How Single Dads Build a Thriving Business

Are you a single dad with dreams and aspirations of owning your own business and being your own boss? Do the demands on your time as a single dad require control of your schedule and workload? My guest is here with me to talk about how single dads like you can gain control over your time and your dreams and succeed.

Deevo Tindall is the founder and CEO of Fusion Creative, a branding and marketing agency. His expertise and experience have not only made him the authority on how to grow a successful business but also how to do so as a single dad.

You Can connect with Deevo here:

Website: https://fusioncreativebranding.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/fusionphotog/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fusioncreativebranding/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thefusioncreative/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@unlearneverythingdeevo

Special thanks to Zencastr for sponsoring The Fatherhood Challenge. Use my special link https://zen.ai/CWHIjopqUnnp9xKhbWqscGp-61ATMClwZ1R8J5rm824WHQIJesasjKDm-vGxYtYJ to save 30% off your first month of any Zencastr paid plan.

Transcription - How Single Dads Build a Thriving Business

---

Are you a single dad with dreams and aspirations of owning your own business or being your own boss?

Do the demands and the stress on your time as a single dad require control of your schedule and your workload?

My guest is here with me to talk about how single dads like you can get control of your time and your dreams and succeed.

So don't go anywhere.

Welcome to the Fatherhood Challenge, a movement to awaken and inspire fathers everywhere,

to take great pride in their role and a challenge society to understand how important fathers are to the stability and culture of their family's environment.

Now here's your host, Jonathan Guerrero.

Greetings everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. My guest is Devo Tendol.

Devo is the founder and CEO of Fusion Creative, a branding and marketing agency.

Devo is expertise and experience have not only made him the authority on how to grow a successful business but also how to do it as a single dad.

And this is why I have brought him on the Fatherhood Challenge. Devo, welcome to the program.

Hey my man, thanks for having me. Good to be here.

Okay, I got to ask, what is your favorite dad joke?

What do you call a cat with eight legs?

Cat with eight legs.

Definitely haven't heard this one.

Octopus.

That was great.

I've never been asked that question before so thank you.

Well Devo, what is your own story of what led you to become an entrepreneur and start Fusion Creative?

I think really it's some similarities with a lot of entrepreneurs.

I was driven by a blend of necessity and passion.

I worked a very successful job. I learned a boatload of information and met some amazing people and got the opportunity to rub shoulders with some pretty amazing and intelligent and motivated people that were also equally successful.

But I wasn't really utilizing any of my passions that I felt drawn to do and I certainly wasn't utilizing my creativity.

And because I'm a creative at heart, I interestingly have sort of a nice blend of pragmatism and left and right brain sort of synergies.

And I really wanted to build something, I've always been passionate about building things.

And I got exposed to that in the corporate world for many years working in the areas that I was blessed to work in.

I got to build projects but I didn't have any ownership of them.

And I really was looking for something where I could express my creativity but also provide practical solutions and sort of be the owner of all that.

And so Fusion was born from that desire to merge innovative design with really with strategic marketing.

I know that there are so many dads out there listening who are experiencing some form of burnout where it almost hurts to get out of the bed just to get into work.

And it feels like it drains their soul.

And I'd be willing to bet that besides probably the schedule thing and all of that.

The lack of ownership in their creative energy is probably a big factor in why they might feel that drain and burnout because this is how we were made.

We were made to create things.

We were definitely not designed to sit in cubicles for eight hours a day doing redundancy tasks and working for other people in a capacity where we're just sort of taking orders and knee jerk responding.

And that and entrepreneurship is not for everybody.

There are people who sort of thrive in those sorts of conditions and I'm not making any judgments on any of that.

But for certain people, I'm one of those people.

And it wasn't designed to sort of sit. And there's an argument to be made like you just said, Jonathan, that humans themselves were not designed to be sitting in a cubicle or in an office, you know, just judging over these sorts of minutia and redundancy.

And for me, that was sort of an observation that I made early on that, you know, I could do this for 50 years for rest of my life, make a lot of money, have a lot of things, have a nice big house, all those things.

But I just realized, do my own sort of introspective way that I just this is not this wasn't my calling. And so I set out to find a way to step out of that space.

What do you think are some of the reasons that single dads with aspirations of entrepreneurship won't go after their dreams?

I don't think first and foremost that we are taught to go after our dreams.

I think critical thinking and self-awareness and doing something for ourselves is is frowned upon.

It's viewed as vain, it's viewed as selfish, it's viewed as narcissistic.

And the collective, the collective educations that we receive from from a very early age, you know, three, four, five years old, we're stuck in the classroom.

And then we're stuck in another classroom and then we're stuck in another classroom, a cult, a cubicle or an office. And we're not trained to step outside of that space.

We're educated to become automatons in a lot of capacity. And so we just don't really have the self-awareness to think outside of that space.

And then when we do think outside of that space, there's a lot of fear associated with it. There's a lot of trauma associated with that, especially if you just came out of a divorce, you just went through a divorce, you're going through a divorce or you're a single father.

Man, I can tell you my entire life changed and anyone who listens to this is a single parent, not just fathers, but you, your paradigm changes really fast.

And you really are forced to either figure it out or pass it off like a lot of people do.

And so I think concerns about financial security and time management and resources and really understanding that balance between being a present parent and a business owner.

It can be really daunting for a lot of people and I don't think it's insurmountable. Obviously I'm doing it and thousands of others are as well.

But I think early on when you sort of think about, what do I want to do with my life? There's so much bigger.

And when you start to actually materialize those ideas, you get stopped up against this stop gap because you're like, "Shoo, man, I don't know how that's going to be possible.

I suddenly have kids. I have to be the mother and the father for. I got to cook for them. I got to drive them around."

Like all these different things and it's like, "I just want to stay in something really comfortable right now."

You touched on it in the very, very beginning. I thought that was really cool. You brought that up. And that is the education system.

Our education system is decades old as far as the model that we're using today.

And the model that we're using today is based on a thought process of producing obedient factory workers.

And so we still have that mindset within our own education system. I mean, we're trying to break it, but we're really having a hard time.

And sometimes I wonder if there's an epigenetic component into the way we approach education that is making it so difficult for us to break free, not only from the education model that we've been using,

but also within ourselves to become entrepreneurs when we were brought up completely the opposite way. And that's what makes it such a challenge to break.

Wow, brilliant point, epigenetics. How many of your listeners know what epigenetics is? So that's fantastic reference.

It partially is a collective consciousness of epigenetics and sort of DNA remoluculizing in a capacity.

But I think more than that, there is a fixed and concentrated effort from the powers that be, that maintain and control the education system and are teaching the teachers that are teaching our kids to maintain that sense of control and manipulation so that the type of output that we're getting are people who don't know how to critically think are people who don't know how to function on their own who are not independent and autonomous in the sense of the system.

There are slaves to the system, if you will, and that system is rewarded or I'm sorry, that system rewards the people who not only educate those people, but then the people who are part of the systems themselves are rewarded sort of that.

It's sort of like bread and circuses. There's a, you know, you know, you like the Roman civilization, I'm going way outside of where I think we should be going, but the Roman civilization is no dissimilar to what we did.

You know, they knew that in times of crisis, the best thing to do was to feed the masses and give them alcohol and give them entertainment and set up all these different massive arenas all over the world.

And if you look at our society today, that's exactly what's happening in sports or in everything else, you know, you have these massive events that are scheduled to entertain the masses and we keep them drunk and we keep them high and we keep them stone.

We don't ever encourage them to step outside that space of self awareness and introspection and mindfulness and then sort of become independent thinkers from the system itself.

So yeah, 100% man, you were spot on epigenetics as part of that because it just becomes part of our DNA and then we pass it on to the next generation and the next generation and the next generation.

But you always have to go behind the wizard of the curtain who's behind the curtain controlling that epigenetic manipulation and there are people and powers that in my opinion are have designed this system purposefully in order to do exactly what you just said.

Yeah, there's a culture component of it, which there was a time where you were considered a man.

If you were able to hold down a job for your life at the same company long enough to be able to retire from that same company and collect a pension that was considered the definition of or part of the definition of being a man and providing for your family.

But what nobody talks about from that generation is at some point those same men were serving another man somewhere who was at the very top who did something very different and became an entrepreneur and that's who they're working for and collecting the pension from no one talks about that and then the day no one talks about the entrepreneurs back then they just sort of did it.

And so entrepreneurship, I think still becomes this mysterious thing that people now are are maybe they want to do that there's an interest there, but it just feels far out of reach.

So for that single dad that's ready to take those first steps into a business ownership.

What exactly should their first steps look like?

Man you can't lead with that sort of breakdown that you just did that was spot on and I'll expect me to extrapolate on the pitch but I would love to dive into that and unpack that of it because there's a lot of pieces that were really powerful and what you said so the pedigree was groomed for exactly what you said.

But it was an interesting paradigm in my opinion because if you take a look at some of the morals and the ethics and the values of those very people you just described you know 1920s and post war.

They were all based upon sort of the old school of thinking if you will which was morals and conscious and clear and consciousness around working hard and raising a family and being a good man.

And those sort of things were brought into this new paradigm because they realize that what what was happening there is is that mode of thinking was contradictory to what they wanted to train people right and so it took a little bit of time but now fast forward to where we are today and and all of that sort of independent thinking and morals and good conscious and strong values and all the things that made America and society strong have been slowly white washed out and replaced with the world.

And this new culture is easier to control because of that they're easier to train because of that because they don't they don't have independent thinking they don't have critical thought they don't have a strong backbone they don't have values they don't see the idea of what what that there is a necessity for a true testosterone based man who thinks acts and works in in a in a community but also simultaneously independent free thinker and so all that has been sort of purged out of society.

So that being said if you want to change that paradigm you have to reverse the remote of thinking in the way you operate and understand that you do have the power to develop and build your own life you don't have to be dependent upon someone else paying you what's more important is finding a community of people that can support you that think in that same capacity and so if you in that answer your question.

The first steps towards towards business ownership is really clearly taking the time to have that sort of mindfulness about yourself and understand what it is that you ultimately want to do with your life what's your legacy you want to leave what's the value you wish to bring to the universe what problems can you solve and do some research around yourself and do some research on the economies that you want to play in or the sandboxes that you want to play in understand your strengths understand your passions and how do they align with market needs where can you step in with whatever it is you love doing.

And our passion about doing and most importantly you can add value and solve a problem for somebody based upon what the market needs and then create some sort of a I don't like the word business plan because it's not really a business plan is really more of a life plan create a plan around that and start finding people to help you support that plan join mastermind groups find people in your community find people in your church like you have access to eight and a half billion people on the planet build a personal brand around use your soul.

And then you can use your social media for that instead of browsing porn or browsing internet or doing whatever nonsense that you can do on the internet use it for a purposeful and mindful strategy so that you can connect with people that are very like minded and can support you in that space and then start building and just do start by starting don't just expect it to happen overnight it takes time it's a process it takes tweaking and modifying and adjusting and and continuing and rinse and repeat and rinse and repeat and then at some point if you're if you just follow your own sort of heart and

follow your strategy and you have good support around it then you can build something it's it's possible I mean I'm doing it now what makes entrepreneurship so exciting is the fact that there is no one in your way so the service doesn't go away you still get to serve someone and it's the customer and there's no one between you in that customer you can do it your way but every other skill has to be there the showing up when you're supposed to show up being prepared having

everything ready to go doing quality work all those skills don't go away the only thing that you can put in is your own creativity of how that's going to get done and you can increase the quality to whatever whatever level that you think that quality needs to be at and that's up to you there's no one deciding that and in the end whether you get to keep that job which we call a customer the customer decides that

so I love those components of entrepreneurship there's no one deciding that middle part yeah you you're absolutely right I'd like to add a little bit to that while you don't have anyone that ultimately is responsible for this you are the creator and the implementer and the amplifier and you are the vessel that's going to build your business

but it's often really important to find people that can support that that mission support those values because one of the things that happens is you sort of get in your own way and I found that out really on because it's your own business

you think you know everything you think you have all the systems in place you think you have the you know the objective and the missions and all and how to build this but often is the case is that the scalability of that is limited by your own capacity in your own resources

so it's really important to find people that can support that whether they're working for you or contractors and and stay in your lane and focus on the things that you're really good at and find other people to support the minutiae the things that you don't really have value in and then you have sort of a scalable model

there's a great fantastic quote from the bible bad company corrupts good character and that's sort of been a motto of mine my entire life is is really try to find because you become an output of the five or six people you surround yourself with most right

that's your partner that's your wife that's your that's your friends that's that's everything so the people you work with and so yeah it's really really important that you can surround yourself with people that give you value and give you community and inspire you

and are honest with you and are transparent with you and can and help lift you up so that you can step into the true power that you're meant to be and if if you're surrounded by people who are less than that who are negatives or who are

who are who are or for example you know like I try to surround I belong to a mastermind group and most everyone in that group is considerably more successful than me

considerably more intelligent than me considering more versed in everything and so but what I found is by surrounding myself with these types of people

you sort of have no choice but to play at their level and if you're not playing at their level you're sort of kind of an outcast and sit in the shadows

and so yeah it's really really important that to understand that you're not trying to fake it's not the whole concept of fake it till you make it it's it's finding people that you can that you are inspired by

that are doing things that you haven't yet done or want to do and they're living proof and they're willing to support your journey as well and bring you up to their level

and that's what I'm trying to say is like it's so critical to surround yourself with quality people because they become a byproduct of who you are

okay I want to change gears a little bit does every new business need a branding strategist like yourself working with them to succeed and if so why I don't think ultimately you need to go hire somebody

especially if you're strapped for cash I do think more importantly it's critical that you take the time to figure out and can we clarify the word brand because that's a very

fabulous term for a lot of people branding or brand most people think that that's just you know the color of your the color of your the colors that you've chosen or your logo or you have a website so now you're branded and it's it couldn't be

farther from the truth those are certain elements of a brand but they're just small constituents that ultimately make up a brand a brand is everything that you stand for a brand is everything that you believe a brand is your values a brand is the message a brand is your 30 second

elevator pitch a brand is how you answer the phone or your voice message or what your website says it's all of those things combined into one which ultimately says this is who I am this is what I believe this is what I stand for and this is what I bring to the table

and these are the problems that I'm going to solve for you this is me do you have access to so much information on the internet today that you could basically build your own brand without me but the problem is is most people don't have the

discipline to your point most people don't have the the moxie or the or the wherewithal to sort of dive into that space or they're so busy trying to do all the other things to get their business going that they've forgotten to take the time to have that clarity first so it helps to have somebody

like me in your corner I'm sort of like your branding marketing wing man okay so what you just got through saying is the big reason why I brought you on this program I feel like I'm getting an

education a really good education right now and I believe the audience is to yeah take breaking down what branding is is so important and I guess what I'm reading out of that is that when it comes to building your brand it is so critical for you to be authentic about who you really are because if you're not people can smell

that a mile away yeah you you really someone thank you for summarizing that better for me I'm a little long winded if you can tell yeah you know I actually have this service that I offer this is not a shameless plug but to just to continue with the dating scene one one of the things that I discovered early on in my dating journey is that a it's time consuming be it's a bit confusing see it's very tiring and D you know what because I was married for 10 years for example in dating the same person for 17 years

I sort of lost touch with reality and I find that a lot of people because because of you know a bunch of other things that go into that you sort of kind of lose touch with who you are and it's not that you're

delusional but you just might lose touch with who you are you just sort of out of practice and all those things and so we developed this program where we actually help people it's a personal branding workshop where I act as your wingman might team access your wingman and teaches you how to show up in your and I don't like

authentic is over use sort of become this cliche buzzword but genuinely speaking it's a fantastic word if you really break it down it means no facades it means who you are it's what your value what do you bring to the table where the types of people you want to connect with who do you want

to date or who do you want as your clients it's all of those things in teaching you how to how to profess that how to amplify that how to share that message so that you can show up as your true self and there

isn't like this this wall of of the façades that you're throwing out there to sort of pretend that you're somebody that you're not so that you'll attract that person because like you said man what you just said is so brilliant we're really really savvy and smart and we can smell right through it like we know if you're being a fraud like you might get away with it for a couple of dates you might get away with it after a amount of time but really quickly if you're projecting something that is falsified that truth that dead body if you will will rise to the surface and so it's really important that you get some clarity

around all the things that you are so that when you do show up in the marketplace whether as an entrepreneur someone you try as as a dating a new single dad out in the marketplace you're showing up in the most positive light possible the most transparent light possible the most authentic version of you that is possible my goal at the end of this conversation is for that dad that's listening now that that single dad that is on the fence that has just had the

dream going on in his head for maybe a short time it may be most of his life and he's been scared to take that to pull the trigger and become an entrepreneur to launch that dream my goal is that by the end of this conversation that single dad is left without any excuses and is ready to take action and knows those key first steps to be able to get something in motion and often sometimes very first things you do become the hardest

because they're new to you but to have the courage to get off the bench and start taking action and doing something what are the key takeaways that you want single dads to understand about getting control of their time their energy and their financial well being discover your mindfulness and understand what that does for you and being willing to be honest with yourself and understand who you are first and foremost and I know that sounds a bit

so terror but really important to approach that from a serve first capacity not what can I get out of this I think a lot of people get caught up in the tit for tat conditional relationship situation which is you know all do this if you do this for me and then like I noticed that in my own in my own marriage I was like you know that because I wasn't

passionately connected with this person because I had become lazy or undisciplined or whatever it was the mistakes that I made in my marriage and the fact that we grew apart it sort of became this conditional logic of like all do this if you do that for me right and so get away from that first of all if you're going

to be an entrepreneur you have to understand that you're here to serve first and and if you do it properly if you do it with authenticity to borrow your term if you do it with clarity you'll find that all the things that you seek they will come to you over time but you have to step away from

me me me it has to be a serve first capacity so take some time to to be mindful and develop that I think also prioritize and delegate if you can be very very clear on what it is you want to accomplish and build a plan around that it's sort of like setting goals it's no different than setting goals you know

there are going to be a lot of goals that you want to accomplish there's a lot of things that you can do as an entrepreneur and they sometimes seem very monumental but if you can plan it out and prioritize and strategize with those things you'll find that if you set smaller pieces in between for this stratization

that big and surmountable goal slowly over time become smaller and more attainable and understand that time management is everything know your resources and what you're able to do and I don't over commit I think we're really over zealous early on that we'll just do everything I'll take it on yeah yeah I'll do it

and then you know you know two weeks later you're sinking and sinking and barely able to swim because you said yes is so many things I'm not saying that that's that it's you should be ambivalent about that I'm saying that understand your resources and that everything that you bring to the table is sort of like your bank account and if people are withdrawing from you all the time that bank account gets really small so embrace tools and strategies to understand your value and and what your resource constraints are streamlined your workflow try to systematize things where you can for example

if you're sending out emails every day on lead generation tactics you should probably copy and learn to copy and write sort of a standard email so that you don't have to write the entire thing every single time right so understand your workflow and really try to systematize and most importantly don't compromise on your well being it's really really really important that you take care of yourself first because now you're a single dad right so your resources are thinner than they were before you don't have that partner to support you and now you're you might be solely responsible for your work and you're not going to be able to do that

you might be solely responsible for supporting your little offspring so it's really important that you take care of yourself get to the gym make it a priority you can wake up at five o'clock in the morning it might take you a couple weeks to get used to it but wake up in the morning you'll find that's your most valuable time your diet is critical man you you are what you eat take note of that and that's different for everybody but develop a healthy work life existence so that you're not consumed by work and I struggle from that all the time because I actually love working right but

if you want to have sustained success it's really important that you take care of yourself and and and and again if you're diminished if you're less you're going to be less equipped to handle your clients your children etc etc.

Devo how can dads connect with you to get help or learn more about what you're doing.

Instagram is a great way I'm on LinkedIn Instagram I'm I'm at fusion photo if you S I O N photo pH O T O G short for photography on my website is fusion creative branding dot com you can send me a message there or DM me on Instagram I respond and connect with everybody I don't ever leave a message on responded just to make it easier as well if you go to the fatherhood challenge dot com that's the fatherhood challenge dot com go to this episode

look right below the episode description I'll have all of the links that Devo just said all the links will be posted right there below the description as we close what is your one challenge to dads listening now if there's something you want to do start by starting today and

figure out a way to build it do not look back 20 30 40 years from now and say I wish I had done that and your situation as a single dad is unique and so are the insights and the resilience and the value that you bring to the world

how can you figure out a turn your strengths into something that someone else can utilize someone else can buy someone else can stand to gain by the value that you bring to the world and everybody I do ultimately truly believe that everybody has some value that they could grow upon and expand and share if you if you approach it from that surfers capacity you find that you start surrounding yourself with the right type of people

Devo it has been awesome to have you on the fatherhood challenge you brought so much so much value so much wisdom to the audience I learned so much from you as well so I know listeners did as well so thank you so much for coming on

thank you I appreciate the opportunity to speak to your audience and the conversation with you is absolutely fantastic it's not often that I encounter people who sort of share some of the insights of wisdom if you talk about the epigenetics man well done I'm giving you a high five for that one

not many people talk about epigenetics well done thank you for listening to this episode of the fatherhood challenge if you would like to contact us listen to other episodes find any resource mentioned in this program or find out more information about the fatherhood challenge please visit the fatherhood challenge dot com that's the fatherhood challenge dot com

[MUSIC]

Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/thefatherhoodchallengepodcast/donations