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Leaving an unsatisfying career is a dream buried in almost all of us.
Doing something about it is hard.
Expect advice for starting your first business, battling mental blockades and handling the financial transition out.
Given through compelling stories from entrepreneurs, charity owners, athletes, and inspiring individual who have uncovered their purpose.
Quittable aims to give you the belief & skills needed to leave an unfulfilling career, before life passes you by.
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- @quittable.pod
- @heydeanreilly
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- quittable.me
Dean (00:00.548)
How's everyone getting on? Welcome to the first episode of Quitable. I appreciate you joining. You are officially an OG if you are joining on the first episode. So thank you for joining in. I really, really appreciate it.
So what is up on this episode? So I'm going to give a flavor for what this show is and isn't about just to tee everything up so you understand what you're getting yourself in for.
Also on this episode, I'm going to focus on how I built my business that is now churning out about seven, sometimes up to nine K a month in profit and how I did so in the space of about 12 months to a year and a half, 12 to 18 months is when that kind of actually came into what it is now. I'm also going to finish off by saying and getting into how you can take steps today to start you on your own journey to
maybe building your own business or maybe just kind of getting out to something that you don't like. And lastly, I'll just finish up by talking about some of the really cool guests that we have lined up for the rest of this little mini series and how you can expect to get some value from them and what you can expect to learn and understand from these people.
So let's get into it. I'm gonna start by asking a question. And I want you to think about this for a second before I get into what I'm gonna get into.
Dean (01:32.536)
If tomorrow you received a phone call from your work and they called you up and said, hey, we really appreciate you and we really value you. Although I've got some bad news. Tomorrow there's going to be no salaries. We're withholding the salaries from now on, but it'd be still great if you could come in and carry out what you're carrying out. That would be awesome for us. What the hell would you say to that?
Now, if you're like most people, I would imagine and probably expect that you would say, well, thanks, but no, I'm not necessarily going to do that for free. Now, this highlights something that I'm going to get into now in a moment, which is the case for a lot of you, probably listening, that you are in a job. Maybe you found yourself in a career, you've stumbled into a career that...
maybe isn't really tied to anything other than kind of receiving money for it, right? And that is a, that's a widespread problem that I see people in. And it's quite a daunting thing to feel, to be working or doing or being a part of something that you are kind of only doing for money. And maybe that's not the case for everyone. It's definitely not the case for everyone, but I know it was the case for me and I know it's the case for a lot of people.
It's not the worst thing in the world. Don't get me wrong, there's bigger problems out there. But this is definitely a problem. It's a problem for you if you're feeling it. It might not be as big as world hunger, but to the individual, maybe you're feeling that, it kinda sucks. And the purpose of this show is to kinda get into those and show you through my experience that a lot of those things that you're doing, a lot of the jobs that you're doing, despite how tired to it you might feel, it is quittable and you can get out of that.
So I'm going to explain why this is important to me. And I'm going to do so through kind of giving you an idea of my journey through going from sales, earning a lot of money to where I am now, where I have this business that's churning out the seven to nine thousand profit per month. OK, so let me just take you through that and then you'll kind of see why these problems are pertinent to me. So when I started,
Dean (04:03.11)
When I got into sales, I had kind of just left uni. mean, like, or college, if we're speaking in Irish lingo. I left college, I left uni and I, like most 21 year olds, didn't really know where I was headed. I had this lovely piece of paper that I had been afforded after all the effort I put in for four years. And I was just thinking to myself, right.
What the hell do I do now? Where am I going with this thing? And so that's quite a daunting experience. A lot of you listening will have certainly felt that to one degree or another. Now, what I did when I left was kind of panicked. I freaked out a little bit and I thought, okay, what's the lowest hanging fruit here? One of them, at least, was telesales. And I got in, did the interview.
think they asked me like two questions about my degree that I had slaved away for so long for. And I got the job anyway. Now the job was a telesales executive and I was selling oil.
Yeah, I was selling oil. That was my quest in that period of my life was to sell oil over the phone to people around the country of Ireland. Probably I'm going to say the average age was maybe above 75. And that was how I spent my day receiving call after call, selling oil, trying to get them to purchase the oil for slightly
larger amounts, not providing discounts where possible in order to receive or get close to my target of oil. And as you can probably tell, I didn't like it. In fact, that's a very kind way of putting it. I hated it. But at 21, I've just received this piece of paper. I thought, you know what? I'll suck it up. Maybe it's a stepping stone.
Dean (06:13.444)
maybe I'll get into some other sales after this. Not for any love, not out of any love. It was purely for the money I was receiving on the other end with which I intended to buy drinks on the weekend, maybe go for some food. That was it. That was all I really wanted to do, just to be a bit social, hang out with my mates. And this was the vehicle I found myself in in order to attain that.
So I did that, did that for I think six months. Then I got myself a role in a business to business capacity. And now this time I was an SDR, which for those of you who don't know sales lingo, that is a sales development representative. Now what a sales development representative does is they set up or tee up appointments for
the people in the higher sales position who then close those deals. So I'd moved up. I've jumped up the ladder now. I'm on the next step. And again, I didn't love it. Again, I was just busting the phone all day every day, but it was more money. And this age I'm 22 maybe now and I'm earning a bit more Bob. And I'm thinking, brilliant. You know, I can...
buy a few more pints on the weekend. Maybe I can get some extra shoes. Whatever.
And I did that for maybe another six, seven, eight months, there thereabouts. And then I invited or I got prompted, I should say, to take a interview for the next role. And the next role was an account executive.
Dean (08:06.854)
So an account executive, again, I'll just explain if you don't know, is basically the promised land in sales. That is what every person who gets into sales is striving towards because that is where you can sort of control your own destiny. You can earn a lot of money as an account executive, a lot of money, a salary where you will not be stuck at that age especially, and then commission on top that you can.
live very comfortably off. So I got this interview and I got this job and I was 23 at this stage. And I remember getting in there and at this stage I would have these residual thoughts in my head and I thought to myself, okay, I'm kind of just floating here. I'm rolling through these jobs, being steered by only money and then this, this might be just my experience.
It's not everyone's not everyone is driven by money, at least at that age. Maybe people are driven by different things. But this was what I was feeling at that point. And I felt like I was being dragged a little bit. I was rolling through and I got here anyway, and I was like, great. And then that thrill wore off. And then I remember a few months in, I got my first big paycheck, my big commission check, and I was just I was like, whoa, great. I can't believe how much money I've just received.
And so even still, at that point, when I received that, I recall looking around the room and looking at other people in the same company doing the same role who were mid to late 30s, so a decade or so above where I was at that point. And I just thought to myself, I really don't
want to be doing this in ten years time.
Dean (10:02.884)
And this is not to look down on that role. It's not to look down on any individual who does it. This is again, it's just my experience with it. And I just didn't want to be there long -term. I knew it was short -term. I knew it. Even when I was getting these big paychecks, the thrill would wear off.
So what did I do? Saved up a few Bob and did what every at this stage 25 year old would do in go traveling. So I pissed off, start traveling for over a year, ended up in Australia, moved to Australia, got another job with a great company there. Boom, COVID happens. Ended up staying there for two years and I stayed with that company. And again, the same sort of feelings, the same...
doubts I was having in my mind about, you know, I'm good at this thing. I get paid well for this thing, but I don't love this thing. I don't care about this thing. And that after a couple of years, then I came to the UK again, didn't really, I wasn't jumping at the idea of going into another sales role, but what could I do? How could I change my direction? How could I turn my back on all that money that I was getting paid more than a lot of my friends were? And I was
you know, very fortunate in that sense to be financially taken care of. But it didn't, it mattered less to me than what I was feeling. I just, hated how I felt. And a lot of you listening, maybe you can relate to that because I certainly know a lot of people in sales who had felt that way. So what did I do? I'm now 29 at this point. I'm in the UK up and living here for about a year at this point. And I'm thinking of all these ways to
get out of a job, get my financial freedom, passive income, the phrases that you may hear bounced around the internet all the time. That's what I was on my mind. Because if I got that, then I don't have to do this. I don't have to do this thing in exchange for money. Instead, I can put in work upfront and benefit long term. That was the idea. That's what I wanted. So, a dear friend of mine.
Dean (12:15.482)
brought me to a property summit, a gathering of sorts in London. And I went to this event and by God, did they sell me a course. This was, it was a great event. They put on a lot of, had a lot of great speakers. But as a lot of these events are, you know, they're there to do business, they're there to make sales and they're there to sell courses. And I was one of the people who believed in what was there. I thought this is great.
Avenue and I bought the course. spent two and a half grand on that course in that day. Now naturally I was quite, I was freaked out after I spent that money the day once it wore off. I thought, fuck, I've just spent two and a half grand. So anyway, I thought I'm going to double down on this. Let's go. I can create a fan of freedom from this. So what I did, I went to the course. It was three days.
And when I was there, obviously, they upsold me again to the mentorship. And at this point, that mentorship costs 13 and a half thousand pounds. But at this point, I felt I'm already in now. I won't get far without the mentorship. I need to double down. So I spent the money. Now I'm 15 grand in the hole. And you might say I'm nervous, shall we say.
because once you've put yourself in financially, once you've got skin in the game, everything all of a sudden matters a lot more. And so what I did was I got cracking. I got stuck in to this property course and started specifically in Airbnbs and how to leverage other people's properties, provide a service to those people and to...
generate income for yourself off the back of it. So I learned how to do that. And I did that alongside my sales role for the guts of about nine months. And this was a challenging period because doing so beside a sales role, it's not easy, you know? And I do also want to say about working in a sales role, they make it so good and it's so nice to work there. It's so welcoming. They've got...
Dean (14:36.986)
Drinks in the office, there's free food. Everyone's so friendly. And I met some of the most amazing people there. So in doing this course alongside all this and alongside all these important people in my life, it was quite difficult to navigate the two. And eventually it came to a point where they actually let me go. And so they had pulled my
guaranteed, if you like, income from me. And at that point I was like, OK, now I really have to make this work. And what was also in making this situation even worse at that point was I had in my first two property deals. So now we're up to December 2022. I did the course in July 2022. In those six months, I got no property deals. And then December, I got my first two.
Now, the thing about doing Airbnb as a business is you can either rent the property from a landlord and then use it in your business. If you think of WeWork, they do the same thing. They rent a big building from a developer and then they rent it out to small companies. Same exact business model. And so what I will do in this scenario is I will rent it from a landlord, furnish it, put the first month's rent, deposit all these things in.
So it's quite capital intensive up the front. And I'm explaining this so you understand where I was at when I got fired. So I'll bring it back around to that in just a moment. So in these first two deals, I invested north of 20 ,000 pounds between all the furnishings, all the staging, everything that goes into it, the fees I paid, all of it. Because I believed it would work. I thought these were good deals.
Little did I know what was coming. So 20k in the hole for these deals, another 15 for the mentorship. I was coming on 40 grand down. And then after December 22, we're now into 2023. So the beginning of last year as of recording this and those deals just were not performing. Not only were they not churning back out the 35 grand, they were costing me more money.
Dean (17:01.082)
Now, for any of you listening who has ever experienced a situation where you felt financially constrained or that you were on the hook for money, that, my friends, is a very scary situation to be in. I would not recommend anyone to follow the path I followed. I'm only explaining this to you so you understand that it
can be done and hopefully that you don't do it the same way that I did. So this is costing me more money and now I'm 40k in the hole at the beginning of last year. And then I lose my job. So you can imagine those two worlds colliding at once was quite scary for me. I truly would label that as
the scariest, most uncomfortable, most on edge I had been in my life. And the irony of it all is that I only got into this to get my freedom, to get out of things I didn't like doing. And I was willing to part with money for the information and the guidance to get there. And then I screwed up on my first two. And it was my fault. I screwed up.
I didn't do my due diligence. If I had done my due diligence, I probably wouldn't have taken them and I would have moved on and got two ideally better deals. But here I was, jobless and 40K in the hole. Not a good place to be. So what did I do? As 2023 rolled on, I decided to shift my model instead of renting it from landlords. I instead provided a service to landlords because at this point I didn't want to put any more money in. So instead I was just an Airbnb host for a landlord.
So I took that responsibility from them. Most people who own a property don't really have a clue how to do it, how to perform it. I had invested money in the course, I was mentored, I'm qualified to provide that service for them, so I do it for them and take a fee. Much less risk, I don't put all the money in, I don't have to take the lease and go on a three year lease, I just provide a service for them and take a fee. So much less risky. And it comes with less risk comes more work because I have to, I'm now a
Dean (19:30.47)
managing relationships between me and clients, which is not a thing I do when I invest in the property. I just have it. I just effectively mine. So different business. OK. I kept going on. I added more one unit after another. So as of I think it was July last year, July 20, 23, I had two units. Even August, I think, was two units. And then as time went on, I just had to get
further and further and just dig deeper and deeper because I had no choice. I had to get this money back for my sanity. I had to claw all that money back. So I kept going and going and going. I had a deal after deal after deal. And fast forward, we get into the early part of this year. We're now in 2024. And at this point, I then had 12. So 12 Airbnbs and it's now March or April, I think it was at this point. And then. Bit by bit, I clawed the money back.
I clawed all that money back and I pulled it all back out and the business finally paid me back just now in this summer. Within the past 60 days, I would say this has occurred. So this is all very recent. This is all very raw and this is all very fresh. And now I'm at a point where I've got my money back. So psychologically, I'm even and it's now paying me. So you might say versus what I got into it for, I've kind of got my freedom.
now. And this is great. I'm here. Ta -da. That's what I was thinking to myself. But what I've realized is that now I'm here. I've got my income coming in and I've kind of secured that through the hardships and gotten through it all. you know, I've gotten it to a point that it's, it's working. But what I've realized is that I'm not necessarily motivated by increasing that money.
At least through this vehicle, I don't want to get quote unquote rich off doing property. That doesn't ring true. That doesn't ring my bell, so to speak. And so that's kind of like my journey, right? From being in sales, from getting 120k salary to getting fired and spending money on the course and losing it and then clawing it back and then getting to this point. So now I'm here.
Dean (21:59.024)
bringing this all back to Quiddable and how this all ties in and how this is an important endeavor to me.
Dean (22:08.474)
I started thinking to myself lately, what do I actually care about? I would rather pursue something that I actually give a shit about in the hope that it in one point pays me down the line and I can potentially live off it as a that's secondary to actually pursuing it because I care about it. So I'm trying to put it, I'm trying to swap those two things because previously in my life it's always been financially driven, but now that I've got that
sort of fixed and yeah, you know, the world could implode tomorrow and I could lose the business and so on. But for now I've got that fixed. And so I want to pursue something alongside that, that I actually care about. And so I was thinking about problems that I care about and what do I care about? Well, it's me two years ago. It's me who was in the job, who hated what I was doing, who felt really shit about it who didn't want to do it. So that's why I feel this podcast is my attempt at helping previous me.
and helping you if you are like previous me and if you felt like previous me or if you feel like previous me. And I do believe I'm somewhat qualified to give advice to somebody in that position because I've kind of gone through it as you've understood from my story. I've built a business. I can speak the language of business. I know what it's like to speak to somebody who owns their own business. I get it. I get it. And I know what it's like to kind of lose it all as well. And so the aim with this show is to reach
you, to help you and to reach more people who feel that way. Because to spend a lot of your life decades and decades doing something that you don't feel good about or have any love for just to be paid money is not right. doesn't, it's not right. I mean, if I look at myself and I think to me when I'm 80, what would I want current me to do?
It's definitely not to stick and do that. So what you can expect to like get from this is ideally inspiration in some capacity, either from me, from listening to what I've got to say, from hearing what I've gone through. And believe me, I could unpack all of those bullet points that I've given you a moment ago and expand and do a full episode on each. And I can, if that's, it's going to be helpful.
Dean (24:36.112)
but also practical learnings from other people who have embarked on their path. And it might not be creating a big killer business. Maybe you would actually prefer to go in and start teaching pottery or teach a yoga class or get into something in the outdoors. There's so many other things that you can get paid for and it just doesn't have to be something that you dislike. So that's what I would aim to do is help with inspiration and also give
practical things, practical advice that people can take on, make their own and ideally make changes. And this doesn't happen over the course of a month. It doesn't even happen. It takes time. Right. My realistic expectation with this podcast is probably with each episode for you when listening.
to knock over a domino, just one domino. Because if you think about what it would be like to create a business, imagine you're on the horizon or on the timeline of creating your own business. What would day one look like? Day one would probably look something like watch a YouTube video, create a Microsoft Word doc and start brainstorming. That's what day one looks like. So if you're at day one,
or if you're at day 100 and you're kind of in the midst of it, I'm confident that there'll be some learnings for you along the way and we can help you tip over another domino and get closer towards that and away from things that you don't want to do and that are quittable and that you can get out of. That's the ideal goal I would love to attain from doing this. And also just enjoy it along the way. mean, look at
to just enjoy this and it feels like it would be well suited to me to talk to people, to have conversations and ideally to have a positive effect for those who are in my position. And I'm going to finish here by saying what this is not about. And really I'm steadfast on this. You're not going to hear me banging on about hustle culture, about taking, you know,
Dean (26:58.406)
getting up at 5 a every single day and doing 18 cold showers and meditating for six days before you even have a coffee. I will not tell you to do that. Nor will I be telling you to take uncalculated financial risk like I did and lose money and have to claw back. I'm not going to be telling people to do that or to quit their job prematurely. It's not any of that. It's not any of that. It's about getting you unstuck if you are stuck. And if you're not stuck, maybe you'll just enjoy it.
listening to this for some interesting conversations or maybe you'll find it funny, but it's definitely not going to be about hustle culture and slamming morning routines down your throat. Okay. And I also want to say that your life is not fucked if you are in a job. There's nothing wrong with being in a company. Not everyone should run their own business. Some people are better suited to work.
for a company and receive instructions. know for... And that's not a bad thing. It's just better suited. That's it. It's not a bad thing. You're not less than if you work in a company. Definitely not. So please don't think that I'm bashing anyone who works in a company because for a lot of people, they might love what they do. And that is a beautiful, beautiful thing. That's what I'm trying to find with this show. That's what I'm trying to help other people find through listening to this show.
So if you already have that, then fuck yes. Seriously, that is a beautiful, beautiful thing and not many people have it. So if you have that, yourself on the back, appreciate it, cherish it. That's a good thing.
Dean (28:41.37)
So I hope that tees up the rest of the series, what it's about and how I got here. I think to give you something to think about as you go away from this episode is obviously the cliche question is, what would you do if money were no object? And that kind of loses its weight a little bit. don't think it's, I don't think it has the same oomph anymore. So I'm going to ask you slightly different way. What do you give a shit about?
and what problems do you care about? Have a think about those things, because that, asking myself those things, is what's led me to do this. And this is the first time in my life that I've actually felt really good about what I'm doing and feel like I can actually add some real value.
So I hope that was useful. The rest of the series, we're going to have some fantastic guests from the world of e -commerce. We have a guest coming on who's going to talk you through how they built a seven figure e -commerce business. We're going to have a guest on who's running a non -for -profit out in rural Madagascar and how they've found their purpose to doing that. And many, many other really cool guests. I can't wait to share the conversations. Can't wait to have the conversations and can't wait to share it with everyone.
Also, if you want to sign up to a newsletter, I'm to be doing a newsletter, sharing some findings from the past week, sharing some things that I've learned through conversations with guests. Go to Quiddable .me, pop your email in there and I will send you an email once a week. And with that, we'll wrap things up. I really appreciate you joining. I really appreciate you staying if you've made it this far. I hope it was useful and I'm looking forward to continuing it. Ciao.