PAUL CHAMBERS | The Founder of SubSummit
Full Episode
Show Notes

Paul Chambers, a seasoned entrepreneur who embarked on his business journey in fifth grade, currently serves as the Co-Founder and CEO of the Subscription Trade Association (SUBTA) and the renowned event, SubSummit. His career in the subscription commerce sector spans over 20 years, garnering him recognition from numerous domestic and global media outlets.Paul's entrepreneurial footprint began with the establishment of a digital marketing agency, a web hosting service, and managed-IT services businesses. Of these three ventures, two have been lucratively exited, with the third still actively providing services today.Adding to his versatile business portfolio, Paul spent over a decade in the retail and food industry. His past roles include owning and managing Dale and Thomas Popcorn franchise locations across Metro Detroit. Presently, he is an investor and partner in Capri Pizza, based in Southfield, Michigan. Further enhancing his retail acumen, Paul played a pivotal role in the development and marketing of Capsiva, a fast-growing consumer packaged goods pain relief product, now available in CVS stores nationwide.Outside the corporate world, Paul is a dedicated firefighter serving the City of Troy. When not at work, he enjoys quality time with his remarkable wife, twin daughters, two sons, and their beloved family dog, Piper.

What Travis and Paul Discussed:

How Paul started SubSummit in 2016 as a small event for subscription box companies to network and share ideas. It has now grown into the largest subscription-focused conference in the country with thousands of attendees across industries like SaaS, memberships, etc.

Why when hiring, look for values alignment first. Skills can be taught, but core values are much harder to change. Go beyond just interview questions to get meals, drinks, hang out in informal settings. Listen to your gut instinct when something feels off about a person or situation. Your subconscious is processing millions of data points from your experiences.

As fathers, Travis and Paul aim to set an example through business and other pursuits that minimizes the gap between the men their kids see them as and who they really are.

Why bringing on someone intimidatingly skilled and experienced forces founders to check their egos. It's better to have someone tell you what to do in areas where you're not strong than pretend you can do everything.

Rapid problem-solving and leading teams under pressure are skills Paul has developed as a volunteer firefighter that transfer to business. Pushing yourself physically and mentally keeps you sharp.

If you want to learn how to build an audience from scratch, hire all-star team members, and set an example for your kids - don't miss my conversation with Paul Chambers.We covered how he went from hosting small networking events to running the largest subscription conference in America. Paul also shared his unique approach to finding employees who align with his values by going beyond just interview questions.As busy entrepreneurs and fathers, we discussed the importance of minimizing the gap between the men our kids think we are and who we truly are.Paul even revealed how volunteer firefighting keeps him mentally sharp and physically fit as he solves problems under pressure.So if you want actionable insights on leadership, hiring, networking, and parenting - have a listen to this episode!

Transcript

Travis Chappell (4s):Welcome back to the show. I'm Travis, Chappell and I believe that if you can connect with the best, you can become the best So. after creating 800 podcast episodes about building your network, I've come to realize that networking is really just making friends. We're doing it the right way. Anyway, join me as I. make friends with world class athletes like Shaquille, O'Neal, entertainers like Rob, Dyrdek, authors like Dr, Nicole, Lapera, former presidents like Vicente Fox, or even the occasional FBI hostage negotiator, billionaire, real estate mogul, or polarizing political figures. So. if you want to make more friends that help you become a better version of yourself, then subscribe to the show and keep on listening, cuz this is Travis makes friends. What's going on everybody? Welcome back to another episode of the show.
Travis Chappell (44s):Today I'm making friends with somebody named PAUL CHAMBERS. Paul is the co-founder of SubSummit, which is the largest sub subscription of event in the country. They have thousands of people come through every single year to talk purely about how to get your subscription company more successful. Started off just in subscription boxes, you know, like the Fab Fit fund type era. And then they just kind of kept getting more and more and more people interested in their conference that had nothing to do with subscription boxes. But now they have SaaS companies and they have, you know, membership companies and agencies, basically anybody that's trying to get subscription based recurring revenue in their business.
Travis Chappell (1m 24s):There's a lot of different businesses. This is like the conference to go to. So I really like the guys over there, Chris and, and Paul and Lauren and some of the other people that I've been able to interact with. I was a keynote speaker there a couple of years ago. I went back this year to do a few live Podcasts on stage and I really enjoyed this conversation with Paul. He's a really great guy. He's an entrepreneur, businessman, family man. And then also pushes himself to do things like volunteer firefighting and just random things like that that just make him a staple in his community and get him to focus on physical fitness and to set an example for his kids. And there's so many things that we, that we, you know, had common ground on. So I really enjoyed this conversation with Paul and I think you will as well. So without further ado, please enjoy my conversation with Paul Chambers's up.
Travis Chappell (2m 8s):Dude, how's it going?
Paul Chambers (2m 8s):Yeah, good. Thanks for having me on Travis, I appreciate it. Oh yeah,
Travis Chappell (2m 11s):Of course man. Of course. Thanks for having me out to the event two years in a row. Yes. It's always good when you get invited to speak at an event and then the next year they're still wanting you to come back. Yeah. You know, it's like a Oh, at least I didn't screw up too bad.
Paul Chambers (2m 22s):Yeah, you was all right. You did a, you did an okay job. No, we, we absolutely loved the content that you shared last year and, and helping our audience explore podcasting and understanding the value behind that. Yeah, because I don't, I think that's something people started to get into during Covid a lot more and they started realizing it more, but prior to that, you know, really wasn't at the forefront. I think of a lot of people's radars. They, they thought to like jump on Podcasts, but to Right. Start producing their own and that's, I met you through Eric music. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because he, he had me on his subscription box show podcast and he's like, you gotta meet Travis Chappell . He's brilliant. And you had helped him out. Yeah,
Travis Chappell (2m 58s):Eric was a, he, he's a great dude, man. He was a client of ours that we helped start a podcast. And it, I remember, I remember working at working through it with him because up to that point, the majority of people that we had worked with were more like authority brands, like personal brands, you know, coaches, consultants, authors, and, and people, people like that really got podcasting cuz it was just another way for them to get their core messaging out. Right. But when we started kind of broadening the scope and talking to businesses, it was, it was a little bit different for us because we were like, how do we help somebody like Eric who at the time I think he was still working full-time when he, when he, when he paid us and came on board with us. And so we're like, how do we help somebody with a, with a business Right?
Travis Chappell (3m 41s):Who he's not interested in like becoming a public speaker. Maybe he is later on or something, but like right now he's not interested in becoming a public speaker. He's not coming out with a book. Right. He's starting a subscription box for like parents who are having kids in the hospital. Yeah. And like, here's a supply of stuff to have in the hospital for, you know, Louis and Leia, a great little great, great company that they built. And I was like, how do we help these people Right. Sell more things. And,
Paul Chambers (4m 6s):And, and his approach was a brilliant strategy because he wanted to, to get out there to meet other subscription box owners,
Travis Chappell (4m 12s):Right. So that, that was exactly the direction that we ended up taking the conversation. We're just like, Hey look brilliant if we, if we set this up in a way where you are not, you're not necessarily building an audience in hopes that they're gonna buy Louis and Leia or subscribe to your subscription box. We're not really setting it up like this podcast up in that way. We're setting this podcast up in a way that allows you a quote unquote nobody in the space. Somebody who's like, been in, you know, I think construction or something that he was in before completely just like random like labor based job that he was doing in Canada for his entire life. And his entire family did it. He didn't, nobody in the space was just like, how can we take you somebody who nobody knows and turn you into somebody who everybody in this space knows?
Travis Chappell (4m 60s):Because we believe one of our core values inside of our companies is if, if you can connect with the best, you can become the best. And so how we're like, how, how do we get Eric to be able to connect with all the best people in his industry? And so I remember sitting through his coaching session, we're coming up with all these different names for his podcast and I was like, what if we just went really on the nose with it and just called it the subscription box show? And then he was like, I love it. Couldn't get any more description. Yeah. Yeah. And he wrote it down and it became the subscription box show, but ultimately what ended up happening was this cool, you know, chain of events where exact like the the plan that we put together actually worked. Yeah. The strategy worked where he was able to start connecting with all these people who were big names in, in, in the space that he was in.
Travis Chappell (5m 42s):And he was able to, to, to take all the things that he was learning from people and apply them into his business. And then I think he got to mc here one year or be a part of a panel or stage or something like
Paul Chambers (5m 53s):That. Yeah. He's been, we, we've, we've struggled during Covid because he is up in Canada and it is a little bit harder to get here during covid in, in different, all the rules and regulations. But he's been a great remote support for us Yeah. And super helpful from that standpoint. And it's been really fun to watch his podcast grow and his network grow. Yeah. And then he is just been turned into such a great connector. And I think like that's what's super valuable out there and when you're, when you're in that position, you're able to meet those great people and then you help bridge those connections as you have more conversations. Yes. Because that goes so far in terms of like, people see that and they feel that and they, then you'll get other future guests because of it.
Travis Chappell (6m 31s):Absolutely. And, and, and you guys are also a great example of that. This, this is why I love content in general. I like podcast Podcasting's my favorite medium. But, but running an event, running a live event, running a meetup, running some sort of in-person experience is also a fantastic way to do that. Especially when you look at the production level that goes into the events that you guys are doing now. Yeah. It, it, it, it creates this, it creates this like magnetic field around you and the, and the ventures that you're working on that attracts all of the best people. Like you're just all of a sudden on a Zoom call or a phone call with somebody that you're like, how did, how are we even talking? Like who? Yeah. Like I'm just a dude Yeah.
Travis Chappell (7m 11s):Who started an event or I'm just a dude who has a podcast and now I'm talking with this person that I just never even thought would gimme the time of day and they're asking me if I need help. Right. You know what I mean? It's not, it's not even like, like what's
Paul Chambers (7m 23s):Going on here? It's crazy. Yeah. And, and it's amazing. Like, I, I'm constantly pinching myself in the, what we've been able to build over the years here with SubSummit. We launched in 2016 and invited like 200 of our, of our closest friends into a room to talk about subscription boxes. Yeah. And it's grown and scaled and you know, I look at Hello Bellos shampoo sitting in my shower every day for my kids who should be using their shower become a jump in our shower. And cuz it's just, I don't know why, but it's better. Yeah. It's way better for some reason. So, but, and then I'm looking at our ticket feed of ticket purchasers and I see the CEO of Hello Bello and multiple team members and I was just able to sit down with Shar from Hello Bello and have a conversation with them. Nice. I'm like, how did this happen? You know? Yeah. And, and how we get here and it's, and I truly believe it's because with our event we build with the best intentions of helping as many people as possible and build that community.
Paul Chambers (8m 9s):Yes. I always tell the story, it started a little bit selfishly because we wanted to meet as a subscription box owner at the time, meet other subscription brands. But as soon as we brought that room together, from the very moment of that very first event, we felt that energy and we felt people connected. We're like, okay, this is all we need to be doing.
Travis Chappell (8m 27s):Yeah. There's something here. Yeah. There's something to
Paul Chambers (8m 28s):This. We, we, I remember the, the very first event sitting down with Michael Burke, the Founder of Fab Fit Fund. Yeah. He came and
Travis Chappell (8m 34s):Spoke. Well cuz like, I mean we're, we're talking 2016 you said? 2016. Yeah. I mean this is like pretty early stages of subscription boxes. Yeah. Like Fab Fit Fund was the one of the only ones.
Paul Chambers (8m 43s):Yeah. They were just starting to grow a skill like crazy. Somehow we got, you know, Michael to come and speak at the event via Liz Cadman at MSA at the time. Well,
Travis Chappell (8m 49s):I'll tell you, it's not a somehow Paul, you guys were very good and strategic about this. It was because it was the only event for subscription boxes in the country. Right. You know what I mean? So right there like props to you guys for just stepping into like, now it's obviously expanded into subscription in general. Yeah, yeah. And now you have Netflix here and all these other kind of like cloud-based subscription platforms, but at first it was like subscription boxes. Yeah. If you have a subscription box come here and it became the place for subscription box.
Paul Chambers (9m 17s):Yeah. So starting very, you know, they say the riches are in the niches a lot of times. Yes. So we're very niche and and the reason we've expanded over the years, cuz we started to realize people could learn from each other. Yeah. I remember one of our events in 2019, you know, sling TV came up and said, you know, we just learned something from MeUndies that had a six figure impact on our bottom line. Hmm. You know, so TV streaming, learning from an underwear subscription is amazing. And so cool. And, and that's what, you know, I absolutely love about, you know, in-person events and, and we miss it during c o d you get that energy, you get those serendipitous interactions. I watched Adam Vinter and Alex Brown from Truly Free and Adam Vinter, who on Scriber base somehow realized they lived within minutes of each other last night in the conversation they'd never met before.
Paul Chambers (10m 5s):They start talking. And they're two great minds that I love and respect in this industry. And they're like, oh, you're in Toronto. I'm in Toronto. And like, you know, finding Oh, no way. You know how close you're each other. It's so cool to see that.
Travis Chappell (10m 14s):Yeah. Right. And, and that's, that's one of the core values I think that is just overlooked. And then this is why I tell people like, you don't have to start this massive event and you guys have thousands and thousands of people that have come through this event now in the last few years. Yeah. Huge stage productions and you guys do everything first class. Yes. And always recommend people come check out this conference whenever they, they're in the subscription industry. And, and sometimes I think when people are looking at that version of what exists now, they're like, oh, I can't do this. Right. Yeah. I can't, I can't build a this type of a Summit or an event like that. Like that's way outta my league. I don't even know the first thing about doing that. We don't, the good news is like, you don't have to start with that. No. Yeah. You know, th this is, and this is also why I, you know, always recommend podcasting first because it's so much easier than most things.
Travis Chappell (11m 0s):Yeah. Very low
Paul Chambers (11m 1s):Friction.
Travis Chappell (11m 1s):Yeah. Like when I started my podcast, man, I had a, I had a flipped over laundry basket in my closet and I set my laptop on top of the laundry basket and I had a $60 U s b microphone plugged in my computer and that was my entire setup. I have a picture of it somewhere. It's amazing. It was just like literally flipped over laundry basket, laptops, $60 microphone and now I have a podcast. Yeah. But, but the, the, the thing is when you're connecting with guests on Zoom, they don't know any of that. No. They just see that you have a podcast and you ask 'em to come on and they're like, okay, sure. Let's
Paul Chambers (11m 34s):Do this. Yeah,
Travis Chappell (11m 35s):I'll do that. You know? Yeah. So you become this like, this connector of people and ideas and even if you don't grow it into something massive, it still is intrinsically valuable to everything that you're working on. Everything in my life is different today because I started a podcast six years ago.
Paul Chambers (11m 50s):Yeah. And I love the approach of your prod. I I love Travis Makes Friends. I think it's, it's such a great, cuz that's what it's all about. Yes. My favorite question I found to ask people is, how can I help you? Hmm. Is there anything I can do for you? Because it, it just, it opens the doors to so many great conversations and, and ways that you can find, you know, I'd love an introduction to this person or I'm wondering about this right now. And it's just, I love, I love being helpful too as much as I can and, but, but it really truly, you know, helps bridge so many awesome interactions. Yeah. To go back to what you're talking about earlier about like getting started and getting going. I, I struggle with this quote unquote disease.
Paul Chambers (12m 31s):I, I claim I have called entrepreneur Never Satisfied syndrome. And it's always like, there's always somebody better than, I don't know what
Travis Chappell (12m 37s):You're talking about, Paul.
Paul Chambers (12m 37s):Right, exactly. There's always somebody that's gonna be in the next level. And even Elon Musk, I'm sure you know, he's out there looking at somebody. Yeah. You know, that once was, or admiring somebody who has different control their lives. And that's a, that's a hard thing to overcome as an entrepreneur that's growing. But you go back to our first event in 2016, I remember frantically realizing our stage had no backdrop to it as we're about to set it up and there's, you know, the, the uplighting wasn't quite there and, you know, we needed multiple camera angles and just realizing all the nuances to it. And I always tell our team when we're building this event, you know, you, you look at what we have here and we're so fortunate to have an amazing team and have grown and scaled where we have, but there's always room for improvement.
Paul Chambers (13m 19s):And so every time we see something we write it down. Yeah. We do our after action reviews after SubSummit, we talk about what we could do better and I always say, look, you know, what has happened has happened and if we realize there's a way we could improve, let's make it better next time. The only thing I ever ask is let's just not make the same mistakes twice. Mm. You know, and so that's that continuous improvement. And I think that's the hardest thing as an entrepreneur sometimes Yeah. Is to realize you're never going to be satisfied and you're always, and that's, but that's that, that's what drives you. Sure. And so don't lose sight of that, but don't give don't be so hard on yourself when you don't quite get there.
Travis Chappell (13m 51s):Yeah. O someone told me one time only and always make new mistakes. Ah, I like that. So, so always be making mistakes. Just don't make them again. Right. You know what I mean? Like, just keep doing stuff, keep getting better and don't worry about if this thing isn't right or that thing isn't right. And for the most part man, like when you, when you lead with your attitude of how can I help you and this, this, this leading with value mentality, most people are gonna understand if it's like, oh, well this stage wasn't lit properly. You know, you're gonna have a couple people that are just a-holes, but those are the people that never do anything in their life anyway. Yeah. Like their calling in life is criticizing other people. Cuz they'll never take action on anything cuz they're too afraid.
Travis Chappell (14m 33s):Right. To be the one failing. So those are the people that are gonna be like, I noticed your screen was like flickering on and off and you guys need to fix that. What kind of operation is this? I paid $500 for this ticket and whatever, blah, blah, blah. But that person's gonna go home, do nothing, be in the same place next year and never go to another event. And they're gonna find something to complain about all the time. Yeah. But the people who are like part of the community who see that you guys are trying to leave with value, who see that you have this attitude of like, how can I help you first? Right. Without exp expect expecting anything in return. Those people are gonna not care about that stuff for the most part. They'll actually help, they'll, they'll be helpful. They'll, they'll say stuff like, Hey, you know, I noticed that this thing was good. Everything else was, was amazing. Thank you guys so much. And I wanted to give you a compliment on this, but if you're looking for feedback, you know, there's one or two things that I noticed that might be a little bit different and I'll be here next year to make sure that, you know, I'm supporting along the way.
Travis Chappell (15m 23s):Yeah.
Paul Chambers (15m 23s):Those are, those are my favorite emails to get after the event when somebody offers constructive feedback in a positive way and just, you know, help realizing that very same thing. Yeah. Of like, Hey, I saw this. Just wanna help you guys improve this for next year. Here's something that would make my experience better. Because, you know, I, I walk around and talk to so many people at the event and, and I ask that question how I can help, I ask, you know, what, how are you, you know, is this valuable for you so far? What do you think? And it's always good feedback. But then my follow up question is like, would you tell me if it was bad? Yeah. Right. You know, and, and, and some people are honest, they'll be like, well, maybe not necessarily, you know, but some people say like, yeah, I, I tell you if it was bad. And those are the, that's the type of feedback that I, I love receiving because it's ways we find we can make better.
Paul Chambers (16m 6s):I don't take it to heart and think like, oh, you know, like, yeah, okay. You know, so let's say a sponsor didn't get enough leads or have enough good conversations or somebody didn't make enough connections. That's a cue to me. Like, okay, we need to do better in this year. How can we do better next year at that? Yeah. Because I, I said this on the main stage on day one, we're even an event is like a wedding on steroids. Everybody needs to be happy and and we want everybody, not just the bride. Yeah. Not just the bride and groom. We want everybody to be happy. We want the sponsors to be happy. We want the the speakers to have an amazing experience. You know, you've been here before. We do our speaker reception to create value and allow our speakers to meet other people. We wanna make sure our attendees are getting value from the mer you know, sponsors in the room and the speakers on stage. So, you know, I think, I think that's like when you have that mentality in business of, you know, how can we keep finding that continuous improvement and how can we keep getting better?
Paul Chambers (16m 52s):And I was reading a tweet the other day about Moise Ali was complaining about Klaviyo. Hmm. Do you use Klaviyo at all?
Travis Chappell (16m 58s):I've I've used it before. Yeah. They actually sponsored the show a little while back.
Paul Chambers (17m 1s):Yeah. Okay. So I should be careful. But Nola Klaviyo, it's among people. Everybody says it's a little bit different. Yeah. But nonetheless, they're
Travis Chappell (17m 8s):Like Zapier and Zapier. Yeah.
Paul Chambers (17m 9s):Yeah. And, and so some people, the conversation on Twitter was around, they've gotten a little complacent with their technology. Mm. They've been growing a ton. There's rumors of them going public and there's features that just haven't been getting introduced into it that are like painfully obvious features that marketers need within there. And, and the thought process there, and the argument on Twitter is that they've grown too much where they're not innovating anymore. They innovated so much early on and they took market share and they took, they found product
Travis Chappell (17m 39s):Market fit and then they
Paul Chambers (17m 40s):Stopped and, and they stopped and got complacent because they're focused then on growth and acquisition. Yeah. And we're so far ahead and what happens to those companies when you stop thinking about that, then you start to fall behind.
Travis Chappell (17m 51s):Yeah. The, the very thing that you're trying to prevent happening is the thing that actually happens, which is negative growth for the first
Paul Chambers (17m 59s):Time. I mean, with running guest, do you see that? Do you, do you feel that pressure to constantly be pushing and to
Travis Chappell (18m 4s):Yes. Innovate? Yes. I feel like guest, we are always like, we're still looking for that product market fit. You know, we've been doing this for a couple of years and my strength lies on marketing and, and selling. So I, I don't have a problem bringing customers in through the door. Right. It's just now, like I, I have realized my weaknesses. And so 2, 2, 3 months ago we brought on a president of the company to focus more on like systems operations, customer experience, satisfaction product and stuff like that. Because that was our problem. It was like, we
Paul Chambers (18m 36s):Can require customer. So were you doing
Travis Chappell (18m 37s):Yeah, I was doing everything. Oh
Paul Chambers (18m 38s):Gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Travis Chappell (18m 39s):Yeah. And so you, you, yeah. So I, we realized at some point that, hey, you know what? I can either, I think what the problem was is I was trying to do everything and I, I tried to put on hats that I just wasn't meant to wear. Right. And, and, and sometimes I think that that's necessary as a fou. Especially as a Founder. Oh yeah. You just gotta kind of like, you know, maybe, maybe maybe you weren't in your zone of genius. Maybe you think your zone of genius is selling, but your zone of genius really is product. So let's throw the product hat on for a few months and see how it goes. And I did that and it did not go well. Yeah. Neither for the company nor for my sanity. So it was like, all right, well, you know, that was a, that was a, you know, swing and a miss. Yeah. Let's try a different strategy. Right. Which is bring on somebody who's really good and really enjoys that.
Travis Chappell (19m 21s):And then I'll step into the seat.
Paul Chambers (19m 23s):That's super smart. What I'm good at. Yeah. And something I think people don't do, especially, you know, entrepreneurs don't do enough where realizing where you're strength are. Like for me, I, I would say, you know, I spent my first, you know, 20 years in running a business. Gosh, I'm on like 25, 26 now, but I, you know, the first five years I was just trying to get through college and piece it all together. Right. But, you know, the first 20 years really just kind of understanding and it, it, sometimes it's painful. Like the here's where the entrepreneur satisfied syndrome comes in. Like, like, why didn't I realize this earlier? Hmm. You know, why didn't I realize earlier that I'm better focused? You know, when I look at the event here, I'm, I'm great at putting all the details together, making sure the signage is exactly the place where it needs to be.
Paul Chambers (20m 5s):I'm not gonna be the guy that sells sponsorships and, and pull sponsorships. I can talk to all of them and I'm, I wanna be part of that, but that's not my so of genius and where my, my specialty is. Yeah. And so finding the right partners or the right person to come in and and do those things for you is critically important.
Travis Chappell (20m 20s):Yeah. You know, what made me really consider it and, and because I've had this conversation with a couple people, actually, Jesse Pji was on the, on the show a couple days ago here. And he was talking about how, how he couldn't imagine what it would be like to have young kids and have a startup at the same time. And I was like, yeah, it sucks. Cause I, cause I was in, I'm in that, you know, and especially a couple years ago my daughter was born, it was like we were just starting the software company and she was a newborn and my son was 18 months and it was this, this big, you know, amalgamation of, of of lack of sleep and uncertainty. And it was just a weird period of life. But ironically, what I think the best thing that came outta that was my kids made me realize how much I didn't want to be that version of an entrepreneur where you are just constantly running, going, beating your head against the wall.
Travis Chappell (21m 6s):And when I, and then the nice thing about having a podcast is I started to realize that that version of entrepreneurship was not necessary to have outsized success. Cuz that was the lie that was sold to me. Yeah. Which it was, it was, you have to hustle your ass off if you wanna build anything of significance. And it was like, but I'm meeting all these people on my show that I'm interviewing who live pretty good lives. Like they work, they work a full 40, but they enjoy the work that they do. Yeah. They're working in their zone of the genius 80% of the time and they have a team around them that's built to take care of all the other things that they're not good at. And so it just ironically having kids and make and my schedule shrinking in terms of what I could do with my work Yeah.
Travis Chappell (21m 47s):Made me go fill the hours that I was spending doing the thing that I'm really good at. Yeah. And then forced me to outsource some of the other things that I was not good at to other people. Yeah. Just because I knew a value of mine was to spend time with my kids. Yeah. So it was like I, I'm not gonna sacrifice that. Like there's zero version of of the next 10 years where I just work on my businesses and don't do anything with my family. Yeah. That's just not who I want to be. So.
Paul Chambers (22m 12s):Right. And, and you get such little time with your children Right. In terms of like, my girls are our, our girls as my wife's out here in the audience, our girls are now almost 13 years old and we're looking at this going, you know, saying we've only got six years left with them being in our household. Yeah. Wow. Essentially. And we're like, gosh, you know, time's already coasted by, we have two younger kids that are nine and five. I always working at Yes. Got some head nods from the wipe out there confirmation. Yes. Got it. Right. But you know, we're looking at the same thing and I'm looking at the same thing as the time flying by with my kids and wanting to spend as much time with them. And that's like sometimes that's a, I I've, I've worked through it. I think like you have as well where that struggle in the beginning is, I have been given the thought of that an entrepreneur is that never stop hustling mentality.
Paul Chambers (23m 2s):Yeah. But you watch this time flying by with your kids and you're like, gosh, am I being a failure to my business or am I being a failure to my family? Yeah. Yeah. And I think when you can come to the realization that you're neither of those things and if you need to be, you need to be there more present for your family than anything. And the level that you work at the business is about being smarter about your time. Yes, exactly. It's not about being a failure within the business, it's about understanding where you're, you're best focused and where your time should go. Because that's the most valuable resource we all have.
Travis Chappell (23m 34s):Yeah. Sometimes it means taking a risk, you know, doing something you've never done before. Yeah. That's what it was for me, man. I brought on this operator, it is the first time I've ever hired like a six figure hire, like, like pretty well into six figures. Yeah. With a pretty good equity compensation package and all this other stuff. And it was a really risky decision for me. I interviewed like 30 people. It took me like four months I procrastinated like crazy trying to convince myself that this was what I needed to do. But so far it's worked out really well. You know, maybe it might be a different story than a year from now. I don't know. Come ask me. How
Paul Chambers (24m 7s):Far, how far are you into it so
Travis Chappell (24m 7s):Far? About two and a half months. Okay.
Paul Chambers (24m 9s):Yeah. So you're get it through the early stages of Yeah. Getting acclimated and up and running.
Travis Chappell (24m 13s):Exactly. Exactly.
Paul Chambers (24m 14s):Starting to get what the 30 to 60, 90 day plan looks like.
Travis Chappell (24m 16s):Exactly. Yeah. Cuz for me, I like, I'm, I'm, I'm again sales marketing, so I'm always like, growth, what are we doing here? What are we doing here? So the bringing on this guy has like, really taught me a lot of patience cuz he, he ran, he ran a seven or 8 million year dollar a year marketing agency before. So he's like very, you know, systems proficient. And, and like I said, I'm very impatient when it comes to those things. I'm just like, let's go, let's go. What? Like, why are we not, why can't we not go sell more people yet? You know, because that's essentially what happened is like, we grew too fast. I sold too many people. Yeah. My team was like, Hey Travis, please stop selling cuz we can't, like we're getting drowned in work here. Yeah. And we don't have the, the systems aren't set up for us to scale properly. So we, like, we hit some big milestones last year and then all of a sudden it was like everything came crumbling down at the end of the year because we're, we just, we had too many customers and not enough staff to support
Paul Chambers (25m 4s):Them. And that's a good problem to have, but it's, it's a problem.
Travis Chappell (25m 6s):A problem nonetheless for
Paul Chambers (25m 7s):Sure. Yeah. Definitely a challenge in there. So like, I, I'm curious like what have you done to help yourself kind of work through this mentality of now having somebody that you're having to not like report to but keep you in check, I guess?
Travis Chappell (25m 20s):Oh yeah, definitely. It's kept me in check for sure. And I, I've had to humble myself a lot because I, the whole reason I'm an entrepreneur is that I hate somebody telling me what to do. Right. You know what, I just wanna do what I wanna do. And it's been a, an ego check for me to have to almost like, like I brought this guy on because I want him to tell me what to do. Right. But then when he tells me what to do, I'm like, fuck you, this is my company, you know, I'm gonna tell you
Paul Chambers (25m 45s):This doesn't work this way. So
Travis Chappell (25m 47s):Yeah, there's a lot of ego checking, but, but it's been largely, so far a really successful, successful relationship. And, and just a big realization that, again, if, if I have to sacrifice sometimes like, you know, listening to somebody else's plan rather than enforcing my plan, and that means that I have more time with my family, I have better energy to put into the things that I'm actually really good at, and I get to work in my zone of genius, then I'm okay with sacrificing those things. And, and, and I realize that, yeah. I'm like, I'm paying this guy more than I pay myself to run this company. Right. But also, like, again, what are we solving for here? Right? Like, am I solving for maximum dollars in my bank account or am I, am I solving for like maximum joy in my life?
Travis Chappell (26m 28s):You know what I mean? Yeah. And, and I think being an entrepreneur, you gotta ask yourself those types of questions. And for me it was a joy thing and a, and a freedom thing and a fulfillment thing and a family thing. And it was just like, this is the vehicle. Yeah. You know what I mean? That will allow me to do
Paul Chambers (26m 40s):That. Was that, was that what it was that pushed it over the edge was the family thing and
Travis Chappell (26m 43s):Starting to realize like that time and cuz how old are your kids? Do you have Yeah, my son just turned four and my daughter's two and a half. Okay. Yeah. Was that the turning point for you? It was a big thing. Yeah. It was a big thing. It, it was that and then it was realizing that I sucked at some things in business. Yeah. And, and the only option was for me to either get good at the things that I sucked at Yeah. Or bring somebody on who was good at those things. Okay. So those are the only two options. Yeah. Those two choices. How did you decide which one, which path to go down? Because the, because there's the easy way to talk yourself into like, I can learn this. Sure. I can get better. So I tried that, that, so I think, which I think is a, I think that for me at that time was a necessary step. I,
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Paul Chambers (30m 13s):And I think that as a Founder that's probably a prudent decision for most people, especially if you're, you know, if you're bootstrapping or you don't have a ton of cash flow or you know you're worried about something like you, you, you should probably see, can I handle this first?
Travis Chappell (30m 25s):Yeah. So I tried and then it was like, not only do I suck at this, but I do not enjoy trying to get better at this. Like, it sucks the energy out of me. Right. It gives me anxiety, it makes me stressed out and I still don't feel like we're achieving the result that I wanna achieve. Right. So I, that was the ultimate decision maker where it was like, the option was get good at this or hire someone who's good at this. Yeah. I tried getting good at this, I sucked at it and I hated it. So like, that's not a version of life that I'm willing to live at for any period of time, let alone for like the next three to five years while I'm trying to build this company. So it, it became the only option was like, was like, either stay small or find somebody who's been there, done that, hire them and have them tell me what to do.
Travis Chappell (31m 11s):The best advice I ever got from was from this guy Kent Clothier, who's a kinda a mentor of mine, runs several massively successful businesses in the, in the real estate investing world. And he told me, hire someone who intimidates you. Oh. And it was the first time I ever thought about hiring in that frame because most of the time when you're a Founder, you're an entrepreneur, you're thinking you're gonna hire somebody and then you're gonna teach them and train them everything that they know and you're the hero of the story. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was the first time somebody kind of flipped that on its head for me and they were like, hire someone who intimidates you. Interesting. Hire someone who's way better than you so much so that like, they're gonna tell you what to do and it's gonna intimidate you a little bit and then pay them what they're worth or more. Wow. And that he was like, it would be the best decision you ever make.
Paul Chambers (31m 52s):So you, when when you went through those 30 applicants you were looking at in there, was, was that a a biggest factor for like, I guess like how would you think about, you know, somebody that intimidates you in terms of like a business standpoint? Their successes they've had? Yeah. What what's that metric? Yeah.
Travis Chappell (32m 8s):For me it was like somebody who had a little bit more formal training than I've ever had. Okay. Somebody who specializes in, in, in BizOps in biz op and, and and in systems and integrations and processes and somebody who is not only educated in that ar arena, but also has experience working in massive organizations at like, from from a team perspective, you know, maybe earlier on in their career. And then somebody who's also stepped into a role of being the guy Yeah. In the company or the gal in the company. Yeah. Being the person who's in charge of everybody and actually having that pressure on them. So it was important to me to find somebody who had a kind of a mixture of all those things.
Travis Chappell (32m 48s):And, and I, I, you know, the, the, the, the guy ended up hiring was kind of that way. He was, had a higher education than I had in that sense. Very well read and well studied outside of that world, which is important to me. Like continued self-education is really important to me is a value of mine. And I think that if you're gonna hold a position of leadership, you can't not be that way. And so, like seeing stuff like that was important to me. But then also seeing that he had stepped into like a smaller company, you want to add 15, 20 employees and scaled that to 40 to 50 employees doing 4 million, took it up almost to 8 million in revenue. And it was in like a service-based agency perspective, which can be very difficult from an ops standpoint.
Travis Chappell (33m 29s):You know, agencies and services are, are, are extremely, yeah. You know, when you get up to that type of revenue, when you're, when you're pushing eight figures in an agency, it's a lot of work. Oh yeah. To get systems and processes dialed in and teams working with each other. And you gotta be a good people manager, you gotta be a good systems manager. And there's just a few of those things that, like me as like a solopreneur my whole life, I had no experience doing that, any of that. Right. I never worked for another company Right. Let alone a successful company. You know, like nobody ever paid me a fat salary to do, I didn't have a degree, I didn't have an mba. Like no one qualified me. I didn't know any of that stuff, you know what I mean? So, oh, either I have to go learn it, which I tried and I hated it. Or I gotta go bring, find somebody who, who can, who can do the job better than I can. And I
Paul Chambers (34m 9s):Think that's an important key metric. Cause I've been in this boat before where I, I brought in somebody to, to run my agency. And so my roots are in a digital marketing agency and when we launched SubSummit, that agency helped create the brand and helped create everything around it. Yeah. And it's, and I still have that today. My focus is mainly on the conference and have an amazing team that runs the agency still, but over the course of time, I'd brought in somebody to run that agency that didn't end up working out. And I think for me, you know, through this conversation here, realizing like part of that was, you know, maybe there was some intimidation factor, but for me the litmus test was I should have dug a little, dug a little bit deeper into some things and deeper into looking more at the experience of ops or running something like that and lessons learned.
Paul Chambers (34m 56s):Right. Sure. And I, I think, you know, whenever have an opportunity to to, to talk to an audience like this, I always try and share some of the more vulnerable moments because I think those are important to hear Yes. In terms of like the challenges that are out there and you're gonna come across them, you know, you're two months into it so far. So things may have started to surface, things may not have started to surface. Yeah. And it still, it took me like six months of being into that relationship with that o that person I had running the organization to be like, something's not quite right here.
Travis Chappell (35m 23s):That, that was the ultimate reason I decided to hire somebody that was way better than I was. Yeah. And some like, and again, I'm two months in, it could end up not working out. I really have no idea what to expect from it. I hope it goes well. I have no reason to believe it won't at this this point, but Yeah.
Paul Chambers (35m 38s):But we think if he's listening, we think it'll be great. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (35m 40s):Right. Right. Exactly. If you're not listening then you know, who knows. Yeah. Yeah. No, but I, I, the, the reason that the, the thing that pushed me to do that was exactly what you just said because I realized that even if, if I went and hired kind of like more of a manager level, that I would pay maybe 80 to a hundred thousand a year rather than like 150 to 200,000 a year. If I went that level versus that level, I knew, I knew that there was just as much financial risk in the lower, you know, kind of quote unquote level higher a as there would be for paying double Yeah. For somebody else. Because I, I knew that that exact thing that you're saying was a is a possibility Yeah.
Travis Chappell (36m 20s):That you could bring on this person, teach them everything, you know, and take eight months to figure out that they're not a good fit. Right. And then you've just wasted not only time Yeah. And energy, but money paying this person who essentially did nothing profitable or useful in your business for eight months and then you still have to go find somebody else to replace them and start from scratch all over again trying to teach them something that I'm not even qualified to teach them to begin with. You know what I mean? It just was like, ah man. And
Paul Chambers (36m 47s):I think sometimes the challenge two things there. Sometimes the challenge after that, if you have that experience where the person isn't the right fit, it's how you feel after that too. And I think that's the important thing to be able to process and work through is like, okay, this didn't work out. This isn't a failure on, there's some failure on my part. Right. Like for not vetting Right. The take the lessons learned and move forward, but also, you know, sometimes you can't tell Yeah. Until the person's in there and you're working with them. It's, you know, like a marriage, the longer you can date ahead of time, you know the be the more likelihood your marriage is gonna be, you know, successful. And some people have, you know, meet each other and after two weeks of married in the last forever. But you find, you know, if you have those opportunities to live together in business, you don't get that necessarily.
Paul Chambers (37m 27s):You have to interview somebody. You're maybe poaching 'em away from another company. And so I think that's the important, you know, takeaway from that part is like you might, you're kind of guessing sometimes, oh yeah, you're doing the absolute best you can, but until you are married and living together and working together there, you know, and the quote unquote married, you know, situation there, like you won't find that out.
Travis Chappell (37m 46s):Yes.
Paul Chambers (37m 47s):You know? And so not being so hard on yourself if it doesn't work out.
Travis Chappell (37m 50s):Yeah. Yeah. That's again, we'll I guess we'll we'll see what happens with this one. Yeah. That that, that, that was why like, one of the reasons why it took me four months to hire them is cuz I, I had four to six conversations with them. I made them fly to Vegas Yeah. To hang out with me in person. Let's go to a restaurant, eat some food, get some drinks. All the drinks. Yeah. Right. Exactly. And, you know, talk about things outside of business as well. Yeah. It was just, it was like exactly what you're talking about. When you bring on somebody who is this high of a, a level or this high of an involvement in your business, who has the potential to earn equity through this compensation package. You put, like, you have to look at it like a marriage. Yeah. Cuz it, it basically is, yeah.
Travis Chappell (38m 30s):You're getting into, you're getting into bed with somebody who's gonna have control over your, your baby. Something that you've put a ton of effort and thought and energy into. Yeah. And that's a, that's a, a scary situation to be in, but it can also be an extremely profitable use of your time. So what I looked for, and this is what again, what mentors told me, and, and I'm not speaking from a place of I know everything because again, that we, we always learning this is gonna work out and I'm always learning, but a couple things that mentors told me was just like, if you're gonna bring on somebody like this, they have to be qualified Sure. And make sure you go through those types of things, which, which we did, but the main thing was looking for values fit and culture fit with me. Yeah. It was just like, I know the types of people that I'm going to work well with and I know the types of people that I'm not going to work well with.
Travis Chappell (39m 12s):And you could be the most qualified person on, on planet earth, but if our we don't have a values alignment, then we're not gonna work well together in business. Right. You know, so like some things are very important to me, integrity and honesty and some of these, some of these just baseline, you know, values that not everybody holds. Right. You know what I mean? And, and, and not everybody holds as in high regard as I do. Right. So, and, and, and so you have, you have to, you have to work through some of those value pieces as well because ultimately, like if this person is the type of person that I get along with and we can work through problems and we see the world the same way in terms of how we make decisions and how we go th how we handle difficult situations or how we hire or fire or like if we have similar values, then I know that everything else can work itself out.
Travis Chappell (39m 57s):Right. You know, like we can work through some training, some training pieces. Yeah. Or we can have some late night discussions on whether or not this strategy is better or that strategy is better. But ultimately at the end of the day, if we share the same values Yep. Then we can build off of everything else from there. And
Paul Chambers (40m 13s):I think, I think there's some, you know, what, what you're doing in terms of like going out to dinner and maybe going out, you know, to golf or wherever it is that, you know, you can let loose a little bit Yep. Have those personal conversations. Those are the types and those are the times where you find out how much somebody aligns with your core values. Yes. You know, you value your relationship with your family. If you're out with somebody, you're, you're hoping to come in and be part of this and let's say they have a family and kids and they're talking a different way about their family than you are, that's a red flag. Yeah. And in your, in terms of your core values. So like, yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I I can't stand my kids. Right. And you're sitting over there going like, I love spending time with my kids. Right. I don't know why anybody wouldn't love spending time with their kids. Right. You're like, so okay, so there's something here that we're, we're gonna miss on at some point, even though we're just talking about kids and time with them, you don't have the same values that I do.
Paul Chambers (40m 59s):So what that's gonna tell me is when I'm out spending time with my kids and, and you're expecting something from me or you're hoping for some to get something early and you're getting frustrated with me that I'm with my family, that's not gonna work. Right. You know? And so Absolutely. And, and what I found a lot of times is like trusting your gut in those situations. If I start to get that feeling like, oh man, you know, I don't really like the way I feel about this situation right now, nine times outta 10, it's Right.
Travis Chappell (41m 23s):I I'm, I'm, I'm such a logic based person so when I say this, know that that's how I am. But I've learned a lot recently to, to trust my gut a lot more because it is not like, it, it's not just random. Right. Right. Like your subconscious mind is processing something crazy, like 50,000 thoughts a minute or something like, like it's ridiculous compared to your conscious mind, which can only process one to three Right. Or something like that. Yeah. And so there's a connection between the mitochondria in your gut and your brain. And so like if you really think about it, if your gut is, is sending you signals that something is up, it's probably not completely wrong.
Travis Chappell (42m 8s):Right. Or totally random. It's probably because your brain subconsciously is processing literally millions of interaction points that have happened across your entire life from the time that you were one until the time that you're whatever your age it is now. So like in between that time your brain is just constantly processing information and saying, and sometimes you, when you, when you're like, I can't quite put my finger on it, it's just like I don't have any concrete evidence, but your brain is no, is picking up on commonalities between this person and some negative experiences that you've had in the past. And like, it's, it's definitely something to consider. Yeah. Cuz your gut can just be like, Hey, we've dealt with six assholes like this before, don't fall for this one again.
Travis Chappell (42m 48s):You know what I mean? Yeah. Like there's, I can't put my finger on it. Right. He seems like a nice guy. I don't know exactly what it is. Yeah. But your brain is picking up on the fact that like, oh, he tilted his eye like that and or his body language is is off-putting Yeah. And I don't know what it is, but you, but your brain does know what it is. Yes. And it's trying to tell you Yes. Through your gut mitochondria that like, Hey, something's messed up here. Yeah. Do not move forward with this person. That's,
Paul Chambers (43m 11s):And that's the biggest thing I've been, my daughter's entered middle school this year, and middle school's tough time for kids. And, and so what I've been trying to tell them is, and the, the hardest moments for you are gonna be when you feel like something is off and you have to go against the grain. Hmm. And you have to go against the crowd if everybody, yeah. You know, people are making fun of a kid for acting a certain way or doing a certain thing. It's okay to step in and say, Hey guys, this isn't cool, this doesn't feel right. And that is very challenging I mean, I remember back to middle school that was very challenging to, to do that. And I didn't do that enough. Like for me, I was like, ah, I think, you know, reflect on those moments of like, oh, I could have done this different or that different. And I try and share with my daughters like, the impact you can have on people's lives by just those small little moments too.
Paul Chambers (43m 57s):Yeah. You know? Yeah. And what you can do there and trusting your gut and knowing, and then the, the ripple effect that happens from there.
Travis Chappell (44m 5s):Absolutely. Even when it's really difficult, cuz Yeah. To your point, middle school's, that's a tough time. Right. That was a really tough time. Yeah. There
Paul Chambers (44m 11s):Was a lot of
Travis Chappell (44m 12s):Things changing. There was some kids in my school that there was this one girl who had just got made fun of all the time and there's some upperclassmen I was in like eighth grade or something, ninth grade upperclassmen making fun of her. And it was always difficult, you know, to stand up to, especially when it's upperclassmen cuz they're like the gods of the school. Yeah. You know what I mean? So like to stand up to those people was always difficult. But I look back on it now as like, I'm happy that I did that because I think that was setting a baseline for, again, not letting people tell me what to do all the time. And I think that it was a confirmation that, you know what, it may cost me a little bit of, of of, of social, you know, currency right now, but I just believe this is the right thing Yeah.
Travis Chappell (44m 58s):To do. So that
Paul Chambers (44m 59s):I've tried, I've tried to carry that, you know, advice I'm giving my daughters into business more so as I've, I've grown in my career as well. And you know, whether it be giving feedback to team members, like that's a really hard thing as well in terms of, you know, you, you're working closely with a team member. I think feedback is always a really good thing, but it's always, you know, what's attacked and what's the approach. And everybody's different too. Yeah. In terms of how they receive feedback and so understanding the individuals, okay, so this person is, is going to appreciate more direct to the point feedback this individual, you know, maybe approach it from, you know, a, a lessons learned or you know, and somebody else they want you to just kinda lay into 'em and, and let it be. And that's, that's a challenging thing with growing a team as well.
Paul Chambers (45m 40s):I, you know, I'm sure you've seen of, of helping under, you know, understanding individual characteristics and helping 'em grow the right way.
Travis Chappell (45m 47s):So Paul, what, what are the big things that you're working on these days? Is it mainly SubSummit and then you have your agency I know you had a subscription box company before you still like toying in any of that
Paul Chambers (45m 58s):Or? Yeah, so we sold the subscription box company in 2020 just before Covid. Okay. And that kind of worked out really well. It was called the Gentleman's Box. It was a, a subscription to help you, you know, dress up in matching socks and ties and pocket squares. So during Covid, not many people dressed up anymore and that's why Lululemon stock was through the roof. So we were able to exit that so I could focus on SubSummit, the agency and I have partnerships in various different businesses. I, I bought a pizza shop a while back, promised my wife I'd never worked there and then broke that promise about three weeks into it. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. Typical. And so, you know, for me what I've realized like lately is, you know, focusing and, and driving, you know, to the finish line of wherever that may be.
Paul Chambers (46m 44s):Hmm. And for SubSummit, maybe it's helping find a, a partner to scale this to the next level and, and work with a, a larger company to help us continue to grow this. Or maybe it's, you know, continuing to bring somebody in and, and train the team and staff. Like this year I've had to do far less than I've ever had to do before. Nice. Which has been fantastic. Yeah. And amazing because what that's allowed me to do is focus on more of the details. Right. Focus on more of the relationships and the opportunities on your own genius. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And you know, and I did something this year that the team didn't really expect and not on purpose. It just so happened I didn't carry a radio around with me. Mm. And usually, you know, most of the team has radios with, you know, we're all in each other's ears and talking about what's going on here, what need to be where.
Paul Chambers (47m 26s):And I, I left my radio behind and I did it on accident on the, the first day cuz I was going everywhere. But then I realized like, it's probably better that I'm not on radio. Yeah. Because let them solve some of the challenges. Let them solve some of the problems. That's the only way they're gonna learn. And you know, I always joke, you know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow where I did a, a stair climb two weeks ago in all my firefighting gear, 2000 steps at Comerica Park Wow. With all my firefighter gear on and cuz the nights, weekends, I'm a firefighter as well. And you know, cause why not have more things to do? And I, I was joke with the team, like, listen, if I don't make it on the stair climb, I think you guys are gonna be okay for SubSummit. Yeah, yeah. You know what you're doing. You're, you're there, you really have been able to figure out all the operational stuff on, on your own.
Paul Chambers (48m 7s):So anyway, to answer your question, that's where most of my time and attention is.
Travis Chappell (48m 11s):Why do you do stuff like that, the stair climb?
Paul Chambers (48m 15s):So I'm a, I joined volunteer fire department in the city I live in. I I did this stair climb because I wanted to, my friend asked me to, he's like, Hey, you should do the stair climb this year. I'm like, yeah, I think I can do that. And then it became a challenge.
Travis Chappell (48m 28s):Yes. That's what I was getting to. Yeah. You're you're a psychopath. Yeah,
Paul Chambers (48m 31s):Exactly. In a good way. It became a challenge of like, you know, so the other firefighters at the station like, look, you're fit and, and healthy, but like, you know, you're, are you sure your heart's gonna hold up for this? I'm like, yeah, I'll be fine. Wait, was
Travis Chappell (48m 44s):The wife on board for this one?
Paul Chambers (48m 46s):Kind of, that's what I thought. Yeah. No, not really. So, you know, she's like, you need to get a physical beforehand. I'm like, look, I'm gonna make it. And then it became like all the other guys at the station like, listen, you're gonna be lucky if you finish it. I'm like, and I said, you know, I know I can at least finish it. Yeah. Yeah. But now, now you've forced me to drive myself to finish in the top five of our department. So there are 15 guys doing it. And I finished in the top six. I finished number six by number six by a minute and a half. But the top guy station, the buddy of mine asked me to do it, finish in 20 minutes and I finish in 29 minutes and 30 seconds or something like that. Nice. But I, I, I do that because one, you know, I, I appreciate the challenges for a good cause just for the American Lung Association and for me, like I know, I want to continue to focus on my health and Yeah.
Paul Chambers (49m 29s):And be here as long as I can be. And so, you know, that's part of it too. Help kickstart awareness around that. See how well my heart would hold up. I did fine. You know, luckily the SubSummit team didn't need to do this on their own, you know, and the firefighting thing, I started again, like, this is the one conversation I had with my wife where she's like, I really don't want you doing this. I'm like, yeah, but I want to. And she's like, I really don't want you doing this. And she was really trying to kind of hold her ground on it. And so then I kind of went behind her back and I did it anyway. And I signed up to be a volunteer firefighter and she's given me that face in the audience, like, yep. That was the truth. And in hindsight we're all very, you know, happy with the way it turned out.
Paul Chambers (50m 8s):We have an amazing community of firefighters and, you know, our kids all hang out together and it's, it's so fun and great part of it. But I, I did that because one, I wanted to give back to the community I live in, but also I always, I'll tell you the, the weird connection I made recently, but I always wanna be the person driving towards it then away from it. Hmm. And there's, there's the adrenaline rush that comes with that of driving towards the unknown. But what I've realized recently in the connection to, to business is there's two things in the fire service that I connect to, to what I'm doing every day. Like at an event here, like SubSummit one, it's rapid problem solving. Hmm. When you walk up on a burning building, you have no idea what's inside.
Paul Chambers (50m 49s):Sadly I missed a, a fire that my buddies had while I was gone here. Mm. But they were sh sharing with me. It was, the call came in, a guy had come home, his house was filling with smoke and it was hot upstairs. And that's all, you know, going into that situation and your job is to get there as quickly as possible, show up and then, and then go find where the fire is. Yeah. And get in there. And a fire I was on with that, that buddy had challenged me on the stair climb. It was the exact same situation. Opened the front door and the chief of the department said, we've got fire in the basement. We don't know where it is, but it's filled with smoke. And me and my buddy go running the front door gear up and go in and he goes down to the basement and I'm pulling the hose in the front door to give him, to get, to get him down the basement and I lose him in the darkness.
Paul Chambers (51m 37s):And this is the guy that when his mother passed away several years before I, I went in and talked to her and she wasn't as conscious, but I could tell, like I held her hand. And I, I promised her, I said, I promise I won't let your son die. I will make sure he's always okay as I watch, I'm watching him go down in the darkness of the basement and I'm remembering this promise I made to her. I'm like, okay, I gotta catch up to him. Go down there, I catch up to him and you can't see anything. I can barely see him in front of me, but I follow the hose line down to him and he's spraying water off in the direction of the basement. And I get thermo imaging camera and I look and there's no fire over there. And I tapped him on the shoulder and the fire was in the other direction. We put the fire out. Hmm.
Paul Chambers (52m 17s):But what happened in that situation was this rapid problem solving. Yeah. Quickly figuring out where the fire was, what was going on, identifying the room that you need to be in, so on and so forth. So that's, that's the one part of it. And then the other part of it's like the leadership part of it and leading people in, in, in, in, in being there for that. And so that's what I'm attracted to in the fire service that helps feed, you know, that energy inside of me and get that out from time to time too.
Travis Chappell (52m 41s):I think that's awesome man. I, I think having kids, something, something that has been good for me having kids is Yeah, it really makes you reflect way more on the man that you want to become, not just for yourself but for your family. Right. Right. Like who, who are my kids going to see as their dad? Because at some point it was Ed Mylet who said this to me on a podcast. He was like, at some point your kids are gonna figure out who you really are. Yeah. You know, cuz when they're little it's dad's the hero and, and mom and dad are awesome. And, and they have that, they have that viewpoint of your parents just like you did when you were a kid with your parents.
Travis Chappell (53m 24s):And at some point your kids find out who you really are. Right. And when that point comes, I want, I like, my, my deepest desire in that moment is for my kids to like, for the shortest discrepancy to happen at that point between the person who they've always thought I was and the person who I really am. I just want the gap between those two people to be as small as I can make it. Right. It'll never be the exact person. Cuz you know, as a kid you think your, your, your parents are superheroes and immortal and all this, you know what I mean? Like Yeah. But as you get older, you get as close as you can Yeah. To that. And I think that's what's cool about what you're doing with the fire stuff and doing the stairs challenge and then running the business and buying a pizza thing and you know, doing all these other things.
Travis Chappell (54m 6s):I just think that that I I think that you're, I think that that's gonna do way more good for not just you, but for your kids than than you even, you know, realize today. Yeah.
Paul Chambers (54m 14s):Yeah. I, I told my girls, they, they would always ask, you know, when they could start to come to SubSummit and be a part of what we're doing here. And the rule is to all of our kids, you have to be 10 years old to show up. That's when you start to become a little mature enough to be helpful and do things. And so in 2021, they came to our first event back here, they turned 10 in 2020, couldn't do it during Covid. So obviously they showed up here in 2021, had 'em on stage presenting best kids subscription and have for the past three years. And they've grown into that. You know, not many kids can say they have been on stage in front of hundreds of people and doing public speaking. Yeah. But more so what I love about having them here is, is seeing the work that I'm doing and, and understanding, you know, how we're, we're here helping people and what we're doing as far as business goes, meeting other entrepreneurs and seeing part of that.
Paul Chambers (54m 58s):And I know they're not taking every moment in. Right. They're kids. Sure. They're, they're interested in maybe what's next on Youtube or the next video Mr. Beast is putting out or whatever it is. But I know subconsciously they're getting some of those things or seeing the hard work that goes into stuff like this too. Yeah.
Travis Chappell (55m 12s):Paul, this has been awesome man. Yeah. I appreciate you coming on the show. Before we take off, where's the best place that people can go connect with you a little bit more?
Paul Chambers (55m 19s):Yeah, so I'm pretty, pretty vocal on LinkedIn around there a lot. Try and share a lot of great content with the community on LinkedIn. I've been more involved in Twitter lately. Okay. So you can find me on LinkedIn at, you know, just PAUL CHAMBERS search SubSummit. You'll find, find me through there on Twitter. I'm at PAUL CHAMBERS, it's getting a little more traction. So I've tried to be on a little bit more lately. Sure. Yeah. And then you can always email me Paul at sub to u bta.com.
Travis Chappell (55m 47s):You know that what's wild, we get people saying stuff like that. And I appreciate you being willing to do that, Paul, at sub to.com. If you are listening to this and you don't take advantage of things like this, you gotta ask yourself when are you going to start? Because we have some amazing people on the show, man. And people give out personal contact information. Yeah. And it blows my mind when people don't take advantage of reaching out to these people just to say thank you, just to like initiate a, you know, a connection in some
Paul Chambers (56m 13s):Way. So, yeah. And I will, I will share my, my inbox does get, get flooded and so I have filtering tools. So if you do email, put, you know, Travis Chaps podcast or Travis heard you on Travis, Makes Friends Podcasts. So I can find it through my filtering software cuz I hate to miss emails, but I, I'm absolutely more than happy to connect with anybody.
Travis Chappell (56m 31s):Awesome. So if you are an entrepreneur just wanting to talk about subscriptions or maybe you have a subscription company or maybe you have an events company, you know, Paul knows a lot about these different businesses, different models, and has just given you his personal contact information. So reach out, tell him you heard about him here on the show. Paul, thanks again for coming on, man. This is a blast.
Paul Chambers (56m 50s):Thanks for having me, Travis. Thanks for being here.
Travis Chappell (56m 53s):That's it for today's episode. Thanks for spending some time with me and my friends. If you want to be better friends with me, then head over to Travis Chappell dot com slash team to subscribe to my free newsletter, your friend Travis, where I share what's on my mind about life, building a business, raising kids, being married, and anything else I would normally share with my close circle of friends. That's Travis Chappell dot com slash team. And my biggest ask of you, since I'm sharing my friends with you, is to share this episode with a friend of yours that hasn't listened to the show yet. And leave us a quick five star rating in Apple Podcasts and in Spotify it would mean the world to us as it helps us make sure that this show continues to be more valuable to you. Thanks in advance and I'll catch you on the next episode.

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