#168: Nine Things I’m Embarrassed to Tell You...

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia.

Hey there. Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast. I am your host, Ed Gandia and this is the podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients. Just a quick reminder that you will find detailed show notes for this episode if you go to b2b launch.com forward/episode 168 and those notes include a summary of our discussion as well as any links to resources we mentioned during the show. Alright, so I need to first warn you about this introduction because it's going to be a little bit longer than normal and today is just going to be me just really sharing some things from the heart and I need to set the stage because it's important for you to understand why I am discussing this topic today. One of the things that happens when you're in a leader leadership position, and I think in a way I kind of in a leadership position in that some people look to me for ideas, suggestions, strategies, advice, mentorship and so forth is that over time when you build trust and credibility with someone, they tend to put you on a bit of a pedestal. And the tendency for most of us is when we do that, to start feeling like the individual that you're putting on a pedestal doesn't really have many flaws or doesn't struggle with some of the issues you might struggle with. And it just kind of has things figured out. And fact of the matter is I am not perfect by any means. I have my own struggles, a lot of them. I'm certainly really good at some things. I'm really good at identifying what works and doesn't work in a freelance writing business. I'm a student of the process. I'm a student of just business development in general. I love to take things apart, understand why they work, why they don't work. I think about this stuff day and night and because of that I think I'm really good at diagnosing problems, solving problems strategically. I take an 80:20 approach to a lot of what I do, which I think is surprisingly different out there where a lot of people just kind of throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall without thinking about it. And I'm talking about coaches and trainers and so forth, understanding how and why people take action. I'm really big into behavioral science, behavioral economics, social psych, because I understand that knowledge in and of itself is not really going to do much. It's really about what will work, what will people actually do, and why. Because of that. I think I'm really good at helping clients get unstuck and get clarity. I think I'm better than most at that. But, you know, I have a. Because of these things, I have a strong track record of helping my clients generate big results in a short period of time. But at the same time, I'm not perfect. I struggle with a lot of things. Some things I'm just kind of really embarrassed about the fact that I struggle with them. I'm not really good at them. And that's my first motivation for doing this episode. I thought that I would take some time today to prove to you of this fact that I really struggle with some things and many of them I'm embarrassed about. And I want to just come clean on some of these things that I've struggled with and struggle with personally and professionally. I saw Amy Porterfield do this a few months ago in her podcast and I thought it was a great idea, so I wanted to give it a try. The second reason I'm doing this is that I don't ever get an opportunity to get this stuff off my chest publicly. So see if this makes sense. My show is about helping you earn more and less time doing work you love for better clients. Which means that things that I'm struggling with personally and professionally should take a backseat because technically, I shouldn't be talking about these things because they're not about you, they're about me, and this show is about you. What makes this particularly difficult and challenging for me is that, you know, the best way to explain it is if you are a sought after consultant to restaurant owners. Right? And you're a restaurant owner yourself, so you're doing the consulting as well. You can talk about things you struggle with in terms of a restaurant owner and your audience. So other restaurant owners are totally going to get that because they struggle with the same thing. And you can create a bond that way. But when you've moved on and used to own restaurants, you were very successful doing it. Now you're consulting with restaurant owners and you're no longer in that game. Every single day, you're going to struggle with things that are not going to feel the same. Many times they are the same, but they're not going to feel the same to your audience because they're going to think, well, wait a minute. Yeah, but I'm in the kitchen, I'm here every day, and like, you're out of that game already. So, you know, just keep that stuff to yourself. It doesn't really apply to me. So I'm kind of in the same situation. I've been very transparent about the fact that over the last few years I have transitioned from having mostly my income come mostly from working for freelance writing clients to or freelance clients doing writing for them, to doing more and more coaching and training. And I might as well take this opportunity to let you know that as of this year, I am 100% now coaching and training. And the reason that happened is I had kept one small client who'd become a really good friend of mine and I was still doing writing for him. But his company got bought out earlier this year and I didn't pursue the parent company and they didn't contact me. So I thought this is a good time to kind of move on. So I'm officially doing this 100% of the time. My concern has always been that people might perceive that as being a negative thing because, well, if I'm not really in your world anymore, how can I add value? And I want to address those two things really quickly. And then we're going to start getting into some really embarrassing stuff that I want to share with you when you've had a really good, successful track record as a writer and copywriter. I think I have a lot to teach and a lot of great advice to give my coaching clients. Number one, a lot of these things are fundamentals that just don't change. And when they change, they change. It's just the details that change. The fundamentals don't change. That's the first thing. The second thing I've realized is that in a way I kind of have a greater advantage now as someone who's out of the game. The day to day things you might be dealing with because I have dozens and dozens of coaching clients. So I'm kind of plugged in to all these different situations and businesses and target markets and how my coaching clients are dealing with these things. Of course I'm guiding them and I'm helping them and I'm training them and mentoring them. But I'm getting feedback from all kinds of different coaching clients as to, you know, what's working, what's not working. We tried that and here's what worked. And so in a way I have this, this bigger database of possibilities and of suggestions and strategies and techniques that I didn't have before. And it was just me on my own stuff. So anyway, all that to say that it's very difficult for me to talk about these things because many times I don't feel they're relevant to you. These are things that I struggle with, that I worry about. But at the end of the day, I think you'll see by the end of this episode that we all struggle with a lot of the same things. And it doesn't really matter what I'm focused on where I spend my days. You know, when you are a solo business owner and I'm still a solo business owner, I don't have employees, my team or all contractors, we're all really all in the same boat. So let's get to it. And I want to share with you, in no particular order, things that I'm embarrassed to tell you, but I think will help you get to know me a little better and who I am. And I hope that by being vulnerable about these things, you'll understand where I'm coming from and why I give the advice that I give and maybe understand why I'm also in my own journey to improve myself. The first thing that I want to talk about is the fact that there's just no nice way of saying this. I have workaholic tendencies. I don't like saying I am workaholic. There's something about saying I am this, that there's some powerful programming there that happens when you say that. So I don't like saying I'm a workaholic. I like saying that I have workaholic tendencies. Look, I love what I do. I love to build and grow businesses. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about that later. So left to my own devices, I would work. I would work 14, 15 hour days. I couldn't sustain that for a long time. But if you left me to do whatever I wanted to do, man, I'd go from one thing to the other. My to do list and my projects. And I'm very interested in doing a lot of different things. They're all very exciting and I want to jump on all of them. When my wife and kids have left town on a trip, you know, for like a week or something, that's when I realize what my workaholic tendencies look like. Because like, I have no set schedule, I'm up early and I work and I take a quick break for dinner and for lunch and I, I come back to my office and keep working till 10 o' clock at night. I'm exhausted by the end of the day, but I just don't know when to stop. I have very strong type A tendencies. I'm I just, I'm an achiever. I love to go after things. I'm competitive mostly with myself. I'm a strong competitor, but I. I don't consider myself someone who gets their self worth from competing with others necessarily, although there's definitely that in me. But I'm mostly competing with myself, frankly. Sunday nights, I can't wait to get to it. I love what I do and I love being on my own and charting my own course. I feel very comfortable working from home in my own office, super focused when I'm here most of the time. And even though I'm very productive, I often don't feel like I've accomplished much. By the end of the day, I feel like, gosh, there's still these things that I didn't get done. And this is why. Something that I've talked about recently to my coaching clients, I've started doing a to done list. So, you know, of course we know about the to do list, right? But at the end of the day, I think many of us, especially people with my personality and my tendencies, look at what's left still to do that's not crossed off. And we focus on that in the negative part of that instead of focusing on all the things we accomplish. So one thing that's helping me is to just write down or highlight my to done list. Especially looking at the things that I've done with a highlighter and just think about them. Wow. And that's helping me see that. Look, it's not that I was slacking off, I was just trying to jam way too much in. And not only that, but the top three things that I set out to do today are done. And that's the really important part. Bottom line for me is if I don't set work hours, I'll just keep on working. My family keeps me from doing that, which is great. And frankly, nothing good comes from working those kinds of crazy hours. I mean, it's sometimes you got to do what you got to do short term, you know, deadline, something that came up, whatever, but that's just not sustainable. And I'm aware of that. So I'm working on this stuff. Part of the solution is the I'm having to be very honest with myself. It's like, you know, if I put in like a crazy set of hours in the last couple, I don't feel any more caught up today than I did when I started that trend. There quickly comes a point when I start getting diminishing returns. And again, frankly, I've noticed that no matter how much time I've put in that in basket and my inbox are always filling up. That is just a fool's errand. Trying to get to inbox zero is a great thing, but inbox zero is so short lived it can be a little depressing if you're not careful. So this idea of catching up is just a losing proposition. I think they're just other ways to look at it and a lot of it is mindset and a lot of it is just giving away and outsourcing, delegating some things that just continue to give you stress. And that's something that I've been working on and it's definitely been helping. Another thing that I'm embarrassed to tell you about is that I rarely feel like I'm doing enough. I this is very much related to the last point, but it's also a different item. So it boils down to an anxiety about what I'm not doing or haven't done. One way this manifests itself is a feeling that there are all these things I should be doing to grow my business, but I'm not doing them. And I quickly forget about all the things that I have done and that I am working on and doing. And that comparison trap is, is really dangerous and leads to a lot of stress and anxiety. And I've started to notice that about myself. The other time that it shows up for me is when I'm not hitting outcome goals that I've set for myself. So I've talked about outcome goals in this podcast before. Outcome goals, process goals, effort goals. And basically real quick outcome goals is like, you know, I'm going to achieve this as tangible result. It's, that's physical, that's, you know, it's measurable by a certain date as opposed to outcome process or effort goals is I'm going to focus on deploying this process consistently. And effort goals is putting forth the specific effort process and effort goals can be interchangeably used, but they are two separate things and definitely very different from outcome goals. So this is proof that I struggle with this concept as much as anyone else. The fact that I'm many times take my eye off the process and effort and then just go back to outcome goals. Outcome goals are important. I don't want to take away from them, okay, but you have to be careful not to let them consume you otherwise you get into all kinds of trouble. One of which is the feeling that you're just not doing enough because, well, look at your results, they fell short. I think this has a lot to do with how I'm wired. I'm an enneagram type 3. For those of you who are familiar with the Enneagram, if not, it's something you might want to look up. It's a really cool personality test that does a lot of different things from or it looks at your personality from a different angle in a much more deeper way, I think, than many other personality tests. But I'm a type 3, just right there in the center of type 3. I'm not even borderline. I'm definitely deep into type 3, which is the achiever. And that in and of itself is a very difficult admission for me to make because I am proud of who I am. But I'm also very much aware of the perils of being a Type three, and I try to work hard to keep myself out of these dangerous places. But one of the common characteristics of Threes is that we're always doing things. We're doers. Listen, I love to kick back and relax. I really, really do. When I'm on vacation, I really am on vacation. And I love to take trips, and I like to disengage and just relax. But let me tell you, when armed with a to do list, I can be way focused and often very unbalanced. So here again, this is something I'm working on. It's a work in progress. Blocking out time off, away ahead of time for myself and for my family is one of my key initiatives for next year. Trying some new things that I'm really, really excited about. And I have to take extra steps than many people because the standard advice that works for many doesn't work well for me when it comes to this stuff. I have to create guardrails and set boundaries to keep me from. Yeah, just going off the rails. Very easy for me to do in this area. Something else that I wanted to share with you is again, also embarrassing. I worry. I worry more than I'd like. I think we all worry to a certain degree. I used to worry a lot. I mean, I used to be a serious warrior. I've been that way since I was a kid. I remember just being. There's a certain point in high school when I became a much better student. I was a very average student before that. But I would worry once I became a good student or a better student about upcoming tests and projects, and I would have this anxiety over the deadline and so forth. So I can trace that back to a certain point in my childhood. A big part of. I think my tendency to worry is My being so future centric, I spent most of the time in my head thinking about the future. And that's embarrassing for me to admit. I wish I could tell you that I live in the present or at least live in the present most of the time. But I'm not living in the moment as much as I would like. I really believe that that going out on my own, becoming self employed and transitioning into a much bigger business that's more complex, with more moving parts and a team has helped me worry less. And I know that sounds weird, right? Well, if I've taken on more and taken more risk and chances and built a more complex business, why would you worry less? And this is an interesting paradox. I think in a way by doing that, I've expanded my comfort zone dramatically. I've learned to live in this environment which for other people would be completely insane for me. It's just become my new normal. So something about just having made the decisions I've made since I went completely self employed in June 2006 and just providing for my family, you know, based on, on my talents and my intellectual property and my efforts, has been in a way very empowering and has helped reduce my worry and anxiety. But I still worry. I worry about my business failing. I worry about having a bad month or a bad quarter. I worry about my coaching clients and their success. I mean, so this really. Because I think in a way this has been part of what. Even though I've gotten better in a way by working with coaching clients, which I love to do, I have this attitude and this philosophy of I'm responsible to my coaching clients, I'm not responsible for them. Okay? And that's been a very healthy thing because as a coach, if you start taking on all this worry and anxiety and of your coaching clients and you measure your results by their results completely. And believe me, I do measure my results by the results. But if that's like your attitude and your how you feel and how you think about yourself and your identity, if it's all based on that, that is a very dangerous thing. I worry about my team members, you know, are they happy, do they like working with me? I worry about the future of my business, worry about another year going by and things still being the same, you know, having a lot of complexity in my business, having stress. I worry about spending time, too much time at work and not enough time with my kids. I worry about am I being the best that I can be, am I being present with my family, all kinds of crazy things, meditation Mindfulness meditation has really helped over the past couple of years. It's. I find that it helps keep me grounded, more aware, more mindful during the day. So has exercise and a better diet. I have no doubt about that. But this is something that I still have to cope with this. My natural state is to come back to the worry and the anxiety, so I have to work extra hard. I think that many other people at that. Something else I'm embarrassed to tell you about is related to this, and you could probably. This is not going to be a shock based on everything I shared with you so far. My life roles are not very balanced. This is a direct result of the first two challenges that I've shared with you is, you know, basically, my life roles are often not in balance. Now I've gotten away from this belief that you can actually have sustained balance across multiple roles. And my business partner and really good friend Pete Savage talked about that when he wrote the chapter in our book the Wealthy Freelancer about balance. And he really hit on that point that, look, if you're looking for sustained balance across all your roles, that's impossible. Pete really got me thinking about that a little bit differently. I don't think that's really a healthy expectation. And for someone with my personality, it could be a very dangerous thing to strive for because, frankly, I'm always going to fall short. But I have to admit that I could do much better in this department if I had to rank my priorities right now in terms of time and focus. And, man, I hate to admit this publicly, by the way. It might look like this work is my first priority. My physical health, thankfully, is my second. That used to be near the bottom until about a year ago, a little over a year ago. My family is third. And frankly, they need to be number one. I mean, there's some debate whether, you know, is your family number one or is your health number one because you got to be healthy for your family. But, you know, not going to argue about that. I think it depends on how you look at it. Finances are probably next, and then it starts kind of. I don't know. I'm not really sure at that point. Maybe staying intellectually sharp, my spiritual side, My. My spiritual role, if you will. Feeding my soul. Friends and extended family might come after that. I. And, you know, I hate that that's near the bottom. I need to be a better son. I need to be a better brother and a friend. It's not that I'm bad, it's just that I could do better. It Becomes kind of like the leftovers. You know, if I have time then, you know, I'll call my parents, I'll call my brothers and sisters and, and guess what? When you leave it for leftovers, there's rarely leftovers when it comes to time. And I would say that at the bottom is community, meaning giving back to my community. This needs to change and I have some plans on how to change that for next year. I mean, well, and I do contribute, but you know what, I contribute with my wallet. And even though that's better than not doing anything, I want to contribute in a more meaningful way. This is something that I was doing much better job of two years ago and involving my oldest son as well. And it's something we're going to be changing here in 2019. So look, at the end of the day there's still going to be competing priorities here, right? I could reshuffle things and there's still going to be things that are near the bottom. That's okay. I, I am willing to accept that because that's just the reality. But I do think that there's some reshuffling here that needs to happen and I'm actually in the middle of that right now, now that we're wrapping up the year and I do some year end planning and self reflection and so forth. The good news is that being honest with yourself in this area is a great way to get feedback. So just by having to put together this episode, I'll be honest with you. I've gotten great clarity on where I'm missing the mark. And again, I also right now, this time of year, do a year end review where these kind of things surface anyway. But honestly, having again, this is. I'm doing it for me in a way, selfishly talking to you guys about it. I had to prepare this and that's been very, very helpful. Another thing I struggle with, and this will probably sound familiar to you, is the imposter syndrome. I used to struggle with this earlier in my career in the first few years of freelancing, but I still deal with it on occasion. It's not a paralyzing thing like it used to be back in the day. But frankly, I am not the hyper confident person you might think I am. At least not every day. I struggle with feeling like an imposter sometimes. You know, who do I think I am? Can I really help others there? Can I really take on a client who's at this level? Can I really help someone with X or Y or with Z? Can I really Put myself out there. Can I really create this? It's as a creator and again as a leader is I do struggle with that. Part of it comes from the fact that I no longer have writing clients as I mentioned a few minutes ago. But as I mentioned, you know, I quickly come back to reality because of the reasons that I that I mentioned. It's like, well, wait a minute. In a way I'm kind of in a better place right now to be able to help and coach and mentor others. But here's the thing again, you don't have to be in the fight every single day in order to be of value to others. I mean I not to go back to this, but it's an important point that I have to remind myself many times is some of the best coaches in professional sports never played the sport professionally. So I think we sometimes have this hang up that oh well, somebody needs to be in the business doing this right now long. And I have to wonder is that really the best person to coach, mentor and train you or is it better to work with someone who's got a different perspective because they're removed from it in a way and can look at the bigger picture and also has that feedback mechanism in terms of what's working and not working from many different data points as opposed to someone who's just too far deep into it to really see or to really get the right piece perspective. And again, I really have adopted satitude that I'm responsible to my clients, not for my clients. I can't do things for them. And that's actually worked really, really well. I work very well with, with clients who are responsible for the results, take ownership and have a very different mindset as opposed to people who think of coaching as outsourcing their problems to somebody else. That is not the kind of coaching I do. So just FYI, have you ever thought of working with me? And that kind of sounds like something you'd be looking for. If you're looking for someone to call you every Friday and just check up on you and see what you did. If you did what you're supposed to do and then just, you know, beat you up if you didn't. That's not me. And I'm also not the person who is going to babysit you or really feel directly responsible for your results. I'm responsible to you, not responsible for you. I help people get tangible results. I don't do feel good stuff. I work a lot of mindset, but I'm really, really proud of my track record and that's really helped me reset this imposter thing. At least keep it in check. But I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed to tell you that sometimes I feel like an imposter. Another thing I'm embarrassed about is shifting gears here a little bit. I don't read as much as I would like to. I've gotten better over the past two years by having designated. Designated reading times. But I still don't read anywhere near as much as I want to, Frankly. It's about 30 to 40 minutes in the morning, and I also read about 30 to 45 minutes at night in bed. But I'm not counting that because that's really just fiction. And I do it to just kind of decompress and get tired. It works really well. Well, for me. But I don't read professional development, personal development business books, which those books I absolutely love, but that I can't do at night. It just jacks me up like crazy. It gets my brain on overdrive, and I can't have that. I need to be able to fall asleep at a decent time. But I hate that about myself. I hate that I'm not reading as much as I'd like to, because I absolutely love to read. To me, a rainy. A cold rainy day, a fire in a great book, and a comfortable reading chair. That is a dream. I wish I. I could do that every single weekend in. You know, I think the problem really is me. I could do that, but I don't give myself permission to do more of it. The doer side of me is always bugging me to spend that time on more tangible tasks. I think, you know, there's this to do list and I got to work on that. I don't have time to sit here and read for an hour. As silly as it sounds. Just like I'm saying it right now, and it sounds ridiculous. As much as I love reading, that's something that. This is something that I'm paying more attention to because I want to spend more time on things that I enjoy. Yeah, so this is definitely a mindset thing, but it's also a habit thing. And the great thing about that is that there are simple formulas to develop solid habits. So this is very much a solvable problem. I think that's the good news there. Here's one that I hate talking about, and it's really embarrassing. I'm addicted to my phone. In fact, I want to eat my own medicine. From what I said earlier, I'm not going to say I am. I have phone addiction. Tendencies. I've developed this addiction over time and, and I think a lot of it, I think about why I do this. My phone is a source of instant gratification and I think that's for many of us, instant information on a random question. Oh, I wonder how is it going to rain today? I used to have to like, go somewhere and look that up or turn on the weather channel and wait for, you know, the next local weather update. I think it used to be like every eight minutes, right? You have to wait. Now everything is instant and you have a question about, I wonder what, you know, happened to this person. Right? I wonder what happened to this like, big hair, 80s band. And instead of letting the thought just kind of drift, like you act on it. I know I do. This is mindless stuff. But then the problem is. And that leads to, oh, let me check my email or let me check social media, you know, so it's not a good thing. Not something I'm proud of. I'm having to play little games with myself, as silly as it sounds. Putting my phone in a drawer for several hours, remove some social media apps, not subscribe to things like Instagram or. I don't download game. I don't play games on my phone. So thankfully I don't. I don't do that, those, those things because I got enough problems with it as it is. But it's still a struggle. And it's something I'm going to be very mindful about in 2019 and try a bit, little, little bit more of these little simple hacks that have been working and do more of that. It's going to entail new habits, new hacks and new tricks, but I think it's going to help me get much better at it. The other thing, for me, my big motivation is not just the. Well, I'll give you two motivators. One is I want to model good behavior for my kids. And I don't think I am, especially for my little one. And my little one sees me and, oh, dad, okay, you're on the phone or, you know, pay attention to me or I'm asking you something and I'm on my phone. You know, I hate that. So that's, that's the big one. The second one. This might sound a little weird, but it hit me a few weeks ago. So we had a, we had a neighbor in our neighborhood who she was, I want to say 37 years old, has a young kid, little girl, 7 years old, old, and she passed away. She had cancer. She beat the cancer the first time. And a year later, it came back and it came out. It came back with vengeance. And she lived six weeks after finding out. It was extremely sad. And it got me thinking about a lot of things, but one of the things that I was thinking about was, man, how would I feel if on my deathbed I started thinking about, you know, the limited time that I have with my kids, with my wife, with my family, and. And then I started thinking about all the time that I wasted on my phone and that I can't get back. And now that I'm. I have very limited time. We're talking hours or days. I can't get that time back. Time that I could have spent with them. Them. That. That's deep. And look, I'm not saying you got to go and live your day every day thinking about that, but it was a wake up call. It's a little bit of a thought exercise that got me thinking a little differently about the time that I spent on something like my phone. So putting it out there, I know it's. Gosh, Ed, did you really have to go there? I. I want to again, again, be completely honest with you and transparent and just share my. My soul and my heart with you. All right, so getting back into maybe a little bit. Something a little bit less emotional. My main love is starting and building things. So why is that embarrassing? Let me explain. So this is something I've admitted only to very close friends and I've never shared it publicly because I was afraid that you would take it the wrong way. So basically, my main love is not writing or coaching. My main love is starting and growing businesses or starting and growing a business. I get more thrill. And this is going to come off the wrong way, but I'm going to explain it. I get more thrill about just kind of trying new things. And of course, a bunch of them don't work, but then one of them does than I do about actually doing the writing or the coaching work. Now, that does not mean that I don't like writing or coaching. Not at all. I really, really like that stuff. Okay. And I love working with my clients, but I especially love my. My biggest love. If you had forced me to pick one or the other. It's just starting something and, you know, going through that struggle and then finally seeing it work. It's. I. I can't explain it. So I guess bottom line is I really enjoy writing and I really enjoy coaching. I think I'm really good at both. Probably even better at coaching than writing, frankly. But I'M even better at marketing and starting and building a business. Which in a way I'm kind of glad because what that tells me, and I might be wrong, but what that tells me is that if I couldn't do this for a living, for whatever reason, I. The skills that I do have and skills that I, I love using could be used elsewhere. And it would be a very lucrative thing if I did it the right way. So if I had to start from scratch, I could build a very different business in an entirely different industry. And I know I'm confident that I'd be very successful at it. And I think that's one of the things that, you know, with all the anxiety that I sometimes have and the stress and worry, that thought gives me a lot of comfort. Now, don't get me wrong and don't misunderstand me. I, you know, I love working with you. I love doing the show. I love giving you information that's going to help you and work for you. And I have no plans of, you know, really doing something different at this point. I sometimes think about if I couldn't do this, what would I do? Yeah, but that. I just wanted you to know that my main love is really kind of the thing behind what I do. I love and care about you, but man, I just love building things and I have since I was a kid and I want to share the story. You've never heard me tell this. I have actually quite a few stories from my childhood that prove this and show that, man, this has been a pattern for a long time. And now that I can look back in my life, I can connect the dots looking backward. So when I was seven years old old, I had to go do some tutoring in the summer. And I remember I had just turned 7, so I did some tutoring and the tutor was. And I had to go to her house and I met this kid who was actually my age, her oldest son was my age. And I noticed that he was running this candy store out of his garage and I thought that was the coolest thing. I never heard of that. Like a candy store in your house. That's awesome. And people actually come and buy. Oh yeah, everyone in the neighborhood, all the kids. That's amazing. He said, well, it's not that great. I'm actually just burnt out. I'm done. Now. Keep in mind we're talking 70 year olds talking. Okay. I said, well, what are you going to do with the candy you have left? And he said, well, I mean, he seemed to be really interested do you want to buy it? I said, heck, yeah, I want to buy it. How much you want for it? I actually bought this kid out, okay? I made the deal right there with him. And next time I came, I gave him money and I bought the inventory. He had his remaining inventory. And I went home and I told my parents what I did. And I don't remember a lot of the details, but my parents were very supportive, said, okay, here's what we're going to do. We're going to go to a wholesaler and, yeah, we'll beef this up because you only got a few boxes and we'll get a better assortment. And sure, we'll help you. We'll help you get started and help you draft a flyer so you can pass it around the neighborhood and, you know, get this going. And remember, it's summer, so, you know, we're home and from school. It was awesome. Well, the deal was, it was like the middle of the week and I couldn't wait. So you know what I did? I told him, that's great, but I'm going to get on my bike and I'm going to see what I can sell. And I sold that candy door to door that afternoon. It's crazy. Looking back, I'm like, where did I get that kind of crazy courage? I mean, I. But I was really excited about that. So, sure enough, I mean, I had a candy store and for several months, and I was just completely overloaded. I. I didn't have a calculator, so I remember having trouble giving people change because I had to do the math. I had just learned how to subtract and in school and carry numbers and. I mean, it was. It was insane. I had lines of people. And, you know, when I got tired of that, a few months later, I started making other stuff that I would sell. And to me, it wasn't about the money. It's never been about the money. Yes, money is important. Absolutely. Don't get me wrong, I'm not one of those people, but to me, it's about the fun. The fun of building something and helping others and adding value in some way and making their lives better. And then just seeing the joy that in other people's lives because of something you did. That, to me, is just a really cool thing. So. But yeah, I think it's. Now that I think about it, maybe it's not really embarrassing, but it's something that I had to get off my chest. And it's something that, if you're listening and even following my Stuff I want you to know about me. Okay. I was hesitant to bring it up. I think that I, I think in a way this, this gives me an advantage as a coach because I think if you can be really good at the business development and business growth thing, you can help others with, with the same thing as opposed to the craft itself, if that makes sense. The craft of whatever they're delivering. In this case, writing and copywriting. All right. I have one more thing that I wanted to admit and that is that I often yearn for a simpler business. I've gone from a one person freelance business to a high six figure business coaching and training business with a team of seven, if you can believe it. Again, they're not employees. They're all part time. They're all contractors. Crystal is, I mean, borders on part time, full time. We really consider her full time. But I guess the definition doesn't apply here because she's not an employee, she's a contractor. I hate that word, word contractor, by the way. To me, it's so cold and so generic and. But I wanted you to understand the designation. They're not employees. Okay. Again, my main love is launching and growing businesses. I'm super ambitious. So this is right up my alley, you know, this growth thing. I love my team. Honestly, I am so incredibly blessed to work with the people I work with. They are incredibly committed. They love this business. They love you, they love working with you. And they really believe in what I'm doing and how I'm helping my audience in my community. But I'm also prone to, and this might not be surprising based on what I've shared with you today, I'm also prone to this grass is greener thing. So when I was a solo business, I yearned for a bigger business with a team that I have a bigger business, more complex business. I often struggle with the complexity of all its moving parts. My team, again, they're amazing. They, they really make me look good. Okay. They take care of keeping things on track and running things smoothly. I couldn't ask to work with better people, but when things get hard, I often want to run away to a deserted beach, not let go of my team. No, not that. I just like, I wonder, oh, man, you know, isn't there an easier way? Like, could we just go back to just like simple basics, you know? And every business has its complexities and challenges. Okay, so this is, again, a lot of it is just the grass is greener thing. There's no perfect model or setup. The grass will always look Greener if you lose perspective and you're not careful. So I'm working on this stuff and identifying the complexities that I should address and then develop a healthier relationship with the complexities that are just part of business, period. Because I don't think there's going to be a business or a business model where you can just kind of like live at the beach and just work a four hour work week. I'm sure it exists. They're extremely rare. And frankly, and this may not be surprising to hear after what I've shared, that's not what I would want after a couple weeks at the beach. I would want to start something new, you know. So anyway, there you go. Eight things about me that I have been just dying to share with you at some point, but I've just been too embarrassed or I felt just really strange about sharing them with you. I just didn't know how or in what context or how to explain them. Maybe too guilty to take up an episode with them. I figured with this time of year being the way it is, maybe you can give me that opportunity. And hopefully you found some, some valuable nuggets here. Maybe you heard some things that resonated with you because they sound like you. Maybe you can maybe now have the context. Now you understand a little bit more about me and the person who's giving you information and advice and providing you with ideas. Now you understand maybe where they come from or why I give the advice that I sometimes give. So I don't know of anything you took away from this, but, but hopefully now you can see that. Look, I'm human. I struggle with many of the same things you struggle with. I'm a work in progress. I strive to get better every year, every month, every year. I'm willing to forgive myself for all my faults and shortcomings and so should you, frankly. And finally, I think it's important to be honest about where and how you're struggling. So take stock every year or every quarter, preferably of where you are and what you're struggling with. With. And because only then can you really begin to start addressing those issues. This has been Ed Gandhia. I hope you have a wonderful new year and a healthy, happy and prosperous 2019. Talk soon.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher.com.

In give me that opportunity and hopefully you found some valuable nuggets here. Maybe you heard some things that resonated with you because they sound like you. Maybe you can maybe now have the context. Now you understand a little bit more about me and the person who's giving you information and advice and providing you with ideas. Now you understand maybe where they come from or why I give the advice that I sometimes give. So I don't know of anything you took away from this, but hopefully now you can see that. Look, I'm human. I struggle with many of the same things you struggle with. I'm a work in progress. I strive to get better every year, every month, every year. I'm willing to forgive myself for all my faults and shortcomings. And so should you. You, frankly. And finally, I think it's important to be honest about where and how you're struggling. So take stock every year, or every quarter, preferably, of where you are and what you're struggling with, because only then can you really begin to start addressing those issues. This has been Ed Gandia. I hope you have a wonderful new year and a healthy, happy and prosperous 2019. Talk soon.

The High Income Business Writing Podcast is a production of B2B business launcher. Learn more at B2B launcher dot com.