9 : Entrepreneurship as a Spiritual Practice with Colm Dolan

Adam Coelho: [00:00:00] Welcome to the mindful fire podcast where we explore living mindfully on the path to financial independence and beyond I'm your host, Adam quail. And I'm so glad you're here in today's episode. So I'm joined by my friend, Colum Dolan, a former Googler and the founder of. Public and ad tech business that helps online publishers build sustainable revenue streams.

He's an ad-ops veteran and a sports fanatic with a passion for self-improvement and creating a better life situation. For all. In this episode, you'll learn how his company publisher came to be and how it all started from a conversation that he and I had seven years ago that kicked off his entrepreneurial and mindfulness journey.

I've been blown away by what he's been able to achieve since then. And I'm really excited to have him on the episode to share with you today. In this episode column, and I explore the idea that entrepreneurship is actually a spiritual path and that there's so much learning and growth to be had from the child challenges and ups and downs that come with being an entrepreneur and column sheriffs, his thoughts and why it's so important to build structure into your day and why bookending his days with meditation and finding moments of mindfulness throughout his day, allow him to deal with the ups and downs and the challenges that come from being an entrepreneur and running a business.

And we learn how column is able to build this structure in his life, even while building a business and raising two boys and having a wife at home as well. And we hear how column has brought these ideas of mindfulness and personal growth and improvement into everything he does at his company and how he empowers his employees learn, grow, have fun, and to become the best versions of themselves, call them.

And I also talk a lot about values. How to figure out what your values are and how to check in with yourself to ensure that you're living in alignment with those values. And he shares how he does this within his company, through one-on-ones team meetings, big decisions, everything is aligned with their 11 core values column.

Also shares his thoughts on financial independence. And how to be honest, he's not really that focused on financial independence, but rather focused on building a company where everyone can learn and have fun and call them. Sheriffs is top advice for those guys getting started with meditation and mindfulness, and he also shares his thoughts for those pursuing financial independence.

And you'll hear the advice that column would give to his younger self. I really enjoyed this episode with Colin and I hope that you enjoyed as well. Let's jump into today's episode.

Welcome to the 

Colm Dolan: [00:02:44] podcast column. Thank you very much, Adam. It's absolutely fantastic to be on this podcast with you. And I'm very inspired by you all you've done in the last few years since we worked together at Google many moons ago. Yeah. That 

Adam Coelho: [00:02:57] does feel like a really long time ago 

Colm Dolan: [00:02:58] though. It doesn't the original young fella.

Adam Coelho: [00:03:01] That's right. Some good times we had, so I'd love to start the podcast by having you share with the audience a little bit about who you are and what you've been up to in the world. Yeah. 

Colm Dolan: [00:03:11] Thanks very much, Adam. Yet. I'm a founder. I'm an ad tech founder. I am a dad, two young boys one and a half and four years of age, which keeps me very busy.

I suppose. My journey really has actually involves you. When you visited Sydney, Australia, where I live at the moment you are part inspired me on the road, down meditation and in starting a business, I think it's about seven years ago. Now, since you were actually here and at the time I wasn't enjoying the job.

I did. And I always talked about having a startup or on your own is new. Is that a problem in the ecosystem in the publisher ecosystem, but you always need a push sometimes and you push from some of your friends as well. So I've been working as an entrepreneur for nearly seven years now and built a successful business that has a global outreach and global audience.

So I suppose it's. Actually the exact same time, I started meditating at your health as well. So all a debt of gratitude to you and to things that are quite intertwined or the last couple of years that I really think an entrepreneurial journeys is very much a spiritual journey as well, because it's a very hard route to go down and it tests your mental resolves, test your skills.

You've a lot of ups. You've a lot of downs. The officer never is good and the downs are never as bad, but it's a very much rollercoaster ride that you really need to have severe mental focus. And the thing about fashion of businesses that you not only do it for yourself, but you're doing it for a lot of other people that it's a big responsibility that a lot of my team have mortgages of young kids.

And if you make bad decisions, it's going to impact on them. So there is a lot of constant worry and constant try and reinforcement. Going to all work out. So all the attributes of meditation and mindfulness and being in the present moment and giving everything to your team is so crucial.

And I feel really thankful and blessed that it's tested depth of my character. Like no end being an entrepreneur. And it's a hard route to go down, but with a lot of problems, you create a lot of growth. And a lot of learning about yourself. And I think as well when you go down that journey, you get influenced by a lot of similar people that have gone down that journey.

So it's like when you hear that quote, a lot of you are the average of the five people you hang around with. So if you started hanging around with other on or other. People seeking financial freedom that puts you on another stratosphere in terms of your you're questioning things a lot more, and you're questioning why you on this planet.

Why are you on this earth? Like the way you have to you do your mission statement. And all that kind of stuff in business, you also do missions that nearly for yourself. What are your values when you're doing values for a business, you're doing values on yourself, where do you want to be in five years?

And sometimes when you work, when I work in a corporate life, I may not think about that because I'm just. Thinking about punching in numbers and going home and bend the timing. You don't get you shut off. Whereas having your own business, you're always thinking about how can I have more impact? How can I have more impacting the customer, but how can I have more impact on myself as well and to the overall world.

Yeah that's what I'm currently do not have at the moment. I'm really interested. Having an impact on people's lives are really focusing on our customers as well and have an impact on their lives. And I suppose I'm really motivated by an obsession with self improvement to improve the life situation of myself, my team members, to improve my consciousness, to improve every aspects of health and.

Being really, and to have just a happy group for life. 

Adam Coelho: [00:06:52] So thinking back to when you started the business, it's so awesome to me to see what you've created in the seven years. Since we had that dinner together. When I was in Sydney, we were hanging out with your girlfriend now, wife.

Neither of us had kids and we're just enjoying some Portuguese chicken and talking about life and how I was getting really into meditation. And just to see what you did just, I think three weeks later, you quit your job and started this company and it's become, an award-winning company getting all sorts of awards for innovative companies and.

The workplace that you've created. I'd love to hear just a little bit more about that journey. What was it like when you were first starting the business and as you progressed, like how did you lean on your mindfulness practice to build it into what it is now? 

Colm Dolan: [00:07:40] Yeah, I suppose to give you a background there as well, thank you, your, the final kind of push I really needed because before I started the business, I was working at another startup, which they lost their series B around investment.

And I was, I needed to get out of there. The business was winding up, add a time period, but I questioned myself having gone from a corporate business. Like Google. I spent a lot of time at Google and then another business in Australia, Telstra. And then I went to a startup and I really failed it failed miserably.

I couldn't sell to anyone. And what were selling, it was an ad tech kind of product as well. And my mental resolve is gone. My confidence is at an all time low. I said to myself do I need to go back into the conference of corporate? So I went, I remember vividly gone for interviews with Twitter, with Facebook, with.

Trivial. And I couldn't get an interview for love nor money. Like I couldn't get past that stage. Obviously I had good on my resume. Looked good that I worked for Google and that kind of stuff, but I just couldn't. I had no self-confidence at the time. And I was literally about to just go, maybe I'll just go home or.

I had got this new girlfriend at the time and a new kind of camera. Yeah. Why don't you do this? Because I had all this in the back of my mind of maybe starting something and you gave me the confidence to just give it a goal, but I was at a low element and I just had nothing to lose. And that's the kind of key factor in anything of this.

And I think as well, a lot of people that go start in businesses. It's very hard. When you are in a conference, you notice in a conference of Google in the conference of these corporate residence, makes it very hard to leave. You have always got your stuff plan best the next year, that might give you a few more and it might give you a promotion.

And then you're thinking job security, all this kind of stuff. But and if I still had all that kind of things in place, maybe I wouldn't have made the leap. So it's very much a circumstance kind of stuff. But getting back to your question, then I just started giving you a bit of a. Background to what made me make that decision.

It was tough. The first six months were very tough because I was, you were in our apartment. We rented out a room and I'm like apartment to my buddy. And he came in to stay at us for six to nine months. My wife had a good job at the time. So she was. Supporting us, but I max out my credit card six months. I remember having three fines for first six months.

I got one client and then snowball to a second client. And it I wouldn't say it was a long time taking off, but once I started getting a bit of traction do was. It was a problem that needed to be solved. And I got a lot of energy from that and they got a lot of energy from maybe winning those couple of clients at the start, but it was looking back in an incredible time and incredible test of character because you've got your family concerned about you going out, starting a business yourself.

You've got your friends thinking, Oh this person has built up a good image. She's worked at Google and now he's just doing kind of startup and your character gets questioned. So you're a new question yourself. And you say, have I got the appetite for this at all? Do I have, what am I trying to really do here?

And then you start getting them a small bit of wins and a small bit of success. And then it's okay I think there's an opportunity to build something here to build a business. And then at that stage later on in that year I had a really good relationship, but my business partner at this stage, but he was a.

A friend of mine from Google back then he worked in the Dublin office with me and I reached out to him and actually met him in Bali in August of 2014, maybe at this stage. And I said, I've started this business in Australia. It's gone pretty well, but I need you over here because I can't do this on my own.

I was good at sales and negotiation, but not very good from the technical aspects of what we needed to do. So once I got. Commitment from him. He moved over in March of the following year. So then I remember the Christmas time that before that I had about five or six or maybe even seven clients at that time.

So there was a business model there and there was, it could be successful if the right things went at that time. So all of those at all those times, really, I think meditation and mindfulness, I'm not too sure at that time. Was I doing that? Most of it, to be honest with you. It was all about keeping my head above water.

And you're so focused about just building the business side of the business and making a faster model that would work w without I was just about scrimp and on, paying for daily activities and paying your rent and doing all that kind of stuff. But after that, I think it's when Tobin came over, we hired our first employee.

We. Got an office. And that was around 2015. And I had been running the business myself and then we rebranded and came up the name published there on August, 2015. So that was a very exciting time when we had. I think about two, three other employees at the time, maybe two employees at the time. And it was around that time really that you started to say how does this business about, what am I doing this far?

And you start to read about getting your mission statement and your values. And then I would say then the real spiritual journey for me kind of stairs there's I suppose, in being an entrepreneur, because. Reasons you become an entrepreneur is because you've a problem to solve. I think I was at desperation level of Bush.

A lot of entrepreneurs start a business because they're pissed off with something and they want to solution to it. And it could be a personal solution for something that. It just really annoys them. And you have to really be very annoyed before starting a business, especially getting away from the conference.

But then in starting the values of the business, why are you doing this? You have to share your vision to the rest of the team. You have to try and convince people to join your business. Why should they join your business rather than. Can the, than the road that was given much more salary. So you have to say it to them, right?

We want to build this platform. We want to have this many clients. We want to help customers. Cause they're in really in need of this, at that journey. And then you start reading some business books and the business books are very much. About come from a spiritual kind of landscape, I would say. And it's when you're reading those business books and then you're doing a bit of meditation on the side and you see the similarities and then you say what I realized then my goal in life was not about making money.

Really. I don't really care about making money. I'm more motivated by making an impact on people's lives. And then you look at some books and say, okay think about. You're when you die. Sounds kind of morbid, but when you die in your, have your eulogy written, what do you want to be known to be?

And I suppose when I think about those kinds of things, I want to be, I want to have a big impact on the world. I want a big impact on people's lives. I'm often referred to as a sponge, I'd take stuff in, I learn, and then I regurgitate it and teach people a lot about what I've learned. So that's the biggest thing for.

For young people in the business is I'll teach them more about Potter's work for me from experiences about, Oh, mindfulness has made a big impact in my life. I think it could really help you visualizations have made a big impact in my life. This is how it could help you. So all of those things have.

Intertwined with starting the business, really. And that has led to the focus within the business and the culture within the business. And I suppose it stems as well from when I was working at Google or other corporates in that I knew what I didn't like and didn't want the business to be about or wants the people to have autonomy, to make decisions and culture where people could grow and learn and could have fun as well.

I think I was, that was crucial. And that kind of was influenced again, as I said earlier, starts hanging around with people who are entrepreneurial, who you're getting advice from people on how to run businesses. And then you realize that some people have different goals than you and you just go, I'm on my own kind of journey here in the business. And it said, what life you're on your own kind of journey, something that works for someone else's not going to necessarily work for you. But it's having the balls to make those decisions as well, to just go, actually, maybe this is a lifestyle business I want maybe it's, and maybe it's not it's up and down.

It's like I could have, I'm referred to myself as a walking contradiction. Sometimes I could have one idea, maybe six months ago I said, Oh, definitely sell the business. Yeah. Just make as much money possible. I'm sick of it. Two days there or go, Oh, I love it. This business, I never want to sell this business.

So it's and down like that. And I suppose it's like your life in a way you have taught processes that say, I want this journey, I want that journey and it's really just figuring yourself out. And that's what I love about running the business and doing that. Cause it's given I'm so grateful.

It's given me the opportunity to. To test my resolve and really find out what I want in 

Adam Coelho: [00:16:48] life column. I really liked this idea that you mentioned of the path of entrepreneurship as a spiritual path. Tell me, is there one or a couple of experiences that really brought that idea to your mind and where you really saw the similarities in those two things. 

Colm Dolan: [00:17:04] So many examples, really? I think some examples dealing with people, we've been in a situation where we've met a lot of mistakes. We've hired some wrong people for the business and that affects us, but it also affects the person as well.

So our recruitment process wasn't robust enough, wasn't the right way. And we heard some bad people. And with that, you sometimes have to move these people on. It's the best interest of the business. And that's probably the best for them as well. You don't want to see people's struggle. But in doing that, I remember the first person that we had to essentially fire, and it was a big ordeal.

There was many nights of worry and anticipation of this because you feel really bad. And this tests, your mental resolve. So sometimes there's this trouble sleeping. So you needs. You need to have something you need to have your spiritual journey, whatever that may be, whether it's meditation, whether it's playing cool table tennis, playing the piano, whatever that is or going for a walk in the evening, you need to follow a process and you need to have a structure to your day.

Like at the moment, the structure of my days really get up, play with the kids, get them ready for, they go to daycare or get getting ready. And then I have my meditation time for half an hour and then a cycle to work. So the office normally then at night time, it's again, it's play with the kids and do all that kind of stuff and have it a bit of downtime meditation and go to bed.

And if I break that cycle, if some nights you're out and do things like that, which happens, you can then go down that stream of thinking too much about things during the last few years, running the business you have to really improve and balance all those different parts of your life, because if you don't, things will consume you.

And I've learned the hard way that all of those things like just maybe fire in someone like that, it consumes you and you get into endless streams of thinking what's going to happen to the rest of the team. What are they going to think what's going to happen to that person? Are they going to have a bad reaction?

It's is it a bad decision? And if you have those kinds of things going on in your brain all the time, it's not very good because you it's how you come across the team. See you being worried that. Team see you being vulnerable and that's fine. I think it's very important to have a vulnerable kind of stage, but it can work against you that you're not performing at your best.

So those types of situations are so important and you double down on the mindfulness strategy. And again there's all those things that come up from it. A strategic point of view. Maybe it doesn't you competitor takes your clients. Like we lost a client last week that I been working with for six years and I was devastated.

And again, it's, I'm better at, I've seen the improvements in me better able to manage it. Now I haven't shown the toys, toys out or cram and gone mental, I've actually been cab and say, what can we learn from this? What can we learn? This is a great opportunity to learn. Whereas previously I would have went crazy and maybe blend so on.

So again, that is testing your resolve and testing that your mental side and every business book I've read, the famous ones, how to win friends and influence people. There's a lot of different kinds of business books, sales books. Recently I've read it's all goes back to the fundamentals of consciousness and mindfulness.

It's being present in the moment, listen to the person you're speaking with, being totally there with that person. And then it goes back to the goals and the settings that you have in the business. Then it goes into laws of attraction, visualization. These things will happen for you if you look at them.

And I think that the big thing that I've tried to really work on is that, it's all going to work out in the end.  And just have that in the back of my mind. Do you have, and you so many setbacks in being an entrepreneur every week, there's a setback every week. There's a landmine around the corner and it's your ability to be able to master those landmines.

And that's a real struggle. It's still a constant struggle, but if you don't have structures in place that allow you to stop that constant thinking, because. Can consume it and it has consumed me in the past. It probably will again, but it's just about trying your best to let it not. Yeah, that's 

Adam Coelho: [00:21:03] really interesting.

It is all about coming back again and again, and just realizing that, yeah. Even if you've developed some sort of capacity of resilience of mindfulness, It's a lifelong process, right? Like you're going to find yourself getting stressed out or overwhelmed or short tempered. Happens to me all the time.

I'll literally get up from meditation, go upstairs. And my wife will say something to me that triggers me and I'll react even though I was just meditating. And so I think it's important. I've been the 

Colm Dolan: [00:21:32] same. Yeah. I've been the same. And I understand that and I think that's the thing. I've noticed is that you said to yourself, I'll put the meditation in, but then you need to practice the mindfulness during the day. You need to, if someone and we go into fight or flight mode, if someone like your wife does something to you like that, or some colleague says something to you that tricks it off, you need to be able to go scope, breathe and take five minutes and just go, actually.

And at the end of the day, everyone is trying their best. Everyone is doing the best in this world. And if you have that kind of attitude, it's really important. It's again, going back to the attitude of which I really struggled with because I have this obsessive nature to improve all the time.

And I think I have this thing of, this is the way the world should be. It should be lined up this way. And I find it very hard to understand that. Okay this is the way it is and you just have to deal with it. So having things in place to help you do that, or is difficult. Yeah.

Adam Coelho: [00:22:28] Yeah. I really liked the point you make about having that structure to your day as a support system for building that mindfulness building that resilience that helps you throughout your day. And I'm wondering, having two small kids. How have you managed to do that? Because I've found since my son Carter was born, it's been extremely difficult to keep that routine steady.

I 

Colm Dolan: [00:22:50] think it's all about priorities and I'm just after coming out of it now, because our youngest, Luke is a year and a half and it's getting a bit easier because before that, there was a lot of opt during the night. And not that I was up that much during the night, my go to lifestyles that. Most of the time, it's just about making sure that your mindfulness strategy is part of your, is the number one priority that you have, and you can't take too much on and in a working environment when you're taking too much on I'm going from meeting to meeting and being busy all the time, it creates this.

And from my experience, cutting that constant adrenaline and you're going, you're doing deals. You're making sure. Someone is happy. You're hiring someone, you're doing all these kinds of things and you're going from one to another. There are zero dime downtime. So then when you get home, there is just okay, I have to go to a different frequency to family frequency, and that's very difficult to go from this frequency.

Down to that frequency or whatever. I don't fully understand, but that's the way I look at it. And that's, you're trying to be present with your kids, but then you're thinking all, is that deal going to close? Is that person going assign? Is that customer they're happy now? I wonder, should I have done that differently?

Bush, if my calendar during the day, if the time to refocus and clear your head a small bit, without that constant meeting, it's very important. That's the most crucial thing I would say is to not let it build up and even small things like you go to the toilet and the natural thing is to bring your phone or what can I check on the toilet in a minute, the toilet, some email or something like that.

So if the strategies I have are I don't have any, I don't have any social media. But the only thing I use is LinkedIn. I don't have any email or work stuff on my phone, so I try and stay away from that. And I'm trying to be a bit more mindful of, or in the day, like if I have a spare two minutes even going through the toilet or something like that, just have a few deep breaths and just let the buildup of energy and adrenaline disappear and you become a bit more centered and that's so much so hard.

That is really very hard and it's a constant battle. And I think the phone definitely is a constant struggle of mine. Some weekends, they don't touch my phone and have a great weekend. And it's hard because then some people are trying to contact you or different things like that. But when you don't have that as your kind of crutch, If you're staying present with your kids, you just have to answer into your question.

You just have to block a lot of things out of your life and be happy with that. Like I try and not watch the news too much, cause I don't have that much influence on all the, especially the world at the moment. It's just a lot of worry. That builds up when you start to get angry at the world and you start to get, Oh, it should be this way.

It shouldn't be that way. It's  there's not much I can do about it. And that is the way it is. And sometimes that makes conversations with people easier or more interesting because you're asking know what's going on in the world, then you just get good educated from different people.  And you can only do a few things right as well.

I suppose the kind of the one thing I always. I think his health is very important. So I eat very well. It may be fitness. Hasn't been as good with the kids, but again, that's about making Headspace the priority and try and get as little as you can into your head. Definitely not that this marriage is still in the shed.

So I try and limit the amount of information I have coming in. That means,  not being as connected in the world, not the social media has worked wonders for me personally and know is from my experience the last four or five years, I haven't. Really been on Facebook or Twitter, those kind of social media, because I just think it's more influx of information that I need, but it has to be a priority.

And you have to really say that the rewards you're getting from having a clear Headspace and a healthy mind far outweigh anything else that you can do because. Everyone wants the best for their children. And the best thing I can have for my children is that I am present than there with them because I've experienced when I'm beside my phone and checking my sport.

And when you have your son say to you, Oh, get off your phone, buddy. That's a pretty, you'll put down your phone if you're, if your kid says that to you. And that I've experienced that, and it's not a good way to be. So I try and end, there's been there, Richard kids, and there's been really there.

So you have to try and really focus about for me to try and really be there. But, it's easier said than done. And sometimes,  was out for dinner Friday night, had a couple of glasses of wine and the next day have definitely stayed up till 12 o'clock was up at six. You just didn't get enough sleep.

And you're a bit ratty and you're a bit you're not as well there. So sometimes you fall off the edge of it and not going too crazy, but it definitely affects you. It affects you the next day, but I think that's what I'm working on myself is that's a bit of a poor excuse to just say, Oh, I didn't get enough sleep.

And. I had a few glasses of wine, so my head isn't feeling that good. So I just naturally not be that present, but it's gone past those kinds of times and trying to be as present as you can in those difficult times that make the difference because there's plenty of times I've had very little sleep of a, two are asleep and I've gone into work and had a fantastic day at work just because of focusing and knocking.

Adam Coelho: [00:27:56] Yeah. I think there's a lot there in kind of a couple of things that stood out to me first is just how you've prioritized. That time to practice meditation both at the beginning and at the end of the day. And even finding those two minutes here and there throughout the day, it sounds like you really think about that as like a reset or kind of a flushing out of the buildup.

Of information of stress, of worry of meeting, and just using that as like a flushing out of the system. Is that kind of what you're saying? 

Colm Dolan: [00:28:26] Yeah. And look, I am no angel here, Adam, this doesn't work out every day for me every day is a new day, especially, I think it's only been the last two months where I've been pretty vigilant on the one hour per day meditation.

And I've also been doing a couple of meditation courses, I think when. You've gone over the last six or seven years. My meditation journey started out from a very low base and continued for a very low base for a good while sporadic meditation. But then as you're getting better, it's very interesting to understand that the theory and the theory about the shakras and theory about the mind versus.

Yourself and being a witness and all that kind of good stuff that get you onto the next level, because then it's you think you're getting a bit of a psychology degree and just finding out more about yourself and finding about more about even your childhood and your upbringing and what people would say to you and say, Oh, you should be doing this.

You should get a college education. You should do this. You should do that. And it's the parent versus child and knew that. The constant battle, but it's just understanding that and, walking down the streets and yourself on I'm thinking now. Okay. Just to be able to understand that you're thinking now is massive progress then personally, where I was at a few years ago.

But getting back to your question really, it's not. And try to do it every day and the hour meditation. Sometimes it doesn't work out, especially at the weekends where you naturally your, I think psychologically, sometimes you eat a bit worse. I know I do myself. You may be just say, Oh, it's the weekend.

Don't have to do the meditation. Then even this weekend, I didn't do any meditation. And this morning I did the 30 minute one. I know it was definitely not as good as previously, but very good to do it. And you get. Back into it again, but you always have these little hurdles that you're trying to improve and increase.

And I think taking the couple of minutes each day to between meetings or something like that is something I'm nowhere near there because there's a lot of days where I just forget totally about, about doing that. But it definitely is. I know when it, when I do it and it's. Sometimes importantly, when you get in that fight or flight mode, if you get in an argument with someone, I noticed it myself, I would just go, Oh actually, yeah, I've learned something here.

I know how to, I know how to deal with this now, and you just go, okay, take a step back. And that's those moments, you get so much confidence in yourself and you go, wow, I've met incredible strides here that I'm able to do that. 

Adam Coelho: [00:30:54] Yeah, I totally agree. I think it's really powerful when you start to just notice the thoughts, notice the story that's going through your head all the time.

I really resonated a lot with what you were saying about the way that things should be, right? There's some right way to think. Things should be, and it's either I'm not doing it that way, or the world is not that way. And so if only it was that way, everything would be great. So I have thought a lot about that in meditation has really helped me to notice that story that I have and that there's I'm explaining myself in my own head.

I'm like explaining myself to be like, look, I'm doing it the right way, and just noticing that. It gives me a degree of freedom, I'm observing and I don't need to be completely bought in and believe every single thing I think. And that gives me a lot of freedom to look at things that happen.

I gave the example earlier, if I'll be sitting in meditation and come upstairs and then get triggered by my wife or something that happens with my son or whatever, I have a tendency to get pretty defensive. When something happens, I'm like, no, it wasn't me. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. But even when I react very quickly, I realized that's not who I want to be.

That's not how I should have reacted. And I'll go and I'll say, Hey look, sorry. I was being a jerk, like five minutes later that would have taken me like two weeks before if I even was willing to acknowledge it. And so just that type of self-awareness. Both in the moment, but also just like overall, if how am I showing up?

Is that how I want to be showing up and just checking in and trying to keep that in alignment is constant work, but also quite cool when I start to find times that 

Colm Dolan: [00:32:26] it does happen. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't agree more and I think it's. About not being too hard on yourself as well, and just see the many kinds of things that you're improve on and see how are you now versus this time last year, even, or this time last month to see those small kind of games.

And there's times when you would go back into being knocked there in your thinking brain, but it's about not being too hard on yourself as well. I think. And just taking it. Day by day. It's a new day today. And you can't do anything about the past anyway, so you might as well just focus on the present and how you show.

Adam Coelho: [00:32:59] Yeah totally agree. That's a really great story. And I really like how you talk about finding your own values, right? Developing self-awareness over what you care about, what your purpose is and what your values are, so that you can move your life in that direction. I'm curious as to. How that kind of came about for you.

And if there are any specific practices that you'd recommend to the audience to start thinking about that in their own life. 

Colm Dolan: [00:33:27] Yeah, sure. I think it's very hard in when you're working in a nine to five job and you potentially have kids and you can mention other requirements to actually get a bit of time to think.

And it goes back to the life we live in at the moment where a lot of people are constantly checking social media, checking the news, and you don't want to actually take a step back and to really think so. In stacks in the business. When you have to create a set of values that you abide by, it gets you time to think and step back.

And I can't remember what book goes reading at the time or what influenced me, but it was basically like Googling the values of businesses and how they came about doing this. So it wasn't any rocket science, but then it goes back to like hardly your real values as a person. And then it goes back. For me, you went back to my childhood.

Like my parents ran a bed and breakfast in the West of ours. The values that they had, they, I remember vividly my dad could have overcharged someone by two pounds and able to draw 30 miles to give the money back. These are transparency and doing the right thing. And constantly times of customer service, when someone would be up at maybe 12 o'clock and there would be.

It wouldn't be in time for breakfast and my dad would make them breakfast anyway and just be totally nice about it because he's the nicest person in the world. But these are things that is ingrained in you and ingrained, and it comes out when you're starting a business like this. And you really want to focus on that.

And then you have some great young people like yourself, Adam, when you started at Google, I really wanted you to develop into being a great person. First of all, that's the same with the young people here in the business. I just want them to learn, have fun and grow. And if that's a public great, if it's not, the number one focus is for people to grow and Quinn.

Practically, when you go through that, you get a lot of energy from it and you get so much  into the business that you're like, Oh, we can create a real difference here. And if I can learn more about what's good in life and trying to make people happy and enjoying the craftsmanship of the work rather than the end result.

You look at a carpenter and what, how they make something and hold their fine tune. Or like a big thing for me is efficiency. Like I love being efficient in everything we do in the business, but home life. And it's about I want people to work nine to five, maximum, less as possible because you get to spend more time with your friends.

It's more time with your family, more time doing hobbies rather than. Excuse me having to work, but I found work was an ability for me to be able to bring out my spiritual teaching to other people or bringing out my values. And what other, if my purpose in life was to have a really big impact in the world and help people.

Improve themselves and live happier, healthier lives.  I've had a lot of mental health issues in, in our family, like a cousin of mine committed suicide at 25, which saw sad, and it's just he was a really good friend of mine as well. And you just see how people suffer and if there's anything, the platform like this, even our discussion.

Now, if there's any platform that invigorates someone and says, Look, I, I can have an impact in the world or I can do that or I can help people out in some kind of way. Then we're doing a great job because mental health is such a so important and myrcene that these days that people are really suffering at the moment and it's gone back to that structure of the day and having those things in place.

And we're back, we're looking off, we're back in the office here the last couple of months, and it's really been great because we have a lot of young people that. Like being part of a family, like being part of a bit of a tribe. And that's very important. Those social aspects as well are really important.

And it's the things that checking in with people. How are you doing today? Are you okay? Are you getting enough rest? Are you getting enough sleep? Are you getting enough? Exercise do an exercise this week. Yeah. Don't worry about that client to make sure you're getting exercise. Do not, that's maybe wrong, I'm really focused on about making sure that people have the right tools to go about that.

And if we're the values that have in the business, like we've 11 values in the business, one of them is. Consciousness healthy Headspace and other is efficiency, family, spirit, these kinds of things, but they're all I think, trying to improve as a person and that resonates with the customer. That's going to make more revenue, save time for your customer.

Must be more liable to the customer. And it's about having the autonomy to improve a process. For instance. It talks about craftsmanship. If we're building the kind of product that they're building, the best product fit for the customer, it might not be the best product, but the customer is gaining the most out of it.

And it's like that if you have that customer first kind of mindset, how can you have the most impacting the customer? But you can do that for yourself really because you're like, how can I have the most impact on my life? And it's about having that Headspace. Space to be able to think and really got where is my life phone?

What do I want to do? Because I didn't think it was possible. You can achieve anything in your life if you just to center it. 

Adam Coelho: [00:39:08] Yeah. I really liked this idea of being clear on your values and really infusing all the actions that you take with those values. It sounds like you have those values well agreed upon within the company.

And everyone's bought into that. How do you check in to see if. You all your, you and your team are living those values. Yeah. 

Colm Dolan: [00:39:28] Question. And I think one of the things I remember having a discussion my friend about a year and a half ago, and I was like, look, I'm down the spiritual path. And I really love it.

And I think I can have more impact than the world's like doing something else. Maybe I should quit publics and do this kind of stuff. And you said, why don't you just intertwine the two of them? So that's what I've done. I've said, let's. Just as we get bigger, hopefully it might provide a platform where, it could be an opera telling, telling, tell Oprah, I'm trying to do this in business and how I want to try to impact people's lives as well for the greater good.

So maybe there's an opportunity to do that. But in creating the values, we have gone through a lot of iterations of values. The latest one was both three months ago during the lockdown, actually in Sydney that we refocused the business and we said, look, what are we doing here? The value we're creating for our clients.

And what do we want as a team sort of values were created by the team? It wasn't me. It was actually, we did about a two month intensive to our session a week where we discussed all of these values and put them down on paper and then discuss them, started off with 20th Turkey and whittled down to 11.

And then from that, they've really started to be intertwined in the business and we actually use. W we are our one-on-one template now uses these 11 principals and saying the number one is delivering service and we're Oh how have we delivered service in the last couple of weeks?

How quick would you see you're at with that? Have you healthy mindset? So it's driving that accountability within the businesses is very important and we're in carpenter now into three 60 degree feedback. And so it's all based on the values in the business. And then when decisions, and this is practical when decisions have to be made.

About a certain product or something that happens with the customer. We make a mistake and it makes the customer decrease their revenue by a couple of grand. What is our values. We totally have trust and transparency in our DNA. So that means we tell them exactly what it is. And then we just go I think this is the right thing to do.

We'll give the money back or we do whatever, but it's all goes back to that stems from the values and the business and values to me in the business. Aren't just things written down. They have to just be like, if it all goes back to practical examples, and we've done that in our weekly team meetings as well, we've given them an examples of where we've shown our values, or we did something on vulnerability or something like that, and went around the room and telling me about a time when you've been vulnerable, all those kinds of things you have to live.

And breathe. And that's my biggest role I have is to always make sure people are aware of that. And that's the problem with scaling up the business as well. We've got about 25 in the business now we're probably going to go expand into Europe next year and get more people into the business then.

But it's about how we do that. And it's a big kind of challenge, but again, it goes back to giving people autonomy and giving people the ability to say, Oh, should we change our values? Are our values. Correct. And be constantly asking that. And as well as that, I'm pretty proud that we implemented profit share this quarter for the first time.

And that has given people pure autonomy in the business. That they can go well, should we spend this money here on something? That's going to impact their bottom line and all those kinds of things. People can see why the values are in place, because one of the values is building a sustainable business model, is can we go down some other product Avenue that has gone to sustain our business and the sustain the lives of our customers?

Cause we've got over 200 and Turkey customers now. So we have to make sure that our is intact and stay at cutting edge technology for them to. And our mission statement and vision is basically to allow publishers to try and survive for a long time. So it's built into that. Yeah. So 

Adam Coelho: [00:43:06] it sounds like the values are really in everything you do.

And I've been trying to align myself with my values. I'm pretty clear on my values, personal values, learning and growing, creating opportunity for myself, my family and others. Building connection between myself and others and by bringing others together, those are the things that give me immense energy and that I want to be spending my time on.

And I've been trying to build the habit of really checking in and seeing how much I am, or I'm not doing that in my work and my life. And there are many ways that I am, and then there are many areas where I could be doing it more. And so I really liked that you have that within your one-on-one template.

Within your team meetings, the way that you make decisions, the way that you incorporate the team in making those decisions and really giving them ownership, literally with profit sharing and figuratively with the values and the whole thing to really embody and live those. And so I think that's really cool.

Another thing I really like and would love to hear a little bit more about is how you think about using this. Entrepreneurial path to develop and make the, create the impact that you want to create on the world. Because I've had this thought a lot, as well. As you mentioned, I am very attuned to the comforts of corporate America.

I have gotten quite comfortable and in many times in my career, I thought that I needed to leave Google and I needed to leave. A corporate safe job and take a risk as an entrepreneur to truly make an impact and to develop into the person I wanted to be. And to some degree, I really still do want to be an entrepreneur, but I've found that I am an entrepreneur.

I don't need to wait until some future time. When I quit my job to be an entrepreneur, I can be an entrepreneur right now, and I can live in alignment with my values right now within my job at Google, with this podcast, which I can do on the side. And that's entrepreneurial in itself. I'd really love to hear more about how you think about your work as the ground, with which to.

Build your self-awareness your skill, your leadership skills, and to create the impact that you want to create in the world? 

Colm Dolan: [00:45:19] Yeah, I suppose it's like we have 25 team members. We've got 230 clients we've got now. I suppose the big focus of my business, my parts of the business is. Not too much day to day, but it's PR it's people and it's strategy.

And so if I can create, one of the best places to work in the li in the world for people, if we didn't have structures in place, I'm pretty, I look at base camp and what they've done and the founder, Jason fried, and those guys are just incredible what they've done. And they've pioneered kind of the tech kind of self-funded kind of startup.

They had profit share for awhile with their employees. They pay their employees are incredibly well. We actually got to. The head of strategy, give us advice on product strategy and we've incorporated the jobs to be done philosophy in our product strategy. So that was really useful. And I get really twosie astic about companies like Southwest airlines, which a lot of their values are under doing the competition and being profitable from word go.

And it's not about just looking for an exit. For public, it's about creating, like it's a self from the business. So not answerable to anyone else. Just do  what we think is the best way to go down. Obviously you've got responsibility to your clients and to the team but that's it. So you can create this kind of journey and I can use this as a.

As a platform to share my experiences. I never wanted to share a gospel and said, this is what you should do. All I can say is this is what has worked out for me and my team. And I want to create incredible welfare team. I want to create autonomy. I want them to have fun. I often thought about going out and maybe doing.

Being a, an advisor or being a consultant to companies and let them do it. But again you're saying, this is what you should do. This is what you should incorporate in a business. But if I have a working example, because. Most of the time you spend most of your time at work, really that's what most of the population do.

So if you can create an environment where your work is fun and invigorating, and you can share that with the rest of the world, or maybe it's a, it's an impact that, that other companies can have that, that they can go. There's a lot of businesses that are already doing this, give autonomy to employees.

I've got so many friends that just are. Punch in the numbers at work, go to work and they say lockdown is great because they can just do two hours a day, because they don't have to do much more work. And, but th their brain, maybe isn't getting challenged enough in those kinds of environments.

So maybe it's a change in what we can have. I can maybe foster a change in doing that. And maybe we create different products, maybe create different going to different industries or something like that. That, that you can create that change as well. So look I'm not really too sure.

To be honest with you, Adam, I'm just trying to improve myself and try to do the best the way I think it is. And if that's an opportunity to teach people the right way of doing things and take responsibility of their lives, that way. And maybe you can create a bit of PR about being on this podcast with you about doing other similar type of podcasts that it's not all about making the most money possible.

That seems to fuel corporate America. It's not like I lived in America and I didn't like that. When it was people judge you about where you went to school people judge you about what social class you're in, how much money you have. I don't have any care for any of that kind of stuff.

And yeah, maybe if there's more people creating businesses that share wealth with the team and share, it's not all about the end result. Like people ask me, even the team mass me what's the end result here. Call him, what do you want to do? And I just go look, I'm still figuring it out, but I'm just focused on trying to improve and trying to improve the value that we create for our customers.

Is the most important thing. And if we're adding value to our customers, I want to add value to more customers. So that means getting more customers. Yes, but I want to do it in a conscious way. And I want to make sure that every team member that we bring on this journey with us is adding value and they're adaptable.

They're changeable. They're all the right values that we need to get us where we want to go. Because if you have one. Bad egg on the bus. It's assessed the business totally bad. So recruitment is so important to doing those kinds of things. Yeah. I don't know if I really answered your question about where it can have the impact on on the world, but I definitely think it's.

It's like maybe being a school teacher or something like that. If you have a lot of kids that come every year, you can have that impact and you can have their lives. I've definitely, I've written a few articles. I wrote one article a few weeks ago about my constant struggle with digital screens and I make money through people clicking on ads.

So this is a constant battle at me. I'm trying to align the spiritual kind of practice, not being on social media, not being on my phone, whereas I make money true that, yeah, that's a total contradiction.  But if I'm not out there saying that it is. Like you maybe watched the social dilemma, Netflix.

It's scary about what is going on out there. And it's definitely really do to create a good user experience for the users of websites. I want to have a targeted advertisement that works and adds value to their. Intranet experience. I'm not a big believer of big flashy ads and manipulation and getting revenue growth in the short term.

It's about long-term creation and on ongoing adding value. And I definitely not an advocacy of spending more time online. The average, I think Carson spends four hours online now. That's a lot, if and using the business hat and I'm saying, Oh that's great. So I want people to spend more online.

I don't I definitely want people to be enjoying their life and being out in nature and doing all those good things rather than spending too much time online. Like the internet has meant massive efficiencies in our lives, it's, previously you would have had to go to the bank to, to do stuff.

Use. Stand in line to get there. Now you can do it in a couple of minutes on your mobile phone screens, for instance, and it's been massively useful, but I definitely don't want to get totally obsessive with more money and more gone through that. I think it's not the right thing to go goes back down to that.

Yeah. 

Adam Coelho: [00:51:42] So with regards to this idea of building wealth, right? This podcast is all about financial independence, but creating a life that you would love and pursuing financial independence in a way that you're doing it mindfully, you're not in a rush to get there. What does pursuing financial independence mean to you?

Yeah, 

Colm Dolan: [00:52:00] that's a good question. When you start the business, you definitely see this. The sun on the stairs. And you say, wow, incredible to have a couple of million dollars or sell the business or do those things like that. But what I've found in over the years is that the wealth I have created.

Is not much in the, in my pocket. I know this for sure. Hopefully that's going to change, but it's definitely the wealth of friendships I've made and all, it sounds corny, but like incredible clients that are our friends. We lost a client last week and working with six years and they're still incredibly good friends because I'm so grateful to them for giving us this opportunity when I was a small business there, and then there's this other partners does.

People at Google PubMatic group done all these kind of people are great people and you learn so much from them. And then there's other entrepreneurs. You meet along the way. And I can literally go to any city in the world best I can visit a client. I a visit a partner. I could visit the competitor.

All this kind of stuff is just incredible. That's well, to me, and I'm the, I've always I did a jobs to be done philosophy. I don't know if you're aware of that, the product philosophy jobs to be done. So it's basically revolving around the job rather than. A persona. So for instance, you have an option to go for lunch.

It could get a smoothie, you could get a sandwich or you could get a salad. So it all, it's all about satisfying that, that job that you hire a product to do. So I built that for myself and the jobs to be done for that. Yeah, I have is that I want to grow. I want to have an impact on. Anything. I learned that I want to reciprocate that to the rest of my team and maybe rest of the clients, but I also want to be able to be in a position to do whatever I want in terms of experience.

So if Ireland or in the world cup final, which I don't know will ever happen, but I want to be there. And if it costs me $50,000, I want to be there. So those are the kinds of things I like in life.  And just to be able to experience any of that, I'm not a material possession, got a parcel, fancy dinners.

I'd prefer a home cooked meal rather than anything else, or a takeaway of Portuguese chicken is very good too. So I don't anyway. Think about spending money. I don't have a flashy care. It doesn't interest me any of that kind of stuff. Experiences interests me gone out to the zoo and your baby or something like that.

And having the financial independence to be able to do that is something that I'd really focus on. So it's suppose when I started out, it was just about getting a job that I enjoyed. And it's still about that. And I think if you focus on. The wealth creation side of things. It's a bad angle to focus on from my experience, because if I'm just thinking about the customer and creating more value for them, the it's like what I said to the team.

You focus on the process, you focused on refining the process and the structure rather than the goals, rather than the financial rewards rather than the end result. So I don't really think about the financial independence or. Sorry. Sorry. I know your podcast is about that, but I don't really think too much about that.

To be honest with you, Adam. It's 

Adam Coelho: [00:55:15] it sounds like you're enjoying the process, right? Like this idea of craftsmanship has come up a few times, right? Focusing on the process, honing your skills, getting better a little bit. I little bit, I'd love to hear your thoughts on that. Cause I know that you fancy yourself a doer, right?

Like you have an idea of what you want to create or what you want to do and you just go and do it. I have the idea and then I think about it a lot and then some more and then some more, and then maybe I do something right. And but I really do resonate a lot with this idea of craftsmanship and aspire.

I'm an aspiring craftsmen. But I'd love to hear just how you think about that in, in improving yourself, right? 

Colm Dolan: [00:55:56] Yeah. I think I'll go back to that. Other thing about it's about financial independence for one second. I just have a thought on that. It's not that I don't worry about like buying a house for my family or, making sure that we're financial stable, because I keep getting from a wife.

Are we going to get money out of the business now? And I, Oh, no. We're just going to put some more money into the business. Would it be okay. So I definitely have worries about that. And if the business kind of folded it up in a couple of weeks, time or something happened or some kind of change, it's definitely a worry.

But again, as far as it just goes back into your head space at the time, and if you continue the process you'll get there in the end, then it's that mindset of just, it's all going to work in the end. And it's because I'm putting good energy out in the world. I'm being a good person and doing all that kind of stuff.

But there's moments when, something happens, some trigger points, you lose a customer, or you someone is going to leave the business or your product fails, or competitor takes two customers in two days or something like that. And you just go, Oh shit. It goes back to that. Spiritual mindfulness again.

So that's what I would say about that, but in the doing aspect, I would just say Adam I've yeah. All has had that pretty stupid that I just don't think about too much things about too much. And I lack a bit of foresight, I would say so it can have positives and negatives. So we've been guilty in the business of not planning things out, and sometimes it works for us.

Sometimes it doesn't tend, you just have to be comfortable in making those mistakes because our, we scale up the business, our processes and structures within the business currently are not where we want them to be at all. They're pretty poor, I would say. So it's only in the last while that we've try to improve that or say it's about the process. It's about the craftsmanship. It's. It's really only in the last six months when we've gone through that bit of a change with public 2.0 and figuring out our values and our product philosophy side of things. That's only been something that we've figured out in the last couple of months, really.

But what myself and Tobin have always had do are attitudes. So it all has been part of, we just roll up our sleeves and get things done and this, to the detriment of scaling sometimes because we'd always come in and save the day and quench fires. If something's wrong with the customer will come in rather than another team member dealing with it, because we just know how to do it.

It's always been the case, but I suppose, yeah, I just don't think about the repercussions of doing stuff and very impulsive. I would say, I'd say I'm very in tune with my intuition as well. And from meditation kind of going intuition feelings, maybe feelings, not as much for me, but intuition.

If I have an idea, if I have a thought, most intelligence is high with me, I will just go do it. And I back myself and deal with the consequences. If it's. If it's 

Adam Coelho: [00:58:47] wrong. Yeah. That's interesting. I've always known that about you and just watching you build the business right. From the very beginning, three weeks later, you're like, all right, quit my job. I'm doing this. I'm like good on you. Yeah. And I think for me, just like in starting things, this podcast, right? This is something that didn't exist. This time last year. And there was a long period of time where I was thinking about doing it.

And I have a tendency to jump ahead to what are all the things I'm going to need to know when it's this big podcast, right? And it's no one. It's not, it's literally not even a podcast yet. So 

Colm Dolan: [00:59:23] you're dealing with Spotify, right? 

Adam Coelho: [00:59:25] Exactly. What is that like? What am I worried about that, that far ahead, but what I've found in doing this is that there's so much learning and growth that comes from just taking that step.

And then that next step reaching out to you saying, Hey, do you want to be on the podcast? Okay. Then we schedule it and now we're doing it right. Now then it's going to come out on Tuesday, right? Like you take one step and then the next step becomes obvious. And if I take the time to take a step back and look at, Oh, wow, look at all that I've done.

I've had eight or nine episodes. I've, gotten this much progress. I've learned how to do this. It's pretty cool. And that gives me energy and encouragement to keep going. And for me that's really helpful. So I'm trying to be more of a doer. That's really, my I'm in this program called the inner MBA and I had to pick like a learning goal.

And my learning goal is I want to take more action in my life because of that thing. As I start to take the steps, I start to find new opportunities. As I walked down the path. And it's cool to get your thoughts on that. So let's shift gears into what I call the mindful fire, final four.

And so the first question is what is your top tip for those getting started with meditation and mindfulness? 

Colm Dolan: [01:00:37] I think it's always good to have a body. You are my original body, but I. I had another, I still have a body will, who was down that mindfulness path with me and we always discuss it, and keep an accountability.

Think another thing is some great apps out there, like Headspace that give you those guided meditations. And that's so important. I think that the guided meditations of the stairs, because you really don't know what you're doing and be very thankful to yourself for making the time to do anything.

And I think starting off doing that will spark something and everyone's on their own journey. You know what? You can do your there, you can do mindfulness through eating. You can do mindfulness, true playing tennis, It's about doing those things that create your present moment, like I think we'd spoke about Michael Jordan's documentary, the last dance I've got Phil Knight's book on my desk there that I'm going to read.

I think Phil Knight is that the name of the coach said, filter accent. Sorry. So no worries. That was a guest credible, what they were doing. In terms of mindfulness for Jordan was just so in the now, so in the present moment, and that's what set him apart from everyone else, he wasn't consumed by the mind.

So you can do it in all walks of life. You can there, and a flower, do all this kind of stuff. That is very interesting. And I think it's good to, if you're. Get a bit of something out of it, reading some books, like the power of knowing  this kind of stuff. And it just set, it sets off different things in everyone's head.

But I'd say that the apps like Headspace or cam or these kind of stuff are really good tools. I reckon 

Adam Coelho: [01:02:16] I mentioned that I post guided meditations as well for free every day. Other week. So this week we'll have an interview, this one, and then next week we'll have a meditation and so on and so forth.

 Definitely recommend getting started with Headspace. That's been very helpful for many people, but also we have some available as well. Second question is what is your top tip for those who are. Pursuing financial independence. 

Colm Dolan: [01:02:43] I would say, just go on and do it. If it's hard to, I think you're doing a good approach.

So Adam, to be honest with you, I think that the side hustle is the best kind of approach because it keeps your kind of security and build it to a stage. Of I'm an all-in kind of person. That's very black and white with me, but if you can do something where you're working and then you're doing your side hustle and then your side hustle becomes big enough that you don't have to work.

That's an incredible amount of our clients that love our clients run kind of puzzle websites or coupon sites or something like that. And they would have. Then software engineers at a corporation, and then they're just meant so much money from ad sense that they went and did their own thing. Yeah, 

Adam Coelho: [01:03:24] that's really definitely how I'm thinking about it.

I have my day job, which is providing the financial means to work towards financial independence. Allows me to save and live a nice life without having to worry too much and invest and grow that. And at the same time, I'm able to explore these areas of purpose and passion. For me, that are aligned with my values, things like teaching search inside yourself within Google and leading meditations.

Every Tuesday at Google and doing the podcast. So it's like the podcast is really my foray into, what might I want to do after I retire early from Google. Do I think maybe I want to teach mindfulness. Let's talk to some people who teach mindfulness. And see what they like doing it.

And what are the pros and the cons, and then talk to people who are just living that it's intentionally and what they're focused on re like you building this business, you're looking at building this business as a path of personal growth and development. That's really what it's all about.

Growing and learning and creating opportunity is certainly in my mind. And so how can I. Test the waters while still having that financial security. And then also, how can I bring more of that into my day-to-day work at Google? It doesn't need to be either war. I think you said that one of your friends said, why does it have to be one or the other?

Why does it, why don't you bring both together? And so that's really what I'm trying to do. So the third question is what advice would you give to your younger self? 

Colm Dolan: [01:04:50] What advice would I give to my university? Just remember that it's all gonna work out in the end. And that's the advice I give to myself every day.

It's all going to work out. Don't worry too much about the small. 

Adam Coelho: [01:05:02] Perfect. And the final question is how can people get in touch and find what you're working on online? LinkedIn 

Colm Dolan: [01:05:09] is probably the best thing for that. It's the social media use for the business and put out a good bit of stuff in there and what we're doing and what kind of focus on.

Yeah, I think that's the best area. All right, good. I'll 

Adam Coelho: [01:05:20] put a link to that in the show notes. And I'll also link to your website, which I believe is publisher.com. Yeah, 

Colm Dolan: [01:05:27] sure. And if anyone wants to reach me by email me emails on LinkedIn, call them up public.com. I'm happy to have that discussion or give advice anywhere or help anywhere like that.

Very 

Adam Coelho: [01:05:38] good. This has been awesome column. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank 

Colm Dolan: [01:05:41] you very much, Adam. And it's incredible what you're doing, the impact you're having in doing those meditations, every biweekly and this podcast and Traklight yeah, it's a, it's great to see. And the mindfulness path is definitely a, it's a fantastic way to do it and how you're helping other people at Google and outside of Google is great.

So well done and keep on doing it. Thank you very much for having me. And that's hope we can see each other in the, not too distant future. 

Adam Coelho: [01:06:11] Let's do it, dude. Thanks so much for joining me today on the mindful fire podcast. If you got value from today's episode, please hit subscribe on the podcast player.

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This will help more people find the message of mindfulness and financial independence. And if you'd like to join our email list and be notified each time I release a new episode, please do so@mindfulfire.org. Thanks so much. And we'll catch you next time.