Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Tired of being stuck in the trenches while watching others build empires? Welcome to the 50/50 Accelerator Podcast, where we're flipping the script on the traditional trade business model. I'm your host, Josh Patrick, and like you, I've spent countless nights wondering if there's a better way.
We bring you real conversations with business owners who've transformed their companies from time-sucking struggles into well-oiled machines. They'll share their exact blueprints—from finding reliable teams to creating systems that actually work. There is no theory, just battle-tested strategies that have helped them double their free time and cash flow.
Think of it as your weekly meetup with mentors who've cracked the code.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Since 1974, I've read a book a week searching for what it takes to achieve business success. After thousands of books, hundreds of client success stories and decades of hard-won business wisdom, here's what I know for sure Working yourself to death isn't a badge of honor. It's a failure of strategy. So thanks for joining us today. I'm Josh Patrick, and this is the 50-50 Accelerator, where we explore how real business owners are cutting their hours by 50% while growing their profits by 50%. No consultant BS here, no theoretical frameworks, just proven strategies from people who have actually done it. Because here's the truth If you're still working 65 or more hours a week, putting out fires and missing family dinners, it is what it is, but that's not how it has to stay. So let's get started. Hey, how are you today? This is Josh Patrick and you're at the 50-50 Accelerator podcast, and our guest today is Alan Newman.
I've known Alan for too many years, probably 35 or 40 years. He is likely the most interesting entrepreneur I've ever met. He's been involved in lots of interesting companies. He was involved with Gardner Supply when they first started. They were talking about all the old tech crap we had back in those days, and then he went and started a company called Seventh Generation, which you may have heard of. He then went on to start Magic Hat, which was a very successful microbrewery, but Alan will tell you it wasn't about the beer, it was about the community. I agree with that.
But today we're going to talk about something completely different. Today we're going to talk about entrepreneurship, retirement and death. Those are all three things that Alan is passionate about today, and they happen to be three things I'm passionate about too. So let's bring Alan on. We'll start the conversation. Hey Alan, how are you today?
Alan Newman (Guest)
Excellent, Josh, life is good,
Josh Patrick (Host)
cool. I'm glad we're getting a chance to do this. It'll be a whole bunch of fun. So let's talk about where is your passion around entrepreneurship, retirement and death and I know you've had a near-death experience, so we might want to talk about that a bit, because that's really interesting. But also, before we started this, we got into a pretty interesting conversation about what death looks like today for many baby boomers versus what it looked like, say, five or even 10 years ago.
Alan Newman (Guest)
I was born in 1946, which is a large part of who I am and what I've done. 1946, for those of you who were not around is the leading edge of the baby boomer population, and so behind me, throughout my lifetime, has been the single largest group of consumers with disposable income that the world has ever seen. The world has ever seen, and you know we share a lot of cultural cues and a lot of values that we grew up together with from fighting against a war to giving women the right to control their bodies, to civil rights, to making schools open to all people equally, and I find that, as long as I do things that entertain me, there are enough people behind me to follow along. If I were younger which, by the way, I'm not and if I was going to start yet another business, it would be the death and dying business. I actually started down that path just looking at opportunity, looking at you know where are the demographics in our country going and we're aging rapidly, we're staying alive longer, which makes the whole concept of retirement change differently. And if I was going to do another business, I have issues with the way we view death and dying in our country. You know it's very sterile. You've got two choices you either get buried or you get cremated, and you generally have a religious ceremony that talks about how that religion sees death and dying, which is not really how I see it, and so I think it's time for our generation, who is now coming to the age where we are approaching death and dying, that we're looking at the options and we're going. You know there has to be other options, as there were other options to the war, as there were other options to birth control and to abortions. There has to be other options because we like options. When was the last time you went to a restaurant? You ordered something off the menu and you didn't change some of the ingredients around it? It's what we do. So I just think we're approaching death with fear and with a lot of judgment.
Going back to your earlier comment, I had an experience when I was in my 30s where I had a minor operation, picked up an infection. Nobody believed that the infection was there until my temperature hit 106.5. They threw me on an ice bed. I felt myself leaving my body. It was the typical out-of-body experience and I went to the light the loving, lovely light, and it was really attractive and I heard a voice saying are you ready? I said no and I came back down into my body.
I heard the doctor and my mother talking about. We got him and it gave me a different view about dying, I think, than a lot of people. So throughout life I've never been scared of dying and I think most people carry around this fear of the unknown. And the dying is clearly unknown. My little view into it was hardly painful. I mean, it was a delightful experience. And so, don't get me wrong, I have absolutely no interest in dying. I'm a happy little camper in my life and with my life. But you know, I think we need to start accepting and giving people some options that they can explore, that doesn't look at death as something that's going to be painful and is something to be avoided. And you were just good, you speak. I could ramble forever, as you know.
Josh Patrick (Host)
I'm curious what those options might be.
Alan Newman (Guest)
The business I was doing was really based on two pillars. One of them was that the body could be cremated, could be composted. Rather than cremated and composting the body, we're talking about something that's been done for thousands of years. I mean, how do you think they got rid of bodies in the year 1000? They put them out in the sun and they composted. Farmers compost dead animals all the time and it gets rid of the body, it doesn't inject it with all sorts of chemicals and the body becomes one with the land and it helps grow either grains or livestock or remains, help grow trees. It could be remembrances, you know, living remembrances. So I think composting to me was what I was looking at. For me personally, I've always had a thing about a funeral pyre and I personally would love to go to a funeral pyre, but the business was really focused on composting. And then the second part of it was celebration I was looking at-
Josh Patrick (Host)
so I'm curious is composting green burial?
are they synonymous?
Alan Newman (Guest)
They all. There are many things that fall into the category of green burial.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Okay
Alan Newman (Guest)
Composting is considered one of them, as is wrapping the person, don't shoot them up with chemicals, let their body essentially compost underground. They wrap them in a cloth rather than a casket and buried, usually among the trees, without a lot of disruption.
Josh Patrick (Host)
My sister-in-law had that done. That was her wish.
Alan Newman (Guest)
That's one that's taking off more rapidly than composting, even though it really is a form of composting
Josh Patrick (Host)
sure
Alan Newman (Guest)
But more important to me than how the body was disposed of was the process of approaching death and dying.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Yes
Alan Newman (Guest)
And to me that was a time to appreciate one's life. And over the last 10 years I'd been to a bunch of funerals, and only one that I can think of was a religious ceremony when the person died. Every other one the family waited anywhere between three months and 12 months from the time the person died. Every other one the family waited anywhere between three months and 12 months from the time the person died.
And it didn't strike me until I was putting together this business plan that that made a lot of sense, because when the person dies, the family and the close friends, they're grieving, they're missing that person, the person who's died. They're fine, they're grieving, they're missing that person, the person who's died. They're fine, they've gone on to whatever's next. But those that stay behind, you know, are sad to miss that person, and so the grieving process. There's no reason for that to be a public event, in my opinion. You know why should the grieving family have to worry about putting on an event where all the people are coming who either knew or didn't know, and has to get food together for it. Why not, you know, do a small family thing for grieving and then six, 12 months later do a memorial service where people talk about what that person meant? And that, to me, is more of how I see this going. Does that answer? Is that clear?
Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah, that makes sense. We did that with my father, actually, and I think this only works for people who are basically either atheists or agnostic. If somebody's religious, would they do a religious ceremony, like if you're Jewish it's within 24 hours, and then maybe six, nine months later do a memorial.
Alan Newman (Guest)
I think the answer to your question is, of course, really what I think our generation and I include you. Even though you're a young lad, I still include you in my generation.
Josh Patrick (Host)
I'm a young lad of 72, by the way
Alan Newman (Guest)
exactly, you're a young lad of 72. I got seven years on, you, and that's a lot it is, and I forgot where I was because I'm old. What did you interrupt me for?
Josh Patrick (Host)
You're going to talk about, or I asked a question of somebody's religious ceremony. And then three, six, nine months. They do a more, which to me makes a lot of sense.
Alan Newman (Guest)
If you're really the is, of course, because really what our generation has done is taken away the hard and fast rules and made everything grayer you know, and there is no right or wrong way to die or to experience death.
Everybody has to do it in their own way. So my business was really going to be set up for those people recognizing. You know, like craft beer, craft beer does not serve 100% of the consumers. You know it's a niche and within that niche, magic Hat served an even smaller niche in that world. You know I'm a niche guy and I don't expect that 100% of the people dying would ever want to be involved in my death and dying business. But what shocked me was that when I was heavily into getting this business started, people's immediate response to me was are you out of your fucking mind? And within 10 minutes, within five minutes, they're asking where they could sign up. So I think people weren't given choices and people don't see things that they can't see.
Josh Patrick (Host)
This is you know part of the problem and here's what I'm thinking, Alan is that what you're saying is a business, I think is actually a good idea, and the truth is it's not very hard to do those stuff on your own, and I think you know, especially with entrepreneurs. Let's talk about entrepreneurs and their mindsets. They don't ever believe they're going to die. They believe their business is going to go on forever.
And retirement is like an anathema to that For other people. Yeah, so it's for other people, not for me, retirement is not for me. And then you get to like I got hit like a ton of bricks yesterday, realizing my persona is no longer a business guy. I don't know what my persona is, but it's not business guy anymore. Yeah, and it's really difficult. I know the feeling and this is from somebody who teaches people about how to avoid seller's remorse. Yep, and I knew it was going to come the first time it came and I didn't. I was not prepared for how brutal it actually is. And this time around I'm trying to figure out well, if I'm not a business guy, who am I?
Alan Newman (Guest)
Yeah, once it became obvious to me and I never that N-word comes up. I find, as I age, the N-word comes up frequently. I just took up smoking cigars, something that I swore I would never, ever do, but every week there's a new never, anyway tell me again where we were.
Josh Patrick (Host)
What were we talking about? I was talking about business owners.
Alan Newman (Guest)
I never, never, ever did I ever think about retirement. I was one of those people who really loved doing what I did.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Me too
Alan Newman (Guest)
I was always entertained and my successes were based on businesses that entertained me, and luckily there were enough other people who were entertained by same sick kind of weird humor that I have to come along. But I think, all of a sudden for me and it was probably about your age, but it had other things I took over a business during the pandemic that had gone out of business and for some reason thought I could. You know, I'm arrogant as hell. Yeah, boston Beer says you want to start five businesses in five years. I go. Well, yeah, sure, why not? And off I go. So arrogance is my greatest strength and my greatest weakness. I'm arrogant enough to think that I can pull this stuff off. And you know, all of a sudden I had this failure and it was the first time that I ever had to walk away from a business. I've had other failed businesses, but they were all closed down neatly. This one, I literally had to walk away, give my shares back to my ex-partner and say, hey, I can't do this, you need to take it back.
And shortly thereafter one of my best friends died and she and I had gotten very to be good friends. We knew each other a long time and over the last 10 years we became much better friends and we both had the same illness. You know, we both loved starting and building businesses and I thought I could make this business, arts, riot work and as much as I knew how to do it, I didn't have the mental or the physical capacity to pull it off. There were extenuating circumstances, but there's always extenuating circumstances. And you know, this friend of mine had done a very similar thing. He had dug a hole, which he had done numerous times before. The difference was he was 73, 72, and he no longer had the capacity to dig himself out.
And when he died I said you know, if I don't accept my version of retirement, which is not the same as a lot of other people's but it's my version of retirement, then I'm going to end up dead. And I spent. It took me two years, at least two years, to accept that I am retired. I don't fit the normal version. I don't go play golf every day, I don't go to the country club, you know. But I have stuff that I do and I have a beautiful balance right now and I'm kind of thrilled that I can still contribute. But I'm not responsible for anything anymore and that, to me, is the key for retirement. I'm not responsible for anybody's business. I'm not responsible for anybody's job. I just do what I can to help.
Josh Patrick (Host)
So for me, what I found was that I had a major cancer event 17 years ago and I've been re-diagnosed with two types of cancer now. But what I realized is, over the last 17 years, slowly but surely, my business disappeared. It didn't happen overnight and I didn't even notice it until yesterday, believe it or not. And here I am saying gee, my world is. I help other people create sustained, personally and economically sustainable businesses. I'm damn good at it, but I can't get people to play anymore. Actually, I probably could. I'm just not willing to do the strategies I used when I was 50 to get somebody to do a business with me. It's too much damn work and I'm just not willing to do that much work anymore.
Alan Newman (Guest)
I totally get it and I just gave this lecture to a friend of mine. It's shocking how much your ego takes a beating. I mean, I never would have realized how much Ego-driven I was until I left the first time. When I left 7th Generation, when I left Magic Garden Supply Company, I felt it. And then, when 7th Generation started, I became heavily emotionally attached to 7th Generation and the brand. And when I had a disagreement with my partner and I was summarily dismissed, it took a while, you know, I would call people who I considered my friends and they wouldn't take my phone calls. ..
it's shocking
Josh Patrick (Host)
I mean and shocking, how fast that happens.
Alan Newman (Guest)
It is And it's not something you can learn, because it happened to me with Magic Hat as well,
Josh Patrick (Host)
it happens every time you go to you know when you disappear. Like I left the wealth management business in January, it's like crickets from that world. When I was in my vending and food service company, I was one of the five best-known guys in the industry. I taught tons of people operations and people management, all sorts of shit, and the year I sold the business I had three phone calls. I used to get three phone calls a week and as much as you know is coming. You're still not prepared for it. And if you're an entrepreneur or a private business owner listening to this, this is an area where working with a therapist might be a useful thing for you.
Alan Newman (Guest)
Try psychedelics, you know, I just—.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Psychedelics is a form of therapy, so we can—.
Alan Newman (Guest)
I find that trying to explain this to somebody is like trying to explain to a woman what pregnancy and a birth is going to be like. It can't be done.
Josh Patrick (Host)
You can explain it, but it doesn't. And this is one of the big, gigantic holes that entrepreneurs have is they don't believe it's going to happen to them. They've heard the stories. They've got friends who have sold businesses and within six months they've been very happy. Heck, I got a 95-year-old uncle that had a restaurant. He sold it 15 years ago and he still complains every day about it.
Alan Newman (Guest)
Yeah, you know the Mountain Group, that group you talked about earlier.
By the way we should reconfigure it , because all those people are now dealing with aging
and retirement,
so it might be a fun thing to do, but back in those
19:45 - Josh Patrick (Host)
Yeah yeah Suzzane actually mentioned that. Suzanne is my wife, by the way.
Alan Newman (Guest)
Yeah yeah knew that actually I forgot again where I was. I keep forgetting where I am. Luckily I remember where I am.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Your in your house right now, in case you didn't know.
Alan Newman (Guest)
Yeah I knew that, I can see the picture behind me.
so where you want to go with this?
Josh Patrick (Host)
excuse me, we have a few minutes left and I'm curious what you believe is the biggest mistake entrepreneurs make, because you've been through that whole realm for a really long time and I think there's some wisdom there that I would love our listeners to get.
Alan Newman (Guest)
Let me tell a story.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Sure
Alan Newman (Guest)
because in my day I used to get at least one person a week contacting me hey, I've got an idea for a business, will you tell me what you think? And every time I did that and I did a lot of it because I thought it was important I always started with this story I'm thinking it was 83, maybe maybe 84, somewhere in the mid eighties, some guy showed up and who I knew, and he handed me a business plan and he said you do me a favor, would you read this and let me know what you think? And I go home and I read this thing and I'm going oh my God, this guy's out of his fucking mind. He had this idea he was going to put an ice cream factory in the middle of a farmland and it was going to become the number one tourist attraction in the state of Vermont. I said, Ben, this is the stupidest thing I have ever seen in my life. You know what makes you think that people are going to come to the middle of nowhere to see an ice cream plant? And he goes we're going to make it different, we're going to make it so that it's really special.
Obviously, it was Ben Cohen and Jerry's who built this plant in the middle of what used to be nowhere. The world has now built up around them and they are, in fact, the number one. The reason I tell this story is entrepreneurship is about seeing an opportunity and a path that nobody else sees, and I think that there has to be a lot of commitment behind it, because the path to going from idea to execution is one where everybody will tell you why it won't work, and they're right. It won't work because the way you thought of it is a fantasy. But if you start moving forward and the same separates entrepreneurs from everybody else to me is we're willing to start moving forward without really knowing what the world's going to look like. We have a direction that we go in and we're willing to figure it out as we go.
Josh Patrick (Host)
So, Alan, we need to end it here. Unfortunately, we're out of time
Alan Newman (Guest)
Okay.
Josh Patrick (Host)
And unfortunately this time goes by too fast. Are you willing to talk to some folks if they're interested to speak with you?
Alan Newman (Guest)
Probably if they're interested.
Josh Patrick (Host)
Okay Well, how would somebody contact you if they wanted to?
Alan Newman (Guest)
Oh, probably email is the best. What's your email address? Alan alan@alchemyandscience.com
Josh Patrick (Host)
Cool, and I've got two things I'd like you to do. First, I'd like you to go and give us an honest rating review of this podcast. If you love it, give us five stars. If you hate it, you can give me one star, and I might cry for a little while, but I'll probably get over it. And the second thing is, if you liked what you heard, you said gee, I'm a business owner and I've got something to add to the world. I'd love to talk to you about being a guest on our podcast. Really easy to do so Just send me an email at jpatrick@stage2solution.com That's number two, and solution is singular dot com. You say hey, Josh, I'm interested to be on your podcast. I think I've got a good story and we'll set up a time to talk. So this is Josh Patrick, and we're with Alan Newman and you're at the 50-50 Accelerator podcast. Thanks a lot for stopping by. I hope to see you back here real soon.
Josh Outro
Look, I spent enough mornings thinking and writing about what it takes for business success. Here's an important final thought the old ways work for a reason, but the best legacy isn't just about what you build. It's about building something that outlasts you without burning you out in the process. If you found value in today's podcast, do me a favor. Take 30 seconds to rate and review the show and yes, I mean honest reviews. I'd rather have the hard truth than empty praise. Your feedback helps other business owners find these conversations. I'm Josh Patrick and this has been the 50-50 Accelerator. If you're ready to work less and profit more, make sure you subscribe wherever you get your podcasts and remember you've built something incredible. Now let's make sure you're actually around to enjoy it. See you next time.