How To Overcome Busyness In Your Business

Ange Dove (00:01)

Okay, welcome to You're the Boss Podcast Show. And today I have a very special guest with me, Louis Smart. He's a seasoned business coach for coaches and the founder of Ironbridge, a human AI-powered virtual assistant company that helps coaches avoid burnout and build self-sustaining businesses. With over 35 years of experience building and selling companies, managing more than 450 staff and training coaches worldwide.

He specializes in teaching effective delegation and growth strategies. So that's something we'll be talking about today. He's also a published author and was a top 50 finalist in the top in the next top speaker competition. And he speaks internationally to help individuals reclaim their time, profitability, and peace of mind. We all need some peace of mind. So, Lewis, welcome to the show.

Louis Swart (00:56)

Thank you so much, Ange. I really, really appreciate it. And my surname is SWAT. I like to think I'm smart, but it's got a it's got a W instead of an instead of an it's got a W. So,

Ange Dove (01:05.)

At this one.

I thought that's what I said, but okay, never mind. Sh SWAT. SWAT.

Louis Swart (01:12)

You did you did amazing. You did amazing. And and I'm so honored to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me onto this podcast. You're you know, the stuff you're doing for the community, I love it. Love it. Absolutely love it. So

Ange Dove (01:24)

Thank you. Thank you. So yes, I'm very excited to have you on to contribute your part and your in-depth knowledge to it. So tell us just first, just in more detail, what it is that you're doing today and then how did you end up doing that?

Louis Swart (01:43)

Okay, so I basically have a virtual assistant business. Okay, and I know that there's fifty million people that have got virtual assistant businesses. and what we do is we incorporate AI into what we do with the virtual assistant so that they're actually using AI plus the human element to be able to help you in your in your in your business. That item might it might be with the social media, it might be with just your accounts, it might be with any of those different things.

But what I'd really like to talk to you today about is it's called the B myth. Like B as in the letter and it's all about busyness, you know? Busy is a terrible thing, but we wear it like a badge of honor. Okay. And you know, we we we walk into we meet a new person and we go, How are you going, Ange? And they go,

Ange Dove (02:30)

It is.

Louis Swart (02:40)

I'm so busy. I'm just so busy. Like I'm so busy. And we treat it like it's this amazing thing.

Ange Dove (02:47)

And I think that was our first conversation actually.

Louis Swart (02:51)

True, true. We treat it like it's an amazing thing and we actually take it on as an identity. I identify as super busy. and we kind of go, well, if I tell people I'm super busy, they're gonna think I'm super successful because I'm super busy, or you know, I've got like so much work or and it's complete nonsense. So, you know, how do we how do we get past that? How do we get past the fact that

People meet us and ask how we're going and we tell them how busy we are.

Ange Dove (03:25)

Yeah. So so for example, so for example, when we first had our first conversation in preparation for this and we got on and you said how are you? And I'm like, I'm I'm really busy, right? I'm learning this AI tool and seeing if I want to use this for my business. It's taken me all afternoon to do this. And so obviously I'm going about that the wrong way.

Louis Swart (03:26)

As opposed to telling you what we're doing.

Ange Dove (03:51)

Because that makes me busy, right? And it's not something that's good busy. So what would have been your advice to me instead of me doing that? What should I have done?

Louis Swart (04:04)

Okay, this brings me to a concept that we don't necessarily love. Okay. And I call it productive procrastination. Now, productive procrastination is when you're doing something that you should be doing. you're doing something sorry, you're doing something that's important, but in place of what you should be doing. So I'll give you a prime example of me. Don't really like it my accounts. Don't really like doing accounts. Okay. And I've got to reconcile my bank, my credit card statement.

It's about three months behind. And I'm going, now I've got to try and work out what like, you know, Bob's and normally they're like weird names on your credit card statement. Hey, it's like XYZ, XYZ, like, and I spent forty-seven dollars there. And now I'm gonna try and find the receipt. Yeah, I'm gonna try and find the receipt and reconcile. Like drives my head and does my head in. So I'm like, tomorrow I am doing my credit card. So I come to my desk.

Ange Dove (04:50)

Yeah, and you can't remember where it was. Yeah.

Yeah.

Louis Swart (05:00)

I like open up the credit card thing, I have one look at it, and then I decide that my desk is very untidy. Okay. And I need to just tidy up my desk before I do anything else. So I start tidying up my desk and then I throw some stuff down. And when I'm throwing some stuff in the bin, like one of the little pieces of paper had a, you know, staple or something and it falls on the carpet. And I'm like, you know what? I should just vacuum the carpet because it's I can see there's some things on the carpet. So

I go to the cupboard and I get out the vacuum and now I start vacuuming the carpet and then I should do the lounge. So I vacuum the lounge.

And at the end of the day, I've accomplished a whole lot of stuff, but I haven't actually done what I'm supposed to do. So I go to bed and I'm like, I didn't get to do the credit card thing because I was so busy. Okay. But in all honesty, I was busy, and though you my desk does need to be cleaned, the floor does need to be vacuumed, the bookshelf does need to be rearranged in alphabetical order suddenly. Okay, but all these things are productive.

Ange Dove (05:44)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (05:51)

Easy

Ange Dove (06:07)

Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (06:07)

And they're great for us to accomplish. But do we really do it to avoid what I should be doing? And you know, I don't know. It comes back to when I was in and I'm I I actually have a productive procrastination badge that every now and then I put it on my chest and I'm like, that was what I'm doing today. You know, because I just I I actually catch myself doing it even though even though I know about it, I catch myself doing it constantly.

Ange Dove (06:24)

Okay.

Ange Dove (06:32)

Yeah. Hmm.

Louis Swart (06:37)

You know? and it's much easier to do the stuff that we like, even though it's work. You know, I mean, you know, if you've got an if you've got a if you've got a and a you know a you've got to write a letter to a client because they've complained about your services or or you know something and you suddenly washing the dishes sounds like an amazing idea, right? And you like dash off to the kitchen.

Ange Dove (06:37)

Mm, mm.

Louis Swart (07:05)

very eager to wash the dishes, whereas normally you'd like, man, I am not washing the dishes. Okay. So we take on all this stuff as being the most fun like things because we're avoiding something. And and so and so that comes with learning as well. So you know with us a lot of times we go,

I'm learning and this is going to benefit me in the future, right? And we're so busy learning that we don't actually do the stuff that we should be doing. And so that causes all sorts of problems because we're busy learning, busy learning, busy learning, busy learning, not implementing anything. And so the more we're learning, we're actually starting to forget stuff that we've learned because we haven't implemented any of

Ange Dove (07:50)

Hmm, yeah. Yeah.

Louis Swart (07:52)

You know, and I mean my s I I'll tell you a prime example me personally. I'll tell you about me personally. I was in the business world, and then I you know, I I grew this business to turning over thirty five million, four hundred and fifty staff, you know, all the usual should be like wildly successful. Had this feeling like I'm not I'm broken. I felt like I was broken because I didn't feel happy. I didn't feel like happy like I should be. And

Ange Dove (08:18)

Mm.

Louis Swart (08:21)

So then I went out and I'm like, you know what, I'm gonna go and find out about myself. So I actually studied NLP. I became an NLP coach. And I'm like, this, I'm gonna pick, I'm gonna teach people NLP. So, you know, I've done the NLP top of the range, and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna be an NLP coach. And then nobody came through my door. And I was like, okay. And I was like, you know what I should do? I should go and study hypno. So I went and studied, I became a hypnotherapist. And now I'm like a hypno, and now people are gonna rush through my door.

Nobody came through my door. Okay. And I'm like, okay, okay, cool. I'll tell you what I'll do. I'm gonna go become a public speaker. So I became a public speaker. I'm like, surely I'm like, they're gonna they're gonna follow it now. But then what happened is I've got to keep doing training for public speaking, keep doing training for NLP, keep doing training for hypno, and I'm like between all these things all the time, okay, and I'm still making no money, but I'm like ridiculously busy because I'm not implementing any of it, okay.

Ange Dove (09:20)

Yeah, that's very familiar. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Louis Swart (09:21)

You know? And that is what happens. And and I mean all of them. I mean it's great. If I can become a N L P and just as much in information as I can get and get smarter and smarter, surely I'll make money. No, you won't. You have to implement what you're learning. Otherwise you're not gonna make money. So

Ange Dove (09:29)

Mm.

Ange Dove (09:32)

Mm. Mm. Yeah.

Ange Dove (09:39)

That's the key thing, right? Otherwise it's what they call instead of self development, it's shelf development because it just stays on the shelf, right? Yeah. Yeah. This is the thing. So how d how do people if they catch themselves in that, I mean, how do we avoid being getting into that busyness and not being productive? I think like a lot of people, a lot of people when they start off businesses, they start off by themselves, right? So obviously they have to do everything, right?

Louis Swart (09:46)

Hundred percent. Hundred percent. Hundred percent.

Louis Swart (10:07)

Yep, yep. Yeah.

Ange Dove (10:09)

When should they start to think about hiring staff to help and take some of that busyness off them?

Louis Swart (10:16)

You need to think about hiring staff like straight away from day one. Literally from day one. Cause what happens is a lot of us we grow a business and I'm the CEO, I'm the CFO, I'm the C I T, I'm the thing all the way down to I'm the janitor, okay? And we get you know, we we're running all these different roles and as soon as we start making some money, right?

We need to go, what are the roles that I can actually get somebody else to do? And the easiest way to do that is even if you're just working now and you there's only you, you should be doing an org chart. And you should be going, okay, what is the what is the CFO, the financial officer in me do in my company? What is the IT guy in me do in my company? What is the CEO doing my company? You know, what is

Ange Dove (10:58)

Right.

Ange Dove (11:06)

Mm.

Louis Swart (11:13)

Because then when you start to replace those positions, you go, okay, well, I need somebody to do all these things. So that's what I need the bookkeeper to do. You've really documented what you're doing. So and on the implementation thing, I've got I've got one thing for people to do on this podcast. Just one thing when you leave when you leave here. Okay. Because first of all, I believe if you come to a podcast and as amazing as this might be, you know, and

Ange Dove (11:19)

It's already documented. Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (11:31)

Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (11:44)

You're literally just taking information. So you could literally just sit and watch Netflix. You might as well watch your favorite series on Netflix if you don't take any action. Right. So I'm going to show you one thing that you can implement. Now, work out how much would you like to earn over the next year? Right? So we get a figure. Now, for sake for the sake of ease, I'm going to make that figure 200,000. Okay, because I live in Sydney and you probably need to earn about 200,000.

Ange Dove (11:52)

Mm.

Louis Swart (12:12)

You know, that's kind of what we need to earn. Yeah, Sydney's super ready. Okay. Now if you went and worked before you know, if you went and worked for a boss, you'd probably work forty hours a week. And you'd probably work maybe fifty weeks a year. So literally if you take forty hours a week and times it by fifty weeks in the year, that gives you two thousand hours. That's your whole year. It's only two thousand it sounds it sounds so little when you put it like that,

Ange Dove (12:13)

Just to live, right? Yeah.

Ange Dove (12:22)

Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (12:36)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (12:41)

It's only 2,000 hours for the whole year. Right? So now let's take the 200,000 and we divide it by the two thousand. And that gives us a figure of a hundred dollars an hour.

Ange Dove (12:44)

Right.

Louis Swart (12:57)

Okay, now here's where your involvement comes in. If you're listening to this, get a post-it note. Work out how much you want to earn. For every hundred thousand, it's fifty dollars per hour. So it's quite simple. If it's five hundred thousand you want to earn next year, it's two hundred and fifty dollars that you need to write on the post-it note. And what I want you to do is I want you to stick that post-it note on your computer, on your monitor, on the wall, somewhere where you can see it. Right.

And now this is where the magic happens. You now have a figure that's say a hundred dollars an hour, right? Every time you're doing a task, I want you to look up at that post-it note and say, Would I pay somebody a hundred dollars an hour to do this? And if the answer is yes, you should be doing it. If the answer is no, you'd definitely not be doing it. Now, what happens is we go.

Ange Dove (13:34)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (13:55)

you what? I'm just gonna go in Canva quickly and I just wanna move the the you're the boss sticker down in you know down in the bottom. I just want to move that a bit. I'm gonna go into Canva and I'm gonna do that. So I go into Canva and I spend what I think is ten minutes, but it's maybe an hour doing that. And that is worth ten dollars an hour. Now bear in mind I'm supposed to make a hundred an hour. This hour I've only made ten dollars.

Ange Dove (14:11)

Usually, yeah.

Ange Dove (14:17)

Uh-huh.

Louis Swart (14:21)

So the next hour I need to make a hundred and ninety dollars to make back up to my target. And every hour that we go, yeah, every hour we go, it was quick. It was only took me, it only took me you know, half an hour, whatever. Every time that happens, you've lost the difference between what you should be earning and that amount.

Ange Dove (14:28)

Mm. So it's not even just what you miss, yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (14:43)

Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And I I can't tell I can't tell you the amount of times I've gone in to do some tech thing. And it's like, this will just take me ten minutes. And you're there like an hour later on the helpline. Why doesn't this work? Yeah.

Louis Swart (15:00)

Well, so that brings me to that brings me so the first tool that you want to do is get your post it note, write down that figure, put that figure somewhere. And if you in Canva and you you spent an hour there and then you look up at that post it note and you go, Would I pay somebody a hundred dollars to do this? You'd go, a hundred percent I wouldn't. There's no way I'd pay somebody a hundred dollars an hour to do stuff in my Canva. I mean I just I'd be crazy to do that. But that's what you're paying yourself. Okay.

Ange Dove (15:06)

Mm. Mm. Right.

Ange Dove (15:24)

Yeah. Yeah.

Mm, got it.

Louis Swart (15:29)

Now, the second tool I'd like to give you. The second tool is just as important. And before I give you the tool, I'm going to tell you a story. I'm going to tell you a story. So I wake up normally at about, I don't know, seven o'clock or something there. So this one morning, I went to bed early and at five o'clock I got out of at five o'clock I was awake. Right? I was awake in bed. And I thought, you know what I'm going to do? I'm awake and I'm just going to go onto TikTok for a little bit. I'm just going to

Ange Dove (15:33)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (15:56)

Like I love TikTok. Okay. I'm gonna go on TikTok and I'm gonna just gonna scroll around in TikTok. Any case I spent about twenty minutes scrolling on TikTok. And then I was like, okay. And then I went and had a shower and then I came out of a shower and I'm like, man, it is half past seven. I am actually late for my next meeting.

And I was like, Whoa, what happened? I didn't shower for two and a half hours. Although I do like a long shower, but I didn't shower for two hours on that day. Okay. What happened was that in my mind, I went, I spent twenty minutes on TikTok. But in reality, I spent two hours and a bit on TikTok. Because that time just gets lost.

Ange Dove (16:24)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (16:32)

okay.

Ange Dove (16:36)

Mm. Easily done. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Louis Swart (16:40)

You know? And have you ever had that feeling when you get to the end of the day and you go, Man, I've been so busy. I've been running around today. And I actually don't think I've accomplished anything. When you think back about your day, you're like, what have I actually accomplished today? I put out a couple of fires and I haven't really done anything. And I can tell you that as you go up the ladder, those get worse. Okay. You know when you when you're when you

When you're just working for yourself, you've still got an idea, but as soon as you've got staff coming in asking you questions, your day very quickly vanishes. Okay. So the tool that we use is a post-time planner. So all of us have a have a you know, most of us have a to-do list and we have maybe have a got in our diary, and we say, Okay, in today I'm gonna go into this meeting, and I'm gonna be in this meeting for half an hour, and I'm gonna do this.

Ange Dove (17:14)

Yes, for sure.

Ange Dove (17:28)

Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (17:34)

And I'm gonna have lunch for here and we we jot out our day. But how many of us actually do an after the if afterwards calculation? So how many of us sit down and say, Hey, what did I do for the last hour? What did I actually do for the last hour? Because then you'll see that you get a whole different a whole different thing, list of things to what you actually thought you were gonna do.

Ange Dove (17:45)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (18:05)

Right. Okay.

Louis Swart (18:06)

That meeting that you thought was going to take an hour, the person was super interesting, and you ended up going an hour and a half or two hours. Okay? That lunch that you thought you're gonna take for an hour, you ended up just eating a sandwich at your desk for ten minutes. Right? So your ideal day

Ange Dove (18:13)

Mm.

Ange Dove (18:22)

So it's so it's like if you if you're in the situation where you're moving things from your calendar to the next day because you didn't do it that day, that's a signal that you should be following what you're saying, right? Yeah.

Louis Swart (18:34)

Absolutely. Absolutely. And the easiest way to do it is just set a chime on your phone. So it chimes every hour and it goes ding. And then you just go, okay, just sit down for like literally two seconds and just go, hey, what did I do in the last hour? Okay. I was doing social media. I've been on Canva. I've been on the call to the tax department for the last hour. And at the end of two weeks, you're going to have a really good idea of where you're spending your time. That's tool number two.

Ange Dove (18:39)

Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (18:48)

Mm.

Ange Dove (19:02)

Right. Okay. Okay. So you're basically auditing your time. Right. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Louis Swart (19:05)

Tool number three. Yeah. Tool number three is the one task.

Now, as you get busier or as your life gets busier, when you wake up in the morning, we wake up and we go, I got a hundred things I've got to do today. Okay. And you know somebody like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, they actually have one to three things that they do a day.

Ange Dove (19:35)

Mm. Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (19:37)

So they take you know, Steve Jobs was renowned for he'd take his whole calendar, he'd take all his to do's and he'd get out what are the three things I need to do today and he would only focus on those three things. Everything else was irrelevant.

Ange Dove (19:49)

Mm. Okay.

Louis Swart (19:52)

Now I found that if I focused on one thing, just one thing for the day. So for example, the other day, if I sat down and went, today I have to accomplish the credit card reconciliation. Only that one thing. Everything else is irrelevant. That one thing I have to accomplish during the day, because that one thing is going to move my business forward. By me accomplishing that one thing would be better than me accomplishing 30 little things.

Louis Swart (20:26)

So how do we do that? How do we work out what that one thing is? You know? And if if you're listening now, there's a good chance that you've got one thing that you know that if you did that, it would help your relationship, it would help your health, it would help you financially, it would help your business. You know, every single one of us, we know that there's one thing that we need to be doing.

And if you could just accomplish that one thing tomorrow, your life would move forward.

But we hide it in a list of a hundred to dos.

Ange Dove (21:09)

Okay, so then how would people 'cause those those a hundred to do still need to be done, right? So so would you hand those over to a member of staff? I mean, nowadays people hire VAs, they hire remotely. So would you that's what you'd recommend people would do? It's like those those tasks that are under your hundred dollar mark, for example, those would be delegated, right?

Louis Swart (21:16)

Yes.

Louis Swart (21:37)

Yep. Absolutely. So you know the Eisenhower matrix is a really cool way. So he did the do delete delegate do delegate schedule delete. Okay. So if something's urgent and it's important, your one task, you do that one task. Okay. If something's urgent and it's not important, you schedule it.

Ange Dove (21:42)

Mm, mm.

Ange Dove (21:51)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (21:56)

Mm mm. Right.

Louis Swart (22:06)

If something's urg not urgent and it's not important, you know, if it's important but it's not urgent, get somebody to help you with. Delegate it. You know. And coming back to our posted note, you know, if we've got a hundred dollars an hour, we're doing ten dollar tasks, we literally are losing money and there's no way we're gonna reach our goal. But if we're doing tasks that are above that, we're gonna be able to reach our goal.

Ange Dove (22:15)

Mm.

Ange Dove (22:33)

Mm.

Louis Swart (22:33)

So how do we work out the high value and low value tasks? Look at your business and go, What's the stuff that only I could do? So what's the in your business, Ange? What's the things that only you could do? For example

Ange Dove (22:36)

Mm.

Ange Dove (22:47)

This podcast is one, the filming of the podcast. Yeah. And then any other videos that I do, that's yeah, me. Yeah. And then mostly everything else I would delegate. So for example, with the podcast, I don't do the editing of it afterwards. I don't do the uploading. I'll get my VA to do that. So so they're the but the things that just can't be taken away from me is

Louis Swart (22:49)

Absolutely, being on the podcast completely.

Louis Swart (22:55)

Perfect. Yep. Creating digital assets. Cool.

Louis Swart (23:07)

Perfect. Perfect. Yep.

Ange Dove (23:14)

the video stuff. And then the other stuff is more the strategy, the planning. What what we're gonna do with the business. How can we make a new revenue stream? Things like that. So it's I'm I'm kind of like the idea person.

Louis Swart (23:26)

Absolutely. And that's you know, that's working with your flow. So your flow, my flow, is definitely not accounts. I know that as a fact.

Ange Dove (23:30)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (23:36)

But right yeah. So what I love to do, I love all the tech stuff. I love building funnels. I love building websites. I love that stuff. But I have to let that go because that's something that my VA can do first a lot quicker than me. Right. And if I'm doing that stuff, I'm not doing the important things that need to be done for the business. So

Louis Swart (23:55)

Yes.

Louis Swart (24:01)

Absolutely true. But you love that stuff. So wouldn't it make more sense for the VA to get it all ready and then you to have a meeting with them once a week where they show you what they're doing and you you go through it and actually make sure that it's according to what you'd like.

Ange Dove (24:04)

Mm, mm.

Ange Dove (24:10)

Mm.

Ange Dove (24:19)

Yeah. Yeah. So I would do the checking of things. Yeah. Mm. Mm.

Louis Swart (24:21)

Which is a high value task. Which is a high value task. Them actually setting it up, low value task. It's a little bit like you getting guests for this podcast. You could actually reach out to everybody and go, Hey, you know, would you like to be on my podcast? That's a that's a ten dollar task.

Ange Dove (24:30)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (24:35)

Yeah. Yeah. Mm.

Louis Swart (24:38)

But you doing that interview with them and saying, you know, like a ten minute interview just to see if they're the right guest, that's a high value task. You know, you looking at your forward planning for your business, that's a high value task.

Ange Dove (24:44)

Mm, mm, mm, mm.

Ange Dove (24:52)

Mm.

Louis Swart (24:54)

And you know, now I've got I've got virtual assistants. I've actually got twelve of my own personal virtual assistants, and plus I've got a virtual assistant business in the Philippines, and I've got people in Nepal and Egypt and South Africa. They are so good compared to I say with with with specific things, with specific things. So I'm not saying they're great compared to you in the whole world, but I've got AI guys and I just say, you know what.

Ange Dove (24:54)

Nice.

Ange Dove (24:59)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (25:07)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (25:13)

Yeah.

Yeah. You have to know what to give them. Yeah. Mm. Mm.

Louis Swart (25:23)

I'm thinking I need this concept. So yeah, yesterday I said to my guy, when people create content, I want them to just take a long form piece of content like a transcript from a podcast, and I want them to just be able to put it into a put it into a file. And then I want us to literally create LinkedIn posts, hooks, tweets, newsletters, all from that content. And this is the concept that I want.

Ange Dove (25:48)

Mm. Right.

Louis Swart (25:52)

This is like three days ago. He came back yesterday and he goes, I've created a website that does this.

Ange Dove (25:59)

Ooh, okay.

Louis Swart (26:00)

So he's created it, it's there. We went in, we tested it, and was like blown away by what he's created. Okay. And I'm like, this is incredible. Now I could have done it. Like over the next year, I could have done that. Okay. But I now get to go, okay, wow, that's cool. Right? And then I've got another guy in the Paul, and I've I've gone to him and I've said, Hey, listen, what I need is

Ange Dove (26:08)

All right.

Ange Dove (26:14)

Uh-huh.

Louis Swart (26:30)

I want to help people to create six months worth of content in one hour. I I offer a program where I do that for people, but I want to be able to automate it. And so he's gone in and done a program where you literally just log in and you put down who your ideal avatar is and you put down who your ideal what your service is and it it automatically spits out the top ten fears, frustrations, dreams and desires of your ideal client.

Ange Dove (26:39)

Mm.

Ange Dove (26:48)

Hm.

Ange Dove (26:51)

Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (26:59)

It gives you twenty hooks that are using like, you know, FOMO and all these different things so that they're, you know, really good hooks. It gives you 20 stories that are, you know, stories and metaphors. Okay. And then it gives you 20 Facebook posts, 20 LinkedIn posts, and it gives you five lead magnets. All just from you putting in a little bit of information in the beginning, but super, super targeted. Okay.

Ange Dove (27:09)

Mm, nice. Yeah.

Ange Dove (27:25)

Yeah, nice. I like that. Right. Mmm. Mmm.

Louis Swart (27:29)

and literally I was doing it with a GPT and he's now got it on a website and it's and it's it's ready to go, you know?

Ange Dove (27:39)

Let's do it.

So that's ready for people to like subscribe to or?

Louis Swart (27:46)

We haven't published we haven't published it. We haven't published it. But so the both of those we've got that already. I'll give you another example. when I have a meeting, and I have quite a lot of meetings with people, and so I don't really have a lot of time to prepare, you know. so what used to happen was my virtual assistant would go in and and if I had a meeting with you, my virtual assistant would go in and she'd go, Angie Dove, and then she'd look you up on the internet, she'd look you up on LinkedIn, look you up on Facebook and kind of compile a meeting report for me.

Ange Dove (27:47)

Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (27:52)

Right. Uh-huh.

Ange Dove (28:16)

Mm.

Louis Swart (28:17)

I now have an agent that sits on my computer. And if you book in on my calendar, that agent actually goes, Who's this person? It goes and scans the internet for you. It also scans my computer for you. And then it comes back and says, You've this is a new person. I've scanned the internet, this is all their details. Or I've scanned the internet, this is all their details, and you've actually done a thing with them. And I've gone through the meeting notes, the transcription from the previous meet, and this is this is

that as well automatically does that and then it actually attaches that to my Google Calendar and it goes into my my Google Drive and it actually creates a folder and puts it in the folder.

Ange Dove (28:47)

Nice.

Louis Swart (29:03)

Unbelievable, hey. And that whole thing was I was able to create that whole thing in about fifteen, twenty minutes.

Ange Dove (29:05)

Amazing what AI can do. Yeah.

Ange Dove (29:11)

Wow. Okay. That is cool. That is really cool.

Louis Swart (29:15)

But in the beginning, I had my virtual assistant, I've got you know, I had him help me set it up on my computer. So I could have learned how to do it, I could have taken the time, but that's a ten dollar task. I got him to do that. But then once it was on my computer, I went in and told it what I wanted to do, gave it all the instructions, and then it built it for me. And that's the thing, you know, we want to work out how we can use our time most effectively.

Ange Dove (29:22)

Mm. Mm. Okay. Right.

Ange Dove (29:45)

Yeah. So yeah.

Louis Swart (29:46)

Some stuff we can allocate to humans and some we can allocate to AI.

Ange Dove (29:51)

Well, this is it, this is how things are moving, right? So it moved from having having to employ people in an office and pay full time staff, pay f like you've got fixed overheads when you're doing that. Then that moved over to being able to hire remotely. That cuts your costs down, saves up your time. You can do a lot more that way, right? Now it's moving to AI can do a lot of it as well.

Right, which you're you're now going into that area, right? Is how can AI replace these tasks, right? And do these tasks faster. So it's just an amazing time to to be around, right? Really. It's never been a better time to be in business, really. Yeah.

Louis Swart (30:30)

Absolutely.

Louis Swart (30:34)

But there's lots of tricks, there's lots of catches to it, you know. We do that. We say, you know, we can get it done by AI faster. And you can, but AI isn't necessarily cheaper than having a human. You know, I told you about that AI that I've put in. I've set it up on my and what it does is it goes and looks at my meeting notes and then creates a meeting. That ran through $50 in the first week. Because it ran through credits. It runs, they all run through credits, so they all log through credits.

Ange Dove (30:41)

Hmm. No.

Ange Dove (30:46)

Right.

Ange Dove (31:00)

Yeah. Okay. Okay.

Louis Swart (31:03)

So my VA could have done it probably for fifty dollars for the week. So this is the thing that we're not we're not looking at those costs. We're going, I can get AI to do it, and we assume that AI is just going to do all of this stuff for free, you know. I I go on social media all the time and I I've got guys that just edit videos and stuff. I go on social media and it's like, you don't need anybody to edit your videos, just edit your own videos. You know, you can use this program and that program. And you go, okay.

Ange Dove (31:09)

Right, so we've got to consider those costs as well.

Yeah. Mm.

Ange Dove (31:18)

Mm, mm.

Louis Swart (31:32)

And then you go in and actually use the program. First of all, you got to pay the subscription. And then you use the program. They don't come out looking anywhere near like what they should look like. They they they're okay, sort of, you know. I mean, I use Opus Opus Clip or Opus Pro. And look, the videos are okay. They're okay, but I mean if if I'm talking and we're babbling on about something, it doesn't go, hang on, this guy's what's happening here and cut that out. It just goes, Well, they're still talking, you know.

Ange Dove (31:36)

Yeah.

Ange Dove (31:42)

Yeah.

Yeah. Clip yeah. Mm. Mm.

Ange Dove (31:59)

Mm. Yeah, yeah.

Louis Swart (32:01)

Even if you're just going nonsense, right? Whereas and whereas a human with something like Cap Cut can actually cut it and really make it nice and and clean. but you know, going back to the going back to the Beameth, I I wrote this book. I n you know for thirty five years I've been doing delegation, okay, for a very long time. And I've got all these concepts of how I I can help people. And I initially wrote it as a as a book.

Ange Dove (32:09)

Yeah. Yeah.

Ange Dove (32:17)

Mm.

Louis Swart (32:30)

Like I wrote it in a I wrote it as a book and it had all like, you know, like each chapter was, you know, how to do this, how to do that. And then I looked at all the books on my bookshelf and I was like, man, I have not read all these books on my bookshelf. And you know, some of them are amazing books. Okay. I've kind of opened it and I've read a little bit and then I put it back on the bookshelf. Or I've put it next to my bed and then I put another book on top of it, and then another book on top of that, and then my bookshelf.

Ange Dove (32:59)

Mm.

Louis Swart (33:00)

But I was like, what books have I read? And the the parables are really the ones that I've read. There's very few parables that I haven't read. Because in a story, you can read a story in maybe three hours, two or three hours. You could read through a story, and you get all these amazing key points out of the story, you know?

Ange Dove (33:06)

Mm. Okay. Right. Okay.

Ange Dove (33:16)

Mm, mm.

Ange Dove (33:21)

Mm. And it's enjoyable to read as well. Right. Yeah. It's not dry. Yeah. Yeah.

Louis Swart (33:24)

And it's enjoyable and you look f you look forward to reading it. So I then took my book and I rewrote my book as a parable.

Yeah. and I rewrote it as a parable. And what happens is when you read the parable and you get to the end of the parable, and basically then there's activities to do. So you know, like I said to you before, if you're listening to this podcast and you are looking, listening to this podcast, and you're not going to do take any action, that's amazing. You've just had entertainment. You've literally just come here for entertainment. If you leave this podcast.

Ange Dove (33:36)

That mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (34:04)

And you now have a posted note on your computer with a figure and you look at that, literally you have benefited from this podcast. If you leave this podcast and you have a planner now so that every hour after it you know what to look for, you've benefited from this podcast. Okay. And the book is written the same way. So the book's got each chapter has actually got activities at the back, which actually refer back to the chapter and go, have you, you know.

Ange Dove (34:06)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (34:20)

Hmm. Mm.

Mm.

Ange Dove (34:29)

Mm.

Louis Swart (34:33)

do this activity and you can actually really get, you know, the full benefit of that information.

Ange Dove (34:43)

So where can we send people to get the book? 'Cause this sounds like this could be very useful for people.

Louis Swart (34:48)

Well, if you go on Amazon, so you can just go on Amazon and it's like the B myth. B just has in the letter B. Yeah. You know, just think busyness badge of honor. B. Okay. So it's called the B myth. All right. or you can go to my name, so Louis Swat dot com. you know, and and if you go there, there's you can get a copy of the book from there.

Ange Dove (34:51)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

beam it. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Ange Dove (35:01)

Yeah, yeah. Okay. Right.

Ange Dove (35:09)

Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (35:15)

You know, or you can find me on any social. So if you just re you know, you can reach out to me on any of the socials, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, you name it, we're there. yeah, but I mean I'd love to help you. I'd love to just have a you know, if you if you're leaving corporate and you want to start your own business, or you've already started your own business, or you've got a couple of people working for you and you just feel like you're crazy busy, I'd love to have a chat to you. I'd love to just have a virtual coffee with you and

Ange Dove (35:24)

Right. Okay.

Louis Swart (35:45)

We can we can literally just go through what are you struggling with? Cause I can tell you that in business, every level has got new devils. And I I did some coaching with a guy and I spoke I spoke to him recently and it was it was a year since I did coaching with him. And I spoke to him and he said, my business has grown so much. We're about five times bigger than what we were when you initially coached us and gave us all the guidance.

Ange Dove (35:55)

Mm, mm.

Ange Dove (36:11)

Mm-hmm.

Louis Swart (36:14)

He said, you know, and I've got your voice running around in my head all day. Because he said, the things that you told me back then, lots of them I didn't actually understand. He said, I agreed and I nodded and everything, but I didn't actually understand what the benefit was until my business grew to the next level. And then I was like, that's how that ties into this.

Ange Dove (36:25)

Okay.

Ange Dove (36:37)

Mm, mm. Yeah. Yeah.

Louis Swart (36:39)

'Cause I've been there. You know, I've been there. I've grown the businesses from zero to thirty five million or you know, from zero to a business that we sold for five million. I've done it. I've been there, you know, and I've suffered all the things that you can read about in the Beamuth. In the Beamuth you'll see there's all that stuff, you know, we get so busy we don't think about our health and then we get a scare from the you know, we get some sort of health scare. Or we get so busy that we you know our relationships suffer, you know.

Ange Dove (36:57)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ange Dove (37:04)

Mm mm.

Mm. Mm. Right. So it sounds really a really useful book to have if you're starting a business. So we will put the links to the Amazon link. We'll put the Amazon link through and I'll put the link to your personal website and also your ironbridge dot com dot AU website as well. So go and look for everything that Lewis is doing and

Louis Swart (37:28)

Thank you.

Ange Dove (37:35)

It's gonna helpful hopefully solve your busyness problem. And I've learned a lot already today, just from today. So thank you so much for joining us today.

Louis Swart (37:45)

I really appreciate you, Ange. Thank you so much. this has been this has been incredible. And final words, like if you don't do anything from this podcast, you literally would just got entertainment. Okay. But you've got those three things you can do. Set yourself one task for the day, think about what that main task is, create a post-it note.

Ange Dove (37:50)

Yeah, well.

Ange Dove (38:03)

Yeah.

Louis Swart (38:12)

with that figure on it somewhere where you can see it and you know create that post planner where you go, what did I do in the last hour? If you do though any one of those three things, change the way you do business.

Ange Dove (38:26)

Love it. Absolutely love it. Okay, I'm going to do those as soon as we get off this podcast. So thank you, Louis. Bye for now. Bye.

Louis Swart (38:37)

Thank you very much. See you edge. Bye.