Top 10 Small Business Owner Personality Traits

The Small business show episode 346 for Wednesday, September 22, 2021. Greetings, folks. You know, you can tell what kind of day I've had by listening to how loud I make the guitar intro of that theme music. And it's been a crazy day. Welcome to the Small Business show here at BusinessShow Co where we are always small businessing because we don't know how to do anything else. That's just how it goes here in Durham, New Hampshire, having a crazy day. I'm Dave Hamilton and in Lafayette, California.

Also having a crazy day. A little frustrating. This is Shannon Jean.

Yeah, I'm curious to see how this show goes. Our sponsors for today are sanebox.com small business where you get 14 days free and a $25 credit or of one of my favorite services and LinkedIn.com SBS where you can post your first job for free. We'll talk about all the details and why you're going to do that shortly here. But, but as always, you know, you visiting those links and learning more, that's our job is to get you, encourage you, convince you even to go and visit those links. That's, that's our job with sponsorships here and we really appreciate it when you do go and visit those links. Whether you buy or not, that's between you and them. It's whether it's perfect for you or not. But, but our job is to get you to go look at them. So we will talk more about that in a little bit. Right now, last week was Small Business Week. Shannon, what is Small Business Week and why doesn't it matter?

I'm glad you asked that question. Now we'll preface the conversation today that I'm, I'm going through some frustration and some issues with one of my companies. It's driving me nuts. So I'm a little on edge about that. So that may factor into my conversation, but I asked that same question and I'm really asking our listeners what is Small Business Week and how has it helped or impacted your business or has it or has it hurt it? You know, you see lots of large corporations, American Express promoting Small Business Week and this kind of thing. And I guess, you know, it's to, it's to get people to go shop and buy more from small businesses. But I'm not really sure. A lot of it I think is performative. And what I mean by that is almost like a virtue signaling hey, we should support these small guys. But you know we're going to benefit by saying we're promoting these small guys. Right. And maybe I'm totally wrong. And I would love to hear if I am wrong. Feedbackus show co Tell me how important Small Business Week has been to your small business.

Yeah. The White House proclamation. I mean, I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it says our nation's small businesses define our communities, drive innovation, and create the products and services that enrich our lives and solve global problems. Agree to build a better and more sustainable world. Absolutely right. Like, you preach to the choir, which is a lot of what comes out of any politician, regardless of, you know, where they fall and land. Right. They preach to a choir. Right. That's how it works. So this one's preaching to the correct choir. Well done. By harnessing the power of our small business economy and equipping our entrepreneurs with the tools and resources they need to innovate, adapt and grow, our economy will continue to build back better than ever before. America's small businesses are up to the task. I mean, I agree with all of that. That's, that's beautiful. I still don't know what Small Business Week does for me or for you or anybody that, that buys things. I don't know. It's, it's. I mean, are we, what are we like?

I don't know.

It's. I don't get it.

It's a, it's a, It's a. Just a really good question. And as we started talking about it, this, you know, for the show, it just hit me is I just don't see. Yeah, I'm, I must be missing something, but I don't know. Yeah, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know.

I don't know either.

I don't know.

Just don't know.

Yeah, I've never, I've heard about it and I've, I've never. As a small business owner, I've never experienced. As always, it feels like it's up to me to make it happen.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point. So maybe there are a number of opportunities to promote your business in Small Business Week, and I'm just not aware of how to tap into those kinds of things.

Right. But I mean, if we're gonna bother to spend a week talking about small businesses, wouldn't that be a good time for someone else to make it happen for us? And I realize as an entrepreneur, I understand. I have, in fact, not just do I understand, I have embraced the fact that no one's going to do anything for me. I'm going to do it all, you know, or at least catalyze it for myself. And as companies, you know, ourselves, that's, that's what, that's what that, that's what you figure that out pretty early on when, when you're a small business owner, an entrepreneur, solopreneur, whatever, even a large business owner, you know, it's all the same. But there's a lot of people out there in the world that expect, you know, well, I'll just wait until it happens for me. And that always that line of thinking, good luck. Well, I mean, it works if you wait long enough sometimes. Right. But it's not how we're wired. And that's okay that there's different people, people wired. But maybe our problem is that when somebody says, hey, it's Small Business Week, that part of us that lies dormant that, you know, we've, we've repressed, that says, somebody's going to do something for me. Maybe this is why we're snarky about it, because it sounds like the kind of thing that it's going to happen to us or for us as opposed to by us.

Right. And I would also argue that, at least in my experience, most small business owners cringe when the government wants anything to do with them.

Oh, yeah. Now I will say that, you know, the payroll protection.

Yeah. Oh, fantastic.

That's the first and perhaps last time that I will see the government do anything that materially and directly impacts me as a small business owner. And it was fantastic. And I, I, you know, it's one of those things where it's not my rules. Right. They had the rules and if you fit into the right categories, by golly, take advantage of it, whether you need to or not. And, and we just got another one of our approvals for, you know, got a letter. Yeah. Your loan was paid off. It was like, great. Awesome. Thanks.

That's great. Fantastic.

That's fantastic.

So, so, yeah. So. Feedback BusinessShow co. Let us know your thoughts on Small Business Week. Yeah, but today we're going to talk about, I was going to call them top 10, but there's so many more. We're going to limit it to about 10 each today.

Sure.

But these are what I would consider critical business personality traits for small business owners. These are part of who you are, things you need to embrace or at least be aware of to be successful as a small business owner.

I like it, man. I've got, it was really hard to limit my. When you said, oh, we should do top 10, I'm like, oh, I gotta come up with 10. And then within about 45 seconds I had 25.

Yeah.

And I'm still trying to figure out which ones I'm gonna talk about here in the show. And we will do that. We'll each kind of go through them back and forth. We'll discuss, try and limit each one to about 30 seconds. Otherwise this whole thing will take forever as we do that. But we'll see how we do. Maybe we'll get through 10 each, maybe we won't. The next thing that I want to do is talk about our two sponsors. Our first sponsor is SaneBox at SaneBox. S a n e b o x.com small business. That's where you're going to go to get a 14 day free trial and a $25 credit of one of my favorite and most relied upon services. Inbox zero is a thing of the past. We know that. Right? If you think that you're going to manage your inbox by hand, it's, it's. It. That's unrealistic. It's just not how it is. We're also inundated with email that it's not about responding to everything. It's about responding only to the important things, focusing, spotlighting the messages that truly matter. And that's where SaneBox comes in. Think of it as like an EMT for your email. SaneBox is artificial intelligence. Monitors your inbox and then automatically all that knucklehead email is moved to a folder that they call sanelater. All that's left is the important stuff and your smiles. And if you understand how email folders work, which we all do, then you Already know how SaneBox works. You find an email in the SaneLater folder that you want in your inbox. Move it. That's all you got to do. SaneBox will notice that you moved it. And then the next time an email from that same sender comes in or matches that same pattern, it'll keep it in your inbox. It won't move it to sanelater. Similarly, if something shows up in your inbox that you want Insane later the next time, guess what? Just move it. There's nothing to learn, Nothing to install. SaneBox works directly with every single email server or service that's ever been created. And again, if you go to sanebox.com small business, you get 14 days for free and a $25 credit when you want to start your account. Our thanks to sanebox not just for sponsoring this episode, but for doing what they do. It's super important. I couldn't live without it. So, thanks to SaneBox, our next sponsor is LinkedIn Jobs, where@LinkedIn.com SBS you get to post your first job for free. Because as we know, today, so many of us small business owners are more inundated, more productive than ever. And all that time spent searching for and interviewing candidates for can take away from all the time that we have left to manage and grow our businesses. And that's why LinkedIn jobs has made it easier to get to the candidates worth interviewing faster. And it's free. That's right. You can create a free job post in minutes on LinkedIn jobs to reach your network and beyond to the world's largest professional network of over 770 million people. It's what we used earlier this year to find Sadie. I reached out to my personal network because I think, oh, you know, I'm, I'm Dave the podcaster. I know lots of people. I'll be able to bring somebody in. I mean, I brought in a couple of candidates and I was like, it's not really enough. And then I posted, you know, @LinkedIn.com SBS I used LinkedIn jobs to do this, man. We got like 75 candidates, all of whom were qualified. And then we use their tools, you know, they have these screening questions that you can ask and then different tools to sort of narrow people down. We narrowed it down to about, I don't know, 20 or 25. We interviewed them and using, still using the LinkedIn tools to sort of mark things after the interviews. And then at the end, we knew who the top five were or whatever, and then we hired one. LinkedIn jobs helps you find the candidates worth interviewing faster. And did you know that every week nearly 40 million job seekers visit LinkedIn? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Post your job for free@LinkedIn.com SBS that's LinkedIn.com SBS to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. And our thanks to LinkedIn jobs for sponsoring this episode. All right, Shannon, what's your first of the top 10 critical business personality traits?

The first one that comes to mind, and they're not really in any order.

Yes, same.

They all have varied levels of importance at different times of your. The cycle of your small business career, Right?

Yeah.

But the one that really sticks with me that you need a lot is resilience. And you really need to be able to power through what are going to be some very tough situations in all manner that you can imagine. Everything from, you know, dealing with landlords real estate agents, attorneys, employees. I mean, there's going to be some great, great times as business owners and some of the best times of your life. But like my wife always tell people, you know, the highs are high, but the lows are low.

Super low.

Yeah, super low. And if you don't have or understand the concept now, now I want to back up a little bit. Everything I'm going to talk about. These traits can be learned.

Yes.

It's not. It's not that you. Oh, I don't have these magic secret sauce, so I can't start a business. No, no, no, no.

You.

You can. You can have zero resilience because you're just not prepared for it. And you will build resilience over time. And hopefully the situations that you work through will be a little bit more minor when you first start. Little things, little things, and then there will be some big things that you have to get through. And understanding resilience and having that in your toolbox is really very, very important.

I agree. I agree. Yeah, no, that's a good point. These things can be learned. I built my list thinking about not only the skills that I think are valuable as a, let's say, a solo preneur or, you know, a solo manager of a business, solo owner of a business, but also the things that I would look for in a potential partner like business. Yeah. And they really all can be the same thing. And that was a way that I narrowed it down. So the next one I'm going to put on the list is attention to detail. There are lots of things that are gonna happen in your business, and if you are not aware of all, you need to be able to see all the details. Now, you also need to not get distracted by the wrong details. That's a different skill. But if you are not someone who has trained yourself, and this is also a trainable skill, but you need to be and partner with people who have already learned how to pay attention to all the details that go by. And then again, the next level of that skill is filtering for the. The details that matter as opposed to the ones that you can kind of let slide. But you really got to be able to pay attention. And. And, well, I love that.

Yeah. And. And I like how, you know, you bring in. If you don't have this skill, you need to be looking for someone that can help offset that weakness. Right.

Yeah. But I think you need to develop it anyway. Like, to me, these are skills that everyone involved in the management needs to have.

Terrible. Terrible. I have to Tell you I'm terrible at attention to detail.

You're not though. You, I mean, I can tell you, you notice things I don't. So that's why I think you're good at it. Right.

Maybe, maybe a different, different areas.

I can see that.

But yeah, that, that, that, that's, that's a good one. My, the next one on my list is it's integrity. And I would argue that this can be learned as well because. Yeah, and I can remember, you know, being a young business owner and just getting out and I'm a deal guy, you know, a hustler if you will. And sometimes that can have a bad connotation. But you know, I was always looking for the quick way to make a buck when I first started. But as I grew into it, and especially once I had other people relying on me and hiring and built a larger company, you know, it became really important to look at and to analyze how you were making money and how you were treating people and how you were treating your customers, partners, employees, and be sure that you were doing it with integrity so that you could sleep at night and that you're, you know, it doesn't have to be, I think I'm using this term, right. A zero sum game where you win, if you win, someone else loses it. This doesn't have to be. You should be able to build a culture of your business around the fact that yes, I may have to compromise and ask other people to compromise, but we're going to make this together so we can all benefit. And if you can do that, success is going to find you much sooner then if you don't have that integrity and if your employees look at you and questioning what you do, your partners don't trust you, that kind of thing. So integrity really needs to be high up on that list.

I agree. Yeah, I've always said that that's the thing that allows me to continue to stay in business is people trust me. And integrity is the key to that. I mean, sometimes you can convince people to trust you when they shouldn't, but that's a short lived game, man. They will figure it out. The next one on my list is politeness.

Oh, that's good.

Oh God, it drives me. And this is, you know, goes back to my litmus test of vetting pretty much any human.

I was just going to mention this because I love this example. I think it's what you're going to say.

Yeah, it really is the way to vet humans. Not just employees or business partners, but people that I Just want to be associated with or not associated with. And it's. Will they say please and thank you to wait staff at a restaurant? But really, like, it costs you. I used to say it costs nothing to say please and thank you and I'm sorry. In the scenarios where you've done something wrong, just say I'm sorry, you know, and then show that you mean it with all of those things. Right. But I used to say it costs you nothing. But I have encountered enough people that are resistant to say those words that now I know that it does cost some people something, and that is their perception of their own ego. That's my. That's my perception of what's going on in these scenarios because I was out to eat with a friend that I've known for decades and quite frankly, is someone that I probably, if I encountered today, would not spend a lot of time with. But it's somebody I've known for a very long time. And. And they didn't say please after they ordered their food. And again, I've known this person a very long time. I'm like, hey, you gotta say please when you do that. Why? They're just doing their job was the question. And I was like, yeah, but it. But it's another human. Like, it just didn't make sense to me. But it was. Oh, it was. Well, they're supposed to do that for me, so there's no reason I should. I should go out of my way to be polite about it was the thought process. I know, I know. Yeah. Was my reaction like, wow, yeah, it's very telling. I don't. It's very telling. I don't even know, like, how to unravel that like that. But yeah, yeah, that's crazy. So politeness, please. Thank you.

Yeah, I like that. And I'm going to skip ahead on my list because you mentioned ego. And one of the things I think that can really help you as a small business owner is knowing how and maybe more importantly, when to dial your ego up and down. And I think that's a good example, is that you, you know, I'm always loud and I'm talking and I'm creating this story and. And I think half the time I'm convincing myself. At the same time, I'm trying to convince, you know, my customers, my employees how this kind of thing. But you also need to be able to dial it way down when you need to. If you made a mistake, you know, I'm sorry, this kind. And there are folks, maybe a salesperson, personality that maybe never dials it down. And I think that that's a tough one. Maybe you can be a salesperson all the time, but if you're always selling and never connecting and dialing your ego, learning how to control that is very.

Important in the music business. We call that LSD Lead singer disease. Right. I mean, the lead singer of a band, when they are on stage, being a lead singer needs to be on and in that egotistical, confident belief, you know, sometimes false of all time. Belief, right.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and you know, I've had the pleasure of, of not just getting to know, but even playing on stage with a guy named Gary Sharon, who's the lead singer of a band called Extreme. And he was one of the lead singers of Van Halen for a short period of time. Yeah. And he is the most humble guy off stage, which is where I met him. You know, he would come to some gigs of mine, long story, but anyway, and really like, nice, soft spoken, very kind, super polite, you know, all of that stuff. And then the moment he stepped on stage with me for the first time, it was like, oh my goodness, now he's a different person. Like he. In the right way. I mean, it was like, hold on to the reins because this horse is about to go. You know, and it was awesome. But it was. And then when he gets off stage, he's like, oh, yeah, it was so much fun. Thanks for having me come up. Thanks for letting me sit in your. Gary. But you know that, but he, he's able to turn it off. Some people are not. And, and that, yeah, you use your ego as a tool. That's right. Yeah.

That's really good.

Yeah. Yeah. I think you, you know, kind of following into that. You need to be able to be decisive even when you don't have all the information you need to make a decision. And that's not an easy one. That's definitely one that most of us learn. I don't know anybody that just naturally can do that.

Yeah, that's leadership, right?

That's right.

You know, being able to. Okay, we're going to do it. Yeah. We don't know how it's going to turn out. We don't have all the data we would like to have, but waiting for all the information just can paralyze you.

Paralyze. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So that, that would have been the next one on my list. Yeah. What's yours?

Mine? Keeping on this ego thing and being able to be this lead singer kind of thing. I think you need to Become comfortable with embellishment and hyperbole when it. Again, it's all about timing. But if you look at some of the greatest business people around, the Steve Jobs reality distortion field, this kind of thing, there is a time and place where you need to pump up your product or service your people. Talk about how you're going to change the world with your widget. Perhaps use hyperbole when you're explaining some of the traits. And, and sometimes if you take it too far, you know, you're distorting the truth and you're lying, that kind of thing. But embellishment and hyperbole, they definitely have their place. And I think we could all find examples of it. And it does become part of the story, or moving your story forward and getting people on board and being a leader. You know, our internal tagline that we had, you know, when with Tech Restore was, you know, we're changing the world one repair at a time. And sometimes people would call me out and I go, no, let me give you an example. And you could work it up like, okay, well, this kid who couldn't afford a new computer and he got to do this and this and this and, you know, and on and on and on, up and up, how it goes. And all started with the. What is that for want of the shoe, the writer was tossed, you know.

That kind of thing.

So embracing that and knowing it's okay to do it and when to do it can really serve you well.

I agree. Yeah, I had persuasiveness on my list. And that certainly, like, that's exactly what you're saying. I had it next to ability to network.

Yeah, that's good.

Right? Which is a different, A different facet of that same thing. But, but the ability to network is also the ability to listen to other people, truly listen to other people. You know, you're going to find as a, as a business owner, you're going to. Other people are the ones that are going to pay you money. Right. Like, that's. Yeah, I don't know how to be in business without customers. Right. And so you need to be able to communicate with your customers. You need to be able to be at, apparently at ease at like a cocktail party. Whether you're at ease at a cocktail party or not is sort of irrelevant. That's your problem or my problem if I'm at a cocktail party. But you need to be able to operate in those environments as though you are comfortable. And, and the best way to do that is by listening to other people and hearing Their stories. Because most of us really just like to talk about ourselves. That's right. And you need to curb that desire in yourself sometimes hard and.

Yeah. And trying to when you're networking, changing your thinking up to how can I add value to this? Contact this person, especially before you ever need anything from them. Right. Because there will be some time you would maybe perhaps need something. And yeah, that, that is a great, a really important trait.

What's your next one?

My next one is keeping on this theme of a couple last things. We're talking about confidence.

Yeah.

Having confidence. Again, you can learn this. But, but even to the point where sometimes you have unrealistic confidence in yourself, that can really help. Even if it's just inside your head that you're telling yourself this and you're training your inner judge to help you. You're programming, you know, we're just moist robots and being confident that, you know things are going to work out, confident that we're going to solve this problem. Confident that people are going to find value in what you're offering them, that your employees, I mean all this whole realm around you. Confidence helps to build credibility and trust with the people around you. If you're not confident in what you're selling in yourself first and foremost, it's going to be a much tougher thing to get you to be successful, I think.

So I would add the flip side of that which is to be open minded and adaptable. There are times when you have to be confident, sometimes blindly so. But, but you know, the ability to adapt and, and not just believe your own bs.

Yeah.

Oh, that's absolutely right. You know, to actually. Again, it probably goes back to listening. Right. What is this person saying and are they right? You know, I've, I've. Scott Adams I think is the one that, that often says perhaps in different contexts, but I think it applies here. What if everything you think you know is wrong? Yeah. Right. I mean like because, because you would think the same way. Right. If you're wrong, you just be confident. Except you're wrong. And, and so being open minded and adaptable, you don't want to be second guessing yourself all the time. That's not a good thing if you're trying to push a company forward. But you need to be able to second guess yourself at times and, and have other people second guess you and actually listen to them. So that's, that would have been my next question. Yeah. Or that is.

Yeah, yeah. And mine again. We'll just kind of. I'm jumping around here same Keep things in order. But empathy is really important, an important trait to understand and to be able to understand what your employees are going through and how the actions you take with your business are impacting their life. Understanding what suppliers are going through when they're having problems, and trying to work things out with them so that it's a win win for both of you. I've always used the example of when a supplier or a vendor makes a mistake. It is an excellent opportunity to become closer to them and to gain leverage, or a foot up, if you will, over other people they're doing business with by helping them solve a problem, if they made a big mistake. And, you know, I don't want to say it puts them in your debt, but there is a thing in there about, oh, we, you know, what, we screwed up with these guys, and they really did handle it well and they understood the problem. I want to make sure we take care of them next time.

I had, I had a perfect, like, short timeline example of this. There was somebody, one of the ad agencies we work with, one of the reps there sent something out and just screwed the whole thing up and, and came, you know, came back an hour later and was like, I'm really sorry I screwed this up. You know, please, you know, accept my apologies and, you know, let's do it this way. And I replied to them and said, oh, no big deal. We all screw things up all the time. Everything's great. You know, I've. I've redone what I needed to do for you here. Don't even think about it again. Right? And. And then three days later, I screwed something up sending it to that same person. And. And I just replied and I said, well, it looks like it's going around, you know.

Yeah.

And. And they were very accompanied. It was like, oh, of course, you know, but it. We, that person and I now have a much deeper relationship because we built trust with each other over one and now both of us making mistakes. Right? And that building, that's a. I've always said, like a mistake or even a conflict if it winds up being resolved is a fast track to building trust. It's much faster than just a, you know, oh, things are just going along smoothly, everything's fine. You know, that can take a year or more to develop trust. Where is. With this one person? It took three days and it was like, boom, Now I am the first person that you will call if you need to, like, feel something out, because, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna take it for the way you're bringing it to me, I'm not gonna hold it against you. And that's. Yeah, that's good. Yeah, it is.

And you know, even with your customers, if you can solve a problem, if you made a mistake.

Yeah.

And they come to you and you embrace our mantra of the, you know, two tokens method of customer service, that customer will be loyal to you for life.

Absolutely.

And they will tell everybody about it. And so that, that.

So you're saying with. With this empathy thing, by putting that on the list, my. The class that I've been developing, how to be a better sociopath. That's not going to sell too well or.

Yeah, that's right. That's great.

I am going to get away from soft skills at least for one moment here. Money management is something that needs to be on the list. And this is very much a. Both you and all of your business partners need to. A skill you need to possess. It is very clearly one of these skills that can be learned. I don't know anyone that's born with the ability and the knowledge to manage money in any effective way. Our schools definitely don't teach it to us. They should, you know, and I say. I should say our schools. My daughter actually wound up taking a class in college where they taught her some great money management skills. But, like, it should come up in middle school, let alone high school. I don't know. Anyway, it is something that you and your business partners need to have. And if you are vetting out a potential business partner and they don't have their financial life under control, run screaming, because it will come back to haunt you. It doesn't mean that if your potential business partner says, oh, I'm recovering from a bankruptcy, that's not necessarily a bad thing. That can actually be a good thing because a bankruptcy is a very smart financial tool to use in certain scenarios. And it can also be one of those that really teaches you a lesson, too. So, you know, don't like, look at the whole picture, but really get a feel for how they are managing their life now. And. And. And great. Yep, Yep. So good.

So I have maybe one or two more. I don't want to run too long here today because I know everybody's busy but productive.

Everyone is productive.

Boy, it's a killer. Yeah, you're right. One of the most important skill sets that has really served me well during time, good times and bad times, is being able to compartmentalize my entire life and being able to set aside business problems when I was Running on the soccer field, refing my kids, or when I had to go to the bank and maybe use a little embellishment and hyperbole to tell them how things were going because they were going to, you know, give me a new line of credit. Compartmentalization is your friend, because if you just dump it all in the big bucket of your brain and you're thinking about this stuff all the time, I just don't know how you do it. I don't know how you sleep. I don't know how you, you know, and so learn again. You can learn how to do this, Lee. It's like. It's that, you know, leaving office. At the office. When you go home and don't take those problems home when you're having dinner and when you come in and you got a problem with one aspect of your business, not taking it out on everybody else the whole day and just compartmentalizing and being able to leave that behind.

I failed at that over the weekend, by the way. That's why I'm laughing. Yeah, it happens. Yeah. No, it's fine.

Oh, I'm going through it right now. I'm trying not to. Battling through a significant problem with one of my businesses, and I'm trying not to let it leak into my entire, you know.

Yeah.

Everything. And so you just have to kind of put it in perspective and continually put it away in that little section in your brain.

No, but there's there's the. There's the sort of what I will call the. The shotgun approach to compartmentalization. Right. Which is what you're talking about, like, learn how to leave it at the office. And this is step one. Right. Learn how to leave it at the office. Learn how, you know. Or if you've got something going on at home, learn how to leave that at home. When you're focusing on the office like that. That's step one. But then there's the more surgical strike, compartmentalization, where you've got some very nuanced thing going on that you could let distract you when you're focusing. And it's like, nope, I have this skill. I can put that over there. It will be there when I come back to it. It's definitely not going away. And you can take comfort in the fact that whatever that problem is ain't going away so great. It'll be there in two hours. But right now, I am going to be my best self on this thing and that. That it's a valuable skill not only to keep you sane, but to keep you successful? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

The last thing I'll mention. Oh, it's your turn, Dave.

Yeah, it's okay. I. Bullheaded persistence is. I, you know, I know we've sort of danced around it, but I. If I ever. If there's one thing that I credit with my ability to continue to produce, I don't want to say to succeed or to fail, but it's just to stay at it. To produce is because we're about being productive. Right? So to produce, that's how it works. If I produce enough, then I am successful. I don't have to worry about that. It's all about can I produce is bullheaded persistence. And I credit this, you know, probably once a day, but certainly many times a week. If it weren't for bullheaded persistence. I joke about this, but it's probably not that much of a joke. I'd probably be living in a cardboard box. There are always things that can be in the way. There are always things that I can get myself in the way. Probably that's the most common thing that gets in the way, is me. But being able to push through no matter what and just say, okay, I'm going to do this. We're going to figure it out. We're going to get to the other side of this. And believing that you're going to get to the other side of this, even though you don't know what the other side looks like, sometimes, you know, you tell yourself what it's going to look like so that you can get there, but it's not always the same, and that's okay. Bullheaded persistence, that's. That's. I love it. Sort of my number one.

It opens up the. That creativity and productivity funnel that we talked about.

Forces you to be resourceful. Right. Is what it is. Yeah, that's great. Yeah.

So I'll end on this one as I think it's so important and might be the most important thing that I've mentioned today is to have a sense of humor about yourself, your business, your life, everything your customers. Try to connect using humor. Try to market using humor. Tell your story if you can, with humor. Yeah, man, it just will. I mean, if you can laugh at yourself and how you screwed up here or whatever, and. And it allows you to connect with other human beings on an entirely different level than you will at your business and your. Whether it's your employees or whoever. You know, if you don't have one, work on a sense of humor or figure out a few ways to, you know, something, but it'll save you over and over and over again.

I love it. That's a great one. What a great way to end. Bullheaded persistence and a sense of humor about the whole thing.

A sense of humor, Absolutely.

Cause you gotta screw up. I mean, and things are just not going to go your way sometimes.

No, most of the time.

In fact, almost all the time, you have to leverage those moments where they do. And that's another skill is just, you know, that, that. Well, it's the perseverance, which is resilience. Yeah. That you started with it. Just deal with, you know, suffer the blows. Suffer the blows and then be ready to jump when opportunity knocks. And that, you know, when people say, oh, you must be so lucky, I mean, I guess so. I. I know.

So fortunate. Fortunate.

Fortunate. Yeah. But, but luck, you know, what's the definition of luck? Right? Preparation meets opportunity. And. And some of that preparation is not being so down that you miss seeing the opportunity right there. So.

Yeah, for sure.

I like it. I like it.

Yeah, I do, too. Great show. I love talking about this stuff.

Same good topic, man.

We certainly didn't give the entire list that we both have, but no way. Share your thoughts. Feedbackusinessshow. Co. Or come to any of our socials, Facebook, you know, LinkedIn. Just come search for the small business show. You'll find us. And we would love to chat with you.

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