Children’s book author and Founder of Dinosaur House, a company that helps turn industry leaders into children’s book authors, Timmy Bauer joins the show. We get deep into the WHY and when Timmy knew what he wanted to do with his life. We talked about the struggles of managing a business with ADD/ADHD and some practical tips on how to best stay on track. We had a lot of fun vibing out on this episode so tune in!
Children’s book author and Founder of Dinosaur House, a company that helps turn industry leaders into children’s book authors, Timmy Bauer joins the show.
We get deep into the WHY and when Timmy knew what he wanted to do with his life. We talked about the struggles of managing a business with ADD/ADHD and some practical tips on how to best stay on track.
We had a lot of fun vibing out on this episode so tune in!
Check out Timmy’s earlier episode on ‘Why You Should Stop Social Selling’
Connect with Timmy to connect and learn more:
Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.
Connect with Rob:
Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com
Creative Director: Maxim Sokolov, www.maximsokolov.com
Special offer for #BearNation listeners who are interested in trying Brilliantly Warm (https://www.brilliantly.co/), use this 10% off discount code WELCOME10.
We have teamed up with Phin, a social impact company, to give back for each episode to the communities that we serve. To learn more or get involved with Phin for your company, visit: https://www.phinforgood.com/
00;00;01;00 - 00;00;31;09
Rob Napoli
Welcome in bear nation. We already kind of kicked off our pre-show chat right into this chat. And I'm your host Rob Napoli I'm excited to be here with a human that I am that we got introduced through a mutual connection. And it was like immediate, like when, you know, like this human that you meet is like you're meant to meet in, like you could talk for hours on an instant.
00;00;31;29 - 00;00;51;26
Rob Napoli
Probably part of the fact that you both have ADHD. A lot bit. So we could have five conversations going in tandem and it's and we can keep up with that. But I have an author of number one Bestselling Kids book for Entrepreneur, the author of the book as The Dinosaur Entrepreneur, the founder of Dinosaur House, my friend Timmy Bauer.
00;00;51;26 - 00;00;53;03
Rob Napoli
Timmy. How are you doing today?
00;00;53;15 - 00;00;56;10
Timmy Bauer
What's up, Rob? Thanks so much for having me on. I'm doing great.
00;00;57;00 - 00;01;28;22
Rob Napoli
Awesome. Well, you know, I really love kind of the pre-show chat and kind of a one catching up to, you know, talking about this idea of focus. Right. You have two parts of your business. One, you as the author, and then one, you as the founder of Dinosaur House, which helps others write and launch children's books, which I think is is massively amazing and tons of impact there.
00;01;30;02 - 00;01;51;24
Rob Napoli
And so I want to kind of get in before we get into the heart of the topic, which is that around that focus and how to manage. You know, one of the things that I get asked all the time and I've been more, I would definitely say been more open about it in the last year or two than I ever have, is that I have ADHD and that I have lots of ideas.
00;01;51;24 - 00;02;10;06
Rob Napoli
Execution comes hard. Like I can have great ideas. And if it's not done in the moments I lose that steam, I lose like the initial thought. It's like, I know I'm missing something. I can't recall it. And that's the thing. I really want to talk with you. And how do you how do you manage? Because, you know, like me, you're doing multiple different things.
00;02;10;19 - 00;02;35;18
Rob Napoli
My author I'm an author. I have a podcast, I have a business contract out all kinds of other stuff. So I want to get into that. But before we do, why don't you give the listeners a little overview? I love this story. Why did you start and why did you write Lucas the Dinosaur Entrepreneur? What did the the fascination and the the determination to get into the kid's book game start for you?
00;02;36;05 - 00;02;57;19
Timmy Bauer
Yeah, that's a great question. So it started for me when I was ten years old. I was reading Garfield Comics. And I thought to myself, I wonder if I could be a cartoonist. And I started drawing cartoons in the back of the van. And then I shared those with my parents. My parents weren't super impressed, but I started sharing with my friends, and my friends were really impressed.
00;02;57;24 - 00;03;24;10
Timmy Bauer
And then there was some older folks at my church that were really impressed. And trying to, like, draw comics to like, make people laugh started to become something that I was really passionate about. And as I grew older when I was 17, my parents had had another son like long after. I mean, there's this huge age gap. I was 17 and he was four and I was reading him kids books.
00;03;24;20 - 00;03;42;03
Timmy Bauer
And after I read to him a Dr. Seuss book, I was like, I wonder if I could do this? And I wrote I started writing my first kid's book, which is called Billy the Dragon. And the the whole focus of it was just trying to every night I would write a little bit more and read it to him.
00;03;42;03 - 00;04;06;02
Timmy Bauer
And my goal was, can I make him laugh? Can I scare him? Can I gross him out, get some kind of a rise out of him? And that helped develop a relationship between me and my little brother that is still so strong to this day. Now, he's like 18 years old or going on 18 years old, and I'm in my thirties and we still have a really cool relationship that really started to go deep back then.
00;04;06;23 - 00;04;26;09
Timmy Bauer
And it took me a while to figure out like, why? So, so okay, fast forward a little bit. I am working at Disney as a performer. I've always been a ham and while I'm there, I start showing my friends at Disney the artwork that I had made for my little brother's book, Billy the Dragon. I hadn't published it yet.
00;04;26;17 - 00;04;46;24
Timmy Bauer
I was just showing it to people and they were like, Oh my gosh, you need to go get this thing published. In researching how to publish books, I realized like, Oh, that sounds really like I'm beholden to a lot of other people's just happening to choose me out of a stack of people. I'd rather not be so dependent on luck like that.
00;04;47;08 - 00;05;07;10
Timmy Bauer
So I went the self-publishing route, except different from most self-published kids like authors. I didn't just go and like do a self-published book and then hope I did a self-published book and then I went to my best friend at the OR my soon to become best friend, James CARBERRY, who was not my best friend at the time. I just met him.
00;05;07;16 - 00;05;27;13
Timmy Bauer
A bunch of people at church were like, If you're doing anything entrepreneurial, you need to go talk to James. Shout out to James CARBERRY. He runs a really successful podcasting company called Sweet Fish Media. Back when I met him, he was running a business that didn't end up becoming profitable before he started Sweet Fish, and he was really encouraging me to go the entrepreneurial route.
00;05;27;13 - 00;05;43;28
Timmy Bauer
Don't go the publishing route, go the self-publishing route, and rely on your own sweat equity too. Like to till I grow in audience and stuff and figure out what it takes to be a great kid's book author. And so that's what I did. I just put all of the money that I had at the time into a print run.
00;05;44;22 - 00;06;06;20
Timmy Bauer
It was about $5,000. That's all the money that I had. And I bought 750 copies of Billy the Dragon, and I started knocking physically on elementary school doors. So like, they would like open the door about half the time I'll get turned away because it's like, Who's this weird man that wants to read to our kids? The other half of the time they'd open the door and be like, Who are you?
00;06;06;21 - 00;06;38;24
Timmy Bauer
Why are you here? And I'd be like, Hi, I'm kid's book author Timmy Bower, and this is my book, Billy the Dragon. I'd love to talk to your media specialist and I'd say it like that because that sounded like more official. And, and it wasn't not true. I was kids were contacting me about it. Just that didn't mean anything to anybody but my little brother and, and I knew that like and then about half of those times they would actually introduce me to the media specialist and the other half they would not and I would never get a visit.
00;06;38;24 - 00;07;00;07
Timmy Bauer
But if they introduced me to the media specialist, I learned pretty quickly, like, I just need a meet the media specialist at the school and I and it's almost a guarantee that I will be performing at that school. And because I'm just showing them my book, it looks really cool. Like the artworks cute and funny and I, you know, got the vibe of like, I'm here to entertain your kids.
00;07;00;11 - 00;07;28;19
Timmy Bauer
And I was doing it for free. I was just trying to grow audience and figure out if this book was any good. Let me fast forward a bunch because I don't bore people with my story, but I'll will. Fast forward to years later. I now have a career just above the poverty line of touring elementary schools, performing my books, and parents are buying my books off of these performances and and then COVID starts.
00;07;28;29 - 00;07;48;26
Timmy Bauer
And it the first thing that happened was schools closed off to visitors. So no more visitors in schools. That was the only way that I was making money as a kids book author. So I had to stop doing that. And I was broke. I had just I had just come off of, like, the best tour that I'd ever done.
00;07;48;26 - 00;08;10;24
Timmy Bauer
I toured all of Arkansas. I went to so many schools across Arkansas and Arkansas because I happened to know the the Literacy Association Board, one of the Literacy Association Board members of the Arkansas Literacy Association. And she invited me to come speak at the conference. And then she was just heavily advocating for me to all the schools in Arkansas to have me come and visit.
00;08;11;04 - 00;08;35;26
Timmy Bauer
And I did $20,000 in sales in about a month. And then this was right before COVID hit. I had already come back from that tour and put most of that money into buying more print runs, get it gearing up for another tour and COVID hits. And so I'm just stuck with all these books that I had just bought to gear up for a tour.
00;08;36;07 - 00;09;05;07
Timmy Bauer
I have almost no money and, and, and I just have all these books and I'm stuck. I can't go anywhere. So. So it was back to the drawing board for me. And I started working at James Carver's company, Sweet Fish Media. I'm like, Hey, man, do you need writers? And he was like, We always need writers. So I started working as a writer at Sweet Fish, and while I was there, I moved up to there to be their content strategist and host of their show, be the be growth, shout out to be the B growth.
00;09;05;07 - 00;09;34;09
Timmy Bauer
It's like the number one B2B podcast on on any podcast player. I was hosting B2B growth, I was working as a content strategist. I met this this guy named John Barrows, who is he's known in the B2B sales space as the guy that wrote the kid's book on sales. And so so I interviewed him on my a small podcast, The Literacy Advocate, and asked him how he did it.
00;09;34;13 - 00;09;59;23
Timmy Bauer
And he pieced this thing together like there was no company. That thing was turning industry leaders into kids, book authors. But he realized like, Oh, if he writes the kid's book for his for his industry, that's so much more interesting than writing the book for adults on his industry, because so many other people have already done that. So it's just like this immediate interest factor of like, oh, you wrote a kid's book about B2B sales or about sales.
00;10;01;00 - 00;10;21;17
Timmy Bauer
That's that's just so much more just head turning. And I was like, it's interesting that there's no company that's made it their thing, that they turn industry leaders into kids, book authors. And so I was like, I'm going to try to start that company. And I hit up six of my entrepreneur friends, one of whom was James CARBERRY, and I had no idea what to price it at.
00;10;21;17 - 00;10;42;00
Timmy Bauer
I was kind of looking at scribe media. I don't know if anybody's heard of Sky Media, but shout out to Scribe. They built like this huge business as like the go to ghostwriting firm for for writing books for business books. And, you know, they charge like $35,000. You do a series of Zoom calls and out comes your your business book.
00;10;42;00 - 00;11;03;20
Timmy Bauer
And they have other like lower prices for like if you want to do the cohort model and that sort of thing. So I'm just looking at that going like, well, there's, there's some pretty big potential here if this is an idea that people want. But right now it's just me. I'm a writer, I'm an illustrator, and I have this outsourced design slash illustration team that that I have access to.
00;11;04;10 - 00;11;25;18
Timmy Bauer
Let me see if I can just charge a huge premium for my time. So I, I hit up six entrepreneur friends. I'm like, hey, I think I want to create this company that we turn industry leaders into kids, book authors. What would you say to like $500 and you do a zoom call with me, and from that, I'll turn you into the kid's book author for your thing.
00;11;26;03 - 00;11;33;28
Timmy Bauer
And they all were like, yes, yes, yes. Immediately one person was like, Yes, twice. Here's $1,000.
00;11;33;28 - 00;11;36;13
Rob Napoli
Okay, it's, you know, and that early that's finally.
00;11;37;26 - 00;11;56;27
Timmy Bauer
And so. So I had cash, which is awesome. I had no idea how I was going to execute. That's not true. I had a little bit of an idea how I was going to execute this, but I really did not know how this was going to look. And I mean, just shout out to my first customers because Dinosaur House is so much more sophisticated at doing this now.
00;11;57;03 - 00;11;59;16
Timmy Bauer
Yeah, but, but back then, it's just.
00;11;59;25 - 00;12;18;12
Rob Napoli
It's a learning lesson, right? And you need those early. And what I love about that sorry to interrupt you, but what I love about that is that you called six people that you knew that you could call on. Right. And the value of building your network and saying, hey, I have this thing, I want to do this. I need a story for the pilot.
00;12;18;12 - 00;12;35;05
Rob Napoli
And people go to market. You can you have to kind of things either go called outreach or you go warm into your network but knowing who to go to and how and you said, hey, I'm starting this thing. I want you to be a pilot. What you get out of it is X and I'll do Y, and this is the cost.
00;12;35;05 - 00;13;06;13
Rob Napoli
Think of it more like a tip jar, right? In fact, I have clients that test this that are launching a products like hey, so and it is like you get and what we get and you always put like a small price and I think of it as a tip jar for like us doing a little bit of work and there's such a like genius way to take something to market that's new and test it out and get tons of questions and feedback that allow you to grow and pivot quickly and iterate your model for success that everyone just tries to like bypass like let's just take it to market perfect and is going to have
00;13;06;13 - 00;13;31;15
Rob Napoli
success like no fine. Those five or six pilots test it out. Figure this shit out the hard way, make it easier by building process and and say, okay, I could do this better and I can charge a lot more money because I've got the kinks figured out. I love that idea. I love how you took that to market and call it on that car and network said, Hey, let me help you, let me help you, help your industry.
00;13;32;04 - 00;13;50;23
Timmy Bauer
Yeah, I'm even not giving them enough credit. It was a little bit more like they I was it so three of these six people I was just hanging out with them and they were grabbing me and they were like, what if you just charged a premium for your time? And I was like, okay, like what? And then one of them was like $500.
00;13;50;23 - 00;13;58;11
Timmy Bauer
I was like, Who would pay $500? And then their hands just went up and the guy that paid me twice was in that group.
00;13;59;00 - 00;13;59;28
Rob Napoli
Well, then I.
00;13;59;28 - 00;14;01;03
Timmy Bauer
And then I tested it.
00;14;01;03 - 00;14;22;16
Rob Napoli
On a few other people. Yeah, well, I love about this, too. And you and I have talked about this, right? And, you know, to my audience, I'm hoping to be getting a kid's book out based on my book, The Social Soul. I haven't really told anybody or publicly announced it. But what better than, you know, talking to you as as we've been discussing that behind the scenes?
00;14;23;20 - 00;14;39;22
Rob Napoli
But, you know, I wrote a book to a market that was very saturated in that. I was happy about it. And I like I told you, as I joked, this man was like, if I sell over 200 copies, I'll be happy. For me. That's a successful book launch. I'd be a successful book just like with how crowded. And I sold 210 days.
00;14;40;19 - 00;14;57;10
Rob Napoli
And what I what I look at, you know, having been a coach and an athlete and stuff and I look at these kids today that are growing up, my niece, she's four years old that knows how to face time. He knows how to like turn it around. I touch it, open an iPhone, all these things. Our kids these days are super smart, but we don't give them enough credit.
00;14;57;12 - 00;15;18;16
Rob Napoli
Why aren't we teaching about things like entrepreneurship and how to how to interact online and sales at an early age? Like they're Spider-Man? It's like these kids can go on MADDEN and play Call of Duty and video games better than we can at a younger age without any sort of true direction, just through figuring it out one it on screen directions.
00;15;18;16 - 00;15;39;26
Rob Napoli
Right. It's amazing how little credit we give to young people to the future generations and how we can actually do that, get them started these parts earlier and give them really good information that they can learn from and really derive from, from industry thought leaders and people who are out there doing it day in and day out. I think it's just a beautiful thing that could happen.
00;15;40;13 - 00;15;41;00
Rob Napoli
I love.
00;15;41;00 - 00;16;00;17
Timmy Bauer
That. I think that is doing. I think there's a war going on for the minds of kids. I think that the battleground is like YouTube and Tok and kids are getting heavily influenced. So like I love the concept of yours because like kids are getting heavily influenced and not even realizing it and parents don't even realize how a lot of parents don't.
00;16;00;18 - 00;16;25;14
Timmy Bauer
A lot of parents do realize shout out to all the parents that realize it and are putting in safeguards. But, you know, I want to be somebody that has a positive influence on the way that kids think. I want to help other entrepreneurs, great thinkers, industry leaders have a positive impact on the way that kids think because the way that like what we're influence when it comes to like how we think, what we're influenced by is pretty much media.
00;16;25;14 - 00;16;53;10
Timmy Bauer
Like media is what influences us. And so we try to affect the way that kids think through education, and there's nothing wrong with that. But I think media like really entertaining media has a stronger impact on the way that kids think. So getting like the best ideas from thought leaders and industry leaders and influencers that I that I believe in to write awesome, entertaining pieces of media that are going to influence the way that kids think.
00;16;53;10 - 00;17;01;03
Timmy Bauer
This is something that I'm super passionate about. That's what that's that's sort of like the long term, like this is what I want. This is what I want to be doing.
00;17;01;10 - 00;17;25;29
Rob Napoli
Yeah, I love that. I love that the that's like the lasting impact. I think that in a very hyper connected world, that's like that's the type of education we need to inspire real change and get the youth to understand that life is going to be tough and there are going to be challenges. But here's how you can start learning about those changes.
00;17;25;29 - 00;17;40;29
Rob Napoli
Here's how you can learn skills at an early age so you can progress at a different pace. Like like this idea of a linear career path, of growing up and going to school to your 18 and deciding and where are you going to college for four years and then maybe a master's program. Then you get a job and you have to work up a ladder.
00;17;41;09 - 00;18;13;00
Rob Napoli
It's gone. You can bypass all of that with the right skills and learning at different times in your life. And we have to be open and our education system has to be more aligned to that. So something that I, I see how you're doing it and I believe in it. And that's why I love training and development for, for corporates and especially one of the things that I've been doing a lot lately that I love doing is I'm training managers, especially new managers and then expert managers, how to manage millennial and Gen Z talent in this hybrid world.
00;18;13;00 - 00;18;35;09
Rob Napoli
And it's such an amazing thing because you don't have to micromanage, you don't have to sit there at their desk like they can get it. We as a as a people can get she tell me prove that with the right kind of programs in place, the right kind of opportunities and the right incentives in place like people are self motivated and we'll get the work done on their time and allow them to find their creativity zone.
00;18;35;10 - 00;18;42;10
Rob Napoli
Some people are morning people, some people afternoon people, some people are night people. Let them kind of tap into that look. Get the best work out of them.
00;18;42;28 - 00;18;51;14
Timmy Bauer
Yeah, it's very hard to figure out that, too. It's very hard to figure out what is your best way to work. And that gets into like the whole A.D.D. ADHD thing.
00;18;51;14 - 00;19;13;21
Rob Napoli
When I really wanted to get to the heart of this is that talking about, you know, being a founder with ADHD and A.D.D. and how to manage that focus. And it's something you said as we started this recording that it's been hard and it's something you've been focusing on to focus on Timi, the author, right? And then Timi, the founder and CEO of the company that you're running.
00;19;13;22 - 00;19;24;07
Rob Napoli
And how do you bring those two worlds together? So when did you know that you had ADHD and is it ADHD or A.D.D. for you?
00;19;25;16 - 00;19;50;08
Timmy Bauer
That's a great question. I have never been diagnosed with ADHD. I was diagnosed as a kid with ADHD and my parents never told me and they didn't they didn't get the drugs. When I was a teenager. They let me know like, hey, you've had you have A.D.D., you've got like you've always had A.D.D. We just didn't want to raise you with the idea that you had it.
00;19;50;29 - 00;20;17;27
Timmy Bauer
We wanted to try to raise you normally. And then just now that you're almost an adult, we're just like telling you. I don't remember the conversation. It probably went something like that, probably went maybe nothing like that. But in any event, I found out when I was a teenager and and then like when I was in college, I remember like kind of wishing, like kind of wanting the drugs because everybody always spoke so highly of them.
00;20;17;27 - 00;20;33;06
Timmy Bauer
Like, you know, you take this pill and you can you can focus, you take this pill and you can actually, like, sit down and work for longer than an hour. And I was like, Oh, it'd be so amazing to be able to work on the same thing for longer than an hour. But that's a huge struggle for me.
00;20;33;06 - 00;20;50;18
Timmy Bauer
It's always been a huge struggle for me. My parents used to joke that like if they couldn't, I was homeschooled, I couldn't. I couldn't do school next to a window because if they if they, like, left me alone, they would come back. And an hour later, I haven't done any school. I've just been staring out the window.
00;20;50;18 - 00;21;26;02
Rob Napoli
I was the same way, but I didn't actually get diagnosed till I moved back from Italy. So and I was 27, 2017, so like 27, 28. Yeah. Because when I was younger, one of my little brothers had A.D.D. with a learning disability and they put him on Ritalin and it was not good because that experience for him, for us, the family and my mom has A.D.D., ADHD has been Adderall for a long time.
00;21;26;24 - 00;21;43;16
Rob Napoli
So we kind of like ever stayed away from like getting my check. And it was in college, especially high school, college, like I was that student, like I could get by, like I could procrastinate, barely study and still pass the B, right? And like if I ever sat down for more than I would or try to do anything, it's like not getting done.
00;21;43;28 - 00;22;04;10
Rob Napoli
And when I move back from when I was in Italy during my masters, I started to really realize it and it's impossible to get that over there. That's not legal. Right? So start smoking weed. Got it. And for me, I slow everything down enough. My so my active ran down enough where I could actually focus and get work done.
00;22;05;14 - 00;22;23;18
Rob Napoli
When I moved to New York, the cost of weed was expensive and that legal outside of easy access was I was getting it in Milan one and I this is something that my listeners like what I don't like talk about this a lot, but I'm not shy about it. I moved back and I got a job at a 200 person sales floor.
00;22;24;10 - 00;22;51;22
Rob Napoli
I'll open concept I of focus for shit and so I finally went to doctor we toxic yeah you definitely have ADHD and it started me on a red alert is like now now when I don't real and like that's not good for me I have bad experience for my family like no got Adderall and I've been on Adderall since 2027, 2018, 2017, 2018 was kind of like around late 2017 when I got it as med a difference.
00;22;51;22 - 00;23;02;04
Rob Napoli
For me, it has a big difference. Do you take anything now or you always stayed off of it?
00;23;02;04 - 00;23;24;13
Timmy Bauer
I've stayed off of it. I've that that may not be true forever, but I think the more that I can figure out how to optimize my life without taking pills, the more likely I am probably to never end up taking them. But I also don't want to completely rule it out. But I've never I've never done it. I've gotten close.
00;23;24;19 - 00;23;32;23
Timmy Bauer
I've almost done it. I've been I've been in classrooms where I'm sitting next to somebody who is on it. And I'm like looking at how well they're able to focus. And I'm just like.
00;23;33;11 - 00;23;34;14
Rob Napoli
Man, dude, yeah.
00;23;35;09 - 00;24;00;26
Timmy Bauer
I want that. Yeah, but, but it's come with, it's come with like major downsides where, you know, obviously, like, not being able to sit still for and that's why I say I say ADHD because it's so whenever I've researched it, A.D.D. has come out of fashion as a thing to say, like, I don't know if it's just it doesn't get diagnosed anymore.
00;24;00;26 - 00;24;39;11
Timmy Bauer
Everything gets diagnosed as ADHD. So I've just been saying ADHD because that's what everyone says. But if there is a difference between the two, I think I'm more A.D.D. than ADHD because I will sit still for like sitting still. It's not a problem for me, but I will be lost in my own world. And just like I'm, I'm, I'm like try to put, sit me down to work on something so easy for me to just get completely lost in fairy tale land and hours go by before I realize like, Oh, I've been sitting here trying to do the same project forever.
00;24;39;12 - 00;24;55;29
Rob Napoli
Yeah, yeah. For me, I can't sit still, like, at all. Like, it's almost impossible for me to sit still and in silence. Like, sitting still in silence is like one of the scariest things for me, because I can't do it. I have to move. But at the same point, for me, my best ideas come when I'm in motion.
00;24;56;03 - 00;25;10;13
Rob Napoli
Like the best work, best idea is best thinking happens when I'm in motion. So I need to be up and moving and walking and talking, which it's hard. When I work from home, I get distracted. There's dishes going to be done. There's a lot of them be done, like, and if I can see it, it bothers me. So I need to go do it.
00;25;10;13 - 00;25;45;26
Rob Napoli
It starts off low grade OCD, so so that's why for me, I need and I see a lot of people who take like Adderall and stuff like that and they're like they started at one number and they keep raising cause they get immunity to it. So I'm I cried. I saw it I'll do is I'll take certain weeks that I'll have off days off I take them in half all the time I never take why it's like I try to keep it smaller so that I don't get to immune to it and like have to keep taking more because I would rather at some point figure out how to get off of it, then just
00;25;45;26 - 00;26;09;18
Rob Napoli
be like somebody who like, started at ten milligrams and and ten years. Is that like 80 or 90 milligrams? To me that just doesn't make sense. Yeah, but how have you found so? So, you know, I know there's a lot of entrepreneurs that struggle with this stuff and some people know they have it, some people don't. I've had a lot of friends as they've gotten older who have went and found out and gotten diagnosed with ADHD.
00;26;09;18 - 00;26;38;26
Rob Napoli
And they're finding out that first in their lives after 30. It's amazing entrepreneurs and the VPAs of large companies and it's kind of like, Oh, this is why we struggle in certain areas. So how have you adapted or how do you schedule your time to manage the two sides of your business as you're starting to bring it together to try to eliminate some of the distractions that may happen for you?
00;26;38;26 - 00;26;50;28
Rob Napoli
How do how have you set yourself up for success? Because you also like you've also hosted like four different podcasts in the past. Like you, you do a lot of stuff. So how are you able to manage and balance out this stuff?
00;26;51;12 - 00;27;26;29
Timmy Bauer
It's a great question. So I'll just go through some different stages of of myself as an entrepreneur and how I'd done it at different stages to start off with like solopreneur, when it was literally just me trying to figure out how to make money as a kid's book author. Like some of the earliest things that I that I learned was like, well, like I met James, he introduced me to Gary Vee, and I realized like, Oh, if I listen to Gary Vee a few times throughout the day and this was Gary Vee when he was more like hustle, hustle, hustle, which obviously like hustle culture.
00;27;27;00 - 00;27;46;20
Timmy Bauer
Like there's a big push away from that. Now, I don't know 100% where I stand on the hustle, not hustle kind of mentality, but at least for me as a solopreneur, listening to Gary Vee a few times throughout the day was like an injection of hustle that I needed in order to focus on on working throughout the day.
00;27;47;20 - 00;28;08;08
Timmy Bauer
So that was very really beneficial. And then I had goal setting. I would do goal setting and I would do like to do lists, but really like early on figuring out, oh, ditch the to do list. Goal setting is great goal set, ditch the to do list instead of instead of a to do list time block everything that needs to get done in order to accomplish your goals.
00;28;08;19 - 00;28;29;29
Timmy Bauer
And so switching to time blocking helped because I'm like getting notifications constantly. Like now it's, it's, you know, a 10 minutes, it'll be time to work on this other thing. And I would just time block out all 14 hours of the day and have just a million things to do. Like I would, I would like have a little, like, mantras that I would say, like, like as long as the pencil's moving, I'm being productive.
00;28;29;29 - 00;28;50;18
Timmy Bauer
Like, so, like, just keep the pencil moving. Like, if I'm not, you know, if I'm not working on one of the myriad of projects that I've got going on, my pencil should be moving, which means like, I literally should be sketching something. This was again, solopreneur. I don't actually advise people to stick around in solo Preneur Land for very long because like the next thing that I figured out was outsourcing early and often.
00;28;51;10 - 00;29;11;16
Timmy Bauer
Outsource early outsource often outsource as much as you can, all the things that you are not good at doing, all the things that you struggle to do, all the things that you can't trust yourself with, like. Like start firing yourself as much as you can from as many things as you can, aside from the things that you absolutely have to do and that you absolutely love to do.
00;29;12;07 - 00;29;28;13
Timmy Bauer
There's so many things within Dinosaur House that I cannot trust myself to do because I won't I won't be able to sit still long enough or I won't be able to be consistent enough. And so, like I have conversations my wife all the time that are like, baby, like, you can't trust me to do this. I can't trust myself to do this.
00;29;28;13 - 00;29;44;16
Timmy Bauer
This has to go to someone else on the team. So outsourcing early and often, like the first thing, one of the first things I hired was a VA. I hired a VA while I was while I was touring as a touring kid's book author, I kept my VA as I was working as a content strategist at Sweet Fish.
00;29;44;26 - 00;30;02;13
Timmy Bauer
I outsourced so much of stuff that you're like, what? You outsource that I was outsourcing to the VA and just like iteratively training her on like some of the most basic stuff. Like it got to a point where she was just regularly saying like, Hey, here's what so-and-so said to you and here's what you said back. And I'm like, Awesome.
00;30;02;13 - 00;30;22;28
Timmy Bauer
That's exactly what I would have said. So, so, like, you know, outsourcing my inbox, like, I barely check email. I only respond to the emails that that need a response for me. And often the form of me responding to an email is my assistant is DMing me like, hey, here's an email like what? Like what are you going to say back to this?
00;30;23;03 - 00;30;50;00
Timmy Bauer
And then I just tell her what I am saying back to that. So like outsourcing, like it's one of the biggest things. And then when you get to a point where you're outsourcing so much, you start having a crisis of your time where you're like, okay, what are the things that I'm supposed to be spending time on? Because because I could I could get to a point where it's like I'm spending so little time actually moving the needle in my business.
00;30;50;00 - 00;31;14;18
Timmy Bauer
So it's like, okay, what are the things? And I really this was something that I prayed about a lot. So like, I'm a I'm a Christian. I'm very active prayer life, very active spiritual life. I'm weird. You'll hear me say things like this, what I feel like God is telling me. So one of the things that happened for me was I was on a prayer walk and praying about like, how can I build consistency and stability in my business?
00;31;14;26 - 00;31;40;09
Timmy Bauer
Really struggling with the question because I would have these like I would just go through major peaks and valleys of of dinosaur house. This was the first year of the business. It's still like that. I mean, the reality is we've just we've had enough revenue every month to pay next month's salary. And that's just consistently happened. But it's it's so often been like a down to the wire, like last minute thing that happens.
00;31;40;09 - 00;32;01;00
Timmy Bauer
So I still pray about, you know, consistency and stability in the business. But as I was on this prayer walk, praying about consistency and stability in the business, one of the things that I felt like God was telling me was spend every morning hitting a one creative milestone on a kid's book and before you end the day, reconnect or deepen one key relationship.
00;32;01;10 - 00;32;20;25
Timmy Bauer
So I have this version of productivity in my head now where it's like if the day is like almost nothing, quote unquote got done by me on that day. Now, my team is always is always like, you know, we've we've we've compartmentalized so much of the business now. We've got three full time illustrators. We have our outsource writer, contract writer.
00;32;20;25 - 00;32;45;29
Timmy Bauer
We have my wife runs so much of lead project management and I handle sales revenue, you know, lead gen, lead nurture, like all that kind of stuff. And then also just like product development, like making our product better, all the things that you do as a founder in the early stages of the business. But a productive day for me at the very least is creative.
00;32;45;29 - 00;32;57;00
Timmy Bauer
Milestone got hit on something that needed my attention when it comes to a kids book project and and a key relationship was started or deepened a reconnected.
00;32;57;16 - 00;33;26;19
Rob Napoli
Yeah I love that. I think for me to do lists are terrible, right? Like because I will go after the easy stuff because I want to see the checks cross off and I avoid the bigger things. So I kind of switch that around and I time block everything. For me it's all about, Oh my God, I even time block in my morning walk, break times that I need to like compartmentalize and change and prep travel time.
00;33;26;19 - 00;33;45;29
Rob Napoli
Like if I'm going into the city block 45 minutes for travel. So I know that that time I need to get moving and little if it's now my counter will happen. So that is for me my main communication tool I share with everybody and that's what keeps me able to do it. And the second thing, I love this idea of of outsourcing as much as part early and often.
00;33;45;29 - 00;34;06;29
Rob Napoli
In fact, one of my guests from a couple of weeks ago again and I talked about this, how, you know, as a founder, we want to learn how to do everything. And it's awesome to teach yourself new things. But there are certain things that, you know are just not good for you to be doing for the business. And you need to find those and find those around you.
00;34;08;18 - 00;34;39;23
Rob Napoli
Like a bill that actually I read a book called Who Not How by Dan Sullivan that talks about that, which I thought was was amazing. So to me, as we kind of come up to the end is I love hearing these ideas and and and really thinking about how to kind of manage going through like A.D.D., ADHD. And what would you say if somebody came up to you and said, Hey, it's me, I'm thinking about starting a company to be an entrepreneur?
00;34;40;15 - 00;34;45;26
Rob Napoli
What advice would you give them? What do you say to that person?
00;34;45;26 - 00;34;55;26
Timmy Bauer
Oh, my gosh, there's so many different pieces of advice. Rob, I forgot what I told you the first time you asked me that question. Oh.
00;34;57;10 - 00;35;10;00
Rob Napoli
Don't worry about that. What's coming to your head now from the conversation that we've been having and somebody asked you today, what what's kind of on the top of your mind that kind of comes to your heart? This I would I would say this.
00;35;10;06 - 00;35;32;18
Timmy Bauer
Are two things that jump out to me are things that I've heard said a bunch of times which are like the riches are in the niches, figure out a niche, don't try to do everything. Like I just said, outsource early and often, like get stuff off your plate as fast and as as efficiently as you can. Relationships are not just the thing that is going to make you like.
00;35;32;25 - 00;35;52;26
Timmy Bauer
They're not a means to if the end is success. Relationships are the reality is relationships are the means to that end. But they should be the end. Like like relationships are the whole enchilada. And this I just pulled from like James CarrBarry's book contemplates networking, but we treat relationships like it's like it's the thing that's going to get us there.
00;35;52;26 - 00;36;12;19
Timmy Bauer
And the reality is it is. And if you're not treating relationships that way, then you're not valuing relationships high enough. But relationships are also the end itself. Like at the end of the day, business is an excuse to do the things that you want to do when it comes to relationships, not the other way around, in my opinion.
00;36;13;06 - 00;36;40;14
Rob Napoli
I love that. I love that. What do you think has made, you know, one of your goals for productivity is to deepen one relationship and you've created a pretty amazing network that you're starting to leverage what the two sides of your business from being an author to the book production, and you're starting to marry those two together and offer even a more encompassing package for the authors that work with you.
00;36;41;19 - 00;36;49;20
Rob Napoli
What do you think has made you effective in building your network? AH What advice would you give to someone on how to build a value added network?
00;36;50;14 - 00;37;09;21
Timmy Bauer
When I took the Strengths Finders test, I found out to my shock that relationship building is not a strength. It's not. And the reason I was shocked by that was because I am a I love I love like hanging out and talking to people and I come alive in conversation. So I was like kind of shocked. I was like, Oh, that's interesting.
00;37;09;21 - 00;37;30;10
Timmy Bauer
And communication was one of my strengths. So, you know, the communication skill of being able to like ping pong with people and have a great time. But relationship building is different than that. Relationship building is like intentionally reconnecting with people in such a way where it's about that other person. And it is. It sucks that I suck at that.
00;37;30;10 - 00;37;55;01
Timmy Bauer
Like it's sad that I that I'm not naturally good at that. So I try to do things that are intentionally be fighting against my nature of not naturally doing that. One of the things that I figured out is there's this really fun question that you can ask people, and I ask it on every podcast interview. I say, What's something that you suck at that a year from now you want to be great at and really fun question to ask.
00;37;55;01 - 00;38;12;29
Timmy Bauer
Really fun question to answer. And it gives you something that really matters to that other person that they want to get better at. So then you can text them about that. Hey, how's it going with such and such thing that you said you suck, that you want to get better at the next time you see them, the next day you talk to them, you can ask them about it.
00;38;13;27 - 00;38;19;06
Timmy Bauer
So that sounds like really simple, but I need simple because it's not something that I'm naturally good at.
00;38;19;19 - 00;38;39;24
Rob Napoli
And what a great way to ask somebody a question to understand a little bit about their psyche, their mentality and they're working on right now. That's different to pattern disrupt. So I love that question. It's a great way to like understand what's important to them and then tie that back and can that kind of utilize that. That's a great tip on building a network to me.
00;38;39;24 - 00;38;57;18
Rob Napoli
I know we could talk for hours, but where I'm coming from at a time. How do my listeners find you? Especially I know there are some people in my network that maybe they can after listen this. I need to talk to me about potentially writing my kids book. Let my listeners let their nation. Now, where can they find me on all the platforms?
00;38;57;28 - 00;39;15;12
Timmy Bauer
So if you want to become the kid's book author for your industry, or if you just really care about the stuff that I was saying earlier about influencing the minds of kids and influencing the way they think or helping your audience or customers connect deeply with their kids over something that mom or dad do for a living or passionate about.
00;39;15;12 - 00;39;33;17
Timmy Bauer
So any of those categories, Dinosaur House.com, this is what we do. We turn industry leaders into kids, book others. We put you through a story design process where we're pulling out what you want to say but making it really fun and addicting for kids. So that sounds interesting. Awesome, cool. My book for entrepreneurs, that's me trying to do the things that I just described.
00;39;33;22 - 00;39;52;26
Timmy Bauer
It's called Lucas the Dinosaur Entrepreneur, and I'd love for you to check that out. You can actually hear it for free on the last thing that I want to plug, which is called Timmy Reads Books. It's my YouTube channel on Timmy Reads Books. I read Lucas The Dinosaur Entrepreneur in a fun and engaging way. So if you have kids and you want to inspire them towards entrepreneurship, please check out my YouTube channel.
00;39;52;26 - 00;39;55;26
Timmy Bauer
Timmy reads books and have me read Luke is the dinosaur entrepreneur to them.
00;39;56;13 - 00;40;12;28
Rob Napoli
Awesome. Well, I'll make sure I link those all in the show notes so you can just go find it really easy. Click on it. Subscribe to the YouTube channel, check it out. And I know you didn't plug it here, but I'm going to plug it because it is definitely worth a follow for your on TikTok. Make sure you follow Timmy on TikTok.
00;40;13;13 - 00;40;27;25
Rob Napoli
It's author Timmy. It's one of the things that I scroll on on TikTok and got it out. My following. I love seeing your posts. I think they're great. So I'm going to go ahead and plug your TikTok and drop that in down below as well. Timmy, thank you so much, my guy, for being a part of Bear Nation.
00;40;27;25 - 00;40;31;22
Rob Napoli
This was a lot of fun. I appreciate you taking the time, my friend.
00;40;31;22 - 00;40;35;03
Timmy Bauer
What an honor. I love your show, so thank you so much for having me in.
OUTRO
00;40;37;16 - 00;40;47;06
Rob Napoli
Bear Nation. Thanks for listening to the bare necessities of entrepreneurship we enjoyed this episode. Please subscribe and leave us a review.