe we can take a step back as, as I'm starting a new business, right? Is this solo?

What are some of the things I should be thinking upfront? if in hindsight, if I would have went back and would have set these things upfront now versus going in and I'm gonna have to add it to the process after the fact. That make sense? Okay.

Paul Durelli (: 12:21

Yep, so I'll say this, and this is one of the reasons I, and I guess maybe, like you say, it's taking a step back. It also is very dependent on what your,

comfort level is with technology and what's available and your, so obviously part of it is your wherewithal and then part of it is your knowledge base about what might be the right combination of tool integrations, right? Because there's so many choices out there. And I like to keep things as lean as possible with my integrations because simple scales, complex fails, right? That's like the running term. So to the degree that we can,

Brett Trainor (: 13:02

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 13:06

want to keep our connectivity and interacting software choices as lean as possible. That's number one. Number two is going back to what your acclamation is with software and software integrations. I tell people if you particularly aren't very tech savvy, A, connect with me. Obviously, that's going to help drastically. But B, I tell people to when you

Go to choose a tool and you're not very familiar with it. Go to a place like Online Jobs PH or even Fiverr or

and see how many people put that tool into the search of that search query of that those places online jobs, ph or upwork or fiber and see how many people are available to help you work on that tool. Right. Because if you're not acclimated with Kajabi or thrive card or WordPress or thrive themes or, you know, convert kit or any of the different softwares that you're thinking about using, I think the first place to start is

do a quick search for outsourcing services and see how many people might be available on that platform that can help you leverage that tool and get up to speed with it faster, right? Because you might be able to jump on a Zoom with someone that's a specialist in ConvertKit and in two or three hours, you're gonna get up to speed with your precise needs for getting that tool integrated in your workflow system.

Brett Trainor (: 14:27

Makes sense,

Brett Trainor (: 14:42

Yeah, let's dig into that a little bit more because we can even, they're probably thinking, well, what even tools am I going to need to be a solo business owner? And part of it depends on the path. If you just want to be fractional for a couple of clients, it's probably not going to be as much as if you're going to get into coaching and, or want to do some classes or some other things that tools are going to change. And just to get the audience in perspective. So right now I use Kajabi kind of for everything. But that's after I launched.

corporate escapee. didn't have it when I was just doing the consulting and the fractional. Honestly, it was still spreadsheet, but there's some good mini CRMs that would be helpful. Again, that would save time because that's the end of the day. What we're trying to do is save time, make it easy, improve performance. So maybe just give some ideas. What are some of the technologies that are tools that a lot of solo business owners, at least effective business owners are using? Maybe that's a better way to put

Paul Durelli (: 15:38

Yeah, so as usual, there's not a one size fits all answer, but some of the tools that I use are WordPress, Go High Level, ConvertKit, Thrivecart.

systems I O, Thrive themes. And so combining these things correctly is of importance. And no matter what you're doing today, you're definitely gonna need to have an email capture and hopefully an SMS deployment system for texting along with email for a client acquisition and client management.

So, and Kajabi is good too, by the way. there's many tools, thinkfic I don't use, but I know it's out there and a lot of people use that, you know, and it also depends on whether you're doing client acquisition and management and, coaching and consulting, right? Those two things, you can blend any of those tools, you know, in, in a myriad of different ways, but those are top of mind what I think of. And and as of late, I think Go High Level is

most prominent one for most people that integrates a very streamlined measure of being able to do text SMS messaging and the emailing automations into the lead capturing for a variety of different verticals. they're definitely the most robust but that's not necessarily the right choice for everyone. Again it depends on what you're trying to do and then

Brett Trainor (: 17:10

Gotcha.

Paul Durelli (: 17:19

you can start off with a leaner system and then graduate up to a more robust system if you're on a budget, you know, and you're trying to keep things lean and you just want to test the waters.

Brett Trainor (: 17:31

Yeah, no, that makes sense. And again, we can maybe use me as a real world example, because if something I'm not doing right now, which is I am capturing email right through the collective sign up. So anybody signs up, I get an email there. I also have a starter kit that I, you know, kind of PDF that I send out that I get an email there. So I've probably got about 1500, probably more than that email address is now. And am I doing anything with them? Nope.

Part of the reason is why Kajabi is not the easiest, but you know, one of the things I was thinking, if I pull those out of Kajabi and just create a master database of all my email addresses, then that gives me some flexibility. But you know, kind of what we were talking about where I'm new, right? Not new, I'm newer to this part of the world. I don't know where to start. And I think I can handle it once I figured it out, but it just, you know, it's going from zero email tool to.

you know, how do I, don't probably don't need the Cadillac, right? Or whatever the pick your car today. So how would you advise someone like me that does have some email addresses to start organizing and or tools to think about as, again, I've got things I can share a value with this email audience. just not doing it because I don't have a good way to do it.

Paul Durelli (: 18:52

That's a great question and I'm gonna give your audience a super great hack that I do regarding using email effectively. So what I recommend is you sit down in front of your computer, record a video, pretend you're gonna, whether you're gonna post it on YouTube or not, regarding your product and services and areas of expertise as if it were a training module or a marketing video that you would be presenting. After you record that video, export the audio and

from the audio export the text from the audio then you take that audio you plug it in the chat GPT and have chat GPT knock out a 27 email sequence with all the bullet points from within that text right then you hire VA to put that into whatever email software program you're you're putting into an automation so then now whatever email lead capture you use when they sign up for your email you

to initiate or that you want to have triggers that will initiate for example that 27 email sequence. You can even make it longer. mean I'm saying 27 as a random number. It could be a 15 email sequence or a 10 or even a 77 email sequence right. You can build upon it but this is the easiest way I found to create a multi -sequence email using your voice because you export that audio to text and

Brett Trainor (: 20:00

Got

Paul Durelli (: 20:22

all of your messaging is going to be in there and chat GPT is going to distill that into the bullet points and the subsets of information that you need to plug in your email and then the virtual assistant can Clean it all up in the Email deployment software then you guys just do a quick quality assurance together about whether the messaging is correct make any necessary adjustments and You can get that done probably within two hours

Brett Trainor (: 20:50

Okay. I'm going to take even a challenge, not challenge you up because I a hundred percent agree with you. But the question I get, or just was asked this two days ago is how do I, what do I use to record? Right. I guess, because I've been doing Tik Toks for six months, use either Tik Tok directly, which then exports it, or there's another app called CapCut that I liked that can do videos or even just off of my, my laptop. But that's a

A lot of people haven't done just recorded a video and been able to export it yet. any, any baseline suggestions on how to think about just simple recordings.

Paul Durelli (: 21:26

you can those offers are fine because actually you can download there's a there's a website called tick down that allow you to download your Ticktocks without the watermark so that you can publish them to any other platform. Okay, so that Yeah tick down

Brett Trainor (: 21:43

Tick down, T -I -K down is the name of it.

Paul Durelli (: 21:47

So you can download those to your computer and then now you have the dual purpose, right? You can export the audio and then export the text from the audio as I just described and you can use dscript. There's several, dscript is the one I'm thinking of right now, but there's several others. If you Google exporting text from audio, you'll find the different free ones that come up and you just export the text.

And then go over to chat GPT like I said ask prompt Jeff chat GPT to build out a you know 15 or 20 or 30 email sequence from that text that contains the main bullet points and high points that you want and then actually I have my VA do a colored sequence of different of the of the email and at a large font size because a lot of people

on a mobile first and they'll be at a doctor's office reading their email and giving them the emails in the larger format makes it easier to read when they're on the phone.

Brett Trainor (: 22:52

Yeah, that's a good advice because I failed to do that quite a bit. Even with my website, was thinking desktop first, but it's probably 80 % mobile. So I had to recently reconfigure that.

Paul Durelli (: 23:03

Yeah, on the websites most of the web apps now know how to reformat for a mobile device and they'll make that

accommodation automatically but but in email in particular I run like an 18 -point font because I Want it to be easily readable to all demographics on and on their phone if they happen to be in their doctor's office or away from their computer And they're reading my emails on their phone. I want them to be very legible

Brett Trainor (: 23:33

Yeah, makes perfect sense. And I want to dig into another, you keep leading me down to good topics. So I appreciate that Paul. So we talked about VA or virtual assistants and many of us probably haven't used it. So let's maybe talk about how, why, and kind of best best practices. Cause let me share with kind of my story. don't think we've talked about, cause I've used in the past doing this for plus years, multiple attempts at using

And my problem was I was bringing a VA desk, basically augment a skill I didn't have. And the challenge with the VA, they're very good at the execution, but you have to be able to tell them what you want to do. And many times it was either marketing or something that we were doing where they were looking for guidance from me and I didn't know what to tell them to do. And so it just a couple of failed efforts. Now I have a much clearer idea of what tasks can

outsourced and where VA's make sense and those types of things. maybe just give a beginner's course or an overview of VA's, how to think about how to approach them and how to be successful with them. Because I've heard more folks not successful than successful. And why do you think that is?

Paul Durelli (: 24:50

So I have a lot of experience with this because first of all, at the early stages of my journey with all the building of the marketing agencies, I trained a lot of people shoulder to shoulder, and then we did some outsourcing and I've trained people from all over the world, Europe, South America, Asia, you name it, I've encountered all of it. And my one takeaway is that people, archetypes are, know, I've

still down into two categories people that are interested in upskilling and leveling up themselves and their career trajectory they show up and they're responsive they communicate well and they operate well and they're looking to be solution oriented and then there's those that are half -baked or willy -nilly and they just don't work out you know Gary Vaynerchuk says it best he says you know hiring is guessing firing is knowing so people don't work out it's just pragmatics and you just

need to find a replacement and that's part of what I teach in my course is you have to have a conveyor belt system of finding replacement talent because either they move on or they don't work out either way you need to have a replacement scenario at the ready at all times. So that's important part of this journey that you're gonna have to get used to, right? And it's just pragmatics, it's not personal, right? So secondarily, I believe that

Brett Trainor (: 26:04

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 26:20

Important to deal and communicate with people with kindness courtesy and respect and consideration Much like what I didn't get in corporate. I don't want to move forward and and Do the very thing that I didn't like done to me in corporate with the people that I hire and work with even if they are outsourced right even if they are on a fractional basis and Usually the other thing is when you're onboarding people they should know they should already know

Brett Trainor (: 26:37

Right.

Paul Durelli (: 26:50

least as much or more than you about the software that you're hiring them to do. Right? That's an easy telltale sign that they might be a good fit. So, you know, if you need them to use Kajabi and you kind of know Kajabi, they should know Kajabi better than you. Right? As good or better than you. As an example. Or a convert kit or whatever the given software is. ThriveCart, whatever it is. So, I think the other thing is, you

Brett Trainor (: 27:09

Right. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 27:21

It usually in the first seven to ten days when you work with them what I tell them is hey We're running a little pilot We're gonna try and do a few of these things if I find something that I want done on a YouTube video I'll literally share the link to that YouTube video and I say well I want this done for my email sequence or for my Content creation development. We're gonna follow this strategy, but we're gonna add X Y & Z one

versions of it that are the iterations that fit to my voice and my branding and my style of whatever content solution we're trying to generate. Does that make sense? So go ahead. Go ahead, you were gonna ask.

Brett Trainor (: 28:01

Right. Yeah, it does. Yeah. And go ahead. Sorry, Paul. Now I was going to say part of what where I struggled to is where do I deploy the A's right? Because you can go from your calendar to billing to software to video editing. Is it just one of those where is your philosophy to plug in gaps you're not good at or you don't like to do or where how do you encourage people to think about VA

using

Paul Durelli (: 28:32

Well

Usually it's admin and tech related on things that you don't need to be doing right? You don't need to be doing Yeah, you don't need to be doing video editing. That's definitely needs to be outsourced You don't need to be putting together your whole email sequence and formatting all the emails and adding all the links on the emails that need to be added you need to delegate that and Delegating is usually when you have a small handful Then once you start to scale more you get into

Brett Trainor (: 28:39

don't need to be doing, okay.

Paul Durelli (: 29:03

where you ideally want to train someone to be your primary VA that helps you in delegating and orchestrating the rest of the VAs, right? So there's you and ideally one shoulder to shoulder or two shoulder to shoulder top VAs you integrate with and then, you know, in a pyramid structure beneath that is all the other people that are might be, you know, email specialist or video editing specialist or graphic design

Specialist or WordPress specialist or you know convert kit specialist or Kajabi specialist right because maybe as you scale you you're definitely you know gonna need more than one VA or VAs that are particularly specialists in those programs and the other thing is keep in mind that you can also designate that hey this job as allocated for two hours of work on like I often

Tell them hey look this shouldn't take more than two hours or three hours I don't want to see more than or three hours of billing on this and If you need to go past that then you need to give me a heads up on how and why that is if you ran into technical snafus Then we can look at that together And then I have you know billing tracking and submission forms that I use and I also have NDA and confidentiality agreements that I have them

so that I make sure that whatever we're discussing with them they know I mean look at the end of the day they're overseas and there's probably not much you're gonna want to do you're gonna be able to do and if things go south with them but at least you've done everything you can do to keep things above board on your side of the table does that make sense

Brett Trainor (: 30:52

Yeah, no. Yeah, absolutely. And it still comes back to you have to define the process. And you shared a couple of videos with me that you did in loom that kind of outline expectations process. And that's definitely something I would, I would do on earlier in my solo business is just document the process, right? Even though it was just me doing it. It just, when then it comes time to explain it to somebody, I don't have it anywhere. I've got to go and create it.

just a word of advice to people just getting started or if you have started, it doesn't have to be super, you know, three levels deep, right? 3 .1 .2, but document, because then when you are ready to outsource, you have a process. And I think that's a superpower, right? That I'm just starting to unlock, you know, to free up time. And, you know, it goes back to the book we talk about all the time, at least used to on the show is who, not how, right? That as a business,

Paul Durelli (: 31:34

totally

Brett Trainor (: 31:49

There's certain things we're not good at and we don't like to do, so they tend not to get done. But for everything that you don't like to do, there's a who out there that loves to do what you're not good at. So find those who's. But like I said, my mistake was not having it a process in place to be able to manage it effectively. So I knew that this, like I said, I've got there now, but that would be my advice to the folks getting started is again, you can change the process. It is going to change. It's going to evolve.

Paul Durelli (: 32:00

Totally.

Brett Trainor (: 32:19

but have it there so when you are ready to offset or outsource a few of the tasks, it's easier to do. that's my, learn the lessons from me the hard way or the hard way for me easier for you not to make the same mistakes.

Paul Durelli (: 32:35

Agreed and actually I want to add to that another important thing actually two important things as you're documenting it and you're right loom is a game -changer because this also helps offset any differences in time zones when you're dealing with people across the world So there's that right in the second real benefit is in case that person doesn't work out

You have already have it documented and now the new person that you on board you can just tell them hey Here's the link to the loom video on what this process looks like and the other thing that I actually tell people is Oftentimes i'll tell them I want you to watch this video at least Two or three times to make sure that you understand this fully and correctly And if there's any doubts or questions or concerns Get back to me immediately so we can get clarification on it, right? that's my my one rule with everyone that I work with

Brett Trainor (: 33:08

Yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 33:29

I tell them there are no silly questions, only silly mistakes. And silly mistakes happen when we don't ask the silly questions. So I always want an open door policy and invite my team to put whatever ridiculous they might have, know, ridiculousness they might have, put it on the table, we can iron out the wrinkle together. Because that way we move faster, you know, especially in smaller tight knit circles of three, five, 10 people.

Brett Trainor (: 33:38

Yeah.

Brett Trainor (: 33:56

Yeah, now it makes perfect sense. yeah, like I said, no dumb questions for, for sure. And Paul, man, time is flying by here. And so, but was there anything kind of along these lines? talked virtual assistance, a little bit automation on the tools, anything else that, you know, some newbies should be thinking about as we go through the process to end this. I'm already thinking we may come back and do a deeper dive version on some of these tools, because I think we can go through an entire process that will help alleviate it.

Back to is there anything else you would recommend to escapees starting this process?

Paul Durelli (: 34:33

Yes, I wanna point out that delegating and orchestrating to your team is an emotional and mental muscle that you need to build, especially for corporate escapees. And the reason is, is because more often than not, you've been brought into a corporate environment as a worker bee, and now you're transitioning into a queen bee, right? So where you have to, metaphorically speaking,

Right? and obviously in mother nature, a bee can't go from being a bee to a worker bee to a queen bee, but we as humans can. We can make those choices. But it is an acclamation process of dealing and communicating with people effectively. And then harnessing the tools, like you, like Loom, excuse me, harnessing the tools, particularly like Loom, to be able to leverage yourself and your time.

Brett Trainor (: 35:04

Yeah, yeah,

Paul Durelli (: 35:32

for documenting processes and then being able to instruct empathetically to the people that you're wanting to delegate and orchestrate all of these tasks to have them be able to want to work with you, enjoy working with you. Like you said, a lot of them are really good. They're a task rabbit at that one given proficiency, whether it's Kajabi or ConvertKit or whatever tool we're talking about or Excel or whatever.

And you know, just makes, it's really, it's almost, you really paradigm shift once you've done it enough, and then you start to think automatically, can I be pushing this to someone else and pushing things off my desk that are taking up time that I don't need to be doing? You know, and then you have this real mental switch about, you know, not doing these lower level tasks that can be outsourced.

Brett Trainor (: 36:32

Yeah, no, it's really good advice. I still come back and I have to remind myself all the time, like eliminate, automate, delegate in that order. And it's gonna, we just need to do that inventory maybe on a monthly basis, worst case, quarterly to see where you're spending time inefficiently. And it's funny over my journey, when I started, it was completely inefficient, unorganized, chaotic, all the hours.

then I over index the other way where everything was down to the half hour. That didn't work for me either. So now I've come back to a happy medium where at the calendar, I basically calendar everything, but it's not as firm. gives me flex. And now going into the process, same way. I've got the process flow, but it leaves some flexibility to change or adjust as I go. So again, it took me four years to get to this point. So if people are listening, there is definitely ways you can

Fast track you're learning in that process and that's one of the reasons you're on here Paul

Paul Durelli (: 37:31

Yeah, thanks. I appreciate it. You know, you know what else to i'll add to that brett is you know when you're delegating and orchestrating and even when you create your loom videos and all that even though you you give that and and if there's a certain aspect of it that Allows for creativity. I tell them I you know use your creative license If you have creative ideas for it go ahead and do it because if it's not right You can just correct it or adjust it But oftentimes you'll be surprised if you give someone some measure of

Brett Trainor (: 37:58

Right.

Paul Durelli (: 38:01

license, they're actually going to surprise you with something you didn't think of. You think, wow, that's better than what I had in mind. You know, and it's a pleasant surprise in the process. And it also gives them, you know, I think it gives them a measure of dignity and respect that you're trusting them enough to have a little bit of creative license with your work.

Brett Trainor (: 38:12

Yeah, no, such

Brett Trainor (: 38:25

Yeah, and ownership too, right? Because if you keep saying no, no, no, then they're not going to be excited about doing it. It's going to become a task and then you're not going to get the full value out of it. So yeah.

Paul Durelli (: 38:31

Yeah, yeah, you can over corral them, right? And if you corral them, then you're no better than the environment that we're trying to escape from, You fall into that category, which is, I don't know, at least for me, you know, having experienced all that, the last thing I want to do is then become that, right? Become the thing that you were trying to get away from. You know, you want to hopefully, at least in my mind, become a

Brett Trainor (: 38:41

It's 100 % right.

Brett Trainor (: 38:52

Right, right.

Brett Trainor (: 38:56

running from for

Paul Durelli (: 39:02

a more refined version of better ways to do things, better processes, better human handling, all of it.

Brett Trainor (: 39:13

Yeah, more conscientious is what I was thinking about. Like your refined is also good. So, all right, Paul, I'm sure there's going to be folks that are going to want to connect with you. What is the best way for them to find some of your materials and connect with you directly? I'll make sure I added to the show notes.

Paul Durelli (: 39:30

Yeah, so my website is digital kahuna .com. Obviously, I'm linked in. You can find me as Paul Durelli. You'll see one of my other companies, the Square Dot, then, you know, primarily is digital kahuna .com. My calendar links there, my courses links there, my link trees there. So digital kahuna .com for sure. And digital kahuna .com forward slash courses if you want to see the courses that I have available to help anyone get started faster on this process. And

Brett Trainor (: 39:34

Love that.

Paul Durelli (: 40:00

I also offer people incentives to become affiliate partners with me if they have an audience that they think they can bring volume to I definitely offer 50 % affiliate commissions to anyone that wants to be involved in helping other people's you know achieve this and grow faster and become better just at overall using AI and outsourcing and Leverage yourself as much as possible because I think now more than ever we are stepping into a time and

with computers and technology where, you know, and I think there are several articles, I think you mentioned them, I can't remember what the magazine was, but how we're really gonna step into the time where we're gonna see the first solo -preneur or trillionaire or whatever, things of that nature

Brett Trainor (: 40:46

$10 million? Yeah, I think absolutely right.

Paul Durelli (: 40:47

Yeah, you know with very small teams, know, and so it's never been a better time than now to be able to do use leverage technology. But you know, I also tell people, you know, the solopreneur idea is also kind of a fuzzy logic term because yes, okay, you may be the visionary, but you're still gonna have a small team of cohorts that you're gonna need to help you build and deploy, you know, the various elements that are

to make this a workable machine. A well -oiled machine, hopefully.

Brett Trainor (: 41:22

Yes. No, we'll get to well oiled at some point, but we're working on it. Yeah. And again, too, I love what you've done, Paul, because I think when we first, or at least when I first started thinking escape, you know, it was just going to be consulting and then it was fractional leadership, but there's just a whole lot of other opportunities, kind of like what you're creating, what's happened with the corporate escapee wasn't on the roadmap, but as long as you're open and leverage, you know, your decades of experience.

There is a lot of really interesting and fun paths that you can take this. again, that's another reason why I wanted to have you on the show is because you're doing some really interesting stuff that maybe 20 years ago, 15, five years ago, you may not even thought you'd be doing down this path. So, like I said, I really, really appreciate you coming on the program and sharing you. We'll make sure you're not a stranger because I think there's a ton of value to learn from what you've been able to.

to build for yourself and now that you're working with others. So again, appreciate the time today.

Paul Durelli (: 42:24

Thank you. appreciate you having me on here. And you know, you've been providing a great value to everyone with your TikToks and the corporate escapee. Everyone in the Slack is really helpful and collaborative. A lot of people in there chiming in on different soft software and strategies and resources that they're using. So I've definitely been enjoying the Slack group as well. And now hopefully, you know, we'll see what develops in the mastermind group also.

Brett Trainor (: 42:48

I appreciate them.

Brett Trainor (: 42:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's growing, which is awesome. So we're going to get more and more opportunities for folks. So if you listen to the podcast and you're not part of the collective, what are you waiting for? Now's the time. Connect with me or we can put the link in the show notes as well. So again, appreciate it, Paul. And we will catch up with you soon.

Paul Durelli (: 43:13

Thanks Brad, have a great day.