January 14, 2025 • 28 mins
What if you could break free from being tied to your business and start building one that works for you? In this episode of Get Off The Treadmill, Chuck Blakeman sits down with Paul Romig-Leavitt, a creative powerhouse and entrepreneur, to discuss the shift from being an income producer to a true business owner.
💡 Here’s what you’ll learn:
✅ The difference between an income producer and a business owner
✅ How to identify and focus on the highest and best use of your time
✅ Why letting go can unlock the potential of your team and business
✅ The surprising impact of an abundance mindset on leadership and growth
🎧 About Our Guest:
Paul Romig-Leavitt is a multi-talented creative leader in music, film, theater, and ministry. As the founder of Torn Curtain Arts and the executive director of Backstory Theater, Paul has brought his expertise to live events, nonprofits, and youth programs across the country. He’s also an author, filmmaker, and owner of RL Creative, offering audiovisual solutions for businesses and events.
Why This Episode Matters:
Paul’s journey highlights a transformation many entrepreneurs strive for—stepping out of the tactical grind and into strategic leadership. If you’ve ever felt stuck or indispensable in your business, this episode provides practical steps to change that and gain the freedom to focus on what truly matters.
Host’s Takeaway:
"I loved hearing Paul’s perspective on creativity and leadership—it’s a reminder that even the most capable among us need to let go to grow. His story is a powerful example of how shifting your mindset can transform your life and business."
👉 Don’t just listen—take action. Click play now and start building a business that works for you!
Links & Resources Mentioned:
👉 Visit Backstory Theater for inspiring youth programs and performances.
👉 Explore Paul’s creative consulting and audiovisual services at RL Creative.
👉 Learn about Torn Curtain Arts at Greenroom Leaders.
👉 Making Money is Killing Your Business: https://bit.ly/specialoffer-mmikyb
Stay tuned for future episodes where we explore more strategies to help you grow your business, reclaim your time, and experience a life of significance!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Welcome back to the Get Off The Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
Is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Today I'm with Paul Romig-Leavitt.
Paul is a versatile and accomplished creative leader
known for his work in music, film, theater,
and church ministry.
Paul is a producer and director of short
films and plays, and his work has been
(00:47):
seen around the country in live events with
as many as 500,000 people.
In 2006, Paul founded Torn Curtain Arts, a
nonprofit company that provides creative consulting and interim
workshop leaders to several Colorado churches and nonprofits.
He's the author of Cue Lines, a collection
of short plays and sketches that published in
(01:07):
2012.
And Paul also runs his own business audiovisual
company, RL Creative.
And in July 2024, because he had nothing
else to do, he took on the executive
director of Backstory Theater in Broomfield, Colorado.
Paul, I'm tired reading your bio.
I got kind of tired just listening to
(01:28):
it.
I was like, what?
This guy has problems.
That's what I hear.
Yeah, you know, as my friend in Ireland
says, I've never gotten in trouble saying no.
Yeah, yeah.
I sure do get in trouble saying yes.
So yeah, you have the same problem I
have.
Oh, I can do that.
I can do that.
How can I do that?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, it's all, I think I am
(01:51):
just so, I'm kind of addicted to creativity.
So it's the idea of something that really
captures my attention.
And then it won't let me go.
And I think I've kind of resolved that
there's a healthier way to go about it.
But like, not to be afraid that there's
(02:12):
something in there.
That's what makes my life worth living, that
I'm enjoying it.
So yeah.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
It's not taking on a challenge.
It's taking on a challenge that needs creative
energy.
I think that's the entrepreneur's mindset is that
anybody could do this thing.
It'll just take a lot of hard work.
But that thing, that's going to take a
(02:34):
lot of creative thinking to make that work.
Yeah.
And that changes the thing.
And yeah, there's an addiction in that.
And fortunately, there's not a lot of people
in the world who have the entrepreneurial mindset.
Most people are business owners.
And we'll talk about that.
Yeah.
Not entrepreneurs.
And there's a good reason for that.
Because we don't need that many people like
(02:54):
you and me.
It's a dangerous thing.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, today, we do want to talk about...
You went through a shift from being an
income producer.
You call yourself a recovering income producer, still
growing into what it means to be a
business owner.
Yeah.
(03:15):
And so I'll give a sort of a
quick definition of how I see those two
things so people have context for them.
The difference for me is real simple.
An income producer is somebody who sees themselves
integral to the success of the business on
a tactical daily basis.
(03:35):
And specifically, I'm making money.
That's the statement of an income producer.
I'm making money.
I'm income producing.
A business owner says, instead of saying, I'm
making money, they say, I'm building a business
that makes money.
And with that statement, you can actually take
a week off and the business makes money
(03:56):
when you are not there.
The income producer, they might be able to
fake a week off rather than take one
off and actually get through the week.
But the reality of it is they had
to work like crazy before and they work
like crazy afterwards.
And if they took three weeks off, the
whole thing would start to fall apart.
So that's income producer versus business owner.
(04:17):
Give me a little bit of your journey
on how you started out and maybe didn't
even know you were an income producer, but
give us the beginning.
Yeah, I think for me, I kind of
go around the model of a crisis where
it's like nobody changes unless they're forced to
change.
(04:37):
So that was the, I feel like it
was probably in 2019 where a mutual friend
had connected me to 3 to 5 Club
because my partner, Brian and I, we're overwhelmed,
exhausted.
We were changing our sort of career path
(04:59):
together and we're trying to do this thing
with Torn Curtain, this nonprofit.
And we're like, we just don't know how
to do it.
And so thankfully we found 3 to 5
Club and that was the first time I
had encountered that language of income producer versus
business owner.
And so I was really starting to learn
what I kind of, I have a, sometimes
(05:24):
my optimism creates delusions, right?
So I can believe that I'm a business
owner, but I'm still operating under the same
rules of an income producer.
And so when I say I'm recovering is
that it is a journey.
It's still like I may have had it
mastered in one area of my life where
(05:44):
I'm like, okay, I'm really leading through other
people.
I'm starting to think through a system and
I'm not expecting like I'm the only person
who can get this done.
Some areas that can happen.
And then other places where I take on
a new challenge, I can so easily lean
back on that default mindset, which is income
(06:05):
producer.
It's just sort of like in the water
we drink, in this country, in our society,
which is like, it's all down to you.
You're the only one who can do it
and all that kind of stuff.
And you want something to do it yourself.
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was my, that's my journey with,
you know, moving from one to another.
(06:27):
So what you're saying is you're normal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think so.
And it's been, it's cool to try and
help other people see that the struggle is
normal.
Like it doesn't mean they're doing something wrong.
It's actually, they're doing something right.
This is just how it feels because you're
challenging a lot of the story about your
ego, right?
(06:48):
The ego says like, I've got to be
in control.
I can't let anyone help.
Your mind says one thing, but you're really,
your body's going to be acting in another
way.
So it's, it takes a lot of growth
and very nuanced growth.
I think I call it, you've heard me
call it a bad case of the nobodies.
It's a business disease.
(07:08):
Only, only business owners and the like seem
to have it.
Managers have it as well, but nobody's as
good as I am or nobody's as good.
Nobody's as effective.
Nobody's as knowledgeable.
Nobody's as experienced.
Nobody's as invested.
We have all these nobodies and we're pretty
sure that nobody else can do what I
do.
And Henry Ford said it best when you,
(07:30):
whether you think you can, or you think
you can't, you're right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I would say that mentality very much
permeates within when you're working with volunteers.
And because it's like, we can never find
good volunteers.
We can never find all this sort of
stuff.
And that mentality, I would say that, you
(07:53):
know, going back to, I feel like the
most dangerous idea in the world is abundance.
Because when a, when you do have, when
you start to accept that there's abundance, there's
responsibility that goes with that.
Yeah.
You don't have any excuses left.
Yeah.
That's a hard mirror sometimes to look at.
(08:13):
Right.
But that's then that it removes the sort
of the nobody's it's like, well, there is
somebody, but I don't, I'm still looking or
I'm still working on it, but, or maybe
I'm not ready for them.
I think that's a piece of it.
You know, in 1997, I use this illustration
of nobody's and scarcity all the time.
(08:34):
In 1997, I asked my neighbor, what car
should I buy?
Cause he's a car geek and I could
care less.
I just want a moving stereo and a
couch.
And he said, okay, with those, you should
buy this thing.
And so I went to that store and
said, well, the, my friend sent me here
and I want one of those because he
said, that's what I should have.
And I, and I, I didn't even know
(08:54):
what the thing was.
It was the I'm trying to remember.
It was a Maxima.
Nissan Maxima.
I went to the Nissan Maxima store and
said, give me one of those.
And on the way home, I saw five
or six of them.
And I had never seen one in my
life and didn't know what they looked like.
(09:15):
But I wasn't looking for them and I
was pretty sure they didn't exist.
I knew they didn't exist.
You know, what's a Maxima.
We do the same thing with people.
Oh, there's nobody out there that could do
this.
They could be sitting right beside you.
You don't know because you're not looking for
them.
So it really does.
It's a great example of how that really
does happen.
(09:35):
There's a fancy term for that awareness that
you get all of a sudden when you,
when you know that something exists, now you
see it everywhere.
Yeah.
You don't think people exist.
You don't see them.
Yeah.
And I, I mean, I, I don't know
what that term is.
It came across it in just one of
my reading this week, but it also goes
along with that idea of a hedonic adaptation,
(09:56):
right?
Once we have something, we disregard it.
And so we, we're get used to seeing
what we see and that's all we see,
you know?
And that's not bad.
It's just, that's the normal human brain.
There's a way we can subvert it, but
that's kind of how we're going to be.
That's how we're wired.
Yeah.
I had a Lexus at the time and
(10:17):
I saw those everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so this is part of the problem
is we just had this bad case of
the nobodies and scarcity mindset gets us into
that.
We use this sentence all the time.
These two sentences, you either live in a
world of abundance or you live in a
world of a scarcity and whichever you choose
(10:40):
affects every decision you make.
We choose abundance.
But in doing that, then you do run
out of excuses.
Barbara Corcoran is a great example of somebody
who had to get over a bad case
of the nobody.
She's one of the sharks on the shark
tank.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I'll never forget four or five, six
years ago, she said to a guy, you're
great and I'm not going to invest in
(11:01):
you because you don't think anybody else can
do this.
You're the only one.
You're clearly indispensable.
And she said, let me tell you a
quick story.
I was doing a lot of real estate
in New York City and was very successful
and couldn't get past all of this because
I was doing it all myself because I
was pretty sure nobody else could do it.
(11:23):
She was an income producer making a few
million dollars a year.
And she said, I finally got over it.
I finally broke through when I realized nobody
else is Barbara Corcoran and they don't have
to be.
And then I could hire other people who
weren't Barbara Corcoran and start solving my problem.
And she created a global industry because she
(11:46):
switched from being an income producer to a
business owner.
It's a powerful story of that.
She recognized in this guy, he hadn't made
that transition yet.
Go ahead.
Well, what just occurs to me is the
fear around AI and all this sort of
(12:07):
machine learning and stuff like that, that I
hear.
And there's people on either overwhelmingly optimistic it's
going to end death or then the other
is it's just going to be the end
of the world.
But I find that it still protects people
from the people who are afraid.
I think it still comes back to this.
(12:27):
There's nobody else who can do what I
can do where the real creatives go.
It can't have a point of view.
It's going to create new disruptions.
It's going to create new environments that I'm
still going to have to figure out.
How do I make a decision about how
to live with?
So, but you see that it begins to
force that little threat a little bit that
(12:49):
maybe there is somebody who can do this.
Yeah, I don't like that.
I know.
Yeah.
It makes me dispensable.
Yeah, yeah.
Makes you free.
I'd much prefer to be free to go
on to the next creative thing than to
be a hostage to the things that I'm
pretty sure nobody else can do.
So how did you begin to, you heard
the difference, okay, income producer, I'm making money,
(13:12):
business owner, I'm building a business that makes
money.
You heard that.
How did it begin to grow in your
life?
I would say that one thing that just
jumps out is knowing that, first, I have
that whole fraud sort of syndrome sort of
(13:32):
thing.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome, right?
That I have that feeling of like I'm
the only one who doesn't know.
I'm the only one who struggles with this.
And when I get in community and I
realize, oh, all the people that I thought
should have the answers, they'll know little pockets
(13:52):
of different things that I didn't know.
But in many ways, we're very much the
same.
So realizing that when that bubble burst, then
I had more freedom to experiment.
I had more freedom actually to give myself
permission, my self-permission to try things.
And to admit that I didn't know early
(14:15):
on in the process.
And there's a little bit of like, I'm
going to play dumb.
I just don't know what I don't know.
You know what I mean?
And that was a big step in helping
me move forward in that.
That's really fascinating because I came from the
exact opposite angle.
And we both ended up at the same
place.
Hey, I need to be a business owner
(14:36):
instead of an income producer.
Because I thought I could do everything.
I did think I knew it.
I knew it all.
And I could just do it myself.
And I had to come to the end
of myself.
So there's a lot of utter exhaustion and
mental and emotional and physical coming to the
end of myself saying, what in the world
am I doing?
And it happened in my fifth business where
(14:57):
we started with three of us.
We took over a failing company that had
lost money for 11 years.
And there was just three of us when
we started.
And three years later, there were 120 of
us.
And I was still working 55 hours a
week, just like I had when there were
three of us.
That's when I came to the end of
myself and said, how in the world did
we hire 117 more people?
(15:18):
And I somehow still have 55 hours worth
of work on my plate.
What is wrong with me?
But it was just that.
I gave away tasks, but I wouldn't give
away responsibility.
Because nobody was as good as I was.
So we both came to the same place.
And I say that because I think our
audience will find themselves in one of those
two places or somewhere in between that we
(15:39):
all have some version of being an income
producer that says either I'm not good enough
or I'm too good and nobody else is
good enough.
And we have to come to the end
of ourselves from different directions.
Absolutely.
I feel like what it makes me think
of is you just can't solve internal problems
with external solutions.
That's the thing that you discovered.
(15:59):
It's just kind of like, it doesn't matter
the scale or the size of the company.
The problem was within me.
And even if I had enough time to
rest, if I had a vacation, I was
thinking about work or I would be always
working.
So what was it in me that was
driving this?
Was it a fear thing?
(16:19):
I actually talked to my dad about how
he grew up and how he was like,
where did you get your sense of work?
What was driving you to work like this?
And it was fear.
For him, it was fear.
It was fear of not being able to
provide for my family.
So that drove him to basically try and
(16:40):
think of every angle, every threat that could
possibly take that away.
And take control of it.
Hypervigilant, right?
And for me, I think it would turn
toward I'm a performer.
So it was like, I need approval.
So that was the thing that I was
driving for.
I wasn't necessarily afraid I could take risks,
(17:01):
but I just needed you to love me.
I needed to have the applause.
I needed to have all of that.
And I'm not over it by any means.
I'm still a good junkie for approval, but
not noticing it.
I've started to be able to make some
changes so I could have some of my
time back.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
(17:23):
Well, I want to talk about how we
put together.
I put this together for myself because all
these problems are my own.
People think I actually came up with stuff
in an ivory tower to sell on the
internet.
No, it's all stuff that I bled over,
that I made mistakes on.
How do I fix this?
And I found myself after that business realizing
I've got to change something.
(17:44):
Something has to change.
I got to realize, I got to figure
out how to not be as important as
I am.
So over maybe, I don't know, a year
or two, I developed this idea of income
produced and I'm an income producer.
I'm not a business owner.
The IRS has been fooling me for decades
and calling me a business owner when in
fact I'm not.
(18:05):
And how do I get past that?
How do I become a real, what is
a business owner?
So we made that journey with the seven
stages of business ownership and all that stuff
and came to that place where we realized
business owners seem to be people who have
freedom, not necessarily to go on vacation.
They certainly have that, but to move on
to the next great idea to start a
second business, to work with something inside their
(18:28):
business that needs special attention that nobody else
can play with.
Business owners seem to be free to be
strategic.
And I was not strategic at all.
I just pretended to be.
I was giving a look and a promise
to that and then going back and making
chairs, making shoes, doing the tactical thing.
And so we came up with this game
(18:49):
and we call it the business owners game.
And it's a really simple game because I
need things to be simple in order for
them to work for me.
And this has changed my business life and
probably as a result, my personal life.
It's a really simple game.
There's two questions.
And the objective of the game is this,
making more money in less time.
(19:12):
So the income producer says, how do I
make money?
Well, the only way to answer that question
is to invest more time because I have
to make the money while you run out
of time.
But if you have a business where you're
saying, how does the business make money when
I'm not there?
That's a whole different game.
So that's the game we want to play
is how do I make more money?
And as my business makes more money, I
(19:34):
actually spend less time at work.
Not just the same.
I should be able to go from 40
hours a week making $200,000 a year
as a company to 20 hours a week
making 2 million.
How do I do that?
So that's the game.
How do I make more money in less
time?
And question number one is, is what I'm
doing right now.
Make a list.
(19:55):
Do this for three or four or five
days in a row.
Is what I'm doing right now the highest
and best use of my time and talents?
So how did you know, as you answered
that question for yourself, how did you, there's
all kinds of answers to this, but what
are some ways in which you could identify,
no, this is not, yes, this is the
highest and best use.
How did that land for you?
(20:17):
Uh, yeah, cause that was the, I mean,
you, you stated it perfectly.
It's actually, um, questions that I feel like
I'm asking daily.
Yeah.
Like, and those, because it doesn't.
We never stop asking.
No, it never stopped that.
But, um, when it came to the hiring
of kind of my first assistant, that was
(20:38):
the, that was the thing that said, okay,
now I'm paying somebody.
I have to teach them to do something,
you know?
And, uh, so things like, um, sending invoices,
um, scheduling volunteers.
Um, is there a system behind it?
(20:59):
Can I train?
That's where I started going, like, can I
train somebody to do this?
But I think the first thing is accepting
the sort of like, I'm not special.
Like most of what I do, I'm not
special.
There's a lot of people who can do
what I do.
Um, that's not the point.
It's the, the fact that I'm, uh, yeah,
(21:19):
I, I think that question helps move me
into the, what is my, my best and
highest use.
Yeah.
Um, yep.
And so that was it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for me, it's the same thing.
It's it's the question is around what is
it that nobody else right now, at least
in my business can do, but me.
(21:42):
And eventually depending on your business, you could,
and if you want to, you definitely should
be able to get to the answer is
there's nothing that I can do that somebody
else couldn't do.
Richard Branson owns 400 some businesses.
He doesn't ask himself.
Is there something that I have to do
that nobody else can do?
But reality for us in small business, uh,
(22:05):
when there's one, two, three, five, 10, 20
of us, there's going to be things that
nobody else can do.
And then the second thing is there's, there's
other things that people could do, but they
actually have a better hire and best, uh,
calling in the business.
And so, yeah, they could do this, but,
uh, I can also do it and they're
(22:25):
better off doing the other thing.
So for me, it's a matter of capacity,
but more often it's a matter of, of,
uh, simple strengths and saying, is this really
just what it says?
The highest and best use of my time
and talents.
So some practical ways to do that would
be to look at, well, if I paid
somebody to do this, how much would it
cost?
(22:45):
So some of the things you gave to
your admin, you probably pay them less than
what you would do something for if it
was the highest and best use of your
time and talents.
That's a very practical tactical way to look
at that.
Yeah.
Uh, that, and that was, that was the
thing that things got better.
Things got faster when I, when I let
go of those things and I didn't really
(23:05):
even want to do most of them, you
know?
And I started to think like, what is
the thing that I actually can't let go
of?
What is the thing?
And, and it's the thing I enjoy the
most, honestly, you know, it's like, I can't
outsource my ideas.
I can't outsource my writing.
I can't, when I perform, like I do
it with my own personality and that's what
(23:29):
makes it valuable.
I couldn't give that to, so everything else
though, I can do it.
Yeah, for sure.
And it's a beautiful thing to get to
that place where, you know, what you're really
good at.
I think another way to, to monitor this
for ourselves, what is the highest and best
use of my time and talents is to
ask myself, what energizes me?
(23:50):
I really liked that question because when I
get done writing, I can write for two
or three hours and put two or 3000
words on a page.
And I'm physically and mentally, and maybe even
a little bit emotionally exhausted, but I am
somehow energized and I'm excited about, you know,
taking a break and coming back the next
(24:10):
morning and diving in again.
There are a lot of things that I
do the same amount of time and energy
on that if you gave me two weeks,
I'm not sure it would be enough time
to recover because it doesn't energize me.
Every minute of it just bleeds me dry
mentally, emotionally, or physically, or all three.
So that's another way to look at it.
Is this something nobody else can do?
(24:32):
And, or this is really energizing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, I, I so agree.
And it's, and it's the, the, the thing
that I feel like I've got more energy
at the end than I did when I
started.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somehow you have more energy than when you
started.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's your bucket.
(24:52):
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
Yeah.
And it's a weird thing.
The hardest one for me was these kinds
of things.
It energizes me and I'm really good at
it and somebody else should be doing it.
Those are the hard ones.
Yeah.
I think again, you start getting, what I
found is I got excited about something different,
(25:16):
which was developing other leaders, developing people, developing
people on my team to see them do
things.
And so I was, so then it became
a new game.
It was kind of like, do, can I
level up my leadership so that I can
really have that happen in a way that
(25:38):
the quality, the spirit of it, everything is,
is there in the same way.
And that started to become pretty exciting.
A lot with like, when I took over
the theater company was like actually here's a,
here's from a sort of a cautionary tale
was I thought that because the company was
(26:04):
in such terrible shape, I had to take
on more hats.
So I was like music directing and executive
directing the last show.
And I was like, in that process realized
I should not be doing this.
And even though it was needed, I needed
to give it to somebody and have them
kind of struggle through it and how make
(26:26):
and move forward.
Because I was wiped out, you know, I
was, I was exhausted by the end of
it.
But that's the, that was the thing was
like, I didn't see that person that I
could have developed a little bit more in
that process.
But yeah.
And that's one of the beautiful, we don't
have time for even most of the side
(26:46):
effects, but the reality of seeing other people
develop and take over things that we thought
nobody could ever do, watching them light up
and seeing how they invested in their jobs
as a result of it.
And then of course the freedom that it
gives you to move on to the things
that really are the highest and best use.
Well, we just, we touched the surface here
and we probably just annoyed some people with,
(27:09):
you know, kind of touching the surface, but
I would love to give people a chance
to get ahold of you and give you
more things to do to see, or no.
So how do people get, how do people
get ahold of Paul?
Okay.
Well, there's a couple of ways.
One, if you're interested in, and you want
to come see children's theater, youth theater, which
everybody needs more of that in their life.
(27:31):
You can find me at backstorytheater.org.
That you can Paul at backstorytheater.org.
If you need like video production, if you
need like some creative consulting or something like
that for your, for your business, you've got
an event going on.
That's RLCreative, RLCreative.
And that's just paulromaglevitt.com.
(27:54):
And then if you're in a church, if
you're in ministry and you need some, a
break for your worship leader, you can reach
out to me for greenroomleaders.com.
Beautiful.
Paul, it's been a delight.
I love to talk to another business owner
in process.
Great.
Thank you, Chuck.
It's always a pleasure.
Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
(28:15):
Off The Treadmill Podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the three
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or workshop leader, you can contact us at
(28:35):
growatcranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
Welcome back to the Get Off The Treadmill
podcast for small business owners and entrepreneurs where
we show you how to build a successful
business and to have a life too.
We're going to dive into another topic that
helps us make more money in less time
and to get off the treadmill so we
can experience a life of significance.
And now your host and the author of
(00:25):
the number one bestselling business book, Making Money
Is Killing Your Business, Chuck Blakeman.
Today I'm with Paul Romig-Leavitt.
Paul is a versatile and accomplished creative leader
known for his work in music, film, theater,
and church ministry.
Paul is a producer and director of short
films and plays, and his work has been
(00:47):
seen around the country in live events with
as many as 500,000 people.
In 2006, Paul founded Torn Curtain Arts, a
nonprofit company that provides creative consulting and interim
workshop leaders to several Colorado churches and nonprofits.
He's the author of Cue Lines, a collection
of short plays and sketches that published in
(01:07):
2012.
And Paul also runs his own business audiovisual
company, RL Creative.
And in July 2024, because he had nothing
else to do, he took on the executive
director of Backstory Theater in Broomfield, Colorado.
Paul, I'm tired reading your bio.
I got kind of tired just listening to
(01:28):
it.
I was like, what?
This guy has problems.
That's what I hear.
Yeah, you know, as my friend in Ireland
says, I've never gotten in trouble saying no.
Yeah, yeah.
I sure do get in trouble saying yes.
So yeah, you have the same problem I
have.
Oh, I can do that.
I can do that.
How can I do that?
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, no, it's all, I think I am
(01:51):
just so, I'm kind of addicted to creativity.
So it's the idea of something that really
captures my attention.
And then it won't let me go.
And I think I've kind of resolved that
there's a healthier way to go about it.
But like, not to be afraid that there's
(02:12):
something in there.
That's what makes my life worth living, that
I'm enjoying it.
So yeah.
Yeah, I feel the same way.
It's not taking on a challenge.
It's taking on a challenge that needs creative
energy.
I think that's the entrepreneur's mindset is that
anybody could do this thing.
It'll just take a lot of hard work.
But that thing, that's going to take a
(02:34):
lot of creative thinking to make that work.
Yeah.
And that changes the thing.
And yeah, there's an addiction in that.
And fortunately, there's not a lot of people
in the world who have the entrepreneurial mindset.
Most people are business owners.
And we'll talk about that.
Yeah.
Not entrepreneurs.
And there's a good reason for that.
Because we don't need that many people like
(02:54):
you and me.
It's a dangerous thing.
Yeah, for sure.
Well, today, we do want to talk about...
You went through a shift from being an
income producer.
You call yourself a recovering income producer, still
growing into what it means to be a
business owner.
Yeah.
(03:15):
And so I'll give a sort of a
quick definition of how I see those two
things so people have context for them.
The difference for me is real simple.
An income producer is somebody who sees themselves
integral to the success of the business on
a tactical daily basis.
(03:35):
And specifically, I'm making money.
That's the statement of an income producer.
I'm making money.
I'm income producing.
A business owner says, instead of saying, I'm
making money, they say, I'm building a business
that makes money.
And with that statement, you can actually take
a week off and the business makes money
(03:56):
when you are not there.
The income producer, they might be able to
fake a week off rather than take one
off and actually get through the week.
But the reality of it is they had
to work like crazy before and they work
like crazy afterwards.
And if they took three weeks off, the
whole thing would start to fall apart.
So that's income producer versus business owner.
(04:17):
Give me a little bit of your journey
on how you started out and maybe didn't
even know you were an income producer, but
give us the beginning.
Yeah, I think for me, I kind of
go around the model of a crisis where
it's like nobody changes unless they're forced to
change.
(04:37):
So that was the, I feel like it
was probably in 2019 where a mutual friend
had connected me to 3 to 5 Club
because my partner, Brian and I, we're overwhelmed,
exhausted.
We were changing our sort of career path
(04:59):
together and we're trying to do this thing
with Torn Curtain, this nonprofit.
And we're like, we just don't know how
to do it.
And so thankfully we found 3 to 5
Club and that was the first time I
had encountered that language of income producer versus
business owner.
And so I was really starting to learn
what I kind of, I have a, sometimes
(05:24):
my optimism creates delusions, right?
So I can believe that I'm a business
owner, but I'm still operating under the same
rules of an income producer.
And so when I say I'm recovering is
that it is a journey.
It's still like I may have had it
mastered in one area of my life where
(05:44):
I'm like, okay, I'm really leading through other
people.
I'm starting to think through a system and
I'm not expecting like I'm the only person
who can get this done.
Some areas that can happen.
And then other places where I take on
a new challenge, I can so easily lean
back on that default mindset, which is income
(06:05):
producer.
It's just sort of like in the water
we drink, in this country, in our society,
which is like, it's all down to you.
You're the only one who can do it
and all that kind of stuff.
And you want something to do it yourself.
For sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that was my, that's my journey with,
you know, moving from one to another.
(06:27):
So what you're saying is you're normal.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think so.
And it's been, it's cool to try and
help other people see that the struggle is
normal.
Like it doesn't mean they're doing something wrong.
It's actually, they're doing something right.
This is just how it feels because you're
challenging a lot of the story about your
ego, right?
(06:48):
The ego says like, I've got to be
in control.
I can't let anyone help.
Your mind says one thing, but you're really,
your body's going to be acting in another
way.
So it's, it takes a lot of growth
and very nuanced growth.
I think I call it, you've heard me
call it a bad case of the nobodies.
It's a business disease.
(07:08):
Only, only business owners and the like seem
to have it.
Managers have it as well, but nobody's as
good as I am or nobody's as good.
Nobody's as effective.
Nobody's as knowledgeable.
Nobody's as experienced.
Nobody's as invested.
We have all these nobodies and we're pretty
sure that nobody else can do what I
do.
And Henry Ford said it best when you,
(07:30):
whether you think you can, or you think
you can't, you're right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I would say that mentality very much
permeates within when you're working with volunteers.
And because it's like, we can never find
good volunteers.
We can never find all this sort of
stuff.
And that mentality, I would say that, you
(07:53):
know, going back to, I feel like the
most dangerous idea in the world is abundance.
Because when a, when you do have, when
you start to accept that there's abundance, there's
responsibility that goes with that.
Yeah.
You don't have any excuses left.
Yeah.
That's a hard mirror sometimes to look at.
(08:13):
Right.
But that's then that it removes the sort
of the nobody's it's like, well, there is
somebody, but I don't, I'm still looking or
I'm still working on it, but, or maybe
I'm not ready for them.
I think that's a piece of it.
You know, in 1997, I use this illustration
of nobody's and scarcity all the time.
(08:34):
In 1997, I asked my neighbor, what car
should I buy?
Cause he's a car geek and I could
care less.
I just want a moving stereo and a
couch.
And he said, okay, with those, you should
buy this thing.
And so I went to that store and
said, well, the, my friend sent me here
and I want one of those because he
said, that's what I should have.
And I, and I, I didn't even know
(08:54):
what the thing was.
It was the I'm trying to remember.
It was a Maxima.
Nissan Maxima.
I went to the Nissan Maxima store and
said, give me one of those.
And on the way home, I saw five
or six of them.
And I had never seen one in my
life and didn't know what they looked like.
(09:15):
But I wasn't looking for them and I
was pretty sure they didn't exist.
I knew they didn't exist.
You know, what's a Maxima.
We do the same thing with people.
Oh, there's nobody out there that could do
this.
They could be sitting right beside you.
You don't know because you're not looking for
them.
So it really does.
It's a great example of how that really
does happen.
(09:35):
There's a fancy term for that awareness that
you get all of a sudden when you,
when you know that something exists, now you
see it everywhere.
Yeah.
You don't think people exist.
You don't see them.
Yeah.
And I, I mean, I, I don't know
what that term is.
It came across it in just one of
my reading this week, but it also goes
along with that idea of a hedonic adaptation,
(09:56):
right?
Once we have something, we disregard it.
And so we, we're get used to seeing
what we see and that's all we see,
you know?
And that's not bad.
It's just, that's the normal human brain.
There's a way we can subvert it, but
that's kind of how we're going to be.
That's how we're wired.
Yeah.
I had a Lexus at the time and
(10:17):
I saw those everywhere.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, so this is part of the problem
is we just had this bad case of
the nobodies and scarcity mindset gets us into
that.
We use this sentence all the time.
These two sentences, you either live in a
world of abundance or you live in a
world of a scarcity and whichever you choose
(10:40):
affects every decision you make.
We choose abundance.
But in doing that, then you do run
out of excuses.
Barbara Corcoran is a great example of somebody
who had to get over a bad case
of the nobody.
She's one of the sharks on the shark
tank.
Yeah.
Okay.
And I'll never forget four or five, six
years ago, she said to a guy, you're
great and I'm not going to invest in
(11:01):
you because you don't think anybody else can
do this.
You're the only one.
You're clearly indispensable.
And she said, let me tell you a
quick story.
I was doing a lot of real estate
in New York City and was very successful
and couldn't get past all of this because
I was doing it all myself because I
was pretty sure nobody else could do it.
(11:23):
She was an income producer making a few
million dollars a year.
And she said, I finally got over it.
I finally broke through when I realized nobody
else is Barbara Corcoran and they don't have
to be.
And then I could hire other people who
weren't Barbara Corcoran and start solving my problem.
And she created a global industry because she
(11:46):
switched from being an income producer to a
business owner.
It's a powerful story of that.
She recognized in this guy, he hadn't made
that transition yet.
Go ahead.
Well, what just occurs to me is the
fear around AI and all this sort of
(12:07):
machine learning and stuff like that, that I
hear.
And there's people on either overwhelmingly optimistic it's
going to end death or then the other
is it's just going to be the end
of the world.
But I find that it still protects people
from the people who are afraid.
I think it still comes back to this.
(12:27):
There's nobody else who can do what I
can do where the real creatives go.
It can't have a point of view.
It's going to create new disruptions.
It's going to create new environments that I'm
still going to have to figure out.
How do I make a decision about how
to live with?
So, but you see that it begins to
force that little threat a little bit that
(12:49):
maybe there is somebody who can do this.
Yeah, I don't like that.
I know.
Yeah.
It makes me dispensable.
Yeah, yeah.
Makes you free.
I'd much prefer to be free to go
on to the next creative thing than to
be a hostage to the things that I'm
pretty sure nobody else can do.
So how did you begin to, you heard
the difference, okay, income producer, I'm making money,
(13:12):
business owner, I'm building a business that makes
money.
You heard that.
How did it begin to grow in your
life?
I would say that one thing that just
jumps out is knowing that, first, I have
that whole fraud sort of syndrome sort of
(13:32):
thing.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Imposter syndrome.
Imposter syndrome, right?
That I have that feeling of like I'm
the only one who doesn't know.
I'm the only one who struggles with this.
And when I get in community and I
realize, oh, all the people that I thought
should have the answers, they'll know little pockets
(13:52):
of different things that I didn't know.
But in many ways, we're very much the
same.
So realizing that when that bubble burst, then
I had more freedom to experiment.
I had more freedom actually to give myself
permission, my self-permission to try things.
And to admit that I didn't know early
(14:15):
on in the process.
And there's a little bit of like, I'm
going to play dumb.
I just don't know what I don't know.
You know what I mean?
And that was a big step in helping
me move forward in that.
That's really fascinating because I came from the
exact opposite angle.
And we both ended up at the same
place.
Hey, I need to be a business owner
(14:36):
instead of an income producer.
Because I thought I could do everything.
I did think I knew it.
I knew it all.
And I could just do it myself.
And I had to come to the end
of myself.
So there's a lot of utter exhaustion and
mental and emotional and physical coming to the
end of myself saying, what in the world
am I doing?
And it happened in my fifth business where
(14:57):
we started with three of us.
We took over a failing company that had
lost money for 11 years.
And there was just three of us when
we started.
And three years later, there were 120 of
us.
And I was still working 55 hours a
week, just like I had when there were
three of us.
That's when I came to the end of
myself and said, how in the world did
we hire 117 more people?
(15:18):
And I somehow still have 55 hours worth
of work on my plate.
What is wrong with me?
But it was just that.
I gave away tasks, but I wouldn't give
away responsibility.
Because nobody was as good as I was.
So we both came to the same place.
And I say that because I think our
audience will find themselves in one of those
two places or somewhere in between that we
(15:39):
all have some version of being an income
producer that says either I'm not good enough
or I'm too good and nobody else is
good enough.
And we have to come to the end
of ourselves from different directions.
Absolutely.
I feel like what it makes me think
of is you just can't solve internal problems
with external solutions.
That's the thing that you discovered.
(15:59):
It's just kind of like, it doesn't matter
the scale or the size of the company.
The problem was within me.
And even if I had enough time to
rest, if I had a vacation, I was
thinking about work or I would be always
working.
So what was it in me that was
driving this?
Was it a fear thing?
(16:19):
I actually talked to my dad about how
he grew up and how he was like,
where did you get your sense of work?
What was driving you to work like this?
And it was fear.
For him, it was fear.
It was fear of not being able to
provide for my family.
So that drove him to basically try and
(16:40):
think of every angle, every threat that could
possibly take that away.
And take control of it.
Hypervigilant, right?
And for me, I think it would turn
toward I'm a performer.
So it was like, I need approval.
So that was the thing that I was
driving for.
I wasn't necessarily afraid I could take risks,
(17:01):
but I just needed you to love me.
I needed to have the applause.
I needed to have all of that.
And I'm not over it by any means.
I'm still a good junkie for approval, but
not noticing it.
I've started to be able to make some
changes so I could have some of my
time back.
Yeah, that's beautiful.
(17:23):
Well, I want to talk about how we
put together.
I put this together for myself because all
these problems are my own.
People think I actually came up with stuff
in an ivory tower to sell on the
internet.
No, it's all stuff that I bled over,
that I made mistakes on.
How do I fix this?
And I found myself after that business realizing
I've got to change something.
(17:44):
Something has to change.
I got to realize, I got to figure
out how to not be as important as
I am.
So over maybe, I don't know, a year
or two, I developed this idea of income
produced and I'm an income producer.
I'm not a business owner.
The IRS has been fooling me for decades
and calling me a business owner when in
fact I'm not.
(18:05):
And how do I get past that?
How do I become a real, what is
a business owner?
So we made that journey with the seven
stages of business ownership and all that stuff
and came to that place where we realized
business owners seem to be people who have
freedom, not necessarily to go on vacation.
They certainly have that, but to move on
to the next great idea to start a
second business, to work with something inside their
(18:28):
business that needs special attention that nobody else
can play with.
Business owners seem to be free to be
strategic.
And I was not strategic at all.
I just pretended to be.
I was giving a look and a promise
to that and then going back and making
chairs, making shoes, doing the tactical thing.
And so we came up with this game
(18:49):
and we call it the business owners game.
And it's a really simple game because I
need things to be simple in order for
them to work for me.
And this has changed my business life and
probably as a result, my personal life.
It's a really simple game.
There's two questions.
And the objective of the game is this,
making more money in less time.
(19:12):
So the income producer says, how do I
make money?
Well, the only way to answer that question
is to invest more time because I have
to make the money while you run out
of time.
But if you have a business where you're
saying, how does the business make money when
I'm not there?
That's a whole different game.
So that's the game we want to play
is how do I make more money?
And as my business makes more money, I
(19:34):
actually spend less time at work.
Not just the same.
I should be able to go from 40
hours a week making $200,000 a year
as a company to 20 hours a week
making 2 million.
How do I do that?
So that's the game.
How do I make more money in less
time?
And question number one is, is what I'm
doing right now.
Make a list.
(19:55):
Do this for three or four or five
days in a row.
Is what I'm doing right now the highest
and best use of my time and talents?
So how did you know, as you answered
that question for yourself, how did you, there's
all kinds of answers to this, but what
are some ways in which you could identify,
no, this is not, yes, this is the
highest and best use.
How did that land for you?
(20:17):
Uh, yeah, cause that was the, I mean,
you, you stated it perfectly.
It's actually, um, questions that I feel like
I'm asking daily.
Yeah.
Like, and those, because it doesn't.
We never stop asking.
No, it never stopped that.
But, um, when it came to the hiring
of kind of my first assistant, that was
(20:38):
the, that was the thing that said, okay,
now I'm paying somebody.
I have to teach them to do something,
you know?
And, uh, so things like, um, sending invoices,
um, scheduling volunteers.
Um, is there a system behind it?
(20:59):
Can I train?
That's where I started going, like, can I
train somebody to do this?
But I think the first thing is accepting
the sort of like, I'm not special.
Like most of what I do, I'm not
special.
There's a lot of people who can do
what I do.
Um, that's not the point.
It's the, the fact that I'm, uh, yeah,
(21:19):
I, I think that question helps move me
into the, what is my, my best and
highest use.
Yeah.
Um, yep.
And so that was it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And for me, it's the same thing.
It's it's the question is around what is
it that nobody else right now, at least
in my business can do, but me.
(21:42):
And eventually depending on your business, you could,
and if you want to, you definitely should
be able to get to the answer is
there's nothing that I can do that somebody
else couldn't do.
Richard Branson owns 400 some businesses.
He doesn't ask himself.
Is there something that I have to do
that nobody else can do?
But reality for us in small business, uh,
(22:05):
when there's one, two, three, five, 10, 20
of us, there's going to be things that
nobody else can do.
And then the second thing is there's, there's
other things that people could do, but they
actually have a better hire and best, uh,
calling in the business.
And so, yeah, they could do this, but,
uh, I can also do it and they're
(22:25):
better off doing the other thing.
So for me, it's a matter of capacity,
but more often it's a matter of, of,
uh, simple strengths and saying, is this really
just what it says?
The highest and best use of my time
and talents.
So some practical ways to do that would
be to look at, well, if I paid
somebody to do this, how much would it
cost?
(22:45):
So some of the things you gave to
your admin, you probably pay them less than
what you would do something for if it
was the highest and best use of your
time and talents.
That's a very practical tactical way to look
at that.
Yeah.
Uh, that, and that was, that was the
thing that things got better.
Things got faster when I, when I let
go of those things and I didn't really
(23:05):
even want to do most of them, you
know?
And I started to think like, what is
the thing that I actually can't let go
of?
What is the thing?
And, and it's the thing I enjoy the
most, honestly, you know, it's like, I can't
outsource my ideas.
I can't outsource my writing.
I can't, when I perform, like I do
it with my own personality and that's what
(23:29):
makes it valuable.
I couldn't give that to, so everything else
though, I can do it.
Yeah, for sure.
And it's a beautiful thing to get to
that place where, you know, what you're really
good at.
I think another way to, to monitor this
for ourselves, what is the highest and best
use of my time and talents is to
ask myself, what energizes me?
(23:50):
I really liked that question because when I
get done writing, I can write for two
or three hours and put two or 3000
words on a page.
And I'm physically and mentally, and maybe even
a little bit emotionally exhausted, but I am
somehow energized and I'm excited about, you know,
taking a break and coming back the next
(24:10):
morning and diving in again.
There are a lot of things that I
do the same amount of time and energy
on that if you gave me two weeks,
I'm not sure it would be enough time
to recover because it doesn't energize me.
Every minute of it just bleeds me dry
mentally, emotionally, or physically, or all three.
So that's another way to look at it.
Is this something nobody else can do?
(24:32):
And, or this is really energizing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's, I, I so agree.
And it's, and it's the, the, the thing
that I feel like I've got more energy
at the end than I did when I
started.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Somehow you have more energy than when you
started.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's your bucket.
(24:52):
Yeah.
It's fascinating.
Yeah.
And it's a weird thing.
The hardest one for me was these kinds
of things.
It energizes me and I'm really good at
it and somebody else should be doing it.
Those are the hard ones.
Yeah.
I think again, you start getting, what I
found is I got excited about something different,
(25:16):
which was developing other leaders, developing people, developing
people on my team to see them do
things.
And so I was, so then it became
a new game.
It was kind of like, do, can I
level up my leadership so that I can
really have that happen in a way that
(25:38):
the quality, the spirit of it, everything is,
is there in the same way.
And that started to become pretty exciting.
A lot with like, when I took over
the theater company was like actually here's a,
here's from a sort of a cautionary tale
was I thought that because the company was
(26:04):
in such terrible shape, I had to take
on more hats.
So I was like music directing and executive
directing the last show.
And I was like, in that process realized
I should not be doing this.
And even though it was needed, I needed
to give it to somebody and have them
kind of struggle through it and how make
(26:26):
and move forward.
Because I was wiped out, you know, I
was, I was exhausted by the end of
it.
But that's the, that was the thing was
like, I didn't see that person that I
could have developed a little bit more in
that process.
But yeah.
And that's one of the beautiful, we don't
have time for even most of the side
(26:46):
effects, but the reality of seeing other people
develop and take over things that we thought
nobody could ever do, watching them light up
and seeing how they invested in their jobs
as a result of it.
And then of course the freedom that it
gives you to move on to the things
that really are the highest and best use.
Well, we just, we touched the surface here
and we probably just annoyed some people with,
(27:09):
you know, kind of touching the surface, but
I would love to give people a chance
to get ahold of you and give you
more things to do to see, or no.
So how do people get, how do people
get ahold of Paul?
Okay.
Well, there's a couple of ways.
One, if you're interested in, and you want
to come see children's theater, youth theater, which
everybody needs more of that in their life.
(27:31):
You can find me at backstorytheater.org.
That you can Paul at backstorytheater.org.
If you need like video production, if you
need like some creative consulting or something like
that for your, for your business, you've got
an event going on.
That's RLCreative, RLCreative.
And that's just paulromaglevitt.com.
(27:54):
And then if you're in a church, if
you're in ministry and you need some, a
break for your worship leader, you can reach
out to me for greenroomleaders.com.
Beautiful.
Paul, it's been a delight.
I love to talk to another business owner
in process.
Great.
Thank you, Chuck.
It's always a pleasure.
Thank you.
That wraps up another episode of the Get
(28:15):
Off The Treadmill Podcast.
If you found this podcast helpful, please subscribe
and hit the like button to ensure you
are receiving the latest tools you need to
grow your business and to get off the
treadmill.
If you want more information on the three
to five club, the crank set group, or
to book Chuck as a business advisor, speaker,
or workshop leader, you can contact us at
(28:35):
growatcranksetgroup.com.
Until next time, have a great week.
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