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Ignore the Mirage: The True Cost of Entrepreneurship · Big Talk About Small Business

0:08
SPEAKER_03: Eric and I are back.
0:10
SPEAKER_03: He's got his glasses on, so he's reading the suggested show notes for us that we'll probably pay zero attention.
0:18
SPEAKER_03: I'm sorry.
0:19
SPEAKER_03: We are back here today.
0:22
SPEAKER_03: Um, just Eric and me, no guests right now, talking about Eric.
0:31
SPEAKER_03: Small business.
0:31
SPEAKER_03: Smallbusiness.com.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: Um, so yeah, we're back.
0:36
SPEAKER_03: We are having a conversation out back.
0:38
SPEAKER_03: We're just gonna keep I just want to come yeah, I just want to keep complaining.
0:41
SPEAKER_01: Can we yeah, complain?
0:43
SPEAKER_01: Complain away.
0:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, like I'm just like I'm just um I think we're spoiled.
0:50
SPEAKER_01: We have spoiled ourselves in the workplace.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Even I'm talking about myself, to the point of ridiculousness.
1:00
SPEAKER_01: To where like I wonder if there's do I have are you talking about my 20-year-old?
1:06
SPEAKER_03: Talk about ridiculousness.
1:09
SPEAKER_03: Just got back from like 35 days in France, but doesn't think she needs to put her dishes in the dishwasher.
1:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, somebody should do that for me.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: I am talking about things like that.
1:20
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about my own attitude about why am I tired at the end of the day?
1:25
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: Should I be?
1:26
SPEAKER_01: Is there something wrong?
1:27
SPEAKER_01: Am I doing the right thing?
1:29
SPEAKER_01: Is there a better life?
1:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, like have I made the right choices in life?
1:34
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to work so hard.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: I shouldn't work hard.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: My stress level's so high.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: I need vacations.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
1:44
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is, is I'm so freaking incredibly spoiled.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: Because if we rewind about a, I don't know, 50 years.
1:52
SPEAKER_01: Like what's 50 years?
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Just rewind 10 years for us.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, go on.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but let's go further back to when shit was really hard.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: Like when you had to back in the day when you had to be really your everyone was an entrepreneur.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: Because if you didn't find a way to freaking make sure that you had you were growing food or you were selling products so you could buy the food and all that type of stuff.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: We had none of these great marketing vehicles available back then.
2:20
SPEAKER_03: No, no internet, just take all that out of it completely.
2:24
SPEAKER_01: Take the internet, take it.
2:25
SPEAKER_03: Nobody can find you now.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Right.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
2:28
SPEAKER_01: And you had you were desperate because real life is surviving.
2:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, and we've gone so far past that that where you have to do the right things, you have to raise the right capital, you have to have the right experts in the room, you have to do all the right clicks and all this really meticulous right things you gotta do in order to create this perfect ecosystem of a business.
2:51
SPEAKER_01: You know, but when we the reality is, if you look at any business, it's a lot of hard work on a daily basis.
2:57
SPEAKER_01: And most people won't do it.
2:59
SPEAKER_03: That's it.
2:59
SPEAKER_03: Okay, that's the truth.
3:00
SPEAKER_03: The grinding, like you said, most people won't do that.
3:03
SPEAKER_03: They give up, they give up, they just give.
3:06
SPEAKER_03: I mean, to me, the goal of any business, I say this all the time, is survive long enough till something good happens.
3:12
SPEAKER_03: You have to be geared to survival, yeah.
3:15
SPEAKER_03: And you gotta get your people to understand that.
3:18
SPEAKER_03: You're not they're not like entitled to survive.
3:21
SPEAKER_03: Do the they okay, they gotta make it survive.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: You just slapped it on the freaking head, man.
3:28
SPEAKER_01: The the amount of attention and time that that I'm required to on my daily basis to just get to communicate, to get first, I have to get out of my own head about my own whininess and my own lack of vision and my own lack of paradise.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: My my own my own thought process of paradise that has been infused upon me by every love song and every stupid TV show that I watch, every Netflix binge, every social media post, everything that I every nice car that drives by.
4:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, every nice every business that's blowing up, like this is the new greatest business, to every chamber event where you got somebody on stage giving advice.
4:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, all these things that appear or every class that's being held by the perfect theoretical principle that that's the right way to do things.
4:24
SPEAKER_03: And and you know, and you're not doing all those things.
4:27
SPEAKER_03: Uh it's funny you say that because the other night, night before last, my wife turns on her show that she likes shrinking it.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: I don't know if you probably Yeah, yeah, yeah.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:36
SPEAKER_01: Harrison Ford in it.
4:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:38
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:38
SPEAKER_03: And so anyway, all right, they're dealing with their stuff, whatever.
4:42
SPEAKER_03: It's actually funnier this time season.
4:45
SPEAKER_03: It was kind of depressing before.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: But it's like all the problems these people have, okay, none of them's related to how am I gonna get the money to pay for this?
4:55
SPEAKER_03: What they're just living in LA in their beautiful houses.
4:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, nobody ever talks or thinks about where the money's gonna come from.
5:03
SPEAKER_03: They all just have to do whatever they want to do.
5:06
SPEAKER_03: So all their problems are these like trivial little things.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
5:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there's an emotional problem with baggage from the past.
5:14
SPEAKER_03: I was thinking, like, can you imagine how nice life would be if that was all your issues were?
5:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, why in some ways we are living that stupid life?
5:24
SPEAKER_01: Well, we could live that stupid life probably easier if if we chose it.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: But I think that's the confusing part to me as an entrepreneur.
5:33
SPEAKER_01: It's like at some, like I literally am wrestling with myself going, why do I have so many problems?
5:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but the reality is that it's supposed to be like that.
5:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
5:43
SPEAKER_01: And if I would quit thinking that there's actually something better wrong with that, yeah.
5:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that there's something wrong with that, yeah.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: And I get led to believe by others or by other you know, fabrications on the front end that everything's fine.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:57
SPEAKER_01: And I start introspecting, going, what am I doing wrong?
6:01
SPEAKER_01: And I'm really not doing that.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: You're right.
6:03
SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's about me learning and growing on a daily basis and changing and adapting.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: And well, that's why hiding.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: I could build a case and say you're better off to just ignore all pop culture and social media of all media.
6:17
SPEAKER_03: No, 100% you know what I mean.
6:19
SPEAKER_03: Like, don't don't go to movies, don't watch TV shows, don't watch the news, don't um get online, don't look at Facebook, don't look at Instagram, whatever you do, don't look at Twitter, whatever, X.
6:31
SPEAKER_03: Okay, because all that stuff out there, all it's doing is confusing you and making you dissatisfied.
6:39
SPEAKER_01: It is.
6:40
SPEAKER_01: It is, and and I and here's the crazy thing, Mark, is I haven't watched the news for 20 plus years.
6:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't get on social media, I do watch goofy Netflix comedies.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: Like I watched either Arrest of Development, The Office, Parks and Recreation, or Superstore.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
6:57
SPEAKER_01: I know you're you know, or I've been on St.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: Dennis now, this medical, you know, goofy sitcom.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: And I just watch these routinely dumb things that have really no reality to them.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: But I'm but but even from other people, yeah.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: You know, there's always something, and I get it from other people, whether it's my team, my daughters, right?
7:19
SPEAKER_03: Other folks that I'm around that have-I love it when the kids tell me somebody else, like one of my kids said, Well, Lily just got a new Bronco.
7:26
SPEAKER_03: Are you buying me a new car?
7:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, No, I'm not buying you a new car.
7:30
SPEAKER_03: Your BMW is sitting out there, is fine for you right now.
7:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
7:34
SPEAKER_03: Okay, you know what I mean?
7:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but yeah, the expectations are just like there's a weird thing happening here, Cycle, when I drive down the road, or I hear about Seven Brew and how successful and great it is.
7:46
SPEAKER_03: Right, greatest, fastest growing franchise or one of them.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, but that's all over the place.
7:51
SPEAKER_01: But but it but it builds a mirage in my brain to think then what am I, why am I not blowing up like that?
7:59
SPEAKER_01: You know, and I've even had a company that was blowing up, but it happened like all this, and people ask, like, how did you do it in business?
8:07
SPEAKER_01: And what's the cre the key to success?
8:08
SPEAKER_01: And how did you have to write a really great performer or a great strategy?
8:12
SPEAKER_01: And I just start putting all this pressure on to where really I'm in exactly where I'm supposed to be, and as long as I'm fighting on a daily basis, and when I get done with work, I'm not discouraged from that day, you know, and thinking that there's something I should have done that I'm not doing well, you know.
8:32
SPEAKER_01: You can do those things, you're doing okay.
8:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
8:34
SPEAKER_01: Are you fighting?
8:35
SPEAKER_01: And and if and if we rewound back to I guess this is my point, to relate this to per to the primitive world prior to all this flashy shit where 90% of everybody can afford a really nice car now.
8:50
SPEAKER_01: Like you like it's almost like obsolete that you like you know, you drive down the road and everybody's got a nice damn car.
8:57
SPEAKER_03: When I started my my business, that's Zwai Group today, that's in its now 30 what is it, 30, um started in in eighty eight.
9:12
SPEAKER_03: So what how how old is that now?
9:15
SPEAKER_03: That'd be 38 going on its 39th year.
9:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:19
SPEAKER_03: I bought myself a Dodge Colt for 200 bucks.
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay, now can you imagine that today?
9:24
SPEAKER_03: No, you wouldn't be cut.
9:26
SPEAKER_03: A rusty Dodge Colt with a bad clutch, everybody.
9:31
SPEAKER_03: And call you a failure.
9:33
SPEAKER_03: For 200 bucks.
9:34
SPEAKER_03: I was only I just I felt like er I wanted to take the least amount of money I could out of my company.
9:40
SPEAKER_03: And that was all I was interested in is like just how cheap can I possibly be to throw the gas into the thing that's gonna make us money.
9:48
SPEAKER_01: You won't be taken seriously as an entrepreneur if you do that today.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, the standards people have today are just completely ridiculous.
9:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:56
SPEAKER_03: New I got students buying their first house, it's like 2,700 square feet with a three-car garage in a gated community.
10:03
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, what?
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's your first house?
10:06
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
10:07
SPEAKER_01: And it but it does is it takes out the reality of survivorship out of the equation.
10:13
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
10:13
SPEAKER_01: But back in the day, like if you weren't gonna eat that night, if you know we hear our folks telling us about not having food on the table every night.
10:21
SPEAKER_01: But that's a sense of true reality that we're all fighting, and you don't look at somebody else or compare yourself.
10:27
SPEAKER_01: You didn't have if back in those days it didn't seem like you might have had a few really wealthy people that didn't have to fight like that every day, but they were living way off, and you didn't have to look at it in the face every day.
10:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, that's such a good point, right?
10:41
SPEAKER_01: But today I'm looking at all the riches in the world every single day, and they all look great because like sitting out in the back patio here.
10:49
SPEAKER_03: We're over there looking at pinnacle.
10:51
SPEAKER_03: It's a great example, right?
10:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
10:53
SPEAKER_03: And then the$200,000 car rolls through the security gate.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: No problem, you know.
10:58
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's got a freaking BMW, a Mercedes, a Porsche, or Lexus, or something nice, yeah, right?
11:06
SPEAKER_03: And business is a lot of it, is such a I mean, just like our guests we had last week talking about marketing and advertising, it's a sacrifice.
11:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
11:15
SPEAKER_03: You either use the money for personal consumption as a business owner, or you throw it back into the company.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: There you go.
11:22
SPEAKER_03: If you want to be successful, you better be throwing more of it back in than taking it out.
11:27
SPEAKER_01: That's it, man.
11:28
SPEAKER_01: And you better be living poor, scraping by check floating, not cutting, not doing any legal things, yeah, but floating around like you're gonna sacrifice.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And that's the that's the pre- that's my problem.
11:39
SPEAKER_03: Like you're still doing that today.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: No, and me too.
11:42
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I got a business where I make less money than the lowest paid employee in the place, the guy who drives the shit around.
11:49
SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
11:51
SPEAKER_01: It's just it's sacrifice.
11:53
SPEAKER_01: It is, and I guess my point is it's like if you're listening to an entrepreneur, and and I'm even I'm self-consoling myself, which is the really the biggest point of this show.
12:02
SPEAKER_01: I get to see you every week.
12:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, therapy, I'm self-therapy.
12:06
SPEAKER_01: Mutual therapy.
12:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, 100% because we're so isolated in this world of war, yes, and battles on a daily basis, and I and I look, but everything else that I'm looking at seen is seemingly much better ran.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know.
12:21
SPEAKER_01: They have more, they have more money, yeah, you know, everyone's happier, you know, and I've and I'm and I like I I reflect on what I'm doing, going, what the freaking hell's wrong with what I got going on?
12:33
SPEAKER_01: Right.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: You know, but the reality is that that is the reality.
12:37
SPEAKER_01: It's like if we're really in a if you're in entrepreneurship, that's why we're so unique, Mart.
12:42
SPEAKER_01: Is that if you're truly an entrepreneur in today's time, you are fighting, you are on the hourly basis having multiple problems coming at you.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: You're always constantly having to duck and dodge.
12:55
SPEAKER_01: And when you get done with that day, that is what you were supposed to be doing versus what I see a professor doing, you know, at a university that's got a perfect life that's always in balance and things are so perfectly laid out, you know, which is not reality.
13:15
SPEAKER_01: No, it's uh although it is for them.
13:17
SPEAKER_03: Maybe someone's sure, you know, maybe they were smart to take that path.
13:21
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.
13:21
SPEAKER_01: Oh, well, 100%.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: It could be a lot less stressful.
13:24
SPEAKER_03: But we can't do that.
13:25
SPEAKER_03: No, we can't do that.
13:26
SPEAKER_03: It we're not wired that way.
13:28
SPEAKER_03: We're gonna do what we do, and we're gonna be out there betting it all, basically.
13:34
SPEAKER_03: Let's be honest.
13:35
SPEAKER_01: No, 100%.
13:36
SPEAKER_03: Okay, and then grinding away until we make it happen.
13:40
SPEAKER_03: And he's just not gonna give up.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna die in the streets, blood, blood, but but I mean, I think like I guess, you know, like because there's entrepreneurship has been fabricated into this, like everyone should be an entrepreneur.
13:56
SPEAKER_03: Like, what's your startup?
13:58
SPEAKER_03: I got asked that just the other day.
13:59
SPEAKER_03: Should everybody be an entrepreneur?
14:01
SPEAKER_03: I said everybody has the potential to be, but should everybody be?
14:05
SPEAKER_03: No.
14:05
SPEAKER_03: Not if you want a really nice life.
14:07
SPEAKER_03: I mean, yeah, it's not for everybody.
14:09
SPEAKER_03: And you want security and all that kind of stuff, right?
14:12
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like it's but even that I still think ultimately, really, we have more security.
14:17
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we can we're more in control of 100%, okay, than we would be if we work for corporate America.
14:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but if your perspective of security is you're gonna get paid and you're gonna have vacation, you're gonna have a house like you're screwed.
14:29
SPEAKER_03: No, absolutely not.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: You know, but we're painting a picture.
14:32
SPEAKER_03: I don't even have time to plan my vacation right now.
14:35
SPEAKER_03: I'm supposed to have one like end of July, beginning of August.
14:38
SPEAKER_03: We do it every year.
14:40
SPEAKER_03: I haven't even thought about it.
14:42
SPEAKER_03: I don't have the time.
14:44
unknown: I know with you.
14:46
SPEAKER_03: Uh you know, I'm just trying to get it.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: But you know, I guess, Mark, my complaint is, and maybe the listeners on the show will feel the same way, is there's so much bullshit going on in the world and all these freaking organizations and these opportunities when to for entrepreneurship and all that stuff, and there's really not because most of it's is full of crap.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: Like when you put a group of a bunch of investors together, they got you know half a million dollars thrown into a pot and they call themselves somebody that a entrepreneur should be able to relate with and they can give advice to.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: That is the absolute wrong audience for me.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: But that's really what most of it's composed of when you look at these accelerators and these incubators, the ecosystem, the ecosystem is is absolutely the opposite of what entrepreneurial life is.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: Then you can't go to the universities and get any of that.
15:40
SPEAKER_01: You can't go to the corporate.
15:41
SPEAKER_03: I try to give that to my students.
15:42
SPEAKER_01: No, I know you do, but you're right.
15:44
SPEAKER_01: You come in as a guest speaker and you definitely do.
15:46
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
15:47
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:47
SPEAKER_01: But you can't look at corporate organizations and get and get the support, the, the, uh, well, the reality of what I face on a daily basis.
15:59
SPEAKER_03: Even in corporate America, it's, I mean, that's interesting you say that because here's a here's a conundrum.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: We all know the people who really succeed in corporate America, they work their ass off too.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: Oh, big time.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: They don't go home and shut down.
16:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:12
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
16:13
SPEAKER_03: They commit themselves, they work really, really hard.
16:16
SPEAKER_03: How many people do you think get hired in corporate America where they go, your working hours are nine to five, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
16:23
SPEAKER_03: But in reality, let me tell you what it is.
16:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:25
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
16:26
SPEAKER_03: Right, right.
16:26
SPEAKER_03: You if you are going to be working from the moment you get up until you go to bed seven freaking days a week.
16:34
SPEAKER_03: If you want to succeed, yeah.
16:36
SPEAKER_03: If you really want to get ahead here, how many companies are honest enough to actually say that?
16:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:41
SPEAKER_03: Very rare.
16:42
SPEAKER_03: Instead, they'll talk all about their benefits and their comp time and their paternity leave policy and everything else that's really counter to what it takes to ultimately be at the top.
16:55
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: Because when you get at the top, you're making the decisions and you have to think strategically and contemplate things and deal with the problems.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: And I guess that's you know another part of my therapy in the sense of where, you know, like it the rubber meets the road in the organization, in the startup, like the companies that that that we're working in right now that we own.
17:18
SPEAKER_01: Right?
17:18
SPEAKER_01: To where and you brought up a circumstance of why did we post a certain video when if somebody would stop and think about the what's the value that I'm driving to the market and to my client, and I'm responsible for being the person that's gonna output something to make this better.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:41
SPEAKER_01: Versus I just need to get this posted.
17:44
SPEAKER_03: I did my task.
17:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
17:47
SPEAKER_03: I need a short video.
17:49
SPEAKER_01: I did it and I posted it.
17:51
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
17:52
SPEAKER_01: And those micro decisions, because we have this fabricated idea in our mind that life is really getting off at five o'clock so that I can binge watch shows and be entertained.
18:06
SPEAKER_03: Work versus life, not work is life.
18:12
SPEAKER_01: And we we don't have to survive, so there's really nothing.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: So back to my my my statement.
18:20
SPEAKER_01: If you rewind and you were back in the 1920s and you didn't have mashed potatoes on the dinner plate tonight, would you in your brain go, I'm gonna start, but you could work to the end to get your mashed potatoes.
18:35
SPEAKER_01: Would you stop at five o'clock and sacrifice not having mashed potatoes on the plate tonight?
18:41
SPEAKER_02: No.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: You wouldn't.
18:42
SPEAKER_01: No.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: And so there's an intrinsic prime uh primal instinctual thing in our being to recognize life and death, hunger, and survival, but we have completely removed that from sus from the world.
18:59
SPEAKER_01: And and that's what we have today, and that's what's happened to our perspective as the workforce, is my point.
19:05
SPEAKER_03: You know, you raise an interesting point if you think about all this, and then you think about the people who are in that workforce who want to start their own business, okay, are very ill equipped.
19:18
SPEAKER_03: If that's been their whole life up to that point, they're totally ill-equipped.
19:24
SPEAKER_01: That's it, man.
19:26
SPEAKER_01: You know, they don't know, they don't know what they're about to come into.
19:29
SPEAKER_01: But I think you know, and that's what I think that's when I'm my that's kind of my point when I'm when I'm talking to the audience on this show and we're talking to entrepreneurs, or maybe you want to be one, you know, like you're a manager and you want to go onto entrepreneurship, or you're in the middle of it and you're like, holy shit, look at my life.
19:45
SPEAKER_01: Like what I'm trying to prevent in this show is from people thinking that there's just something wrong.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: When there's all when honestly, everything's right.
19:54
SPEAKER_03: When that's the way it's supposed to be.
19:56
SPEAKER_03: That's what you have to do.
19:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:57
SPEAKER_03: I was talking to my wife the other day, you know, and we have five daughters, okay?
20:02
SPEAKER_03: And every single one of them is highly motivated.
20:05
SPEAKER_03: And I said to her, I go, Do you know how lucky we are?
20:08
SPEAKER_03: Think about that.
20:09
SPEAKER_03: If they weren't that motivated, how do we get them motivated?
20:14
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the 20-year-old, I mean, I was just griping about her, but truthfully, she's got a job as an intern at a magazine group, which is going to keep her as long as she wants to be there.
20:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:25
SPEAKER_03: She just got another job yesterday working for one of my students where she can work any hour she wants.
20:30
SPEAKER_03: She goes, I love it.
20:31
SPEAKER_03: I can work at night, I can work whatever.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: She hopes to get her job back at the coffee shop at on campus when campus starts up again.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: She's got her clothing business, where they were all at a sale this weekend.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: Awesome.
20:43
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
20:44
SPEAKER_03: And I'm and then, you know, my 35-year-old, she makes six figures plus in her job, but yet she still has another job.
20:51
SPEAKER_03: She's doing wedding planning on the side.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: She doesn't need to do that.
20:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:55
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
20:56
SPEAKER_03: They're motivated.
20:57
SPEAKER_03: I'm so lucky.
20:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
20:59
SPEAKER_03: Because if they're not, I mean, you know, I had to live on what I made when I got out.
21:05
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it it just, I think it starts really early.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: And I think a problem, too, a lot of us have is our affluence as a culture, as a group of people, has led to this situation that you're talking about.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we're too easy on our kids, we give them too much, and their expectations are then unrealistic.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: It is totally.
21:31
SPEAKER_01: And then and and what also because the ill-equipped.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and the unrealistic expectations, therefore, put in, I think, I I would just call it some sort of depression.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: Built in dissatisfaction and depression.
21:45
SPEAKER_01: Dissatisfied, and then you're depressed a little bit.
21:48
SPEAKER_01: When the reality is, is that like I guess I'm going, I'm jogging through my mind what happens to me at the end of the day.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: And I and there's two perspectives I can have.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: One perspective I can have will Make it worse.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:01
SPEAKER_01: The other perspective will clear the air.
22:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: The worst perspective is a business.
22:07
SPEAKER_01: I had a shitty day.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
22:08
SPEAKER_01: There's all these problems.
22:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm freaking always fighting.
22:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm worn out.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: I'm tired.
22:14
SPEAKER_01: And it shouldn't be this way.
22:17
SPEAKER_01: The other perspective is I need to get mashed potatoes on the dinner plate.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to die.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: Life is.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: I did get mashed potatoes.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: Did get my goddamn mashed potatoes.
22:27
SPEAKER_01: Did it?
22:28
SPEAKER_01: I survived another day, damn it.
22:29
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: And this is my purpose and this is my reality because life shouldn't be effing easy.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, you're right.
22:36
SPEAKER_03: You see what I'm saying?
22:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:38
SPEAKER_03: Well, and that just making that r response that you said to your day.
22:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:44
SPEAKER_03: You know, that's gonna give you the what you need to get up the next day and do it again.
22:51
SPEAKER_03: But if you're negative and depressed and discouraged, you're much more likely to not do what you need to do the next day and to give up eventually, right?
23:01
SPEAKER_03: 100%.
23:02
SPEAKER_03: It's not worth it.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: No, it is.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: And then that negativity lasts.
23:06
SPEAKER_01: And the problem that I have is I and this is where I guess I need like this dialogue is good for me because you know there's a multiplication problem for the entrepreneur.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: Number one, we gotta fight ourselves is what we went through that day.
23:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:25
SPEAKER_01: But then you have a societal fight you gotta have when you wake up the next morning and everybody else is bringing this type of negative, dissatisfied, unmet expectations energy into the office space.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: And that builds up this unrealistic perspective perspective of a company, which undermines the culture of the value that you really have.
23:46
SPEAKER_01: So Monday we were having our team meeting, and you walk out, you you brought a guest by to take a look at the studio, and I'm up there with 16 of our team.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: And you and you said something that was really important, like you accidentally got up there and said, Mark, you got anything nice to say team?
24:00
SPEAKER_01: You're like, hey guys, everybody really likes working with you.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: You're good people, you know.
24:07
SPEAKER_01: And when you walked in, I was trying to express the team, guys, we're sitting on a freaking gold line here.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: Right.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Like the the only thing in our way to success and having victory, and for you all having a big check in your hand in about two years that you can't get anywhere else.
24:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna grow everybody is us.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: I know.
24:27
SPEAKER_01: And everybody's just going, what?
24:32
SPEAKER_01: Really?
24:33
SPEAKER_01: Like the disbelief.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: And that's the drag down of a really great business.
24:39
SPEAKER_01: And that's the drag down, and actually it it's true.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: It it destroys our cells.
24:44
SPEAKER_03: And well, yeah, that's why if you do have somebody who's cancerous and negative, you got to get them gone.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: Well, yeah, but I mean, I'm just using that as an example of it.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: I agree.
24:53
SPEAKER_03: I mean, we just had that recently where somebody who's at the firm for a long time was known to be negative and cancerous two years ago, three years ago, should have moved that person out.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: And once we did, the morale of the whole team was improved vastly.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: 100%.
25:10
SPEAKER_03: And why did it take so long?
25:12
SPEAKER_03: Well, because we don't want to hurt somebody.
25:14
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like, oh, no, we'd rather hurt the other 30 people who are over here, right?
25:18
SPEAKER_01: But you don't live in that because you have unmet the expectations that that's not their correct HR policy at Tyson, yeah, you know, or JB Hunt.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: And so therefore, my small company needs to behave like that.
25:29
SPEAKER_01: That's the incorrect entrepreneurial mentality.
25:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: But let's take my example back, like I was just given in a team meeting.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
25:35
SPEAKER_01: Let's go back to the mashed potato scene back in the day.
25:39
SPEAKER_01: If it was me, you, and eight, nine other people, and we're all working this land, or we're out hunting and fishing and gathering, and everybody in the room did not have the implicit reality that they all have to work together in order to get the freaking dinner on the table that night, or everyone's gonna start dying.
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Right?
26:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that instinctual purpose of that day's work is so in our face and so real, and not based upon bull crap, fad, pop culture, right?
26:13
SPEAKER_01: That we work together.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: And you have to, and you might be tired, you may need a nap, it might be hard work, you might be getting poured on, there might be a freaking tornado coming across the ridge.
26:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but maybe you stick with it and get the job done for the purpose and the benefit of your peers and your community.
26:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we've lost that sense, we've lost the reality that my job, my daily perspective, my negativity, and my purposeful work is impacting my partner next to me.
26:42
SPEAKER_01: And so we have like the the purpose-driven work day is completely a mystery.
26:49
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I'm like, and and I guess I'm I'm I'm not on just complaining, I'm I'm actually dreaming of having a company to where our team recognizes that because that to me is the goal line.
27:04
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, you know, I'm one of the owners and on the board of Miyamoto International, which is an earthquake engineering firm.
27:11
SPEAKER_03: And you, you know, they're down in Venezuela right now pulling bodies out of the rubble.
27:17
SPEAKER_03: Well, they one case they saved a guy who'd been buried for four days, still alive.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:23
SPEAKER_03: But, you know, they're they're literally, and so in businesses like that, it's so easy to communicate the purpose, okay, because you're actually out trying to save lives.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: It's not a figurative thing, it's not, there's no mystery.
27:40
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
27:41
SPEAKER_03: Bro, it and and what an advantage that is then over, let's just say, another organization where the people never get out from behind their computer screen.
27:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay.
27:52
SPEAKER_03: They just design stuff.
27:54
SPEAKER_03: So, yeah, I mean, that's that's beautiful.
27:59
SPEAKER_01: Like you just kind of so my wife's a nurse, right?
28:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she deals with life and death.
28:03
SPEAKER_03: She does ER too, right?
28:05
SPEAKER_01: Uh she used to.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: She used to, but she's in oncology now.
28:08
SPEAKER_01: Okay, oncology.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: And so she works in the clinic.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: But yeah, the majority of all those healthcare providers and those first responders or folks in the ER in the clinics, they know they're doing it.
28:20
SPEAKER_01: They know their purpose.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: Yes, right?
28:22
SPEAKER_01: They can it's so clear, and they got into the business for that purpose to help and serve others.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: Hopefully, yeah, hopefully you do have some, but but I've I would say that I would say the 20%.
28:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I eighty percent are there, but it's the opposite in our business.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: No, you're right.
28:38
SPEAKER_01: We're eight, like maybe there's only 20% that really have a purpose in what they're doing.
28:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
28:43
SPEAKER_01: And that's not my job.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I know.
28:46
SPEAKER_03: You can't get it.
28:47
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's just like I it's not not only is it not your job, you just it's really hard to change people.
28:55
SPEAKER_03: Like, yeah, you know, like I mean, I was just saying with my own kids, if my own kids weren't motivated, I'm not sure exactly how I'd get them motivated.
29:02
SPEAKER_03: That's fair, honestly.
29:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, yeah.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: I mean, what am I gonna do if I got a kid that just wants to sit there um and play video games all day and is willing to live at home and doesn't care if they drive and make any money because they've always got a meal, you know?
29:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, how am I gonna deal with that?
29:21
SPEAKER_01: The only way I think is is probably harsh.
29:23
SPEAKER_03: Like you're the reality.
29:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, here's your you're out.
29:26
SPEAKER_03: I'll give you 60 days.
29:28
SPEAKER_03: You better start figuring out how to make and and you know and you hold to it, yeah, and you you get them a victim.
29:33
SPEAKER_03: But even then, I may not motivate them, they may just be motivated just enough to get by and be as pissed off and unhappy and dissatisfied as everybody else, maybe.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: And that's that's terrible when we hate that, but yeah, but it is the reality, right?
29:50
SPEAKER_01: There are like back in the day, not everybody got something, not everybody got a mashed potatoes on their plate either.
29:56
SPEAKER_01: No, it's a relatively recent phenomenon.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: That's what I love.
30:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, like that's why I get a lot of answers in nature because of that reason, because it's the shit's hard.
30:07
SPEAKER_01: Like in this idea that we're gonna have like the air conditioning and a soft bed, which I love all of it, but it's not real.
30:14
SPEAKER_01: The reality is is the freaking floods come and the poison obvies crawling in the trees, and there's freaking a snake around the corner, frogs jumping for its life, rats trying to wear grassing rats.
30:28
SPEAKER_01: It is a brutal, brutal world, and I'm sorry, but the but but the the lie of that it's not is the problem.
30:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, I I see exactly where you're going with that.
30:39
SPEAKER_03: That lie makes people unhappy and it makes them not as great workers, and it makes the organizations that they work in less successful.
30:47
SPEAKER_01: And it makes me become a little whining baby at the end of the day as an entrepreneur.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: But when I'm like, you know what, I fought the poison avi today.
30:55
SPEAKER_03: I look for, yeah, no, I look for the signs of encouragement though.
31:00
SPEAKER_03: You know, usually they're out there.
31:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:02
SPEAKER_03: Like I got a text from somebody last night that it was just like, you know, hey, I mean, times are really crappy, whatever, but I love it, and I'm so glad that I'm here.
31:12
SPEAKER_03: And and the team has the right attitude now, and I wouldn't trade this experience off for anything.
31:21
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's like, holy cow.
31:23
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's beautiful, isn't it?
31:24
SPEAKER_03: That's a beautiful thing.
31:25
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, that's why that's why I like talking with you, though.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm saying?
31:32
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, that's why I like this show, and I like meeting with you every week because we're living in a little bit of the same reality.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but you'll point out things to you know, hey man, like the dude, your team, people like working with them.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Man, that's a that's a big deal to me, you know.
31:46
SPEAKER_03: It's a big deal in business today.
31:48
SPEAKER_03: You people just don't.
31:49
SPEAKER_03: If your people aren't happy, they're not gonna and with each other in the company, they're not gonna do well with your clients and customers.
31:57
SPEAKER_03: No, no.
31:58
SPEAKER_03: Matt Lewis is a big believer in that.
32:00
SPEAKER_03: He calls it the your internal customer.
32:03
SPEAKER_03: Because they're actually more important than the external because you'll never have uh happy external customers if you don't first have happy internal customers.
32:13
SPEAKER_03: And he's right about that.
32:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that's a good point.
32:15
SPEAKER_03: You know, but but happiness is not the same thing as purpose and mission and attitude.
32:26
SPEAKER_03: You can be or gratefulness even.
32:28
SPEAKER_03: Oh God, that's way too much to expect.
32:31
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I uh yeah, there I mean uh gratefulness, wow.
32:37
SPEAKER_03: How often do you really get expressions of that?
32:40
SPEAKER_03: Never.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: Well, very rarely.
32:42
SPEAKER_01: It's extremely rare.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: But it's so important that we as entrepreneurs have a gratitude because I can tell you this, like like you know, the the one of the biggest tricks I found when I feel that overwhelmed, you know, like a lot of people look at entrepreneurs like you, like you.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: You have so much going on, they're like, How do you do it?
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Like I can't that people might say, I can't do what you do.
33:04
SPEAKER_01: I don't have the capacity, I don't have the vision, all that kind of stuff.
33:07
SPEAKER_01: But but a lot of times, like the ability for when I feel like a massive amount of overwhelming, if I start expressing like self-talking my gratitude, and I've recognized what I'm grateful for, it really brings the thermometer down significantly immediately.
33:26
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you are you are right about that.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: But do you have that same experience?
33:30
SPEAKER_03: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
33:32
SPEAKER_03: Absolutely.
33:32
SPEAKER_03: You know, I was just yesterday I was out, I was cutting grass, and uh, I was thinking of myself as you know, it's such a great meditative time.
33:42
SPEAKER_03: You did three hours of it, yeah, and it's like, you know, I was thinking to myself, boy, I do a lot of different things, you know.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: You know what?
33:48
SPEAKER_03: I'm not really very good at a lot of things.
33:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, truth be told.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: However, I will do them.
33:54
SPEAKER_03: I will try them.
33:56
SPEAKER_03: I will, you know what I'm saying?
33:58
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and and so you know that's one of the reasons why I can get a lot of stuff done because I will do it, I will try it.
34:07
SPEAKER_03: I I I'm not afraid to try things new or to do things I'm not good at, and I'm still learning all the time.
34:15
SPEAKER_03: I I always how do I learn?
34:17
SPEAKER_03: I watch the experts, I watch the people who are good, you know.
34:21
SPEAKER_03: And then I started thinking about well, who do people get advice from?
34:24
SPEAKER_03: It doesn't matter what it is.
34:26
SPEAKER_03: Like if I want to advise on a stock portfolio, I'd like to go to somebody that actually has a big stock portfolio who's made a lot of money in the stock market.
34:34
SPEAKER_03: Don't you think that's better?
34:35
SPEAKER_03: No, no, a hundred percent.
34:36
SPEAKER_03: You know, so it's like you go, you, you, you look to the expert, and I think that's part of the problem, too, with all this unrealistic expectations.
34:45
SPEAKER_03: There's a lot of purveyors of expertise, and people get advice from people who really shouldn't be giving them advice, and they shouldn't be taking it.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Like, give an example of what you're talking about.
34:59
SPEAKER_03: Like, it just could be anything.
35:00
SPEAKER_03: It's it's like, you know, I'm a life coach, but my own life's a disaster.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: You know what I mean?
35:06
SPEAKER_03: That's always my favorite one.
35:09
SPEAKER_03: I'm a I'm a it's good though.
35:10
SPEAKER_01: That's a good thing.
35:11
SPEAKER_03: I'm a business consultant.
35:13
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna help you be more successful.
35:14
SPEAKER_03: But by the way, I don't have enough business.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: I'm working at the hardware store on Saturday to pay my friggin' mortgage.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm just saying.
35:24
SPEAKER_01: Or you need accounting advice and you go to somebody that just literally just recently graduated that hasn't has never had experience.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: But the other person costs$50 more dollars an hour, so you're not gonna hire them.
35:34
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
35:35
SPEAKER_03: I mean, you gotta consider where you get your advice and input from.
35:41
SPEAKER_03: And and and so, you know, with all of us as and and and you said it before, I mean, the entrepreneurial thing, there's just so much information out there.
35:49
SPEAKER_03: There is, yeah.
35:50
SPEAKER_03: And then so much information on work culture and work-life balance.
35:55
SPEAKER_03: And, you know, you read like you ever look at um Glassdoor and the questions people pose.
36:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're so outrageous, some of them, it just blows your mind.
36:07
SPEAKER_03: You know?
36:08
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:08
SPEAKER_03: Like I did X and X, and now the company has put me on a performance improvement pro.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: Well, of course they have.
36:16
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
36:17
SPEAKER_03: Why wouldn't you?
36:18
SPEAKER_03: I mean, after you did what?
36:20
SPEAKER_03: You know what I'm saying?
36:21
SPEAKER_03: Oh, right.
36:22
SPEAKER_03: You want to just like reach through the computer and slap them around a little bit.
36:26
SPEAKER_03: But it all it all contributes to the negativity, the unrealistic expectations, the unmet expectations, the dissatisfaction or the unhappiness that comes, and then that drags you down all the time.
36:43
SPEAKER_03: Okay?
36:44
SPEAKER_03: It does.
36:44
SPEAKER_03: So, how do we stay up?
36:46
SPEAKER_03: Well, one thing is everybody knows you got to hang out with the right people.
36:51
SPEAKER_03: You know, there's all those books, I don't know what they are, but like the top five people you hang out with, those are the ones you're gonna be like.
36:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: The most, you know.
37:00
SPEAKER_01: That's a good point.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: Like, I've known some folks that after work, what are they doing?
37:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, who are they around after work?
37:09
SPEAKER_01: It's like a really dangerous like I've seen I know some people, yes, that have so much, so much potential, even greater than myself.
37:18
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but there's something that happens, it's like they rise up and then they come back and they're and it's like they can sunk back into their yeah, it does this and this, and they never really make a true trajectory.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: It'd be like if I didn't move out of my hometown and just hung out with all my high school friends.
37:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, okay, they would have held me back.
37:41
SPEAKER_03: Big time.
37:42
SPEAKER_03: Okay, really.
37:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and you might love them, they might be great people.
37:46
SPEAKER_03: I still got a few of them friends of mine, the ones who are actually the most successful, by the way.
37:51
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, those are the ones I'm still friends with.
37:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:53
SPEAKER_03: Not because of that, it's just that we're more aligned.
37:56
SPEAKER_01: Totally, totally like like you grow you grew up and they did too.
38:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
38:01
SPEAKER_01: And and like just because you're 20, 30, 40 years old, like it still is impacting your your network outside of the office.
38:08
SPEAKER_03: Like, you gotta that's that's a one thing you can do.
38:11
SPEAKER_03: Definitely hanging out with the right people.
38:13
SPEAKER_03: The other thing is like this goes back to like what you watch on TV and everything.
38:18
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, that show you remember um uh uh Succession, all right?
38:26
SPEAKER_03: Well, it was about a media mogul.
38:28
SPEAKER_03: Basically, it's it's modeled after Rupert Murdoch and all his kids, and they're all fighting for control over his giant media empire, you know, whatever.
38:38
SPEAKER_03: I mean, the point of the whole thing was there was not a single person in that show who was admirable who I felt like, oh, that's inspirational.
38:46
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: I don't I stopped watching the show because of that.
38:50
SPEAKER_03: I like to see examples of people doing things that are positive or overcoming obstacles that you have no idea what your people on your team are watching and doing when they leave.
39:05
SPEAKER_01: No, and they're just greatly impacting their purpose-driven work that they actually have in front of their face.
39:11
SPEAKER_01: It really is that they don't bring and help themselves and others achieve and overcome.
39:16
SPEAKER_01: And like another show that's that's absolutely the worst damn thing that's ever existed on the entire planet Earth is that freaking Love Island freaking.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: It's the worst thing.
39:29
SPEAKER_01: Totally fabricated, contesting love.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: They're here for love and a fall, but it's nothing but a bunch of freaking people cheating on each other and all this disastrous related, it's all entertainment and it's all drama.
39:42
SPEAKER_01: And people are like, if you're watching that between the time that you're at work and you're gonna go back to work the next day, what do you think that you think?
39:50
SPEAKER_03: Everybody's political.
39:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's supposed to be glamorous and famous, and everybody's gonna get a reward.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, you know, it's the whole influencer thing.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Like, who are you listening to?
40:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, are you you know, like, man, I'm I think that you and I live in such different we live in different worlds than other people in a sense of what you're just saying.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: Because I never watch stupid stuff as much like unless it's the sitcoms I was telling you about, but which is kind of an escape from reality for me, but it's very hyper time sense, you know, uh time slotted.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: But I will find myself, and it's the most crazy thing, if I'm on Facebook or something because of some link or something I had to get on there, right?
40:32
SPEAKER_01: And then the next video pops up, and it's trash ass crap, and an hour and a half goes by, and I've watched a bunch of the stupidest things, yeah.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: People in car like in roll rage, you know, right, freaking crocodiles eating freaking, you know, baby freaking gazelles, AI videos of gorillas breaking through glass or whatever.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
40:54
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, I just got sucked into this dumb, unrealistic world.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but then I come to work and I hear and see people talking about a lot of the dumb stuff.
41:05
SPEAKER_01: Or it's the same thing with sports.
41:07
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:07
SPEAKER_01: If you all you do is watch sports, you go from basketball to football to soccer to you know, I never, yeah.
41:15
SPEAKER_01: Every baseball, everything in between, and there's just this hyperactive, I gotta get off work so I can go drink beers and watch the game.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: Or what are you doing this weekend?
41:24
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to watch the game.
41:26
SPEAKER_03: And what's even worse about that is when it's like, how are you doing at somebody of money?
41:30
SPEAKER_03: Oh, I'm not good.
41:31
SPEAKER_03: What why?
41:32
SPEAKER_03: Razorbacks lost.
41:33
SPEAKER_03: Dude, it's affecting everything.
41:35
SPEAKER_03: The razorbacks lost, and it's gonna ruin my week.
41:38
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, what?
41:39
SPEAKER_03: How's that gonna ruin your week?
41:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, why would you let that ruin your week?
41:43
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's an entrepreneur for entrepreneurs, we don't have the time for that because we have to, there's so many things to fix, and that's why maybe entrepreneurs can make it through a lot of the stuff because we are genuinely purpose-driven, yeah, working people, like we like we were back in the mashed potato days.
42:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, we don't hate the work itself either.
42:07
SPEAKER_03: No.
42:08
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's that's the other thing, is like, you know, that the we've talked about it before, the work on your business versus work in it.
42:15
SPEAKER_03: And the yeah, you gotta do both.
42:17
SPEAKER_03: There's no doubt about that.
42:18
SPEAKER_03: But you gotta work in it and you gotta like working in it.
42:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you do.
42:22
SPEAKER_03: You know, yeah, because if you don't, how in the world are you gonna get anybody else to do it?
42:26
SPEAKER_03: I mean, realistically, come on.
42:30
SPEAKER_01: But you know, if I if I had a potato farm, yeah, and my goal as an entrepreneur is to grow as many potatoes, yield as many, so I can get paid off a thousand potatoes versus the two hundred.
42:42
SPEAKER_01: The that that means I gotta work, I gotta do a lot of more things that I don't really want to do.
42:47
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but I'll do it for the sake of selling a thousand potatoes, for the vision.
42:52
SPEAKER_01: Because I have the two acres of land.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't have a half an acre like I did last year, so I can do more.
42:59
SPEAKER_01: Right?
42:59
SPEAKER_01: But but that's I think that's the difference, and and and I think that that's what qualifies you as an entrepreneur.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: It's not the other fabricated, you must do A, B, C, D all the way through Z to be an entrepreneur, like the investors like to tell you in the cohorts.
43:14
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, in the business plan with an optimum scenario, uh, expected scenario, in a worst case scenario, whatever, right?
43:21
SPEAKER_01: It's about the dude that's got a vision for or the girl for a thousand potatoes because they got a full acre and they're gonna freaking do it, come a hella hot water.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
43:30
SPEAKER_01: And you and you go to work and you till the land, and you're gonna have a lot of crap hit you, but you keep doing it.
43:38
SPEAKER_03: People listening to this show, I mean, this is such important.
43:44
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you're not cut out for this stuff.
43:46
SPEAKER_03: If this doesn't sound like you and what you think you can imagine yourself doing and being like, don't do it.
43:56
SPEAKER_03: It's gonna be costly if you do.
43:58
SPEAKER_03: You'll you may regret it.
44:01
SPEAKER_03: That's all I can say.
44:02
SPEAKER_03: No, I agree.
44:03
SPEAKER_03: You know, you gotta have the right mindset to do this stuff.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: That's a good that's a that's that statement right there, Mark, encapsulates my whole idea of even doing this to communicate to people because entrepreneurship is not an easy road.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: It's one of the hardest.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: It's gotta be.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: Just like it's just like tilling the land.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: It's like if we're going we're a throwback to the 1920s, man.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:27
SPEAKER_01: Living in a world that's full of crap and is plagued with freaking fashion and and and pop culture that is not real and not reality.
44:36
SPEAKER_01: And but we still live in reality.
44:38
SPEAKER_01: And you're working with people that are not living in reality, and it makes it really hard.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: And I'd hate for that's why I hate the pop culture of entrepreneurship.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:48
SPEAKER_01: And the word founder.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: You're not an entrepreneur because you're a founder.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: You can be a founder for$35.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: I looked it up online.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: You can spend$35 in your LLC.
44:56
SPEAKER_01: Get your LC.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: Congratulations, you're a goddamn founder.
45:00
SPEAKER_01: But if I took 10 people and called them founders and stuck them into an entrepreneurial landscape, and nine out of those ten people are going to fail, what did I just do to those nine people?
45:12
SPEAKER_01: Because I as an investor wanted to get a return on my capital.
45:16
SPEAKER_01: That is most great.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: That is the or myself as an educated institution wanted to get more people in the seats for a tuition.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: I just put them in.
45:25
SPEAKER_01: That's like putting a bunch of people set them up for failure, and that person is going to live in a black hole, and you're going to set them back 10 years in their career and for all this other stuff that they did.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: It is an extremely dangerous proposition.
45:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you're right.
45:41
SPEAKER_01: It is an extremely and I and I feel for people because like well, you know.
45:45
SPEAKER_03: I think you and I, I mean, we try to we feel that sense of responsibility.
45:50
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
45:51
SPEAKER_03: That's why we don't want to misguide people.
45:54
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
45:55
SPEAKER_03: We we do feel we we know we have a sense of responsibility because people look to us.
46:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:01
SPEAKER_03: And so we've got to be realistic with them.
46:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
46:05
SPEAKER_03: But um, yeah, it's a struggle, but don't give up.
46:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
46:10
SPEAKER_03: Try to be grateful at the end of the day.
46:14
SPEAKER_03: Surround yourself with other people who are successful or more successful than you are, who have a good attitude.
46:22
SPEAKER_03: Careful what you what you careful what you input.
46:26
SPEAKER_03: Vid Tum.
46:27
SPEAKER_03: Okay, because it can pollute your mind.
46:29
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
46:30
SPEAKER_03: It's like I read this one political newsletter I get every morning, first thing.
46:35
SPEAKER_03: And my wife is who has been a political junkie her whole life, is like, I read something that says that's the worst thing you can do for yourself, that it actually will destroy your day.
46:46
SPEAKER_03: It it ruins your attitude for the whole day.
46:49
SPEAKER_03: Wait until two or three hours have gone by before you do that.
46:53
SPEAKER_03: You don't want that to set the tone for your day.
46:57
SPEAKER_03: And I thought, wow, that's really she's really getting uh true and smart about this.
47:03
SPEAKER_03: I mean, she's you know, she's evolving too.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: But it is so yeah, the inputs are really critical in um in all.
47:11
SPEAKER_03: But the other flip side of it, you really do have more control over your life, regardless of what anybody says.
47:18
SPEAKER_03: And the payoff can be great, and you can create financial security for yourself and your families, and you can get the satisfaction that comes from creating something out of nothing.
47:29
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
47:30
SPEAKER_01: What's that worth?
47:31
SPEAKER_01: It's worth it's worth life.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: And I and you know, there's one book, and I know we gotta close up.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: There's one book, I can't remember it.
47:39
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, it it our human desire in life wraps down to one word contribution.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: Yes, it does.
47:48
SPEAKER_01: You won't be happy unless you're contributing.
47:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think entrepreneurship is so awesome because I know my greatest days in my life, and I said this the day, and they're like, quit saying it's the only greatest day, but it it is one of them is the day I got to write bonus checks of people from selling the company.
48:04
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
48:05
SPEAKER_01: You've said that before, dude.
48:06
SPEAKER_01: It was the like that's the only reason I'm doing all this all over again.
48:10
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:11
SPEAKER_01: Is because I want to I want to do that, but I want to do it with more, I want to have more bigger checks with more people.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:17
SPEAKER_01: Because the feeling of conscious that I contributed to this planet and made it a little bit better before I died.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: Very rewarding.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: Is it's it's the reward.
48:25
SPEAKER_01: That's it.
48:26
SPEAKER_03: Hey, we gotta end.
48:27
SPEAKER_03: I'm late for a meeting right now myself.
48:30
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
48:30
SPEAKER_03: Let's go.
48:31
SPEAKER_03: I know it's sad.
48:33
SPEAKER_03: Well, we'll be back again next week, though, folks.
48:36
SPEAKER_03: For what?
48:37
SPEAKER_01: Yet one more episode of that big talk.
48:39
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna talk about small business.
48:49
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk About Small Business.
48:53
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions or ideas for upcoming shows, be sure to head over to our website, www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com, and click on the Ask the Host button for the chance to have your questions answered on the show.
49:07
SPEAKER_00: Stay connected with us on LinkedIn at Big Talk About Small Business.
49:11
SPEAKER_00: And be sure to head over to our website to read articles, browse episodes, and ask questions about upcoming shows.