Ask of Your Needs and Share of Your Abundance with Curt Bear

Are you thinking about how to grow your business with near and offshore staffing, but you're also wanting to make sure that it's reliable, cost effective and really well done? I think docsa talent is the way to go. Here's why. They don't just fill your jobs. They bring integrity, top talent, and a people first approach that's hard to find. I've known the people at Doxa talent for over 20 years now and I say that you can count on them. I have talent. Talk to Doxatant and you won't be disappointed. Go to doxatant.com Bill G. Again, that's doxatant.com Bill g. One more time. Docsatalent.com Bill G. Check it out today. So we're talking today about abundance, but also about asking for what you need, right? And the tension between the two things. I think a lot of people struggle with asking for what they need. Some people maybe are too bold with it. Everybody likes to say they come from a place of abundance, but do you really? We'll explore that more. Hey everybody. My name is Bill Gallagher, scaling coach and host of this fine Scaling Up Business podcast. Our show comes to you every week, twice a week, actually, most weeks, with a little something to help you grow the business. We talk with business leaders, authors, experts, CEOs about what they've done to grow their business, what they've done with others. Like all that, everything to do to get your people strategy, execution, cash right. And the leadership required to take your company to the next level. We love it. We've done over 500 episodes now. Yay. And so fun. It's, it's like one of the most fun parts of my job. It's right up there in like the top two or three things. And it's such a pleasure to talk with people every week and then to hear about how people listen to the show and what they do with it. But we also. Right as scaling coach, scalingcoach.com, we have coaching programs to help people grow their companies. And the one we've been putting more people in now than ever before and it's really expanded our ability is the Growth Navigator Program. Our Growth Navigator program is all the things from Scaling up and more delivered weekly, a little bit every week, plus quarterly planning, plus annual strategy. A lot of it's online, a little bit of it's in person. So mix of all these kinds of things. The best of everything we've done and, and we start groups frequently. So you gotta apply to the program if you're between 10 people and 100 people, if you're between say 2 million and 19 million, that's kind of the right zone. But you really want to grow the company. We'll help you. It's super affordable. You learn, you have an accountability, you have peers, you have a couple coaches, you do coaching sessions with me. You get all that and more at the growth navigator program. Scalingcoach.com scalingcoach.com is where you want to go. There's a button right there for this particular program.

Right.

Prominent on the main page. It's our main or marquee program. Or you go right there. Scalingcoach.com navigator everyone works. Anyway, I want to join and welcome the show. If you're watching us live, you're watching us on video. You could see them on screen already. But here he is, Kurt Baer. It's true. Kurt is founder and CEO of Loco Think Tank. It's a peer advisor group. So it's like a local business thing in Colorado. He's in Fort Collins, Colorado today.

True.

Yeah. And he's also host of a podcast of his own, a long form podcast. I understand that you all sip a little whiskey in your podcast. So my wife brought me a glass to enjoy with you.

I'll join you.

Cheers to you. So, yes, he's a podcast hoster and he's got a, a peer support group, a mastermind kind of thing, local think tank with over 100 members in and around Fort Collins, Colorado. So welcome the show.

Thank you. And the podcast is the Loco Experience. And the closing segment is what's the craziest story that you can tell our listeners from your whole lifetime? So that's that crazy experience of maybe it's entrepreneurism, maybe it's a near death crash. Who knows? What's your crazy experience, Bill?

I. I am more full of crazy experiences than you could possibly.

Oh, you want to have a crazy experience contest?

Yeah. For a guy with a face like mine and a name like mine, I have an unusual number of. I have experiences to make a grandmother blush, to make my kids cringe. I have experiences that will make you cry. I have a lot of experiences. I don't, I'm not sure what category to show.

A full life. A full life.

Yeah. Maybe it's because I'm 59, um, looking good and I've lived a few places. Yeah.

So, yeah, thanks for having me on.

Or that's where you end.

That's where we end. We go through the whole. We're. We're how I Built this meets the Joe Rogan experience. So it's your whole business and life journey, and any question I want to ask is fair game. We always talk about faith, family and politics. And then we close with the crazy experience at the very end. Once I've got them lubed up a little bit with bourbon.

Yeah, I think you like. I always feel like you have to tease something like that or you hook. Like the opening of the big thing is pretty good. But, you know, I've opened talks with suicide in the family, with facing bankruptcy, with surviving a terrorist attack, with amazing entertainment experiences, funny stories as a funny former dj.

Yeah, there's a lot of ways to.

Start, a lot of different ways to go. But, you know, like, it's a. It's. It definitely with things like that, it's about how real do you want to get and how.

Right. Well, and that's kind of what you talked about, that ask of your needs and share of your abundance in our, you know, peer advisory chapters. How real do you want to get? And that's kind of about asking of your needs and confessing your blind spots or your shortcomings and working on the solution for it, you know, with a little bit of peer pressure.

So before running your think tank, before having a podcast, you had a food.

Truck, a mobile food trailer.

Yes, mobile food trailer. Okay, good. So why did you have that? How did you get into that and what did you do with that? Like, tell us about that.

So it's a. It's a longer story, but I was a banker for 15 years, a small business banker, and I really enjoyed being able to make bets with house money on which businesses would succeed and which ones would fail and trying to pick the good horses. And I was pretty good at it. And then after 2009, banking kind of changed and I was like, yan, what am I going to do next? And so I started working on a restaurant concept that was basically international fusion meets locally sourced, because I was all about localizing our economy, even going back to before I thought they were going to break the country with the Great Recession kind of thing, but with the funny money mortgages. So I saw that kind of coming and I'm like, we need a more sustainable, localized food system. And so this is what I'm going to work on. And then the, you know, things happened. My boss got let go. I got made the acting president of the bank. For a while, we rescued the bank from failure, rebranded it, sold it. And then I was like, ah, I guess I should do my restaurant now. And. And in fact one a company that my father and I banking.

You thought you should go into the restaurant.

Yes. People have, have pointed out that obvious, you know, passion overcomes logic sometimes and that's what happened to me.

All these take any business of passion, the wine industry, restaura, sailing, I don't know what, pick any number of them and, and the, the joke is always the same. You know how to make a million dollars in whatever industry start with 10.

Yep, exactly. So yeah, that was my journey. And I left the bank, I got kind of asked like do you want to be a banker or a restaurant tour when you grow up, buy a new boss. And I was like, well, kind of a restaurateur. He's like okay. And so I, but I didn't get a location. It was expensive and challenging and I had some savings and ultimately started a mobile food trailer instead as kind of a brand builder until I could identify my location and you know, scale up and whatever else. And a mobile food trailer in our region at least is a good way to, to work a lot of hours and make not too much money. And so I was you know, making one third of or one fif of what I was as a banker and working all the time. But along the way I started local think tank as kind of a replacement for what I couldn't afford which was peer advisory which I had been in a Vistage group and I knew a former Vistage chair that said ah, I really don't do it for the money, I do it for the purpose. And we were like well I was like oh, I can not pay you very much to facilitate this group. And then I can not charge very.

Much and make out there says I, I don't do this clearly don't do this for the money.

Exactly. And that's what you know, that's what the, the roots were. I charged $150 a month to six of my small business friends. I got free membership and I paid $500 a month to my co founder Andrea Grant. And we just kind of started doing what we knew she had been a Vistage chair was out of it, out of her non compete and, and partly because she didn't like selling a big, you know, thousand dollar a month product to one million dollar businesses. It was, it's, it's a, it's a big push for them if, if that's their cost, you know. And so I was just trying to bring the people, it was pure peer advisory to the people a little bit for the, for the smaller guys. Those half Million one million dollar businesses that were my main clients in banking.

Back to the food truck for a minute.

Yeah, sure.

Why? We're going to talk more about the.

But.

Did you cook growing up?

Like, I'm an excellent cook. Yeah. I make some of the best food that you've ever had.

Well, you never had a particular training or was there a key person in your life or.

No, I worked in restaurants. I. I started cooking breakfast for my siblings when I was like 9, when my mom worked on Saturday mornings at the post office. And so I've just been experimenting with the chemistry of food for a long time. When I was in college, I. I didn't clean because I cooked. Turns out my roommates didn't clean either. But it. But I still cooked. They clean the dishes at least. Right. And it's just been a hobby. I was a hobby chef, but. But a pretty good one. And I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. A wild hair crawled up my. You know what?

So two questions then. What was your. And did you do the cooking with this food trailer?

Sure. Yep.

Yeah. And what was your like favorite or signature item?

Our line of meatball sliders was. Was our most popular for catering parties. I was like, I'm not really going to be at breweries and stuff. Like a lot of them. I want to do your wedding in the park or your company picnic or your backyard anniversary party. I want to be at that caterer that comes to where you are and makes the food right there, kind of. And so that was. We had a line of meatball sliders, including Italian. We had a buffalo ball. So it was like pho. The flavors of the soup. Pho. Kind of, but with using local buffalo meat. And I even had some yak. I forget what my yak meatballs recipe was, but it was pretty fantabulous. It was like a squashy soup with yak meatballs, if I remember right. But it's been a while now.

That sounds pretty wacky.

Yeah. So I mean, I'm a creative guy, very inventive. And that was kind of within myself in baking. Yeah.

Yeah.

And they told me never to bank restaurants, so I really didn't know. Just kidding.

Some restaurants. And I've worked in restaurants. For me, like the. The best thing. There's a few things I think about restaurants experience. Right. I think people who have restaurant experience at some point in developing their career have phenomenal things because it brings urgency when people are hungry. Like you have to hustle and. And anticipating customers. Right. Is A huge thing that comes out of anticipating needs, urgency, efficiency. Right. If you want to make money, you need to handle more tables, more diners. Like whatever it is, you need to figure out how to increase your throughput because the time is scarcity.

And have a stick too. My stick was I didn't have to write down orders to go put the right order in. As long as my table was six or fewer, I could just remember the order and go run over and put my order in. And people would be like, you're never going to remember all this. I was like, you watch me, you know, and then I would get a bigger tip.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting. So who told you to shut down the food truck? Was your peer advisory group, correct?

Yeah, so we, we go through a four step process, kind of as does most peer advisory. It's kind of Socratic. So I asked whether I should add a second trailer to my one year old, one and a half year old mobile food business so that I could get to a sustainable revenue base because doing $120,000 a year top line was just not going to cut it. And I couldn't do a lot more with the one unit. And I could do wintertime sidewalk sales if I bought a small trailer. So that was my theory, is I can get to sustainability by adding this second trailer to my business. Because right now I'm sucking it. And we went through the process. They asked me about, you know, how do you always like working when your friends have time off, now that you've created your brand and your menu and stuff, do you still have your creative instincts urged or filled? Or do you just make the same food over and over again now? And do you like that? So them asking me those tough questions and my answers to their questions brings us to the step three, which is, you know, bear, you should park that freaking trailer in your backyard and go get a job and get a job that is flexible enough that you can work on local think tank. Because I had started a second think tank chapter already by that time. People liked it. It was effective and affordable. This was the, the founder of Chiba Hut, actually Scott Jennings was who told me to park that freaking trailer in the backyard. And so, so it goes. So I listened. And it might have taken me two or three more years of struggle and strife and maybe I'd lost my marriage or my house on the current path, but having people that I knew cared about me say, hey, change your path. You don't even want to be where success in this business would take you. You want to run three mobile food trailers in a restaurant someday is that you're not really a manager, you're more of a leader type. And like, just do more think tank stuff or figure out something else was kind of their encouragement.

Yeah, it's interesting. So this, I, you. We open with kind of these two ideas. Ask of your needs, share of your abundance. Where does that come from? Where did you learn that? Hear that?

You know, I have a lot of ideas. I would consider myself something of a philosopher and a visionary type, and that just kind of came out of my little brain a couple years before I ever started. Loco Think Tank. It has since become our motto. But so as by way of quick description, you know, you have to confess your needs if you're going to address them. And, and don't ask of your wants. A lot of people ask of their wants, so there's some clarity in that. Like, ask of your needs, the things you really need, and then on the other side of the queue, the share of your abundance. You know, from a libertarian principle, it's like, well, don't take of my income, don't take of my. What you perceive as my abundance. You know, small business people, a lot, regular people, think that they all have all this money and they, you know, they, oh, they got a business, so they must be rich. Well, they might just be poor and barely hanging on, but the business is the most important asset they have and they need to figure out how to make it work. So there's some philosophy in that share. If you do have abundance, though, then give it back to the community. Donate to nonprofit organizations, Give of your time or your talent, your treasure, to bless those around you. Because obviously you've been granted much in comparison to the rest of the world. And so I believe that it's incumbent on those who have been granted much to share some back.

Well, I noticed something and I, my grandmother told me, look, there are givers and takers, and there are people who are wired for giving, who are naturally generous, and then there are people who are not. And they're not like good or bad people, but you might have a preference for one or the other. But I work with an awful lot of people who are much more, I would say, like, scarcity mindset. They like, they're, they're grabby. They like, they're like, you know, it's not my favorite or main thing, but, and, and I don't fault them for it. I don't think of them as evil for it. But I notice a few people, they're not that generous. They're not that. They say abundance, they say generosity, but they aspire to it, they mouth it, but in reality, you know, they're slow to share the rewards, to pass things.

Around and that kind of thing. I've been scolded for being like, you know, you're sharing your abundance already, Kurt, and donating $10,000 a year to charity, but you only made $25,000 last year. Like, you kind of gotta get your abundance up there a little bit more before you share it.

That's what my grandmother, she'd say, look, if you're wired for that, you're gonna share whether you have it or not. You know, like you have people, whatever you got, if you have it, whether you need it or can afford to or that kind of thing. And then if you don't, you're, you know, even if you have many millions, you probably are gonna like hang onto it.

Right? Well, and that's what I invite these other our facilitators to do, right? Like I'm, when I ask them if they would like to facilitate a chapter, it's inviting them to share of their abundance because, yeah, we pay. You know, our thinker chapter facilitators might make a thousand dollars a month for a 12 or 15 hour gig. You know, it's not going to change their life. But most of them were successfully retired anyway. They don't want to be a consultant. They could be, but they prefer this little kind of gig of just being in community with these people and living vicariously through them, growing and building their business. And it's almost like two parts volunteering, one part honoring me for my time. Because volunteering gets old after a while, but so it's an invitation to live that way a little bit. And that's, you know, ultimately how Loco Think Tank has been able to grow is because I've got, you know, a 10 or a dozen high achieving small business veterans that are in a place in their life where they, they recognize that they're in a place of an abundance and they want to share some of that. And some of them might have been living in scarcity more before, but then when you get to a certain phase or you have a business exit, then it's like, okay, now what's my purpose? You know, my purpose was to build that business, to be a $10 million business. And then I sold it and then now who do I lead? It's a little bit of a idle hands of the devil's playground, right? Like if I don't really have any purpose. Can I really occupy myself with golf or am I going to find a much younger girlfriend or a Corvette or a motorcycle that's too fast or a drinking habit? And so it's kind of recognizing the fallacies of humans and humanity. And when we don't have something hard to work on, we get ourselves in trouble. And so anyway, that's interesting.

Monday, Tuesday I was in Vail, Colorado working with a group of CEOs and working with a forum group, a mastermind or some other thing, or giving it a talk or leading a workshop. Those are the things that make the least amount of money. They're like one time there, whatever. And yet I really, really enjoy them now. They have a good marketing function also that like they expose me to new people whether I sell those people or not. It actually doesn't matter that much because it's just now a new group of people. Maybe I'm not even a fit for what they are, but they tell me to someone else or they remember it later. So I don't worry even about selling people in a situation like that, anything further. But it's so enjoyable and like I'm like, well, like I would almost, you know, as long as I'm not losing money or spending money to go do this thing, to go work with, share with somebody. A group like that is so satisfying and, and the only thing that I, that I'm left with sometimes when you do that, you, you don't really know what difference it makes, you know.

Yeah, yeah, you know, you don't have.

Any idea and, and like I'd be useful to hear it more and I'd probably be useful for you to tell someone where they made a difference for you and applied something because you know, we go around not really realizing the, the scope and scale of our impact.

You know, that's funny. That was exactly the topic of my blog at the end of November. Was grateful for a great and full 10 years. It's been 10 years since I left my banking job. Local think tank will be 10 years old in February. And I really told stories of, of some of those people that I was grateful for. For Scott Jennings for saying park that freaking thing, you know, for Andrea Grant for coming alongside and, and taking that, you know, chance to, or that allowing herself to work for much less than was her real market value and, but doing it for, because of the common good, you know, sharing of abundance mentality.

Yeah. One person, Andrea Grant is the one that started with you. That had been the former Vista chair, correct?

Yeah. My friend Mike was a member of hers and, and he was like, hey Bear, you should start a think tank. And, and why not talk to Andrea about facilitating it? And I was like, I don't know why not? And yeah, so she, I, I, I gifted her 1% ownership along with Mike a few years ago just to say, hey, thanks, you too for it wouldn't have happened without both of you at that moment in time. But otherwise we just kind of, you know, you know, just kind of kept trying to listen to our customers. When I had another facilitator, when I have a full group or two full groups and I had another facilitator prospect on the radar, then we would put a kick together and try to start another group. And as time went by, we, you know, would start one or occasionally two groups in a year. We've folded the teepee on three or so of them now over the years that, you know, wound down or we merged two of them that had gotten a little bit smaller than we wanted. But it's just been a kind of a slow, you know, a 10 year old startup. Basically. We're still less than a million dollar revenue business, but we've been just kind of expanding our offerings and finding our fitment learning where, you know, how, how can we transfer this model that's got half of the paid peer advisory memberships in our region, you know, how can we take that to Colorado Springs or Denver or to Omaha, Nebraska? So that's really our, our, our interest and our challenge is trying to recreate what we've built here with great relationships with the chambers and the Better Business Bureau and the Small Business Development Centers and all these other organizations. Hey, we like what you're doing too. And so instead of being kind of the secret society that many of the peer advisory organizations are, we're a little bit more like, hey, we're full of smart, high achieving small business people at various different sizes and we're not ashamed of that. We're here to celebrate the localization of economies and try to work toward having that happen more.

Asking of your needs is an interesting thing. It's the side of that. And you had to go to your group to ask for guidance. But I wonder if one of the. You shared a lot of stories in preparation for our show today. I wonder if there is someone that stands out for you. They really struggled to ask for what they needed, but, but they overcame that when they did. And what happened with that? I would love one of your stories on somebody learning to ask of their needs.

You Know, and I don't think it would be appropriate to name names, but one of our, one of our early members had developed a service business, a maid services agency here. And ultimately we. Her first time asking of her needs was, you know, how do I make my business make more money? And the ultimate, like the decision or the suggestion that really changed it was buying a software that would allow to go from a scheduler and a salesperson to two salespeople that could also schedule. And it just really helped magnify her revenue base and find a lot more new clients and, and service them better. There was other ideas that were in the mix as well, but then last year she was like, you know, things are so hard and I moved and I bought this building and we were. Had fights with the contractor and it's been such a miserable year. And I mean, the poor deer was down like 6% in revenues and 3% in profitability with a year of chaos. But she had been so long since she had a down year of any sort. And what she didn't know that she needed during that one, like, she was like, how did I do better next year? And da, da, da. It was like, no, actually you need to give yourself a pat on the back for crushing it, for going through all this chaos, buying this building, being shifting locations, opening this warehouse. Like you did all these things that weren't revenue ads and now you're perfectly set up to grow your revenues 25% next year if that's what you want to do. And so you know that what she needed was to, to hear that she was doing a really good job because she was feeling like she, she wasn't in light of that, but this was people that had known her for years now. And so those are good examples where you don't even, sometimes you don't even ask for your needs. But through that time testing like your chapter kind of gets to know you and they know what you need better than you know what you need even. Like, I didn't need to succeed at my mobile food business to have a good and fulfilling life. I needed to pick something different than that because I could be somebody that was trapped in my business of vocation. And not that I wouldn't love food and stuff, but I think having to do that for work and just all the managed, the detail management that goes along with food business, I just, you know, I'd probably be in a lot worse place in my life had I chosen that path for longer.

It's a really interesting thing contrasting between the operating and banking like, you know, I've met a lot of bankers who are like, I'm like, when I look at you doing your job, like I understand the numbers and whether this is risky or not risky, but I would not want to get the orders done. And I think there is a certain big leap there. And you're talking then about a person going through that. For me, it's always like the things that I need. It's very often it's just embarrassing to say that I'm in a place of need. Right. I think that's really hard to be that vulnerable. And you're like, is it appropriate to ask here? And oh, I don't know if I want to ask my peers and I certainly don't want my customers and I. And what about my partners? And like, who can I ask of what I need? And asking what you need from people who can't help you maybe doesn't make a lot of sense. Asking what you need and thinking people can't help you is another challenge.

Right.

It's kind of hot with one of.

Our, one of our value propositions really Bill, is that this isn't you putting together an advisory board or a group of people for your business. You don't have to go to your cul de sac or your church or to whatever to find people to be in this community with. We'll pick them for you and you can help co create that. We give all of our existing members a veto on anybody new. You have to go in facing that potentiality. But then like you're just put in this group and the purpose of this group is to be the place where you can be real and hear real straight truth. We like to say it takes a good friend to be a front stabber.

Yeah.

You know, and just give you that truth. You know, in my case, these people were saying, you know, Kurt, we don't actually think you could be a very good restaurateur even if you got there. And that's okay. They knew that I was wired for different things perhaps, you know, and they were like, you can make, have, have fabulous dinner parties, do it once a month. I don't care whatever.

As a hobby.

As a hobby or a second gig.

Yeah, yeah.

But you're, you're a spot Ray, that like who do you. Who can you feel comfortable asking of your needs to. And, and you know, especially for. For men, frankly, for big strong men that don't that have all the right answers already once they get that experience of, of maybe being or even seeing Another big strong man or a woman. We recruit for both and we mix it up. But setting that example of being real and asking about a real challenge or confessing a gap spot or something that they did wrong in their work relationship or even in that, we say we're two parts business, one part personal. So when you're in small business, there's no way to kind of separate it fully from your life either. So, yeah, those are a bunch more things than you ask.

But in your ask of your needs, you, you focus on. You specify needs.

Yeah.

Versus wants. Tell me about that. Or maybe have a story or something.

You know, I think it's.

Why not ask for needs and wants?

Well, because wants are like, I want everything, you know, I want 10 vacations to beaches a year, plus, you know, five to other places. Right. Like, but that doesn't mean that's realistic, that. So what are my needs? Well, I need one good vacation a year to really feel like I unplugged for more than 10 days. Okay. And especially if you're asking somebody for it, you know, it's not sell, you know, pay for your needs, you know, pay for your wants, but you can ask of your needs, if that makes sense. So. So wants are unlimited. You know, we couldn't solve the world by trying to provide for everybody's wants, but we could maybe solve the world and providing for most everybody's needs given the right incentives and communication opportunities.

Yeah, it seems to me there's value in both. But also, I think a lot of people say they want things that they don't really want, you know, like idly wanting, like whatever. Like, I, I have a lot of interesting, expensive hobbies. Like, I like to ski, I like to sail, I like to fly airplanes, I like to scuba dive. I surf. I particularly like to visit warm water places. You know, none of these are inexpensive things really. But, but I, like, I don't really want a jet airplane.

Yeah.

I have friends and clients who have them. Like, it just sounds like a pain in the ass to me. It's expensive. Same thing. I'm a lifetime sailor, right? I'm happy to belong to a club where I can rent a boat anytime I need it, but I don't want to own and deal with the boat of my own. It sounds sort of good, but then I grapple with the reality of it. It's like, yeah, I don't, I don't want that. You know, I don't do. I don't want it or need it. I, I had a woman that really Stands out as we talk about this in an entrepreneurial leadership program that I was leading years ago. And she messaged me or called me or something before to say, hey, she was going to miss our class. It was an in person class and it was really heartbreaking. But she was overwhelmed with work and she had to go to this thing. And then it emerged and I'm like, I just, you know, blow that thing off. She's like, no, she needed the money and she wasn't yet over a million dollars and she needed to pay rent. And she was like, right on the bubble. And I think a lot of times we're a lot more like that. And I'm, I'm like, look, I don't know what's possible, I don't know how it's likely to go, but I think there's something here. Like, it took so long for me to get out of you, what was really going on. I think if you came to class and you shared with everybody where you were, what you were dealing with, somebody would suggest something surprising to you, something magical is going to happen, you know, And I didn't have any particular notion. I just sort of trust in that things happen, there's magic possible in the world and that kind of thing. And I knew that it was going to take a lot for her to do that. So anyway, she, I'm like, I promise you with every fiber of my being, come. Trust me, this is going to work out. Yeah, but you have to come and you have to share what's going on. So she came, we're talking, doing updates and things like that, right? And it didn't come out at first. And she's sitting there, I'm like, what is this going to happen? When is it? I know she's avoiding this and so at some point I encourage her. I can't remember name anymore. Even so I'm in no danger of spilling it. And I'm like, you have something to share with us. And she go, damn it. I was hoping I could just escape this and then somehow survive later. And so she stands up, she. And she's like, well, so here's how it's going. And I did this, I did that, but I'm scared that I'm not going to be able to pay rent this month and I'm going to get evicted. And you know, like that, like, so I'm starting this thing I'm passionate about. And like that she shared what it was. It was a little more emotional and moving than I'm describing it, but People were just like, so with her. So, like, it was real and vulnerable and there was an edge and emotion to like, sort of confessing that struggle. But, you know, everybody been there at some point or another with whatever. And, and this one guy smiled and she said what she's going to said. And he said, let me help you out. And, and he, he asked her how much her rent was and what she was dealing with and whatever. And this is a few years ago. He reached down and he, he wrote her a check. He's like, look, here's a grant. Here's a gift. Yeah, Use this time. Remember to ask for what you need. And I've got plenty. This is fine. I can afford to do this. And he just paid a rent. And she just like.

Well, it probably way more multiplied her chances. Both. She both got encouragement from this group of people about this thing that she wanted to chase and relief from this scariest thing in her world. And I had one more thought about the wants and needs differentiation. I think every business person that would, you know, write an expense check for their wants would be out of business in no time at all. Like, you have to invest in the things that you need if you, if you buy the things that you want. And so that's why, that's part of the advisory. Part of it is like, we can't get all of our wants. Like, if we're, if we're lucky, we can get, get some of them that we plan for.

I was at a. An entrepreneurial meeting in Los Angeles some years ago, and Magic Johnson came to talk and share with us and that kind of thing. And he's a great, you know, interesting entrepreneur and human being and that kind of thing. He shared his story in that. And then he took some questions or whatever, and somebody stood up, a young African American entrepreneur, and he said, look, I'm, I'm. I'm struggling. Here's what you really inspire me. And thank you so much for being here. And I'm just trying to get my thing together. And Magic and he shared what he's working on, which I don't remember anymore, but he's like, that's cool. He's like, you know what? I'm going to mentor you. Like, you're now on my team. And people are like, oh, my God. He just stood up, shared what he needed, what he was grappling with, what he was working on, and said thank you. You know, he didn't ask even it in this case, but he opened up and it was offered to him from A place of abundance, right?

For sure.

Yeah. I think a lot of times we don't realize how much we have to share. Right. And then we notice somebody who is needing something that for us is so basic, so simple, so automatic.

You know, that's one of the things that, like, people join loco Think tank and become a member a lot of times to get what they need. You know, they know they've got some gaps in their knowledge of business or it's not running as good as it should be. But why they stay a long time a lot of times is because they've had all these experiences of their particular advice, changing somebody's outcomes, you know, and so they help somebody. And that's the best feeling in the world, is when you know that you help somebody.

Yeah.

Not that you win, you know, that's pretty good. Great feeling, too. But to know that you help somebody. Yeah.

Deeply, deeply, deeply satisfying for not all of us, I think, maybe, you know.

But no, some people definitely like winning more than they like helping somebody.

I was launching a project I don't know, six months ago and working on it, and I'm out to go do the first thing, the first big step in this that's like, more public, and I'm drained and I'm worried about how it's going to go and everything like that. And I get this email from somebody that I coached more than 10 years ago. I was like, like, how did did this person to think to write me? And she wrote about how she thinks about it almost every day. The coaching and the work and. And how it changed her life and. And it led to a shift in her business and ultimately her family and her whole situation. She's like, I wouldn't have the life I have today without you and your coaching. And I was like, oh, my God.

Right, well, and how empowering is that to you? Like, does that encourage you to get out there? And, you know, sometimes we all feel like we're selling our wares, but when we're changing lives, then we know it, you know?

Yeah. You're like, oh, I. And I, you know, like, I was just being me, just, you know.

Yeah.

Doing what I do, listening, caring, like that kind of thing. It wasn't anything dramatic that I did in my world.

Right.

It was sharing something that was not hard to share, sharing something that was easy to share, that had an impact. And I think a lot of times, like, we don't realize it. I have a friend who has worried that he hasn't accomplished enough and that kind of thing. I'm like, oh my God, the millions of people that you've impacted around the world with your work. Like, dude, give yourself a break. Yes. You don't have some things that some people do and they don't have some things that you have. And like, you know, we all have pros and cons in our life. We things in both columns. But like, I don't think we realize the scale and scope of our business in our lives. Like, yeah, for sure.

I agree with that.

What haven't we talked about?

Oh, gosh, you know, we didn't talk about the podcast.

How's the podcast fit in with all this?

You know, we're about three years old in the podcast and I imagine people becoming huge raving fans and then signing up for loco think tank because of it. But that hasn't happened much. What has happened a lot is my network's been expanded, so I've gotten three new facilitators that I, you know, interviewed on the podcast and then said, hey, you might actually like this gig. Over that time, actually, I hired a former CEO to be a new director of business development. Colin Jones just joined the team after growing a local brewery very fast for several years. And so it's, it's. But I also, like, I get to meet somebody usually that I don't know very well and just be strapped in right here in person drinking bourbon or red wine or nothing, bubble water and just like being here with them and really get that immersive experience of, of under. Trying to understand a new person and where they're coming from. And I just love that I would do that for free. Like we talked about your, your trip to, to Vail or whatever, where it's not your most lucrative thing. But the podcast, I would do that work for a long time. That's, that's my passion now as much as local think tank. And it's not really a money maker yet. We do have one, one small sponsor talking to another. But I believe that we can inspire and entertain would be and existing business owners and really help people try to run the business that they're really dreaming about, create the business that they're actually dreaming about, not tolerate the one that you've created so far or to be sad when you, when you die. And you never really did take that leap. Some of the most inspiring people I know, you know, left their corporate job at 45 or 55 or 60 to try to do something new. And maybe in some cases they've been dreaming about it for years. So anyway, that's a long ramble on the podcast, but that's, that's my why I do it. I want to inspire people. I want. I'm a documentarian of sorts of these Northern Colorado business journeys. It's a great part of the country and the, the spirit of collaboration and welcome and welcoming of diverse thinking types and things, it's just really strong around here. And so just being a part of that and, you know, hoping to take that around to other places as well. Hopefully a companion. You know, if I can make the podcast famous, then I can use that to leverage into growing the, the local think tank to other geographic regions over time. Maybe. I don't know.

You know, when we started our podcast some years ago, it did happen fairly soon that we got enough new business just by virtue of the podcast that it paid for itself. And then we began to get sponsor affiliate dollars, either direct sponsor or affiliate dollars in and, and over time, it's been fantastic. But, but the first and foremost thing is it just builds credibility and, and the scope and scale of your. Your network. I go places and people are like, hey, I recognize you. I was on an airplane the other day and somebody said hi to me and I couldn't remember where I knew them from or if I even had ever met them. Like, they, my God, they seem maybe right. I meet them now and they're like, you know, it's weird to talk to you in person because I listen to you at 1.5 speed and I'm not used to you talking this slowly.

Yeah, no, I get that. And part of my journey on the podcast was I've had people that are like, oh, you're this founder of this cool business and stuff. You should write a book or you should develop a stage talk, or you should be a guru. And I'm like, well, I've just kind of stumbled into this. I was a banker guy that wanted a food business, but I am, I've interviewed several thousand business owners over the course of my banking career and now building local think tank. And I'm, I like, I'm pretty good at it, you know, and so I'm sharing of my abundance. I've got an abundance of experience interviewing amazing people. And you know, I, I had. Ginger Graham was on my podcast. She's one of our local celebrity business leaders, Harvard CEO. And she gives me a side hug when I go into her coffee shop now. And you know, and, and, and she complimented me at the time of that interview like that. That was a really good interview. I've had a Lot of interviews and that was really good. I'm like yay. You know, that's not just me thinking I do okay. So that's, that's me sharing my abundance. It's a passion. But it's also, like I said, almost a documentary. It's almost a give back to this community of, of northern Colorado that welcomed me back in 1999 when I moved here.

You say on your show you're always asking people to share a crazy story. Do you have one that you'd like to share with us?

Oh boy, I've got lots of them. One I shared on the podcast not too long ago and so it's fresh in mind but on my one year anniversary my wife and I went four wheeling down to like Lake City and Telluride area ouray and we were taking some of these mining roads and I was kind of ignorant and we had an 88 Jeep Cherokee with no anti lock brakes and we went over the top of this very high pass like maybe 1500ft above tree line and coming down and there was, there was a, it was just ice, it was 32 degrees sunny, just a layer of water over the top of this 32 degree and I started sliding and I was in first gear but not in low range on my Cherokee and I was going to slide right off the edge to our death. And but I'm an old farm kid, I grew up driving gravel roads and so I knew that if I just push the gas a little bit I could just kind of drift. It was slightly sloped so I drifted about a 270 degree turn at the very top of this mountain and then got to a place where there was traction again and didn't kill myself and my young bride on our one year anniversary. And she didn't know until a few years later how close that really was. She was like, oh, we lost traction and then Kurt accelerated and we kind of drifted around this thing. It was like, well no, we were, we were going to tumble to our death. So that was a crazy experience. Later in that same day we helped a guy that got his jeep stuck trying to get across an avalanche. So we didn't actually make it. We had to turn and go all the way back again. But we let him tie his jeep onto our jeep with his hitch thing or whatever you call those things that pull and he, you know, could have pulled our jeep off the edge of the cliff as well. We didn't know. So we all. And his kid was with him. So me and my wife and his kid stood there like way back from our jeep while he slowly worked his way across and, and, and saved himself from a long night as well.

You know, the thing that I'm struck with is that each moment in our very lives are incredibly precious in one little miscalculation. A fumble, a miss step at some moment can, can significantly impair, even end your life. And yeah, and the difference between still breathing and smiling and telling a great story and having one told about you at your memorial is a, a very thin separation sometimes.

Yeah, I've got a few more of those than I would care to. I hope I don't get any more. Honestly, I've got enough near death experiences. That was one of them.

Well, I want to send some thanks out. Thanks to Seth and team at Storyon for producing our show today and to the folks at Podfly who get it out every week. And to Verne Harnish, my friend and mentor who started this whole scaling up nonsense that we rely on to help companies scale. I say nonsense jokingly. It's made a profound difference in my life and the work that I do. I want to thank everyone for watching, for listening. Thanks for joining us. Keep watching, keep listening, share the show with somebody else. If we can help you in any way, you know, let us know. You'll find us@scalingcoach.com and you'll find Kurt Bear at local think tank local think tank.com there it is on the screen. It'll be in the show notes as well. Thanks again everyone for watching, for listening. Talk to you again next time.

Bye bye.

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