Beyond the Entrepreneurial Zeitgeist: Burnout, Failure, and Building Around Your Values

Would you mind just sharing just a little bit highlights about you and a little bit of a background to provide some context and then we'll dive in.

I went to college. Thought I was gonna be a doctor. didn't want to do that. I got a full ride, full academic scholarship, went to school for pre-med, hated it, and I was just like sophomore year. I was like, There's no way that I can I'm not gonna I'm not gonna do this for another ten years, you know, staring on the barrel of like what that was gonna take and and it wasn't the work, it was just like the subject. I was this is not it, dude. in college I had w just a random prerequisite I'd taken history of world religion. So filler class. I grew up in the rural south. where are you from? South Carolina, Charleston. Okay. I'm from Georgia. I think we yeah. Yeah, I feel like when we first met. I feel like we might have talked about that. Yeah. Yeah. Where in Georgia? suburb of Atlanta, Suwanee. Yeah, I know well. I've my colleague college roommate lives is well, he's originally from Buckhead, but he lives in Suwanee now, him and his family he moved back and his wife and his kids.

Yeah. Yeah, so you know, I I I grew up Baptists, you know, very traditional and that's kinda here nor there, but I when I took this world religion class, which honestly I just like it was like the last one left, you know, I was kinda like late to sign up classes or whatever happened. I was like, yeah, fine. blew my entire mind. I was like, I didn't know any of this existed. I grew up in like fairly insulated environment and fascinated me. And so literally, kind of in that process, I was like, well, premed's not it. I changed my I double majored in history and religion. and I was like, I'm gonna be a professor. And I was like, all I wanna do is like learn more about the way people see the world. Religion is a construct to make sense of this crazy thing that we you know, all of us the human experience. And and I was like gung ho. So finished school with double major history and religion. got a full ride to go actually to to seminary in New Zealand. Whoa. not to be a like a a pastor, but to like learn, you know, to to to get a doctorate in religion. my wife and I, well she's my girlfriend then. We went to New Zealand, hung out for like three or four months. In that time period, I was like I don't really want to do that either. I kinda just want like get to living. You know, I was like, I I don't in the same way that I didn't want to be a doctor, I was like, I don't really want to like go to more school. Like I'm kinda just hungry to like do the thing. Like let's get to it.

So we didn't do that, moved back to Charleston, or you know, went back home and then shortly thereafter had an idea. I was also in that time period I was en route to becoming a professional cyclist. I've been racing very seriously. I had had a pretty deep history as a pr pretty high level runner, not professional, but was running a lot, had didn't done triathalon and then ultimately realized that the bike was where I was strongest. I was racing at kind of like national level on the bike. And that went on to be a a a really transformative just component of my life that still actually is present today. but that got me thinking because I was I we would go travel and it was I was like, I w I wanna ride my bike. Like I would take my bike everywhere. and I was traveling for all these races and and all this different stuff, and I was working for a bicycle company and doing like R and D for them. so I was traveling and I would take my bike with me for like work trips and I couldn't find any place to ride. It was hard. Like you touched down. This is like pre you know, this is twenty, twenty-ish years ago. This is pre like Strava, pre-Google, pre not pre-Google, but pre like Google as it exists today. We could literally just be like, I need a place to ride my bike. And the internet, of course, would deliver like an infinite amount of information. I wasn't there. You touched down in, you know, Dallas or San Francisco. Like, where's the bike trail? Where's the safe place to ride? What do I do and and it didn't exist. Like I and I kept thinking, I was like, this is like so I'd go to a bike shop or like a running shop, like, hey, like where do you where do you guys ride? I got this bike. I'm a competent rider. Like, I want to get in, you know, fifty, sixty, whatever the right it doesn't matter what the mileage was. and for some stupid reason I was like, I think I can solve this problem. And so I co founded a software company. we crowdsourced recreation locations around the world. So what we decided to do was to focus on the seventy-five largest business travel destinations globally. and we build ambassador networks in those seventy-five cities around the world. so think, you know, think London, think you know, Copenhagen, think, you know, Sydney, and what we did was we built at the time the largest crowdsourced database of like trusted recreation locations in the world. that set about my entrepreneurial journey and I had no clue what I was doing and it it it literally nearly killed me.nnAnd wait, okay. What yeah, I worked I worked twenty plus hour days every single day. When I mean every single day, I mean n like I did not take a day off for eight years. I worked as hard as I possibly literally physically could until I went to the doctor to get physical. Keep in mind I was racing bikes professionally at this time. So I was 135 pounds. Like I had resting heart rate of 32 beats per minute. Damn. I was like wildly capable physically, sp specific to endurance. There's all kinds of ways to classify that. Yeah, I went to the doctor for a check-up and she was like, I I'm I don't think it's responsible for me to let you leave this office. She's like, Your blood pressure's through the roof. You're like, you have an arrhythmia. She was like, You're so unhealthy internally. Whoa. She's like, that I'm like nervous to let you drive home. Like you have a ride. And I had to call my wife and like she had to come get me. And I was twenty, twenty seven years old, a professional athlete, and had literally worked myself to a place where the doctor was like I I can't like you have to sign out like sign a waiver to leave here. Holy shit. and so that was a wake up call and was like, Okay, well, I guess I can't. I'm not as strong as I thought I'm not as invincible as I thought I was. I was already in route at that point to to exiting that company. We had gotten some offers to be acquired. and so I knew that that was on the way out. and so the timing of that I guess was fortuitous in in that I I didn't have to fight to make a change. I I I already and I knew that it was broken, like I was I was exhausted, but I would have kept doing it for sure. I mean it taught me so much. It certainly ch impacted and set set about you know, how I think about the work that I do now, how I mean I've went on I've gone on to build six more companies since then. that experience was was fundamental in my, you know, my view of myself, my belief about the world, my my belief in in view of like the role that businesses play in entrepreneurship, the whole thing. Like, you know, from from working so hard to build something and then to have that thing, you know, literally almost kill you. And then also to get to what you th what you thought was gonna make you happy and then that wasn't it either, right? I mean everybody's like, I start a company, I wanna exit that company. And of course you do that, it doesn't feel like you thought it would. It's a moving goalpost. That's not the thing. It's it's not a paycheck. It's not a whatever and and that was a wake up call. I was like, Well shit, what do I do now?nnDo you feel that prior version of yourself, that workaholic version knocking on the door in new business ventures and you have to like actively shun it? Every minute of my life. Yeah. How do you do that? How do you how do you push it away? I don't always, honestly, I mean it's it is, it will be my life's work. to to figure out what it's supposed to look like for me to apply myself in a way that I I know is different. I know that I have a tremendous capacity. I do think that one of my superpowers is is that I I can I can just manage a lot. And it truly doesn't bother me. Most days I would not describe myself as stress. I'm not an anxious person. I I have so many balls in the air all the time. So it's like I think about it objectively. And then even as like people come into the organizations that I'm responsible for, like on the on the employee side, and there's like what in the world is this day? Like how is this possible? And I'm like, this is like a light day. Like I don't it just and I'm not s none of that's ego based. Like I just I it is something I'm good at. Yeah. And it and it truly is just like, whatever. It everybody's entitled to their own thing. That's how I roll. and so every single moment I have the opportunity to fall back into that those patterns. I see. No one's really there to stop me. Now to your question, I have I've been you know, I've been lucky enough at this point in my career to be surrounded by people who have bought into my vision and are there to support me on the team side. So it's not all on me, so that certainly helps. and I have people that like call me on it. They're like, dude, like you gotta take a beat, you know, like what are you doing? Like shut your computer down. Like I was on a trip with my wife last week and I was sitting by the pool in San Diego and I was working. And somebody from my team who I was talking to, she was like, Why why are you talking to me? She's like, I know where you're at. And I had talked to her that morning in a meeting that I got up for it five o'clock and took the meeting. And again, 'cause like truly that was fine and I wanted to to communicate. It was it was something I was excited about that we're working on. But then there everybody on that call is like, now please get the hell out of here. And I didn't. And I kept working. And it was like one o'clock, and my wife was like at a yoga class and I was like, Boop, like my default is work. So when there is when when if if left alone, I'm working. like count on it. and so I need people to check me, you know. and my my wife who we've been together for over 20 years, Yeah, I mean she's incredible. She's you know, she she understands now at this point like what that looks like done in a way that's healthy for me. And she's gracious to give me the space to apply myself in a way that feels right for me and also quick to be like, you gotta lock it up. Yeah. You know. And I'm so grateful for that. And I have people around me that are quick to call me on it. I think that's the only way. 'Cause I truly I don't think that I'm I'm I have the awareness I don't I don't know that I'm have the capacity to like truly ch rein that in. I'm confident that if left to my own devices, that I would I would go right back. and and truthfully, like I hate to say it, but like find myself in the same place. I'm sure that I would do. Yeah. I'm sure that it work until I just passed out at my desk and wake up after a nap and do it all over again. And I would tell myself that I'm stronger than everybody else, and I don't need to follow the same rules and it would bite me in the ass. Yeah. Again and again and again. So yeah, it's something I have to be extremely cognizant of. And I lose sight of literally every day. Yeah. And I have to like, okay, wait, hold on. Like, you know, and and set all these stop gaps in place of like literally like alarms on my computer. Like like take the dogs for a walk. Like go do something else. Go work out. Yeah. Do I yeah. It takes a lot of you know, I don't know, resources and tools to try to keep me. You gotta hack your way. Yeah, yeah, it's like the it's like the reverse of biohacking, right? It's like work hacking or something. I don't know what you call it, but yeah.

No. I've stopped beating myself up about it. I also got into like a shame cycle with that where I was like, you gotta be you know, and I don't I I wanna be better. I'm try I always try. I want to show up well for the people that I'm that I'm committed to showing up for. And I want to be present in the places and spaces that require me to be present. also, you know, I don't know, this is how I'm built. Like honestly, I've kind of been this way since I was a kid. Yeah. I Well, and like like everything, it's a double edged sword, right? There's tremendous value that can come from your incredible work ethic and discipline. But you know, if it doesn't go unchecked, then that's where it's gonna kill you. That's where the twenty hours for eight for twenty hours a day of work for eight years straight is going to have some diminishing returns down the line. Yeah. But also enables you to create multiple businesses, have multiple streams of income, and create the life that you want with the partner that you want. So there is there's pros to it. Yeah, there is. I mean, I think that's that really you're exactly right. And it's a blessing and a curse. The the blessing is yeah, absolutely. Like it it yields results. The curse is that it yields results. It works. Yeah. You know, like and I I I it took me it took me so long, took me eight years to see a negative in that. Because it kept working. You know, the thing kept growing. and it and it ultimately, you know, it it didn't I wanna be clear, it wasn't some like, you know, you know, billion dollar exit or something like. Obviously, I'm still working. you know, I'm not on a private yacht somewhere. Do you think even if it were you would stop working though? No. Yeah. Yeah. No. No, because I've like I've had some I've I've had some big wins in my career. I got up and went back to work the next day. Like the next hour. Like that I got off the phone call or the meeting from somebody telling me that it was the win that I was looking for and I just went straight back to work. Yeah. Yeah. talk to me about milestone chasing. You know, it sounds like there's I I fall into this trap too of you know setting a goal for myself or having a vision of like once you ach once I achieve X, then I'll feel Y. Right. And I think that's a trap because r in reality, the only way you can only you can only know how you're feeling in the moment. You can't really predict the future and how you're gonna feel if there's some outcome. So with that said, you know, what are some of the ways that you you kind of risk mitigate that and you bear in mind that no matter what the future holds, you know that you're only really responsible for the current version of yourself. How does that like how do you operate within that paradigm and ensure that you're not just chasing milestones that will ultimately be fruitless, but still, you know, setting goals and objectives and keep you keep that forward momentum so that you don't lose sight of the objectives that you're working towards and the team that's around you all align for those same objectives. Like everyone wants that win.nnRight. But you also have to know that that win's not gonna suddenly unleash, you know, every possible dream of the possibility you have. Yeah. The the mantra that I come back to that gets it that every single day for me is that just because I'm not where I wanna be doesn't diminish where I'm at right now. And when I say that to myself and to other people again and again, what that does for me is it keeps me very connected to the process. I know people talk about it all the time, and I can enjoy the process, but like tr like all that's all we have. We have no we have the the outcome is so wildly out of our control. Right. We think that we have way more control than we do. I in in specific to our work that, you know, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do and I'm gonna build the plan and I'm gonna ninety days and then I'll stack to a year and then I'll get, you know, here's my year goal. Like no. No, like you wake up today and then the universe is a wild spiraling ball of rock and we have no fucking control. Yeah. so all you can do is is like, yeah, you can th think about your inputs, right? How do I show up today? What's my process? Be very critical of that process. Given the data that I have, does it generally support the results that I want, right? Does the input with the information that I have and what I've seen, does it give me or yield what I'd like to see in my life? The answer is no, then we've got to change the process, right? I think you also have to be you have to hold that loosely. You have to be willing to to let that process give you feedback. You know, I mean I held I held that very tightly for a long time and then realized, I mean, like we were talking about with my first business, I was like, this isn't giving me the results that I want. Not in my life, not in my health, not in my relationships. It's working on the business side a little bit. I could go into more of that. It also like the right people weren't around it sh it attracted the wrong people because it wasn't values aligned, right? I wasn't I wasn't like the healthiest version of myself, which means I attract people that aren't the healthiest versions of themselves. So yeah, I I think for me, honestly, I I have gotten this is a relatively new approach slash revelation, say in the last like five years, maybe less than that. I I'm very clear on my goals. I'm very methodical in thinking them through. I know what my vision is. I know the steps that I think that I can take to build the legacy that I'm proud of, to to build a life that I'm excited about, to provide opportunities for the people that I'm responsible for. I map all that down. I have it written down and then honestly like I just I don't I don't think about it that much. You know, again, like I don't obsess over what's my five year goal and I need to be at X this and the revenue and the like all the things like all I can do is today. Yeah. Right? All I could do is show up for this podcast and and then I'll do the thing I gotta do this afternoon. And I just keep stacking in and my my my filter is are the things that I'm showing up for in alignment with how I want to present in the world. the value that I want to give back to the world. I always my my when my feet hit the ground on the board and I literally say to myself, like, I want to give more value than I'm asking for. Mm. And if I do that, what I have seen is it it works. Yeah. Now, it doesn't work always in the timeline that I want it to work. I also have found that we should probably extend our time horizons w way more than we think. Yep. Right? A frustrating amount. You're like, this is gonna take me a year. Nope, it won't. I promise you, right? Whatever the thing is. it'll take you five. It'll take you ten, it'll take you I mean, shit, man, I got stuff that literally like I've been I've been building businesses for over twenty years. I've never had a real job. I got things that literally have just started to come to fruition that that I set out to do nineteen years ago. Like that it just required enough sets and reps. Yeah. It just required water on the bridge. It just there was no world where it was gonna happen any sooner because it just required enough of the things that I was doing. And yeah, I really just I try to just get out of my own way. You know, I r I truly just and I'm not I'm not saying like go with the flow or it just it won't just happen. Right. You have to have a plan. Like d please hear me when I say you gotta work the plan. Right. It will not fall on your lap. Whatever it is. Your relationships, your business, you you gotta work. Yeah. But also like, all you can do is work today. Right. You know? All I can do is this I don't know I don't know what's gonna happen later. Yeah. Right? My Uber driver might get smacked by a bus. That could be it. Yeah. right, and honestly, like you kinda gotta make peace with that. Like I feel like I'm just stoked for today. I'm gonna work like a motherfucker and then I'm gonna go to sleep and I'm gonna I hope that I get to do it again tomorrow. Yeah. Like, cool. Let's try it again.nnI love that mindset. I one thing I've been thinking a lot about is you hear you know reps and sets, you hear that in in the business world, a lot, and entrepreneurial world of like, you know, and trust the process, right? These are all common mantras, and what I've come back to is like the importance of quality reps too. Because I've seen a lot of people who are they're they're doing reps, and and I'm I'm guilty of this too, to be clear. you know, I think everyone's guilty of doing both in a physical like an actual lifting weights context and in like the podcast context of like content that I'm putting out that's like yes, it's a repetition, but it's not a quality intentional rep. And so I think there's a little bit of a of a gotcha there where, you know, if you're just doing reps for the sake of reps and there's not an intention, there's not alignment with your vision and your values, then like what's the point? Like you're that would be the same thing as like, you know, there there's something to be said about doing, you know, super high volume and doing, you know, twenty five reps. But if you're curling, if you're like us and you're pretty strong, capable guys and you're curling two point five pound dumbbells, does it I mean like yeah, maybe after a thousand reps you're gonna feel something, but if you're doing f a three by fifteen at two point five pounds, like, come on. That's not quality reps. Right. You know. So I think that that's an important little little gotcha there is like, you know, to try try and ch I try to check myself and think, okay, reps matter, sets matter, sure. With those repetitions you learn so much. But also like don't just do a rep for the sake of doing a rep. Have some intention behind it. Yeah. Yeah. The thing that I say real quick on that is like is is you can work really hard in the wrong direction forever. Yeah. And I I do to your point, and I I think it's worth like doubling back on is you they it has to be quality. Yeah. Like just volume for the sake of volume isn't gonna get you anywhere. Right. And I and I think it's become really sexy to do a lot of volume and in in what from the outside looking in and I you know, I work inside of businesses. I was like y it's the wrong volume. You're doing the wrong thing. I mean to your point, it's great like like put the two point fives down. Pick up a fifty, do the right and then put it down and go do something else. Yeah. Or the white the right weight and the wrong form. That's the same thing. Yeah, I mean there's so many corollaries there. Yeah. And yeah, like I I don't confuse hard work with progress. it it you yeah, it just it doesn't work. And I think I would I would I would argue because I just I see it play out every day. I mean I work with founders and teams and and I'm like you you're it you're not making progress. I understand that you're tired. I I can see that you are working. Yeah. You're it's not the right content. So reflecting back on the you know, eight years of twenty plus hours, if you had to estimate what percentage or how many of those hours were like quality hours versus just reps for reps sake, what would you what would that be? a shockingly poor ratio. Okay. Yeah, no, I had no idea what I was doing. and and and all that I this is a whole nother thing and we don't have to unpack this, but or we can, if it's valuable. The the only thing that I thought that I had to bring to the table was my work ethic. Mm. I I was one, I was it was my first business. I truly had no idea no idea what I was doing. and I also I I just I thought that that was the only thing that made me valuable inside that organization was that I was I was working you could rest assured that I was working on it. Gotcha. You know, and if if the team that worked for me or or any of those people were like, you know, I wonder if it's gonna work or w I was like, Well you can you can bet that I'm putting in time. But yeah, no, quality wise, a l very low amount. I mean, you know, who knows? But I you a handful hours a day. I as it relates to the things that actually moved the needle. Yeah. Looking back the things that made it successful. I think that's one of my gripes I have too with certain, you know, corporate jobs that I've had where there's just so much value and emphasis put on face time and like you physically being there. And it's like when I switched to remote work, I was w like showing a lot less face and I was on my computer a lot less, but all of those hours are really intentional. When I was working at, you know, the last like full time software gig I had, I I felt obligated to just be online, be on Slack, and I would just be, you know, be there. And then once I switched to freelance, it's like I'm working two, three hours a day, but it's all quality hours. Those are two extremely or three and very intentional hours. And of course there were days where I worked more than that. But three intentional hours when you're heads down grinding can f can, you know, bear much, much, much greater fruit than eight hours of half assing and you're really doing a total of 15 minutes of work.

Totally. Yeah. Yeah. and you talked about do the right work at the right time and I think there was a post you shared maybe like a month or so ago and you kind of touched on it now where you could be, you know, g blazing fast in the wrong direction. And I I've seen this in some of the the startups that I've worked with where their focus and they're including the first one I was started where like our focus was just growth. Ac you know, customer acquisition, acquisition, acquisition. And you run into an issue where like you are charging forward full steam ahead in a complete wrong direction. You're just going really fucking fast. So my question for you is how do you know what the right direction is? How do you determine is this the direction that's actually gonna yield long term value? Or is this just a shiny object that I'm pointed towards or is it pressure from investors that we have X growth rate and we achieve that? What is what is right? How do you know what's right? It's a great question. I the honest answer in my opinion is that you don't. I I mean specifically with entrepreneurship, the the the inherent nature is that there is no roadmap, right? You're creating it from scratch. Now, all that to say, there are there are ways to check yourself. And I I think to your point, what can happen oftentimes is that you get out in front of your skis, right? Where you you become so enamored with the idea of something and you you build it because you you like the idea, you don't build it to solve the problem. So the question the the litmus test is does this solve a real need for my ideal customer? And am I describing it in a way that my ideal customer would describe it back to me? It doesn't matter if we get it. It they have to get it. They have to be able to explain it back to us. It has to be in the language they use and it has to be a real pain point. It has to be real friction. Doesn't matter if we think it works or we think it's good or we think it so you have to validate. And I think that's where we I think, you know, so often if we're honest, we're afraid to get feedback. 'Cause it feels really good to build something that you're fired up about and you think is sexy and you think it's gonna make you a bunch of money or move the business forward or change the like we forgot to put it out there. Right? We forgot to put it out when it was messy, before it was done, before we invested a lot of time and energy and resources. Get it out early, earlier than you think, whatever the thing is. I don't care if you're building a widget or you got it just a service or you're doing, go put it in front of people for free if you have to, whatever means necessary, and then truly listen to them when they tell you this thing sucks. And be like, Cool. In what ways does it suck? Right? Now I'm gonna go fix those things and then give it back to them. And I think we need to test more than we think. We need to be truly open to feedback and we need to be unemotional about the product. I think you should be hyper emotional about your business in terms of your commitment to it and the impact that it makes on the world. You should be largely unemotional about the thing that you're selling. Yeah. Right? Like just it it just needs to work. Yeah. It doesn't matter if you like it. It doesn't take the feedback. Okay, great. I didn't build it right. and then just go make it work for your ideal client. Right. Ideal customer. Whomever like however that you know whatever the the vernacular is that makes sense in your business. So if if I can paraphrase it would be sort of be be obsessed with the problem and be agnostic towards a solution. Totally. Yeah. And yeah, and and also recognize that you probably don't know what the solution is right now. Your job is to figure it out. Yeah. And to meet the solution with the or to match the solution with the problem that your ideal client has. And until you've done that really well, you do not have a business. You have a hobby, you have an idea, you have a thing that's taking up time in your day.nnThe business is what happens when you s when the person, when the marketplace validates the idea that you have by giving you money for it. Right? Until then, like you will the like you will not convince me otherwise. All right. Like someone has to pay you for that thing, and that is the recognition of validation. And then you can go, then go nuts. Sell your face off. And then the market then will push back, right? Then there will be a point where they're like, this thing isn't. It isn't solving my problem the same way that it used to. So you'll have to evolve. And you'll go right back to the same thing. It's the same process. How do we need to evolve? So yeah, I I think you you do not know. I think that that's a trap to to to assume that you know w what it's supposed to look like and what the roadmap is and what the right thing in quotes is to to to run at. I think you gotta make your best judgment. You gotta listen really closely. You need to be unemotional about the product. And you probably need to iterate like way more often than you think. Right? Like give it a handful of time. and then and then change it. Yeah. Here's the caveat I'll say, and I don't want to get it like I don't want to double back on myself. It's a balance. The other side of this in terms of timeline that I see is people give up too quickly. Yeah, the pivot vs. persevere. Yeah, so so like this is really nuanced and it's different to every business and y there's not a, in my opinion, an experience, there's not a straightforward answer here. We also I see a lot of people give up way too soon. Right. So so you gotta put it out there a lot, but don't pull the plug in two weeks because one person said it sucked. Right. Like don't don't don't overcompensate or, you know, veer into the other lane. and I think that's where the unemotional piece helps is to say, that's one piece of feedback. Let me wait. And let me see if I get the same feedback. Let me see if the market validates this group of people, and then I can go. So there's different timelines, but yeah, i i that's that I'd say is very much like the art of entrepreneurship is how much time do I give this? Because also like time is money, like the runway doesn't last forever. You will lose your opportunity to enter into the marketplace if it's not timed appropriately. So that's where you gotta just yeah, I don't know, you gotta listen, you you gotta try to get it right. I I don't I don't have a great answer for that. There's been times when I've definitely gotten lucky and there's been times when I've definitely dropped the ball, right? Too soon, too too late. and that you know, I think that's just like the part of it. I don't know, you gotta be willing to like kinda swallow your your your L's and be like, Well, you know, kinda didn't didn't do that one right. and hopefully you can, you know, get back out there.nnYeah, this the pivot versus persevere thing I think comes up a lot in in conversations with with founders. And I've kind of stepped away from talking with founders, although I have a call next week with someone who's starting a software company and wants to pick my brain. I don't know how that's gonna go. But anyway, I I think that, you know, I like the way of framing it where you know, it it seems like it all comes back to kind of like the data. Is if is if there's legitimate data that there's and not like thousands and thousands of, you know, people, but just like more than one person saying, hey, this sucks. but having a couple of people saying, Hey, I have a problem with it. And then more specifically when you, you know, you're doubling down on, hey, this sucks. Okay, what specifically sucks? You know? And if there's people who they used it, but there's the same exact, problem that three, four people are having and maybe you only have six people using your product. Well, chances are that's a big problem. You gotta fix that, but that doesn't mean you gotta throw the baby out with the bathwater. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, you gotta be d discernment is is a is a skill to be developed, right? I think the the two things that I think about a lot, people people ask me all the time, like, you what do I need to work on as not like entrepreneur? What are the skills? What the i it it honestly like my thoughts on this have changed radically over time. I think you need to be, you know, you have to be some part of a visionary. You you have to be able to work the plan. There's a there's a operational piece of this, there's infrastructure, all and that's all real and fine. I don't know that that maybe matters that much because I think you can learn a lot of those things and you can certainly talk to people and you can no one is going to know how to do two things in your business better than you should be able to do them. which is to be decisive in the right times and be able to be discerning over the right questions to ask. And if you can't do those things, if you can't if you can't understand your landscape and your business and how it fits into the broader ecosystem, and then be extremely decisive when it comes to making decisions about what it means to move this thing forward. And then be discerning specifically when it comes to what do I need to say no to. I think that's the more important skill and question we should be asking. It's not what's the best yes. It's what's the best no? I need to clear all the things out of the way so that the yeses are more clear. And so I I use that as a lens for myself. I'm like, you know, every day, like you know, I'm I'm I'm actively running in the sharp end of the spear, the pointing of the spear for three organizations right now that I've founded. I I have to say no, right? And it's like my responsibility to say no more than yes so that all of those things are focused on the right thing and the people involved in them are focused on the right thing. And I so I I've changed my my thinking there and my mindset where it used to be like, How do I stockpile as many opportunities as possible? How do I get as many yeses in front of me and then how many of those yeses can I run at? And I'll just see which one works. And if I just and that's very much like the twenty hour days. I think a lot that's a lot of what I was doing was just like let me just go towards as many people that'll open the door for me and we'll see. Throwing spaghetti at the walls. Yeah, and and you know, and it it's just a really brutal way to to get a to to n to figure out what's the best yes. Yeah. Some some of them surface, but I mean not an efficient feedback. No, I mean Jesus. You know, I mean you're you're just a pure like literally to do that. It's you know, it's get on a plane, it's get on it's you're all over, you know, trying to just get in the right rooms or wherever those opportunities are, yeah, it's more no's.

Can you can you give some examples in your recent entrepreneurial history of the decisiveness and and the decision making that you you alluded to? Like what were some problems that you were facing where you felt like you knew you were the one best amp to say no to this thing? Yeah, that's a good question. We've been doing a lot of work on on ideal client on our side. we are, you know, so many businesses, most businesses deal with this where it's I could work with a lot of people who who yeah you you have to r you I think you you have to always push yourself to continue to narrow that that profile where it is it's it's not you know it's not even ten people. Like if if you're in a room full of five people, there's w there's one person in there that's your person. even if they're all, you know, so I think it it's it's scary to to be that narrow. So we've been forcing ourselves to be more and more narrow. I think that is partly an example of, to your question, the decisiveness where I I am willing and able to turn a critical eye on myself, because I was the one that actually said yes to some of these people that I realized was like it's not really an alignment. Like we're it's starting to get it's pulling us it's taking our eye off eye off the ball. We're we're having conversations, we're doing work that, yeah, it's in our wheelhouse, yeah, we're doing a good job, yeah, the client's happy or the service or whatever. But I know that like to truly make this thing like continue to move in the direction it needs to, these little micro moments where there's bandwidth here and there's resources here, it all starts to stack. Right. And it, you know, it's like it's only a centimeter off to start, but as that keeps going, it gets wider and wider and wider, and then you're in another lane. So with that doing that ideal client work and really asking asking the right questions, again, there's a decisiveness there where I you you know that or I think that I know right now that we we have a tremendous opportunity. Ultimately, it is hard to not go for companies that are worth more money. Right? So I've conversations with founders and founder groups all the time. Companies doing whatever, twenty, fifty, hundred million dollars in top line revenue. Doesn't matter what the number is. Larger companies, they're they're you know, we would say they're at scale, they've certainly got product market fit, they're in route to doing some big things. That's a very enticing place to hang out. The opportunity there is great on the on the M and A side. That's actually not where I'm most passionate about working. What I what I had to do, what I forced myself to do and the people around me, was like, I actually think where we can make the biggest impact, and some much slower play, it's not as lucrative near term, where we can make the biggest impact is to purposefully and intentionally go target companies that are no more than ten million dollars in top line revenue right now, which the I'm specifically talking about the health and wellness space. So that's a very small company when we're talking about like a CPG brand. Right. Right. and honestly, like that would be the very top end. Like truthfully, it's like sub five, sub two a million dollars. And I know like I don't trying to like be cavalier and toss it around numbers that are large, but in the in the world of physical products and CPG, you know, like that's just the scale it operates on. Hundred percent. and and it just it took like everything in me to be like, I if I'm really being honest and I really care about what I said I care about, which is pr making an impact in the lives of founders and the businesses they run so that they can make their impact on the world. And I'm gonna flatten the learning curve for them. I'm gonna give them the answers, I'm gonna I'm gonna build as many bridges as I can so we can make that thing happen with the least amount of pain possible. If that's what I wake up in the morning and I really mean that when I say it, then this is this is the answer. It's not the hundred million dollar company. Those people, they don't you know, they're they're good. Yeah. Like they're resource rich physically and you know, yeah you know. like they're good on a lot of fronts. Yeah. now they come with their own problems. I'm not saying that like they're out of the woods, but yeah, like i it and and that that has been a not so r not so distant shift that we've made and to really go and have intentional conversations with these still very early stage founders. These are companies that are, you know, a couple years old. I would work for free. Like I it makes me so it gets me so fired up to work. And it and I and it I didn't feel that way. Right. And so I know that like I didn't feel that way when I work when we're working with the larger companies. And so you just have to be brutally honest with yourself. You have to be willing to just ask yourself some really hard questions and to sit with yourself long enough to be really honest and and to say, you know, this might th this this thing is very sexy, but that's not truly it. And the thing that I'm committed to building, it's in alignment over here. Right. And you in retool. And that that might I'll have to ask that question again. I mean, you know, tomorrow, like you always have to retool. You have to be you have to be willing and able to be very, very honest with yourself. Because also when you're in a founder role specifically, there's probably no one asking you that. So you gotta do it yourself. There's probably no one who's like turning the mirror. Not not is certainly if you're at like the early stage, you don't have a team like everyone starts as a solopreneur. Who who's in the room? Who's in the room that's gonna check you? No one. You could go you could go you can go haywire. Right? Anyway, I have the best ideas. This is great. This thing's sexy. We're gonna do it. I think you gotta be you gotta be your own your own advocate in that way, right? Like you gotta be your own sounding board. Right. and you have to build those those mental kind of s you know, benchmarks in your mind. It'd be like I I know this and now I've done it for long enough. By no means do I, you know, know everything or I'll this will trip me up at some point. Like I've I got it right like once or twice. I've fucked it up a bajillion times. So please hear me when I say like I've chased the sexy thing. Yeah. It feels good for a while, it works until it doesn't. You're like, shit, like that you know, I should have checked myself. Yeah.nnIt sounds like you first step is get really specific on those values, right? What is your what is your what is this value that's gonna drive your your business, your your your next venture? Because for you you you said impacting something about please repeat the impacting the the businesses and the like early stage founders and then so that they can impact the world. Yeah, I you framed it really nicely and I watched it. Well, no. Well it's my elevator pitch, not yours. Yeah. Yeah, no, I mean my boiled down the my my commitment to to what I do in this world is to is to empower founders to build the businesses they want with as little pain as possible. Yeah. And that came directly from me doing it with a tremendous amount of pain. Right. And doing it alone and doing it scared and doing it. I mean, the the list goes on. And and I didn't realize it then. And I think so many founders don't because because they're founders. If that's the path you've chosen and and and you are and and and you're truly meant to do that, your capacity for pain is high. And so yeah, you're probably not gonna catch yourself. Yeah, I imagine that they will find themselves largely in the same place that I found myself. eight years down the road with a successful company that's just about damn near killed them. Yeah. and if as many people as I can get in front of, I refuse to let that happen. Yeah. Now do not pull back on your goals. And that's not what I'm saying. Like, let's go nuts. Build it as big as you want. I will never tell someone, I'll, you know, can help guide people based on experience. But I'm never going to tell you to pull back on your goals. Like soften that that ambition. But within that, yeah, like let's let's build it in a way that that makes you feel good. There has to be alignment between those goals and the core value and the impact that you wanna have. So it's for you, you now that you have that vision, now that you have that those values and you understand that you truly want to empower founders to build the businesses that they want to build to impact the world and the way they want to impact it. You have that vision. And so it's a little bit easier. Now it's still hard work to check yourself because that takes being really brutally honest with yourself. That's the hard work. But it's easier in the sense that you know what the litmus test is, right? You know what you're looking for. And you can a you have to be honest with yourself to ask yourself that question of like, does this business align with my values? Does this business align? But before you have those values written out, before you understand that, you're just gonna be throwing spaghetti at the wall and seeing what sticks. Yeah. You know before you do anything else, mission, vision, values. And and not don't Google them. Build them. Yeah.

From from who you are and what matters most to you. So can you define or help, you know, just for anyone listening and myself included who wants to get really clear on mission, vision, and values, what are like what questions should I ask myself to understand each of those? It's a good question. There's there's a lot of there's a lot of information out there, a lot of ways to get at it. myself and my co founder actually that was like a main gap that that we realized we had, so we set out to solve that. So we built a process to help businesses and founders arrive at that information through a series of of questions. to to truly get mission, vision and values again built from who you are what matters most. We we we make the mistake of thinking that the businesses that we start it doesn't have to be business. The things that we do out in the world are somehow separate from who we are what matters most to us. They are not. How you do one thing is how you do everything. Right? Me showing up for this podcast and you and I's conversation is the same thing as me going and talking to a client and talking to my wife and talking to a friend of whomever. Because it's me. And the things that matter most to me and the way that I want to show up in the world is that's just who I am, right? And I'm moved through the world and there's inputs that happen. So the I'll start by describing it. I think about them as very tactical tools. They they get described oftentimes as very existential things. Yeah. That's not the case. Okay. So very simply, the way that I describe them is that your vision is your vision is well let me let me add one more piece here to give the full kind of ecosystem. I would in include in that repertoire of information that I think is that you is a is necessary, your why. What matters most to you. And so your why is is a target. So let's just imagine like an archery field, right, in the Olympics. You're looking downfield and there's a big target at the end of the field. That's your why. Now, the bullseye is your vision. So the target is, these are all the things that matter most to me. This is the encompassing kind of way that I see the world. And we're going to condense that down into that's the target. Now the very center of that, the thing that's most impactful, the biggest impact that we could make, which is the bullseye, is our vision. So that's the distillation of what matters most to us. That's our legacy. Now, if we pull back one more, then the arrow, if we imagine this this analogy that I'm using, this metaphor that I'm using, the arrow is your mission. So your mission is what takes you daily in the direction of your vision. Your vision is it's 100 years out. You're always in service of it, but you'll never fully accomplish it. It's your legacy. Mission, much more tactical. I can wake up every single morning, it sits on my desk, I can look at my personal mission, my businesses that I'm a part of. The mission statements for those businesses are built from my mission along with the other founders that I have. and mission is the arrow. So it I know that if I show up in service of this mission, if I literally use it as a lens to say of the people I'm on the phone with today, or the companies I work with, are the clients that I'm have the opportunity to connect with, are they in service of this mission? If the answer is yes, I know I'm one step closer to my vision, but I can't get there. Then one more piece of that values is it's the it's the bow. So that your values are what propels, it's the energy behind your mission. It's the thing that puts your mission out in the world. It gives it legs, it gives it velocity to go move you towards your vision. And so if you have those four things, if you have your values, which is the way that I think about values, specifically the process that I've built, you have six values, your seventh value is your vision. So it is a roadmap. And it literally they're sequential. So this my first value is the first thing that I feel when I'm in alignment with my vision. Second value, next thing I feel. And then I start and it moves into action orientation, right? I I become collaborative. I become excited. I become whatever those are for for anyone, if you follow that, it is a roadmap that takes you in the direction of your vision. So these are not, again, they're not existential things that we just throw up on the whiteboard. Or behind the proverbial water cooler or whatever, they're there to be used every single day. And if you use them, you can't help but make the impact that you want to make in the world. but you have to start there. You you you you have to have those tools. Otherwise, you're always throwing spaghetti at the wall. Literally, every so many of the things we've talked about. How do you become, you know, what does decisiveness look like? How do I have discernment? All these, it has to start with those. fa what I call foundational pieces. And that's truly just a it's a function of it's not like woo-woo. It's not whatever. It's like, who am I? What matters most to me? And then how do I go put that shit in the world? Yeah. I don't care if you're building a business or not. How do you become how do you be a good friend? How do you treat your dog nice? How do you like literally like it's those four things. Right? Because when you're clear on that language, you don't have an out. It's not ambiguous anymore. Right? You get to be like, yep, that's it. And if I if I don't want to be a piece of shit, then here's my roadmap. Right? And we fall off course. It also allows you to course correct. Right. You don't have to be stuck. You don't have to be beholden to external circumstances. You come to me and you say, Hey man, I I really don't like you. Like you suck. I don't like what you've built. That's unfortunate. But also like that's not that's not a me thing. Right? That doesn't mean anything about me. I don't have to wait for someone else to validate me or put me back on course. I say, Man, that's a bummer. I really thought I had something going with Anthony, but you know, I guess I'll let me come back to my values, right? Did I do something wrong? Was I out of alignment? Right. Like we wait for other things to put us in or out of alignment with what matters most to us. And that's just not how it has to be. We we get to have full autonomy in that. And like we talked about with the process, it it it brings you into a place where there's so much clarity that comes with knowing that all I can do is control me. Right. And it can be a real bummer. I'm not gonna say like I lose sleep all the time. I got all kinds of stuff that like frustrates me, stresses me out, bums me out, but like I can course correct. I don't have to stay there. Right. And if I choose to ruminate on that, that's a choice. but I have the tools to to do me. Right. And I think that that's there's so if you're going to do something, if you're gonna if you're gonna build something, if you do something hard, y you better have those locked in. Yeah. Because there will be all kinds of shit trying to push you offline, right? Yeah. And I I think that's that's super empowering too, because what what's something that feels extremely nebulous and confusing and like just inherently unclear can become very obvious, right? If you if you understand, you know, the the core, you know, the mission and the values behind something. Then if someone provides presents an opportunity to you that seems really good, it's a really shiny object. well, I'll give you a very tangible example. I had the opportunity, two opportunities where I could continue working in software and take on an additional client who I'd worked with with them before and they wanted to work with me again. And it was sexy because it's, you know, maintaining my current income base and then adding some on top of that. And they paid me relatively well for when we first started working together. And it was extremely tempting. But it also happened to be at the time that I wanted to fully step into this. I wanted to step away. And it was a hard choice, but I recognized that everything I care about right now, every place I want to orient myself towards, I haven't come quite as clear around like mission values, those, you know, I haven't quite articulated those yet. But I can still feel at my core that like this is very antithetical to everything that I'm driving for today. And I'm not gonna say it made that decision easy because saying no to guaranteed income is a hard thing to do, but it at least made me feel comfortable with that decision because I said, you know what? I feel deeply this is misaligned with what I want out of my life today. I can't I can't accept this. I can't accept this offer. That's great. I mean, good on you. I I think, you know, I say C clarity is a gift, it just might not be the gift you wanted. Yeah, I like that. And it and it 'cause it hurts. You know, that yeah, you could like, Yeah, this isn't right and that doesn't make it better. I mean, knowing that something is out of alignment or having information to make a decision still can mean that that decision is challenging. I literally just did that yesterday. I fired a client that was misaligned. It was I mean, yeah, it was a very big client. Like it's a dent. Yeah. And from revenue. Like there's and there's it's not just me. Like I got a lot of people that, you know, relying on that money. And so of course I didn't just, you know, haul off and and fire but I mean, yeah, we're gonna wind down the contract at the end of the year and and they're still tacked, you know. Yeah, and it's it's misaligned and and that's a it's yeah, I was like, dude, that's it I mean, yeah, like it's you know, money's money. Yeah. What do they say? Be be careful what you ask for, because you just might get it. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I mean, to your point, and that happens all the time, where I'm like, this isn't it. And it's like I talked about though, that's another example of that kind of decisiveness, I've seen it play out now because we've worked this client for several years, but even kind of isolated, it's like every one of those touch points wears us down a little bit and it pulls us slightly off track. It disrupts the rest of the day a little bit. It's a you know, it's all these little things that in isolation you should have on the phone call, you help the team, you do the it's fine. I in and out, we make an impact, they're happy, but it's just it's all these little things stacked up and then it and it starts to diminish right how you show up for the next person, how you go into other parts of your life. It weighs on you so you can't be present like you want it like you know, and then and then the sum total of that is like this is actually like now I don't look forward to talking to them. Right. It started as very small and now it's like I see it on my counter, I'm like, you know, and like with that starts to happen, y that's a yeah, I mean you gotta make a hard decision. Yeah. And it doesn't make it easier for sure. Hundred percent. Yeah. Like I definitely lost some sleep thinking about making that decision and then pulling the trigger and I was like and then once it's it's kinda like a band aid, right? Like it just happened yesterday. I slept like a baby last night. So certainly like right, it's the old like the biggest problem of my life never actually happened. Yeah. Right. Well you s you build it up and then and then it happens. You're like, god, thank God, right? I can move on with my life. so yeah. Yeah. The d decision making and the the challenges with decision making and the the not making the decisions has come up in pretty much every episode I've recorded. Yeah, not making a decision is making a decision. Yeah, true. There's no way to avoid it. Yeah. Yeah. The the act of deciding not to make a decision is a decision in and of itself. You just have to be okay the consequences. Absolutely.

I want to go back a little bit. You talked about just narrowing your focus and narrowing your niche. I want to talk a little bit about sort of this paradox. I don't think it's actually a paradox, but it intuitively it feels like a paradox between carving a niche and and growth. Like those two things, and I hear this from like first time founders and and and early stage folk who haven't had much experience in the startup space. Who talk a little bit about like, well, I I need to go get every customer because how am I going to grow if they don't? It's like, well, I don't think I have the experience to articulate that and to understand like specifically what it is. But it seems like time and time again, founders and very successful CEOs, and yourself included, have articulated, no, actually creating a narrow niche sort of enables more growth. That feels counterintuitive. So like how do you make sense of that where telling people no, firing clients is actually in the long run going to create more opportunities?nnIt's it's it's scary as hell. I think it's one of the hardest things to do in in entrepreneurship is to get is to get like maniacally focused on your ideal client and to narrow down. And and to your point, it is the thing that I spend the most time talking to early stage founders about. I was like, I mean it's not narrow enough. You got more, more, more. To your question, I think there's a couple things. One, you have to start with making sure that the market size is appropriate. There is a world where when you niche down appropriately, it's actually not big enough to grow the business. So that's a fair it's a fair concern, is that you you have to make sure that the idea that you have actually, you know, and and the goals for your business align with the size of the marketplace. Right? If you I mean a great example is brick and mortar, right, where we'll use this very kind of specific version of this, which would be, you know, I live in X, Y, and Z town and I open up a a physical location, a brick and mortar location. To provide a very specific service that's only applicable to a very specific person. Well now, if if in this small town there's only twenty of those people that actually need my service, that's not gonna be a very good business. Right? So so if we zoom out, whatever version of that is at scale, you have to make sure that that there are enough people in your proverbial town that need your thing that it can be the business that you want. Second piece of that is that not every business needs to scale. So there's a lot of, you know, we've talked a lot about like things that are sexy. Good lord. I mean, scale gets thrown around left and right. Most businesses aren't built to scale. Like th there's so many parts of that, but scale is not the goal. Building the business, identifying your ideal client, and then again letting the marketplace validate your recognition of that and and your solving of a very specific pain point with money is what businesses are meant to do. Scale is a whole nother thing. It's a whole nother layer and it's become overly sexualized that everything has to scale. Most businesses will not scale. And that's okay. So you need to you need to align your expectations with what is what what is realistic for the business. Some businesses are very very scalable. And so if it's if the founder so chooses in the team, then certainly you could take that thing up and out and go nuts. Most businesses aren't. Or it's gonna take a reworking of that business to make it scalable. The the the initial seed is is not a scalable thing. that's the next layer is you gotta identify at the onset what are your goals. Also, if if and I've seen this play out so many times, if most people are honest in business, they don't want a scalable business. They want a really nice lifestyle, yeah. They want a comfortable amount of revenue to provide for their family or them or whatever experiences in their life they want to open up. They want to work a moderate amount, normal, full time, whatever that is, that can be defined by the person. And they want to they want to go to sleep at night. And they don't want a lot of stress. And they want and like and that by all means, like please do that. Not not every, you know, in quotes entrepreneur is meant to be Steve Jobs. Right. You can be wildly successful and just build something that is that is very comfortable and supports a life that you're so pumped about. But you get to shut it down. Right. And so I I think I want I want entrepreneurs, specifically early stage, first time founder, or even multiple founders, but if you're still trying to find your footing, please answer that question honestly. I I don't think that we we should get pulled into this it has to be the biggest version of this thing. Yeah. No, I think if you, you know, where wherever you live, if you can make a comfortable, you know, whatever your goals are, we'll use kind of classic like maybe get a house and you get a car that you're pumped about and you can take vacations and you can go hang out with your friends and you can whatever just that's cool. That would be incredible. If you built something from scratch that's sir that would that serviced a lifestyle that made you genuinely happy. What a huge win. Yeah. Right? Like who who so few people can say that. So like I want people to hear that it that it you are successful if you're not a if you're not a millionaire. You're wildly successful because you built y it didn't exist, you made it happen, and then you built it so that it p pays for your lifestyle. Yeah. Like incredible. And so I think. Once we get past all that, right, like I think there's just some we should be using some lenses and some filters before we get into is this thing is the ideal is there enough of the ideal client to scale? I know that I like pulled us away from original question, but I truly like I I think that's partly what I want to impart on people is like if it's a small market, that also can be fine. align your expectations and know that it's okay if it doesn't go up and out forever. Exit is not the goal for most companies. Right? Like work that thing and then when you're done working it, shut it down and move on with your life. Right? Like that still means it's successful. However, when we make peace with like once we understand all that, then we get into ideal client and we niche down and then the the The the filter is and the belief of the founder has to be that you're building something so indispensable to that very specific person that everybody in that niche can't not live without it. Yeah. Right? Or can't not not have it in their life. That the pain point you understand the pain point of that person so so intimately, and you've built a product, service, offering, widget, whatever that solves that pain point. That if if you can get in front of those million people, whatever it is, that it will they they can't help but call their friend who has the same pr pain point and tell them, You gotta go by this widget, you gotta sign up for this thing, you gotta do and so that's where n niching down becomes effective. When it doesn't work, or when we feel inclined or or pulled to go to go shallow and wide, I think that it is a reflection on the founder and a lack of understanding and a lack of confidence in both the ideal client and their conviction in their ability to solve the pain point that they said they're solving. If you have to go, if you truly have to go shallow and wide, if it's not working to drill down, that's not the ideal client's problem. That's a that's a product problem. Because that means that you haven't you haven't you haven't matched it. Right? You say, here's their problem, I'm gonna go solve it. Then again, it means two things. Either it's not solving the problem, or you're not describing it the same way that they describe it. I can't overstate how important language is. It doesn't matter how you and I describe it. Go find your ideal customer and listen to how they talk about it. And then build your product with the literal words. That reflect how they talked about it. Right? Someone says, I stub my toe. And you would, you know, or I say I stub my toe, then I go out in the world and I'd be like, I I'm I'm done with people stubbing their toe. No more. Not on my watch. Fuck that. And then somebody out like your ideal customer is like doesn't use that phrase. And and like you're always off, right? They're what the fuck is stubbing your toe? Right? Or what I you know, like. There's just so much of that where literally it's just the words. And that's what keeps us from from narrowing down is is that we we're like, well that didn't work. So let me go w slightly tangential to this person is another person, another, and you get shallow and wide. So shallow and wide doesn't work. the first sort of modulation you should make with your product is language. That's the easiest thing, right? If if you are confident that this is a problem you understand the problem intimately and you know that this solution is going to yield. For some reason it's missing the mark, first thing, you know, first first arrow in your quiver to maintain the same analogy is to exercise the the modulation of language and try and make sure there's alignment. And then maybe if the language isn't working, okay, perhaps it's a different customer base and then you can try, you know, moving on to something different. Or maybe it's not a language thing, but you need to adjust the product. That's gonna be a lot harder than changing some language. It's gonna be a lot harder. Yeah. Yeah. Start with just making sure that you're describing it e effectively. You've named it the right thing. I mean there's I mean again, the power of language is very real. We all know that. But yeah, you named it something, people are like, I don't get what that is. What does that do? You know? And again, you need to be unemotional about that. Change the name. Yeah. The brand doesn't work, it doesn't matter if you like the brand. Shut it down, right? name it something else. Describe it differently. And then, like we said, go put it in front of the people that you think have that pain point, have that problem that you've set out to solve, and then have them tell you if it's working or not. Yeah. I wanna touch on something you mentioned a little bit earlier, Well it's during the the initial part of the niche question around this that not every business is built to scale, right? And there's obviously a difference between growth and scale. you know, scale and I I feel like because we are we've seen the, you know, the tech boom, the internet boom and then sort of the tech boom and now the AI boom, it's created a belief that all businesses have the potential to scale. And I think that that's you know, that's sub the sort of subjective or or or systemic understanding of that. And like my university was very much focused on like tech startups. It was an engineering school and so I believe that like that's that is what businesses do. And I think that gets back into the why. It's like, are you choosing entrepreneurship for the sole intention of wealth creation, wealth accumulation, and scaling a business? Or is it for something that is creating a lifestyle, creating it and I don't want to say I was dissuaded from creating lifestyle business, creating a lifestyle business, but there was this like there was a subtle poo-pooing of the creation of a lifestyle business versus the creation of a scalable tech company. and again, I think that's a little biased coming from like an engineering school where, you know, like there's tech is just, you know, bears a little bit more weight there than if I went to a liberal arts school or whatever. but I think that it's that why is also gonna stem from your values, right? If you truly value your freedom, you value, you know, connection with the people around you, the community you're building, you're your partner, your family, whatever, like that's gonna drive the why. And the why behind the business isn't gonna be to blast off to the moon because that is in probably like direct opposition of those values. It's like that's going to create a lot of stress, a lot of responsibility in your life that you may not want to bring on. Maybe it's better to create a lifestyle business. Create something that's gonna be able to empower and enable your life, not something that's going to overtake your life. But there is a bit of a I don't w yeah, it's like a poo-pooing of lifestyle businesses. Yeah, you feel that too?

Totally. Yeah, no. It's no. Everybody Yeah. I I mean that y there's nothing else to say that I think you're exactly right. It just people, you know, in in the the world of entrepreneurship, everyone wants to wants to pretend like they're, you know, the super cool entrepreneur, whatever. It's just it's such bullshit. Like fuck off, right? Like most businesses fail. No bun's no one has new ideas. We're all just trying to make it work as best we can. Like you're not a rock star. You know, like it it's I just I just have zero interest in in propagating that that message that, you know, I don't know. I I could go on and on. It just really like makes me so frustrated. 'Cause yeah, I don't and also I could totally get on a soapbox and I want this to be a whole thing, you know, and you're gonna get like I'll get cancelled or you're whatever. also like don't be an entrepreneur. Like, you know, it's it's okay. You don't have to be an entrepreneur. You don't that you know, it to the same point, like people so many people that have decided to pursue entrepreneurship or would like are truthfully armchair entrepreneurs and What wait, what does that mean? They pretend to be entrepreneurs, right? You you like you know, you've heard like maybe like armchair quarterback, like you're calling shots from the sidelines. Right. And and so the messaging is that if you're not an entrepreneur, you suck. I tell people I tell me, Dear God, like do anything else. Like I 'cause even even if you start a lifestyle business, you're still creating something from scratch. The the the the amount of work is outsized. There is no world where you build something and it is easy. Yeah. Like hear me when I say, do not become an entrepreneur because you saw on Instagram that they're working for two hours a day in Bali. I promise you that's not where they started. And it's also probably bullshit. But if they're there now, it didn't start that way. Yeah. I've I've I've worked with thousands of founders. I've built multiple businesses. and there's a million ways to slice the cake and you can get to whatever end goal you want in a bajillion different ways. There is the one fact of that universe is that it requires an extraordinary amount of effort. Yeah. So just i if that's not your thing C you can be tremendously valuable to this world and not be an entrepreneur. And that would be totally fine. And you could be happy and you could make more money probably. the the whole narrative is broken, right? It it is a journey that I I believe to be transformative in the lives of people that that truly want to take that journey and and that are built for that. just pulling on that thread a little bit, it's come up in your podcast and it's come up in mine where people feel like they c there the alt there is no alternative. Like they feel really broken in a in a corporate setting or in a in a non-entrepreneurial setting. It's like those it that's valid, right? If you feel deeply that the alternative doesn't work for you. Because I feel like I'm in that boat where like I suck as an employee. I fucking suck as an employee. Like I haven't lasted very long at companies. It's not because I'm stupid. It's not because I don't have a good work ethic. It's because I don't think I fit within that paradigm very well. So for people who feel that way, great. Go take the plunge. Go try something. Go do something. You know, go jump off of the bridge and attempt something new. But if you don't feel called with it, don't get, you know, caught up in the over sexualization of entrepreneurship. Yeah. And on that note, what are what it what have you seen as sort of the the overly glamorized, overly sexualized components of entrepreneurs entrepreneurship?nnSuch a great question. I'm probably gonna get us in trouble. But yeah, I mean there's so much of that, right? I again I just I'm so unbelievably annoyed at this whole like you know the the how glamorous it is made to look. And so I mean, yeah, I'll give you some specifics. Firstly, that that that entrepreneurship is a path to wealth. Entrepreneurship is a path to being broker for way longer than you ever care to admit. I didn't make a fucking dime for 10 years. Like, literally like, and and was spending savings. Like, I was so broke. Because it it's it just it takes such it just it's so much. It takes so much to go. And I know I could call 500 founders right now that have the same story. So whatever you see on Instagram and the private jet and the whatever. Like that's not a fast path. And I promise you that it takes it don't do it for money. Don't do it for the payout. Now you can make as much money as you want. It's not the it's not the paycheck though. If you want to make money, take your resume and go get a great job and make whatever, right? Like if I wanted to make money, I'd take all of the skills I have right now and go be an executive and make thirty million dollars a year. Like I've now amassed a skill set that is massively valuable and now, to your point, I am called to what I do. Yeah. And I'm lucky enough that I have stayed with it long enough that I can now pay myself. And but I still like for the amount that I work, I don't make I mean I have friends that have corporate jobs that make more than I do, right? In terms of like what I clear? Yeah. No. Like, you know, it it it's so don't do it f for the money. And I think that's definitely gotten way out of hand. You better be prepared to be broke. it's just the truth. Like, there's no other way to cut it. I have hard facts to back that up from myself and a bajillion other references. Like, yeah, settle in and you're gonna money is pouring out and it's not coming in. so that's the first one. Also, make your own schedule. Shut the fuck up. No, you don't work four hours a day. I want to become an entrepreneur because I'm tired of the nine to five. Good, then you better get ready for the six to six to midnight. Yeah. Right? Six AM to twelve AM. my grandma told me when I first was a kid, you know, I started my first business. I said, I I have to start my own thing. And and then she said, that's great, man. you can work half days. I said, really? She said, Yeah, daylight to dark or dark to daylight. You get to decide. And and I you know, and it's true, like you you it if you want to create outsized results, you have to put an outsized effort. Name a place in this world where that's not the truth. Right? You want to be extremely fit, guess what you gotta do? You gotta work out a lot, right? More than the average person. whatever that is, like the d do not start a business because you think that it's a four-hour workday. Right? If you work four hours, you're gonna get four hour results. Right now, I wanna be clear, I'm not advocating for hustle and grind on that's a whole that's a whole nother thing that I'll call out. Like also fuck off. Right? I can do other things and not work. Right. I can spend time with my wife. I can have dinner with my friends. I can I can still take care of myself. I work out every single day. Like it doesn't have to be at the expense of everything I care about. I'm not a bad entrepreneur or a bad founder or a bad leader if I don't work every single day of the week all the time. I've done that. And I've talked about the results that I got. So, you know, there's so many versions of that story that are broken. And again, I think it boils down to it has to be something that you're truly called to do. Yeah. I'll also say that if it's feels like something you're called to do and you go do it and you change your mind, or it's not in alignment with your values, with how you want to spend your life, it doesn't mean you're a failure. Go back and get a job. It's fine. It doesn't ha like, you know, there's so many people that I've seen that once they make that jump, they they think they have to stay there. Otherwise, it was all for naught. Like, you will learn a ton about yourself. There I heard it described as like entrepreneurship's the therapy you never asked for. Right? Like it pokes holes in all of your bullshit, it exposes all of your weaknesses. It also brings to the surface your strengths and allows you to be more confident than you've ever thought if you allow it to to do that. But also it's okay. If it didn't work out, and you're like, dude, this isn't for me. It does take a lot of effort. I'm I don't want to be broke anymore. I spent my savings, it's gone. I don't what am I supposed to do? you don't have to keep going. You don't have to mortgage your house. You there's all these stories of like, do whatever it takes, sell your car and mortgage your house and but like maybe, okay. And I've made some of those moves. I I did, I've gone as deep as I can go to make the things that I want to work work, that was a decision I made. Yeah. And it the odds of that biting me in the ass were so high. And in hindsight, honestly, like would I do it again? No. Like if somebody right now was like, it's gonna take you disrupting the lives of the people you care about to make your dreams come true, and that's gonna burn some bridges, like you can have it. I care about other things more than I care about work. Yeah. Right? And and like that's okay. It doesn't mean that you're a shitty person. It doesn't mean you're not smart. You don't you don't have to, you know, some people are willing to do that. And they're in a season of their life or they've made peace with the with the cost of that, the very real cost as well as the emotional, physical, spiritual cost of that. That's their journey. Yeah. Right? Let them have it. That's fine. Like I just yeah, it it gets to be what you want it to be. And if it's not for you, that's totally cool. You could be friends with an entrepreneur. Right, like like you don't have that's the other thing is like your whole world doesn't have to be entrepreneurship. Right? I used to think that if they if you they're not leveling me up and I'm not like fuck, you know, get out of here. Like, no, I have incredible friends that just work regular ass jobs like this the county. And they work they work like twenty hours a week. It's mind boggling. I don't understand it. I can't even fathom what what that life would be like. They're they're like my ride or die. They're so cool and they're great. I know they have my back. And we can't begin to understand each other's lives. And that's okay. That doesn't have to be what your circle's built on, right? Now you need some like ride or die, like you know, you need people that get it. And you need some people that are like, okay, yep, I I see you. And like, you know, I got your back. Like, if we're gonna fucking if it's gonna take 120 hours this week, like let's let's let's go to war. but yeah, like all these like, you know, talking heads on the internet, they're like, your circle and if they're not, you know, making you make money then they need to fuck off. Get out of here, dude. Like, you kidding me right now? Like, what a lonely place. Right. Right? Like that's that's heartbreaking. It's a very narrow mindset. Yeah, like you mean that like yeah, like i it fuck. These people like, you know, they're like well my wife every night we have a we talk about finances and we go through spreadsheets and we got like really? Like you mean that I can't have I can't just have dinner with my wife? Enjoy a glass of wine and if I can look at our dog and laugh. I can't you know like that it ha you have to be leveling up all the time and it's what an extreme amount of pressure. That's that grind set again. Yeah, like get out of here, dude. Like sit like just it's okay. Yeah. You don't always have to be productive. And it this is I wouldn't I wouldn't have said that even a handful of years ago. Yeah. But like it's okay. You can have some downtime. Yeah. You can you can have a beat where it's just like nothing's happening. And maybe you went backwards. Yeah, that's okay. There's a a book over there that I love. I've brought it up before, The Creative Act with Rick Rubin, and he talks about the value of distraction. And if you try to force yourself to be productive all the time, you're not actually going to be able to be productive. And that to take it a step further, the the the science behind that is your brain needs more than just the you know seven or eight hours of sleep that you get in order to rest and recover. It actually needs a lot more than that. The way that it gets that is actually through through boredom and distraction. So you can be in an awake state, but you you you are sitting down in grass, taking deep breaths, looking at the clouds, imagining what animals are there. That's actually recovering your brain. That is going to yield far more productivity in the long run than if you just sit at your desk for twelve hours a day and try to fucking grind through it. That is not going to be a productive use of your time. Yeah.

Yeah. S space is critical. I mean, man, I I one of my kind of core central things that I keep in my day is is is just getting outside, walking my dogs without my phone. Yeah. You know, and I used to think that that I that had to be productive. So it was a podcast or I'd take a meeting while I was on the thing. Like, you know, I can't some days, you know, whatever, I'm busy this then. But like largely speaking, every day, phone stays in in my office and just get outside and yeah, the clarity and the ideas and the then how much better even if nothing happens during that. So yeah, plenty of time, no ideas, no clarity, per se, per perceivable in the moment, but I come back and I'm energized. I'm excited. I am clear. Right? I'm and so yeah, like space is good. You know, it you don't like this over optimization of all the things. Like, you know, I gotta get up now, you know, and I gotta this is a morning routine and I gotta read and I gotta do like you know, maybe. Also maybe not. Yeah. You know, maybe I just get up and just sit for a second. Yep. I get up and like I got up the other day and I was like on my way to my office and I got detoured by my cute ass dog lay on the couch. So I went and laid down with her for a second. Hell yeah. And like rubbed on her little head and like you know, like it's all fine, right? Like be clear on what you want, be clear on your goals, know what your priorities are. Don't fuck around. Yeah, if you like do that forever, nothing's gonna happen. Again, like you gotta you gotta get in there and you're gonna make it happen. Whatever your route to getting that done is, go nuts. Yeah. Right. stop listening to everybody and all these opinions about what it's supposed to look like. we spend more time now thinking about optimization. Than we do optimizing, right? Like you know it would be optimal. So just like do what you said you're gonna do. Follow through, right? Like go work out. Drink some water, take a beat. I don't know, like anything. Like stop. There's so much like pieces and parts and you know, it's exhausting. And I'm just like, dude, it's simple, man. The equation is not hard, right? Move your body, get some sleep, hydrate. Like eat food that feels good in your body. Spend time with people that give a shit about you. Laugh. Do work that you believe in. Yeah. Work super fucking hard. I think we're built to work. You know, like I think we have these incredibly powerful brains that that allow us opportunities that are so far beyond what I think we give ourselves credit for. I think we're all capable of so much. And I think that we deserve to prove to ourselves that that is the case by applying ourselves. But all the space in between, I just don't think it's that complicated. Yeah. You know? And I I think we get to enjoy it and I think I think we get to take a lot of the pressure off ourselves and we need to stop trying to optimize everything and you need to stop you know, whatever. It's okay. Sometimes you feel like shit, like maybe it's maybe it's just you know, maybe it's not gonna happen a day. Yeah. Right? Do as much as you can. Yeah. Knock off early. Take a beat, you know? Have a cocktail. I don't know. Like it's all fine, right? Like whatever whatever your version of that is, I just think it's it's it's you know, we're all getting we're none of us are getting out alive. so you know, do do what fills your cup, you know. Work your face off, love the people that you love. I think you should pet dogs 'cause they're awesome. They are. you know, and yeah, I don't know. I I just again there's these narratives I think they get in our way, right? They they they interrupt the process. They they they derail us from the things that we know innately, right? That like I am smart, I am good at this, I can do this work, I am capable, I'm confident, I have the the people in my corner, I have the ability to go find the resources I need. And then we listen to some, you know, asshole on a yacht like who's an entrepreneur, and we're like, Well, I don't know, do I suck? Like, I haven't made a hundred million dollars, I haven't it's okay. Like, you can if you want. Also you're also like a badass if that's not your path. Yeah. You know? Yeah. If we're not living life, then what are we here to do? Right? It it is to be lived. It is. Right. And I think you I I think specific to the work thing, I don't know if like you should be passionate about your work, right? I don't know, I wrestle with that, like I don't want people to be miserable. I don't think you should be miserable, but like I don't I'm so grateful that I get to do work that I believe in. I don't feel like passionate every you like I don't know. I think we almost put too much pressure on like the role that our work plays. Maybe. I don't know. I'm still wrestling with that. I don't Well, I think it it varies a lot by person. Yeah. Right? Because like I I mean, I I interviewed a a tattoo artist most recently. And his shift away from his corporate and then Peace Corps role into tattooing was like he wants tattooing to be his life's work. He's like, this is I don't want my work to become my life. I want my life to be my work. And like for him, being able to create art and tattoo people and connect with people and have really engaging conversations with some when they're in a studio I've seen your tattoos and you're wearing shorts and short sleeves. Like, you know, you're able to truly transform someone's someone's appearance and really transform, you know, who they are and help them further understand who they are. Like that to him is what makes his life worth it. It's like that's such a beautiful mindset. Now, for people who have a more you know computer-based job or someone who's not, you know, not doing that specific thing, like they might perceive work completely differently. And at the end of the day, everyone's gonna see it differently. And it doesn't really matter how you see it, as long as, again, getting back to the why behind everything, getting back to your values. As long as it aligns with what you want out of your life, it's great. If you know that you are incredibly, you have an incredibly hard work ethic and you are able to do a lot and juggle a bunch of different things and you want to start seven different businesses and that gives you meaning and you like the leadership opportunities that come from it, but it's not like, my God, this consulting business is fundamentally changing my life. Well, maybe it doesn't have to, right? Like it doesn't have to be everything for every single person. But I think what does matter is you understand what does work serve at a role in my life. How does work fit into my life? And you ensure that you are not misaligned in whatever your work is. If you do not want to work a corporate job and you want to do something that is more entrepreneurial, fucking do something more entrepreneurial. If you want work to only be between the hours of nine and five and then you go fuck off and do something on the weekends, some people love that, right? That is great. Then that is what work should serve you. So I think there's no right answer, just like anything in the world, you know, and in entrepreneurship, there certainly isn't a right answer, but it's all about what is right for you? What is right for the business? What is right for you personally? How does work fit into, you know, whatever it is that you you see it fitting into your life? That's what matters. Totally. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Yeah. Again, like li life is to be lived. I think work, you know, is a part of that. And I think you know, again, I think you should apply yourself. But yeah, I don't think I think it's okay that if if work is not your passion, right? I think I I guess that's maybe y you helped me like clarify that and real time is is yeah, like i i whatever role that that serves and it it you're not doing it wrong if it's you don't have a job that you're you know in quotes passionate about. Like maybe that's not where you're meant to like deploy your passion, right? You can be that can be in other areas, you know, and and you get to show up in other ways. You know, I I'm I'm very aware, like for me personally, like, you know, my commitment to my work has meant that it limits how I show up in other places. Right. Like there's there's only a finite amount of of energy that I have. And so if I spend a lot of energy working, that means that it, you know, that detracts from some other area. And that's a that's a real sacrifice. And I don't I don't even know necessarily what those things are. Right. But it has to exist, right? Like had I had that not been what I've chosen, then I would have had that energy to go manifest and put that passion, that energy, that drive to something else. Yeah. And that could have meant that I'm a better friend, a better who knows, right? Like whatever it is. And so yeah, I I think it's it yeah, it's okay. You know, again, I there's so much so much pressure for you know work to be the thing or whatever. And like, again, I think work hard. I there's no pain like the pain of unrealized potential. Yeah. And and and I think that if we if you can do more, I think that that draw should that knowing should like pull you into something bigger than yourself. Right. And and and that doesn't have to be work, but like go do something, right? Go go apply yourself. Yeah. Like in a very meaningful way. And maybe, maybe get it over your head. Maybe, you know, may maybe do something that scares the shit out of you. Like I think that there's so much there's so much value that comes from who you understand yourself to be in that process. You know, I've found that also in in in in endurance sports. You know, again, it doesn't have to be work. Like I've had what I've learned from about myself and about people around me through like doing things that were so unbelievably hard physically and finding my limit. And you know again it it produces the same result. I feel like one of the things that I'm really good at is is is seeing people's full potential. when I get to know people and like I can see their path. I'm like, you could go do this thing and you could these are your strengths and you ca and then to see them pull back out of like fear or scarcity or whatever and I'm like like I want this I want this for you. Yeah. You know, and and then you you see them like recoil and like play it safe and and I'm not saying that safety is a is a bad thing, but like man, I like I I wish I want people to to like experience the other side of going really deep. Yeah. And and and and being okay. Right? Or being whatever becomes of that. Maybe you're not okay. Like maybe it hurts. You learn from it. Yeah. But like it's such a the the most transformative experiences in my life have been have always been the ones where I'm in over my head.

The concept of stewardship has come up and you mentioned your religious upbringing. stewardship came up a lot in my religious upbringing and in church and as I've moved away from that, and the concept has kind of floated away until very recently. And I think, you know, regardless of what you're given in life in every capacity in terms of intellect or income or physical capabilities, things like that. I mean, I think one thing that I try to to keep in my mind is like at the end of the day, I think what matters most is that we and I don't know why this is in innately baked into me, is like it feels so important to be a good steward of those things. And it's such a shame if you squander that.nnYeah, I I couldn't agree more. I I love that word stewardship. it's actually not the language that I've put to it, but I I think I think that really captures it and that really that's a big piece of it for me. I I I am extremely driven by what what I know to be and feel as a deep responsibility to do the things that I know that I'm supposed to do in this world there's just a deep like knowing. I don't know how it's to describe it where I'm just like I because I can I should. Right? Because I can I I have to. let me back up. Because I can I get to. Right. It doesn't feel heavy. It truly like it's it's a responsibility that I'm so grateful for because it's put me in in in rooms and relationships with people that I'm like unbelievably blown away. I'm like, dude, this like these people are fucking incredible. Like they're so smart and and and they could be doing anything in the world. And it and it's not like it's not I'm not just talking about like people like on my team that like work with me. It's like the rooms like Growth Circle and the people I'm like, these people are fucking powerhouses, man. They're doing really cool stuff. And like they're good people and they're smart and they're driven and like and I get to I get to like be in service of of those people. You know, like I get to in in whatever small way, whether it's just they like pass through a thing that I'm doing and I get to engage with them or I get to work with them or I get to help them build their business or I get to whatever. like that's such an incredible opportunity and then the responsibility that I feel to show up consistently in service of that it's just it's so real. Literally like when I wake up in the morning, I'm just like, man, like it it doesn't feel like pressure, it's like on my shoulders in a good way, you know, like I'm very I'm so aware of that responsibility and and the at this point in my career, like the the gravity of it that like if I just was like fuck this that like like I I really can't do that at this point. Like largely speaking like I I would be it would be extremely irresponsible of me to just be like I don't like this anymore. I'm out. This is hard. I'm out. 'Cause there's people that rely on me and the decisions that I make to to live a life that they're excited about. And that's been the greatest gift of of my life. Truly. Like a b besides like my relationship with my wife and the friends I care about in my work to build something that then like provides for other people, like dude, like that's it. Like I will show up in service of that forever. And I want as many people. A big team does not make up a successful company. But if you are someone who is willing and able to take on the mantle of responsibility that comes with leadership, which I hope that I am, there is no greater thing in this world than to build something that someone else tells you, I believe in that thing, I would like to come alongside you. And help you do that in the world. And that's why I always say, like, no one works for me, they work with me. I am in service of them. Leadership is a service-based endeavor. I don't have employees. I have people that work beside me, and I'm just grateful to be in the room. And at this point, they're a shitload smarter than I am. So like they can tell me to fuck off and run the company better than I can. They just haven't done that yet.nnI love thinking about that responsibility, and stewardship is a great way to do it. Like, I think that we all should work to find and connect with what we want to be stewards of. What is that responsibility for us? For for you, for each individual. Again, doesn't have to be work. Doesn't have to be team, doesn't like, but find your thing. Find because that I think it just gives you so much purpose. Yeah. Right? Like, I am also a steward of my myself and and the work that I do and how I understand myself so that I can be a steward of my relationship with my wife, which is the most important thing in my entire life. Everybody else can go to hell. that's all that matters. Like if she likes me, I'm good. that requires stewardship. As you continue to evolve as a person, you have to like recognize what it looks like to show up in that space. I didn't actually like really even think about it until you've we've now unpacked this, but that's the like pain of of like missed opportunity, right? Like the pain of unrealized potential is that like I want people to feel what it feels like to to to identify what they feel responsible for. Right? What do they want a steward? Yeah. And because I know what that provides for people's lives. it becomes very popular to think that that thing has to be like this penultimate big. You know, go run the biggest race in the world, go be the most badass athlete, go build a scalable business, go no, I think like it could be anything. Yeah. Right? Like go for a walk. Be a really good person. Be a great friend. Be a great cook. invite the one person that you're excited to hang out with over to your house and like cook for them. Right? Like be a steward of other people's time and energy and emotion. Like that's that's also cool too. Yeah. You know? And when you do that. And you take that responsibility seriously, I think that it like opens up something inside you that also makes the like day to day not feel that heavy. going back to kind of the start of the like we were talking about this earlier on, like I really don't feel stress and anxiety. largely speaking, like it happens. it's so much bigger than me. Yeah. Right? Like it also like whatever's happening today and the like get to do it tomorrow. And to like our continued collective point, when you're clear on your why and you're committed to like whatever mark you want to leave on this world, if you just show up in service that every day, like you will get what you're supposed to get. Right? Like you will get other opportunities. You'll get you'll continue to be able to show up in service and like be a steward. And all the like BS in between, like it'll be fine. It's just a stepping stone, right? Like you have to have those things because you you only learn through failure. Right? Like the no you do not learn anything from success. True truthfully, if you really like you the only things that you learn from success were the failures that paved the road to get to that success. That's what when we think about like, like this was a win, so now I that the the the win is not the thing that we leverage. It's all of the stumbling blocks along the way that we can pull from to then deploy in our lives somewhere else to say, well that I know what it looked like and felt like to get to that thing. But we yeah, we learn nothing from success. Right? We shouldn't I you know, I I talk about this like with my team internally all the time. Like, I wish there was a way to just stack as many failures right now as possible. I wish literally that I could just go 'cause think about it like, if you could just knock out, that you know that if you continue to show up in alignment with your wide and your mission vision, but the only way to get to success is to get through all the failures that pave that road. When you just like take all day to day and just plow through failure if you knew that like tomorrow if you just literally like you're okay, I'm not gonna sleep and I just as hard as I can go, but tomorrow at seven AM, I get that next milestone. Again, now that doesn't mean that like that's not what defines us, but like that's that's my next thing. I wanna do that because it's a springboard to this to the impact I wanna make, to the thing. Well you would just be like shut the doors. Like fail, right? And if you could just stack phone call, email, but you'd just be like, Let's go. But you can't, right? You don't know. Again, all you can control is today. And so I don't think that we should be looking really even for the wins. Like we should be trying to like stack the failures. Because we know that growth doesn't happen without friction. There's no that there's an inherent relationship there that friction is what creates growth. Right? And so that when things are when we are failing, when we are in seasons where things feel heavy, like good. Right? Because if you stay in it and you commit and you stay clear on what you're here to do and you take that stewardship seriously, then you know that just some at some point on the other side of that is is growth. It's the win. And so I try to think about that in real time, you know, it's like it's very much like when it rains it pours. We've all been in those weeks and months and years, you're like, Fuck me, dude, like I can't catch a break. Like it's it doesn't diminish how brutal it is. Also. Good. Like tr it has to be close. It won't last forever. Right? No season does. It certainly might last longer than we'd like. Yeah. But I think that again, if if we can just think we can change our relationship with how we how we like to to to categorize wins and losses, you know, success and failure. And if we could just if could just soften the blow, you know, we're our own worst enemies, right? Like no one else cares as much as we do. Like we beat ourselves up and then the whole rest of the world's moved on. So if you could just if you could work like sets and reps like we were talking, right? I think that's like the best rep you could do. Fail. And and don't make it mean a lot about you. Yeah. Feel it for sure. Be bummed. Be sad. Be mad. Be frustrated. Be all the things. Don't be it forever. Yeah. Right? I'm sure you've heard, like, it's the 24 hour rule. Right. And my b long before that, I mentioned my grandma earlier. She's my f like one of my favorite people in the world. We have the same birthday. I we I've spent most of my like childhood with her. And she said, Well, she said, the same pants you got mad in or the same pants you can get glad in. You know, she's you know from the family's locked in with all these, specifically my grandparents. I love it. but it's true, right? Like it's it's you you get it's a choice. You can be mad. You can also get glad. Yeah. Right. And I I think there's there's so much opportunity just kind of soften that blow right for ourselves. Yeah. Just be like, fuck, that sucks. Yeah. Also, cool. Yeah. What's another failure? Gotta be stacking bricks, right? We gotta be closer incrementally. Yeah. And if we shift that, then there's so much opportunity, right? Where again it's just like it's just part of the day. It's just a process. Yeah. Right. And that's okay. Yeah.nnWell, I think this is a great place to end it. Thank you so very much for your wisdom, your insight, but also just hanging out and coming over to my place in my little upstairs studio and getting real. I really appreciate the being a part of one of the communities you've created here in Denver Growth Circle. It's been an absolute blast. so before we leave, I do wanna ask if there's anything coming up on the horizon that you want to share, a way for people to find you, or if there's just anything on your mind that you want to you wanna use this platform to to touch on and share with with the audience.nnI try to be very reachable. I'm easy to find on the internet. but truly like if I can be a resource, I I I do I I mentioned it earlier. I try I try to give more than I than I asked for and I'm always happy to connect with someone if if I can, you know, answer questions, if I can be a sounding board. Yeah, impactinitiative.network is the primary place you can find me. I'm active on Instagram, @taylor.j.thomas if you're someone who is, you know, anywhere in the life cycle of building a business, and we've talked about really every part of that life cycle, if any part of that feels, you know, conflicting, if you're, you know, if it feels hard or confusing. if it feels like it's taken longer than it's supposed to, if it's not as much fun as you thought it'd be, then truly reach out. I again I I'm I'm here to make it make it easier for people to do the work that they know they're supposed to do, but it's just hard, you know, and it's it's it's hard. Certainly if you're doing it alone. it's hard if you got people around you. it's hard to see the forest for the trees, it's hard to know when to be decisive, it's hard to know what you should say yes to, what you should say no to. So if I can help flatten the learning curve or make those yeses or no's any clearer, then that's that's what I'm here to do. So yeah, I think last thing I'll leave people with is I I think what we were just talking about. I I like get really clear two things. Make sure you have your why, mission, vision, and values. That is those are your north stars. If you're wondering why it doesn't feel right or things aren't moving as quickly, or the days feel heavier than they should, or the people around you aren't quite as aligned as you think they should be, that's the missing piece if you don't have it. And secondly, like get clear on what success looks like for you. Success doesn't and shouldn't look the same for everyone. You do not have to build the biggest business. You don't have to make the most money. You don't have to what what is what is like truly successful look like and what like what would make you so unbelievably excited to just live a life that like you can't wait to start tomorrow. Right. And then work in that direction. And like, you know, like fuck all the people on the internet. It's okay. Right? It's fine. Like you do you. Like, you know, again, life is to be lived. And if you want to spend it working your face off, call me. I love it. Let's go. Like I'm here to I'm I'm down to ride. Also, if you just want to build something that like supports a life that you're excited about. Y that's also equally as successful. There is no more incredible thing that you can do with your time than to take nothing and build it into something. So wherever you're at in that spectrum, like you're winning. And you're a badass because most people fail. so outside of that, like just be fucking proud of yourself, you know? Like everything else is icing on the cake. So this has been a blast, man. I appreciate you. Thank you so much. Yeah. I feel so excited and jazzed and honestly very like it feels good to the last thing you mentioned about just do something that you wake up and get excited about. And I feel that about this, you know, getting like the way that you were talking about the conversations you have with people in your network and the people you're working with and how you're like, they're so much smarter than me and they're I'm just learning so much. Like that's how I feel whenever I have these conversations. So it just makes me so excited and feel confident in the the direction I'm going. And it's gonna be an interesting road ahead, but I I feel so jazzed about it and thank you so much for for sharing your time and and energy with me. It's been a phenomenal experience. I expected it would be. I could have let you down, you never know. No, no. Yeah, no, this has been a blast. And you're yeah, you're on the right path, man. You're you got this is you're you're good at it. So I'm excited to see what growth looks like for you and the and the road ahead. Thank you, sir.