Ep #22: From Out of Balance to Following the Fun with John Auble
episode summary
Ever felt overwhelmed by your career and wondered if there was another way? Our guest today, John Auble, is living proof that it's possible. Once an engineer drowned in the corporate hustle, John took a leap of faith, left his demanding career and carved out his own entrepreneurial path.
John didn't simply swap a corporate job for his own business - he completely redesigned his life and went from a life of stress and imbalance to one of fulfillment and harmony. We talk about taking risks, moving past limiting beliefs, and remembering your reason why.
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Get in touch with John: john@clovisproperties.info
For the full show notes and transcript, head over here.
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CHAPTERS:
0:04 - Introductions
4:17 - Feeling Out of Balance
8:47 - Thoughts are Just Thoughts
15:53 - Zone of Genius
24:50 - Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway
listen to the episode:
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Michelle: 0:04
Hey, I'm Michelle Gauthier and you're listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. Hello, and thanks for joining me today. Today we have a special guest, the first man ever to be on this podcast, my client, John Auble. The reason why I am having him on the podcast today is because he is a wonderful example of someone who went from feeling overwhelmed, traveling too much, feeling like he didn't have any balance with his kids and his wife and his job, to creating his own business very successfully, cooking dinner every night, being able to pick his kids up from school early and really enjoying a balanced life. So, even though he is not an overwhelmed working woman, he struggles with the same types of things that most of us do, and he is a great example of someone who took the leap in order to create a life that they really wanted that included full balance, enjoyment of the family. He loves to cook and he loves his job. Take a listen and I think you'll be inspired by John's story of how he went from a life that felt out of balance, where he was not taking care of himself, wasn't spending time with his family, to a life that he truly enjoys. All right. So I want to introduce you to John Auble. He is here today to tell us about the transformation that he's had over time with his coaching. So, John, introduce yourself, say hi, and tell us a little bit about you.
John: 1:38
Yeah, thank you for having me on, Michelle. I appreciate it. The first man on the podcast, that's awesome.
Michelle: 1:45
That's right.
John: 1:46
I found you through my wife who I think went to a real estate conference of some sort. I think you spoke there and she kind of knew the position I was in and some of my internal struggles that I was dealing with and passed me your information along and I reached out. That was 2022, sort of like at the end of the summer. At the time I was in commercial construction and just had our second baby that year. I've got two boys now. My wife and I both were both engineers and we committed a lot to our careers sort of early on and we're high achievers, so we really had a lot going on, especially with the addition of a second child, and I was traveling about every single week with my job and that was really hard. So that's where I really was seeking help was just sort of trying to get more balance in my life, because I really lacked a good, healthy balance between, sort of like family and friends and my professional career.
Michelle: 2:57
Yeah, had you worked with a coach before, or had you thought about doing something like this before? Or, it's very common, for m any of my clients it's the second baby that makes you question everything in your life. Do I still want to keep working this much? Do I want to travel this much? So had this been a problem before, or was it really just at that time that it started feeling really intense?
John: 3:20
Well, I hadn't reached out to any other coaches or therapists or anything like that. I had spoken with a few mentors, I'll call it, within the industry, such as like upper-level managers and such. And it was actually suggested that I reach out to someone from one of those mentors, which I really appreciate because I might not have done it otherwise. But I really needed to just kind of like talk to someone who was outside of my industry directly that could sort of give me objective feedback, and that was exactly what he had recommended. Actually, the founder of that construction company. That's exactly what he recommended and that's sort of exactly what I did. It was profound.
Michelle: 4:01
Okay, good. So before we jump into when we started coaching, tell me more about the pressure that you felt about not being with your boys as much and traveling all the time. Like what else did you see that that caused in your life?
John: 4:17
Yeah, so I'll bring it back to balance because that's sort of been like a big focus point for me. But I didn't have great mental health because I was so stressed out about work and being gone and it really just sort of drains you and you get discouraged easily through that. So you know, we've talked a lot about that, just sort of the mental piece of it, but also the physical piece related to myself. I'd say, when you have a busy career and you add kids on top of that and many other things but just life in general, the first thing you sacrifice typically is your physical well-being. It's kind of easy to chop that off and I was doing that. So I wasn't really serving myself in that regard. And then I wasn't really serving my family as well as I felt I should or could, because, like I mentioned, my wife had a she's got a great career and a busy schedule too, so we wanted to be able to have more flexibility and spend more time with the kids. And you know, dinner was always very hard and when I'm traveling she's got both of the children, which is like it's damn near impossible, right. So it was just tough. I felt like I needed a change.
Michelle: 5:32
I just think that will resonate with everybody and throw in there too some of those nights where you get like two, three hours of sleep on top of all that other stuff.
John: 5:41
Yeah, and I don't know what it is about second kids, but they, from what I can gather and talk to other parents, they always seem to be a little more challenging.
Michelle: 5:49
It's like the tipping point. You can sort of keep up your old life with one and then when you have two, it's like something's got to give somewhere and, like you said, the first thing to go is usually like the taking care of yourself or making any time for yourself. And then you know, I think it's awesome that you realize I really want to make a change and you reached out to me. So at the start of coaching we started by just talking about how you were feeling and kind of working on your mindset around that, because one of the things that I work on with my clients in coaching is not, okay, come and let's start making some big decisions and take actions right away. The first thing we do is just evaluate where you are really, define what the problem is and then try to settle your mind down a little bit so that you can make those changes. That's how it feels from my side. How did it feel to you when we first started coaching?
John: 6:38
Yeah, you're exactly right. You helped me realize what's most important, some very basic things like what is serving me, what is serving my family, what is serving sort of the things that I have prioritized in my life. And it's obviously very clear that my career was sort of like the one thing I could maybe change that could help provide more balance to the other aspects of my life. And I was already sort of teetering when I had reached out to you and already sort of had a little bit of a vision of what I might want to do outside of my current career. But that was really the biggest sort of obstacle for me is that financial/ professional career aspect. I really was sort of hung up on how I would leave such a good opportunity, the opportunity being my current job, my current role, my salary, my current future and opportunity there and how I could just chase something that I had absolutely no idea sort of what was gonna be created out of it.
Michelle: 7:48
Yes, it feels so risky in that moment when it's like I have this sure bet thing, even though I would argue that it's not anymore of a sure bet than anything else, because every company can have issues or whatever, but it's like we wanna stay. Our brain wants to keep us safe and have us stay in that secure salary and the security of working for someone else, even though you really had no control over your hours or your travel or anything like that. It was just part of your job. One of the things I wrote down in one of our earlier coaching sessions that you said was I have flutters of possibility where I have moments of extreme confidence and excitement about doing your own thing, and then obviously I didn't write down your thoughts about this particular thing, but obviously you had thoughts in the other direction too, like this is terrifying and it's a terrible idea. I'm putting words in your mouth now, but how did you sort of work through those two opposite thoughts that you had at the same time?
John: 8:47
I think the biggest thing that helped me was something that we worked on quite a bit, which was just like understanding thoughts. You know, the book the Big Leap highlights the power of limiting beliefs and limiting thoughts and how everyone has them naturally - it's sort of like a defense mechanism. You helped me just sort of be conscious of them and understand that they're there but they don't need to influence my emotions and my actions. I think that was really helpful just taking it slow, realizing that these thoughts, these negative or limiting beliefs are there, understanding why they might be there and then sort of acting based off of that, as opposed to just the initial thought.
Michelle: 9:36
Yes, yeah, that's such a great example and I think too, a lot of times we wanna stay in a situation until it feels good enough to leave, but it never feels good enough to change, like there's always some fear. I don't know if you felt this way. I definitely felt that way with my first and second baby, where it's like, oh gosh, we're gonna have this other child. I don't really know if I can do this, but you gotta just do it. With that little bit of fear mixed in with the excitement, it never really goes away. So it did seem like with the thought work we did, you started to get more comfortable with the idea. One of the things I remember about your nervousness about leaving too, was that you really liked a lot of the people who you worked with and you had a lot of friends there. Can you talk about that part?
John: 10:19
Yeah, that's aside from the stability and comfortability with that career trajectory. I really enjoy the people I work with. Culturally, it is a great company and I wouldn't want to work anywhere else like within that industry. That was one of the more challenging aspects of, and still continues to be as I navigate this new entrepreneurial venture is just how do I collaborate, because that's just the kind of person I am, especially working in the construction industry. It's just such a social industry where you're always on the phone, you're always talking with people, you're trying to influence folks and get them to perform at a high level, and so I knew I was going to be removing that facet from my professional life and that was challenging.
Michelle: 11:16
Yeah, and so that was another example of something where I'm really going to miss these people and I'm really going to miss having coworkers, but I'm going to do this anyway because it feels like it's the better thing for my life. So it wasn't like we got your mind to the point that everything felt great and it was perfect and you couldn't wait and you knew it was going to be successful. It was done with a decent amount of trepidation, not so much that your gut was telling you not to do it, though, because when we would check your gut, your gut was always like yeah, I know I can do this. Somewhere in there, you knew you could do it. Do you agree with that?
John: 11:46
Absolutely, and I do think one of the biggest things here that gave me the most comfort was my wife had a great job, we had great insurance, we saved, like in that state, to support the family as needed, in case I made very little to no money and she had steady pay. So those three things right there were critical in me sort of taking this drastic leap because and I love the way you put it you like totally changed my way around this. Like I was nervous to even like use that money, remember, like I felt like it's a nest egg and I can't touch it and we can't tap into it because then I'm going to start freaking out about it. But you had said to look at it like it's an investment in myself, just like I sort of looked at bringing you on as a coach for me personally, also an investment in myself. It's no different than that savings we had. There doesn't need to be any fear around having to use it. It is money that we have set aside that we use to invest in me and invest in the company I was starting, yeah, which is so great, because you probably didn't think as much about paying someone else.
Michelle: 13:04
Or, like when you bought the condo that you own, that you use as a rental, that was an investment too. But you're kind of putting your money in someone or something else, but when you're putting it in yourself, it feels like well, I'm using that money, but no, it turns out it was a great investment, you investing in yourself.
John: 13:22
Yeah, no, it has been great and it's funny because you came into my life at the perfect time, because we have the pre-leap of coaching and then post-leap, and you've helped me work through everything beforehand and managing all those emotions with leaving a company I've been with straight out of college for eight years and a total really just leaving a career in an industry, which is a very hard decision, and then also now you're helping me get my feet underneath me starting a business, be more entrepreneurial, which comes with a whole load of challenges with schedule management and because my schedule is so different, in a good way, mostly valuing opportunities, like everything that comes on with being an entrepreneur.
Michelle: 14:09
Yes, yeah, that's a great point. Okay, so I want to talk about that. I want to talk about the transition. I was looking back through my notes as I was prepping for this and I just had an all caps: He quit his job for a coaching session. Remember that? Of course, you remember.
John: 14:26
Yeah, I was thinking about that journey and that process. I felt like you had to be freaking out a little bit. That's why I told you that.
Michelle: 14:35
I knew you were going to do it and I do remember you asking me does this freak you out to do stuff like this? I said, actually, people who work with me quit their jobs all the time. You're like great, that makes me feel better. But in this case, I feel very calm about it because I don't tell you to do anything. What I had been doing up to that point was helping you understand all of your thoughts, all of your feelings, all your decisions, all your options, and follow your gut. When you did it, I knew that it was the right thing for you. Yeah, it didn't feel nervous to me, but you were the one who was doing it.
John: 15:13
Yeah, then after that I was still very nervous and I was trying to jump at every single opportunity that was thrown my way, which there was quite a few as the news got out. I would say you helped me try to stay true to what my original vision was and what I was trying to do, which is another great lesson for me that has helped me find success in this new venture and continues to. But yeah, it's a lot different.
Michelle: 15:42
So tell everyone what your company is like, what you switched to because it's a related field, but it really was starting in a new industry that you hadn't previously worked in. So tell everybody what you ended up doing.
John: 15:53
Yeah, I love the outdoors, I love being outside hunting, fishing, camping. I got an inspiration or a thought, I think, from a family friend who had reached out to his neighbors. He was a landowner and he reached out to his neighbors who own properties adjacent to his, but they lived in Florida or something like that. He just wrote him a letter and was like, hey, we love this property, we love the view, if you're ever interested in selling, let us know, we'd love to buy it. He did buy the surrounding parcels and he got it at a really great price. I was just like there's probably a lot of people out there that don't care to own property that they don't use or inherited property. It's the same thing with houses and real estate, but it's really focused on vacant property. So I had that idea and I listened to how I was searching for people that might be doing that. I'd heard that there are some and I found a group that focuses on that and they have a program that teaches other people about it. So I joined that community and learned more of the business side of it. So my business essentially is mailing directly to landowners and trying to find opportunities of vacant property that these landowners don't wish to have, or they'd rather exchange for money and sell. And it turns out there's quite a bit. There's a lot of people out in this country that would gladly sell property given the opportunity, but they might not necessarily know how, or there's certain restrictions with the property or limitations. And that's where my development and construction expertise comes into play, where I can add utilities or I can clear properties or I can develop them, subdivide them, rezone them in some cases, and I can create value that way.
Michelle: 18:00
Yeah, so is it fair to say it's kind of similar to flipping houses, but it's property with nothing built on it. Well, I guess sometimes it has things built on it, but it's mainly just the property.
John: 18:11
That's exactly right.
Michelle: 18:12
Okay, so you started this business. You had a little bit of experience in it because you had sent out some letters prior, and then your goal was to just use your nest egg money for the first year if you needed to. But what ended up happening Like tell us the success that you had almost right off the bat?
John: 18:32
Yeah. So, like you said, I joined that community about eight months before I had started talking with you. I had sent out a bunch of letters because I really didn't know what else to do and it just seemed like an easy, actionable step. So I sent out a bunch of neutral letters to sort of see what would happen. And my phone was ringing like all the time and it became, honestly, it became overwhelming to where I just sort of I put it aside and I didn't pursue it, because at the time I was traveling a lot. I was very overwhelmed and then sort of reached out to you to try and help me figure all that out. So when I made the leap, I started to follow up on a lot of those leads that I had sort of put away and immediately it was just like I might have missed out on some opportunities, but they were still there and a lot of them were still there and I started making the phone calls and returning emails and I found great deals and I helped people get rid of their property. It made me money and it was very easy. And I'm like kind of kicking myself, why I didn't do it or pursue it previously, because it's still proving to be something that's very - I say it's easy, it comes naturally for me, I think, because of many different reasons, but I'm enjoying it and it's something I can repeat and I have been repeating and sort of found I guess I'll call it a niche direction of the business and now I can kind of like continue that while also sort of like growing other parts of the business.
Michelle: 20:16
Okay, and how many months did it take you to make up the salary that you were making before?
John: 20:21
Three months.
Michelle: 20:23
Yeah, so in three months you made your entire year salary right.
John: 20:27
Yeah, yeah, that is correct.
Michelle: 20:29
Yeah, that's amazing. That's amazing, but I honestly it makes perfect sense to me. I think you were the perfect person for this job and for anybody listening, just you telling the story of oh, this family friend sent a letter to somebody in Florida to buy this property that anybody could have heard that and it might not have resonated with them like it did with you. So, and then you started looking for podcasts and you found this group and you reached out. So for anybody who's looking to start a totally different career than you're doing now, that's what I would encourage you to do is notice the things that you notice, what feels like fun to you, and then, when you follow up on them, does it still feel like fun? Does it still seem interesting? And even now that you're doing the job, you're figuring out parts of it that feel really good to you, or like this niche area that you can work in, and so following the fun is a different concept than at least I had at work. I liked my job too, but it was not like what will be fun to work on next. It was whatever do I get assigned to work on next? So if you're thinking about changing careers and you're used to just like nose to the grindstone, working really hard, pay attention to what sounds like fun, like John did, and this is, I feel like it's not the same industry, but you're using a lot of your skills from being in the construction industry too, which is amazing.
John: 21:47
Yeah, just communication being a huge part of that comes very naturally, or needs to come very naturally if you're in construction and Sort of following up with people is huge in construction as well.
Michelle: 21:59
So you know, those, those two things alone can provide you great opportunities, and what I'm doing yeah, and I think yes, you said it's easy for you and that's how you know that you're working in your zone of genius, in my opinion, because when it feels like it's not work where you could put somebody else in your exact position, they'd be like this is killing me. I can't do this because it's not theirs, but for you it feels easy and it just, you know, rolls off and I feel like the thing that we have just been coming back to in our session, since you have started your business and have had success with it, is going back to the idea that I'm doing this because I want to enjoy my life, because we have a tendency everybody who I work with who quits their job, myself included, you just almost start rebuilding that corporate mentality in your own business. So tell us a little bit about how your life is different now and, like that enjoyment of your whole life, your job and the rest of it feels different than it did before this.
John: 23:00
Yeah, I obviously have so much more time to delegate differently, so it's not like I have more time on my hands, but I can now dedicate time to taking care of grocery shopping. I love to cook, so I cook dinner most nights and that's enjoyable for me. I get to spend more time with my children, which is awesome. So we have, you know, our dedicated time in the morning. My wife gets time with them in the morning as well, and then I can pick them up, you know, at 4: 30, which might seem really late to some people, but it allows me to get a lot done and and then spend good time with them in the afternoon, where, you know, three days a week I was traveling previously, and so I would get just Monday and Friday.
Michelle: 23:48
Yeah, and you get to do your, your son's t-ball coach.
John: 23:53
Yeah, I coach t-ball. You know, I think the biggest challenge for me was just sort of my schedule is really sort of professionally like how do I manage my schedule with all the different opportunities that I want to do and all the different things that come with being an entrepreneur, such as figuring out your taxes and your LLC structure, your business structure, marketing, so It's just that sort of the things I think that you've helped me most with recently. It's just sort of structuring my time management in this new reality here.
Michelle: 24:29
Yeah, because you could, if you felt like it, you could just do 12 hours a day working on your business. Yeah, yeah, but you don't want to because that's not the point. You know you did it to create a different kind of life. So it's funny once you get there, you have to keep reminding yourself that, or I remind you, one of us reminds you that that's what you're doing.
John: 24:49
That's right.
Michelle: 24:50
Okay. One other thing I want to say about your results is when you started actually making money and doing these deals. One of the things that you said to me that I wrote down because I thought it was so good is I did this deal despite feeling nervous, anxious and unsure, so once again, like taking that worry and anxiety with you, but doing it anyway. Yeah, how did you get yourself to continue to move forward, even though you felt, I mean the thoughts I had, let's say, when I had my first client ever, was I hope I can help them, I hope I know what I'm doing. You know those those sort of feelings when you start a new business. So how did you manage that?
John: 25:26
I think it came down to trusting myself a little bit and and having that confidence in myself because I've mentioned it to you several times that's sort of when I'm operating at my best is when I'm confident. You helping me manage my thoughts and acknowledge my thoughts, but not necessarily led letting them influence my actions, was a big part of it as well. I just say those two things, you know being in a in a zone, zone of genius, or operating in this sort of new reality, that excites me and builds my confidence up, in addition to sort of understanding my brain a little bit more definitely helps me make decisions.
Michelle: 26:10
Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So just talking timeline. We started talking in August and by the time the six months was over, because I work with my clients for six months, so by the time the six months was over, we had worked through your worries about quitting your job. You quit your job, started your new business and I'm pretty sure you had already made your money back or made it years' worth a salary by the time that six months was over. If not, it was close, maybe seven months or eight months of time. So I think so.
John: 26:41
I think I was under contract.
Michelle: 26:42
Yeah, I think so too. Yeah, so just overall amazing job. And I think the reason why I wanted to have you because I feel like you have such a great story and be the first man on the podcast because the things that you are suffering from are the things that, you know, I coach probably 80% women, they suffer from as well. It's like I love my job, I love having a you know big deal job that I've gone all in on, but now I have kids or I have other interests in life and I don't have time to do them anymore. So kudos to you for having the nerve to change your life in a way that feels so much better for you and not waiting, because a lot of times people are, like you know, late 40s by the time that they decide that they can do this, where you're young in your career, to say I'm gonna quit this industry and I'm gonna start my own thing. So great job. Great job putting your family first, which is what you wanted to do. Having a business that you love just a plus all across the board.
John: 27:40
Thank you, Michelle, I couldn't
Michelle: 27:42
What would you say to somebody who's listening, who's sort of in the position that you were in at the beginning? Is there like one little thing they could do today to feel better, or some piece of advice?
John: 27:54
Well, I'd say first, you know, I was so, so nervous about making such a drastic change without having a running vehicle to jump to. I sort of, like, you know, jumped into a rickety cart and then tried to turn it into a Rolls Royce or something like that. But you don't need to, you don't have to have this golden opportunity that you can jump to. And I would say that, like we said at the beginning, really focus on yourself first and then sort of your you know immediate family, and then try to understand what your current position, your current relationships, your current career, you know. Is it serving those priorities in your life positively? If not, then reconsider or consider making a change.
Michelle: 28:46
Yeah, because, to your point, it doesn't have to be perfect, just like we talked about. It's never going to feel like the perfect time, you're never going to have the right amount of nest eggs saved up. There's always an excuse that you can use not to do the thing, so I love that, thank you. Thank you so much for being on. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you want to talk to us about? Is there some way people can contact you if they want to know more about your business, or what kind of contacts are you looking for?
John: 29:14
Yeah, I think if there's any real estate folks listening that are in the residential or multi-family space, you come across vacant property and wondering what to do with it or what it might be valued at, I'd love to start a conversation around that. My email is john J-O-H-N at Clovis C-L-O-V-I-S properties. info.
Michelle: 29:44
Great, I will put that in the show notes too, in case someone's driving and they can't see that. So John and I are both in St. Louis. If people are listening from places beyond St. Louis, are you still interested? Do you do things outside of this area?
John: 29:57
Not yet, but that is the goal is to continue to broaden my marketing areas. I'm probably going to be focused within about two hours of a large metropolitan area just because there's, I'd say, more of a need or a market for vacant property there. But yeah, shoot me anything. I have a lot of people that work in all different states so I can maybe connect them with somebody.
Michelle: 30:26
Okay, okay, that's great. Maybe you'll get your first out of state deal from this podcast.
John: 30:30
Maybe, maybe you'll see.
Michelle: 30:31
Okay, let's put it out of the universe. It could totally happen.
John: 30:35
That's right yeah.
Michelle: 30:36
Okay, well, thank you so much. I appreciate you being on.
John: 30:39
Thank you, Michelle.
Michelle: 30:45
Thank you for listening to the Overwhelmed Working Woman podcast. If you want to learn more about my work, head over to my website at michellegauthiercom. See you next week.
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