Cody Blake: The Entrepreneurial Mindset Addiction and Motivation

when I get an idea to have something else, it is true. I think it's countering that, you know, it's offsetting it. It's, oh, this is an out. This is a means to end that. This is a means to, you know, in my mind, I close my eyes. I'm like, oh man, if, if QVS really goes how I want, like, I'm not only going to— sure, the financial component is awesome, but no one can ever tell me X, Y, Z, or I'll never feel X, Y, Z. It's kind of like putting out a lot of different fires at once, right? And, uh, that's the dream scenario. But what— like, let's say that that flies and that happens. I know myself, I've been there, I've had success with my other businesses, right? Uh, it's not going to be done. It's like, right, and I was going to start over again, probably.

This is The Chris Project, where we discuss mental wellness, self-awareness, and mindset with entrepreneurs and experts. Set your perceived ideas and biases aside and let's go on our journey for yourself, for your family, for the world.

So this is Christian Brim coming from the Dream Big Studios. Thank you again to Pish Patel for letting us use this space. With me today is Cody Blake. Entrepreneur extraordinaire.

Hello.

Hi. Glad you came. Give us a, a 2-minute rundown on your business.

Uh, which one?

Whichever you prefer.

I mean, I've got my hands in too many things right now, that's for sure. Um, you know, really, I guess what I'm passionate about, yeah, is my startup still. Yes. Called Qovis. Yes. And my dream there is that we can build communities for those that need them, whether that be influencers or musicians, artists, right, who want to aggregate all of their followings and provide them something that social can't.

Awesome. We had two different studies to choose from. One was on addiction and entrepreneurism. And the other—

Yeah, I am addicted to entrepreneurism.

Yeah, okay. Well, we will discuss that one. The second one was the mind mapping, if you will, study where they looked at male entrepreneurs' brains and it showed up in the same place as their kids did. Yeah. So which of those two would you like to explore? Or if you have a third option, if you, if you want to go freestyle, we can totally do that too.

Well, now is the first question about the addiction of entrepreneurship or like just being an addict and then you're also an entrepreneur?

Well, that, that's interesting because the study was really more an aggregation on other studies. It really wasn't any new data. It was proposing that the dopamine addiction cycle specifically could show up for entrepreneurs in being addicted to entrepreneurship. It wasn't like addiction in general with entrepreneurs.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, let's talk about that. That sounds interesting. Okay.

Yeah. All right. Recapping that study, I learned about the dopamine cycle, which I'd heard of, but I didn't really understand the mechanics of it chemically. And I'd always heard that the physical addiction to the dopamine cycle is actually pretty easy to reset. It's just a matter of abstaining from that activity and letting your dopamine levels reset. But, you know, that obviously didn't do anything with the psychological issues around addiction. But this idea that entrepreneurs could actually become addicted to the process of entrepreneurship, the, you know, the highs. So you seem to be very interested in to jump into this one. So what's, what's your thoughts on it?

I think just like yourself, we've been entrepreneurs and I've been entrepreneur for, since I was 16 years old, even if not even before that. So, uh, you know, you can look at all that I've done and everything has, has a hand in that, you know, whether it's like the lawn mowing business or a ticket business or whatever, it's just kind of grown from there.

Well, thinking about the dopamine cycle, like where you get a rush from it. What specifically gives you a rush about entrepreneurism, entrepreneurship?

Landing a deal. Okay. So I think that's the biggest high. Yeah. Just because it really unlock, like in my mind, it unlocks what could be and makes it real. Right. And now then it's just up to me to perform.

Okay.

But really, like, my skills should end there.

Yeah.

Because I've already performed. Right. And I should keep doing that. But then, you know, so yeah. So that's what gives me the high.

You're addicted to the sales component.

I think so. Well, okay. Yeah. Yeah. But it's the sale. It's selling something that I created.

Okay.

Or that I, you know. Yes. It's not just selling anything.

Right.

Right.

So, so is it Is it the confirmation that your idea was valid? Is that what excites you?

Maybe. I mean, maybe.

Yeah.

I think what really excites me is, okay, then what's next? It's like, I did it.

Yeah.

I had this idea, I did it. Okay, now I get to go do something else or get to do it again.

But you said it's not something like that should be where you end, right? The execution, if you will, of delivering doesn't give you the same high.

Not really. Yeah. I think hearing customer satisfaction and the relationship component does. Yes. And then, but even that can be triggering a new sales process for me in my mind. It's like, okay, cool, we did this, bam, bam, bam. What are we doing now?

Well, I've known Cody for 10 years.

Yeah, that's right.

At least. And I struggle to think of someone that's more creative.

Oh, that's too kind.

No, no, seriously. So one of the things that I've noticed is creativity comes in many different flavors. My creativity is seeing something and finding a new application for it. So I see something work over here and I'm like, oh, I wonder if we could do that over here, right? But that true inception, inspiration, creativity where you just come out of— come up with something out of nothing is what I see in you all the time. Right. And I've been with you when you're doing that and I'm just like, Where in the hell did that come from? Talk about that.

What's that like? Problem solving. Like having an idea, you're solving a problem to some degree, or you see an opportunity to solve a problem or to, you know, whether that—

Yeah, but what I see with you is like you come up with truly novel solutions, like, which is different than me where I see a solution and see a different application to that. Like, let's talk about QVS. What was the inspiration for that?

Well, I mean, still is, is the idea that these massive brands— and the brand can be an individual, but it's still a brand— don't have an outlet to go and create, you know, a meaningful place for their fans, following, community. To li— to coexist, to participate, but not just consume, and then to get access, right? So specifically with music, the problem here is that musicians make music. Mm-hmm. We don't pay for music. Right. When's the last time you bought a CD or vinyl or maybe vinyl, but that's more of a collector's thing, but no one pays for music.

Right.

They're paying for access. Even at a concert, like you're going to the show, but you're really paying for access. You're going to hear the music, right? You're not paying for that music. So what, where do artists make money? And unless you're in that top 1%, yes, you can. It's almost impossible of being a musician. It's almost impossible to make a living now just making music. You've also got to bring along the community, your following, your fans. And provide them something in addition to music. And that, unfortunately for artists who a lot of times are introverts, is access to yourself, to your process, to your network, to your community. And so my solution here is, well, cool, let's do it digitally. Let's do it virtually and, and give someone a place to, to go to and live where, you know, it's safe. Where you don't have these trolls, you don't have these bots. Everyone's a real user, like everyone's a fan, everyone's a person, right? And so you're getting off of how many fans and followers more to like, cool, there's 10,000 people in my community.

So you saw that.

Well, still no one, by the way. Yeah, we're, we're, I've been doing this for 3 years and it's been the hardest motherfucker to sell because the industry has iron gates around it. Like it's insane. There's an extreme it's not necessarily a moat. Like, there, there's not one thing that's protected. It's, it's everything.

The way they do business.

Yes.

Yeah. So, so what— where did you, where did you first see this opportunity?

Well, we saw it and we still see it with pay-for-content models. Like, Patreon is a great example of it working, but it's, it's much different than what I'm trying to do, which is artist-branded communities, you know, artist-owned, right? IP-owned, all of it. Then we saw— we see it in other industries like OnlyFans, for instance, right? We've seen other genres outside of the adult industry, like, right, trying to break into OnlyFans, but then they're immediately tainted, like their brand becomes tainted because of OnlyFans has really coined itself as that content.

It's Pornhub too, right?

Right. And so I see an opportunity for artists of all sizes and communities of all sizes to exist on our platform. But we may, you know, I don't wanna, I don't care about having 10 million fans and showing that. Like, I just wanna help the artists do it on their own.

So you are an artist, you're not, you're a recording artist as well.

Yeah, I mean, like, I'm a hobbyist. I play, yeah.

You had that, insight from that experience, right?

Yeah. I've had 1,000 people tell me this is stupid, and I've had a lot of thousands of people tell me that's great.

Right.

I want to prove everyone else wrong that tells me— it's almost like motivation when I hear that it's not going to work or this and that. But that what gives me the high is going to these meetings where I do get some traction, where I do get some great feedback.

And I'm there right now where we're getting ready to launch our MVP and see, but So just to circle back, you don't see Qvis and where you came up with this potential solution as something new or inspired. You see it as, well, it's working other places, why wouldn't it work here?

No, well, it's very different. It's a very different model. Where we're not boxing the artist and creative. It's more about the creative freedom. Okay. As a creator and being a creative, like giving these artists the freedom to, to, to connect and to brand themselves and to show, to not like latch on to yet another third party that's going to sell your data and, right. And own it. Or now I'm just having to use, you know, like what it's given to me as the, as the artist here, they can, they can, truly just kind of use it how they want.

So do you think that, that, that, that which you have envisioned is truly novel then? Like it, it's not been thought of, not been done before?

This hasn't been done before.

Right.

There's components of it that have, right? A lot of like misuse of tech that's been— that's there that they're trying to kind of like mold and adapt together where we've, you know, done it in an easy way. Okay. But yeah, I mean, it hasn't been done where you can go, go download a community, you can get access to like inside of this community, you've got everything that you need, including live. You got access, right? It's all about access. So access to the artist via live video, access to the artist via VIP experiences, access to the artist first listens, first all of it. Really, it's a cycle where you're taking your biggest fans or your followers within your community and you're giving them what they want. That creates dopamine for them, right? If we're talking about that cycle. And then there's revenue, of course. And then now the artist can get paid still put out that content to the, to the streamers that they don't make anything on. But the, the ecosystem that we've created allows an artist who's outside of the 1% doing what they love to do and not being owned by another or not having—

so let's go down that road a little bit. I'm, I'm a, uh, a child of the '70s, born in 1970, so most of my formative years, to get music, you had to go pay for it, and it was a very closed system. And I guess there were some bootleg recordings of things, but for the most part, it was a closed system, which you're saying still persists. Essentially, it's changed formats from analog to digital, but the business model hasn't really changed much.

I would argue it's, it's more closed now than it was.

Okay, so it was then— what, what I, what I experienced was you couldn't go buy a song for the most part. There were a few 45s with, with individual songs on it, but you had to buy a whole album. And you, you, you got the album whether you liked one song or 8 songs. And so what I saw was that record labels were very particular about who they would sign as an artist based upon that content, right? And so in some ways you had to be really good to get a label, right? You had to be really good to get on there because you'd have a certain level of popularity. That, that was the trade-off. With the digital, you know, ostensibly you could have somebody that produced very niche music that only a few people liked, that distribution channel is there, right? But it didn't work out that way from a business standpoint because who's going to, who's going to produce an album or a song or whatever content if they can't make any money at it, right?

Yeah. Distribution's there for everyone now, right? Just go online, click a button and all your music's there.

Right.

You don't make money on it. Right.

Yeah. That's the problem. But this is the vision you have is that niche artists could potentially make money because, you know, fans are not all homogenous, right? Right. You could have some very wealthy fans in a niche that would pay a lot more than others.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And like, look, let's not make this all about Qs. So the entrepreneur part of me gets excited and loves the idea that this can not only provide freedom for me, right? Like financially and give, give me access to this industry within music that I'm really excited about and, uh, being a part of it. Right. But it also sets all of our, all of these artists, all these influencers up for freedom financially, but not, but freedom to create freedom to not listen to what the label wants to hear, what the radio wants to hear, but the fans, like, I love.

Yeah, I, I'm, well, I'm glad you raised that point because that's actually what I wanted to say was because I, I see artists having to conform to what, you know, their success. And if, if they want to go a different direction and create what they're passionate about, they run into some roadblocks.

Yeah, good luck, right? Yeah, you get dropped, you know, you'll get blacklisted. You get, I mean, there's a lot of different things that can happen if you're not following the guidelines that they've put out for you.

Right. Right.

So, and then even that, it's the, it's, that's still the 1%. What about the other 99 who don't have even that?

Right.

They don't have a model to follow. They don't have all that, all that kind. But now what we've seen is You technically, I mean, and we've seen it proven over and over again, you don't need the label to get, to become famous, to get those followers, to be successful. But then what, right? What do you do to monetize it if you're not MrBeast and have a team of 100 people behind you, but you have maybe 1 or 2, right? Or if it's just you, like you could still do what we envision here on your own. Yes. With the, with, and, and still get the same outcome.

So you could see other types of, uh, content being on this, like podcasts or video or—

Yeah. I mean, look, it, with, with the backbone of what we've created, you could launch a TV show on your own app, brand the, brand the show, whatever you want. You consume the, the show within the app, but then you have access to so much more, right? There could be— now you could have dripped content in along, like, let's say the show drops. I mean, this is an idea that I had. I was talking to a producer a couple of months ago. He's like, I want to produce this show. And I was like, well, what if we intertwined dripped content throughout the week in between episodes that's relevant and impacts the storyline? And so, so as the fan, it's like I'm getting constantly consuming the same TV show throughout the week. And then they're like small. It could be like maybe it's like a small little social profile for each character within the app, right? You're following along throughout their week. It's all fictional. But then when you get to the, the next episode, everything comes together and what you're seeing is all built into this community. I don't know. Look, I'm just now I'm just going off a tangent.

No, no, no. This is, this is the, this is the creative genius that I'm referencing that you have. Because I see like the business model changed a little, you know, with streaming, but it's still the same model with the same players. You had a few pop up, you know, Spotify that were able to make inroads. But for the most part, the technology hasn't disrupted the creative space. And it's not just music, but like I see the same thing with video, independently produced films. You do some of that. How do you see this impacting film?

Well, I, I think it would have to be a specific use case of the technology to integrate it. Yes. Into the vision of the film. It's not like for what we've built, it's not a, it's not just a distribution platform. It is. It's great for that, but it also takes some strategic planning within, you know, you can't just launch a show and throw it out there like YouTube, right?

Right.

Yeah. You're bringing, you're bringing a following and you're, you're whatever you're doing out in the real world outside of your app, right? It, you're driving everyone to it.

But I, but I, I could see like if you had an independent film house, uh, say here in Oklahoma, one of these small shops, uh, that was producing great content, on a regular basis could use a platform like that as opposed to having to go get streaming deals or other distribution channels.

Yeah, absolutely. For sure. You know, so many different use cases for sure. Really, it's all about, it's all about giving the creator the freedom.

Yes.

To do what they want.

The economics still have to, you gotta produce something somebody's willing to pay for. That's not gonna change.

Right.

—but it cuts out the middleman. Yeah.

I mean, YouTube's take— I mean, take 40, 50% of the ad revenue, if not more than that, off the— right off the top. Then they sell your data off the top. Like, they're making so much money off of— obscene amounts of money. Right. And of all these creators, just because they own the distribution. Right.

But it doesn't have to be that way. Correct. Correct. Yeah. So let's go back to addiction. Would you say that you are addicted to entrepreneurship?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. Okay. I'm thinking I am involved in like 9 different ventures right now. Okay. Yeah. Some of 'em I don't even, like, I have nothing to do with, but I'm still addicted to what's going on with it.

Like, would you say that you are a serial entrepreneur?

Well, I don't know what the difference is.

I don't either. I don't know what the definition is.

I thought, yeah, I would say so.

I thought it was somebody that, you know, did a bunch of different types of cereal, you know, Frosted Flakes and Froot Loops. And well, I, you know, reading the article, that's about where I landed, was there are aspects that do give you that dopamine high. And starting, starting an idea, starting a business on that idea is definitely an aspect that gives you that dopamine high. The implementation, the tactical, the running the business, the grind, if you will, not so much. That does not give me a rush.

I don't know about you, but that— Yeah. No, no. I don't know if it's the affirmation that feels nice. Like, that's the dopamine kick of like, oh cool, I was right. Right. Bam. Maybe I've been told my whole life that I was wrong. Too many times. Yeah. That now being an entrepreneur, you know, 16 on or whatever, it's like I started coming into my adulthood, like being affirmed. Yes. Felt good as I'm thinking about it. Yeah. And then also gave me the freedom. Yes. At 16, right? If I wanted a shirt or if I wanted this or wanted— I had to go work for that. Right. And so But having the idea of how to do that and then going out and doing it provided the freedom. And I think those kind of two things go hand in hand. And that's kind of where I typically find like a lot of self-worth is, is in that pattern. I don't know if that's a healthy thing or not, but—

No, I think it is. And I'd like to dig deeper into that for a minute. The, the I don't, I don't have any, uh, study to, uh, quote you, but I've been told by industry people in the psychology profession that entrepreneurs have a higher rate of childhood trauma than the population as a whole. And I'm defining trauma here very loosely. You know, it could be that, that a bad experience with a teacher or a coach, uh, where they told you, you know, you weren't worth anything. It's, it's not necessarily an abusive situation, right? So trauma generally seems to be a common motivator among entrepreneurs where, you know, in my particular case, I, I didn't have any awareness around it until I was much older. That I grew up in a blended family where I was the only child from my parents' marriage and grew up with 4 half-siblings, but I was the oldest. And they used to make jokes calling me half and things like that. And I didn't realize what effect that had on my psyche until I was much older and realizing that I had this feeling of inadequacy, like, like I wasn't enough.

Yeah, I feel that all the time, man.

And how much of what I did as an entrepreneur was trying to prove to myself that wasn't the case. That was not conscious.

I mean, that was just— yeah, that's happening for me every day, every day. And when I get an idea to have something else, it is triggered. I think it's countering that, you know, it's offsetting it. It's, oh, this is an out— this is a means to end that. This is a means to, you know, in my mind, I close my eyes, I'm like, oh man, if, if QVS really goes how I want, like, I'm not only gonna— sure, the financial component is awesome, but no one can ever tell me XYZ, or I'll never feel XYZ. It's kind of like putting out a lot of different fires at once. Right. And, uh, that's the dream scenario. But what, like, let's say that that flies and that happens. I know myself, I've been there. I've had success in my other businesses, right? Uh, it's not going to be done. It's like, right. And I was going to start over again, probably.

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Yeah, because that was my follow-up question, is, is any level of success going to scratch that itch for you?

I don't know. I think, I mean, you can always say you, you want more stuff, right? Right. Uh, you know, or you want to live somewhere where it's nicer or have a different this or that or travel more or whatever. But, you know, like I've been kind of dragged through the mud the last year and a half financially as well. Right. I don't have that kind of— I don't have the means to do all the stuff that I used to. Right. That's fine. Like, that doesn't change anything. In fact, I'm noticing now in the last 6 months, because as I've really gone through this, that I don't need all that shit. Right, right. I've known that my whole life. I don't need it. I didn't have it my whole life. I, you know, growing up, I had— we had nothing. One, two, basically two teachers' incomes, right? In the public system, it's like not a whole lot there. But at the end of the day, it isn't about money for me. That sounds cool. That sounds incredible. I just, I like, I think what's more sexy to me is the freedom to not go in and work for and take orders. Yes. That's it. I took orders. That's what I, at 16, I was like, I got to get the fuck out of here. Right. I was done taking orders from my parents, from my teachers, from whomever. Right. And I still kind of feel like that, you know, being a client service business, I love all my clients. Right. But I'm taking orders every day. Right. And so what got me so excited about some of my other ventures is, sure, I have clients, but they're not in a SaaS model, right? Like, it's a lot different. It's not starting over every campaign or starting over every, you know, cycle. It's a cycle for clients, just like it is for artists. And so For me, creating a SaaS platform or a solution that's repeatable, it would alleviate a lot of that stress.

Yeah, I've, I've, at 54, I would say that it's, to me, the trade-off is freedom versus money, which most people equate those two, right? Right. But, but at some point to make more money, requires you to give away more of your freedom, uh, as an entrepreneur. And I'm less inclined to do that than I was, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. I would much rather have— well, you could go to the extreme though, like, right? Like a homeless person has more freedoms than anyone else in the world, right? They have no responsibilities. They have no assets. They have— exactly. And that's taking it in general. I'm sure that, that some do, like, have response, whatever, whatever it is. But some of them may have money. Exactly. Hell, I've heard some of them make more, make more than the average. Right. So, but the, the, to me it is more about freedom than money. Um, even though the idea it is, it's almost like an oxymoron. Yes. Where, you know, sometimes the financial component of it is more like being a slave. It can be.

Yeah, 100% it can be. Yeah. And that's kind of the thing I never, I guess I thought that if you reached a certain level of financial success, you'd have all this freedom. And that's not always the case. I mean, I would say it's not usually the case. I think there's, because we don't build our businesses to be independent of us, financial success just ties you into more time.

Yeah. Well, and there's other freedoms outside of financial freedoms that I feel like entrepreneurs don't pay attention to like they should. I don't. That I've noticed. I mean, I'm noticing a lot over the last couple of years of starting, doing the startup and going through it and, you know, missing, missing the mark here and there and having to reset. You know, all of that is freedom means way much more to me than financial freedom. And give me an example. I mean, time, right? I don't even if I mean, right now I have, I'm not, I'm not financially free. I'm also not, you know, my time is not free. There's, I have almost no free time. Right. The concept of free time, like, where— what is that? I don't, you know, sure, I've made decisions to put myself in these, in this, right? But that sounds way much more appealing to me right now than financial freedom. And look, financial freedom can mean a lot of things to a lot of people. I would live a blessed life and do all of that kind of thing. I'm not saying going bankrupt.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Who knows? There's still a chance.

Yes. But the idea to have free time and to do what I want with my time, I would, I would give up all of my financial freedom if that could happen.

Right. But, but there, there is that caveat that you want to be able to do certain things with your time. Right.

And, and that's the, yeah. And of course that, that takes money. So it is exactly, it, it, it's not just one or the other.

No. It's not. So if you were to go back and tell your younger self some advice about these types of things, what would it be?

Interesting question. I mean, there's two other— I mean, we didn't talk about like two other free— or a freedom maybe that we didn't talk about would be of the, you know, your neg— depression, like, free of all of these negative thoughts, patterns, and cycles in your head. Uh, that is what I would tell myself to focus in on first, is, you know, getting that shit together. Would you have listened? Well, I mean, I don't even know what it is still today. I'm still trying to figure it all out.

True, but you recognize it as something to strive for. Yeah. Do you think you would've accepted that as worthwhile at that age? No, no.

I don't think I'd listen to any, I didn't listen to anyone. Yeah.

You know, that's what, that's what's fascinating to me too, is not my own experience, but it seems like with all entrepreneurs is most of us don't like to be told what to do, right? We want to do it ourselves. And some really I've missed some really good advice along the way from well-intentioned people because I just wasn't in a space to hear it. And so I asked that question to myself, like, if I went back and told myself then this advice, would I even listen to myself? And I think the answer, like you, is no.

Yeah. I mean, yeah, I don't know what advice I would give myself. I mean, people matter the most. Relationships matter the most. I mean, I've always felt that, to be real. Yes. Try to live that. And that is constantly is the truth in my life. And that what hurts me the most isn't losing a deal. It's losing a friend. Yes. It's not losing $100. It's You know, it's all the relational component to me impacts me more than anything in business and friendship and personal relationships and love. It's take care of that stuff first, you know. And as an entrepreneur, you tend to put a lot of those things second, third, fourth. Mm-hmm. Because you look at it and you're like, well, if I am, you know, like you always make some excuses like, oh, well, my business is paying for my kids, or my business is, you know, letting me take a trip with my wife. But at the end of the day, if you completely neglecting number 2, 3, and 4, like they may not be there. Yeah. When all that comes around or, you know, and it Does that stuff really matter at the end of the day? Some of it, sure. Like, of course you have to provide, but at the end of the day, you know, um, being, being present in the moment, you know, and, uh, attentive to like others and awareness of what others need and want in a relationship, which is business and personal and all of that, I think matters more than, you know, the, the The process, the idea, the process, the business, the entrepreneurship of what I do. Um, sometimes that stuff sucks, right? Just like, like you don't really, you don't want to make it number one, right? And this is so much fun.

Well, you know, one of the things Pish and I just discussed was that he said, um, entrepreneurs don't have very good coping mechanisms. And I'd never heard it put in like clinical terms like that. And I'm like, yeah, you know, you're right, we don't. But as we were talking, I was like, you know, at least this was my experience where the business in some way became my coping mechanism, right? Because it helped me feel self-worth, right? Yeah. And that's how I coped with it. And because I controlled all the variables, who I hired as employees, who I did business with as customers or vendors, like I controlled all the variables. And so I didn't really address the problem with myself. I didn't even know what my problem was, right? Because I was, you know, in that way, I would say it's very much, it can be an addiction because you're using it as your coping mechanism, right? Yeah.

Well, you said something interesting there that kind of triggered me for a second. All right. You know, and part of it I learned through EOS, but I did not implement. The idea of delegating or letting go of control in your business. Mm-hmm. At the end of the day, if you're a single owner entrepreneur or even have partners, right? Like, right, you're still in control. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I took that to the wrong degree where I viewed certain aspects of my own business or, you know, is, well, I'm just going to sit here and let it go, run its course. Okay. After delegating or letting go of certain aspects of the business, one of my businesses I stepped out of, right? And now I'm back in it, right? But I looked at it too long, like I didn't have control of that business and that was how it was supposed to be. Hmm. And I, yeah, you know, I learned a shit ton through this process, right? I had control the whole time. Yes. Why did I not think that I did? Were you afraid of giving up control? No, I was at the point where I did, I was relieved because I wanted, I was spread too thin, right? And so I had to give up some things, right? Um, but I still, I need to learn. I mean, I know this is a blind spot in my life is like, I need to learn how to still lead in all, but in a way where I'm not controlling, but still have control. And I mean, I'm just being honest.

Like, you know, that, that's interesting because I've, I've kind of worked under the assumption that Uh, and I've said this, and it really came from being a parent. Uh, my oldest, uh, just turned 30, so all my children are adult children. But being a parent, I realized that I didn't have nearly the control that I thought I did. Uh, and of course, when you start out and they're infants and toddlers, you do have a lot of control, but as they grow up, you end up with no control, which is the way it's supposed to be. But I've always said that control is an illusion. Like, you think you control things when you don't really. And so for me, that was a way for me to be able to give up control, was to realize I didn't have it in the first place and that really all I have is influence, right?

Yeah. Yeah. Leadership. Right, exactly. Yeah. Well, I need help in that area.

Well, none of us get trained on any of this, right? I mean, we start a business and there's all these things about running a business that we have no idea are required. And no, you know, even if you went to college and studied entrepreneurship, that doesn't— or got an MBA, that doesn't translate to the real world.

Well, look, I mean, For me, if I'm— what I learned with one of my businesses that I stepped out of is, you know, leadership doesn't necessarily— like delegation and leadership doesn't necessarily mean letting go. Okay. And I'm not talking about holding on as tight as you can, this and that, but having a voice— I still have a voice. Yes. And I did. And at times I felt like I couldn't speak up. I felt like I had to kind of let other people run the course on certain things or this or that, or even like where the company was headed and on vision and this and that. Like, you know.

Did you feel like in speaking up that you were doing something counterproductive?

Well, I mean, every time I did, I was told that. Every time. Interesting. Yeah, every time. Or like, well, that's not your role anymore. Well, I'm sorry, I thought I wrote you your fucking check. Right. Sorry. Right. I don't know where this is going to go. Yeah, no, that's fine.

If we have to, we'll bleep it out.

Yeah. But I mean, like, there's a level of that where I probably should have led differently and spoke, you know, like Rather than being mute or feeling like I didn't have a voice, you know, uh, maybe when I say things differently or do differently or hire differently, like delegate differently, whatever, to who, to different people. I don't know what the right outcome is on some of these things, but look, I mean, I'm still learning. I have 5 businesses right now that I'm running, right? It's fun, but I definitely can look back and say what I've done a lot more right than wrong. Yes. And so what can I learn still from my, this, you know, from this venture and this venture and this venture?

Well, you know, you talked about leadership. For me, the biggest challenge over the last couple of years has been, okay, so after you delegate and manage, you know, that's a, That's a different thing about making sure shit gets done, right? But then the next step for me was to create new leaders. And that meant with my leadership team, taking those 3 individuals and helping them be leaders. None of them were, right? They were managers. They knew how to get shit done, but Being a leader, uh, is an entirely different thing than being a manager, and it's a harder— I, I think it, I think it's a skill set you can learn. I think some people are born with certain characteristics that make it easier for them, but that's a lot bigger challenge.

That's not the aspect of being an entrepreneur that I like. Yeah, like being a leader is— I mean, I'm not saying that I don't like being leading, right? But I'm— I don't have a passion to coach. Okay. I don't. I don't. I mean, I'm, I'm not shameful to say that, right? I've tried. I don't even care. To some degree, I'm going to have to— I have to always be improving, but I don't, I don't want to focus too much on that part of my entrepreneurial journey, right? I would rather focus on the next thing, you know? Right. Yeah. I mean, We talked about, I think, why doesn't anybody talk about starting, being an entrepreneur is fun, right? It should be fun. And when we started, it's a blast. Like when you start a business, it's a blast. I mean, I even like going to the, I like going to the Secretary of State and signing up. Right. Right. Getting your stipend. I'm like, here we go, baby. Right. But I don't, you know, and the point where, what I really like is you know, a client, they say, I like that, or an employee, I like that, I like that, I like that. I like being told that, right? Whether it's presenting work that we've done or an idea that I've got, that is the dopamine hit that I can't get enough of. Yes. And most of the time, there's things that I had a hand in. If it wasn't my, my work, it was my team's work, I had a very clear hand in that, right? Most, most of the time. And so give credit where credit's due, of course. But a lot of that is feeding, not necessarily my ego, but my— maybe it is, maybe that is exactly what it is. It's, but it's the idea of, okay, I am adding value. Yeah. I'm providing something to someone else that they like. Yes. And that to me is why I'm an entrepreneur. That's why I'm an entrepreneur.

So we ask for a definition of addiction, and I got the answer that is, if it's a compulsive behavior that is destructive, okay? Do you think at any point that your addiction to entrepreneurism has been, not addiction, well, has been an addiction by that standard?

Oh yeah. I haven't— I can't stop. And one of my businesses, I should have at least paused, reevaluated a long time ago, to the point where I took on way too much burden across all aspects of the business. Um, and now I'll have to, you know, I've got to live with those consequences, right? And, and, uh, the addiction was like It's, it's, it's there. We're almost there. We're almost there. We're almost there. But at the— I mean, I still think I'm not going to fail. It's just going to take more time. Right. And of course, investors, time is money. As an entrepreneur, right? Like, you don't necessarily think that losing— I don't even look at it as like losing. I'll get there eventually. Right. So I don't even— all that noise is great. It's, it's there to motivate me and like to keep me in check and in line, whether whoever it's coming from. But I'm still going to win at the end of the day. This thing's going to be a success. What I'm doing isn't going for nothing, you know, and it may look different than I thought, may look different than everybody else thought, but I'm going to get whatever I'm working on, the idea, this, this or that I'm going to hear at the end of the day. That's a great I like it. That was awesome.

And, and, you know, that's what I think is different, uh, uh, uh, between entrepreneurs and the rest of the population is that we have this inside of us, two different things. We have this, this feeling that we are somehow broken, inadequate, whatever, that we're trying to prove ourselves or prove others wrong. But then we also have this complete assurance that it's gonna work, which is crazy to me how we can hold those two things in our mind at the same time. I think it's the fact that for most of us, we don't realize the component where we're trying to— we're trying to prove our self-worth or prove our ego. Uh, we, we just— that, that never comes to the surface for most of us. It's just we know we're going to, we know we're going to succeed.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. As you were talking, I was thinking also, uh, about what I said earlier. It's like, I don't have really a desire to coach. I don't have a desire to this or that. I mean, at what aspect— where do you look at an entrepreneur and say it's a complete package? Like, does that even exist? No. And so is it okay that I even feel like that? Sure. But part of, part of me doesn't feel like it is like I shouldn't, I should care about growing in this area or growing in that area or growing in this area. But I really don't, I don't have a passion for those things. And I, sometimes I look at all, you know, I mean, like my groups, my networking groups, my, you know, EO, for instance, right? Not necessarily networking, but, you know, to learn and grow and all of this. I, I don't have a passion for a lot of the same things that, like, reading books and, right, all of these things to know who to hire. I'm like, man, I'll just— I want somebody else on my team that knows all that shit, right? Right. And I don't have time to read 64 books a year? Yes, I like to read and I want to read the ones that I want, but what if I got really, really incredible at XYZ, something else besides knowing who to hire? Of course, of course it's important, like for your business. But what if, what if that was being an entrepreneur didn't mean all of that complete set of tools? Like, you know what I mean?

No. So like, if you look at, look at somebody like Jeff Bezos, for instance, right? Um, he, he does not, he's not an expert in all of those things. Never has been, never strove to be. Right. Um, I think where we get sucked in as entrepreneurs is we look at the scarcity of resources and say, well, who else is gonna do it? Like, I, I, I've got to do it. Right. And, and that's gotten me in a lot of trouble too, because it's like, one, you're you're limiting yourself because that's opportunity cost that you're not gonna be able to go do your visionary shit and come up with new ideas. But two, you're not doing it as well, right? As the person that that is their passion.

Yeah, yeah. Well, again, that comes back to me and I'm like, oh man, I'm not a good entrepreneur. Oh no, I disagree with that. Well, I know that's the shit that I deal with.

Right, in your head. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's easy to do because in our world there are some very successful people and you look at them and you're like, what have they figured out that I didn't figure out? Right? There's always this comparison, but you know, and I know the experiences that we've had with those people is when you, when you uncrack that nut and unpeel the onion, they've got the same damn problems and same issues in their heads that we do. They just, circumstances lined up that they achieved a certain level of success.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, so why am I still an entrepreneur? I don't know.

Well, it sounds like you're addicted, my friend. I think I am. And I don't know what to do to help you. I don't know what to do. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for coming and sharing your experiences and your thoughts. I appreciate it.

Of course. Hiya. Happy to be here, man. This is awesome. Thanks.

Thank you for listening to The Chris Project. You are important. Your work is important. Do not give up.