CB Bowman LIVE: Challenges of the C-suite: Rhett Power Episode 4
In this hour‑long interview, host CB Bowman talks with entrepreneur Rhett Power, founder and former CEO of Wild Creations, about the real‑world challenges of running a fast‑growing company. Power recounts the chaotic early days of his first venture – a flooded office, angry customers, and a revolving door of delivery drivers – to illustrate what he calls "grit": the daily determination to get out of bed, solve problems, and keep moving forward despite setbacks. He reflects on the origins of his grit, attributing it to family work ethic, athletic competition, and a mindset that "quitters never win." The conversation shifts to mentorship, where Power admits his early mentors were misaligned with his vision of building a global toy company. He stresses the importance of finding mentors whose mindset matches the growth stage of the business and being willing to change mentors as the company evolves. Power then describes the painful lesson of "getting out of your own way" as the company scaled. An open‑door policy and hands‑on problem solving became unsustainable; delegating decision‑making empowered staff, freed his time for strategic work, and accelerated growth. He shares concrete tactics he used – weekly off‑site coffee‑shop work sessions to avoid rabbit holes, and a disciplined weekly pause to think strategically. Scaling challenges are highlighted: hiring 100+ employees in a month without HR infrastructure, inventory over‑ordering, and credit risk that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. He contrasts these hardships with high points – the first product becoming a "toy of the year," sitting beside industry legends at the Toy Industry Association awards, and the cultural moments (potlucks, team celebrations) that kept morale high. Finally, Power introduces his upcoming "Courageous Leadership" program, which aims to restore a "day‑one" mindset in established companies: shedding entrenched processes, embracing uncertainty, and making bold decisions with moral clarity. Bowman ties this to her own experience founding the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches (ACEC) and the need for leaders to jump first, then figure out the landing. Throughout, both speakers emphasize self‑awareness, accountability, and the role of an advisory committee in preventing entrepreneurial isolation. Key takeaways: 1) Grit is a learnable blend of confidence, experience, and relentless daily effort. 2) Mentors must align with the company’s growth phase; it’s okay to switch them. 3) Delegation and strategic pauses are essential to avoid burnout and enable scaling. 4) Rapid hiring and inventory management require systems before growth spikes. 5) Re‑igniting a day‑one, courageous mindset can revitalize mature organizations.
Chapters
Good afternoon, Rhett Powers. How are you?
I'm good, CB Bowman. How are you?
I'm great. So we're going to try this again. This is really exciting. First of all, welcome to Challenges of the C-Suite. I'm super excited to have you back again.
Well, hey, it's, it's good to be back again, and that— and I'm honored that you'd have me back.
Of course, you have become my mentor to success.
Oh, give me a break.
Oh, I love watching you blush.
Oh, that's funny.
Hey, Rhett, we had some feedback from the first edition that we did, which was just basically a teaser. And so there were things that you spoke about that I think are critical for entrepreneurs to confront and to manage through. So in talking about the challenges of the C-suite, we want to talk about the real stuff, you know, not, not the panacea that everybody makes entrepreneurship to be. And one of the things that you mentioned very wisely is knowing when to have grit. What is grit?
Wow, I think that's a little— probably means a little different, different, something different to every person. I know for me, it's— I didn't really understand grit until I had a company and my first company. And, you know, we had a 636-page business plan and that got thrown out the window on day, day Or actually not even day 1 or day 2. It happened like in the second hour that we were owners of the company. And it's that determination.
Why did you have it thrown out the window?
Well, disaster after disaster. So we walked in, I was very proud. I think we had a beer that first afternoon. To sort of christen our new venture. A couple hours later, in the middle of the night, the pipes burst in the office and flooded out 2 other adjoining businesses. So dealing with, you know, insurance and angry shop owner, angry warehouse owners who were— who had lost, you know, inventory and and their ability to do their business did not make us look favorably upon by other— by our neighbors. And then, you know, the second or third day I went into our biggest customer and he— I didn't even cross the threshold of the business or the door and he said, you're that new guy. And he just started yelling at me and laying into me about my prices and Like, they're not even my prices. I, I don't know what you're talking about, you know. Um, and so, uh, just everything seemed to go out the window the minute we got the keys to the business, and everything seemed to go wrong. Just like, it's like getting that, that warranty that expires and then your washing machine crashes or your water heater bursts the next day, right? Um, it just, it's, it was kind of like that, right? I had in the first week, we were trying to hire some delivery drivers. I literally went through 9 people that didn't show up the next day after we hired them. I'd hire one, they wouldn't show up. I'd have to go make the deliveries. You know, I'd put another ad out, I'd get another round. I'd say, God, I like that kid. He'd come in, do the interview. I'd say, you're hired, come on to the next— come the next day, didn't show.
Oh no.
It was just, it was one thing after another that was just this sort of continual thing. And what I learned really, you know, you asked a question about grit. I think that's what grit is. It's like that, it's that getting out of bed every day, sort of reigniting that spirit inside you to go attack the day and to go, you know, get through the day and do it with a smile. It's that never quit when things aren't going well. It's that determination to keep going and to get in that truck when you just got back from another round of deliveries and to go make another round of deliveries and not quit. And so I think that that's what that is. It's that determination that you're going to win and that you're going to survive and that you're going to succeed.
Why do you think some people have this grit and others don't?
I think if I knew the answer to that, I'd be in the billionaires club. I, you know, I, it's kind of like the question of whether you can— are you born an entrepreneur? Are you born? Are you— do you learn it? You know, I think I think obviously some of it is innate, right? I think some of it is, is just your character and your, you know, your personality. And I think that that plays a big part. You know, I know that my parents instilled in me this sort of work ethic and determination not to quit. I had coaches that drilled into me Quitters never— quitters never win, and winners never quit, and quitters never win. So I think, you know, just that, that, that sort of way I was brought up, and that I was an athlete. And so, you know, there's that competitive nature that I think helps. And understanding that you got to put in the hours and the work in order that when you get on the field, you're ready to play. And, you know, I think that that's all part of it. It's, you know, maybe some of it is confidence. Maybe you, you know, you're on the right path and you're in the right place and you're where you're supposed to be. And, and that gives you the confidence to get through some of the tough stuff. I think the people that give up probably deep down inside know that they're not in the right space, they're not in the right business, they're not in the right thing. And, and so it's easy to just sort of throw in the towel. But it doesn't mean that when they find that right thing, that they don't have that same determination and grit to carry on, right, and to do. So I think maybe that's some of it. I don't know if that's a great answer. But I think there's a, there's a lot to that question.
Do you think grit can be learned? Or can you be coached to have grit? Or is it just something?
I think, you know, going back to what I was talking about, I think that, um, some of it's confidence, right? When you know your stuff and you know your subject matter, you know your business, you know, uh, and you know it's a matter of time before you get that break. Uh, I think what we had in our toy company was, you know, we had our first product. We had only one product when we started. But we knew the demand for that product. We knew we had seen time and time and time again at a trade show or something where the kids were just lined up for the product, 6 deep the whole weekend. And so we knew that we had a product that kids would like. We knew that the product needed to be in the toy industry. We knew that it needed to be in toy stores. We knew that once kids saw it on a toy store shelf, that they would do the same thing that they had done for us in person, which is, you know, want it really bad. And we had seen that reaction time and time again. So I think that that played a big part in our willingness to just not give up until we got that break. And I think, so yeah, I think to an extent it can be taught. I think it can be learned and I think it can It comes with confidence and experience. I mean, I don't know a business owner that goes into their first business, at least I haven't met one, that is— maybe they're confident, but there's a huge learning curve.
Oh, yes.
You know, and I know that that problem with the flood and/or the problem with the guy yelling at me the first day I walked into his office, you know, and I'd owned the business for 2 days. By year 2, it's like, that's not a big deal.
We'll fix it.
That's fixable. But that's, you know, year 3 and 4 and 5, not even a second thought. Like, no stress at all. So, so yeah, I think it can be taught. I think it can be learned.
Did you have good mentors to help you?
We had the wrong mentors to begin with.
What do you mean the wrong mentor?
Well, we had grandiose visions. We had, you know, we had this sign over our door that said, be significant. And to this very day, any business that I, that I go into, That sign's coming with me. And, and it— because what we wanted was we did not want to be— our staff, our team, ourselves get into this mindset that we were going to be small. We were going to be a, a small toy company, a small player, a, uh, you know, a 1 or 2 product company that, that comes and goes. We wanted to make our dent in the industry. And so a lot of the business mentors that we had early on, great people. And I'm not talking about them as people and actually them as mentors for a certain type of business or for the corner print shop or the— I mean, and in those instances, I think they would be great. But we didn't see eye to eye on our vision. We didn't see eye to eye on where we could go and how we could make this a global company. You know, these guys were small business owners, and I'm not slamming on small business at all. It's just we had these thoughts of, you know, how do we open up China and how do we do this and how do we, you know, how do we get into Japan and how do we open up South America? And, you know, and it wasn't where their head was at. They were great for getting started, but when we started growing and scaling and getting national clients and growing and having to hire, you know, 100 people in a month, you know, that's a different— that was just— we just needed a different mindset. And, you know, sometimes I think that that's okay because I think that there is, Now, we had consultants that— I remember how we had a consultant that was in the toy business, and, you know, he looked at us quite often and said, well, that's not how you do things. You need to do it this way. And that relationship didn't last very long because we didn't really care how We were supposed to do things. We wanted to do things the way we thought were going to make us become the company we wanted to be. So, you know, you have to find people that get you and, and get where you want to go and, and, and, and see some of that vision that you see. And I think that's okay to just sort of experiment with that and to try mentors and to see if, if there's a fit.
So basically, let's just take a moment now. What we're talking about, we're talking to Rhett Power about the wildly successful toy company that he created, CEO of, called Wild Creations. And so, Rhett, I just want to take a break right now and tell our audience that this podcast is being brought to you by the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. And acronym ACEC. It's a special association of corporate executive coaches that embraces and supports master-level corporate executive coaches in being enterprise-wide business partners. Let's go back to Rhett now.
Rhett, if you'd have been around when I had my business, I wouldn't have had to have mentors that didn't get us.
I love that. Thank you. And we didn't even pay you for that endorsement.
It's a fact. It's true.
Thank you. Thank you. So summarizing what we just learned, it's not a problem to have more than one mentor, and you have to recognize that a mentor is for a moment in time. So don't be afraid to change mentors, respectfully do it, and to continue to grow. And it's also real important to have grit. So, Brett, let's talk about something else that you mentioned, and that was knowing when to get out of your own way. I remember when I was— it was a couple of years ago in the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, I was told by my advisory committee, CB, you're getting in the way. And I was so upset because this was my baby. And I thought, how is it that they don't want me anymore? And I really acted out like a stubborn child. And I said, you know what, I'm not going to help them. They're just going to fall on the sword. They'll call me. And guess what? They didn't fall on the sword. And I survived and I went on to do things that I should be doing. I went on to focus on the strategy of the business. I went on to lead the business. But it was a real reality check that once you grow something from your baby, you have to move to a different role at a certain point. You have to hand over part of the reins to the people who can make your vision even greater. So tell us about your experience. Of getting out of your own way?
Well, I can say that you just summed it up really nicely. Um, all right, U2 came out with a song a couple years— about a year ago called Get Out of Your Own Way, and it's one of my sort of favorite songs. And I think it, um, it just reminds me of that time. But, uh, what I mean by that, and when we talked about it, was It's very easy and very normal to not want to give up that control. And for those of us who are entrepreneurs, CB, you know this well, and I've experienced it. You do. You want to be involved in all of those decisions. You want to be involved in the problems. You want— I used to have what I thought was a good management strategy at the time, which was an open door. And, you know, I would have a game plan. I would have my, my, my calendar right here, which I still to this day write out. And I would have my day planned. And, you know, I would, I would get in at 7 and I'd start on my, on my list. And lo and behold, I'd look up and it was 6 o'clock in the evening. And I hadn't done a darn thing on my list. And it was because all day long I was involved in some, you know, Joe's problem on the production line, or, you know, Paul's problem with the van, and, you know, this and that. And I was solving all the problems. And, you know, that just wasn't sustainable. It wasn't sustainable. You know, what we realized, you know, what Peter, my business partner, and I realized was the fact that we were doing that all the time, every day, you know, 5, 6 days a week, was we weren't enabling anybody. We weren't empowering anybody. You know, when, when the customer service person would come and say, this is my problem, can you talk to this customer? I wasn't helping her or him grow. I wasn't empowering— empowering— I can't speak English. I wasn't, I wasn't allowing them to grow professionally. I wasn't allowing them to have ownership of the position. You know, why is the customer service manager coming to me? They have a manager title, they should have some leeway to make a decision and make a call. And I was just, I, you know, I came to a point where I was just so bogged down and the business wasn't growing like it should because I wasn't focused on, and my partner wasn't focused on the strategic things, the things that we were, that we needed to do to grow the business. And that was a hard reality to come to. It was not an easy reality to say, Joe, I love you to death, man, but you gotta go figure out your own problem on the production line. You know, Sarah, you got to figure out your customer service issue because I can't, I can't spend the next 40 minutes talking to this customer. Could I solve the problem? Yeah, I could solve the problem. But I don't need to solve the problem. And that was a hard sort of mental shift and shift to make in the business. But when we made it, and we were forced to make it, it wasn't like I came to this realization on my own. Because I'm not that smart, but—
Mm-hmm.
Or that self-aware. But we were forced to do it because we grew so fast. And it just—
it—
people had to start figuring stuff out on their own. And it just sort of— it just sort of happened. And we had people that had been there long enough that we said, look, guys, you guys take control of this. And if you have something massive, If the water main breaks again, yeah, I probably need to be involved in that. But if your UPS guy's got a problem, fix it. And you have the power to fix it, right? And so I can pay attention to the top lines. I can pay attention to the P&Ls. I can make the strategic relationships, you know, 'cause I, at that time, I needed to be camped out at Toys R Us in New Jersey. And, you know, so there and down in Arkansas and, you know, in Hong Kong. So, I didn't have time anymore to be involved in that little— in the stuff. So I think that that's what I mean by get out of your own way. And the sooner you can do that, the sooner you empower your people to make decisions and to, you know, you have to have parameters and rules and such, but, you know, give them that leeway. And then I think what you see in the business is that transformation. That happens when people have ownership and they know that you're going to support their decisions and their calls, whether they're right or wrong sometimes. And when you can do that, man, you can just see this tremendous transformation in the business and people really buying into, at that point, what you're doing. And they feel some ownership of it. And that was sort of a side effect. Now that I know that, you know, and I understand that, and I've seen it, I've seen that transformation. It makes me a better leader. I think anything I do going forward, that's a lesson learned that will stick with me and that I will try to do a whole lot sooner than I did before.
That's fantastic. I love the story. Let's see, what else will I ask you? Well, first, let me take another break and mention that this is being brought to you by the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches. Our focus is on master-level corporate executive coaches becoming business-wide, enterprise-wide business partners. That just means focusing not only on your client, but the environment in which the client resides, his entire or her entire organization. Rhett, one of the other powerful things that you talked about was Knowing when to stop and knowing when to go forward. It reminds me of that old— I think it's a Kenny Rogers song— Knowing When to Fold. And when I tell you about closing down the organization, but it's knowing when to stop, think, or stop, drop, and roll from taking yourself out of fire. Maybe it's more related to that. So tell us about your experience.
I think I have no idea what I was talking about in that instance, but I get it. Like, that makes, you know, that makes a lot of sense to me because you do have to learn. One of the things that I think what I was probably referring to is sort of my— some of my self-management and You know, I've got the worst case of ADD in the world. And so again, I, you know, that's why the open-door policy was such a bad thing for me because I, you know, I'd go down some rabbit hole and sit with a graphic designer for 4 hours looking at, you know, a nice pretty design that he was working on for a box. Didn't need to be doing that. It was fascinating, but I didn't need to be doing that. So I've come up with tools to sort of stop myself from going down those rabbit holes. I used to leave the office every Wednesday, and that was my time to stop, think, get out of the office, go to a coffee shop. Amazingly, I can sit in a coffee shop and not be distracted and get more work done than I can in the office. I don't know why.
How is that possible?
I don't know why, but it's true. And because I guess I'm not curious about what's happening over there with the barista as much as I'm curious about what's happening over there on my production line. But anyway, so for me, it's about slowing down so that you can be strategic. It's about slowing down and stopping and thinking. Because, you know, what I saw time and time again in the business, when we were spinning and going down the road at 80 miles an hour trying to change the tire, you know, we would spin our wheels and we would not get very far and we would make bad decisions and we would make rushed decisions. And when we slowed down and we took our time and we thought about things We had more people in the decision-making process, then we made better products, we made better product decisions, we made better business decisions. And so that slowing down, it was in that stopping and learning to say no sometimes. I hate to sort of talk about the negative, and I don't see no as a negative in a lot of ways. Because it saves you from— I mean, to me, it's a smart thing to learn how to say no. So it's a smart thing to learn how to put limits because if you don't say no, you blow your budget. If you don't say no, you order too much product or you can make some pretty big decisions or mistakes if you don't learn to say that.
Yeah.
word. So I look at it as a positive. So that's what I meant by that is slowing down and stopping. And I had to leave the office every week on a Wednesday to stop, to slow down, to get my head around what did I— what I didn't get done on Monday and Tuesday that I really, really need to get done? What strategic things do I need to think about? What do I have coming up in the next 2 days that I really have to focus on? What are some of those hard calls I did— I put off on Monday and Tuesday, those hard emails, those hard, you know, the, the calling and asking for money or a payment, or calling somebody early on in the business and saying, I can't pay you this month, you know, can I, can I get 30 more days? So, you know, you face those every day as a business owner. And, and so I had to, I had to learn, you know, sort of the hard way that You know, that I needed to do that.
So I think that's exactly what we were talking about. And before we go on to talking about your new venture, which I'm going to surprise you and ask you about—
Wow, awesome.
I'm going to ask you 2 questions. With the toy company, what was the worst decision What was the worst thing that happened to you? And what was the best thing that happened to you?
Wow, that's fantastic. Um, I think the worst experience was trying to hire— I think we had to have 100. I think we had to have 100 positions we had to hire in like a month to fulfill the orders and to get things done. That was awful. I never want to do that again.
What was bad about it?
Oh, it was just a nightmare. I mean, you know, we weren't ready for that. We weren't— we didn't have the systems in place, the HR systems for that. We didn't have an onboarding process to handle that. We didn't, you know, just— I mean, how in the world do you go from like 6 people to 106 people in a month, you know? We just didn't have any infrastructure for that at all. Job description, I mean, you know, didn't have, but we had to have it. We had to have the people and the bodies to do it because we were scaling up massively. And I may be exaggerating that. It may have been like 50 one month and 50 the next month, but it was what— I can't remember exactly what that was, but it was just completely overwhelming. Um, that was hard. And then we made some major, uh, you know, we had some product, uh, successes early on. And then as we started to grow our products, um, we had a bunch of inventory. There's probably some of that inventory sitting in somebody's storage unit somewhere now. You know, we had some product that we, we overordered, and so we had inventory issues and Stocking issues and things like that, that we, you know, finally ended up building processes for and, and getting our inventory stuff under control. But, you know, we made a bunch of inventory mistakes early on that were probably hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, of mistakes. We had people we gave credit to for too long, you know, that we got burned on. But again, those are all things that I, I, I'd love to come back. I'd love to have that couple hundred thousand dollars back. But at the same time, you know, we learned some valuable lessons and it is what it is. And, you know, you don't dwell on it too long. Um, but we made some of those. Uh, the best moment, uh, was that first product that we— when we bought the company, is the product we fell in love with. Uh, that became one of the toys of the year. And sitting up What was it? It was a little eco aquarium, a little science thing, a toy. And sitting next to the Oscars of the toy industry, and I was sitting next to John Lasseter, who created Toy Story, of Disney fame. You know, and sort of sitting there with some of the giants, the Mattels and the Hasbros of the world, was really remarkable. And, you know, and having, you know, our product be there and be in that sort of space. So that was exciting. That was a very, very memorable moment. But there were a lot of them. There were a lot of lunches with the staff. We did potlucks every month. I mean, there were just, there were a lot of great moments early on that I'll always remember. And not just the big victories, the press, the sales victories, but those moments where you grew. I remember the title of Pete and my business partners and I's first book, which is called One Million Frogs. That came out of one of our early meetings with our team and said, we want to sell— we wrote on the whiteboard, we're going to sell 1 million frogs, which was the aquarium was a science thing. And so, That was our goal. That was our only goal. That was—
we were—
and whatever we had to do to do that, you know, we blew that out of the water. I mean, we sold millions and millions of them. And but that was our goal, and it was something everybody could get their head around, although they laughed me out of the room when I wrote it up on the whiteboard. It, it's— in my mind, it crystallized what we were going to try to do. And so you just remember some of those kind of growth moments, right? And some of those sort of Not the big sales moments, not the big check from Toys R Us. I don't even remember what that check from Toys R Us was, but I remember John's barbecue and I remember Lola's banana pudding and I'll remember that for the rest of my life 'cause we had great potluck lunches.
Yes.
And those moments seem to, you know, stick with you in that way.
Yeah, okay, I get it. I understand. It's the, it's the moments that touched your heart. So, and you know what, it sounds like your toy was the first of the what we call now STEM toys. So you led the market.
I don't know if PETA would agree with you, but probably yes. I think, you know, we were a science and nature toy company. We had a remote control snake, which is our next product, and we had a remote control bird and got some fun, some really fun products.
So, and so, Rhett, now you're on to Courageous Leadership.
Yes.
And I think that's just such a wonderful name, and it is so, so important that our leaders have courage now because they're facing so much and so fast than ever, ever before. So talk to us about what are you doing in that space? Can you reveal?
Well, I can't reveal, but I will say this. Uh, the website's going to be launched here pretty soon, but the, the, the real essence of and, and what we want to try to accomplish is, you know, a lot of companies right now are struggling with the transition, with the pandemic, with the racial injustice and the issues that we're dealing with there. What we want to accomplish at Courageous Leadership is we want to take you back to that day 1. I talked about it earlier in the interview where I remember the day that we got the keys to the business. I remember that feeling. I also remember the feeling in year 10 when we have policies and procedures for everything. We have rules and regulations and we have a culture that we have. We have our culture already. There's a culture around the company. And what we want leaders to be able to do is Go back to that day one. Because in that day one, the sky's the limit. And you don't have any rules and regulations, you don't have a way we do things, you don't have— there is nothing but the product or the service. And how am I going to get that product or service to the customer? And you're willing to think about any way Anyhow, you know, and there's an excitement and there's an energy around how I'm going— how I'm going to do that. And that's when you're your most courageous, right? When you're in that day one mentality, you don't have any preconceived notions, or you don't have any— I don't say you don't have any rules. You have, you have your morals and your ethics, and you have your what's right and wrong. But other than that, everything's on the table. I think that that's really the essence of what we want to do at Courageous Leadership is get companies back in that mindset of day 1 and thinking like a day 1 company.
Now, I often wonder what stops a company from being courageous. I always said when I started the Association of Corporate Executive Coaches, people said to me, stop changing so much. We can't process it. We can't keep up. Why do you do this? What's your MO for this? And I have developed this phrase that I say to people, look, in order to play in my space, you have to learn how to jump first and then figure out where you're going to land. Then don't be afraid to choose the landing pad. Suddenly, I see those that get it, I see this grin come over their face and I say, we are not like other associations. We want to be able to turn on a dime because guess what? Life and coaching turns on a dime. There you go. That's going to be our motto. Let's just go for it and jump. We have done such incredible pivoting. We've grown so much. We've learned. I say to people, I don't own this association, you own it. So make it what you want it to be, you know? Yeah.
Believe.
And it has been wonderful. It's been a wonderful journey. So I'm really looking forward to your Courageous Leadership Program. I think that the organizations that started 10, 20 years ago, 30 years ago, even Google, Lyft, Uber, all those organizations were so disruptive that they created an incredible journey for employees that was so positive.
Yeah.
So inviting. It reminds me of the days when I went to the New School. At the New School, we learned that the answer is only the beginning of the question. And these organizations exemplify that, right? When— and it's an interesting correlation. As the CEO gets older, the organization moves into the classic model of your father's or mother's corporation.
Right.
And that's not what got them there. Not at all. So they have to learn how to go back and be courageous and step out of the mainstream.
Right.
And be successful. So yeah, right.
Nobody, nobody starts out, nobody starts out, you don't start your company by, by sort of, I mean, everybody starts out with this courageous sort of goal, right? This courageous action, this, it takes guts to start a company, it takes guts to, to make that leap, you know, and You're absolutely right like that. But what happens to us? What happens to us along the way is what kills us, right?
Yeah.
It's not— it's that early attitude is what makes us sort of grow and trans— I mean, it's just, it's— so if we can all get back to that, that early space, I mean, that's, that's, that's where you got to work from. That's where you operate from. That's where you Grow. That's where you grow.
I think it's people, leaders get scared to go back because we remember the struggle. We remember the pain. I remember when I had the idea of opening ACEC and I thought, this is naive. I called a company, an organization that was an association in another part of the world. I won't say where. And I talked to this woman. I said, oh, I'm excited. I came up with this idea and this is what I want to do. And it was a competitor. And I thought, well, we'll all play nice together. She's in another part of the world. And this was Coach. And I will never forget, she said to me, this won't work. One, because you're on my territory. And I'm thinking, you're in another part of the world. And she said, I don't think you should do this. It's, it's just not going to work for you. And I remember just in tears, in tears, because I thought it was such a good idea. And at the end of the conversation, as a coach, she said to me, I hope that I've been helpful. And that was the beginning of my guts, because I said to her, you know, As a coach, you've been disruptive. You've destroyed what you think is my dream, and actually you've encouraged me to go forward. So yes and no, you have been helpful, and I moved forward because I thought nobody's going to kill my dream. But going back to those days is painful, right?
Oh, but that's what it's getting out of that, is going back to that. It's getting out of your comfort zone again and going back to those days where it's— you're living on that edge and you're living, um, you know, every decision is a massive decision.
Yes.
Um, and, and you're often making it with, you know, impartial, you know, in, in incomplete information. And but But like you said, I mean, that's where the real growth and the real, like, determination comes, right? Because what she told you inspired you. It hurt. It hurt you.
Yes.
But it, it, it, it's, it's, it, it lit a fire in a way that maybe nothing else would have, right?
Yes, exactly. Exactly. And I, I will add to your advice, your wonderful advice that you gave, When you're doing something as an entrepreneur, it can be a very lonely road. Identify early adopters, identify an advisory committee that will hold your feet to the fire so that when that self-sabotage starts, you've got somebody that you're accountable to and you'll be inspired to continue because you've got to show up. They have volunteered their time. You have to show up. That's my best advice.
Well, somebody that can kick you in the pants every once in a while.
Exactly. Exactly. Thank you so much for being part of this program. Thank you so much for sharing your success story, giving us words of wisdom, giving us encouragement to continue. Thank you.
Thank you, CB.
And this has been Challenges of the C-Suite, brought to you by CB Bowman. Go with strength and go with intent. Bye now.
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