The Business Fear Confessional – DBA Small Business Show 15

Greetings, folks, and welcome to the DBA podcast, the Small Business Show. Episode number 15 for Wednesday, May 20, 2015, here in Durham, New Hampshire, I'm Dave Hamilton.

And in California, in Lafayette, California, where it's the same date today, I'm Shannon Jean.

It is. That's good. It's good that we don't have the date line between us because I'm having enough confusion with the day as it is.

That's pretty good.

We.

I guess it's important to say the date before so people know where we're at.

Yeah. So it's good to have the date.

It just.

Yeah, I just. It's. Which is. It's weird that I stumbled on it because this is the second podcast I've recorded today.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I would have gotten it right.

That's funny. That's funny. Well, hey, so if you joined us last week and we spent some time talking to John Goodreau. We talk a lot about email marketing and lead generation. And I just wanted to put out there before we get into our fear show, which we alluded to last year, we need some last week bumper music. Yeah, last week there is. We talk a lot about email marketing and things. And we've also talked about mentoring with and using score.org org the Society of Retired Executives. They're having a webinar tomorrow. I just wanted to point out, titled 60 Ways to Grow your email list, which I thought was very timely. Just. Yeah, just go to score.org, s c o r e.org and you can call on the webinar button and you can sign up for that webinar. I don't know how good it's going to be. It's in conjunction with constant contact, but it may be worth a little bit of your time.

Very cool, man. That's great. Yeah.

Yeah. Today we're talking about fear, right?

Yeah. Well, I'm afraid. Yeah. That. That's what we're talking about. Well, yeah, it was interesting. That was kind of my. As I mentioned in last week's show, at the last minute, I forgot that we had John coming on. And I was thinking, well, you know, fear is an important thing because it's. It's a very powerful, very basic thing that is common to all of us humans. And managing it properly is vital.

It is vital.

Yeah. I mean, vital is probably the right word, right.

Or it can be paralyzing, right? Well, yeah, and we kind of got started on it when we asked our typical interview question at the end, hey, what advice would you Give yourself. However many years ago when you were just getting started out and John's comment was not to be afraid. And we both, I think both of us went, oh, at the same time as we realized. I hadn't even thought about it before, but that is really an important part of your business life and growing your business or, you know, things. It's. You're dealing with that all the time. So we thought we'd chat about it today.

Yeah. And we did something interesting. It was your idea, Shannon. Normally we share an agenda and we sort of share our thoughts on things to make sure we mix and match. And today your thought was to come into this blind to the other guy's thoughts. Now, we've worked together for over a decade on and off, so my guess is we're not going to surprise each.

Other, but maybe, but we might.

You never know. That's right. Yeah.

Well, and fear is, is such a personal thing. We all have it in, you know, different ways and it affects us differently. So I thought, well, let's really just, you know, I don't, I don't want to impact your thoughts on it or my. With some shared thing of what I think. So that's what we just, you know, I thought we'd roll it out today that.

Well, you, you just said fear is a very personal thing. And, and it at kind of to dive all the way in. There are things that we are that I am always finding myself afraid of. I think everybody's that way. And sometimes the worst thing is being afraid to acknowledge to other people what it is you're afraid of.

Oh, and that's totally common. Right, Right. We use some, some examples of like going to a trade show or a conference and kind of sitting in the audience and not saying anything, you know, because maybe you don't want to get up and, and, you know, get the mic and ask a question that pretty much half the other. The rest of the audience probably wants to know as well.

Right.

And, and it's. If there was a way to bridge that part of, you know, commonality and being human, I mean, we just think how powerful we'd all be.

Well, yeah. I mean, and the thing is, there is. Right. I mean, it's a very basic thing. The, the, the trick is getting fear out of the way of the conversation of talking about fear. And it's not easy. You know, I find myself. I'm very comfortable with my relationship with fear. It doesn't mean that I manage it properly all the time, but I am very aware of fear. One of the things I do, I mean, it's similar to podcasting, is I get up on stage and I play the drums or I sing and do other things. And I am scary. Always afraid when I go on stage, in fact, but not paralyzingly so, at least not most of the time. But, you know, I find that if I don't have butterflies in my stomach before I hit the stage, it means I don't care.

Well, and that's a really important point I think, that you make there and kind of what my thoughts on it as well as, you know, I, I, after we had the show last week, I was, okay, great, we're gonna do Talk About Fear. And I've been thinking about it, you know, during the week and, you know, like, I'm afraid of roller coasters. I hate them. It's just not my thing. My family loves them spin around all stuff, and I can't stand them. I'm out of control. And I, you know, this kind of. My equilibrium gets messed up. That gives me, like a primal, you know, feeling of fear. But from a business perspective, when I, I really started sitting down and putting some notes together about this show is fear for me has been much more of a motivator than something that held me back.

Yeah.

And maybe you might find the same, I don't know. But, you know, to me, risk in business and things is a very controlled risk. And, you know, you can, there's all kinds of ways to minimize it. And like you getting up on stage and doing your thing, which, you know, scares the heck out of me as well. You prepare, the more you're prepared, you. I, I would imagine you feel like you're managing that fear or that anxiety or whatever.

Well, that's right. Yeah. You're, you're managing it. Yeah. And, and I'll be honest, the, the, the less I'm prepared, the more afraid I typically am. In fact, today, as soon as we finish this show, I have to race over to Unh. I've been working on this other project that actually I'll tell you about sometime, but right now we'll call it in semi stealth mode. So I'm not going to talk about it here on the show, but I've been working on it for about the last year, and it's a pretty cool thing. And we're getting to the point where we're probably going to start pitching for some additional funding, angel funding, that kind of thing. And so as we head, there's a couple of things we're getting in place first. But even that may be fear driven. Right. As opposed to just going and asking for money. But there are some important things. For example, a patent application for, for this one thing that's, that's actually now in place. But I have the opportunity to go. One of my partners is also a, A teacher, a professor at unh, and he teaches MBA level, you know, courses. And so I'm going to go and practice, essentially. I'm going to pitch these guys on our, on our, our product here, but I'm not in, which is great. And, and I have demoed this thing to many people and it's an awesome thing. I don't even get halfway through the demo before they interrupt me how great it is and what it's going to do for them. And so that's cool. That part I know is, is good, but I didn't have time today to put together a deck or anything, you know, which I know, which I know I need to do for, for our, you know, angel investor pitches. But I've demoed it countless times before and I can tell the story very, very quickly, but I don't have a, you know, I don't have any slides to rely on. And I started getting nervous about it about, you know, 20 minutes ago now. I knew I wasn't gonna have time to do that today. This all came together very last minute. And of course I was traveling over the weekend. I went to Disney with the family. And so, so I'm feeling some anxiety about going. And, and then of course what happens is you come up with, I come up with all the reasons why I can't go, you know. You know what? This isn't going to work today. Right? There's no way. Yeah, it's just, you know, I've got this podcast to do and then I've got, I'm sure something else. And, you know, I'm. I don't think I'm going to make it there in time. And do these kids really care? You know, this is kind of the wrong audience, which is actually great because I'm pitch, you know, if I'm pitching to people, this particular product is not, probably not yet of interest to college students. It's the kind of thing that five years from now they will be totally gaga about, but right now they probably don't care about it. So it's like, you know, maybe I'm the wrong, it's the wrong thing. I probably shouldn't do it, you know.

Right. But. But I've been there.

Yeah, well, that's the thing. And I've learned to identify that and say, okay, what I'm doing is. Is just, you know, I'm rationalizing my fear into a very logical reason. And these are all very good reasons that I've come up with, by the way. You know, I should not go to this in an hour.

Rationalize it in many ways.

Yeah. And it's like. But they're all really good. Like, if I sat down with you and said, well, you know, here's this thing, and here's what it is, and. But college students, they're the wrong ones. I shouldn't be pitching it to them. You know, there's too much risk in maybe exposing something at the wrong time, and I shouldn't. I shouldn't talk to them. I. I could convince you to tell me, dude, don't leave your house. Right. But the reality is I need to leave my house and go do this, because why not?

Well, yeah. And a lot of it is being in your comfort zone and what you're comfortable with. And, like, for me, it's like doing the show, I was ready for something different. And, okay, great. And who can I reach out? What do I do? And I said, is it blogging? Is it this? Is it something else? And I thought, well, this will be great, because I know absolutely nothing about this kind of thing. And. But, you know, I can talk forever and go through those kinds of things. So pulling yourself out of your comfort zone, getting up there, yes, It's. I think it's tough up front, but after, like, I always feel great after we do the show.

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, that was awesome. You know, it worked really well, and I always learned something new and, you know, connect with people on a different level. So, you know, it is yanking yourself out of that. That comfort level.

That's it. And for me, it's, you know, it's. It's the same kind of thing as. As procrast. Right. I mean, I think procrastination can be driven by a lot of things, but fear is certainly one of them. Right. It's a very strong one. And once I get started, like, I know once I get, you know, I mean, it's not a stage, but I'll be in front of this group of students. Once I've kind of gotten through the first 30 seconds of whatever it is, I'm gonna say, you'll be rolling. I'm good to go. Yeah. Why does this have to end soon? Right? You know?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's. Right. And for me, one of the ways that helps me with that is visioned, envisioning what it will look like when it's done, when I'm finished. And I would, you know, think like I gave a talk in a big corporate event, you know, earlier this year and it was like a thousand people there and I was on a panel, so it was three of the guys up there with me. So it was fine. You know, that little crutch. Yeah, safety and numbers. Yeah, safety numbers. But it was, you know, it was a bit nerve wracking. And you sit down and then they're like, okay, come on, we got to put makeup on. I'm like, you know, wow, makeup. This is crazy, this kind of thing. So, but envisioning like, hey, you know, I'm going to walk off the stage, people are going to come up and ask me questions just like I do when I watch people on panels and that kind of stuff. And sure enough, that's the way it went down. And it. So, you know, it seems like being able to get outside of yourself and intellectually think about that fear is, is really an important part of getting through it and working your way through it.

Well, that, and that's, you're right. You have to, you have to identify that the fear is there. And, and, and then I do two things. I, I'll, I'll do what you do, which is envisioning success. Right. But also if that doesn't work, I envision failure. Okay, what's the absolute worst outcome? Right? And then live with that. Like, okay, that happened. Okay, what's the worst? You know, and maybe, and you know, we're talking about performance fear here because it's an easy thing to, to. We've got a lot of references, but sure, let's say it's, you know, I'm going to invest, you know, all of our, our positive cash flow for the next six months into, and maybe even a little more. Right. You know, of all of our positive cash flow, plus a little bit more, plus 10% into this new endeavor and then it fails. Right. And so now what's the outcome of that? Okay, well, now I'm actually behind the eight ball money wise. Right. And I've got to, I've got to deal with that from a record keeping standpoint and still make sure that, you know, I stay afloat. And also I gotta, I gotta sit down with my, my family, you know, and explain to them why we don't have as much money as we used to.

Right, right.

I mean, all of these things, it's like, okay, just sit down and go through all of it. And then if, you know, if the family thing is, is, is really, you know, and I've been there where it's like, I've gotta make a risky move. And I mean, again, like you said, in business, it's, it's mitigatable risk, or at least it's researchable risk, you know, you're not going in blind.

And that worst case thing, I think is a very good idea.

Well, but then that gets me to the crux of what am I actually, I'm not afraid of doing this. I'm afraid of this failing. Right. There's two different things, but it feels like I'm afraid of doing it, whereas I'm not afraid of doing it. I'm afraid of what happens if it fails. And okay, it's that I don't, you know, the disappointment of others. Right. Let's lump into that.

Oh, yeah, that's a big one. Yeah.

So, okay, great. So now I go talk to the others ahead of time. In my example, it would be my family, but it could be anyone. And you sit down and you say, hey, look, here's what I'm thinking about doing. And now you've done two things. Number one, you've kind of paved over that conversation that you might have to have seven months from now, right. You know, when you realize it failed and so it's not a surprise to anyone, you or them, and that really helps it. And B, you've also got, you know, however many additional minds now either going to tell you, wow, that's a really bad idea, I don't think you should do that, or hey, you know, and you're coming at it. You're not just asking people for advice, you're coming to people saying, look, I care about you, and that's why I'm telling you this. And that tends to get you better advice than you do when you just ask somebody, hey, I've got this crazy idea, what do you think? Should I do it? Because most people will tell you, no, absolutely. But if you say, hey, I'm gonna do this, but I need to tell you, and that's the difference, right? I'm gonna do this, but I need to tell you what the risks are because, because you to me and, and, or we're business partners or whatever it is.

Right, right, whatever it is.

And, and, and then you get more minds on the, on the solution and you might have more people, you know, telling you, hey, this is a great, you should do this. Okay, great. You Know, or.

Or looking. Yeah. Looking at it from a different perspective, you know, getting some feedback. And I. I think your. Your point that. Where you said, you know, disappointing others or letting others down, it really hits home with me.

And, you know, that's the worst one for me.

It is. And, you know, I used to. I. I'll tell you the story. I used to drive to work a certain way every day, and every day, you know, and I go through the. You know, we kind of live in. You know, we live in the suburbs. And I would drive into town, which is close, and drive down kind of through this industrial area, but on the way there, there's a bunch of stores and shops, that kind of thing. This typical urban.

Yeah.

Setting. And there was this homeless guy that I'd see every single morning, and he was just kind of waking up, and I knew where he slept. He slept at his produce place, and he had this big, long leather jacket, and he'd be wrapped up in it, and he'd kind of be sleeping right there. And I would look at that guy every single day, and it's like, man, I have a lot of people depending on me. You know, this. This is one thing that I need to. Or one way I would get motivated on the way to work. I just, like, man, I'm not that different probably from that guy, Right. But I hustle, and I'm not. You know, I don't stop. And I. And I've not given up when I have had those failures. And I drove by that guy for years, and then we moved, and he was gone. And I didn't even really register that this guy. I don't think consciously I was doing it, but I would kind of look at this guy trying. What's his story, you know, this kind of thing. And. And I. We moved, and I went the opposite way into work. And crazy enough, a few months later, this guy moved as well. Whoa. And now he's down by this 7 11, this, you know, convenience store. And I see him every morning, and it's like, I really want to walk or, you know, pull over and be like, hey, man, let me do something for you. Because you've been motivating, motivating me for, like, 10 years, and this same guy has been there. It's crazy, you know, and. And that's, to me, coming back to that fear as a motivator. You know, I. I've always had this thing where, like, you know, I don't want to let myself down, you know, and as well as, you know, you get Older and more and more people come to depend on you, you certainly don't want to let them down. And sharing that information like you're talking about, hey, if it's going to put my family financially at risk, sitting everybody down, talking to them, that is a great idea because it also releases you of that extra burden of having that just inside you.

Yes.

Where if you're going to take the risk and you don't talk it through to somebody that could be negatively impacted, you're also going to have that worry of like, oh, man, if I screw up, then I've got to go explain it. But if you are all on board and it's like, okay, yeah, hey, and even if you say, oh, I'm doing, I'm going to do this and let's talk it through and you know, this kind of thing, it still will really alleviate some of that stress that, that can free you up to, to succeed, you know, perhaps a little easier than, you know, if you were burdening.

You feel like you've got a support system at that point, as opposed to, man, I've got to do this on my own and I really got to make it work. Otherwise, you know, that's, that's, that's dangerous because that can be crippling. Yeah.

Oh, yeah, of course. That can set fear.

Yeah. And you know, I mean, it's important. We're talking about managing fear and working through fear. And we sound like we're experts at this. And at some level, I suppose, I suppose we, we, you know, we've, we've done okay with it. I certainly don't consider myself an expert with it. I grapple with it constantly, in fact.

Sure.

But, but you know, they're, they're. You do. We are. What we're getting down to is at some level ignoring or working to manage, you know, mind over body, this very basic instinct in all of us. And so you do have to make sure that, you know, ask yourself the question, is the source of your fear actually something dangerous? I mean, you know.

Yeah, that's correct.

Because there's a very good reason that we as humans have fear as a response. Right.

Yeah, yeah. You protect yourself. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and you're right. It's comes kind of comes down to, you know, what do I have to lose? And asking yourself that question and to be like, okay, well, what is the worst case? And, you know, what goes wrong? What could happen if it all goes to hell.

That's right. Yep. Yep. And sometimes the answer to that is, is going to scare you worse than you thought it would. But that's okay. You know, you've got to explore it. It's. It. Because for me, the, the worst thing, the biggest thing that I find myself afraid of is the unknown. Right. And, and so by state, taking the time and exploring both paths, success, failure, whatever, you know, whatever it is that actually helps me be less afraid because I've always felt like fear of failure is really not much different from the fear of success. In fact, I think the two are. Are, you know, they may be the very same thing. They're certainly two sides of the same coin. Right.

And that's interesting.

Yeah. Because what's the difference between the two? It's, I mean, it's very, you know.

Well, I mean, other than where you live, maybe, but, you know. Yeah, as far as it.

But it's interesting, but, but it's really, you know, there's. There's the fear of the unknown and that' the fear of failure and the fear of success. Right. You know?

Correct.

Do you know where you're going with this? Because it's easy, like, like I was saying before with this speech I gotta go do, or this presentation or whatever you want to call it, I don't know how it's gonna turn out. It's not that I'm worried about failing, it's that I just don't. I just don't know. I can't honestly predict the outcome. I mean, I can get pretty close. And that's the thing is as soon as I sit down and I say, okay, well, here's how it's going to go. And the worst thing is it's going to be like 20 minutes long. And then even if it's horrible, I leave and I go do the next thing I've got to do, you know?

Correct. Correct. And I think that, like, I always had a fear when I was first starting out. And, you know, you mentioned earlier some, you know, you tell people you're gonna. You're going to do this, and quite often you, you hear, you know, oh, that's not a good idea, or I wouldn't do that. You know, and I read. I really. I was reading an article last night about Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he made a comment that I thought was very, very succinct. And he said, you know, I've spent my life turning naysayers into spectators. And I. That's brilliant because, you know, when I want to do something, and I've learned this over time because I always had a fear of being that guy who. That always said, oh, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do this. I'm going to start this. I'm going and being kind of perceived as this flaky, you know, guy that isn't settled down. And I mean, I can remember, you know, getting out of college and not taking a job, and people looked at me like, what you're. What are you doing? You know, and so the way I dealt with it is. I just didn't talk about it is I wanted to be that. Well, I made myself into that guy that said, I am doing this now. And to your point, I think you mentioned earlier something similar talking. You know, I just kind of got quiet. And then once I started to get a little success, then I would talk about it. And it seemed to always surprise people and always a much easier way to get them on board when you. So even just a. Whatever measurement of success you want to call it, it may not be financial.

It could be.

Could be like we talk about, you know, number of listeners or downloads to this show or number. You know, for me, it's always been, you know, the happiness of my team at whatever business and those kinds of things. So you can measure it any way you want, but once you start to get some success, you know, when we, when we started deals on the web, you know, years and years ago, for me, it was when we could afford to hire that first person.

Yeah.

To. To run it, even though we wouldn't make any money at that time.

Right. We gave everything. Right.

We gave up everything to pay somebody else, but it was like, wow, this is, this is like a future investment. So.

Yeah. The business was paying for itself. Yeah.

Yeah, that's right. And I think that that has really helped me because I had that fear. It changed the. And I'm sure it's, you know, just me or whatever, but it changed the perception of. Because even now I know when I just started mentioning this, this the small business show to folks, some of my closer friends, you know, I said, hey, I don't. I don't even know what we're doing here, but, you know, you might want to listen to be fun. What the heck? And I didn't say anything to him until we'd done five or six shows.

Yeah.

But the reaction, you know, because I have done some things that have succeeded, and the reaction is always different now it's like, oh, I know you're going to get this figured out and it's going to be great.

Yeah.

You know, and I was like, oh, well, that's cool. You know, so I get, you know, it's identifying the fear, what it is, and then looking at ways to mitigate it and perhaps turn it into something that really helps motivate you on a day to day basis.

Well, it's true. I mean, that that fear of disappointing others has a flip side. And that flip side is exactly what you just described. And that is the fear that. The ability for others belief in you to motivate you. And, and, and I had a. I had a weird situation in college and it was kind of in a bad spot and, and I was explaining to a friend of mine and I'm like, man, I don't, you know, I don't know what I'm going to do. And he's like, you know, the thing about you is you always just figure it out and turn up on the right side of things. He's like, I don't know how you do it, but I don't think this one's going to be any different, man, that's awesome. Yeah. And it was like, I mean, I don't. He probably doesn't remember ever saying this, right? But this was one of those hypnotic moments. You know, he said something and it stuck with me and it showed me. And of course things turned out fine. Look where we are, right?

Yeah, that's right.

It's all good. But at the time, I could not envision it ever working out properly. But, you know, but things do. And having a positive attitude and all that. But, but it's easier to have a positive attitude when you've got someone that, that's close to you that says, you know, and it's not like your parents are supposed to say that, you know, this was just a true friend, right, that you said. I was just, I wasn't coming to him looking for that, you know, I was just like, man, I'm screwed. And he's like, yeah, you are. He's like, that's true.

But, you know, figure it out.

You'll figure it out. He's like, I don't know how you do this. He's like, you lead a charmed life. And it's true, I do lead a charm. But you. But if you believe I've run into other people that, that feel they lead charmed lives, and you may very well be one of them, too.

I am.

You are. Well, certainly from my perspective, you are. But I don't. That's not an accident. You're open.

You're making it yourself.

Well, and at the very Least you're open to good things happening to you.

Correct.

And I think that's step one. It might even be the end of it. There might not be a step two. You know, it's. You believe that it's okay for good things to happen.

Yeah. And I think that being able to find success in, in just about anything, even if something horrible happens, having the ability or however you might be able to do it, but come up with the way, or what's worked for me is come up with a way to look at it and go, well, here's why it was successful, even if it just crashed and burned, you know, business idea. And I mean, yeah, you know, I have failed certainly more times than I've succeeded, but the successes have, you know, had more weight. I'll say. And, you know, being able to look at those things and find. I make this comment all the time to my employees. I'm like, well, you have to find strength in whatever it is that's, that's going to push you and move you forward. Take that little nugget. You know, it's like, oh, it could be anything. You know, hey, I show up, I'm on time every day when I go to work. That's great. That's a great place to start. So, you know, now you got to build on that and you kind of building this foundation. And I think that as you mentioned, you know, before opening yourself up to success or this charmed life, you know, you're kind of putting this thing together brick by brick, and the more you do it, I think the more, the more opportunities you have for that, for that charmed life.

Yeah, well, it's, it's, you know, Monty Python said it best. Right. Always look on the bright side of life.

That's right. That's right. It seems very simple, but it's not. Yeah, it's hard.

Yeah. Yeah. And again, it's that for me. And, and, and I mean, this is definitely a personal thing. It's that fear of the unknown that can be paralyzing at times. And, and I actually spent a number of years. I'm not convinced I, I, I, I could, well, I'll, I'll project. And I haven't really spent a lot of time obsessing over this. But, you know, it may be after, you know, we, we had an opportunity to sell deals on the Web, and it, it fell through. It was actually a very good learning experience.

It was, yes.

But after that, I spent a couple of years sort of in maintenance mode with everything else. Now I don't know that it was, you know, catalyzed by that internally for me, but it certainly, the timing was. Was sort of. That's how it worked out. And I had. But, you know, I was making money. I had successful businesses, but I wasn't driven to do anything new. I. And it may well be that, you know, that we. We built deals on the Web and then. And then we had this opportunity to sell it, and it didn't work out. And. And perhaps that put up a little bit of a wall that said, hey, don't, you know, don't step outside the line. Don't color outside the lines anymore. Right. You know, stay where you are. I don't know. I. You know.

Well, it certainly deflated our balloon a bit.

Absolutely.

Yeah. And we were kind of on this trajectory and on this path, and, you know, you don't. That adage, you know, don't count your chickens type thing, but it's hard not to. Yeah, it is hard not to, especially.

When you're a day away from signing the deal and it falls apart.

But, you know, that's no hard feeling that happens. No, no, no. You keep.

You.

You keep living to fight another day, you know, and, you know, that's it.

Yeah, I had. But, you know, I had, like, my kids were at the age where it was great to spend more time with them, so it wasn't like. I have no regrets about kind of, you know, letting my foot off the gas a little bit for a couple of years because it, you know, I got. I. I am not one of those dads who doesn't know his kids and that.

Oh, yeah, right.

So perhaps it had nothing to do with, you know, this. This little incident we had with deals on the Web. Maybe it was just that it was, you know, time for me to prioritize family, and that was okay, you know.

Well, I. Yeah. And that could be, you know, I. I don't think you should mitigate the experience because I think that, as I mentioned earlier, you know, find even those failures. It was a very good learning experience for us. And especially looking back now, you know, and, you know, I will share with you one of the biggest fears I have. I made a very bad business decision about 15 years ago, okay. To the point where, you know, I mentioned calculated risk, controlled risk. Well, I clearly did not calculate correctly. And it was. I didn't educate myself correctly. So it put me about a million dollars in debt. It was a huge.

That's a lot of money, man.

It's a lot of money. And it was A. I mean, it was so encompassing on my life that for a little while, it's like, how am I going to. Not only am I, you know, trying to move forward and build, you know, successful businesses and take care of my family, but now I got this huge number that I just couldn't. I couldn't do anything else but think of it. And so I, I, I started to, you know, okay, how am I going to deal with this? And I've got to get this. I got to find a way to pay this, you know, this debt off. And, and I knew that the only. I wasn't. There was no outside help. It was. I didn't want to talk about it with anybody, and I didn't talk about it with anybody until it was done.

It's the first I've heard of it. Yep.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. I've known you for, you know, 15 years.

It sounds like we met right about that time. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. So in, in the thing that I, I kept thinking about it. Kept thinking about it because I was just thinking, I'm just a failure. This is it. And what I took from it at the time was that I was so afraid that my whole business career was going to be defined by this moment that I just committed to myself that that was not going to happen and that I would not look back on this mistake as the defining point in my life, personal and business and otherwise. And, you know, I could just remember powering through it and, okay, how am I going to get through it? And it sounds corny, but, you know, be getting ready in the morning and looking in the mirror and literally, you know, hitting myself in the chest, these chest thumps. I was like, okay, there's another day. Here's another day. You can make some, you know, earn some revenue and get this thing paid off and, and move on, and, you know, I'm still here. And we did it and, and got it paid off in about five years and moved on and learned an incredible, incredibly important lesson that, you know, has helped to make me the person I am today, you know, about, about not, you know, not taking shortcuts. There really isn't a way to move diagonally in many things. Some things are hard, but a lot of things you really just have to kind of go through and, and, and making sure that you really vet every, you know, everything you can about what you may think is an opportunity. And, and it's made me a, a much better person. And, but it was when I sat down, thought, think about It. When I was putting the note. My notes together for the show, it was that fear that really drove me. The money was okay. Yeah. I've always been able to make money. Sure. It hasn't been very difficult, you know, now building wealth is a whole nother thing, and we can probably have a show on that because that's much more difficult. But. But making money difficult.

Yep.

Yeah. I mean, I'm a deal guy. I can find something and sell it and do whatever, but, you know, it. That was the motivator, being afraid that when anybody talked to me, how's things going? Whatever it is. Oh, there's that. He lost a million bucks, and then he had to go work for somebody else and, you know, be somebody behind a desk for the rest of his life. That just terrified me, you know, so that's my story.

No, this is. That's good. I'm gonna call this episode the fear Confessional, because we're.

There you go.

We're bearing our souls here. No, you're totally right, though. And. And. But see, I've always thought of things like that as huge opportunities. And. And I'll. And I'll explain why. You know, I feel like we all start down our path in life and. And especially, you know, if you have a decent relationship with your parents, which I certainly do. And did growing up. I mean, you know, it was like, it's a normal relationship, you know, ups and downs, but. But in general, pretty good. You know, the. The chances of someone like that stepping outside of the realm of whatever it was your. Your normal path would be are pretty slim. Right. You know, you need something to catalyze and. And show you that you can. It's actually not that difficult to do things differently or. Or, you know, in your case, pay off a million bucks in five years. I mean, you say that to people, and, I mean, there's people. There's already. I guarantee you there's people listening to this show that are, like, still hung up on, wait, how did he make a million extra? How did he make a million dollars in five years, let alone a million extra? Right. I mean, they're still doing the math, so we might as well acknowledge it. Right?

It's. It is. And, you know, again, you could do a whole nother show, but it was just, you know, it's all about sacrifice and.

Yeah.

And. And figuring out ways to do it and. And. And negotiating things and.

But there are people listening right now that feel and. And do feel as though. And do sacrifice everything and. And are, you know, probably making less than, than 75, 000 a year. So.

Sure.

Total and let alone to figure out how to grab an extra 200 grand a year over.

Well, keep in mind, I, yeah, keep in mind when, you know, I still owned several businesses.

Yep.

I owned some real estate. I mean I had, I had had some success up till. Got it that happened. So I had these vehicles in place that allowed me to, you know, manipulate and come up with, with processes and, and ways to do it. And the thing that's interesting about owing, owing someone a million bucks is you're very important to them.

Yeah, that's true.

And I, I started to think that because I, well, what if my whole goal was I was not going to go bankrupt? I never ever wanted to have that in my life and I never will and I never wanted to. And I know some guys that are very successful in business and I always feel like it's a cop out and I always give them a hard time at this. I, you know, a couple guys like, well, yeah, it's easy to screw up so much and then, you know, just throw in the towel and walk away.

And take a bankruptcy and go on. Yeah.

And burn everybody around you. Well, I had all these people relying on me and employees and this and that, and I was just not going to do it. And so, you know, there's ways you. First, it's just like I said, overwhelming and those kinds of things. But then you start to think and you start to realize you're not powerless. It feels like you're powerless, but you're not. And so through negotiating this and that and being very transparent about how much you actually could pay on a regular basis, it was very important too. And then you just build from there. You, if you have to live to fight another day, maybe you lost the battle, but you keep going. And then you can look at it six months from now, when you look back, it's going to look a little different. It's going to allow you to step back from it a little bit, hopefully in a little better manner. A year from now it's going to look even totally different and you start to realize, okay, this is manageable. I can do it, I can do it. You know, I always mentioned to my kids, you know, they bring up problems. I say, well, is this going to be a problem a year from now? Yeah, no, it's like, well, it's really not going to be. It's not that big of a problem. Then let's just, let's address it. Yeah, let's deal with it, you know.

Deal with it so well, your situation, though, it allowed. And I mean, we've, we've all been through it at different levels and it's, it, what, it, what it sounds like it did for you is, I mean, it motivated you. Right? I mean, you didn't want, you had it, you had several motivating factors. You didn't want to take a bankruptcy. You had this debt to pay. And so you, you, you know, you put the pedal all the way down and figured out, okay, here's how we're going to do this. And, and then by that process, you learned that, okay, well, if the pedal's all the way down, this is what can happen. And that's right. Let's go a little further with it and let's. And so it probably in, you know, when you're, when you're counting everything up at the, at the end of the, at the end of the ride, you get to say, wow, that, that actually probably was a good thing because, well.

I mean, you know, and it can't move. And, you know, like you mentioned your worst case scenario, it's like, okay, well, if I, you know, lost a million bucks, I could pay it back. Yep, I could, I could. I know how to pay back. I mean, you just do it and over time. But I guarantee you the same folks that you're, you know, saying, we're listening to this, everyone has different horror stories and, you know, we really would love to hear them and, and again, because that shared thing, you know, and we'd love to chat about them and talk. So if you have comments or, you know, you want to ask some questions or you want to share your story and how you got through your fear or managed your fear in it or used it as a motivator, you know, feedbackbapodcast.com we'd really love to hear from you. The listener base is growing every week, and getting your comments is definitely fuel for us and helps motivate us.

Yeah, this has been a great episode, man. It feels like our best thus far, but I got to give it a week and let it settle in. But, yeah, no, it's good. We, you know, we pulled the curtain back a little bit. I like it.

Yeah, it's like I've enjoyed chatting and we'll be in touch next week.

Yep, that's feedbackbapodcast.com and we'll see you next week.

Take care, folks.