The END: What I Learned About Fear, Leadership & Letting Go!

The big week that was in my life, in my personal life and in my life at Empire Blueprint, which is, I guess, one and the same. It's very hard when you are so absorbed and work becomes your life. And I'm happy for that. I don't believe in balance anyway. I'm so committed to the work I do that it's my magnificent obsession. And this week was one of the most difficult weeks for so many reasons, and I want to share them with you. First of all, I want to do this to get it off my heart because they've weighed on my heart. And I, again, if you've been watching any of this stuff, you know that I feel compelled to share certain things that either are good and I want you to learn from, or things that are bad. Not that I think anything's bad. It's a learning mistake. It's a learning experience. Sorry, we fall forward. We don't make mistakes. So I want you to take from what I've learned and not, and not do that. You are smart if you can learn from your own mistakes. You are wise, and I encourage you to be wise if you can learn from the mistakes of others. So today I aim to share with you some of the stuff that happened this week, the good, the bad, the ugly, how I feel about it. I think it's important. And then also getting through those feelings, showing what those feelings have revealed to me, what I do with it, and then how I move forward and how I keep showing up for my team. So we're going to walk and talk. We're just going to have a friendly chat, and I'm just going to let my mind run free. This week at EB was possibly one of the biggest weeks in, in the 2 years it's been around now. I was there before that. I found it on my own initially. I want to say in 2022, and then a year later I met the co-founder and we did it together. It came to an end this week. It came to an end this week, and it wasn't a bad ending. I think I described it to my team like a sad ending. And when I reflect on why I felt— which I'll share with you how I felt and why— and I look at the one lesson that I've brought to the team, and that is, please, if you're watching this, for anybody who hears this, for anybody who's felt it, Do not let fear hold you back from anything in life. Fear has a funny way of— I don't want to use the word manifesting, but I will. But let's use the word presenting. It's got a very interesting way of just showing up in the most odd little details that you don't even realize it's fear. You don't even realize why you do the thing. You'll be, you'll be at work and something will happen. You'll get a phone call and you'll all of a sudden feel different. And then I'll ask you, is there any fear? And you say, no, no, it's normal. And when I press the question with some of the team, I find that what they're feeling is an innate sense of fear, uncertainty, anxiety, anxiousness. If you let this stay inside of you, and we all have this, by the way. I mean, this is the most common phrase, I think, in the Bible. And I've read somewhere else 365 times we are told not to be afraid, to not fear. But it's such a human element, and it's something I want to talk about today, because fear single-handedly ended a beautiful relationship between me and my co-founder, which led to a sad ending and not a bad ending. How the fear presented for us in the workplace was, was so weird, so ugly, so icky. Sometimes one of us would come to the relationship, the co-founder relationship, with this amazing, brilliant idea. Imagine You're like so excited. And I remember this when I was married. I had first moved into the farm. I was newly married and the first sheep I ever had, who I gave a name, gave birth. Now you got to understand, this was JP 8 years ago. I was fitter, I was younger, I was more excitable. And I ran home. I literally, it was probably like a good 600 meters. I ran home. It was a Sunday morning. It's probably 7:30, just filled with joy. Like there's this little thing just being born. Like I'd never seen this. I never grew up on a farm. And I remember knocking on the window and my wife was asleep. I'm trying to wake her up, like, come on, you want to see this. And then I got that kind of shitty reaction that none of us like. She's like, yeah, whatever. I remember walking away deflated because I'd felt so much joy. I was up here on the joy scale and she was just like, yeah, whatever. That inside of me, I'm like, you know what, if that's the reaction I'm gonna get, which dropped how I felt and it shouldn't have, I'm just not gonna share that good news with you. Why should I run and like share excitement? I tried one time, I tried two times, a few times after that for different things in life and at the farm. And every time I would be happy, be excited, there would be something that would just say, you know what, it's not that big a deal. Now I want to take that lesson and map that into fear, into business. When I would come up with an idea or the other individual would come up with an idea for the workplace that would change the way we operated, we were going for gold. We're always going to go for gold at Empire Blueprint. When we do that, I've come in or he's come in at a higher level. And the worst thing that you can do, because it's based in fear or the fear of the unknown or rooted in anxiety or uncertainty, is if somebody comes excited with momentum and they're passionate about where they're going, what they're doing, and then you give them an apathetic response, which is one that doesn't really care. It says, "Yeah, whatever," or you use the words, "I don't care," or or you show that you're not interested, what you're telling that person is not to come to you with good news. What you're telling that person is, "Every time you're excited and you share something with me, I'm gonna shut you down." Now reality check, even if that's not the thought process or the intention, even if that's the nature of the beast which is fearful and critical and wants to figure out everything, and I understand this because I was this. I always wanted to make sure that I could plan my life that I knew what was going to happen. I had to be in control because fear of the unknown was hard for me. It's hard for most of us. That exact feeling, that exact emotion would ruin me over the next 2 years. For every time I wanted to share something good, every time I did something that I was proud of and say, "Hey, look at me, look at us, look what we're doing. Like, how fun is this?" I would get a less than enthusiastic response. Very much like the response that my wife gave me when the child was born, when the baby lamb was born. I came running, brimming with joy, like, hey, there's something new. This is the coolest thing ever. And I go, yeah, whatever. And then fast forward 8 years later, I find myself in that same situation. I come to work excited. I fly, I travel, I create opportunities. We build a team only to bring it forward to a team member, to a co-founder, someone who was so dear to me. For them to say, "Yeah, one time, two times, three times," and I just shut down. I felt that intentional or not, the individual, based on their own experiences and their own perception, which were rooted in fear— fear of the unknown, fear of trying to go to America, fear of the team growing, the uncertainty that existed, having to have answers to every single question— just meant that when I presented something that was supposed to be fun and lighthearted, Everything became too difficult, too tricky, too critical. If you're going through this and you're one of, one of two parties, be it in a work relationship or in life, where you're either the happy gung-ho one, the optimistic one, or you've got imbalance, the pessimist who doesn't mean to be, this is a difficult situation that is compromising, and I would say it's not in a good way. What it did to me was it shattered my confidence at my core when I had spent so many years in trying to build it. Because I thought, I believed every time I was coming up with an idea, not that all of my ideas are great by the way, but when I was coming forward with the sincerity of this is good, like I'm going to do it, full energy momentum, ready to go, let's take on the world, like we can do this, that kind of let's get together energy, it would just be robbed in an instant. And what that did was create an environment of I don't want to use the word resentment or upsetness, but it creates a shit environment of apathy where you no longer care to share the good news and they no longer care to hear it. So what starts happening is what we all know is drift. And there is drift in relationships in the personal sense, in the intimate ones. There's drift with friends, drift in the business sense. If you see this, if you feel this, address it as quickly as you can while the gap is small, because I'll tell you what happens is One of us stays this way or is increasing, but the other one's going at a completely different manner. And then what you have is something so vast, so big, that I can tell you the day and point which it happened. I remember saying to the individual, 'I love you, I care for you, I respect you, but the moment you said that, something happened to me.' I remember we spoke about it, but nothing changed. Now, you're supposed to have these conversations with genuine sincerity and care. You can't come in with an ego. You can't come in saying, "You suck, you're the worst, I'm the best, you did this, I did that." That's not how you have those conversations. We're in a loving, committed relationship. We're in a work relationship. You are my son, you are my friend, whatever that relationship is. If you value it, you owe it to yourself and to the other person to own what you feel, to say what you feel, to be transparent about it. Because if you don't, How will they know how to work with you? How will they know how to respond? How will they know what you are thinking? And if you are on the receiving end, it is your job. It is your beautiful duty, as I've come to call it, to listen. To listen with care. To listen with sincerity. To say, even if I disagree, even if I don't know what you're thinking, or I don't understand what you're feeling, or even if I think it's wrong, because I value you, I will listen and take it on board. Because I care about you, I will do all my best to put myself in your shoes. And this is a two-way street. I maintain that both the person speaking and the person listening should be actively partaking in this relationship, which says, I want what's best for you and I. You need to trust me on that. I've built the trust. You need to believe with me that what we're aiming for is possible. In my life, it was that I was here and my wife was here. I wanted to work and have a family, and I was working towards a goal. She just wanted to live a life that was her own. Now, I'm not saying that one is right or wrong, but the goal was different. We could not see eye to eye no matter what we did. When we would communicate, we were worlds apart. That only caused the breakdown of a marriage. Fast forward to now, 8 years later, I feel a bit foolish. It's like, have I not learned anything? It's a failed business relationship based on the fact that I should have been better at selection because I knew where the goal was. I should have been more stern in what I asked when I saw the problems that presented in the beginning. I shouldn't have stayed quiet out of respect so I don't offend the other person. Sometimes guys, we sit there and saying, because I like the girl, because I like the guy, because I respect my dad, I'm not gonna say what I think is offensive because I don't want to offend or hurt. We take it on ourselves that we're doing something good because we've stayed quiet, and we also believe that we haven't offended them. There's a way to do this. I'm not asking you to go out into the world and to be rude or forceful with what you say or think. What I am suggesting is you sit down with yourself and say, okay, for the greater good, if I share this truth in a direct manner which is filled with love, care, and respect, that doesn't aim to be driven by ego or undermine the character or the integrity, If I sit there and say, "I'm about to have an uncomfortable conversation with you because I care for you and our relationship," and you hold that as important and as a true value, then the basis of that relationship is you should be able to say anything within reason that is not aimed to be offensive. Be mindful, it may be rude and you may offend, but you are not to go in with the intentionality to be rude or to be hurtful or spiteful. That's what's wrong. If you say to the person, like I said to the individual, as I was crying, and I'm not ashamed of this, that person is a brother to me. The human in me died while I was saying the words, "I have failed you and you have failed this relationship, and I no longer wish to continue this journey." For 3 days, my team saw me down and out. I was shattered. One part of me, the work part, was sitting there saying, "Yeah, I got this. It's okay." And thank God that I am blessed with an amazing team who each checked up on me and who continue to this day They say, "Hey, are you okay?" And I always give them the same response. The brother and the human inside is absolutely shattered and mortified, and I take full responsibility for the failure that I contributed to. It's a failed relationship. But then I tell the team, "Okay, let's move on. We can't stay here. We owe it in honor of that person to learn from their mistakes, to not live in the shadow, to not live in their fear, to not let doubt Cloud our judgment of the possibility of who we are going to become and what we could achieve in life. We are on the way to becoming an overnight success story. Each one of us as a team member is on their own path of becoming their own best self. That's what makes us so cool. We're a bunch of awesome people who have found one another and said, "Hey, I like you. We're going in the same direction. Let's go." The sad part is when you have the team that's like that and there was a a partner or a co-founder who doesn't share that, and the team of the children, the team get torn. They look at one of us and say, but we're going there, and they look at the other one and say, but you're holding us back. The brother in me is still shattered. I still feel rude that maybe I offended him. I was telling him I want to end the relationship, but I was crying. I was crying because I know what the individual would feel. It broke my heart. However, I have to step on my heart, being aware of the line, the faint line that we walk as business owners and as brothers and as friends, and saying, I can take this much and it's okay. But there is that fine point. There is a fine line that exists that says, I am so sorry, but I can no longer continue because it's not only to the detriment of you, It's to the detriment of me. And when we entered this relationship, I promised you the very best version of myself. When I got with my wife, I said to her, "You're going to get the best of JP." It's not fair that over time I should become despondent and not responsive to her. Then I'm no longer fulfilling my vow and my commitment of being the best version of me. She got a diluted version over time. And it does no good to point the finger and say, "But you said that and I did this." The lesson: when you see something or you feel something that is wrong and you bite your tongue because it's the right thing to do, ask yourself, is it the right thing to do because I'm speaking out of anger? Am I gonna say something that I know is offensive? Is it the right time now? Or should I be mature? Should I be aware? Should I be mindful that if I was a person on the receiving end of this harsh, tough message, If I delivered it at the right time, in the right context, with love, care, and respect. If I approach a situation saying, I know that this is going to be hard and it's harder on me than it is on you, and I feel bad for saying it, but I can no longer hold it within. If I approach it in that manner, I wonder what would the outcome be? How much lighter would you feel? How much lighter would they feel? Or be it you'll go through a day or two of difficulty, But if there is trust and faith and honesty and respect within any relationship, and that is the basis on which we pride ourselves as humans, that I know that person, they are my ride-or-die, they are my rock, I am— we are solid. If we say these things and we hide from one another, what good do we do? And I can tell you, for me, it did no good. After 2 years or a year and a half of trying to do what is right, I didn't erupt. That would have been wrong. I wouldn't be me if I just erupted, "Walk with me." If I just erupted, it's wrong because I don't stand for any of that. But what I could no longer tolerate within myself is I saw something that no longer serves a purpose. It was breaking the team, it was slowing down progress, and I could no longer tolerate within myself that I was staying quiet. I called it out for what it was. I actually didn't have any preconceived idea on what may happen next. There was a part in me that was hoping the next day the individual would come to me and say, "Fuck you! Fuck you for saying that. You offended me. Fuck you for hurting my feelings, and I'm going to show you that you're wrong." There was that part in me that said, "I really hope that this person will just come out and say, 'You have offended me so deeply that I just want to prove you wrong. That's not why I said the thing, but I was hopeful. I said, I wonder if what I have said is so bad, and I didn't intend it to be hurtful or painful, although it was. I wonder if what I said is so bad that it drives so hard inside that person that they would come and say, fuck you, you're right, I don't like it when you're right, I'm going to show you. And I would have hugged that individual and said, yes, please prove me wrong. I wanted to be proven wrong. I wanted the chance not only to redeem, if you will, but also at redemption, for I took part in the broken relationship. However, the individual defaulted to the old way of thinking, to which I said, my dear friend and brother, have I taught you nothing? I have spent a year and a half with you. You have been my most prized relationship. Have you learned nothing after all this? Why is it that when it got hard Instead of rising up to the occasion, you chose to default back to how you were. I said that fundamentally is the problem, that despite everything we have been through, despite you seeing the power of belief, the power of faith, and the will to continue that I have shown you, and I have been there for you, and you have been for me, that when I said to you it's getting tough, I no longer wish to continue in this manner, it pains me that you should say 'You're right. It's not good enough. I'm done.' When I heard this answer, I cried like a child, to which he consoled me. And I said to him, 'I could have taken anything from you. I wanted to hear that even if I was right or wrong, it wasn't a matter of me being right or wrong. I wanted to hear that you're willing to fight for the relationship, that you have learned, that I have shared with you, that we have something together that says 'You know what? That's true. Everything you said, again, I don't want to swear, but fuck you, man. Like, that's painful because it's true, because the truth hurts, and it sucks, and I no longer want to stay there.' I was hoping that inside the person would say, 'That conversation was so bad and so hurtful that you have inspired me or fueled my rage,' whatever that word is, 'that would spark me to continue to go on so I could be better.' for you, for the team, for my family, for my children, to be that role model, to be somebody I can be proud of. When he uttered those words saying, "I can no longer do this and I have failed," I crumbled because that failure was my responsibility. It was my beautiful duty and remains to this day with the rest of the team to lead them in a way that is filled with love, care, and respect, to show them that they can live a different life, that they can believe different, that if they think, work, and pray, life is different. To share with them the goods and the bads and to be there as a rock and a support for them no matter what would come their way. Telling them to chase their dreams and that I would be there to support them. Sometimes even at our expense. The guy holding the camera now has the plans to leave in 6 months, to which is hard for me to accept because I've just found gold. Has any of you ever found gold and it's been so good You don't want to part with it. But then you say, I understand for the greater good and for what I stand for. Let it go, and if it comes back, it's yours. If anything, what it's done is encouraged and inspired me to be so goddamn good that they wouldn't leave, to create an environment that says, hey, anything you want that the world could offer, why can't we do it together? That's the kind of leadership that us leaders, that us men need to put out into the world. It's not one that says, I'm down and out, I failed, I'm done. No, that's not true. Yes, that's life and it sucks, but you didn't fail, you fell forward. You, sir, should learn to continue. You have people reliant on you. You have people who need you. It is not enough to just say, "I'm down and out, what should I do?" Do not throw your hands up in despair or in defeat. It's a part of life. Rise to the challenge. Find a group of people who love and care about you. Work with them, do fun things with them, spend time together, be open, be sincere. Be it in your love life, be it in your friendships, in your work life. It doesn't have to be different. You don't have to put on a different persona and have put on a different act. In all of my glory and in all of my flaws, I portray the one message to the world, which is that's the path that I'm on. If you like it, great. If you don't, fine. Each to their own. When you do that in the world time and again, The universe conspires to give you what you want. Really, probably I stand corrected, what you need, because what you want and what you need are very rarely the same thing. And sometimes when you get what you want, it actually works out against you. But for me, it's been true that when I set out on a mission, when I dedicated my life to helping men and to working and to providing opportunities with tech and AI in the old industry of manufacturing. And people thought I was absolutely nuts, to which I still think maybe they're right sometimes. And I said, I'm going to do all that from a farm. It's a weird concept and it's a beautiful one because we're here now and we're doing this. I'm looking for Emma because everyone loves Emma. I don't know where she is, but the lesson that keeps coming out is just over there and I'll get you to look there for me. There's a bunch of trees, and under one of those trees I sat there. It's hard for me to look at the camera sometimes for this stuff, but I'm gonna do— I got this, I can do this. I sat there, there was a stump, and I had a rope, and I'm like, is this the end? Like, my life had freaking turned to shit. Like, I was done. I was down and out. So when I talk to you about fear, when I talk to you about failure, I'm not preaching at you like It's something I read in a book, or I heard a story once. There's a reason I carry my cross wherever I go. There's a reason that these things I'm so passionate about. There's a reason that I'm taking responsibility for the failure of a partnership. Because when I sat there and decided to throw in the towel, I was down and out like he felt. I was at that stage. But I would refuse to believe that it would end. I prayed. I prayed more than I've ever prayed. And I dared to believe different. I dared to believe that there was a better life, that I could create a better life, and that it wasn't about me, that there had to be more to it. Because I couldn't just understand the concept of my life was just my life and nothing else, no one else mattered. How I got out of the situation, out of the rut, out of the overwhelm, distress, whatever you wish to call that. Let's call it a dark period for 6 months, was setting my sights on something bigger. When I set my sights on helping other men, when I set my sights on helping, be it many of manufacturing or young men who wanted jobs, men who wanted opportunities and experiences for tech and AI, men like my brother who felt lost at life because life didn't give them the opportunity they felt or that they were entitled to or deserved. It pained me. It pained me to see the discomfort that it would cause other men. So I took it upon myself to say, okay, well, if my life sucks too and other men are having the same complaints in different ways, or something's fundamentally flawed, why can't I be the one to fix it? I didn't ever think to set out on a mission to change the world. That's a bit too grand. But turns out, I guess I'm doing it in my own little way without realizing. I didn't even set out to create like a legacy. All I set out to do was to live my best life and that anybody that would come around me— farming, personal life, work life, manufacturing, different countries— anybody that I would meet, anybody that I would see, is that I would approach the relationship with genuine sincerity, that I would wish to seek to learn, that I would look for opportunities and take them. No matter the outcome, I will always do what would make for the most epic story. So if God ever gave me children and then I was blessed to have grandchildren, when I was an 80-year-old man sitting down there peeling oranges like my grandfather used to do for me— that's the 80-year-old version of me, weird to think about it, but I guess I'll get there— and then 8-year-old grandson, this is where my head goes from an epic story. I wonder if I sit down there on those logs with Emma, well, Emma's kids I guess, because she'll be gone unfortunately by then. But 80-year-old me, 8-year-old grandson at the farm talking, and he says, "Granddad, tell me about your life." I don't want to give him a life that was filled with fear, and I smiled through it because behind the smile was so much pain for such a long period of my life. I don't want to give him a story that says, "Oh well, you know, I never came to the farm because I was scared I couldn't afford it," or I gave up on a job or relationship because I was scared it wasn't going to work. I don't want to have a life that had stories of I shoulda, I coulda, I would have. I've heard those before from my own grandfather, who I love so dearly. And he said to me, his dying words were, JP, if you see an opportunity, take it. Don't forget you're a man and the world needs men. And so not only do I owe it to my own grandfather, who was a great teacher and somebody who I looked up to and still look up to, even though he's not with us. But when my life got hard, I took that lesson, I took that reminder, and in everything I did, I said, okay, I'm gonna get to 80, and then that's if I'm lucky, and then at some point it's the end, and I'm gonna be forgotten anyway, and the farm's gonna go on because it's been here for like hundreds of years before me. And you see that, you look at the trees, you look at the nature, you're like, I am this much, I got 100 acres, I'm like, I'm this tiny, and Melbourne City's over there. I'm like, I am nothing but like a dot in life and a speck. And so am I going to live that little bit of a life in fear? Am I going to hide away from the world? Am I not going to do what I love with people who I love? And say, screw it, let's see how far this thing goes. And it's like, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to do what used to hold me back because the medicine is the poison if you can take it for long enough. So sitting with the fear, sitting with the failure for long enough, saying, "You bitch, you aren't gonna get me. I see you, my fear. I feel you, my pain." I'm not ignorant or naive of the fact that I'm human and that it's okay or normal to feel those things. But what I'm not okay with doing is staying there, keeping me down, let it weigh me down, which affects everything in life. When 80-year-old me has that beautiful blessing to share with a group of young men what became of my life, and I share stories, I don't want to share with them a life that, "Ah, it was mediocre. I did a 9 to 5 and I got married and it wasn't good, but I settled." I want to say that no matter what, I gave it all I had. I want to point to that tree and said, "That may have been the death of me, and when I die, bury me under it, by the way." But when I chose to keep living and I made a commitment to live fully, it knew no bounds, it knew no limits. It was life all out. I could go on this topic forever. It's so dear to me. If my team are watching this, and I know you're gonna watch this because you've all seen how important it's been for me, I want you to know that in honor of the individual, there's one thing we need to learn: that fear should not hold us back from anything we want in life, that we should use fear use fear as fuel to feed the fire to drive our purpose and our passion. That we shouldn't be scared of what may come, that we should approach it with curiosity like an 8-year-old child would and say, "I wonder what happens if I do that." Team, YouTube, family, anyone watching this, fear exists for each one of us at different levels. Whether you call that or not, I'm telling you there's two things that exist in life. The light and the dark. Choose to live a life of lightness. Choose to do the thing that's always held you back because if you can do that, as cliché as it is, that's what's going to set you free. I have a saying and that is, "Come what may." Actually, I think I probably stole it from Moulin Rouge, but it's so true. It's like, "Hey, heck, whatever happens happens." But I do know how to end these videos and so I'm going to do it. As always, Corporate Cowboy, think your hardest. Work your best and know, but like really, really know, just like I knew when I was praying under that tree, that God will take care of the rest. I'll see you all next time.