What do volleyball and business have in common? You gotta join me and find out on this edition of The Inside BS Show. Hey now, it's Dave Lorenzo, I'm the Godfather of Growth and I am with you live today from the Cloverleaf volleyball tournament here in beautiful Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It is a winter day for people in most parts of the country but it's a beautiful 75 degrees and sunny in Fort Lauderdale at Fort Everglades where the convention center is.

We are in the shadow of the largest cruise ship in the world and we are at a massive volleyball tournament. This is the Cloverleaf Volleyball Tournament taking place on March 8th and 9th of 2025 and we're in the first wave today here at the Fort Lauderdale Convention Center. What does that mean? That means there's over 300 teams competing in the morning wave and then there will be an additional 300 teams competing in the afternoon wave.

So what does volleyball have to do with business? Well, today I want to focus on work-life balance and you as an entrepreneur but I want to set the stage for you for what's going on here. This is a huge business. This is a tournament for club teams and as I said there are 300 club teams playing in the morning 300 club teams playing in the afternoon each team has at least 7 or 8 players.

Most of them carry 10 players and each of those 10 players families are paying in the neighborhood of $5,000 to $10,000 a year for them to be part of the club and the club then takes that money and pays for their training which is usually practices three days a week, pays for their uniforms and pays for their tournament entry fees and there's at least one but most likely two tournaments every month. This is a big business and they have brackets in age from starting as young as 5U so 5 and under all the way up to 18U so high school level kids and they also have 2 or 3 or sometimes even 4 team brackets at each wave level so in the 13U bracket that my daughter plays in at her club Miami Hype there are 3 levels of team. There are regional teams, there are national teams and there are local teams so each bracket has a team and then the regional and local teams have 2 teams each in that bracket.

My point is this is a big big business and it's a big business for the people who run the clubs, it's a big business for people who run the tournaments and it's a big business for the vendors and the concession owners who serve them If you're an entrepreneur and your child is in team sports like both of my kids are you have to balance running your business with handling your kids sports travel schedule Today and tomorrow we're up in Fort Lauderdale which is an hour and 10 minutes from where we live so we got up at like 4.30 this morning so that we could walk the dogs and get ready. We left the house at 6 to be here for 7.15 start time Everybody does this and they do this almost every single weekend so how do you as an entrepreneur balance this with taking your kids to practices handling your kids day to day activities I don't think there is a balance I think what we strive for as business owners is we strive for work life harmony we strive to put things in perspective and make sure that our work and our life somehow fit together so how does that work I'm going to give you the 5 tips that I use that make my life work with my kids travel schedule and my travel schedule and my wife's work schedule sports, academics and everything else I believe that I can get most of my work done almost anywhere and the reason that I'm recording this live from here at the tournament is because I just wanted to show you that it's possible to combine your work life and your business life, your work life and your family life without having to sacrifice either one the girls from my daughter's team are on a break from their playing schedule now they play one game on, one game off one game ref, one game on, one game off one game on so they're in a break right now before their last game of the day they've won the first two so they'll be playing for a medal tomorrow for sure, if they win the third today they'll be playing for the gold while they're on the break I decided that I was going to record today's show so I have a table set up with my equipment popped it up and I'm fending off the strange looks from the people passing by and I'm recording the show right here live in the arena with the 38 volleyball courts with the 300 teams playing in the background you can do the same, there are parents here with laptops there are parents here with iPads, they have a lounge with wifi access that works really really well, a lot of the parents go in there and there's also there also happens to be a bar in the lounge where the wifi works really well so if you choose to partake in that you're welcome to do that as well that's tip number one, bring your work with you and during the breaks when your kids aren't playing when your kids aren't doing the activity that you came to watch you can go ahead and do your work tip number two is combine your work with the activity if you're traveling, so when my daughter goes to Orlando for her AAU tournament, I'm going to host an event in Orlando in conjunction with that AAU tournament so my promotions for my event are driving my clients to a venue in Orlando where I'll be speaking and I will be conducting a full day seminar so I'm going to get paid to be at my daughter's tournament for that week because I will have prospects and clients that are going to join me there so that's tip number two, combine your revenue making activities with the opportunity to travel with your family tip number three is if you're really interested in making it happen tailor your business to your kids activities, I know a dozen parents no fewer than twelve parents who have developed businesses to support their children's passion, whether that's them opening up their own sports clinic so that their kids could play for free or the parent forming a club team themselves and collecting a premium for the players so that their kids could play for free and they could make money to support their family so their passion could fund itself or them developing a program to give lessons to kids as a side hustle so that it was a revenue making opportunity for them to enjoy spending time with their kids when you combine the two it's the perfect match for some people and it serves as a business that starts as a side hustle but eventually can become a full time business tip number four is for you as a parent to develop some sort of advanced educational component that will help you in your business and it's combined with your kids so not all activities are sports activities if your kids are into like my son is broadcasting you and your child can travel and do podcasts together or if you and your kids are into writing you could develop a writing program for business owners and you and your kids could do that together so this requires probably some advanced education you and your kids or you and your family members should get that advanced education together and if you do you can turn that into a business venture so that your side hustle can eventually become a full time business so incorporating yourself into your kids activities was tip number three incorporating your kids into your work is tip number four finally tip number five is my in case of emergency break glass and that is to organize your business in a way that allows you to take the time off to support your kids passion so if your kids are part of a program where it requires your travel across the country and you can't incorporate that into your business what you need to do is adapt your business so that you have people who can run the business in your absence so that you don't have to be there and you can do what you want when you want with your kids you only have one life so you should have one calendar one time scheduling system schedule your activities with your family separate from your activities with your business but on the same calendar in the same schedule and make sure you have bulletproof coverage in your business so that when you don't need to be there you don't have to be there that's the balance part of it but I really think it's a harmony part because you're putting everything on one calendar on one schedule I'm going to get back to the tournament here because I got to watch Miami Hype go for their third win in a row this afternoon I'll be back here again with you tomorrow my second day from the cloverleaf tournament in Fort Lauderdale until then my name is Dave Lorenzo and join me back here again tomorrow at 6am live from the cloverleaf tournament in Fort Lauderdale I will see you tomorrow morning until then I hope you make a great living and live a great life Thank you