December 16, 2025 • 50 mins
In episode 50 of The Adaptive Mindset, Brett Gallant interviews Alex Gorelik, an operator, educator, and entrepreneur navigating the worlds of land surveying and residential cleaning, as he shares his journey of building Squeakly, a modern cleaning company in Victoria, BC, while also advancing operations with Polaris Land Surveying.
Tune in for an engaging discussion on innovation in diverse industries and the mindset needed to thrive in today’s digital landscape.
TIMESTAMPS
[00:03:44] Mindset shifts for growth.
[00:09:59] Balancing land surveying and cleaning.
[00:14:26] The importance of me time.
[00:15:39] Importance of intentional resets.
[00:22:27] Pricing by objective in cleaning.
[00:27:37] Giving back to the community.
[00:30:01] No blueprint for business success.
[00:35:35] Mike Michalowicz's new book.
[00:43:28] Systemizing service business success.
[00:46:30] Don't stop pursuing your goals.
QUOTES
- "If you really want something, it's not just a wish. You have to have things in place to achieve that." -Alex Gorelik
- "Even if you love what you do, you will get to a point where you really need to reset." -Alex Gorelik
- "I'm not afraid to share really any of them because I think it's part of the identity. It's part of who you are." -Alex Gorelik
- "The only way to lose is to stop. As long as you keep going, you're not losing. In my opinion, you're winning." -Alex Gorelik
SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS
Brett Gallant
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brett_gallant/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brett.gallant.9
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brett-gallant-97805726/
Alex Gorelik
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alex.gorelik.now/
WEBSITE
Adaptive Office Solutions: https://www.adaptiveoffice.ca/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Welcome to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm Brett Gallant, cybersecurity thoughtleader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we
don't just talk tech, we unlock the strategies, stories, andmindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and
thrive in a digital world. Let's get started. Welcomeback to the Adaptive Mindset. Today's episode,
(00:25):
I'm very pleased to have with me Alex Gorelik. Alexis an operator, educator, and entrepreneur working across
two distinct fields, residential cleaning andland surveying. He is building Squeakly,
a modern cleaning company in Victoria, BC, whilealso advancing operations with Polaris Land Surveying and
(00:48):
helping the public better understand property boundaries andsurveying concepts. Alex focuses on
consistency, practical structure, and usingtechnology in ways that generally support day-to-day work.
He shares what he learned so others can avoid the mistakes he made alongPleasure to be here. Yes, this is great
(01:15):
to have you. WeYeah, we met in person, which is very
I know, it was exciting. We were both at aat an event in Kelowna, and it was a pretty exciting way
(01:42):
Yeah. So Alex, let'sdig in a bit. Tell people a little bit about yourself. What's
Oh, as you introducedme, thank you for this. I'm
(02:03):
building in two differentindustries, completely different, which is fascinating and
also very exciting. I'm a land surveyor by trade. Ihave a formal education in land serving. I'm
an immigrant. I came from Russia 170 yearsago, and I
(02:29):
got my education from there. But since then, Igot into land serving in Canada, and
I was commissioned in three provinces, actually, in Alberta, BritishColumbia, and Saskatchewan. Right now, I'm just Alberta and British Columbia. and
this is really my life, land serving.
(02:49):
However, I'm verymuch business oriented and I really love entrepreneurship and
building stuff. So Iam also building a residential cleaning company together with my
wife. It's our family business. And I'ma partner in land surveying firm and involved in
(03:17):
building that side of things aswell. So I'm busy with the building
Along the way, have you had pivotal moments where you had to shift yourmindset and change things that you
(03:44):
Well, daily, Brett. Yeah,yeah. It's not true for all of us. Yeah, you
don't ever Youdon't ever rest on something. You always
shift. I actually read a quote in a book today thatif it's a win or a loss, you celebrate for or
(04:10):
or cry for that matter for 24 hours andthen you forget about it and then you move forward. For
me the mindset shift is about intention andI know that for years and years
and years of my life I haven't been really intentional andright now this is all sinking in
(04:33):
and I don't like this analogy, but it'sa puzzle analogy, right? The pieces coming together in my
head and I understand whatneeds to be done in order to achieve something. So,
if you really want something, it's notjust a wish. You have to have things
(04:54):
in place to achieve that. Yeah. AndIntention is the key. Well, it's
just one bite at a time as you go through that. Whatare some obvious ways
(05:15):
that you've set yourself up for success like that every day?
Is it a daily or a weekly rhythm thatIt's both. It's daily, it's weekly, it's
monthly, it's yearly, it's annual as well. Personally,myself, I like to take short chunks. It's
(05:38):
the scheduling. It's essentially scheduling and planning for me.
I typically go one or two weeks at a time. Iplan them out and make sure my calendar is as full as
possibly can be. And if it's not full, Iblock the time for certain things that can happen on
(05:59):
those days. And every Everynight, I plan my next day. And the
trick is to do the most important thing the first thing inthe morning. You know what you need to do.
You get up, you go to your computer, and youjust do it. before. In fact,
(06:21):
my emails, I have multiple emails andI don't check them very often. I, I don't
have them delegated yet, unfortunately, but, uh,I do not check my emails until about 11 o'clock in the morning. Wow.
Was that, is that something new that you would, uh, It'sIt's fairly new. I came from, uh, Tim
(06:49):
Ferriss' book, 4-Hour Workweek, andI started implementing it. It's very hard because my
squiggly email needs to be attended sometimes alittle bit more frequently. I
know that I have tools in place. Ihave an outer response. So if it's
(07:14):
very important, people know the ways howto get hold of somebody. It's not just me, right? But
for Polaris, for my land surveying company, I'mpretty strict with when I check my emails. It's
twice a day. I do have channels forpeople that really need to get ahold of me to get ahold of me. Yeah. And,
(07:40):
and that's, and that's about it. I can't really turn itoff because I'm operating in an environment when I have field
crews in the field and then they do need support and they, Ican't respond in four hours. So, so. I
have channels for them to reach out to me. However, emails,there's no such thing as a
(08:06):
land survey and emergency. So itdoes not exist. If somebody cannot
Yeah, I know 100%. Butother other people's perceptions might in might,
(08:27):
they may seem that it's an emergency, but it's probablyThey do think it's an emergency. However, that's where my that's
why I love educating people on land surveyingmatters and I started doing it not that long ago on
Instagram and I quite enjoy it. I'm tweakingas I go and I'm trying to make it more
(08:52):
user-friendly and appealing. Ihope it's working, but I do produce land
surveying and litigation reels when I explain to public what'sgoing on in land surveying, because it's such a
(09:13):
I really do enjoy it. So for me, this is part ofeducation, Brad, when you just tell
people, listen, there's no such thing. You'renot going to fix a problem in three hours. Sometimes it's
Yeah, I think that there's probably sometruth to that in all aspects. I want to center
(09:38):
around something for a minute. Sure. You're pretty unique, dude.
You know, you operate. Thank you. No, no, it's true. Like you'reoperating in two very different worlds, land serving and
residential cleaning. OK, correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Howdid that happen? What's the story behind building in
(09:59):
Thank you. Thank you for this question. Iwould be happy to talk about this. This is something I really like talking
about. So I'm a land surveyor by trade. Ihave a formal education. I serve at For
my entire life, I got into university when I was 16, and thatwas for serving, and I'm serving since then. However,
(10:23):
we always had something going on as a family. Andback in the day, we had a couple of short-term rentals
going on. And then wetook over another short rental for our friends. So we had
three short-term rentals going on, and we werelooking for cleaners to clean those places. And
(10:44):
we had a cleaning company and then we had someother individual cleaners and it just did not
work. It was not consistent. And me being me,I was sitting down with my wife and said, you know what, let's just radically
fix that problem. Let's just start a cleaning company andjust do it. And she was not a big fan of it, and she
(11:07):
wasn't a big fan of it for the longest. Now we're onthe same page. But we started a
cleaning company, but we only cater to Airbnbs. Andwe only did, well, short-term rentals, anything. Verbose,
Airbnbs, whatever short-term, right? Andwe, I believe in niches. I believe in going
(11:30):
really narrow into things instead of just spreading yourselfwide and offering residential, commercial, everything.
No, I don't do that. So we're really focused on one thing.
And we went for it and wedid it for a little bit and we started to get really busy.
We incorporated in April and just beforesummer and it was getting really busy. And then in November,
(11:57):
news broke out that British Columbia is shutting down Airbnbsas a whole, really. And the entire
downtown of Victoria wouldn't be allowed to run Airbnbs. Wow.
Which was very interesting because it's,it's kinda, it was a big blow Brett I'll
(12:23):
No, it was November, 2023. Okay. Sorry. I missed that. Yeah. So starting, westarted in April, 2023. And, uh, And
we decided to, well, what are we going to do is either we'regoing to shut down because we're losing 80% of our clients.
Uh, really? Yeah. Because you can only operate ifit's in your house and certain areas. Uh, but if it's
(12:48):
a apartment building, you can't, so we're losing. Wewere losing 80% of our clients and we decided, okay, well,
what do we do? And we decided to pivot it into residentialcleaning. And I thought it
would be easier than that, but no, no, building businessin residential cleaning is not easy and we're fully into it
(13:11):
now. And yeah, that's what it is.
I don't do a lot of day-to-day brands and squiggly. I'mvery high level visionary,
if you will. I see things and wehave a small team of people that we work with, like
(13:31):
my wife, she's on the operations side and then we have otheremployees that basically move this
thing forward, but building systemsin the background is what I do with Squiggly. My
most time I spend in land surveying, there'sa lot to do here, but I
(14:03):
Yeah especially when you're doing that and then there'sother aspects of. Life the pop up that we
want to schedule because we have to do the biggest thing isentrepreneurs we forget to carve out that me time that time
where we can build our identity. And before wewere talking, you were talking about how you're prepping for something special.
(14:26):
So you find it funny that you said me timebecause literally this morning when I was journaling and I do
journal every morning, I did say, Ithink I'm being very efficient and it's great, but I
need to get my me time in there. And that's exactly thewording I used. So that's very funny that
(14:49):
Well, I think everybody that's listening to this episode wouldsay, I need more me time. I think it's a universal truth.
Absolutely. Yeah. Whoever's listening. Imean, being productive feels great and accomplishing things feels absolutely
But do not forget about that meantime, because whatI, what I wanted to say about this, I love what
(15:14):
I do genuinely love what I do. I, I reallyenjoy building my personal brand. I really enjoy it
talking about Lanser and I really enjoy talking about, uh, buildingsystems, cleaning business. I really enjoy
doing all that. However, your fatigueis not going anywhere. Even if you
(15:36):
love what you do, you willyou will get to a point where you really need to reset and
resets can be different. And I spoke about it not that long ago.
Reset may be very minor change. Itdoesn't have to be two weeks vacation. However, you do need
(15:58):
to, um, an hour. It canbe even change in your routine. Yeah. I
really went for a run out of the day and I, Itypically don't think about too hard, so I take the same
route every single time, just so I don't have to pre-plan,done. And I did change it the other day because
(16:21):
it was snowing here, it was slushy, running thatside of the road wasn't really great. And
I changed that and I was like, oh, youknow what? This is different. And you started thinking different. And
even that can be a reset, like even smalllittle change. But you have to be intentional
(16:46):
I'm going after once we finish recording this episode. I'mgoing for an hour hike. And I'm going to
You've been doing this. I saw you on Instagram. It'sI even went last night, headlamp, went in the middle of the woods
(17:09):
Yeah. Well, I do that too. I havea little like a harness with lights that
I run in because I like being seen andit does different. It's helpful, isn't it? Yeah. It does different
lights. So I'm in a Christmas spirit. I'm I'm red onon my chest and green on my back. So I'm running like
(17:32):
a little Christmas tree around Creston Christmascheer of having the me time. You
Yeah, I actually might want tostay tuned. So, um. How
(17:54):
did you like, how, what identity shift did you haveto make from going from employee to operator to entrepreneur?
Like, like there's, there's been a journey there. Like what, how's thatI've been employed for the majority of my life.
And, uh, I, beenemployed by different land surveying companies. And
(18:17):
my last company in Calgary, just before I got my commissionas a land surveyor in Alberta, I It
was a very small company and the owner was verybusinessman. And I taught, he taught me a
lot. I learned a lot from him. And, uh, Iactually think I would be his business partner if things
(18:41):
aligned there. Uh, but never happened. Andthat's when I started thinking about actually doing business.
And then it was a oil and gas crisis as a. typicallyhappens in Alberta once in a while and I was in an oil and
gas related field and got an offer fromVictoria and we decided to move. And it was
(19:04):
a very, very big company and I don't like very, very big companies, justnot me. I'm not a big corporate culture
guy, even though this is what, I'm not trying to build a corporateculture, but in Squiggly, I'm building culture, I'm
building a company, right? But being myself in somebody else'shuge company, and it was a multinational company, 40,000 employees,
(19:30):
this is not me. I couldn't do it, so Iwas there for about a year and a half, and
at that point, I probably worked, Iknow how serving companies operate, and I just didn't want
to be part of it. So I decided to start on my own. Istarted on my own, that was fairly briefly. And
(19:53):
then just before COVID, I merged myself with Polaris, andI became partner at a fair, it's still a small company,
Polaris is about 25, 30 employees, orcontractors, I should say, we don't employ people. But
yeah, So I becamepartner of that. And that wasn't enough
(20:16):
for me, Brett. Ithought I need something on my own. And that's how
I end up in cleaning business andI think that's such a fascinating business to be
(20:37):
I love service businesses. It'sgreat. They're grounded. They
certainly make money and it's a good businessto be in. However, it's a lot harder than it seems
from the outside. I don't like talking about competition becauseOne of my favorite books is Blue Ocean, Red
(21:04):
Ocean Strategy, where you buildsomething that separates you from the market. But
it's easier said than done. When you start, you're just alittle small fish in this ocean and you need to build
to the point where you're in the blue ocean. Youhave to swim. towards that blue ocean. And
(21:27):
that part, which I feellike we're in right now, is is
quite, quite challenging and quite interesting, forsure. It's, it's a very, my
point is, like, we don't offer cleaning services, weoffer people time, we sell time, because
(21:54):
they're too busy to do it themselves. Andyou have to package it in a way that people
buy it. And that's probably the challenging partof the business, because in this industry, it's very
common to judge andpick by price. And the very first question we typically
(22:18):
ask is, what's your hourly rate? And we don't haveone. We don't have an hourly rate because I
don't believe in hourly rates. We do flat feeand I think that's the way to go. It gives a
clear understanding to a customer how much it'sgoing to be. And you can predict your profit. And
(22:39):
I think you will deliver better service by beingtransparent and knowing, okay, I'm going to charge you X amount of
If it gets done in two hours, that's... It doesn't matter howYour house will be clean. This is our promise. We
guarantee that if you'renot happy, we have a 24-hour guarantee that we
(23:06):
come back in 24 hours and fix it. And itdoesn't matter. You can be unhappy about whatever things.
And obviously, we don't strive for unhappiness. Obviously, we knowthat we can deliver. But, you know, things
happen. And then inthat we're different. There's a lot of companies, majority
(23:28):
of companies in Victoria charge by hour. And I think this isour number one step and in
service industries in general. And if I, if I may togive an advice to whoever's listening, if you are
in service industry, the moreOh, yeah. Like you said, the niches, you know, the and
(23:54):
differentiate yourself like not. I don't think alot of people are doing that by pricing by objective in
No, not really. There's a lot of hourly charges, butit's when you price
yourself differently and when you position yourself differently andpeople inquire with you and they ask you questions right they
(24:19):
ask you well uh what's your hourly rate well we don't haveone or what do you what
do you do when you come in in teams of three ohthree wow that's crazy That's
good because in their mind, they'rethinking, aha, Squiggly, that company that does things differently.
(24:42):
Well, maybe that's not necessarily what they think, but this is whatyou strive for, right? You try not to
blend in. Your objective isto do things differently from the
crowd, and then you will stand out. And Ithink It's
(25:02):
slowly but surely working for us. Sincewe pivoted into residential cleaning, it hasn't been two
years coming up in January. It will be two years as in residentialcleaning. And because we're building something massive,
and I know that, it does take time. Itdoes take time. I
(25:28):
can see my momentum shifting now because we'restarting to be known and we
recently connected with a local charity, VancouverIsland, a child uh
child society uh helping helping kidsand we they have a several on vancouver
(25:51):
island they have two places houses where kidsstay when they get in treatment at the hospital and
we recently uh donated the clean to oneof those places uh the one in victoria that was
a that was a huge event it was entire teamAnd we cleaned that house, which been around for 15 years
(26:15):
and never been professionally cleaned. Oh, wow. Which isAnd we feel like there's a there's a long term
partnership there because, well, first colors matchwith both purple, which is, you know, I believe in
that. Believe it or not, but yeah.
(26:36):
So we're starting to get known and Isee the momentum shifting, but you want to be different. You want to do
That's for sure. I needed toYou're welcome. But you know that this is true. You're
(27:00):
No, no. And so much todaywhere people are identical, our
businesses are identical, but there's always something unique that youcan bring your own flavor and bring your own personal
touch, what you build. And like you said, you're the visionary leader. So you're settingthat and, you know, building culture, but also how
(27:21):
are we different, you know, and then doingYeah. And giving back is important and not just because, not
just because you want to gain attention. And reallyit's the last thing it's on your mind. You just want to genuinely
want to help. Yeah. Like you said, intention earlierand at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's
(27:46):
just, Goingback to differentiating yourself, there's
a great quote in a great book of JamieCurran Lima called Worthy, the book is Worthy, and
she repeatedly said throughout the book, you'renot crazy, you're just first. And
(28:10):
I like that because ifyou think about it, when people call you crazy, why
does it happen? People call you crazy because it's unfamiliar.
They just don't know what it is. It doesn't meanSo yeah, yeah, yeah. It's new.
(28:36):
Exactly. Exactly. So when when you whenyou go crazy, I'd say take it as a compliment and
take it as a clue as if you're going inI got so many questions. I'm going to ask you this one, though, because it
(29:03):
No, no, that's I love these ones. Like, I have some questions herethat I'm like, I'm coming back to. But I like. I
like going into this in the depth that we are, because there'ssome great little nuggets you've shared. But
we've dived in a bit in yourjourney in creating Squeakly. But
(29:26):
I think there's some lessons that you could share with us. AndI want to narrow it down to this. What's
This is going to be, or might be, uh, fairlydeep, but I, I gonna say that. So when you, when
(29:48):
you build in your business or your personalbrand or whatever you're building, you
don't want to blindly copythat someone else did. Yes. Uh,
and, uh, to expand on that, there's nosuch thing as a blueprint. As a
(30:11):
land surveyor, I just, I laugh at this blueprint stuff.
Blueprint is athing that is specifically completed for a project. for
a specific one project. So there'sno such thing as a blueprint for business. I
(30:31):
don't say that don't listen and don't take theknowledge and don't use the knowledge. I just say you have
to make sure that this works foryou. And I'm very easily influenced
by a lot of things. So early inthe business, what I would do is I
(30:52):
hear a system or blueprint or something else, andI would immediately insert it to my business and started doing
it exactly as it says. And then I foundanother one and I would do the same. And
it turns into a huge, huge mess.
So you are, or your businessis a project. And this project is so
(31:20):
unique that you cannot take a blueprint andput it on your project. And when
we're talking about mistakes that I made, Thisis probably a mistake I made when we
started our residential cleaning company. Wehad and we still have another residential cleaning
(31:44):
company as a mentor. Butwe we hired them, if
you will, as a business coaches and and they'rethey're very established residential company in the United States.
And we actually went through their headquarters and we saw their operations.
I was still in the group and and they did a lot ofgood things to us and we learned a lot of things. But my
(32:10):
mistake was to take it exactly.
as they do it. Yeah. But I forgot onething. They're eight years into operations, um,
seven figure second, seven figure business with70 people. And we are, you know,
(32:32):
five people business with oneyear of experience and it's
different. And you have to, you have toreally, think how you implement those
things, right? And it's any, any coaching, really anyprograms, and I'm not saying they don't work and I'm not saying they're not
(32:52):
great. No, but you have to, you really, youA hundred percent. Yeah. And that was my biggest mistake. And
I'm, I shouldn't say I still paying for this mistake,but I'm still feeling, I'm still feeling the,
exactly. I'm still feeling them. impactoff of that. Like, I probably shouldn't done
(33:21):
that because that cost us too much money, which we could have saved.
And so if you could go back right now, what would you say to thatversion of you when you were in that pivotal moment? What would you say to
(33:43):
Yeah. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't changea thing really. Like, I mean, all this lessons are valuable lessons.
Uh, they're hard lessons, but you don't learn unless youmake those mistakes. But I, I
think that like right now in our operations, we,we have to be really careful with what we invest
(34:06):
in. Uh, and, uh, back then itfelt like. We're just going to
And and I many other variables involved inYeah, correct. And I, I think I
(34:26):
think I would say, you know, I really think hard whereyou throw in your thousands of dollars, right? Like. Yeah,
really, really do. And be picky and be choosyand think about the future. That's
My bookkeeper has said to me in the past, areyou suffering from shiny object syndrome? not
(34:53):
just the tools, but the programs. And I believe investing, butsometimes you have to take the best of what, what you learn and
You know, very much suffer from shiny objects, uh,syndrome and tools. Not,
I don't care about cars or, uh,physical things like I, I, I
(35:23):
like living a simple life. I amimplementing a profit first
Yes, yes. And he's justabout to release his new book on personal finances.
(35:44):
I think it's coming out in January, which I'm really excitedabout. I'm definitely going to get my hands on that
because I really love what Mike does. He'ssuch a humble guy. He started a
new podcast under Relay brand.
(36:05):
And he interviewed Brian Scudamore atthe very first episode. And Brian Scudamore, if you don't know,
he's a founder and CEO of1-800-GUT-JUNK. Okay. and
he's also on Dragon's Den Canadian versionof Shark Tank. Love
(36:27):
Brian, incredible guy. He's buildingin the service industry. I think 1-800-GUT-JUNK. This
year is about $600 million business. Uh,And again, you look at this as like, wow, but
(36:49):
I got to tell you something, Alex. Idon't think it's appropriate to say it, but I'm going to say it anyway. Oh, you do.
You do. You got to hear this. I met, uh, soMike was at an event that I, uh, I
And as you know, I thought wasright in the journey where I started to really embrace getting to the gym at five in
(37:15):
the morning. So I was consistent even when I was away forthis conference, I was at the gym, 5am. in
there working out, there's a few others of us, and incomes in Mike Michalowicz, working out, just
plugging away, getting his gym routine in. AndI start chuckling, because I started calling the people
(37:39):
that were there, I said, we're a member of the 5 a.m. club. Andhe had his headphones on, so I respected him, I didn't talk to him, I
just nodded and said, hello, give theman his piece, let him have his hour. I
can't believe I'm telling this. WhenI got to meet him and I spoke to him, I said, Mike, I got a question for
(38:01):
you. And I asked this in front of the audience. When I saw you atthe gym, it was great to see you. It was great working out with you. But
I know I listen to thought leaders while I'm working out. Questionfor you, Mike. Do you, I want
to know this. Do you actually listen to your, your own audible booksand podcasts while you're working out? And
(38:24):
if you don't, Mike, he said such a Mike thing. No,if I did that, I'd be a douche bag. I'm
This is true. It's no, it's.
Sorry, I just thought I'd tell you. Oh, that's OK.
(38:44):
You know what? Inthe same in the same kind of realm of a story, I am. I
ran into Gary Vaynerchuk atthe Chicago card show. I don't
(39:04):
do cards. Don't judge me on that. It's just I was driving myson to university across North
America, pretty much, from Victoria to Moncton, Sackville,as you know. Not everybody knows where Sackville is, but
you do. I do. But Friday.
(39:26):
Yes. So so we drovethrough states in
this summer, this past summer. And Chicago had anational card show, which we stopped by. And of course, Gary
Vee, he's doing his Vee Friends. Andwe stopped by his booth. And I had a
(39:46):
chance to talk to him for probably five minutes.
Maybe three. But in any case, I was shocked howhumble the guy is.
And we talked about it. And asyou may know, Gary Vee has Soviet heritage.
(40:08):
He was born in Belarus. AndI asked him if he still speaks Russian. And
he actually did speak Russian with me, whichwas fascinating. He had quite a bit
of accent, but I was shocked.
(40:32):
And to see Gary Vee in this environment andhow he talks to people, how grounded the guy is and how humble
the guy is. He's just a real dude. Youwould never say that the guy is worth millions and millions
of dollars. He would never showit to you. He talks to you, he wants to help you immediately.
(40:56):
The first phrase out of his mouth is to help you. It'sincredible. Speaking of meeting these
Yeah, no, it's just sometimes these little parts inthe journey just impact us. I'll always remember that.
(41:17):
Hey, a question for you, because we're getting close tothe time, but there's some questions. I'm having such a
great time. Let's do that. Great. fewtimes along the way, we've talked, you've shared pretty openly about some
of your mistakes. Okay. Why, why,for you, why is that important to share that? And like,
(41:43):
I just want to make sure that it'salways better to learn from somebody else's
mistakes than from your own. Although thelessons from your own mistakes typically sink
(42:05):
Yes. But you have to but you have toconcentrate and teach yourself to actually learn
from other people mistakes. Hear what people say. Listenand hear. And and I really
hope that if I'm sharing something like that, especiallyI think about blindly copying
(42:29):
blueprints or somebody else's ideas. Whatever,it might be too vague, but I really
hope that people will find value in this and listenand actually will save them from costly mistakes. And
I made very manymistakes in my life and I'm not afraid to
(42:54):
share really any of them because Ithink it's part of the identity. It's part of
Other people are doing that for us. So why would we not give back?
Hey, what advice would you give someone rightnow who's trying to build a service business while juggling
(43:18):
so many hats that you do? We touched on it a bit, butsystemizing everything. You have to
have a system for everything. And I actually,I have my kind
(43:39):
of personal things that are like apersonal systems or frameworks, if
you will, that I use and keep. And I have one calledOnePainOneSystem. It's basically, it's
a very simple method that helps me to analyzehow things work and what needs to be fixed. It's
(44:05):
basically identifying the pain, defining the smallestpossible solution, choosing the system type,
documenting, implementing, and reviewing. I have alittle PDF there and I'd be happy to share
that with your listeners. Perfect,yeah. Connect with me on Instagram. I'm sure you'll have
(44:27):
it. in your show notes. It'sat alex.gorelick.now and
DM me system and I'll be happy to send you that littlePDF. It's a very, very simple thing.
(44:47):
Just itis really good to use it as, as a reminder, you
look at it. Okay. And you go through the steps andsystems. When people hear the word systems, they,
It doesn't have to be. It really doesn't have to be massive. Itjust has to be written. That's all. That's all it
(45:14):
is. And, uh, when you build, when, when you build in serviceand I, I, I'll never say that we're perfect. We're
far from perfect, but you, you haveto, you have to keep building. You can't
just stop at something. Right. So, uh,systemizing everything to me is a key. You have to
(45:36):
have a. written system for pretty much everything youdo. It doesn't have to be a
playbook. It doesn't have to be full SOP becausethere are tasks in
our business that are really tiny. Andmaybe not even tasks, maybe habits, like how you answer
(45:58):
to that, how you respond to this. Soall that needs to be systemized and don't ever
I love this, man. It'sI appreciate it. Okay, last
(46:22):
question for you. What's the onemessage you want our audience to walk away from today after
listening to what we're sharing? Uh, down to one thing, Alex,one thing, um, Don't,
(46:43):
If you build in something, don't stop. Uh, it's the,the only way to lose is to stop. As
long as you keep going, you're not losing. In my opinion, you're winning.
It's that momentum, yeah. Itcan feel hard and
(47:07):
you can feel down, but if youare actually going and waking up every morning and
working on your thing, youare winning. So don't stop. Fully believe
in it and go all in. Um,and, uh, if you can avoid it, uh,
(47:29):
don't do two businesses at once. Yeah.
Yeah. Speakingfrom a man who has experience, it's,
uh, it's sometimes you think, you know, what? Itis what it is, but if you have one thing, it's a
(47:50):
lot easier to focus and concentrate on it.
Especially young people nowadays, they tend tojump around and start this and then start that. Don't
do it. start something you believe inAnd then and then build it to a point where you can leave it
(48:16):
or, you know, have somebody else running for yourwhatever the case is or sell it or whatever, and
then start something else. Don't do two things at once. That's. It'snot easy. It might sound easy. I mean,
I understand the concept of side hustles, totally fine.
If you work in nine to five and you starting to build in somethingon the side and you invest in your time a little bit, a little bit, a
(48:42):
little bit, there's nothing wrong with that. But havingtwo businesses is, is
Yeah, no, truer words have never been said. Youknow, from a man who's been there. So
(49:04):
everyone, please share this episode withsomeone that you know will benefit from it. Reach out
to Alex, DM him, start a conversation. Alex,it's been such a pleasure to have you today. And I
enjoy our conversations we have when we do checkin. when we message each
(49:27):
other and having the privilege to metyou and I know we'll meet each other again. Absolutely will. I
know that. So with that, thankIncredible. Thanks for tuning into the
(49:49):
Adaptive Mindset. If you found value in today's episode, don'tforget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone
who's ready to thrive in the digital age. Stay secure, stay
Welcome to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm Brett Gallant, cybersecurity thoughtleader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we
don't just talk tech, we unlock the strategies, stories, andmindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and
thrive in a digital world. Let's get started. Welcomeback to the Adaptive Mindset. Today's episode,
(00:25):
I'm very pleased to have with me Alex Gorelik. Alexis an operator, educator, and entrepreneur working across
two distinct fields, residential cleaning andland surveying. He is building Squeakly,
a modern cleaning company in Victoria, BC, whilealso advancing operations with Polaris Land Surveying and
(00:48):
helping the public better understand property boundaries andsurveying concepts. Alex focuses on
consistency, practical structure, and usingtechnology in ways that generally support day-to-day work.
He shares what he learned so others can avoid the mistakes he made alongPleasure to be here. Yes, this is great
(01:15):
to have you. WeYeah, we met in person, which is very
I know, it was exciting. We were both at aat an event in Kelowna, and it was a pretty exciting way
(01:42):
Yeah. So Alex, let'sdig in a bit. Tell people a little bit about yourself. What's
Oh, as you introducedme, thank you for this. I'm
(02:03):
building in two differentindustries, completely different, which is fascinating and
also very exciting. I'm a land surveyor by trade. Ihave a formal education in land serving. I'm
an immigrant. I came from Russia 170 yearsago, and I
(02:29):
got my education from there. But since then, Igot into land serving in Canada, and
I was commissioned in three provinces, actually, in Alberta, BritishColumbia, and Saskatchewan. Right now, I'm just Alberta and British Columbia. and
this is really my life, land serving.
(02:49):
However, I'm verymuch business oriented and I really love entrepreneurship and
building stuff. So Iam also building a residential cleaning company together with my
wife. It's our family business. And I'ma partner in land surveying firm and involved in
(03:17):
building that side of things aswell. So I'm busy with the building
Along the way, have you had pivotal moments where you had to shift yourmindset and change things that you
(03:44):
Well, daily, Brett. Yeah,yeah. It's not true for all of us. Yeah, you
don't ever Youdon't ever rest on something. You always
shift. I actually read a quote in a book today thatif it's a win or a loss, you celebrate for or
(04:10):
or cry for that matter for 24 hours andthen you forget about it and then you move forward. For
me the mindset shift is about intention andI know that for years and years
and years of my life I haven't been really intentional andright now this is all sinking in
(04:33):
and I don't like this analogy, but it'sa puzzle analogy, right? The pieces coming together in my
head and I understand whatneeds to be done in order to achieve something. So,
if you really want something, it's notjust a wish. You have to have things
(04:54):
in place to achieve that. Yeah. AndIntention is the key. Well, it's
just one bite at a time as you go through that. Whatare some obvious ways
(05:15):
that you've set yourself up for success like that every day?
Is it a daily or a weekly rhythm thatIt's both. It's daily, it's weekly, it's
monthly, it's yearly, it's annual as well. Personally,myself, I like to take short chunks. It's
(05:38):
the scheduling. It's essentially scheduling and planning for me.
I typically go one or two weeks at a time. Iplan them out and make sure my calendar is as full as
possibly can be. And if it's not full, Iblock the time for certain things that can happen on
(05:59):
those days. And every Everynight, I plan my next day. And the
trick is to do the most important thing the first thing inthe morning. You know what you need to do.
You get up, you go to your computer, and youjust do it. before. In fact,
(06:21):
my emails, I have multiple emails andI don't check them very often. I, I don't
have them delegated yet, unfortunately, but, uh,I do not check my emails until about 11 o'clock in the morning. Wow.
Was that, is that something new that you would, uh, It'sIt's fairly new. I came from, uh, Tim
(06:49):
Ferriss' book, 4-Hour Workweek, andI started implementing it. It's very hard because my
squiggly email needs to be attended sometimes alittle bit more frequently. I
know that I have tools in place. Ihave an outer response. So if it's
(07:14):
very important, people know the ways howto get hold of somebody. It's not just me, right? But
for Polaris, for my land surveying company, I'mpretty strict with when I check my emails. It's
twice a day. I do have channels forpeople that really need to get ahold of me to get ahold of me. Yeah. And,
(07:40):
and that's, and that's about it. I can't really turn itoff because I'm operating in an environment when I have field
crews in the field and then they do need support and they, Ican't respond in four hours. So, so. I
have channels for them to reach out to me. However, emails,there's no such thing as a
(08:06):
land survey and emergency. So itdoes not exist. If somebody cannot
Yeah, I know 100%. Butother other people's perceptions might in might,
(08:27):
they may seem that it's an emergency, but it's probablyThey do think it's an emergency. However, that's where my that's
why I love educating people on land surveyingmatters and I started doing it not that long ago on
Instagram and I quite enjoy it. I'm tweakingas I go and I'm trying to make it more
(08:52):
user-friendly and appealing. Ihope it's working, but I do produce land
surveying and litigation reels when I explain to public what'sgoing on in land surveying, because it's such a
(09:13):
I really do enjoy it. So for me, this is part ofeducation, Brad, when you just tell
people, listen, there's no such thing. You'renot going to fix a problem in three hours. Sometimes it's
Yeah, I think that there's probably sometruth to that in all aspects. I want to center
(09:38):
around something for a minute. Sure. You're pretty unique, dude.
You know, you operate. Thank you. No, no, it's true. Like you'reoperating in two very different worlds, land serving and
residential cleaning. OK, correct. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Howdid that happen? What's the story behind building in
(09:59):
Thank you. Thank you for this question. Iwould be happy to talk about this. This is something I really like talking
about. So I'm a land surveyor by trade. Ihave a formal education. I serve at For
my entire life, I got into university when I was 16, and thatwas for serving, and I'm serving since then. However,
(10:23):
we always had something going on as a family. Andback in the day, we had a couple of short-term rentals
going on. And then wetook over another short rental for our friends. So we had
three short-term rentals going on, and we werelooking for cleaners to clean those places. And
(10:44):
we had a cleaning company and then we had someother individual cleaners and it just did not
work. It was not consistent. And me being me,I was sitting down with my wife and said, you know what, let's just radically
fix that problem. Let's just start a cleaning company andjust do it. And she was not a big fan of it, and she
(11:07):
wasn't a big fan of it for the longest. Now we're onthe same page. But we started a
cleaning company, but we only cater to Airbnbs. Andwe only did, well, short-term rentals, anything. Verbose,
Airbnbs, whatever short-term, right? Andwe, I believe in niches. I believe in going
(11:30):
really narrow into things instead of just spreading yourselfwide and offering residential, commercial, everything.
No, I don't do that. So we're really focused on one thing.
And we went for it and wedid it for a little bit and we started to get really busy.
We incorporated in April and just beforesummer and it was getting really busy. And then in November,
(11:57):
news broke out that British Columbia is shutting down Airbnbsas a whole, really. And the entire
downtown of Victoria wouldn't be allowed to run Airbnbs. Wow.
Which was very interesting because it's,it's kinda, it was a big blow Brett I'll
(12:23):
No, it was November, 2023. Okay. Sorry. I missed that. Yeah. So starting, westarted in April, 2023. And, uh, And
we decided to, well, what are we going to do is either we'regoing to shut down because we're losing 80% of our clients.
Uh, really? Yeah. Because you can only operate ifit's in your house and certain areas. Uh, but if it's
(12:48):
a apartment building, you can't, so we're losing. Wewere losing 80% of our clients and we decided, okay, well,
what do we do? And we decided to pivot it into residentialcleaning. And I thought it
would be easier than that, but no, no, building businessin residential cleaning is not easy and we're fully into it
(13:11):
now. And yeah, that's what it is.
I don't do a lot of day-to-day brands and squiggly. I'mvery high level visionary,
if you will. I see things and wehave a small team of people that we work with, like
(13:31):
my wife, she's on the operations side and then we have otheremployees that basically move this
thing forward, but building systemsin the background is what I do with Squiggly. My
most time I spend in land surveying, there'sa lot to do here, but I
(14:03):
Yeah especially when you're doing that and then there'sother aspects of. Life the pop up that we
want to schedule because we have to do the biggest thing isentrepreneurs we forget to carve out that me time that time
where we can build our identity. And before wewere talking, you were talking about how you're prepping for something special.
(14:26):
So you find it funny that you said me timebecause literally this morning when I was journaling and I do
journal every morning, I did say, Ithink I'm being very efficient and it's great, but I
need to get my me time in there. And that's exactly thewording I used. So that's very funny that
(14:49):
Well, I think everybody that's listening to this episode wouldsay, I need more me time. I think it's a universal truth.
Absolutely. Yeah. Whoever's listening. Imean, being productive feels great and accomplishing things feels absolutely
But do not forget about that meantime, because whatI, what I wanted to say about this, I love what
(15:14):
I do genuinely love what I do. I, I reallyenjoy building my personal brand. I really enjoy it
talking about Lanser and I really enjoy talking about, uh, buildingsystems, cleaning business. I really enjoy
doing all that. However, your fatigueis not going anywhere. Even if you
(15:36):
love what you do, you willyou will get to a point where you really need to reset and
resets can be different. And I spoke about it not that long ago.
Reset may be very minor change. Itdoesn't have to be two weeks vacation. However, you do need
(15:58):
to, um, an hour. It canbe even change in your routine. Yeah. I
really went for a run out of the day and I, Itypically don't think about too hard, so I take the same
route every single time, just so I don't have to pre-plan,done. And I did change it the other day because
(16:21):
it was snowing here, it was slushy, running thatside of the road wasn't really great. And
I changed that and I was like, oh, youknow what? This is different. And you started thinking different. And
even that can be a reset, like even smalllittle change. But you have to be intentional
(16:46):
I'm going after once we finish recording this episode. I'mgoing for an hour hike. And I'm going to
You've been doing this. I saw you on Instagram. It'sI even went last night, headlamp, went in the middle of the woods
(17:09):
Yeah. Well, I do that too. I havea little like a harness with lights that
I run in because I like being seen andit does different. It's helpful, isn't it? Yeah. It does different
lights. So I'm in a Christmas spirit. I'm I'm red onon my chest and green on my back. So I'm running like
(17:32):
a little Christmas tree around Creston Christmascheer of having the me time. You
Yeah, I actually might want tostay tuned. So, um. How
(17:54):
did you like, how, what identity shift did you haveto make from going from employee to operator to entrepreneur?
Like, like there's, there's been a journey there. Like what, how's thatI've been employed for the majority of my life.
And, uh, I, beenemployed by different land surveying companies. And
(18:17):
my last company in Calgary, just before I got my commissionas a land surveyor in Alberta, I It
was a very small company and the owner was verybusinessman. And I taught, he taught me a
lot. I learned a lot from him. And, uh, Iactually think I would be his business partner if things
(18:41):
aligned there. Uh, but never happened. Andthat's when I started thinking about actually doing business.
And then it was a oil and gas crisis as a. typicallyhappens in Alberta once in a while and I was in an oil and
gas related field and got an offer fromVictoria and we decided to move. And it was
(19:04):
a very, very big company and I don't like very, very big companies, justnot me. I'm not a big corporate culture
guy, even though this is what, I'm not trying to build a corporateculture, but in Squiggly, I'm building culture, I'm
building a company, right? But being myself in somebody else'shuge company, and it was a multinational company, 40,000 employees,
(19:30):
this is not me. I couldn't do it, so Iwas there for about a year and a half, and
at that point, I probably worked, Iknow how serving companies operate, and I just didn't want
to be part of it. So I decided to start on my own. Istarted on my own, that was fairly briefly. And
(19:53):
then just before COVID, I merged myself with Polaris, andI became partner at a fair, it's still a small company,
Polaris is about 25, 30 employees, orcontractors, I should say, we don't employ people. But
yeah, So I becamepartner of that. And that wasn't enough
(20:16):
for me, Brett. Ithought I need something on my own. And that's how
I end up in cleaning business andI think that's such a fascinating business to be
(20:37):
I love service businesses. It'sgreat. They're grounded. They
certainly make money and it's a good businessto be in. However, it's a lot harder than it seems
from the outside. I don't like talking about competition becauseOne of my favorite books is Blue Ocean, Red
(21:04):
Ocean Strategy, where you buildsomething that separates you from the market. But
it's easier said than done. When you start, you're just alittle small fish in this ocean and you need to build
to the point where you're in the blue ocean. Youhave to swim. towards that blue ocean. And
(21:27):
that part, which I feellike we're in right now, is is
quite, quite challenging and quite interesting, forsure. It's, it's a very, my
point is, like, we don't offer cleaning services, weoffer people time, we sell time, because
(21:54):
they're too busy to do it themselves. Andyou have to package it in a way that people
buy it. And that's probably the challenging partof the business, because in this industry, it's very
common to judge andpick by price. And the very first question we typically
(22:18):
ask is, what's your hourly rate? And we don't haveone. We don't have an hourly rate because I
don't believe in hourly rates. We do flat feeand I think that's the way to go. It gives a
clear understanding to a customer how much it'sgoing to be. And you can predict your profit. And
(22:39):
I think you will deliver better service by beingtransparent and knowing, okay, I'm going to charge you X amount of
If it gets done in two hours, that's... It doesn't matter howYour house will be clean. This is our promise. We
guarantee that if you'renot happy, we have a 24-hour guarantee that we
(23:06):
come back in 24 hours and fix it. And itdoesn't matter. You can be unhappy about whatever things.
And obviously, we don't strive for unhappiness. Obviously, we knowthat we can deliver. But, you know, things
happen. And then inthat we're different. There's a lot of companies, majority
(23:28):
of companies in Victoria charge by hour. And I think this isour number one step and in
service industries in general. And if I, if I may togive an advice to whoever's listening, if you are
in service industry, the moreOh, yeah. Like you said, the niches, you know, the and
(23:54):
differentiate yourself like not. I don't think alot of people are doing that by pricing by objective in
No, not really. There's a lot of hourly charges, butit's when you price
yourself differently and when you position yourself differently andpeople inquire with you and they ask you questions right they
(24:19):
ask you well uh what's your hourly rate well we don't haveone or what do you what
do you do when you come in in teams of three ohthree wow that's crazy That's
good because in their mind, they'rethinking, aha, Squiggly, that company that does things differently.
(24:42):
Well, maybe that's not necessarily what they think, but this is whatyou strive for, right? You try not to
blend in. Your objective isto do things differently from the
crowd, and then you will stand out. And Ithink It's
(25:02):
slowly but surely working for us. Sincewe pivoted into residential cleaning, it hasn't been two
years coming up in January. It will be two years as in residentialcleaning. And because we're building something massive,
and I know that, it does take time. Itdoes take time. I
(25:28):
can see my momentum shifting now because we'restarting to be known and we
recently connected with a local charity, VancouverIsland, a child uh
child society uh helping helping kidsand we they have a several on vancouver
(25:51):
island they have two places houses where kidsstay when they get in treatment at the hospital and
we recently uh donated the clean to oneof those places uh the one in victoria that was
a that was a huge event it was entire teamAnd we cleaned that house, which been around for 15 years
(26:15):
and never been professionally cleaned. Oh, wow. Which isAnd we feel like there's a there's a long term
partnership there because, well, first colors matchwith both purple, which is, you know, I believe in
that. Believe it or not, but yeah.
(26:36):
So we're starting to get known and Isee the momentum shifting, but you want to be different. You want to do
That's for sure. I needed toYou're welcome. But you know that this is true. You're
(27:00):
No, no. And so much todaywhere people are identical, our
businesses are identical, but there's always something unique that youcan bring your own flavor and bring your own personal
touch, what you build. And like you said, you're the visionary leader. So you're settingthat and, you know, building culture, but also how
(27:21):
are we different, you know, and then doingYeah. And giving back is important and not just because, not
just because you want to gain attention. And reallyit's the last thing it's on your mind. You just want to genuinely
want to help. Yeah. Like you said, intention earlierand at the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's
(27:46):
just, Goingback to differentiating yourself, there's
a great quote in a great book of JamieCurran Lima called Worthy, the book is Worthy, and
she repeatedly said throughout the book, you'renot crazy, you're just first. And
(28:10):
I like that because ifyou think about it, when people call you crazy, why
does it happen? People call you crazy because it's unfamiliar.
They just don't know what it is. It doesn't meanSo yeah, yeah, yeah. It's new.
(28:36):
Exactly. Exactly. So when when you whenyou go crazy, I'd say take it as a compliment and
take it as a clue as if you're going inI got so many questions. I'm going to ask you this one, though, because it
(29:03):
No, no, that's I love these ones. Like, I have some questions herethat I'm like, I'm coming back to. But I like. I
like going into this in the depth that we are, because there'ssome great little nuggets you've shared. But
we've dived in a bit in yourjourney in creating Squeakly. But
(29:26):
I think there's some lessons that you could share with us. AndI want to narrow it down to this. What's
This is going to be, or might be, uh, fairlydeep, but I, I gonna say that. So when you, when
(29:48):
you build in your business or your personalbrand or whatever you're building, you
don't want to blindly copythat someone else did. Yes. Uh,
and, uh, to expand on that, there's nosuch thing as a blueprint. As a
(30:11):
land surveyor, I just, I laugh at this blueprint stuff.
Blueprint is athing that is specifically completed for a project. for
a specific one project. So there'sno such thing as a blueprint for business. I
(30:31):
don't say that don't listen and don't take theknowledge and don't use the knowledge. I just say you have
to make sure that this works foryou. And I'm very easily influenced
by a lot of things. So early inthe business, what I would do is I
(30:52):
hear a system or blueprint or something else, andI would immediately insert it to my business and started doing
it exactly as it says. And then I foundanother one and I would do the same. And
it turns into a huge, huge mess.
So you are, or your businessis a project. And this project is so
(31:20):
unique that you cannot take a blueprint andput it on your project. And when
we're talking about mistakes that I made, Thisis probably a mistake I made when we
started our residential cleaning company. Wehad and we still have another residential cleaning
(31:44):
company as a mentor. Butwe we hired them, if
you will, as a business coaches and and they'rethey're very established residential company in the United States.
And we actually went through their headquarters and we saw their operations.
I was still in the group and and they did a lot ofgood things to us and we learned a lot of things. But my
(32:10):
mistake was to take it exactly.
as they do it. Yeah. But I forgot onething. They're eight years into operations, um,
seven figure second, seven figure business with70 people. And we are, you know,
(32:32):
five people business with oneyear of experience and it's
different. And you have to, you have toreally, think how you implement those
things, right? And it's any, any coaching, really anyprograms, and I'm not saying they don't work and I'm not saying they're not
(32:52):
great. No, but you have to, you really, youA hundred percent. Yeah. And that was my biggest mistake. And
I'm, I shouldn't say I still paying for this mistake,but I'm still feeling, I'm still feeling the,
exactly. I'm still feeling them. impactoff of that. Like, I probably shouldn't done
(33:21):
that because that cost us too much money, which we could have saved.
And so if you could go back right now, what would you say to thatversion of you when you were in that pivotal moment? What would you say to
(33:43):
Yeah. I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't changea thing really. Like, I mean, all this lessons are valuable lessons.
Uh, they're hard lessons, but you don't learn unless youmake those mistakes. But I, I
think that like right now in our operations, we,we have to be really careful with what we invest
(34:06):
in. Uh, and, uh, back then itfelt like. We're just going to
And and I many other variables involved inYeah, correct. And I, I think I
(34:26):
think I would say, you know, I really think hard whereyou throw in your thousands of dollars, right? Like. Yeah,
really, really do. And be picky and be choosyand think about the future. That's
My bookkeeper has said to me in the past, areyou suffering from shiny object syndrome? not
(34:53):
just the tools, but the programs. And I believe investing, butsometimes you have to take the best of what, what you learn and
You know, very much suffer from shiny objects, uh,syndrome and tools. Not,
I don't care about cars or, uh,physical things like I, I, I
(35:23):
like living a simple life. I amimplementing a profit first
Yes, yes. And he's justabout to release his new book on personal finances.
(35:44):
I think it's coming out in January, which I'm really excitedabout. I'm definitely going to get my hands on that
because I really love what Mike does. He'ssuch a humble guy. He started a
new podcast under Relay brand.
(36:05):
And he interviewed Brian Scudamore atthe very first episode. And Brian Scudamore, if you don't know,
he's a founder and CEO of1-800-GUT-JUNK. Okay. and
he's also on Dragon's Den Canadian versionof Shark Tank. Love
(36:27):
Brian, incredible guy. He's buildingin the service industry. I think 1-800-GUT-JUNK. This
year is about $600 million business. Uh,And again, you look at this as like, wow, but
(36:49):
I got to tell you something, Alex. Idon't think it's appropriate to say it, but I'm going to say it anyway. Oh, you do.
You do. You got to hear this. I met, uh, soMike was at an event that I, uh, I
And as you know, I thought wasright in the journey where I started to really embrace getting to the gym at five in
(37:15):
the morning. So I was consistent even when I was away forthis conference, I was at the gym, 5am. in
there working out, there's a few others of us, and incomes in Mike Michalowicz, working out, just
plugging away, getting his gym routine in. AndI start chuckling, because I started calling the people
(37:39):
that were there, I said, we're a member of the 5 a.m. club. Andhe had his headphones on, so I respected him, I didn't talk to him, I
just nodded and said, hello, give theman his piece, let him have his hour. I
can't believe I'm telling this. WhenI got to meet him and I spoke to him, I said, Mike, I got a question for
(38:01):
you. And I asked this in front of the audience. When I saw you atthe gym, it was great to see you. It was great working out with you. But
I know I listen to thought leaders while I'm working out. Questionfor you, Mike. Do you, I want
to know this. Do you actually listen to your, your own audible booksand podcasts while you're working out? And
(38:24):
if you don't, Mike, he said such a Mike thing. No,if I did that, I'd be a douche bag. I'm
This is true. It's no, it's.
Sorry, I just thought I'd tell you. Oh, that's OK.
(38:44):
You know what? Inthe same in the same kind of realm of a story, I am. I
ran into Gary Vaynerchuk atthe Chicago card show. I don't
(39:04):
do cards. Don't judge me on that. It's just I was driving myson to university across North
America, pretty much, from Victoria to Moncton, Sackville,as you know. Not everybody knows where Sackville is, but
you do. I do. But Friday.
(39:26):
Yes. So so we drovethrough states in
this summer, this past summer. And Chicago had anational card show, which we stopped by. And of course, Gary
Vee, he's doing his Vee Friends. Andwe stopped by his booth. And I had a
(39:46):
chance to talk to him for probably five minutes.
Maybe three. But in any case, I was shocked howhumble the guy is.
And we talked about it. And asyou may know, Gary Vee has Soviet heritage.
(40:08):
He was born in Belarus. AndI asked him if he still speaks Russian. And
he actually did speak Russian with me, whichwas fascinating. He had quite a bit
of accent, but I was shocked.
(40:32):
And to see Gary Vee in this environment andhow he talks to people, how grounded the guy is and how humble
the guy is. He's just a real dude. Youwould never say that the guy is worth millions and millions
of dollars. He would never showit to you. He talks to you, he wants to help you immediately.
(40:56):
The first phrase out of his mouth is to help you. It'sincredible. Speaking of meeting these
Yeah, no, it's just sometimes these little parts inthe journey just impact us. I'll always remember that.
(41:17):
Hey, a question for you, because we're getting close tothe time, but there's some questions. I'm having such a
great time. Let's do that. Great. fewtimes along the way, we've talked, you've shared pretty openly about some
of your mistakes. Okay. Why, why,for you, why is that important to share that? And like,
(41:43):
I just want to make sure that it'salways better to learn from somebody else's
mistakes than from your own. Although thelessons from your own mistakes typically sink
(42:05):
Yes. But you have to but you have toconcentrate and teach yourself to actually learn
from other people mistakes. Hear what people say. Listenand hear. And and I really
hope that if I'm sharing something like that, especiallyI think about blindly copying
(42:29):
blueprints or somebody else's ideas. Whatever,it might be too vague, but I really
hope that people will find value in this and listenand actually will save them from costly mistakes. And
I made very manymistakes in my life and I'm not afraid to
(42:54):
share really any of them because Ithink it's part of the identity. It's part of
Other people are doing that for us. So why would we not give back?
Hey, what advice would you give someone rightnow who's trying to build a service business while juggling
(43:18):
so many hats that you do? We touched on it a bit, butsystemizing everything. You have to
have a system for everything. And I actually,I have my kind
(43:39):
of personal things that are like apersonal systems or frameworks, if
you will, that I use and keep. And I have one calledOnePainOneSystem. It's basically, it's
a very simple method that helps me to analyzehow things work and what needs to be fixed. It's
(44:05):
basically identifying the pain, defining the smallestpossible solution, choosing the system type,
documenting, implementing, and reviewing. I have alittle PDF there and I'd be happy to share
that with your listeners. Perfect,yeah. Connect with me on Instagram. I'm sure you'll have
(44:27):
it. in your show notes. It'sat alex.gorelick.now and
DM me system and I'll be happy to send you that littlePDF. It's a very, very simple thing.
(44:47):
Just itis really good to use it as, as a reminder, you
look at it. Okay. And you go through the steps andsystems. When people hear the word systems, they,
It doesn't have to be. It really doesn't have to be massive. Itjust has to be written. That's all. That's all it
(45:14):
is. And, uh, when you build, when, when you build in serviceand I, I, I'll never say that we're perfect. We're
far from perfect, but you, you haveto, you have to keep building. You can't
just stop at something. Right. So, uh,systemizing everything to me is a key. You have to
(45:36):
have a. written system for pretty much everything youdo. It doesn't have to be a
playbook. It doesn't have to be full SOP becausethere are tasks in
our business that are really tiny. Andmaybe not even tasks, maybe habits, like how you answer
(45:58):
to that, how you respond to this. Soall that needs to be systemized and don't ever
I love this, man. It'sI appreciate it. Okay, last
(46:22):
question for you. What's the onemessage you want our audience to walk away from today after
listening to what we're sharing? Uh, down to one thing, Alex,one thing, um, Don't,
(46:43):
If you build in something, don't stop. Uh, it's the,the only way to lose is to stop. As
long as you keep going, you're not losing. In my opinion, you're winning.
It's that momentum, yeah. Itcan feel hard and
(47:07):
you can feel down, but if youare actually going and waking up every morning and
working on your thing, youare winning. So don't stop. Fully believe
in it and go all in. Um,and, uh, if you can avoid it, uh,
(47:29):
don't do two businesses at once. Yeah.
Yeah. Speakingfrom a man who has experience, it's,
uh, it's sometimes you think, you know, what? Itis what it is, but if you have one thing, it's a
(47:50):
lot easier to focus and concentrate on it.
Especially young people nowadays, they tend tojump around and start this and then start that. Don't
do it. start something you believe inAnd then and then build it to a point where you can leave it
(48:16):
or, you know, have somebody else running for yourwhatever the case is or sell it or whatever, and
then start something else. Don't do two things at once. That's. It'snot easy. It might sound easy. I mean,
I understand the concept of side hustles, totally fine.
If you work in nine to five and you starting to build in somethingon the side and you invest in your time a little bit, a little bit, a
(48:42):
little bit, there's nothing wrong with that. But havingtwo businesses is, is
Yeah, no, truer words have never been said. Youknow, from a man who's been there. So
(49:04):
everyone, please share this episode withsomeone that you know will benefit from it. Reach out
to Alex, DM him, start a conversation. Alex,it's been such a pleasure to have you today. And I
enjoy our conversations we have when we do checkin. when we message each
(49:27):
other and having the privilege to metyou and I know we'll meet each other again. Absolutely will. I
know that. So with that, thankIncredible. Thanks for tuning into the
(49:49):
Adaptive Mindset. If you found value in today's episode, don'tforget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone
who's ready to thrive in the digital age. Stay secure, stay
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