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Working 80 hours a week simply doesn’t allow for any sort of balance in our lives…and yet so often we find ourselves going with the flow and doing it anyway. Such was the case for Corbett Barr, co-founder of Fizzle and our guest for this show.
In his early entrepreneurial days, Corbett was working far too much whether it was as an employee or as a business owner. One day he recognized he needed to be more intentional about the direction his life was headed, if he wanted his day to day life to look a certain way. Corbett and his wife set out on a quest to figure out how they would integrate work into the kind of life they wanted to live. Join us on the 34th episode of How’d You Get Into That? as we talk about all of that and so much more.
MORE ABOUT THIS SHOW
Growing up near Portland, Oregon Corbett always knew he wanted to be in the business world. He also had an interest in software and techie-type stuff. Although he didn’t know exactly what he would do in the business world, he knew that was his path and he was focused on making it happen, he looked for the Salesforce team to get extra help building his business.
His parents encouraged and supported him; they themselves were blue collar workers but wanted their son to pursue his business interests.
Corbett went the normal route of college; he worked his way throughout five years of undergraduate studies. He had to work and go to school at the same time, so it took him longer to finish his bachelor’s degree in general business administration. But that extra time and effort paid off, his experience helped him land a coveted role in a boutique consulting firm. He was being paid to fly around and consult Fortune 500 companies.
The money was great, the title was prestigious and the role itself was highly-sought after but by the young age of 28 Corbett knew this wasn’t “it” for him. He spent far too much time working and not nearly enough time living a life.
About this same time, his then-fiance started graduate school in the Bay area so Corbett followed the flow of life once again and took a job with another consulting firm. The difference he saw in this new role was that this firm that would allow him to have more flexibility in his lifestyle. He could take off for a few months if he wanted and Corbett thought this would give him a greater balance between work and the rest of his life.
THE FINER DETAILS OF THIS SHOW:
- Does he regret choices he made in his 20s?
- What was the pre-cursor to Think Traffic?
- Who was his biggest influence growing up?
- True or false: he was never wanted to throw in the towel.
- What life lesson can you learn from the Mexican fisherman?
- And so much more!
It turned out his role still required him to spend 14+ hours a day working for his clients and his day to day life was no more balanced then it had been in the past.
Life took another interesting turn at this point when someone Corbett used to work with reached out about a start up company he was undertaking. They had coffee a few times and discussed the nuances. Corbett’s contact wanted a co-founder, Corbett wanted out of his new role and wanted a chance to see if he could make it as an entrepreneur. It made sense to give it a shot and so he did.
For the next few years he went through the typical ups and downs entrepreneurs faced. Their business was succeeding financially but only because they had venture capitalist backing. Went the market crashed in 2008, their funding dried up and Corbett decided to leave. He and his co-founder were on the outs after one too many arguments and he also realized he had even less of a life as a business owner then he had as an employee.
He and his wife set out on an eight-month sabbatical traveling throughout Mexican with their car and their dog. They constantly asked themselves how to integrate work into their lives and what kind of lives they wanted to live. Happily they met plenty of ex-pats along the way who were living as they wanted to: they made work a part of their lives, not the central focus.
From that experience Corbett wrote his first blog to share these stories he was hearing and to give himself a place to answer his life/work questions aloud, not just in his head. That blog was the first step into the online marketing world and his present-day company Fizzle.
Please join me in thanking Corbett for sharing his knowledge biscuits on the show; he was third in the Fizzle trifecta to appear on the show and it was great to chat with him! Leave him a comment below or send him a Tweet.
Tweetable: “You’ll never know if your business will be successful, unless you try.” Corbett Barr
EPISODE RESOURCES
- 99 Designs – Complementary Power Pak
- Corbett’s web site
- Corbett on Twitter
- Caleb Wojcik of Fizzle on the show
- Chase Reeves of Fizzle on the show
- Reserve your complementary spot for our listener Q&A webinar
- Email me with any questions or comments at Grant@GrantBaldwin.com
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