Scaling From 3 to 20 Franchises Without Losing Lifestyle Freedom W/Neel Parekh | Elite Performance Podcast #49

00:00:00:04 - 00:00:20:22
Itamar Marani
If you feel stuck between one thing on one hand to grow your business and another head not wanting to sacrifice the life and the freedom that you've built, today's episode is just for you. We're joined by Neel Parekh from MaidThis and MaidThis franchise, and he talks about how he's scaled from 3 franchise locations to 20 without just not sacrificing his lifestyle, but actually getting more freedom along the way.

00:00:21:00 - 00:00:37:16
Itamar Marani
He was very open, very candid about his process and what made the difference for him. And he broke down what helped him add more than $1,000,000 in revenue. Why want the external freedom? Actually make you feel trapped and paradoxically give you less freedom and how you can use different methods to work around paying a price that you don't want to pay.

00:00:37:16 - 00:00:56:19
Itamar Marani
Basically how you can have your cake and eat it too, as you scale and you can have more freedom and more lifestyle. So I want to say a big thank you to Neel for joining us today and giving all of these insights. And if this is something that you're struggling with how to grow the business, but you feel like you're holding yourself back because you don't want to sacrifice some of the lifestyle and the freedom that you have to, and it is going to be just for you.

00:00:56:21 - 00:01:01:12
Itamar Marani
I enjoyed your introduction and the first off, thank you for coming on the pod today. Appreciate it.

00:01:01:17 - 00:01:03:12
Neel Parekh
Good to see you again, Itamar. It's been a while.

00:01:03:14 - 00:01:10:18
Itamar Marani
That has been cool. So can you please quickly walk people? Kind of what the before is, what the afterwards. And then we'll start break it down. How you got there?

00:01:10:20 - 00:01:33:11
Neel Parekh
Yes. So I joined the arena and at the time I had my business, which has made this franchise. So made this franchise was the franchise version of my operation of a cleaning company. And we were selling franchises around the United States. Other people wanted to open it up. And a big challenge I had was just I felt like I was shooting myself in the foot.

00:01:33:12 - 00:01:48:09
Neel Parekh
You know, I had a lot of conflicting thoughts in my head about growth and whether I actually wanted to do this or not. I felt I was comparing a lot of my growth to the growth of other people I saw who were doing kind of competing types of business models. And the whole time I just kept wondering why do I have these thoughts?

00:01:48:11 - 00:02:02:04
Neel Parekh
What's my why do I actually want to do this? And it just felt like I was kind of jumbled in my direction. And that was the reason I joined the arena and that was the reason I wanted to kind of formalize bit more my thoughts by joining something like this.

00:02:02:06 - 00:02:07:02
Itamar Marani
Cool. And can you show us the before and after, as far as it's called, external results?

00:02:07:04 - 00:02:27:12
Neel Parekh
Absolutely. So at the time, we had, I think, three franchises, and this is I think a year and a half ago when I joined, I think 3 to 4 franchises where we're at. And I was deciding honestly whether to shut down the franchise operation or not. Currently, we have 20 franchises as of the time of recording those 20 franchises.

00:02:27:12 - 00:02:40:23
Neel Parekh
So I have grown quite a bit, generated well over $1,000,000 in revenue from this business and is on a path to add hopefully ten more franchises this year alone. So definitely massive, massive result externally.

00:02:41:01 - 00:02:58:06
Itamar Marani
It's also about, I don't know. So first off, congrats on that. I didn't know that you expanded to 20 and I also didn't know that you were thinking about shutting it down, because I remember when we got in touch, you texted me and remember I was walking. I was in Tel Aviv. I was going for a walk with my dog and you're like, I don't know if I should expand because I want to give up the lifestyle.

00:02:58:06 - 00:03:05:05
Itamar Marani
I don't. I thought that you were just in a place where you don't know if you want to keep it at that level. I never knew you were thinking about also shutting it down.

00:03:05:07 - 00:03:23:13
Neel Parekh
Yeah, you know, with my model and I think, like, this was a comparison game, I saw people selling cohort coaching programs with the same model. I was running as a franchise. I was like, These guys are doing it so much easier than me. They seem like they have a better lifestyle than me because I have to deal with all these things involved with my franchise.

00:03:23:15 - 00:03:38:14
Neel Parekh
That sounds a lot easier. I should just go do that because I prioritize my lifestyle. Why am I doing this crazy hard thing to trying to build a franchise brand like that's not even what I want. So those were the a lot of the thoughts going around in my head about how hard it was going to be in the future.

00:03:38:16 - 00:03:56:20
Neel Parekh
And I was honestly thinking, should I just convert this to a coaching program? Maybe that's a better lifestyle for me. Maybe that's something I should do instead. And for a while I was debating whether I should just scratch everything and, you know, take the assets and build something else with it.

00:03:56:22 - 00:04:13:13
Itamar Marani
Wow. Okay, so why don't you walk us through it? First off, what helped you decide if you want to stay with this instead of pivoting, you're going to let's first do that. And then what helped you get this to scale to that level? Yeah. Do you think your main takeaways are what enabled you to do that for people that are at home?

00:04:13:13 - 00:04:24:11
Itamar Marani
And they're like, I'm also kind of stuck. I don't know if I want to grow this because I want to give the lifestyle that I've earned by making this business, but I still want to do something else. What are your main takeaways? What do you think enabled you to do that?

00:04:24:12 - 00:04:46:11
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I think I think there's a few things that happened together. One was just speaking with enough people, advisors, lawyers and networks. And, you know, I was in a in a group coaching at the time and sounded checking my thoughts. A lot of my responses were very emotional. Know, I thought, I am doing this crazy, hard thing. I don't need to be doing this to achieve the lifestyle.

00:04:46:12 - 00:05:05:18
Neel Parekh
Why would I be doing this? And after speaking with a lot of people, the overwhelming response was, Hey, dude, you're crazy. You already have built this thing. It's going to be a lot harder to unwind it and then rebuild something else. You're already on the path forward. Just continue it and if later on you want to do it after like a year, then you could scratch it.

00:05:05:18 - 00:05:27:22
Neel Parekh
At that point if you really feel like it. But don't make a permanent decision based off of temporary emotion and I remember thinking, okay, let me just go forward with that a little bit more and start to see a little bit more traction. And that kind of kept me going. Kept me going. And large. A large part of my frustration to Tamara was just that I didn't see as much external success as I thought I was putting into the business.

00:05:28:00 - 00:05:52:12
Neel Parekh
And I was seeing I was thinking, Hey, there's got to be easier business models. Other things that are going to be a better return for my effort. I'm not saying why should I keep going? And, you know, I think on our call, one of the big thing is I realized that the arena was how I kept trying to look external for like a Y as a big reason to start having business going.

00:05:52:12 - 00:06:12:13
Neel Parekh
And I'll try to clarify that little bit. Mark I kept thinking like, Oh, well, I don't feel so much clarity with this model. Obviously I'm having doubts that proves that this is not my why I should go find my wife and everything will become clear. And I think one of the first things you said to me is a lot of people would try to hold onto a wise, I mean, reasoning.

00:06:12:13 - 00:06:35:03
Neel Parekh
It's kind of a copout. They just lack confidence in what they're doing. And most times they have a completely refined business model and the why doesn't need to be this big grandiose thing. It could just be something for yourself that you want to impress yourself, that you just want to go down this path. And that's good enough. You don't really need this Center North Star at all points, which is what your business model centered around.

00:06:35:05 - 00:06:50:08
Neel Parekh
And I think that also clarified a little bit for me of not feeling the pressure to think, Oh, I don't have a strong why for this? Why am I doing this? Like I'm not changing the world with this model. And yeah, it kind of relieved a lot of the pressure out saying, just let me keep swimming.

00:06:50:10 - 00:07:08:06
Itamar Marani
This crazy man. So kind of repeat it back to you. What I hear is that you're getting frustrated that things weren't moving as fast as you'd like them. And the reason is that you have this expectation that this is supposed to like it's going to just be this product market fit with my wife. It's going to be amazing.

00:07:08:06 - 00:07:18:18
Itamar Marani
It's going to go so smooth. I'm just going to have a blast doing it. There's not going to be any hiccups. And if it's not doing that, then there's a problem. And that's what caused a lot of the confusion. Is that accurate?

00:07:18:20 - 00:07:41:13
Neel Parekh
I think that's a large portion of it. And I think the other was a self-identity as a guy who prioritizes his lifestyle. And in my mind, I now picked a business model where most people only pick that model if they're trying to grow an empire. And that was my belief. I thought, like, why the hell would I pick this massive business model where it's going to be very hard to scale and I'm not that type of guy.

00:07:41:13 - 00:08:03:10
Neel Parekh
That's kind of what I thought. And because of that belief that self-identity, that I'm an easy going guy, why would it be hard model that made me start looking externally for what are easier models to do? And I think that was a big like it felt like something was stuck to my leg as I was trying to build this business where it was just dragging me back and I was moving a lot slower because I had that belief.

00:08:03:12 - 00:08:20:14
Itamar Marani
Yeah. Okay, so this is really big. I love to get into this. So what do you think the reason you were in going forward? Because there was a disparity between your identity. I viewed yourself and the actions you thought were required in order to get to your goals, which is a business model that actually takes away from lifestyle.

00:08:20:16 - 00:08:31:20
Itamar Marani
What do you think helped break that gap, so to speak? I think changing your identity or changing your belief about the business model or both.

00:08:31:22 - 00:08:51:00
Neel Parekh
Yeah, at least for me, I think part of it was realigning stuff through like a lot of the stuff we went through with the arena, which I was when I get to. But combining that for me with real world evidence. I feel like a lot of the ways I think is kind of scientific is I need facts. If you just hate change, your beliefs do the same as mantra every morning, not going to work on me.

00:08:51:00 - 00:09:10:20
Neel Parekh
I want to see facts in the scientific way. So yeah. So for me, it was one thing we reviewed which I really kind of resonated with me was that easygoing and chill guy and focus on lifestyle doesn't mean you can't have a big business or a lot of people stealing a business can be effortless if you use proper leverage, right?

00:09:11:00 - 00:09:32:04
Neel Parekh
It's totally possible. And I think one big thing which actually resonated, Itamar, that you told me was I was trying to get respect from a lot of people by scaling this business to have this kind of lifestyle business. And I think it was you who said, Hey, you don't people don't give you respect only based off of the outcome of reactions.

00:09:32:04 - 00:09:55:21
Neel Parekh
It's oftentimes based off the values that I was thinking about. That's so true. I mean, I know a guy who is an ultra marathon runner and loves it, crashes at that, doesn't have any business, doesn't have any monetary success. But I respect him a lot more than guys I know who have monetary success. So why do I care so much about having this outcome of this exact lifestyle and like what I'm doing?

00:09:56:03 - 00:10:19:23
Neel Parekh
But the truth is I actually value people who have no business outcome. So a lot of that kind of got me realigning with what do I actually care about, what is my identity and what is easy and laid back even mean right? Like, does that mean I'm now allowed to grow a big business? Or is it really possible to grow a big business and still be easy and laid back?

00:10:20:00 - 00:10:41:09
Neel Parekh
And so I think a lot of it with thinking that through. And then I was almost like my brain had a street framework, but I started to leave it right, because I'm like, okay, we'll see how this plays out. If I had that belief. And then as I started to grow and kind of just stay in the game, then I started to grow the business and I got it to 20 franchises, which was my original goal.

00:10:41:11 - 00:10:59:16
Neel Parekh
And I still have a cool lifestyle. I still do whatever I want. I was just in India for a month. I still travel around. This isn't like holding me down to a certain spot. My lifestyle actually has not changed at all. I think it's changed my bank account, which has gotten bigger, which is fantastic. So I think it's just real.

00:10:59:16 - 00:11:00:20
Neel Parekh
My path is proven.

00:11:00:21 - 00:11:20:06
Itamar Marani
That's a positive. Yeah. Cool. I want to dive into that. So if you remember the literally the first thing we did, because there's a lot of stuff here that I want to pull threads in. The first thing we did in the arena, we forgot how do you actually want to be? Who do you want to be? And for you, is it okay if I read this aloud what you wrote in the first week?

00:11:20:07 - 00:11:21:07
Neel Parekh
Yeah. Good.

00:11:21:09 - 00:11:35:05
Itamar Marani
We said because what you said, what you're saying right now is that in the past you're like, okay, what will people think of me? And then a lot of times dictated your actions, what you would do, and cause a lot of confusion. And then the first week you decided, I'm going to clarify my standard of where I want to be.

00:11:35:05 - 00:11:56:11
Itamar Marani
And it was live a bold life that inspires myself. The only thing that matters is to make progress towards being the type of person that you admire. Someone you sit across the dinner table from and be inspired or fascinated by. That person will in turn inspire others just by being himself. That person has multiple businesses that can scale without him and is not afraid of failure.

00:11:56:13 - 00:12:12:06
Itamar Marani
He prioritizes family and personal growth and adventures, makes 1 million plus annually and profit does not care what others you have success is, and the only metric is achieving personal growth goals. And it's like that's very different than saying, I just want to make sure that I'm a lifestyle guy.

00:12:12:08 - 00:12:14:05
Neel Parekh
Yeah. Yeah.

00:12:14:07 - 00:12:29:04
Itamar Marani
And I think just deciding that that's the person you want to do, you want to be open up a lot of those floodgates. So to speak, a lot of these opportunities because you weren't attached to this like, oh, everything I have to do has to go through this filter and my lifestyle got this grown with it. So, you know, a person actually is okay with failure.

00:12:29:06 - 00:12:40:10
Itamar Marani
I'm not afraid of it. I'm going to prioritize family and growth and managers, but I'm going to go for it. I think once you made that decision, a lot of the floodgates are now open. What do you think about that?

00:12:40:12 - 00:13:07:03
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I think definitely yes. And I think almost formalizing that and reminding myself of that has been extremely helpful. I would say it's kind of an identity I'm still trying to adopt. I've started gravitating more that way, and I think that changes a lot. I'll be honest, I was thinking about this more as I was coming into this cartoon, and I think without a lot of this inner mental work, I still would have hit 20 franchises even if I kept going down the path.

00:13:07:08 - 00:13:21:10
Neel Parekh
However, I think I would not have been as happy I was doing things because I would have been like, I don't know if this is right or wrong. Is this my way and calling or not? At my wasting time, there would have been a lot of like, Why the hell am I doing this? I should be doing something to save the world.

00:13:21:10 - 00:13:37:15
Neel Parekh
Or like if I'm going to do that or I should be doing something which is way more chill. So it a bit like a dirty way of getting to the actual number and not really enjoying it. So I think what this actually provided for me of clarifying that y is realizing that it doesn't matter externally. It just matters not what I actually care about.

00:13:37:17 - 00:14:04:19
Neel Parekh
I don't need other people's validation that I need to do this for external gain as long as I'm happy doing it. That's good enough. Why? I don't need to have some big external goal of changing the world or having this. Why that pulls me towards that goal. It could just be inner motivation and that's totally okay. So I think that first exercise of clarifying exactly what you said helped to pave the way to make it a much more enjoyable journey and just easier.

00:14:04:21 - 00:14:15:15
Itamar Marani
Why do you think you came in thinking that you had to have this big why that changes the world and having just an internal motivation? Was it okay? Where do you think you picked that up from?

00:14:15:17 - 00:14:36:00
Neel Parekh
I think it's I think I probably picked that up from just the perception of entrepreneurship and what people think of when they get in the business of like, you know, if you're in here, you have to be doing something big. And all these business books you read, write down your Y, you know, the Y is your inner compass.

00:14:36:00 - 00:14:57:09
Neel Parekh
It's going to guide you over here and it should provide a ton of clarity for you. And the truth is like a kind of bullshit, in my opinion. Like you don't have to have a world changing Y, and the Y could just be having personal growth, and that's okay. But even my Y before, even though I knew that fact was like my life is making a really cool lifestyle for myself.

00:14:57:11 - 00:15:14:17
Neel Parekh
And in my opinion, that wasn't a good enough y. But having a new Y, which isn't world changing, but it's, hey, I just want to grow the most I can. I just want to do things which fascinate me. I want to be impressed by myself in the future. That's a much better y in my opinion, but still doesn't have to be.

00:15:14:17 - 00:15:38:13
Neel Parekh
This whole world changing y that these business books want you to write down. But I do think that's the perception, is you need to have utmost clarity in everything you're doing. You need to be fully focused, you need to be doing x, x, x, Y, and Z. I don't think it's one size fits all right? Like, for example, for myself, even going through this whole process, I've never really had like a big aha moment of like, Oh my God, everything becomes clear for me.

00:15:38:13 - 00:16:04:03
Neel Parekh
Just I'll go through the actions and then, you know, like I said, external, hard to prove what's actually going on. Then I'll start to internalize things a little bit more. So along with that, I think a large part of this is recreating that light and watching the external actually validate that that makes sense. And that would kind of solidify a little bit more of the path and eliminating what the normal entrepreneurship world thinks should be of a lie.

00:16:04:05 - 00:16:07:07
Neel Parekh
That was a little confusing, but hopefully that made sense.

00:16:07:09 - 00:16:20:09
Itamar Marani
It did. So I want to kind of reframe that to make sure that instead of correctly so basically what you're saying is that when you said I had a better way, the way I'm going to look at it is it was more effective in getting you towards the life you want. And I think you said I'm a lifestyle guy.

00:16:20:11 - 00:16:27:13
Itamar Marani
That was a Y that didn't really promote actions that you would later be able to validate is going to go, Well, I still got that keeps you stuck.

00:16:27:14 - 00:16:28:01
Neel Parekh
Yeah.

00:16:28:03 - 00:16:46:22
Itamar Marani
But when you said my way is that I want to grow internally then because you said I want it to grow, you took actions and therefore after those actions, you're able to get external feedback from the world if this is working or not. So it was just a Y or calling cry, so to speak, that enabled you to do a lot more things and therefore get a lot more real world feedback to see what's going on.

00:16:47:00 - 00:16:48:04
Itamar Marani
Is that accurate?

00:16:48:06 - 00:17:14:03
Neel Parekh
Nailed it. That's that's exactly what's happened. It's allowed me to make decisions without shooting myself in the foot or make decisions without having so much inner conflict of should I do this or should not do this. For example, since then I felt very comfortable making quote unquote, more expensive hires for my business to grow. And guess what? That's afforded me a way better lifestyle because I have really good people in my company now helping me out.

00:17:14:05 - 00:17:28:07
Neel Parekh
And I did not have that before. So my lifestyle was actually not on worse impact. It's probably gotten better because I don't have fear of spending the money or saying, Oh, why am I doing this? I'm a lifestyle guy. Just it's not really in my mind at all.

00:17:28:09 - 00:17:47:14
Itamar Marani
It's awesome and cool. So I want to kind of go further into this. So after we got clear on that, one of the things you broke down is kind of effective mindset. What I should prioritize, what I should buy, rules and so on. And one rule that you had there that was very interesting was very poetic. You said that when I catch myself getting FOMO, I choose to miss out.

00:17:47:16 - 00:17:54:17
Itamar Marani
I value releasing the fear of missing out over the outcome. Mm. Please say what that means to you.

00:17:54:19 - 00:18:09:05
Neel Parekh
Yeah. And I'll be honest, man, that's still a tough one I deal with. By least I could catch myself. Is the cool part. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs get this is you see some business model and you go down the path and you get shiny objects in Germany. Do you know, like, I want to start that.

00:18:09:05 - 00:18:28:06
Neel Parekh
I wanna start this, I'm going to start this. And I think it causes a lot of, at least historically, it caused me to think, is that a better business model for me? Should I go do that? Is that wiser for what I want to do? And then the reframe I had was, well, what if I prioritize my way, which is personal growth?

00:18:28:08 - 00:18:45:08
Neel Parekh
What would that person do? That person would probably want to develop the muscle of eliminating fears as much as possible. And one fear is the fear of missing out. What if I completely eliminated the fear of missing out dope? What my lifestyle would be? It'd be pretty awesome, right? Because I'm not worried and I don't have this inner conflict.

00:18:45:10 - 00:18:56:13
Neel Parekh
I'm missing out on some amazing action. So yeah, I kind of chose to say, Hey, that's just a fear and let me see if I can eliminate it. And if so, I think I would start moving towards the type of person I want to be even more.

00:18:56:15 - 00:19:22:10
Itamar Marani
Because I have an interesting thesis going here, man. Don't you think about it. I think then what you did previously, when you have this kind of why that I want to be a lifestyle guy is that it was weird because you thought you were optimizing for lifestyle on an external level as far as I don't want to take on too many new responsibilities, more franchise and so on, but what that actually created is a lot of constraint internally.

00:19:22:12 - 00:19:39:03
Itamar Marani
And all of a sudden when you flip that and you said, I'm actually going to want to grow a lot internally, it actually provided more lifestyle externally. It was a paradoxically, it was kind of doing the opposite for you when you were saying, I want to be a lifestyle guy, It was actually limiting your opportunities and your growth.

00:19:39:03 - 00:19:43:10
Itamar Marani
Therefore it was paradoxically getting you the wrong thing.

00:19:43:12 - 00:20:04:09
Neel Parekh
Yeah, When when you put in those simple terms, that's exactly kind of what was going on. And I think at least for me when I got to release that identity or like kind of this constraints, now it feels like there's just a bigger play box. I don't know how else to describe it is like I'm not fearful of, Oh my God, if I get into this business model, my lifestyle is going to suffer.

00:20:04:09 - 00:20:19:17
Neel Parekh
It's like, Oh, well, I'll figure out how to get in and out of it if that's really the case. But now I could, like, I'll get into more businesses, I'll do more activity, I'll do other things. And I'm not I don't have the fear that, oh, no, I can't do this because of X that's just gone now. It's like I want to do it.

00:20:19:17 - 00:20:29:00
Neel Parekh
And I feel like it's something that in turn I really feel like I want to do. I will do it. And there's no fear with that. So yeah, nailed it, man. I think you said it better than I could remember.

00:20:29:06 - 00:20:50:09
Itamar Marani
This is a really big thing, that difference between people wanting an external like freedom, but it actually constricts their actual feeling of freedom. So from your perspective, was someone kind of live this? What would you say to someone who's saying, Oh, like I have kind of built this business now to a certain level. It's providing me a certain amount of lifestyle, but I'm still kind of torn in between to grow into it now.

00:20:50:09 - 00:20:57:04
Itamar Marani
And I keep thinking about this and thinking about that. What advice would you give to that? Because I'm sure there's a lot of people like that.

00:20:57:06 - 00:21:17:16
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I would probably say number one, I get it. I've been there and it's it's a valid right where not all business models are made equal. It's okay. But I think why not try it right. In the worst case, you want it down if you really, really hate it. But the best case is you grow personally and maybe it's going to be better.

00:21:17:16 - 00:21:32:23
Neel Parekh
Maybe it's going to you're going to have more inner growth or maybe going to have a lot more fun. So you don't really know because it's in the future and don't take yourself out of that from now. Just get into it and figure out from there how you want to pivot. And that's kind of what I would have told myself before to, right?

00:21:33:00 - 00:21:50:00
Neel Parekh
Like I had three or four franchises before out on now we have 20 and I was scared of the future, which wasn't even reality. It wasn't even today. It was like, Oh, when I have 20 franchises, my life is going to be so crappy. Well, now I have 20 franchises in my life, not crappy. So I feel like a lot of people in that position.

00:21:50:00 - 00:22:10:18
Neel Parekh
What's like themselves out about the future? The truth is like, maybe they will get there and their really hate their lifestyle, but that's okay because they probably grew a lot and they could still fix it. It's not a permanent thing. It's okay. So I'd say give it a shot and worst case, fix it, and that's all you got to do.

00:22:10:20 - 00:22:32:09
Itamar Marani
Yeah, first time. I think that's the best marketing I've ever heard. I have 20 franchises and I find ourselves not so lucky as just the way of framing first. But kind of what I heard from you is if you grow, if you just have this goal, what stops a lot of people is a preemptive suffering. They preemptively suffer.

00:22:32:09 - 00:22:55:13
Itamar Marani
What they don't even actually know is going to be real or not. Like when I get there, it might suck. Now what's really interesting about this is that I think people don't recognize that. Like it took you a couple of years to do this. Took you two years, correct? Yep. To go from 3 to 20, correct. The reality is when we set out on those kind of growth journeys, we become a higher level of person.

00:22:55:15 - 00:23:13:22
Itamar Marani
And what we're probably doing without recognizing it, we're judging. How will I right now deal with, let's say, 20 franchises, but I'm a three. But the reality is that it's not going to be you have right now is dealing with it. It's you with a much bigger skill set. And I think people don't recognize that because I'm like, oh, this is above my head.

00:23:13:22 - 00:23:37:19
Itamar Marani
Like I have. Absolutely is above your head now. But on the way there, Yorkshire acquired the skills so it doesn't feel overbearing. And I think kind of taking away from what you said that one of the biggest ways to get more freedom in life is by growth. And here's what I mean by that is hold that analogy. Like would you rather be a ship that can only stay in a safe harbor and then you know that safe harbor.

00:23:37:19 - 00:23:55:12
Itamar Marani
That's my freedom. It's my little freedom. Jail. Or would you have a fortified enough ship that you can even go in rough seas and still feel safe? And I think by you going on that kind of growth journey, that's what it was for you that you were like, okay, like even if rough seas come, like I'm good and it's not going to change how I feel inside about the life that I have.

00:23:55:12 - 00:24:04:15
Itamar Marani
Whatever happens, like if things happen, will change, whatever it may be. And I think that's a much better way to be able to go about life much more enjoyable way.

00:24:04:17 - 00:24:24:04
Neel Parekh
Yeah, yeah, yeah. You nailed it. And like kind of going back to the timeline, like once I started adopting these inner frameworks, for me, it still took a couple of years to prove it out to myself, right? Like I needed real world evidence for it to happen. But once you start developing evidence and then it becomes a little more solidified.

00:24:24:06 - 00:24:43:10
Neel Parekh
And even more to your point, I never actually thought about it like that. If you will grow as a person like who I was two years ago, probably would not have been able to handle 20 franchises at the time. But I've learned a bunch. I've endured those sufferings and cuts and now I'm fine handling that right. And same with like people who are at 50 franchises right now.

00:24:43:10 - 00:24:59:15
Neel Parekh
Maybe they can handle stuff right now that I just can't. I can learn from them and probably get ready for it and then I won't be able to handle it. So, yeah, you're right. There's kind of a lag in terms of skill set and I think that lack of confidence that you will be able to become that person probably makes it really scary.

00:24:59:15 - 00:25:04:09
Neel Parekh
And then people just abandon ship before they even get there.

00:25:04:11 - 00:25:24:08
Itamar Marani
Yeah, it's such an interesting thing because I deal with a lot of guys that come in into like, I'm afraid to give up my lifestyle and all that, but it's such a big thing to recognize you, you setting up this bigger goal. You're going to become a better person, more capable of doing it, more capable of handling. It's something to be afraid of because you're just measuring yourself against the scale of who you are right now, not who you will become along the way.

00:25:24:09 - 00:25:28:02
Itamar Marani
Actually, that growth, it's a very exciting thing.

00:25:28:04 - 00:25:41:12
Neel Parekh
Yeah. Itamar what would you say to someone who said that's true, but I don't know. For example, if this is a business model I want to do. And so, you know, am I becoming the person I really want to be if I'm going down the wrong path?

00:25:41:14 - 00:25:59:11
Itamar Marani
I think it's a path of exploration and taking this because you're going down the wrong path, you might need to go five steps that direction to be able to recognize that's not the right path. But I think inaction usually doesn't breed much. That's one and two, you taking five steps down that path is going to get you to a new level of skill set.

00:25:59:11 - 00:26:11:22
Itamar Marani
And essentially down that path, you're going up a little hill. So you're cocking a little hill to figure out, is this the right mountain? This all the way up there? Not like you were talking before we got on here. Like I'm going to every summit, You're going to Everest base camp. You want to conquer one small hurdle time.

00:26:11:22 - 00:26:25:11
Itamar Marani
From there, you get higher vantage point. And I think people are afraid that, oh, I got to sell them stock. Now you can go down, you can readjust whatever, but you get the higher vantage point. I mean, son, you can see, is this good for me? Is it's not good for me. And also you just become a better climber.

00:26:25:13 - 00:26:28:15
Itamar Marani
So the next hell you tried to go after you gets easier.

00:26:28:17 - 00:26:32:20
Neel Parekh
Yeah, it's all leveling up, but I think they take away.

00:26:32:22 - 00:27:04:14
Itamar Marani
Does that make sense? Yeah. I think beyond that, it's what I've noticed in myself is I feel the best about myself, who I am and my life when I'm not letting fear dictate my ability to move forward. I feel better even if I'm not moving exactly in the right direction, as long as I'm constantly moving forward and recalibrating that to me, like that whole analogy of where I'm going to just be a ship that's stuck in the harbor because I'm not sure if it's dangerous outside or am I going to be that guy?

00:27:04:16 - 00:27:26:06
Itamar Marani
And I'm like, okay, even if it's rough seas, let's go. We'll figure it out. Yeah, that's a much more actual It sounds paradoxical, but a much more peaceful existence because they don't have to wait for ideal conditions. Yeah, I will figure this out. And having that kind of internal self-belief, self-identity that I'm the kind of person that for me that's been that gives me a very enjoyable life.

00:27:26:08 - 00:27:29:09
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I think it makes things just a lot more fun to write.

00:27:29:09 - 00:27:30:04
Itamar Marani
That makes sense.

00:27:30:06 - 00:27:50:00
Neel Parekh
Yeah. Yeah, it makes it make, it makes life more enjoyable because if you want to try new things, you can venture into it and you know that you'll be able to figure it out or pivot into something else. And honestly, just viewing it as a journey I think is for me the most important. If you're so outcome focused, this is really hard for me not to be outcome focus.

00:27:50:00 - 00:28:06:22
Neel Parekh
I think everyone is to some extent because you really, really want that outcome. But if you're more outcome focused, then you keep thinking, which I keep thinking, Is this the right thing I should do? Should I do something else? Oh, my God. I got to I got to get to this exact outcome. And then it kind of dirties a lot of the decisions that you might make.

00:28:07:00 - 00:28:27:12
Neel Parekh
And either way, this kind of goes back to one of the things I wrote down during the arena of delaying contentment until you reach a certain end goal. And this is something I'm still trying to work on, but at least I know that it exists. And this has helped me out a lot. And I think the way it was described was this was a problem for me.

00:28:27:12 - 00:28:49:13
Neel Parekh
I would say I'll be happy when I reach $1,000,000 in profit or when I reach 20 franchises. Then I'll be happy and I can finally achieve it. That will give me an edge because I'm delaying that happiness until I get to that point. Now I kind of realize how completely full of crap that is and that disconnecting of happiness from actually the need to achieve I think has been such a game changer for me.

00:28:49:13 - 00:29:03:11
Neel Parekh
And the analogy I love, it was like if you have that need, you have these dirty glasses on and you can't really if you were to go in because everything's tainted in the world. And finally, when you remove that need, it's almost like you can move way faster because you remove those dirty glasses. You're like, Oh, I should go left over here.

00:29:03:11 - 00:29:20:04
Neel Parekh
This is so obvious. But I had these muddy glasses on before. And I think that analogy for me helped me out a lot because you could enjoy the journey and get to the same place. And guess what? You'll probably get there a lot faster too, if you just enjoy the journey as well. So I think that help me on a lot too.

00:29:20:06 - 00:29:43:02
Itamar Marani
Because I wanted to break this circle, because I wanted to bring this back up at a certain point, the beginning of the call it you said you were going to get to 20 franchises regardless. Mhm. But now you're saying that if you're able to do that without the angst then you can move faster. So do you think those who are actually getting you would have gotten to the 20 franchise when you were taking you five years instead of two or anything of that sort.

00:29:43:04 - 00:30:02:03
Neel Parekh
I think yeah, I think I'm moving faster and making a lot of this decision making, right? You're not you don't have so much inner angst and should I do this or not? Should I do this or not? So for me, I think the lens that comes out is viewing it a little bit more playful, right? Viewing it as, let me try this out.

00:30:02:03 - 00:30:16:13
Neel Parekh
Let me see if it works. If it doesn't, it's okay. I'm just I'm kind of growing. I think that lens allows people to move faster in business in general. So, yeah, I think it would have taken me potentially a little bit longer to get to 20 franchises. But even if I said no, we would have gotten that same time.

00:30:16:15 - 00:30:30:19
Neel Parekh
The next 20, it for sure would have taken me longer to do that. I'm just dragging myself along the whole the whole part. So overall in the journey, I think it would digital. It will take a lot longer. If you have that framework in your mind and you're kind of weighing yourself down.

00:30:30:21 - 00:30:55:12
Itamar Marani
Yeah, it's interesting because what I hear from you is that having that also external frame rate just an outcome of is really big. Why that changes the world. It creates a lot of pressure, like, am I doing the right thing and why not doing the right thing. There's so much pressure about. Mhm. And usually when there's that amount of pressure it doesn't feel playful and then we underperform because everything feels so serious and we think the concern is so severe that we're in our heads instead of just executing.

00:30:55:14 - 00:31:12:06
Itamar Marani
Now when you flipped out like because what I actually see from you is that you change your outcome to be you still have an outcome that you're very connected to what that outcome is, who you are as a person. If you're on the right path, if you're say, if I'm being this kind of person, that is the outcome that I'm trying to achieve.

00:31:12:07 - 00:31:22:04
Itamar Marani
And because that's very doable, by just doing the right things, it becomes so much easier to be that guy and those on that pressure, it fades and you can be more playful.

00:31:22:06 - 00:31:23:03
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I.

00:31:23:03 - 00:31:25:05
Itamar Marani
Would say resonate with what you said.

00:31:25:06 - 00:31:41:03
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I think the overall takeaways, like, it's just more fun, right? You're going to do the same thing and maybe you'll get to the same outcome at the same time, but at least you could enjoy the journey and that's way more fun and more cool to me. And like, that's the whole purpose, right? Like, for example, my original goal was to get 20 franchises.

00:31:41:03 - 00:31:56:09
Neel Parekh
I got there. It's not that I'm like, I've hit Nirvana, I'm so happy now and I'm blissed out now. The goalpost moves is the truth. You just keep moving goalposts. So if the truth is, the goalpost is going to move always, no matter what, and you might as well enjoy it while you're doing it and be less stressed out.

00:31:56:11 - 00:32:11:07
Neel Parekh
The truth is I'm still stressed at certain points and obviously business stuff happens and you're worried and you what you actually want the outcome to happen. Same for me, but at least oftentimes I can kind of view it. I can step back and view it a little bit more playfully now and for me, that just makes the same journey.

00:32:11:07 - 00:32:16:02
Neel Parekh
I would have been on a lot more fun. I think that's one of the biggest takeaways.

00:32:16:04 - 00:32:34:15
Itamar Marani
Great. So we cover a lot of ground here. There's one thing I want to go back to, though, which I think is really big, so there's usually some kind of fulcrum. What I see with the guys in the program, like one kind of main belief that they hold on to that stuff is everything is okay. If I read where you had yours, that I was the biggest one.

00:32:34:17 - 00:32:35:12
Neel Parekh
Let's hit it.

00:32:35:14 - 00:32:54:03
Itamar Marani
So you said that I'm an easygoing chill guy. Easygoing chill. Guys aren't hyper hyperfocus on business discipline or fast growth. They prioritize lifestyle, which is at odds with scaling many big businesses. Scouting business will take a lot of time effort, and I'll sacrifice a lot. I'm enjoying my life. It's okay. My dad and he's laid back chill guy.

00:32:54:05 - 00:33:14:11
Itamar Marani
That guy can enjoy life and it's okay for if okay if not every go gets done. And the story you told yourself what you wrote. If I start multiple businesses are scaling my business, I'm sacrificing my lifestyle myself. Identity as a free flowing guy who prioritizes lifestyle. So what was your process? Because I know you said a lot of evidence and all that, but I would love for you to break it down a little bit further.

00:33:14:13 - 00:33:23:11
Itamar Marani
What was your process to breaking that, to challenging that belief? Because first as challenge, then you have your core evidence. So what was your position challenging first?

00:33:23:13 - 00:33:49:11
Neel Parekh
So I think my process is challenging is that, number one, easygoing does not mean undisciplined, right? There's a lot of easygoing people who are very successful business and they're very hyper disciplined. But you also don't need to be easygoing and chill to have a really cool lifestyle. I know a lot of very strict people who also have an incredible lifestyle, so partly is like looking at evidence in the world and saying, well, it's people clearly doing it.

00:33:49:11 - 00:34:11:05
Neel Parekh
So it's possible to have both. It's not mutually exclusive. So I think that was probably step one. Step two is just the concept of thinking about leverage. Right. And for me, I, I want to at some point grow multiple businesses. I think it'd be fun. I think it's a it's a fun game. I can't do that by being that same identity.

00:34:11:07 - 00:34:30:17
Neel Parekh
I can't be the easygoing, chill guy who's scared about growth and also do that. That was kind of conflicting in my mind. It was causing a lot of like, what should I do? I should get a wife, blah, blah, blah, and you kind of make excuses. So I think the adopting the belief that scaling can be effortless with leverage, right?

00:34:30:19 - 00:34:51:12
Neel Parekh
If I'm doing everything myself, then of course I can't scale and of course can't grow. But if I actually utilize leverage, which doesn't mean debt, it just means time to leverage other people, means programs, courses, whatever, to move faster. I could maybe even maintain my lifestyle while building a big business like I don't have to do all the central work myself, but I don't know how to do any of that.

00:34:51:12 - 00:35:04:16
Neel Parekh
Yeah, I don't know how to actually utilize leverage in a big way, so maybe that'd be a cool skill to. Learn to maintain my my sense of independence. So those are some of the initial beliefs that I wanted to prove out.

00:35:04:18 - 00:35:25:22
Itamar Marani
That's big, man. So to kind of reframe what you're saying, to recap it said the first thing was to redefine some of the definitions or assumptions. For example, laid back. I can have a great ambitious life or whatever it may be. Yeah, it's going to be challenging some of those assumptions. They said this isn't either either or. It's like you can be together that was number one.

00:35:26:00 - 00:35:40:09
Itamar Marani
Yep. And then too, that also allows you to break free from that. I was saying what if I can just employ different methods to get me there? Like I don't have to sacrifice all of the things that I can grow. I can choose to start valuing leverage, like you said. And I remember that was when we worked on your effective mindset.

00:35:40:13 - 00:36:06:02
Itamar Marani
That was one of your things. It was leverage and like your rules were like every every new business activity I take must focus on leveraging other people's time or my money. They weren't was just like, go ahead and do correct. That was a big thing there. So it's it's both redefining the assumptions and definitions, recognizing an either or and also just employ different methods saying if I what can I do differently to not have to suffer the negative consequences?

00:36:06:02 - 00:36:11:02
Itamar Marani
How could this be happening? How can I make this possible? Is that accurate?

00:36:11:04 - 00:36:13:11
Neel Parekh
100% accurate? And I think for me, whether I.

00:36:13:13 - 00:36:18:22
Itamar Marani
Did that enough times with the leverage, you got real world feedback. So like.

00:36:19:00 - 00:36:36:18
Neel Parekh
Yeah, yeah, I was saying that that's hundred percent true. And I think that the rule was the biggest for me is like setting those rules, especially when it comes to leverage and time. Another big rule I've adopted since then, which is help me out, was I'm not going to take on any meetings or ongoing tasks that are unlevered.

00:36:36:20 - 00:36:58:06
Neel Parekh
So if someone says, Hey, look, why don't we meet to discuss something? No, I'm not taking that meeting anymore. Well, we could do it if it also is going to do X, Y, and Z, or if I could have someone else take the meeting for me. That's a small example, but in other ways of like, you know, I just did like a joint venture where I became a minority partner in another business and I didn't launch a business myself.

00:36:58:06 - 00:37:17:04
Neel Parekh
I just said, I will help you, but I'm not going to waste my time. I can invest expertise that could be a silent partner in this business, right? That's step one of getting to the kind of future lifestyle I want, and that's utilizing the rule of I'm not going to get involved and if I if you need me to get involved, my answer is no, I can't be involved in this business then.

00:37:17:06 - 00:37:27:06
Neel Parekh
So I think the rules have been extremely helpful for me to make decisions going forward. And yeah, I think that's probably the key point there.

00:37:27:07 - 00:37:52:01
Itamar Marani
It's massive and well, this is really interesting stuff. Okay, so kind of wrap it up. We've talked a lot about about a lot of stuff today. And in your perspective, if you were talking to, let's say you of two years ago or somebody else that's kind of already built something that's serving them well, but they feel a bit torn because they want to have freedom, but they still want to grow and something is kind of nagging at them.

00:37:52:01 - 00:37:58:21
Itamar Marani
Yeah. Like what would be the process or the advice that you could give them?

00:37:58:23 - 00:38:22:10
Neel Parekh
I would probably first ask them why they think it could only be one or the other Step one Like what is an ideal lifestyle look like for you? And why do you believe that if you grow, you can't do that? And then if they redo their identity, they'd say, okay, let me let me think about maybe I can grow with leverage and maybe I can do X, Y, and Z, but they don't believe it.

00:38:22:12 - 00:38:41:18
Neel Parekh
So great. Don't take my word for it. Just try it out. And maybe over time, real world will give you evidence that it actually works and you'll realize, Oh cool. I could actually maintain both. But until you've actually tried it out, you're just giving yourself anxiety right now for something which doesn't even exist. So just do it. It's probably the fastest path forward as opposed to redoing everything else and starting from scratch.

00:38:41:18 - 00:38:57:02
Neel Parekh
That sounds like a lot of work, but if you just continue down the same path, you see where it goes. That's generally what I ended up doing. And I wouldn't say it's like because I was being wise or anything. It was just like, okay, let me just keep chugging along. It seems like the most logical and easy thing to do.

00:38:57:02 - 00:39:12:17
Neel Parekh
And then things started to prove things out, and then I started to adopt this identity. So for me, it was it was a journey, right? There was no aha moment. It was just I have a kind of framework. Let's prove it out. Oh, shit. Life's actually proven out. This is kind of cool. And then it becomes identity.

00:39:12:19 - 00:39:30:12
Itamar Marani
Stuff and I'll share kind of my takeaways as well for anyone on the fence because we actually started to you start out the arena. I remember we had that conversation like when I was on a walk, we texted and you were like, I don't want to give up my lifestyle. And what was interesting is that I asked you, Why do you think that's true?

00:39:30:16 - 00:39:47:22
Itamar Marani
Because I talked about the mutual friend that we have we talked about before we got on the call. The kids were really, really big business. But he actually travels, I think, more than anyone I know. And you were like, huh? So I think what you said there about first off, challenge, your assumption is necessarily true. That's the crucial first step.

00:39:48:00 - 00:40:10:18
Itamar Marani
Mhm. That's one. And then two is just to understand that you actually being in your head about this gives you less freedom, less lifestyle, less ability to actually enjoy what you've been it don't focus on like the external stuff and focus on internally how you actually feel because if you feel constrained, you don't know if you should do this, you should do that.

00:40:10:19 - 00:40:35:22
Itamar Marani
Guess what? You're not really be able to you're not enjoying the fruits of your labors. You're stressed that you have anxiety. Yeah. And sometimes just giving yourself that permission to try the first thing and see, like you said, if it works or if it doesn't. But feeling that feeling of momentum that you're doing the right thing, that will actually give you that great feeling that you're after, that the whole point of it is all about, yeah, and elastic always before we go near.

00:40:36:00 - 00:41:02:00
Neel Parekh
That, I think it's just like it's so interesting because I've been thinking about this a lot more of how it's all internal, right? Like you can have all this external success and the outcome you want and everything, but internally if you still feel content, you're not a chill guy who is enjoying lifestyle. It's all internal, right? You can have it and you can be on the beach and have a ton of money and still be a complete bundle inside and super tired and stressed out like it has nothing to do with the external.

00:41:02:02 - 00:41:22:05
Neel Parekh
So it's an ongoing journey. But the more you could kind of tame that internal battle, the more fun that internal journey is and the more fun life is. And if you really want to maintain your lifestyle, cool. That just means make sure your inner game is really strong and then you're going to enjoy it no matter what is going on with the business, how big it is, how many employees you have, it doesn't matter at all.

00:41:22:05 - 00:41:31:01
Neel Parekh
Just matters on the internal, which admittedly is a very hard game to master, but that's that's the real way to have lifestyle freedom is just focus on the internal game.

00:41:31:03 - 00:41:45:18
Itamar Marani
I think I can't say it any better myself. And Neal, I say thank you for coming on and that was really insightful. I also took a lot away from it, just seeing it from your perspective, I'm sure a lot of people that as well and working people find you if they want to learn more, reach out all that good stuff.

00:41:45:20 - 00:41:56:16
Neel Parekh
Yeah, it is awesome being on it tomorrow and that people want you to get a hold of me. I'm most active on Twitter. Neel B Parekh is probably the easiest place you can hear me on there and just connect.

00:41:56:18 - 00:42:03:18
Itamar Marani
Oh, so we'll have that link in the show below. And again, thank you very much Neel, for coming on and we will see everyone on the next episode, my guys.