Ask Forgiveness, Not Permission

Business brain, episode 579 for Wednesday, September 4th. Global Talent Acquisition Day 2024. Greetings, folks, and welcome to Business Brain, the show where we take an idea or three, we dissect it, we crunch it, we use it, we. We morph it so that we can each use it to tune our business brains every single time we get together. Here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And out here in Northern California, I'm Shannon Jean. I have a question about that. Today's day.

Yeah, we're definitely going to talk about it.

Global Talent Acquisition. Is it Global Talent Acquisition or Global Talent Acquisition, so. Or both?

Well, those would be interesting questions to answer, but here's something even better. Global Talent Acquisition Day is celebrated every year on the first Wednesday in September. This international holiday was introduced in 2018 by KRT Marketing, a talent acquisition agency offering its services to companies worldwide. They created their own day.

And why can't we do that?

That's what I'm saying is we can do that.

We need to do that. Is there an open day? Is there an open day?

Oh, it doesn't matter. I mean, when I look like if I look for Wednesday, September 4th. Right. There are six holidays listed for that day. That's a light, light day. Most of the time it's way more than that. Yeah.

Fascinating. Yeah, I love it. Well, speaking of talent, I haven't. I want to talk about a little bit. This thing is, was. I don't know how this rule came up somehow, but I was thinking about the time when we had somebody working for us and at Tech Restore, we made all these take apart videos. We used stop motion to make them different. In the stop motion ones, they didn't have anybody in the videos. But we also did videos where we had people that worked for us and maybe even not their faces, but it could have been their hands or arms. Sure, sure. Your body, whatever it is, whatever. And I just never thought anything of it until one time we had somebody that left and I got a letter from an attorney that said, hey, we do not give you permission to use any of these videos that have me in them.

Oh, wow.

And these videos had millions of views and link packs and all this kind of stuff. So we had to go wipe those videos out because we didn't have this person's permission. Yeah. So the next thing we introduced to our onboarding packet was a model release form.

Yes.

And so I posted up on X. You can go read about it at. Shannon Jean. I put a template up there this morning. Have your Employees or contractors sign a model release form giving you permission to feature their images, their hand, even if it's not their face, their hands, their. Because I guess, you know, there's hand models. Models.

I guess that's right. So, so even if it's not their face, their hand or their. Any part of their body counts as a light.

I think so. Yeah. Like this. And so the model release form gives you. Gets their permission so that you can do all this stuff and you can film around your building and make a video and all the things that you want to do on social, on your website, all that stuff. And if somebody doesn't want to sign it, it's totally cool. Don't make a big deal of it. Just say, hey, no problem. We just won't feature that person.

Yes.

And you know, maybe, maybe they have to wear a special vest.

Yeah, maybe, maybe they're in the witness protection program. You don't know.

You don't know. You don't know. So, but you know, you could have a list depending how many employees you have. And, but you know, if you have 30 or 40 or under 50 employees, which are kind of my, my businesses that we grew, it's pretty easy to know. Okay, we can film in here now. Oh, hey, let's wait until do this. But it'll save you a lot of headaches.

And yeah, my guess is most people, unless they have a specific reason why they wouldn't want their likeness, you know, captured, most people would probably sign that happily on the day you're hiring them. They would absolutely not sign that on the day they're leaving the company, whether of their own volition or of your decision. Right.

Yeah. Yes. And you can't make it a requirement to get their last check or anything.

Oh gosh.

Force them to do anything. You can't. I've been down this road too. You know, non competes are, you know, in the news right now. There's a lot of stuff, the FTC banning non competes and things. And that's good. But we really only wanted to non compete to protect our quote, trade secrets and our methods and our suppliers and all that kind of stuff. But we had them sign this form as part of the employee manual.

Okay.

And it just, it explained what, you can go start another company. I don't care. You know, you can compete with us on a, on a level playing for.

Yeah.

Or field. But you can't leave, take our, take our suppliers and our customers and start a company down the street.

Right. So you were protecting intellectual property, which is different Than non compete. Right. So. Correct.

Yeah. Happy to compete with you on a level playing field, even to train you. And maybe the best thing to do is have us invest in your business rather than fight all the time. So I know people that did that. But anyway, model release form. If you want a template at Shannon Gene up on X, you can just grab it and copy and paste it.

So I am curious though, would a. Like, when you hire someone, you are hiring them to do work for you? Like, could you have fought this if the attorney came to you and said, look, we didn't give you permission to use, you know, so and so and so didn't give you permission to use their likeness? Okay, great. Yeah, fine. So Timmy never said you could use my likeness. However, Timmy got paid to create those videos. So maybe for Timmy's likeness was purchased as part of the employment agreement.

Maybe. Yeah, it could be. And maybe it's. You don't even need a separate agreement. Maybe you just need a few paragraphs like in your employee manual or whatever you. You help onboard or something. I would check with your attorney, of course. I think every. Every state is probably different as well. It's just one of those little things that. Yeah.

Chat. GPT says this would be a gray area.

Yeah.

The person's likeness. But if their job is. If they're. One of their primary responsibilities is creating videos for your company, then like, then it pretty clear that.

Pretty clear. But if they're. If they're like in our case, they were just a technician and we're filming in the tech lab and we're showing this and that and that. I. I just like to. Well, I. I never did for, you know, 10, 15 years. And then I got this letter. I was like, oh, that's silly. So there's one more paragraph or two paragraphs I got to add to this, to this event, to, you know, cya. But yeah, if you know more about this feedback businessbrain show, come up and tell us. Or you can message us on X DM Bizbrain show is our handle up there and let us know what you think or what we got wrong or right about it. Yeah, we'd like to know.

Before I go into this next thing, Shannon, I have to ask you, is there like, are there wind chimes near where you're recording right now?

And it's. Yeah, it's so weird because they've been there for years.

Interesting.

And this is the first time.

First time I've noticed it. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know if the if the listeners can hear it. But it's kind of a soothing. It's actually, you know, I'm inside. Yeah, obviously they're outside. Yes. And that's interesting.

Yeah. Audio compression makes them slightly, it moves them from being soothing to being slightly distracting.

Annoying.

But it's okay. Yeah, it's fine.

Okay. That's funny.

I, I, well, see, you never asked if it was okay if you had these. You just did it. And right now you're getting forgiveness.

Yeah, that's, that's my whole, you know, we, I mentioned this topic to you before we started today. I said, hey, we should talk about the power of asking forgiveness, not permission. And your, your response was, oh, story of my life. And, and I think that I would say story of my life as well. And once you learn, and, and I want to break this down a little bit, but once you learn that you don't need anybody's permission, that you can just, just go and yes, there are repercussions, positive and negative, but getting that framework in your head is kind of like that thousand dollar switch I talk about a lot. When you make your first thousand bucks and you're like, oh, wow, I don't need anybody to pay me. I can pay myself. The ask forgiveness, not permission framework, it just kind of lets you power forward and take action without being concerned that you didn't ask a person, you didn't ask the government, you didn't ask a local, whatever. I, you know, because I hate that stuff, I'm happy to come back and say, oh, okay, yeah. Now that we're doing this thing, I guess we need some sort of license. Yeah. Model release form. I don't know. But to, to do all that work before is in my, it's soul sucking. And it takes the joy out of the zero to one experience where you're just starting something out.

I agree with that. It takes the joy out of it. It takes all those things. Also. You will never be able to think of all of the things that you would need to get started. And that would be a great way to procrastinate paralyzed. Start. You're. Yeah. To paralyze yourself before starting a business. Like, well, we need to, we don't even know what licenses we need. So the first thing we need to do is research all our. No, no, no, no. That, like start, just start. And, and then if something's obvious, like if you are, if you are having people drive folks for work, like if you're starting a limousine company, you might, you know, then some insurance. Yeah, insurance A livery license, like those sorts of things. Right. You're starting a dumpster company, you probably need a CDL to drive those dumpsters around. Like those obvious things. Sure. But otherwise just go, you know, just.

Go, just go figure it out and.

Figure it out as you go. Yeah, don't figure it out as you go. Don't, don't choose to never figure it out, but choose to figure it out as you go.

That's right. And I see a lot of. And I talk to these people, some of them. I coach a lot of very smart people, like super bright, way smarter than I am. And I almost think that that slows them down a little bit because their analytical functions are very high, very high level. I mean, yes, I analyze and everything. I've made it this far, it's great. But I'm always, hey, I can solve most problems with more sales. That, that's my whole major analysis right there. Mo most problems. Oh, how do we sell more? Because more cash, that'll solve that problem. But I've seen, you know, this year especially, that really intelligent people tend to drop these, what I would consider barriers in front of them because obviously it makes sense to have these, you know, all this stuff, these ducks in a row. But if you really analyze it too much, you maybe you wouldn't even do it. And so you'll never know unless you try it, right?

Oh, no. Yes.

I know I'm preaching to the choir here.

No, well, you are. But you're also describing me to almost a T. Now. I don't consider myself hyper intelligent or anything, so I don't know why I suffer from this, but I definitely am my. I am predisposed to start thinking about the reasons why something's not going to work. And I. Yeah, it's pretty.

Yeah, it's.

It is, it is definitely part of. And it's helpful to a degree. Yes, to a degree. But like your comment, you've probably said it. I know it doesn't surprise me what you just said, but I don't know that I've ever heard you say it that succinctly before. That I can solve most problems with more sales. And it's like, as you said that, it opened my eyes. I was like, wait a minute, like this. That is the right answer. That. And I, I tend to operate that way because I have to, because I don't want to have a real job. But I don't think I would, I don't think I ever would have articulated it like you did, but when you did it Was like, wait, that's the answer. When I find myself, you know, spiraling down something where it's like, well, there's a reason I couldn't do. No, just more sales.

Yeah.

Just go get more sales.

Yeah. And I, you know, it's part of it is, you know, you give a kid a hammer and every problem is a nail. Right. Well, I'm good at sales. I know how to sell.

Yes.

I know how to buy really good. And I know how to sell. And so that's where it's like, okay, well, what can I do to solve this problem? I can generate more cash, which maybe could hire more people if you're stressed. Or maybe we could get another accountant if we needed to figure this. Or maybe we could buy some better software to. To build better systems. Or maybe we need a better building or a bigger building. And all that stuff is more sales. Yes, more sales.

More.

Maybe we should change the episode or the name of this episode, but more sales.

I like it.

More sales.

More sales.

Yeah. So I just think that now I will preface this because, you know, what do they say? With great power comes great responsibility.

They do say that.

Yep. Yes. And not that I have great power, but I do have a lot of people listening, following me now. And so I find myself thinking more about, man, I better put a caveat in here. Yeah.

You know, and like, I now it's really interesting. I've noticed you putting caveats before things that we say on the show more recently, and I was always the caveat guy.

Yeah, yeah.

Now you're there.

Now I feel more responsible. So, like, I post a lot about auctions, and sometimes those posts get, like, millions of views, like, oh, you go buy this and all stuff. So I. I came up with this. I call it the first law of auctions. I just made it up. And that law is don't ever buy anything unless you know what you can sell it for. It's very simple. Just in that right there. You should not buy anything unless you've already researched and know that if you buy it for 50 bucks, you can sell it for a hundred. Whatever.

You just gave two counter pieces of advice. Right. Because one is just solve the problem with more sales.

Story my life. Story my life.

However, don't buy something unless you know what you can sell it for. So maybe the. Maybe there's, you know, there's some research in there.

Yes, yes, there is.

Of course there's an asterisk. Yeah.

Yes, of course. It's like everything. But I have gotten into big trouble and problems by not asking permission as well.

Right.

I have had, I mean, same. I've paid fines. I mean, I talk about my accountant this way all the time. So what happens if we don't file that in time? Because, well, to have to pay this fine, I said, well, how much is it? Oh, you know, I don't know, it could be like 7 or 800 bucks. I'm like, well, that's not. How much money are we going to make in before. Oh, we're going to make like $50,000. Okay, let's pay the fine or whatever. Right, Pay the fine. I, I asked that question. Is it a fine? I, I want to, you know, if case we don't get finished or how we do it or what's the worst that could happen. But you know, I made a, I mean, I've talked about this before as well. I, I made a million dollar mistake and yep, lost a million bucks and had to pay that back and took five years of my life, what to pay that money back while I was still building another company and everything. So you don't want to take it too far. You don't want to get overconfident. And I would say that probably I was pretty darn confident before I made that, that decision. I was like, man, I was young, every business I touched went to gold. You know, I was making, you know.

In my, I knew how to make money.

Yeah, in my opinion, I was making good money. You know, it was really nice. And, and I remember my attorney telling me one day, hey, I just want to let you know, he said, I don't know a single wealthy person that hasn't like either lost it all once or, you know, made some massive mistake. And I was just young enough to be like, well, that's not going to be me.

That doesn't need to be me, right?

No, no, that's just past history. So, you know, you want to couch this. Ask forgiveness, not permission, especially with small issues. And, and I find that small issues can stack up to really slow you down and slow your business down and slow down the chain of quote, chain of command or your management style. And you know, let them do stuff and let them make mistakes and in your business and let people try things, let them teach them not to ask permission and just ask for, you know, on little things especially, you know, can't burn the building down or whatever. But that's how you create great stuff and you hang it out there and take the risk and make the leap. And so I've lived this life of asking forgiveness, not permission. Fortunately, I have not had to ask forgiveness that often.

No, but you will have to. And what I've found is I stress, and this is certainly just a me thing. I know I'm not alone, but not everybody is like this. I will stress about the forgiveness part right up until the moment I have asked for it. And then there is huge freedom in that.

Yes.

Once you do, then you just. Okay, well, now that's behind us and we get to move. We're done. That's it. We're done.

Now you're moving forward. Stop thinking about the past.

You don't have to think of. You've already. It's all done. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. That's right. So, yeah, I'd love to hear your examples. Whether you agree with us or think it's crazy or how you've used this technique to, you know, power through things that are trying to slow you down. Feedbackusinessbrain show I think it's a good tactic, man.

I do, too. Yeah. Like I said, it's a story of my Life. Feedback at BusinessBrain show we want to hear about your story. We want to share your story. We want to learn together from all of our stories. FeedbackUsBrain show Keep Living that charmed life and we'll see you Friday.