Erin Sims and John Mills, Connect-Empower

[00:00:55] Sanjay Parekh: Today on the show, we have Erin Sims and John Mills, the co-founders of Connect-Empower. Their company's origin story started at an unusual location, an inflatable parade during COVID. They're on a mission to serve our elderly community and those that support and love them. Erin and John, welcome to the show.

[00:01:16] John Mills: Thank you. 

[00:01:17] Erin Sims: Hi, thanks for having us. 

00:01:19] Sanjay Parekh: So, I'm excited to have you all on because I don't think we've talked to anybody in the elderly space as of yet. It's going to be interesting to get into this. But before we get there, give us a little bit about both of your backgrounds and what got you to where you all are today.

[00:01:34] Erin Sims: Would you want to go first or would you like me to go?  

[00:01:39] John Mills: Yeah, I'll go. So, yeah, I was actually working, doing commercial sales for a disaster response company and I was helping my neighbor who was elderly and his family had abandoned him and I was helping him get all the resources he needed.

And then the company was so impressed with the way I was really advocating for him, they decided to throw me an offer that I just couldn't refuse. And I got into healthcare, mainly in the marketing aspect of it, and serving populations over the age of 50 to 65 in all capacities from home health to hospice, personal care service, physician support, pretty much anything where you can serve that population.

And I called on hospitals, all the way down to assisted livings and certified family homes.  

[00:02:35] Erin Sims: Yeah, my story was I was looking for a job at the time and I had a friend that owned a hospice company and was looking to expand in the caregiving side. And so, he said, hey, you want to come try it out? And I said, I don't know anything about it, but I'm willing to try.

And the journey just continued. And here we are. We felt like there was a gap in the system and we wanted to connect people together. So, whatever happens at this doctor's office, they don't know what's happening at this other doctor's office. And so, clients aren't sure what's happening. So, we talked about just sitting down and coming together and bringing it all together, to make it easier to navigate it.

[00:03:09] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, okay. So the hidden part of the intro that I didn't say is that you two are partners in this business, but you're also engaged to be married. Congratulations, first of all on that. 

[00:03:22] John Mills: Thank you. 

[00:03:] Sanjay Parekh: When did that, did you guys know each other before starting the company? Give me a timeline here. 

[00:03:28] Erin Sims: So it's funny cause John will sit there and say, I don't date anybody in healthcare. I'm the first girl. So, I feel really, really special for that one, but we actually met at an inflatable parade. We didn't know each other before. It was our very first meeting and it was COVID. Like you had shared, we were all in our inflatables. I was a pig, he was a sumo wrestler, and it was love at first sight. 

[00:03:51] John Mills: I found out that she loves to go on adventures, and she loves to travel all over the world.

And, I had been doing healthcare for a long time and she briefly got into mortgages. I got my real estate license, and we were just thinking about spending more quality time together. And we were both looking at how corporate America is really controlling the narrative when it comes to care for aging population. And so we thought, we can create a better system of resources and help to support that population. So, we got together and…

[00:04:25] Erin Sims: He flew me down to Costa Rica and said, will you marry me? I said, Yes, let's do it! 

[00:04:33] Sanjay Parekh: By the way, I love that, John, you were a sumo wrestler. I'm a big fan of sumo wrestling. I spent a few months living in Japan, many and many ages ago and became a fan of sumo wrestling back then.

[00:04:44] Erin Sims: Where in Japan? 

[00:04:45] Sanjay Parekh: In Tokyo. I was living and working in Tokyo for a few months back in the ‘90s. 

[00:04:50] Erin Sims: I lived there for 12 years.

[00:04:52] Sanjay Parekh: Oh, did you? Yeah, and as you well know then, the only thing that's in English on TV, especially if you're in a hotel, is CNN international and the news doesn't change that much in a half an hour, and sumo wrestling, which is broadcast every other month for two weeks in English as well as in Japanese.

And back then we had some English or some American wrestlers, as well. So, I had somebody to cheer on back in those days, but okay. You proposed, did the company founding happen after you two got engaged? 

[00:05:28] John Mills: Yeah, we came back, and we were working, doing our regular jobs on a regular basis. And then in April in 2023, we both decided to quit our jobs and we took off and went to Indonesia. And we had been talking about putting a company together to serve other people, a purposeful company. And she had whiteboards all over the house with all these ideas written on them and I'm just overwhelmed by looking at them all and we decided to bring it all together and make a company out of it.

So that's what we've done. 

[00:06:03] Erin Sims: And not just the company, by the way, really to create a movement to get people to be proactive versus reactive in their life and in their health care. 

[00:06:12] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. So, John, you really wanted to get your walls back basically is what I'm hearing you say. And so, you're like, we’ll just start a company so we can get rid of these whiteboards.

That's what it sounds like to me. 

[00:06:11] John Mills: Correct. 

[00:06:12] Sanjay Parekh: So for both of you, is this your first entrepreneurial venture or had you done entrepreneurial things when you were younger, maybe when you were a kid? 

[00:06:33] John Mills: It's my first, which I'm, I've been a bit terrified. Okay. Erin has done it before, and so this year has been my dedication to have more faith than fear.

[00:06:47] Sanjay Parekh: If you're not a little bit terrified as an entrepreneur, then something's wrong. That's the entrepreneur’s mantra, is you just got to be paranoid all the time, worried about everything all the time. So, I think you're in a good spot. 

[00:07:03] Erin Sims: Sleepless nights.

[00:07:04] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, exactly. Sleepless nights. Okay. for Erin, for you, you said you were entrepreneurial before. Like what's your first entrepreneurial thing that you ever did?

[00:07:13] Erin Sims: If we go way back, we all had lemonade stands, right? We were all selling it on the corner somewhere or the bubble gum, bubble gum at school. That was probably your first, was bubble gum at school.

But I had actually, when I had the opportunity to do the caregiving, I was able to help create and start that and be a part of that company. And then when I moved to Idaho, I started my own caregiving company. And then due to COVID, it was very hard to keep the caregivers around and things got a little crazy.

And then that's when John had mentioned I ended up going into mortgages for a little bit. Interest rates went crazy and then we're like, all right, I'm back to doing my own thing. I'm just not a nine-to-fiver. 

[00:07:51] Sanjay Parekh: What's the funny thing there is, it sounds like John, you did a bubble gum arbitrage thing, you bought and sold to other kids.

Is that what you did? 

[00:07:59] John Mills: I did very early on and, gosh, junior high. I, back when Bubble Yum and I'm dating myself and Bubble Yum was like 25 cents a pack, and it was against the rules to chew gum at school. However, I would buy a pack for 25 cents and sell each piece for a dime. And then buy two packs and I kept doing that over and over again for one, almost a year until I got caught and got in pretty big trouble. 

[00:08:24] Sanjay Parekh: So avid listeners of this podcast will know that we have talked about this multiple times, about the idea of candy bar arbitrage. So when I was in elementary school, as well as in junior high, I did the exact same thing with candy bars, not with bubble gum.

And then I use the access to buy comic books and things like that. It is actually, if you talk to a bunch of entrepreneurs, you will find a startling number that have done this exact same thing, that have done the arbitrage on candy bars or things like that, to their classmates when they were in school. So, you actually had the makings of an entrepreneur from a long time ago, you just didn't know it.

It's all about the hustle. So okay, so you had all these whiteboards you thought okay. Somebody needs to do something. Give me like the nugget of the idea of what you all do.

[00:09:15] Erin Sims: Go ahead. 

[00:09:18] John Mills: So, we started thinking about how, as we get older, it's very difficult to navigate so many decisions, so many different websites, so much, and tech is difficult to use anyway. And so, we decided to create a platform to help connect people with the resources to empower them to have more control over their life.

Erin has always wanted to do a podcast. And I went out and researched and found all the best equipment to purchase and decided to turn one of the rooms in our house into a podcast studio. And it just started developing from there. We started getting different ideas or we should do this, and we should do that.

And we continued growing the different aspects of the business into where we are now. 

[00:10:09] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, that's awesome. Okay. So, both of you are full time then in the company, I take it, right? 

[00:10:18] John Mills: No.

[00:10:19] Sanjay Parekh: Not full time. Okay, so who's full time? Who's not full time? 

[00:10:20] John Mills: Erin's full time. I'm…

[00:10:23] Erin Sims: You were full time. So, John was full time and then he decided to go back to work part time because, as you know, businesses cost money. 

[00:10:30] Sanjay Parekh: Yep. 

[00:10:31] Erin Sims: Someone's got to pay the bills. 

[00:10:33] John Mills: Yeah. Yeah and I, for many, many years, I have worked for an employer and had those paychecks coming in. And as our business would grow and become bigger and bigger, and we needed things, I thought, gosh, she's right. We better have that paycheck coming in to cover those until we can make enough money to put that to the side.

[00:10:58] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so beyond the two of you, is there anybody else in the company, any employees, or is it just the two of you?

[00:11:04] John Mills: Just the two of us. 

[00:11:05] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, so the early days of hustling. And so, there's obviously a lot of other challenges with that too, right?

Things like benefits and things like that, that are hard in these early days. What, for you two, what's one of the most difficult things that you've had to grapple with in terms of starting this?

[00:11:21] Erin Sims: Oh my gosh. For me it's the writing. You know, a podcast and blog posts and websites. We had to write all that and we continue to write that and I'm not a writer and he's not a writer. But we've learned that we both have a lot of similar traits that we are a lot alike and a lot of things we both don't like. But somebody has to do it, right?

It has to get done right now. That for me has been the hardest part is really all the new tech.

[00:11:47] Sanjay Parekh: So that's a really a lot of the marketing side of it, right? Like that side is hard for you. For you, John, any particular part that's hard or is it the same? 

[00:11:56] John Mills: I think the part for me as the co-founder of our company is just the support that I'm able to give Erin because she has taken on so many different things and I'm great at connecting people.

I'm great at having conversations. I'm great at building success in a company. But all the back-end stuff, I'm not as familiar with. And so, she has definitely taken the leadership position on that and developing so many incredible support systems for our business to help it succeed.

[00:12:36] Sanjay Parekh: Great insight. It's really good to know what you are and are not good at, because I think there's a lot of people in general and even founders specifically, that don't necessarily realize that. They try to take everything on for themselves and they're not good at it. And then they don't do it well. And that causes them problems down the road. 

I want to switch gears a little bit. It's interesting, I think you're one of the few couples that we've had on the podcast. And so, navigating that is a different challenge as well, in terms of trying to separate all of this stuff, right? Because both of you are in the business and then, you know, they're supposed to be off time.

Like, do you delineate that? Or is it like, this is a free-for-all? We talk about all the things all the time. 

[00:13:21] Erin Sims: Can I answer this one and then you can back in it? So, we learned really early on that it is very hard to separate it, but you need to have those fine lines. It doesn't happen overnight.

We've really had to work at and have those conversations. And one of our newest rules is, hey, in the bedroom, we're not talking about work anymore because it literally it takes over your whole life and it's like, okay, this is our space. Work can be anywhere else but in here, right? But you can't help it.

It's just going to cross. It's just going to, and it's learning to be good communicators and saying, hey, I have to take this time for me. Can you hold that thought? 

[00:14:06] Sanjay Parekh: So for you, Erin, it's based on location, like in the bedroom, we don't talk about it, but then every other day of the week is okay. Saturday, Sundays, or when you're not in the bedroom, talk about business, yes? 

[00:14:17] Erin Sims: Yeah. 

[00:14:18] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. 

[00:14:19] Erin Sims: I'm a workaholic. So sometimes that's pulling me in and going, okay. So, setting my own boundaries to make sure everybody else has boundaries. 

[00:14:28] John Mills: And for me, I think that it's really important to be intentional.

If you're going to create a business, it's really important to be intentional with your time. Like it's still important for me to be healthy. It's still important for me to have certain moments that I continue doing the things that I feel are really good habits to have. And so, I won't let those things go and let the business overpower those things. And then I think it's also important to have patience and communicate, like Erin just said, in order to have a relationship as a future married couple and then also succeed as business owners.

That was the primary reason I wanted to do this business is because I wanted to spend more time with her. I wanted to be able to travel. I wanted to be able to have a business that had the flexibility and time where we could grow together as a couple. And so, you have to balance those things out and you have to do that with communication.

[00:15:30] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. It's just the three of us on the podcast. Who's going to admit that they fled to the bedroom one time because they didn't want to talk about business with the other person? 

[00:15:39] Erin Sims: I don't know if it was so much the bedroom as it was like, who's getting to the car first?

[00:15:47] Sanjay Parekh: Is the car another safe space where we don't talk about business or…?

[00:15:50] Erin Sims: We just take a drive. Like you have to, right? 

[00:15:52] John Mills: Without the other one. 

[00:15:53] Erin Sims: You can't help it, but you have to know, hey, I need a break. I'm walking away. If not, this is going to be detrimental, right? It happens. We're human. 

[00:16:05] John Mills: Yeah, and then she, I have to add this too, because you'll laugh at this and so will your listeners and hopefully our listeners if they hear this. But she is 95% right and it's taken me a period of time to learn that, but now that I have, everything has become much smoother.

[00:16:23] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. You're about 15% off from where you need to be when you get married. So you've got time to get to admitting that she's 110% right. I give this advice to you as a fellow married person, to somebody who will soon be in that camp or at some point be in that camp. 

[00:16:43] Adam Walker: Support for this podcast comes from Hiscox, committed to helping small businesses protect their dreams since 1901. Quotes and information on customized insurance for specific risks are available at Hiscox.com. Hiscox, business insurance experts.

[00:17:04] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, let's change gears a little bit. We've talked about boundaries. What about stress? How do you guys handle stress? How do you deal with stress? I mean you're potentially thinking and talking about the business near 24/7, right? It can be stressful. Is there anything that you do? Is there any, you know, routines?

[00:17:27] Erin Sims: I think it's about routines, right? John is really good and has a good routine and I'll let him share that. But for me, I constantly have to pivot because I'm not always stressed. But I just started a new routine. Like I will tell him, eight o'clock at night, I need to start winding down. I need to start getting things off of my mind, start relaxing and really letting myself settle.

Whether that's taking my shower, brushing my teeth, reading a book, doing something that's just for me to just unwind. And for you, you have a really good routine. 

[00:17:58] John Mills: I have a pretty good routine too. I wake up pretty early. I wake up around 4:50 in the morning and get a workout in.

We have a big gym in our garage. And then I come in and I meditate. I meditate and I read some scripture and then I also read some of an educational book. And I start my day that way. I also write down 10 things I'm grateful for because I think gratitude's super, super important this day and age.

And so I do those daily and I won't change those. I won't allow work to change that. I won't allow anything. I've got to start my day that way and I think that it brings me a lot of stability. 

[00:18:38] Sanjay Parekh: So how much of your day is that, John? You said you get up at 4:50. When are you now done with your morning routine and then into everything else?

[00:18:46] John Mills: Yeah, I'm done with my more morning routine, shower, ready to go by eight o'clock. By 8:00, I've eaten something healthy, I've gone through my workout. I've done everything and I'm ready to go at 8:00. 

[00:18:56] Sanjay Parekh: So that's like a three-hour morning routine that is non-negotiable for you. 

[00:19:01] John Mills: Non-negotiable. 

[00:19:02] Sanjay Parekh: Wow, that's great! And this is a seven day a week routine or is it five days and then relax on the weekends? 

[00:19:07] John Mills: Yeah, I think for the most part.

Erin did say to me just recently.

[00:19:13] Erin Sims: This is where the relationship comes in.

[00:19:15] John Mills: She modified it a bit. She said I just want one morning with you in bed in the morning when I get up and I said, okay. So we do that Sundays. I still get my routine in. I just do it a little differently on that day.

[00:19:29] Erin Sims: It's one day out of 30, right? 

[00:19:32] Sanjay Parekh: One day a month or one day a week? 

[00:19:34] John Mills: No. One day a week.

[00:19:36] Erin Sims: No, it's one day. Just one Sunday a month. 

[00:19:38] John Mills: Oh, I've been doing it every Sunday. 

[00:19:40] Erin Sims: No, not yet. It's a new routine. 

[00:19:45] John Mills: I guess I'm I guess I'm off this Sunday, which is great because it's Super Bowl Sunday, so I gotta get all my stuff done early.

[00:19:52] Sanjay Parekh: I just got you back four Sunday, three to four Sundays a month, John. Just by asking.

[00:19:57] John Mills: I owe you one on that, I owe you one on that.

[00:19:59] Sanjay Parekh: I'm here for you, man. 

[00:20:01] John Mills: Thank you. 

[00:20:01] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, so, we've talked about exercise. Erin, you mentioned a little bit about sleep. It sounds like you're pretty regimented in terms of when you go to sleep.

John, are you the same way as they're like a certain bedtime for you every day?

[00:20:16] John Mills: I think I'm even better than Erin, to be honest. It doesn't matter. I don't wind down the same way, but at 10 o'clock, it doesn't matter if we're at the movie theater. It doesn't matter if we're sitting on the couch, but my eyes slam shut and they don't engage again until the next day.

And I sleep hard. 

[00:20:34] Erin Sims: Hold on. I'm going to interrupt you. We got the Oura rings. John has always said I slept worse than he does, but guess what? I actually sleep better and longer in deep sleep than he does. So, who's really getting the recovery here? 

[00:20:51] Sanjay Parekh: John remember that 15% that I told you were missing a little while ago? 

I'm just saying it might be rearing its head now. 

[00:20:59] John Mills: Okay, I've always felt that, I've always felt that was my routine. I guess it's… 

[00:21:08] Erin Sims: This is for off air. We'll share some more. 

[00:21:13] Sanjay Parekh: Okay, so you guys have been doing this now for a little while. What is it that you see moving forward for you? With the business as well as your partnership. Is this that eventually, John, you go full time back into the business?

Like what is your kind of vision of where you go with this? 

[00:21:33] John Mills: I just read an amazing book called Burn the Boats. It's just an amazing book and it really talks about the importance of committing to something. And I think that as a new business owner, sometimes you have to have that, you have to have more faith than fear and sometimes you have to jump in and just go for it.

And so I haven't really told Erin, but I'm shooting for a June exit at my other 30-hour-a-week profession that I do. And just committing everything once we get to that point and giving it everything I've got. 

So, I think that a big part of it is we aren't married yet. We're engaged, right? And so, I never want to compromise her or compromise myself. However, she's done a lot of work and I've done a lot of work to create something pretty amazing. And I think it could level up if I do commit to that. 

[00:22:41] Erin Sims: I think you have to commit, and you probably know this interviewing many people.

You have to be full in, right? You can start off, I feel small and do little things here, but to take it to that next level, you just have to jump. He always says, how do you know the money will be there? How do you know this and that?  I don't, I just believe it will be. And we're just going for it. You have to. If you said that, I'm going to fail at this or I'm going to, you're going to fail, right?

There is no option. We don't fail. We go. We just full force go and pivot and make it work and find it and ask questions and we do it. 

[00:23:16] John Mills: She also told me that she would have no problem if I worked at McDonald's. So if any of you all see me at McDonald's at the drive thru and you remember I'm with Connect-Empower, please empower me by nice compliments on how much you enjoyed this podcast. 

[00:23:30] Sanjay Parekh: Erin is just looking for a hookup for McFlurrys, as best as possible. And I get that the McFlurry machine is often not working. So that's what she's looking for. I can tell. 

So, this is actually a good segue to this question. What for each one of you has made you nervous about the business and how did you deal with that or overcome that for yourselves?

[00:23:55] John Mills: I think for me, what always makes me nervous is understand how to monetize certain aspects of the business, right? Both Erin and I have such incredibly creative minds and ideas on how we want to grow the business and how we want to serve others. However, I'm also a believer in the importance of having money to retire and being able to take care of your own needs and not just do all this for free.

And so, I think my biggest concern is monetizing our different services and so forth. And so, as far as figuring out how to overcome that, that is yet to be determined since I'm still working at the other place. So, if I knew that then I probably would have already jumped. 

[00:24:47] Erin Sims: For me, it's things not happening fast enough, right?

It's okay, there's only two of us. There's a great opportunity and I think I can't go as fast as I need us to go to get us where we need to go. But sometimes I have to sit there and go, you know what, it's on God's timing. I have to just be okay where I am, do the best that I can here. But really it's, it is scaling.

Yeah, really knowing like, okay, we're okay here. And we just need to be really good at this before we expand anywhere else. And it's okay. Yeah. That's very hard. 

[00:25:21] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. No, absolutely. It is very hard. Okay, so you've been doing this for a little while. You probably already had some learning lessons from this and that's kind of the gig of being an entrepreneur, you're always learning things. If you're not learning things every single day, something's wrong. And you're missing out on the lessons probably. Thinking about those lessons that you've had already, is there something that you'd go back and do differently, now knowing what you know?

[00:25:51] Erin Sims: Yeah, I would have started sooner. I would have not waited. And I would have said we're doing this a lot sooner. 

[00:25:58] Sanjay Parekh: Why is that? Why are you saying that? 

[00:26:02] Erin Sims: I think we would have been more at the forefront of things a little bit more. Not that we're not now, but I feel like we were just ready. And the fear that we both held on to, held us back a little bit.

I know we can do it. I have the faith that we can do this. I know we've got those skills. And so, we could have been that much further, helped that many more people sooner. There's that saying that says that if you don't, if you're afraid to be seen, I can't quote it exactly, but don't be afraid to be seen because if you are, you don't know what you're not letting somebody else learn from, or maybe they need that word or that saying.

That's what I felt like, Gosh, we could have done this so much sooner. But that's what I would have done, started a little sooner, a couple of years sooner. 

[00:26:48] John Mills: Yeah, I think I would have definitely started sooner. I think that instead of just having whiteboards on all the walls of the house and us writing all these plans and having all these discussions over a glass of wine or a beer or a cocktail, I think that it would have been smart to in the beginning sitting down with somebody sharing our ideas and creating a business plan. 

We did not create a business plan. We have an amazing business, but I think that we would have had a better understanding on monetization and all the different aspects of it, had we sat down with a business coach or somebody and developed that. 

[00:27:31] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, is that something that you all have changed since then? Do you have a business coach now or are you still doing it yourself? 

[00:27:39] Erin Sims: We had just met with someone a couple weeks ago and so it's in the works.

[00:27:45] Sanjay Parekh: Okay. Okay. It's an interesting point because we often hear with guests on this show, them talk about having a business coach. And I'll be honest, I've personally never had a business coach, when I've done my startups or stuff. I've just muddled through it, and I've muddled through it enough now that I've figured out most of the stuff. And now have enough of a family of friendly entrepreneurs that are great to ask questions to.

Do you have that as well? Do you have entrepreneurs, in your lives that you talk to about things? 

[00:28:20] Erin Sims: I think we both do. Both of our, John has a sister and I have a brother that in real estate and then a few of my friends own businesses. So, it's nice to call them every once in a while and share our ideas and be like, Hey, what do you think?

[00:28:33] John Mills: Get a pep talk. Yeah, I think that we're in such a specialized field. A very unique area that's very, very needed. I think some of the people that are offering the support are all, they're, incredible humans and they're very supportive, yet they don't understand the space the way they do.

So as far as having that structure to guide us, they can in certain aspects, but I think mainly they're cheerleaders, right? Oh, we love that or that's a great idea or sounds great or whatever. Website's beautiful, but…

[00:29:14] Erin Sims: I do think my brother, he's owned a couple businesses and he always said, Don't, what did he tell you about the money?

[00:29:20] John Mills: Don't overspend in the beginning. He said that you know a lot of times it's just about starting and so many times different people that start companies feel they have to throw huge amounts of money in the beginning before they even get started. And if they would have just gotten started, they would have been so much further along.

[00:29:43] Sanjay Parekh: That's the old adage. The only reason companies go out of business is because they run out of money. Think about the money and make sure you're conserving and spending it the right way. 

Okay, last question for both of you. If you were talking to somebody who's thinking about taking that leap and launching a side hustle or taking their side hustle and making a small business like you all have, what advice would you give them?

[00:30:08] Erin Sims: I would say, really understand what you're good at. And what would you be okay passing on and outsourcing for somebody else to do? If you're able to do that, because I feel if you don't know that you're going to be trying to play all these hats and you're over here and you're going to be overwhelmed and you'll want to give up faster. Have that plan.

[00:30:31] John Mills: Yeah, For me, I think what it's about is, it's about what is it you truly like to do in life? Do you want to be controlled by somebody else or some company? Or would you like to be in control of your own time? Would you like to have the freedom to express your values and views independently, not controlled by a big corporate company or something.

And I think they both have goods and bads with them. I think I'm ready now where I am in life. I've done the corporate thing. I've worked for big companies, and I think I'm really excited to have a partner who believes in me and I believe in her and we can chase after a passion that we truly both want to engage in and  succeed in it. 

[00:31:16] Erin Sims: And know that it's okay. It's okay to be fearful. It's okay to be scared. We all are every day, every step of the way. So, it's okay, It's normal. But like John said, have fun. You've got to love it because it's hard work. You gotta love it.

[00:31:30] John Mills: You're not going to be everybody's, you know, sometimes business owners think they have to appeal to everybody. And the thing is there's many people you're not going to appeal to, but there's millions and millions of people on this planet. And all it takes is a small percentage of those people that can make it incredibly successful.

[00:31:50] Erin Sims: And we talk about that too, right? We sit there and go, Oh, someone else is doing this and that. And we really have to go, You know what? How many lawyers are there? How many coaches are there? There could be a million of us. There's so many people that can use the same service. So instead of thinking of them as competitors, think of them as partners and learn from them.

And what do you like and what you don't like and improve how you want to do it, right? 

[00:32:13] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah, 100%.. This has been great. Erin and John, where can our listeners find and connect with you all? 

[00:32:22] Erin Sims: The best place would be go to our website at, Connect-Empower.com. It literally leads you to all of our services that we have, our podcasts, everything, how to get ahold of us.

We're all right there. That's really the best way. 

[00:32:34] John Mills: Yeah, it is and it's a beautiful website. It's very easy to navigate and you can change the languages to I think six or seven different languages. And there's also a…

[00:32:48] Erin Sims: Like the disability app that you can click on. So if you have ADA or are hard of hearing. All that accessible. 

[00:32:56] John Mills: Yeah, so we've made it very client friendly. Anybody can view it and It's not just for people that are aging, but it's for younger people that want to become better prepared to maybe help their parents, grandparents, or themselves. 

[00:33:11] Sanjay Parekh: Yeah. Hopefully, eventually, we all need those services because that means we've been around for quite some time. So, Erin and John, this has been fantastic. Thanks so much for being on the show today. 

[00:33:21] Erin Sims: Thank you. My pleasure.

[00:33:22] Sanjay Parekh: Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Side Hustle to Small Business Podcast, powered by Hiscox. To learn more about how Hiscox can help protect your small business through intelligence insurance solutions, visit hiscox.com. And to hear more side huste to small business stories or to share your own story, visit hiscox.com/sidehustletosmallbusiness. I’m your host, Sanjay Parekh. You can find more about me at my website, sanjayparekh.com.