A business owner at a European event couldn't pitch for capital until forced to choose: sell the company or keep it. Once he decided his aim, he suddenly knew what to say and committed to meeting funders. The lesson: deciding what you actually want unlocks the solutions that were always there.
People already have the solutions. Right. I was telling you about, you know, earlier of this, of an event I went to in Europe, and it was a day that was specifically for a group that makes a good deal of money. And there was seven hours of hot seats. And here's this guy, older, older gentleman, right? And had achieved a lot in his life. You could. You could tell, and had ownership in a really successful business in South America. And he had this challenge of raising a certain amount of money. And he got to the mic, and all he did was make excuse after excuse after excuse of why he didn't have that money and why he couldn't get it. Okay. It didn't go into just a very simple switch in psychology of asking the question, how do I get it? And it was interesting. Just over and over and over, he just kept getting to this point, you know, the solutions from the two people that were running the actual hot seat. This solution, that solution is. He thought about this. Did you do this? Did you do this? No, no, no. Because of this? No, no, no. Because of that. Over and over and over and over. And then finally, the guy that was the actual head moderator said, okay, I'll write you a check for $10 million right now. Pitch me on your business.
And he couldn't. And he couldn't do it. So why couldn't he do it?
Because he didn't know what he wanted or why he wanted it.
He was, in his own way, he was his own worst enemy. All the solutions were there, which is the point of I'm telling the story. He knew what to do. He knew he had to go to. Okay. And ultimately the hot seat ended really well. Right. But that question was the catalyst. Right? I'll write you a check right now. Pitch me on your business. So he didn't have a good pitch. Right. That was there. If he was asking better questions, Right. The people that actually fund the deal, they were there. He came up with them. Right. It was just. He was in his own way the entire time. All it was was an excuse of why he couldn't, rather than how could he.
And how did that end?
Yeah, he made it. Made a commitment that he was going to pitch these amount of people, like, the next week.
And so it was a matter of.
Like, well, first off, there was two decisions. Are you gonna sell the business? Right. Or are you gonna continue the business? That was the first. That was the first big thing. I left that one up. Okay. So he decided to keep the business and actually meet with these people that would fund it.
So what was the big shift that happened in that individual? Because.
Questions.
But what you described is that this person couldn't pitch it because they had no, like, they had no reason why. So what. What shifted in that individual?
He, I would think, made the decision that he wanted to continue the business. I think that was the main challenge that he had. Should I sell or should I keep it?
So for me, it is. Sometimes I just pick a name because I have to get up and start moving.
You gotta make a decision. That's where it starts. And then.
And then it's finding meaning later and refining later. And you can.
I agree with that. I agree with that. Because do we really know what our aim is? Do we really know what we're after? There's no. There's not this, like, one. There's not this one thing. It's a journey. It's a journey. Right? But you need to decide something and take action on it. And in that action, you're going to experience more of what you want. Then you set another aim, another goal, and then you go to that point. But, yeah, I believe that there isn't necessarily this one thing that we're supposed to do in life.
