At Affiliate World Europe, Philipp Schoeffmann sat down with Ezra Firestone for a different kind of interview. The two discussed some “unpopular” topics within the industry that nobody ever seems to really talk about. Watch Ezra’s full AWE19 presentation here.

This post “Ezra Firestone Shares His Insights About Some Unpopular Topics” was first seen on the AWC Facebook page.

AWeurope Interview with Ezra Firestone, Co-founder & CEO, Smart Marketer Inc.

Ezra Firestone’s Permaculture Model

Phil:
🎙️ Ezra, man. It’s such a great pleasure chilling with you here.
Ezra Firestone:
Thanks for having me. Really happy to be here.
Phil:
🎙️ So this guy, in case you don’t know, is a genius. You’re not only one of the best-known figures in online marketing, for good reason because you’ve created massive companies with online marketing but also you’re one of the best-known teachers and you’re very, very generous in how you teach and how you inspire millions of people around the globe. Thank you for that.
Ezra Firestone:
Thank you. You know I believe in this model that I’ve sort of labelled the “Permaculture Model”. Permaculture is a farming term and what it means is to like reuse your assets to their greatest benefit. Take the rain water, water the garden. Take the chicken shit, use it for the compost.

So my business is very much like a permaculture model. I run ecommerce businesses and then everything that works, I share with business owners. I turn into courses I put out for free blogs, any money that that makes, I put back into the ecommerce business. Any development that I do in my ecommerce business I turn into software. So I think like a lot of people are looking outside rather than what do they have at their disposal that they could use more.

Phil:
🎙️ Fantastic, that’s fantastic. And it’s a very, very different attitude. If you compare that to many other people. In the online marketing industry and beyond, right. A lot of people are very focused on just doing their business right.

They do network. They do speak to other people, but only if they feel it benefits them directly.

Importance Of The Mindset In Business

Ezra Firestone:
Yeah, and one of the things that I see is that everyone is asking the question, “What can I get out of my business?”
Phil:
🎙️ Exactly.
Ezra Firestone:
That’s the wrong question! What can you put in? What can you invest? How can you create the snowball to make it bigger?
Phil:
🎙️ Yeah, yeah. That’s so true. That’s so true. Actually, I want to do something different here today. I speak a lot about digital marketing in one way or another. I want to use this share for something different. I want to speak about life because I think this is what really sets you apart. So I appreciate the conversation we had yesterday backstage about how you actually approach life and the relationship with your wife and how it influences everything that you do and I feel in my own life that recently, I have two young sons now right.
Ezra Firestone:
Beautiful.
Phil:
🎙️ Yes. And that really changed everything in me, right. Having a family and totally rethinking life. I think you have done a lot of this and the way you approach life in business is definitely influenced by your personal relationship. That’s what you said yesterday right?
Ezra Firestone:
Yeah, I think that society will tell us that success is what we should be chasing. Make money, build businesses.
Phil:
🎙️ But what is success?
Ezra Firestone:
The idea that you should chase success at the expense of everything else in your life is a flawed model and you see people that are shackled to these businesses that they don’t love or these jobs that they don’t love because it makes money. I think that really where it’s at in life is intimacy, connection, with other people. I think that’s the juice of life. That’s what’s fun. So for me, like my priority in life is my relationship with my wife. That is what I am actually doing, and all the other stuff is in support of that and hey, these businesses are doing really well and they’re really fun and it’s awesome but they’re only doing well because I have my relationships, my social life, I have my connections with my family and my community as a priority and I think a lot of business owners run into this problem where business fills the time that you give it. There’s a never-ending list of cycles that need your attention.
Phil:
🎙️ Yeah, that is so true.

Relationships Versus Business

Ezra Firestone:
So if you don’t set strong boundaries it will take over your world and you’ll burn out and then you’ll have no energy left for your relationship. You’ll have no energy left for your body. You’ll have no energy left to take care of yourself and then you’ll fail at the business because you haven’t been paying attention to the other parts of your life.
Phil:
🎙️ Oh yes.
Ezra Firestone:
So it takes what I call eternal vigilance. A daily willingness to show up and handle the parts of your life that aren’t pushing on you in the same way your business is. like for example, having a stretch in the morning, taking 10 minutes to meditate, eating good food, that’s not pushing on you the way that your business is.
Phil:
🎙️ No.
Ezra Firestone:
But it is as important if not more important to then be successful, right. It actually works in the direction of your hustle to take care of yourself and I think that if more people were fulfilled in their personal lives then what they were chasing in business might be different because I think a lot of people are conditioned to chase things based on what they see. The Lambos, the gold watches, the fancy things, and ultimately things do not bring fulfillment, experience does, relationships do.
Phil:
🎙️ Short joy.
Ezra Firestone:
Money can buy you comfort, it can’t buy you happiness.
Phil:
🎙️ That is true.
Ezra Firestone:
I went from being one of the poorest people. I went from being poor to now being one of the richer people that I know and I can tell you for sure, money does not buy happiness. It buys comfort, for sure. But it’s like it adds this whole crazy level of complexity that you don’t necessarily want.
Phil:
🎙️ Right.
Ezra Firestone:
I used to think that most people should be business owners. I was like, “Why wouldn’t everyone do this?” And then I realised, oh, because the responsibility, the intensity, you being the end of the line for everything, having to cover everyone’s salary. The pressure is very intense.
Phil:
🎙️ Yeah.
Ezra Firestone:
So it’s not really the best choice for everybody’s style.

I’m into trying to grow businesses, obviously, but if you can’t be happy here and now. You will not be happy there and then. It won’t happen. You have to figure out how to enjoy your life now or what are you even doing ? What is the point of all the shit you’re doing if you’re miserable. Like, figure out how to be happy now, which is frankly just approving of your circumstance. it’s a mindset.

Phil:
🎙️ It’s like if you find things right, and this happens in partnership. I talk to a lot of young men and they’re all looking for the right person – it’s like, no. Find a person right. Approve of somebody and you will fall in love with them. Like find somebody, approve of them, enjoy their company, and it will build from there, and the same thing goes with your business. It’s like, if you are finding what you’re doing now to be pleasurable, looking for how to invest in it, looking for how to make it better, enjoying it. It’s going to grow.
Ezra Firestone:
Yes. It is, a lot of people make a bunch of money. Not a lot of people have successful partnerships but it’s like, think about if business owners put the same amount of fervor into their relationship as they did their business. They would have a thriving relationship and that’s what I do, I put more energy into my relationship than my business and my businesses do well.

But listen, it’s like, this is not a popular topic. Nobody wants to pay you to talk about this stuff but this is the stuff that results in whether or not you will be successful.

Phil:
🎙️ It is, it is.
Ezra Firestone:
Like, success is a much more popular but less fulfilling game than having fun. Figuring out how to have fun doing what you’re doing is the secret.
Phil:
🎙️ How long have you done online marketing?
Ezra Firestone:
I’ve been in it since 2005.

I’ve been there. I’ve been completely broke, then what happens is once you’re eating, you want to make sure that you’re fully taken care of and your family is taken care of and then something interesting happens usually. Once you feel fully taken care of, the next jump is, how do I take care of the people directly around me? And for me that –

Phil:
🎙️ You do that with your community, right?
Ezra Firestone:
Yeah, my whole family, my cousins, my friends, their sisters. I have like a hundred people working for me now and they’re all like in the circle, and then it’s like okay. Now that my community is taken care of, how do I support the greater world? And that tends to be the jump. But it’s like, you can’t blame people who are hungry who are looking and are like, “I want a Lambo”. They want to eat because they are in pain, because they are hungry.
Phil:
🎙️ Yeah, yeah.
Ezra Firestone:
So, I dig it. I think it’s like a once you are some level of satiated, you can relax enough to look around and say like, what actually matters and how can I contribute?
Phil:
🎙️ Yes.

Where is your journey leading you?

Ezra Firestone:
Dude, it’s leading me to right here.

Look, I’m not trying to get anywhere. I’m happy where I am, I am interested in – I don’t want to die, I want to keep going but like, I think the game is, have a good time. First and foremost, because if you’re not having fun, what the f*ck are you doing? What is the point of any of it? So I’m going to enjoy this as much as I can. I’m going to enjoy my business, my work life as much as I can. Number two, I want to make truly great things. I want to create things that help people, that are unique, that are amazing. I want to have fun doing that. And I want to make a profit. In that order. I want to have a good time, make good stuff, and be profitable, and I want my team to be having the same experience.

Phil:
🎙️ That’s good. So happy to hear that, man. Thank you so much.
Ezra Firestone:
Thank you for having me.