The Struggle is Real

The struggle is real. This is the Elevate Polk Podcast, and I'm your host, Chrissanne Long. And with me, as always, is Rob Arturi.

Hello.

Hi.

Merry Christmas.

Merry Christmas. Well, Merry Post-Christmas. Christmas was yesterday.

That's the season.

Season.

Does that count?

Yeah. Merry Christmas. Merry— Happy Holidays. Merry Holidays.

Merry Hanukkah.

And that too. Yes, for sure. So we are talking about the struggle.

Nothing more Christmasy than talking about—

Okay, Scrooge, take us wherever you want to go.

That's right. Because on December 25th, it's the magic of children waking up and opening presents. And on December 26th, it's the interest starts accruing on the credit card charges.

Right. Well, we're leading up to a new year, right? So we got to talk about the fact that some things don't get done the way we want them done, and we have to live life according to what actually happens, right?

It's a positive message. Yeah, overall it just sounds a little bit ominous from the beginning.

So are you going to lead us in this discussion of challenges and how they've been overcome? I need to follow your lead, I think, on this one. Okay, because I could go on for hours about challenges and how they've been overcome, but I really want to keep it, you know, short.

Right. Okay. So I think, I think it's important to, to realize we've been talking a lot in episodes leading up to this about getting off your butt and actually getting engaged, doing something, right? Start a business, run for office. You know, I don't know, go read to elderly people, whatever you want to do.

Right.

But ultimately, None of it comes easy. And we tend to psych ourselves out of a lot of things because we're, you know, I think on a primal level, afraid of failure. But I think it's very important to realize and remind ourselves that people fail all the time. The most successful people are not ones who don't fail, it's who are ones who are not afraid to fail. And I think, promised to kind of go into some of our, our background a bit. And, you know, I will, I'll give you the 30-second version, my stopwatch here. I've kind of teased a little bit of it in previous episodes, but I moved to Polk to take a job in law enforcement. It was a bucket list item for me. And after college, I was recruited out of Tallahassee, moved here, first day in Polk County, Knew nothing about Polk County. I think I went to Bock Tower once. I went to high school in Orlando. Knew nothing about this place. And other than there were a lot of oranges, and I found it very odd to navigate around the county because every other place I've lived has been very well laid out.

Mm-hmm. There wasn't so much sprawl and—

Yeah.

There weren't that many lakes maybe either.

Yeah, the lakes complicate things between lakes, groves, and pastures.

Mm-hmm.

It can be tricky, but I always found it rather charming. But after about 9 years, I decided, I got to, I worked for the sheriff's office here. Was a great experience. I worked with some amazing people and there's always something you can complain about, but ultimately I think as a citizen, I think we're very well served by our law enforcement, both in the county and in the individual cities. These people are just— they're, they're my heroes. I'm so glad they do what they do.

Right.

I left. I'm not going back, but I'm really glad they're there. But I left to take a job that never materialized, and I was kind of left in a lurch. And, you know, when you step out of law enforcement, it's weird because it's not a job that really lends itself to anything other than law enforcement.

Right. Or you could be a security guard somewhere.

Right. But I had a different education, different background in business and economics, and I was a little bit more confident, but you never know. And it was also at the start of the Great Recession and you could very easily toss in the towel. But my wife, my now wife at the time, she was working, making great money. We thought, okay, it'll be okay.

Her—

she ended up getting fired in what was a ridiculous power grab from her previous employer. We were slapped with an injunction so that she couldn't do the same thing anymore. And lawyers told us, you know, well, you should just do something else for 3 years, right, until this non-compete or whatever expires. And I had an epiphany. Maybe it was my background in law enforcement where you don't just tuck tail and go home. You don't back away. You know, it's— you win at all costs.

Right.

And I said, you know what, I'm going to ignore the lawyers and screw it. We're going to go full force and we'll take it as it comes. So they slapped us with a lawsuit. We slapped one right back and we were victorious.

Awesome.

And we've had ups, we've had downs over the years, but it's been an incredible experience. And that was longer than 30 seconds.

It was a little bit.

But ultimately it has allowed us to do things we could never do otherwise.

Right. And a lot of the instinct in times like that is to just tuck tail and like you said, tuck tail and run or give up or just go some sort of traditional route and just, you know, okay, well, that's a closed door. And instead what you did was you found a window. Yeah, the door was closed, but there was another path and there was another opportunity. And you weren't willing to just back down because one, no, told you to stop where you were.

In law enforcement, they say the term is adapt and overcome.

Yeah.

And it, you know, in a weird way, I have a lot of respect for people who were in the military because the military is very similar in some of the general things that it teaches you.

Right.

I'm not equivocating the two. It's not the same. I was never in Iraq, although the coffee at a few gas stations and Frostproof late at night is it's a war zone in and of itself. But suffice to say, learning that sometimes the option of just stopping and walking away isn't there.

Right. So failure is not an option, or it is, because you can choose to cover up under the covers and say, I just can't do this anymore. And so I'm going to take that as a segue into kind of a little bit into my story. Um, I think I'll start this by saying a few weeks ago I, I said something to Craig, my husband, um, where it was, it was funny because we were challenged by something and it was like this, okay, what's the worst that can happen kind of discussion. You're just kind of walking yourself down this, not this awful path, but just like, okay, well, you know, trying to put it into perspective and the reality of the situation so that you don't over You know, you don't overthink it, but you, you allow yourself to explore, all right, what's the worst that can happen? And, you know, generally speaking, I always come to the, to the conclusion of if it doesn't kill you, it just makes you stronger. So, but we were in this discussion about a challenge and I looked at him and I said, well, I guess I think the hardest part about this is that I'm not used to failing, dot, dot, dot. And it was a trailing sentence anymore. Because the previous 30 years of my life before I started the business and kind of pulled myself up from my own bootstraps were a series of failures. It was, I described it as a roller coaster. It was like things were good and then things were really, really bad. And each time the roller coaster went down in a dip, it was further than the last dip and everything was getting worse and worse and worse, you know? And I battled depression. I still battle depression. Now the times between, you know, feeling good and not feeling good are a lot shorter. So it used to be weeks or months. And now it's maybe a day or a few hours, but, but it's still there. I just now know how to cope, and I have some time between the failures. Like I said, it's been 10 years. I'm like, I don't know how to fail anymore. And so it's kind of scary because that was a comfort zone for me. I knew failure more than I knew success going into this new phase of my life. Um, so I, I used, um, I, I had a Facebook— I have a Facebook page for my writing. Um, I don't really write that much right now anymore. I do it more directly in Facebook and that like blogging standpoint. Um, funny story I'll tell you when I get past this part, but, um, it was the original name I had for it was Reinventing Awesome. So I was reinventing myself. I was looking for new ways to encourage myself. So really it was like me trying to tell, to give myself a pep talk, like, okay, you're still a good person. You can do this. You can overcome. And there are other people who can relate to that story that I feel like that was the reason why I started to tell it. I ran into somebody that I haven't seen since high school. That's always scary. Well, for me, it's extremely scary because it's just like, oh boy, you know, do they know that I've changed? Do they know I'm a better person now? Um, and this person—

say that like you were a bank robber, train robber.

I was just— I was just— I wasn't— I wasn't somebody I was proud of. Um, but he, he, he told me, he said, you know, I read everything you write. And he goes, and I know you write 8 paragraphs. So it was joking, but he said, I read everything that you write, and I'm proud of how far you've come. And, and so It was a really good moment, but it's a little uncomfortable to have that, that moment when you know that that person knows things that people today don't know and don't need to know. Sure. So I say all of that to say, you know, the challenges that we overcome, it's daily. You know, as a business owner, it's daily. There's, there's this challenge that comes in unexpectedly. A person walks in, you've got your plan, you've got your day mapped out, and then something derails. And I think the number one victory for me today that I think is the greatest part is that my employees say, they say that they love working for us. And that's a testament. Like, I don't really know that there's anything that I feel prouder of than that knowledge that I've found a way to become an employer and become someone that I had no idea that I would ever be able to become. And we had an early challenge where we had to let someone go. We had a non-compete, we had some issues with some things, and we had some monies that were owed. And Craig reminded me of this the other night too. He said when that happened, everything exploded. Like, for me, it was like, this is the end, because this person sent a message that said, you know, Chrissanne doesn't know how to lead a company. She's never going to be able to, to do what, you know, she's It was a message that I just was like, I was unprepared for. And I thought he was right because I didn't argue. I was just like, God, I think maybe he's right. What am I doing? Who do I think I am? And then the monies never came. There was monies that were owed. They didn't come. And Craig was really mad about it. There was just a day where it was like, you know, this guy owes us some money and we need to collect. By golly, there we go. Every episode we're going to have to have a by golly. Ding!

I'll come up with a sound effect for that one.

And my grandfather's voice came into my heart at that point in time. And the message was, if it can be fixed with money, it is not worth creating a problem about. And it wasn't— I'm not saying money isn't important, but it was this, it was this cultural piece that I was raised with. So if anything, like for example, when I nailed holes in my parents', my grandparents' tires, all 4 of them, and pulled out the nails, my grandfather, instead of getting angry at me, laughed and said, if it can be fixed with money. And now I know not to nail.

Who is your grandfather?

He was— he was an amazing, amazing man.

However, he never met my 3 sons. I can tell you that.

I was a curious kid. I did not know what would happen. And the truth is that when it— when I put the nails in, nothing happened.

Right.

Then I realized that it was when you take the nails out that something happened. Yeah, that's So a lesson, you know, for a small child to learn early instead of later.

Yes.

So, so just to add, you know, you also have to deal with the fact that your children are your challenges because I was definitely a challenge for my parents to, to overcome.

Well, my wife and I say all the time, our middle child especially is very, uh, he's very smart, but in a, in a, in an interesting way. He's very analytical. And we know that it will likely mean that he will be successful, but it also means that we both may have a breakdown before he turns 18.

Right. And it's really weird. Maybe you should call my mom.

I think I might need to.

She might be able to help.

Yes, I'm gonna have to channel your inner grandfather at some point in time. But I think— What you're talking about is— it's applicable to so many things. But ultimately, I think the message, the reason that we talked about doing this episode is because if you can sit here today and you can say all of that, knowing that this is going to be out there in the ether for people to hear all over, and that some of them will judge you because of it, maybe laugh at you or chastise or whomever.

They'll think I'm goofy. That's okay.

Maybe. But it is a testament to personal strength to do that in the first place.

Right.

You know, I'm not one of these people who thinks that every idiot that walks around with some crazy hairdo or eccentric clothing, just, you know, one of these notice me, notice me people, is essentially a pillar of strength because they're willing to walk around looking at what I would consider not just goofy but ridiculous. But the difference is doing it with the purpose of helping somebody.

Right.

So the reason that we did this on this day and we're kind of wrapping up the year with this sentiment is because whatever your year brought, it can get better or it can get worse.

Yeah.

Your perspective will dictate all of that.

Right.

And, and, you know, we talk about— we kind of go back and forth between individuals, you know, our anecdotal stories, talking about people and then talking about Polk County overall. But the truth of the matter is all of this stuff is related because what, what happens on an individual level is, is very much just a scaled difference to what happens on a societal level.

Exactly.

So whether it's you, your business, your family, your church, or the county overall, this is just a scaled up or down manifestation of that. And I think that if there's any— there's no better season to be hopeful. But at the risk of making another analogy, which seems to be like a trend for me here, but the wintertime, even though in Polk County, the winter is like a, you know, a week at a time here or there.

A minute. You get a minute.

Right. But it's essentially— it means that spring is coming. Right. And there is—

new beginnings are just on the other side of this season. Right.

So I think how you end this year has more to do with your attitude about, about next year than it does about taking tally of what went right and what went wrong for you in 2019.

Right, right.

I guess that's the best way I can put it.

Yeah, no, I think, I think it's important to tally all of the things that you, you know, decided you were going to do this year and then see where you are and take a status update on how far did I I get, um, you know, I, I think that for me, the biggest part of the challenge for me in life is that I can, I can get anxious and worried about something that's going to happen, or I think is going to happen, or I anticipate is going to happen. And for the most part, that time of my life that I was referring to earlier, I was right. I thought these things were going to happen and I kind of thought them into reality.

Oh, sure.

I made them real instead of not letting my anxiety and my worry and my concern but be put on a shelf and live in the moment. And so today, my, my number one goal, when I see myself going back to that pattern, because it's still there, there's an old tape that kind of plays in my, in my mind.

Human nature.

That I did. I go back to that. It's the, it's the trench that I kind of created, and it's just a more natural habit. But the, the thing that makes me feel the most joyful is the living in the moment and not thinking about the thing that's going to happen in an hour or tomorrow or next month. Um, however, there are inherent challenges with that because I don't come into every single day with an expectation of a plan. And therefore, sometimes as a business owner, that can be troubling. You need to have a plan, you need to have the goal, you need to know where you're going. So it— in the, in the individual, like, personal development standpoint, I'm a very peaceful person because I live in the moment. But then sometimes I'm not prepared for the other side of things because I'm, I'm spending so much time right here in this moment. And maybe my phone is ringing right now, but I'm not listening because I'm here, you know, enjoying having this conversation on this podcast.

Well, I think that's a struggle that exists universally, universally and indefinitely. There's, you know, life is not a math problem, right? The, the, the, sometimes I sound like a, like one of those quote books or something.

You're like a cliché.

What is that?

I don't know. You just take— but there's truth to clichés. That's why they're cliché, because they're reality.

It's not a good adjective, but at the same time, it's real.

Like, there's a reason that somebody said that and people bought into it. And now it's something we say a lot.

But it's, it's not, you know, the, the end. I'm going to do it again. The, you know, the destination of life is death. Right? So there's no big riddle here.

Wait, I thought we were going to make this like a positive thing. We're not talking about death. We're talking about—

Right.

That's why I'm saying—

Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So you're not focusing on that. There's no secret sauce. If you have to overcome things, you have to overcome them all the time. My philosophical hero, Jordan Peterson, life is suffering, right? We're really getting high on the cheerful here. Yeah, we need some eggnog or something. But the point is, is that that's innate. That's there. That's the way it's going to be. The difference between being happy or being miserable is in the interpretation and how you move forward with it. So with that said, I had planned to discuss some of the, I guess, the key moments of 2019. Then I forgot to look up the key moments.

I'm thinking I have some key moments, but there's really only one big one for me. And I think tying into this discussion about what you can accomplish, I think a lot of people, you know, I've been referred to by friends or, you know, what does our fearless leader say? Well, hey, people, there is no fearlessness about any of the person that is talking to you right now. There is a lot of fear. But Lakeland Business Leaders was this organization that was created out of a desire to help and connect, but it was a flawed big convoluted mess. And so for me, the biggest win of 2019 is that I was able to rebrand and relaunch Lakeland Business Leaders, which had been— it was funny, it was— people had told me that it had become kind of a household name. Oh, well, go to Lakeland Biz, go to LBL and ask that question, which is baffling to me because this was something that I threw on the wall and it has stuck. But now we're BridgeLocal, and I think that's the biggest win of my year, which is just to be able to say Lakeland Business Leaders was a season, and now we're opening a new season, and Bridge is, is a direction that I'm taking. And just for the record, so that if anybody doesn't know what Bridge is, obviously you know what a bridge is. It's a thing to get you over from one place to another, and it's a two-way street, right? So bridges go— don't just go one way. So there's a collaborative nature of the idea of Bridge, but Bridge stands for Building, Renewing, Inspiring, and Developing Generous entrepreneurship. So I feel like it's tying a lot of things that I wanted LBL to do, but now it has the ability with a brand to do it. So I'm— that's my most exciting moment of 2019.

Not the fact that you got married to—

oh my goodness. Yeah, so that's my business win. My personal win— cheers, clever— is—

see what you did there—

to celebrate that in 2019, in April, I became married to my longtime partner and business partner and life partner, Craig. And so we got married. We did a pop-up wedding. It was social media fodder for a while. And so many people are still telling me congratulations because, you know, we've talked about how many friends I have.

Oh, yeah. But standing room only.

Humbling. It's humbling to know that, too. Like, you think you're just doing the thing and that people who, you know, you know, are watching and then people who are just casual supporters and friends that you've just casually gotten to know over the years, they're like, wow, that's so cool. I'm so excited for you. So it was fun and definitely a highlight of the year. So business win, Bridge. Personal win. I got a ring on my finger. He put a ring on it.

Good man, Craig. He's, he's so inspiring to me. I shaved my head.

You know, that was a win for you this year, huh? That was a 20-year— No more haircuts, right?

Yes. My longtime hairdresser—

Daily shaves.

Yeah. Yeah. But I have an electric one now that it's a little bit a little bit easier, but I was a little bit terrified of it, but—

I think you're wearing it well.

Well, thank you.

It does well in your emoji, like your little profile pic.

I could never get my thinning, receding hair right in one of those emojis.

Right.

So bald is real easy.

Yeah, that's easy.

All that matters is my wife likes it, so I'm good with it. I'm okay with it.

That's all that matters.

It is.

Happy wife, happy life.

Amen. Um, I don't know, I guess my, uh, my big positive for, for the year outside of the family stuff, um, is just kind of pursuing some of those interests I had, is building this studio and, uh, and launching some new projects and meeting some incredible new people. And for me, this year was kind of a, not a, not not a rebuilding year, but a foundational year. I think there's a lot of— I planted a lot of seeds this year and I'm, you know, optimistic and excited about what comes down, down the road.

Well, everyone I have shown the pictures of this studio to has been extremely impressed and they ask all these questions and they— and I just go, well, he built the wall in his office and partitioned it off and made this space and it's really cool and I like it.

So sort of. It's a freestanding booth that inside of the, yeah, it's a building in a building.

It's not structurally—

Not connected, no.

To the ceiling.

No, no, no, no. I built it at my house. I had a moving company relocate it in here and built it like an Erector Set.

Wow, that might be an episode in and of itself is how do you build a podcast studio?

Well, as an aside, just to fill one minute, The company that I used to host all the podcasts, they had posted in our little collaborative group, hey, where do you podcast? And people are like, hey, I, I have my guest room, or, you know, I talk in my closet or whatever, just for acoustics. And I was like, well, I'm actually in the process of building a studio. So they reach out to me, their PR department. It's like, hey, could you— do you have pictures? You know, we'd love to write an article about what you're doing, whatever. So it was a whole big to-do. So we could just put a link to the, the how-to, to the how-to that the, that the hosting company wrote about your story. Yeah, but it was weird. They were going to write it and then I said, they said, well, could you write about it? You know what?

So you ended up writing it for them?

I did. I didn't know that. I wrote it that they could use it, right? Rather than like an interview.

Yeah.

And they just use it and credited me in this thing.

Well, maybe we can get them to be a sponsor of our, of our, of our podcast.

That would be nice.

Yeah, it'd be very nice to give them a shout out. We're not gonna tell you who they are unless they want to be a sponsor.

That's right. They'll remain secret, remain nameless.

All right, so you have some notes down here as to the well wishes and the, and the, you know, let's welcome 2020 in.

So yes, we're a few days away. I want to say before we wrap up, a few days away from the new year. I think we covered, you know, whatever, whatever the year was. It's time to focus on what it could be. Be thankful for, for what you have. It could certainly be worse. But as you engage in your holiday festivities and the soon approaching New Year's Eve, remember, don't drink and drive.

Why?

Because they don't serve champagne at Hotel Grady.

Of course. Of course. And we say that because we're hoping that maybe we can get him on the show someday. And we can talk about what it feels like to be Sheriff Grady Judd.

I think it could be arranged. I have a few—

You think he'll talk about challenges and overcoming them?

I think he'll talk about anything.

Awesome.

Just about. Especially if you ask about his bologna sandwiches at the jail, which I do not suggest you use to ring in the new year.

Okay.

The cops don't want to take you to jail.

You don't want those for your new year.

Nobody wants to work on New Year's Eve.

Right. So please be safe. There are a lot of other options for traveling. Don't be a loser. Don't give them a reason to pull you over. So happy new year to everyone. And we're going to wrap up with thanks for listening and make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. Don't forget to leave us a review if you love us and don't review us if you hate us. You can find all of our episodes at elevatepulk.com. And if there's something you want to hear about specifically on an upcoming episode, reach out to us on Facebook at Elevate Pulk.