Latest / Big Talk About Small Business / Unlearning Trust: The Hard Lessons of Scaling | Featuring Host Eric Howerton

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Unlearning Trust: The Hard Lessons of Scaling | Featuring Host Eric Howerton · Big Talk About Small Business

0:00
SPEAKER_03: I've gone through periods of having to unlearn that there's something and that's even with capital, like VC capital and you know, all this stuff.
0:07
SPEAKER_03: Like you get into you get pulled into these things that like you read about and there's books, you know, and and and how to, you know, how had a perfect day or the perfect meeting and the perfect this and all these things are perfectly, you know, like selling you that there's some sort of magic bullet.
0:23
SPEAKER_03: And it's really not.
0:24
SPEAKER_03: Like you you do need to continue to learn and advance and get better, but a lot of it that I found out is just continuously working.
0:41
SPEAKER_02: Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, friends and family.
0:43
SPEAKER_02: I am Bang on PodcastVideos.com, and this is an episode of Big Talk Matter.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: This is an episode of Big Talk Basicness, baby.
1:00
SPEAKER_02: We got the one and only Eric Hammerton back in the building.
1:03
SPEAKER_02: Welcome back, brother.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, man.
1:04
SPEAKER_02: Good to be here.
1:05
SPEAKER_02: Man, I'm excited to do this, so I I I got to chop it up with Mark.
1:08
SPEAKER_03: Hey, you're welcome for me allowing you to be the host.
1:13
SPEAKER_02: I'm glad you missed.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, you missed, I was the host.
1:16
SPEAKER_02: It went great, and now I get another chance to do it.
1:19
SPEAKER_02: So we'll see how you might do.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: Listen, I got a bio for you.
1:22
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:23
SPEAKER_02: You know, you're you're in the hot seat right now.
1:24
SPEAKER_02: We're switching it.
1:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm a co-host today.
1:28
SPEAKER_02: You're gonna you're gonna be the guest on your own show today.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: That's wicked.
1:31
SPEAKER_02: So you tell me if if you co-sign this bio.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: All right.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: It says today on Big Talk About Small Business, we're sitting down with someone who is the voice of the show and who's had a profound impact on my journey.
1:43
SPEAKER_02: Eric Howerton is a true visionary, currently the co-founder and CGO of Ad Fury AI and the CEO of PodcastVideos.com.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Eric has spent over 25 years not just watching the marketing industry evolve, but actively building with it.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Long before the era of digital and artificial intelligence, Eric was in the trenches doing the heavy lifting of traditional media.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: He cut his teeth in the fast-paced ink and paper world of newspaper business, learning how to capture an audience's attention long before social media existed.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: With a deep background in photography, he spent years behind the camera, literally photographing products and physically laying out print catalogs by hand.
2:22
SPEAKER_02: He's navigated and dominated every single era of marketing.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: And he sees where the industry's moving and goes before people have realized the shifts even happen.
2:33
SPEAKER_02: But if you know Eric, he has zero time for polished, glamorous lies of the entrepreneur lifestyle.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: He's completely no nonsense.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: He is the first person to tell you that you can have whatever you want in this life if you are willing to work hard and unlearn everything holding you back.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
2:50
SPEAKER_02: It says, yet, out of everything he's accomplished, the thing I admire most about Eric is his intentionality.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: He scales companies and building businesses is his gift, but most importantly, he builds people.
3:00
SPEAKER_02: He has a relentless drive to elevate those around him, constantly looking for ways to highlight others.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Today we sit down with Eric on Big Talk About Small Bit.
3:07
SPEAKER_02: Welcome.
3:10
SPEAKER_02: What did you think about that, man?
3:13
SPEAKER_03: I did.
3:13
SPEAKER_03: That's really good.
3:14
SPEAKER_03: I appreciate that.
3:15
SPEAKER_03: Very kind of you.
3:16
SPEAKER_02: Man, I think it's rare that you that you can give somebody the flowers.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: And I think it's rare that people like you who are always doing a thousand things get a chance to kind of stop and hear those things.
3:26
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, no, no, you're right.
3:29
SPEAKER_03: Ain't nobody told me that I did anything.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: Complaining, asking for money.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: I'll talk about it.
3:33
SPEAKER_02: Put me down, stealing.
3:38
SPEAKER_02: When when you hear something like that, though, seriously, like, man, you've been doing this for a long time.
3:44
SPEAKER_02: It's not, you know, people see podcast videos, they see Ad Fury, and they think like, oh man, this is something new.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: He's up to something.
3:50
SPEAKER_02: But it's like, man, you've you've been in every era of marketing.
3:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the constant threat of content.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: On the front line.
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
3:58
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
3:59
SPEAKER_02: So so talk about what stands out when you hear a bio like that, just about you and your journey up until this point.
4:07
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, it's kind of interesting because, like, like, I mean, honestly, like uh like I was did a lot of those things, but I was never solo by any ways.
4:19
SPEAKER_03: And I and I mean there was a time period back in my early career at White Spider where it did dawn on me, like, where this isn't my company, this is our company, and this brand has its own identity, it is its own entity, and I'm just a person that's making up that.
4:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it was kind of a pretty hard switch that I flipped on that.
4:39
SPEAKER_03: That and ever since then I have never like it's it's inner, I mean, I'm just being vulnerable in the sense of where I don't ever think of myself as a business owner.
4:47
SPEAKER_03: You know, I don't think of myself as you know, as being the decision maker.
4:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think of myself as like being so critical to the company.
4:57
SPEAKER_03: Actually, I I struggle a lot with where my value is a lot of times.
5:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
5:02
SPEAKER_03: Not not when I say struggle with it, I mean like where do I actually where does my value fit in at that moment.
5:09
SPEAKER_03: I do feel like I'm contributing.
5:10
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
5:11
SPEAKER_03: Because I can tell you when we did sell white spider and I was in a glass office and I, you know, I had a secure position, and but I wasn't like making, I couldn't feel myself make an impact.
5:23
SPEAKER_03: Man, my my emotional level went just tanked.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you learned early, it's not about you.
5:30
SPEAKER_03: It's not yeah, it's not about one person.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: No, hell no, man.
5:32
SPEAKER_03: We don't have enough time in the world for that, right?
5:35
SPEAKER_03: And and like and and I tell you, like, one of my things I've been kind of on, and I've been I've been wanting to do a LinkedIn message about this, but but I I don't uh spend enough time on it.
5:44
SPEAKER_03: Do it right here.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: Here's the message.
5:45
SPEAKER_03: I'm gonna do it right here.
5:46
SPEAKER_03: Here's the message.
5:47
SPEAKER_03: It is the you know, the hardest thing I believe in business is being um received or understood as being genuine and authentic.
6:00
SPEAKER_03: When I meet with a client and I'm looking across the table and we're talking about like, hey, you should go work with podcast videos or add fury.
6:08
SPEAKER_03: Here's what we're doing.
6:10
SPEAKER_03: Like, I know how hard that work is.
6:12
SPEAKER_03: And I'm talking to the client and I'm like, this is where the industry's going, this is what's happening.
6:18
SPEAKER_03: I'm legitimately seeing all their threats over here, and I'm seeing the market and the technology continue to evolve and grow and scale, and they're over here a little sleeping at the wheel.
6:29
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
6:30
SPEAKER_03: And it legitimately scares me for them.
6:33
SPEAKER_03: And so my sales, if you want to call it that, is I you're over here and you're being vulnerable, and you don't even like the worst thing is is a lot of times they don't even know it.
6:44
SPEAKER_03: The lions over there just looking.
6:45
SPEAKER_03: Just look, dude.
6:46
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, about to murder you know, somebody.
6:49
SPEAKER_03: And I'm over here with something that can help you protect yourself, grow yourself, continue to build your moat, protect your job, protect your people, protect your brand.
7:00
SPEAKER_03: All these wonderful things that that this company or this entity that you have has worked hard to get to, and passivity and denial, complacency, comfort, comfort, is is is killing, or fear of making a decision.
7:17
SPEAKER_03: And what I have right here, this is this is the good stuff, and I can promise you that because I don't run away from what I do.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: Right.
7:25
SPEAKER_03: If I say I'm gonna do something, I'm gonna do it.
7:27
SPEAKER_03: If I screw up, I'm gonna make good on it.
7:29
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
7:30
SPEAKER_03: And I will go to the utter ends to to to to make sure my word is gold to you.
7:36
SPEAKER_03: That's how I legitimately, authentically, and genuinely feel.
7:40
SPEAKER_03: I can vouch.
7:40
SPEAKER_03: And yeah, and and not even, and this applies not even to you know, like a small business down the road, but I we used to work with Walmart all the time, and I still do a little bit, not as not as much as I did back in the white spider days.
7:55
SPEAKER_03: Dude, I can't tell you the thousands and thousands of conversations I'd have.
8:00
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, you guys, you've got to do this.
8:03
SPEAKER_03: Like you are getting smoked by Amazon.
8:05
SPEAKER_03: I'm looking at it right now.
8:06
SPEAKER_03: You want to know why people are going over there, it's because they can't find you, it's because your product page is this and because your content's that, and you don't have enough images, and you don't have any process, you're not asking the right questions, you're not doing the right technology.
8:19
SPEAKER_03: And it was always for their benefit.
8:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:23
SPEAKER_03: But but most of the times, and when I say the genuine thing, yeah, most of the times people on the receiving end have been burned so many times.
8:31
SPEAKER_03: This is where, like, I I dealt with the fact that man, do people like, like, am I just taking crazy pills and people don't trust me?
8:38
SPEAKER_03: Right.
8:39
SPEAKER_03: It's not, it's because typical humanity is that we don't trust anybody.
8:45
SPEAKER_02: Everybody's lying to you, trying to.
8:46
SPEAKER_02: I know.
8:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, so when do you sell you something?
8:48
SPEAKER_02: And so when you need somebody that's genuine, it is hard to receive and it is hard to, you know, think that they actually have your best interest at heart.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: What are you trying to get out of this?
8:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
8:57
SPEAKER_02: How do you deal with that?
8:58
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I'm still dealing with it.
9:00
SPEAKER_03: Like I don't know.
9:01
SPEAKER_03: Like I'm I'm still processing through it because I go through periods of uh, you know, and that's really what kind of gets me in discouragement mode because you know, you work with a client, things are going good, good discussions, good dialogue.
9:13
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this could be even a team member on the team.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:15
SPEAKER_03: Same, same exact game.
9:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
9:17
SPEAKER_03: You know, everything sounds good, everybody's like seeing the vision finally, people are like getting it, they're ready to go.
9:25
SPEAKER_03: And you turn around and by one little something that maybe I said or did or didn't do, or they heard, or somebody else said to them to them, or what they did in the evening, right?
9:36
SPEAKER_03: It turns back around and there's a there everything stalls out and it drops, and then you gotta lift it back up, yeah.
9:42
SPEAKER_03: It stalls back out.
9:43
SPEAKER_03: And then and literally this the the whole process of building the company or selling or or building your business is literally looking like this.
9:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's just kind of one step forward, two back.
9:52
SPEAKER_03: Sometimes it's two forward, one back.
9:55
SPEAKER_03: It's never a straight line.
9:56
SPEAKER_03: And here's what drives me absolutely the most insane.
9:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the most insane part about it that I get is whenever I see that and there's something working, and then the decisions made to go with somebody that is lying.
10:10
SPEAKER_03: Right.
10:12
SPEAKER_03: You know, and it's like, what is it that, you know, and I'm just kind of left of like, man, like in the case with like Walmart, hundreds of times we had the solution.
10:22
SPEAKER_03: I brought it to the attention.
10:25
SPEAKER_03: I was gonna absolutely nail it.
10:26
SPEAKER_03: We actually did things that nailed it.
10:28
SPEAKER_03: Hit the dead center bullseye, I mean perfectly secure.
10:33
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:34
SPEAKER_03: Only to find out because there was somebody or some bigger company or some kind of smoke came in the mirror.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: They had some nicer glasses or they had some perfume or cologne that smelled a little better.
10:46
SPEAKER_03: I call it jumbo jets and skyscrapers.
10:48
SPEAKER_03: And every single time.
10:50
SPEAKER_03: And and what happens is those things get done, people get smoked, yeah, and then the cycle comes back around.
10:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
10:57
SPEAKER_03: And and you just kind of and just pick up little by little.
11:00
SPEAKER_03: Uh, and and I've seen that happen in the companies too.
11:03
SPEAKER_03: I mean, like you get folks that come from bigger companies, have bigger things, they have bigger expectations, they come into you know a small business like ourselves.
11:10
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the kind what what's going on in their mind as to what they feel valued on or about, or what you know, compensation levels and flexibilities and benefits, and all these things and in visibility to the future, you know, all this uh a lot of pressure to to to take something that is honestly like in our position, if we're gonna be authentic and genuine, yeah, we have to be so reactive and evolving, and so much of our attention has to go on to how do we stay with those times to provide the service back to the clients and the team, yeah, that you don't have the capacity or the resources to play the to play the uh the vision cast all the time, right?
11:57
SPEAKER_03: And keep things settled.
11:58
SPEAKER_03: And so it's a paradox.
12:00
SPEAKER_03: And so, but the reason I get frustrated about the genuine thing is because if people would take me as genuine, I wouldn't have any of those problems.
12:07
SPEAKER_03: Right.
12:08
SPEAKER_03: I'm curious because I'm wondering if I'm gonna be 80 years old and somebody's gonna be fine, like, oh no, you should work with Eric.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: Whatever he says, he's he's gonna take care of you, he's gonna tell you, he's not lying to you.
12:19
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna take at least 30 more years than you trying it on the front lines to prevent people.
12:23
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna cost you 20 times as much.
12:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, he's built a model, blah, blah, blah.
12:27
SPEAKER_03: Just do business.
12:27
SPEAKER_03: And they're like, you know what?
12:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm just gonna do it because I I believe that you're not gonna do that.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: Here you go.
12:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that I might be 80 years old when that finally happened.
12:34
SPEAKER_03: Probably so.
12:35
SPEAKER_03: I'm wondering when I'm gonna get the credentials.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: You'll be 80.
12:38
SPEAKER_03: You'll be 80 for sure.
12:39
SPEAKER_03: Cool.
12:40
SPEAKER_03: But but no, I think at least I get one easy deal.
12:42
SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
12:43
SPEAKER_02: You you make a really good point, and you talk a lot about unlearning things.
12:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean, bro, like people have been hurt, they've been raped over their head, they see advertisements when they're trying to chill at home and watch Netflix.
12:56
SPEAKER_02: They see people trying to sell them something when they just, you know, always.
12:59
SPEAKER_02: And so for you, a person who is genuinely trying to help people, I can I can say I've witnessed you be in situations where you don't get anything out of it.
13:10
SPEAKER_02: Like you're you're promoting somebody, or you, you know, that's what you get out of it.
13:14
SPEAKER_02: The satisfaction of knowing you're helping somebody else, sure, or doing something for somebody, you know, volunteering your time, whatever, paying for a service, but it takes people unlearning, yeah, man, not everybody's out to hurt you, you know.
13:26
SPEAKER_02: That's right.
13:27
SPEAKER_02: So I'm curious as as from your standpoint, like what is the biggest thing that you've had to unlearn in in business in general, or in your journey, like, you know.
13:41
SPEAKER_03: Well, the the the the most difficult unlearning was is that not everyone's genuine like I am.
13:48
SPEAKER_03: So it's kind of like the flip-flop for me.
13:51
SPEAKER_03: Uh I've had some really hard learnings on that.
13:54
SPEAKER_03: Um, I've also had to unlearn that that there is some sort of like answer or process or intelligence level or you know, mathematical formula that makes other people successful.
14:08
SPEAKER_03: You know, I think that there's a level, you know, because we we look at these companies that have that, and they we think that they have something really special going on, but they really don't.
14:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:19
SPEAKER_03: It's just that they have a book of business that they've developed that kind of protect like gives them those opportunities the the skyscrapers and jumbo.
14:26
SPEAKER_03: Yes, yeah.
14:27
SPEAKER_03: You know, and so when you're in that lane, then you're just automatically just gonna get and receive that trust.
14:34
SPEAKER_03: Again, go back to the trust factor, and then you can articulate in that level, you know, just depend, you know, just write me another check and we'll take care of it.
14:42
SPEAKER_03: And it's easy for people right to do that.
14:46
SPEAKER_03: Um, but to to to compare my business acumen versus somebody else's or some other companies is like I'm missing something.
14:56
SPEAKER_03: And then if you get if you find yourself in that mentality, you actually start stalling your own progress, you lose your confidence, and then you get shy, and then you get timid, and then you get discouraged and goes on down.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: Analysis, paralysis, never execute, yeah.
15:10
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
15:11
SPEAKER_03: And then you and then you don't make the dis the bold decisions that you have to make to be in business, especially in the entrepreneurial land.
15:17
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:18
SPEAKER_03: Uh and so I've had to I've gone through periods of having to unlearn that there's something, and that's even with capital, like VC capital, and you know, all this stuff, like you get into you get pulled into these things that like you read about, and there's books, you know, and and and how to, you know, how to have a perfect day or the perfect meeting and the perfect this, and all these things are perfectly, you know, like selling you that there's some sort of magic bullet.
15:42
SPEAKER_03: And it's really not.
15:44
SPEAKER_03: Like you you do need to continue to learn and advance and get better, but a lot of it that I found out is just continuously working, yeah.
15:52
SPEAKER_03: You know, and not allowing myself to to lose confidence, not allowing myself to become complacent and comfortable, not take breaks, you know.
16:02
SPEAKER_03: Um, and and I think that you know, those have been some that's probably one of the bigger things I've had to learn.
16:07
SPEAKER_02: Let's go there.
16:08
SPEAKER_02: I think you talk about entrepreneurship in a way that I don't hear most people, especially in the social media age, like my I would say my generation, and even maybe some people a little bit older than me, but especially younger.
16:21
SPEAKER_02: Per Eric Howerton, we got the game all messed up.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, we think that you get into it so you could have flexibility of your time, go to the beach and chill out.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, like, we see entrepreneurship being promoted in a way that you are like, it is the exact opposite in reality.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:39
SPEAKER_02: So talk a little bit about a the the the facade and the myth, and from your experience, like what does it actually look like?
16:48
SPEAKER_03: I mean, is man I like to rewind like so?
16:51
SPEAKER_03: Number one, the the terminology is what really aches me a lot.
16:54
SPEAKER_03: Like the founder thing.
16:56
SPEAKER_03: When you have a bunch of investors that have money from some other way or some other place, and now they're they don't want to work that hard much anymore.
17:05
SPEAKER_03: A lot, most, a lot of them.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:07
SPEAKER_03: There are some that I've met that are like true legit entrepreneur plus investor that have capital.
17:12
SPEAKER_03: I'm not talking about that.
17:13
SPEAKER_03: I'm talking about the passive the passive income model of investing.
17:18
SPEAKER_02: You hate that.
17:19
SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
17:21
SPEAKER_03: I can't stand it.
17:22
SPEAKER_03: I can't even stand to do it myself.
17:24
SPEAKER_03: I do have some vehicles that are like that, yeah, but like to me, it's still I don't feel I don't have um much pride behind that.
17:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, and it's not healthy for anyone to be in that position.
17:37
SPEAKER_03: But anyway, um a group of folks that have money that are looking for somebody to do all the work and they invest in that doesn't matter how the paperwork looks.
17:48
SPEAKER_03: Sure.
17:49
SPEAKER_03: He who holds the cash is king, right?
17:51
SPEAKER_03: Like Mark Zwag would say.
17:53
SPEAKER_03: And the founder steps in without any experience or business acumen or even knowing what entrepreneurship's about, they step in and they start working, and you know, number one, they immediately call themselves an entrepreneur.
18:08
SPEAKER_03: But you've never you don't know you don't even know what that word really means.
18:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you you think you do because you saw some social influence or something.
18:15
SPEAKER_03: Saw some TikTok and saw some TikTok.
18:17
SPEAKER_03: No, I that's what I want to do.
18:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:19
SPEAKER_03: You know, and and for all the lot of the reasons you mentioned.
18:23
SPEAKER_03: But whether they're successful, you know, most of them are not successful, as we know by statistics, and the ones that um, you know, and but then they can leave that and they're still a founder entrepreneur, according to them.
18:35
SPEAKER_03: It's a career choice, it's a it's a position, it's a title, it's it's a you know, it's something that they took a risk and went and did, right?
18:43
SPEAKER_03: And there's a there's a glamour and a glory and an honor in just holding that esteem of that title.
18:48
SPEAKER_03: But on my end, there's no glory or esteem about it whatsoever.
18:52
SPEAKER_03: I've never run around, and I try not to, this isn't how I feel.
18:56
SPEAKER_03: I might come across it, you know, this way, but like I don't take pride in, hey Eric, what do you do?
19:02
SPEAKER_03: I'm actually kind of embarrassed a little bit.
19:04
SPEAKER_03: I'm like, I'm a business owner, you know, I'm an entrepreneur.
19:06
SPEAKER_03: I mean, that's the best title for me.
19:08
SPEAKER_03: I have podcast videos, I have Ad Fury, you know, and other things going on, you know, but it's really, but there's not like I am a business owner.
19:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, because there's there's not any glory to it.
19:18
SPEAKER_02: You don't expect an applause when you walk out here and say, Well, because, dude, it's not a fun job.
19:22
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:23
SPEAKER_03: You know, there's nothing about it that I've ever experienced where I'm there's nothing about what I've done in my career since I was 22 that had anything to do with building a business that I would say is is extremely enjoyable.
19:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:38
SPEAKER_03: You know, it's been a lot of long days, a lot of a lot of stress, a lot of risk, a lot of vulnerability, a lot of embarrassment, a lot of no's, mostly no's.
19:46
SPEAKER_03: A lot of pain.
19:47
SPEAKER_03: A lot of pain, a lot of suffering, a lot of no income, a lot of demands, a lot of I mean, all that stuff.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: Listen real close to this part, y'all.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Like, tune in right now.
19:57
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
19:58
SPEAKER_03: For real.
19:58
SPEAKER_03: And I mean, it's painful.
20:01
SPEAKER_03: But what I have gotten out of it is is um is contribution, you know, the reward of of being part of something, of, of expression, of solving problem, of fitting a market need.
20:16
SPEAKER_03: Um, the, you know, and I guess there's a subpro uh a byproduct of it, of which I never really, you know, calculated, but knowing that that I I went and did something and without reservation, you know, I mean, I can look back and go, man, that's cool.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: You know, I mean, boy, I had some guts, you know, to to pull some crap like that off back in the day.
20:38
SPEAKER_03: You know, and and uh, and I'm glad and I'm like, I'm glad I did it.
20:42
SPEAKER_03: Even like I would say 90% of everything kind of failed.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
20:45
SPEAKER_03: You know, White Spider, you know, was a I mean, it was it was surreal in how it all panned out at the end.
20:53
SPEAKER_03: Um and there were so many, it's like it's like you know, when you buy a house, you know why it's so hard when you buy a home, like for it to close.
21:01
SPEAKER_03: It's because there's about 2,000 things between the time you sign the contract and when you get funding and it closes and you get the keys.
21:08
SPEAKER_03: That's why so many houses bust.
21:10
SPEAKER_03: Right.
21:11
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's you got all that vulnerability to get the all of this has to go correct in order for you to get this one home.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it just takes one thing to screw it all up, right, or delay it.
21:20
SPEAKER_03: It's the same thing with with exiting a business.
21:23
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, and I would say the magnitude is even bigger.
21:26
SPEAKER_03: Um, and so that there's a surreal moment because like uh there's so many times that you thought you know you I thought it was it was gonna do that.
21:35
SPEAKER_03: It should have done it 10 years before.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: I guess I never thought about that.
21:38
SPEAKER_02: There's probably uncountable businesses that get to that last step and never get over to it.
21:44
SPEAKER_03: No, no, bro.
21:44
SPEAKER_03: We went through it multiple times until it happened.
21:47
SPEAKER_03: And so to have it actually exit and and it and it work out the way it did, you know, is a kind of a surreal thing to the point to where I still don't understand that it actually happened.
21:59
SPEAKER_03: And I've never Like it's funny in the beginning, you know, you're working your way towards it, and that's what you're thinking about.
22:05
SPEAKER_03: Oh, one day when this happens, you know, it's gonna be great.
22:08
SPEAKER_03: And then when it does happen, and you surpassed it in the sense of where you didn't even get to experience this celebratory emotion about it, and it never locks in as a milestone.
22:18
SPEAKER_03: Yep.
22:18
SPEAKER_03: You know, only thing I knew that happened was is that I became really lost really quick because I was no longer working towards that, towards a goal.
22:27
SPEAKER_03: I no longer was contributing on a daily basis, I no longer felt valuable, I never no longer you know felt like I was part of a team.
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Your energy didn't have a target direction to go in.
22:37
SPEAKER_03: It was like having a divorce.
22:39
SPEAKER_03: You know, like you're missing something.
22:41
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:41
SPEAKER_03: Like uh, like, you know, my relationship's gone.
22:45
SPEAKER_03: You know, I lost my relationship, I've lost my vision, I lost my identity, a lot of it, because I you have to put, and that's the thing back on entrepreneurship.
22:53
SPEAKER_03: Everything that you have is in that.
22:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
22:56
SPEAKER_03: Your retirement, your identity, your your time, your breakfast.
22:59
SPEAKER_02: You mean that there's no weekend and no break and no decompressant?
23:02
SPEAKER_02: You mean you mean there's no no keeping home, home and keeping work, work when you're a real entrepreneur?
23:08
unknown: Bro.
23:08
SPEAKER_03: No.
23:09
SPEAKER_03: No, and you don't want it that way.
23:11
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:11
SPEAKER_03: You know, if you're an entrepreneur, because you're you're you're in such a contribution mode, you know, and and that's the thing, is like, you know, like the terminology bothers me because entrepreneur to me, and what I've researched and what I've lived, yeah, it it requires all that.
23:31
SPEAKER_03: You know, like you are really trying to grow, you're trying to expand and solve.
23:37
SPEAKER_02: You speak about it like a calling almost rather than a job title.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: You know what I mean?
23:44
SPEAKER_02: And and there's times where, you know, if you're called to do something, like you said, it kind of devoids it of all glamour.
23:52
SPEAKER_02: Because you aren't just holding this championship build or this badge of like, oh, look at me, look at me.
23:57
SPEAKER_02: It's like, man, this is my burden to carry.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: This is my my cross that I have to, you know, carry every day.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: And I remember a conversation.
24:05
SPEAKER_02: You say, man, I was gonna die in the street before I gave up on my business.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
24:11
SPEAKER_02: And you and you still say, like, man, 100%.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: I I stand on that.
24:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:17
SPEAKER_03: Uh 100%, man.
24:18
SPEAKER_03: And like uh it's purpose.
24:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:21
SPEAKER_03: You know, and I think that's the thing, right?
24:22
SPEAKER_03: Because, you know, it's like anything, like you're a music, you know, you're a you're an artist.
24:27
SPEAKER_03: You know, what if I just I came up with a little rhyme rap and I just wrapped it out and I started calling myself a an RB artist?
24:35
SPEAKER_03: You know, you'd be pretty damn offended.
24:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:37
SPEAKER_03: Because, but I'm doing it because I want to be an RB artist.
24:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:41
SPEAKER_03: You know, a rap artist.
24:42
SPEAKER_03: Whereas your purpose and identity is aligned to that, and you you really put your heart and soul into it.
24:49
SPEAKER_03: But I can do that and call myself that just because I wrote the song.
24:52
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:52
SPEAKER_03: And I and I'm and I wrapped it out.
24:55
SPEAKER_03: It's the same thing as the founder mentality.
24:58
SPEAKER_03: You know, and the difference is, and like then what if I did that and I got some money to write that song?
25:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:04
SPEAKER_03: But even worse.
25:05
SPEAKER_03: Even worse, but you needed the money too, but you can't get the money.
25:09
SPEAKER_03: But they'll give the money to me.
25:11
SPEAKER_03: And the reason they'll give the money to me is because I'm worth nothing, you know, in the sense I have no proven track record and I have no negotiation, I have no, I have no um assets.
25:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
25:22
SPEAKER_03: I'm very but I'll take the 50 bucks and call it good while you're over here been struggling for years, and you actually need$500 because you actually live in it, you know what's going on, you know you need the resources, you need all this type of stuff and equipment, whatever.
25:34
SPEAKER_02: You can prove it, you can prove it.
25:36
SPEAKER_03: You can prove it, you've lived it, but you still can't access the money.
25:40
SPEAKER_03: But you they can call you founder, they get in the news, and they can compete with you immediately.
25:46
SPEAKER_03: And it's being funded by all the people that you're encircled by in the community, but you can't access anything.
25:52
SPEAKER_03: That's what pisses me off.
25:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
25:54
SPEAKER_03: You know, and that's kind of what's in my my deal.
25:56
SPEAKER_03: And it doesn't just piss me off in the sense I can't access the capital.
26:00
SPEAKER_03: That is very irritating.
26:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
26:02
SPEAKER_03: But it act, but if I'm a true entrepreneur, I actually it gives me the energy to fight harder, like which is great.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, I kind of go through that.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
26:12
SPEAKER_03: And I come to the other side.
26:14
SPEAKER_03: What I don't like about it, here's the problem with it all, is that it's absolutely detrimental to the community.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: It's 100% detrimental to the community.
26:23
SPEAKER_03: Because what do you think that the iTunes would be if all they had were a bunch of people that got the$50 to write a song and put a rap song out versus what it is today?
26:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it wouldn't be what it is.
26:36
SPEAKER_03: That's what it's exactly.
26:37
SPEAKER_03: It wouldn't be healthy, it wouldn't have foundation, it wouldn't have scale, it wouldn't do anything, it wouldn't get to the top charts.
26:44
SPEAKER_03: You would just sit there in this little stupid little founder lane of RB artists versus true professionals.
26:52
SPEAKER_03: That's the exact same thing that I experience when I see all the breaking, awesome things that we have going on, you know, specifically in our area that we're trying to really capitalize and get entrepr entrepreneurship going.
27:04
SPEAKER_03: Right.
27:04
SPEAKER_03: But really, we got foundership going.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:06
SPEAKER_03: Which, I mean, look, man, there's a need for that, right?
27:09
SPEAKER_03: Like, I want people to have a maybe a little bit of a lifting ground.
27:13
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
27:14
SPEAKER_03: But not at the ignoring, not at the detriment of the entrepreneurs that are fighting the I mean, as you said it best, you gotta know your lane.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: You gotta know if you are an investor, if you are a founder, or if you are an actual entrepreneur.
27:27
SPEAKER_02: Like it's there is a difference.
27:28
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, there is, and and I think that uh, you know, an entrepreneur can be like, I don't know that you can teach it.
27:36
SPEAKER_03: You know, I don't know, like, and I've talked with Mark about this on one of our shows, but if you ask me, and I mentioned to you earlier, I always thought there was a secret formula.
27:45
SPEAKER_03: And what I realized really that there is a secret formula, but it's not in the IQ side, it's on the EQ side.
27:51
SPEAKER_03: It's the emotional intelligence.
27:53
SPEAKER_03: Because if you look at any founder or not, any entrepreneur, and you read in history, it's about the ability to overcome.
28:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's about the ability to be resilient and to fight in a fight.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: Almost exclusively, like almost like everything can boil down to that.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Can you get back up after your best friend lied and betrayed you?
28:14
SPEAKER_02: And you know what I mean?
28:15
SPEAKER_03: Like after somebody takes your idea and becomes more profitable than you who worked on it for 10 years, like after you've been working and you see some$35 founder getting the news media that never gives you attention, and it's because they have certain investors and everything's glamorized.
28:30
SPEAKER_02: Can you get up the next day and fight?
28:33
SPEAKER_02: Seriously.
28:33
SPEAKER_03: No, 100%.
28:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:34
SPEAKER_03: The next day, the next hour.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
28:36
SPEAKER_03: You know, and um, so it's about EQ, you know, and I think that's the secret sauce.
28:42
SPEAKER_03: It's like, and and that's what that's been my journey.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: And when I look at other entrepreneurs, that's really their journey.
28:48
SPEAKER_03: If you look at like Elon, if you look at Zuckerberg, you look at any of these people, you know, that are out there that that that are entrepreneurs, even back in history, yeah.
28:57
SPEAKER_03: Of and when I say entrepreneur again, I'm talking about a scaling business that's trying to solve a major, that's solving a problem that has that is trying to grow, yeah, solve more of those problems.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:07
SPEAKER_03: Um their emotional intelligence is extremely massive.
29:11
SPEAKER_03: And like, and I'm not saying I have something, like I'm figuring it out.
29:16
SPEAKER_03: Like, and I and I look up to a lot of people that have that EQ that is just is extraordinary, and it's a different uh emotional intelligence than I think you have like some of your greatest corporate leaders, like John Ferner or you know um Latrice Watkins or whoever's in those positions that that are just absolutely amazing human beings and fantastic leaders, but there there's a difference, right?
29:43
SPEAKER_03: Like they're over on the entrepreneur side, you have a personal, that's the definition of it, you have a personal risk associated with it.
29:51
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
29:52
SPEAKER_03: Right?
29:52
SPEAKER_03: You're solving a market problem, which they both are, yeah, but the entrepreneur has a personal risk, which brings on a whole nother level of vulnerability.
30:00
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
30:01
SPEAKER_03: Because over here, you have a risk that you might get fired, right?
30:04
SPEAKER_03: But you're not going to lose everything in the process.
30:08
SPEAKER_03: You know, and that's also where the mount the founder that has the investors in the startups, their personal risk is very low at that point.
30:18
SPEAKER_03: Right?
30:18
SPEAKER_03: They don't really like you don't you're not a startup founder going to try to raise$250,000 in capital because but all the while you have$250,000 in cash in your pocket.
30:29
SPEAKER_03: Right.
30:29
SPEAKER_03: That's not the way it works.
30:30
SPEAKER_03: They go to the VCs, they go wherever to get the capital because they don't have the capital.
30:34
SPEAKER_03: And so if they enter into that equation, they don't have carry much of a personal risk associated with it.
30:40
SPEAKER_03: So it automatically takes them out of the entrepreneur category.
30:43
SPEAKER_03: But yet all the while they're calling them founder and entrepreneur entrepreneurs, which is basically insulting what my purpose is.
30:53
SPEAKER_03: You know, and and it steals the stage.
30:56
SPEAKER_02: And insults the people that spent their last dollar, who had to go$100,000 in debt, who lost friends and haven't, yeah.
31:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and you have to look at your spouse and your kids in the eyes, and you know, like you you, you know, dude, I can't tell you the amount of times like where A, I wasn't getting paid, and B, I had to put significant charges on credit cards to buy like dude, buying like a Walmart credit card saved my life for many years because I could go buy groceries with it.
31:28
SPEAKER_03: Putting freaking milk and eggs on a credit card, like which is completely ignorant financial stewardship.
31:34
SPEAKER_02: But you have to do what you have to do.
31:36
SPEAKER_03: But then you you you can't tell your wife for the 15th time you've done that.
31:40
SPEAKER_03: Like she's already had your conversation with you 20 times about you know, get another job if you can't make an income.
31:47
SPEAKER_03: Why are you doing this?
31:48
SPEAKER_03: And and like you, you know, but you go past that.
31:50
SPEAKER_03: It's not that you're trying to be deceived, but you're you're so committed and so driven, and you can see it so clearly that uh that it's like nothing can stand in your way.
32:01
SPEAKER_03: And by the way, everything that you have, like like I mean, my story with White Spider was is you know, I had hundreds of thousands in in credit card debt, personal credit cards, plus some debt for the company, which wasn't that bad.
32:16
SPEAKER_03: We were always pretty good about that, with no payroll, no pay income.
32:19
SPEAKER_03: My entire team's being paid except me for like a period of nine months multiple times throughout the career.
32:25
SPEAKER_03: Um, you know, and and I have no savings, no 401k, no IRA, and nobody there to save me, you know, and everything and it's not a soft story, it's a reality story.
32:40
SPEAKER_03: And so whenever I see people glamorize entrepreneurship as if there is something wonderful about it, yeah, and I have yet to see a true entrepreneur that doesn't somewhat experience a lot of what I do.
32:51
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
32:53
SPEAKER_03: And and the problem is that that's where the EQ comes in.
32:56
SPEAKER_03: If you have somebody that's an entrepreneur that has an e and uh uh an emotional intelligence to handle that pressure, all right, that's one thing.
33:05
SPEAKER_03: Let them ride.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: But if you take a kid that's young that saw TikTok about some new pair of sneakers that they thought was really cool, and then they see another LinkedIn post about a VC group that's wanting to fund sneaker founders and entrepreneurs, that little kid get that young person gets a hold of that VC, they go through their pitch deck competition and they get$50,000 there, and they're all in and they're excited and giddy, and they're a founder, they've never been an entrepreneur, and they get in there and they lose it all.
33:40
SPEAKER_03: You're gonna put that person that may not have the EQ to handle that into a very dark place.
33:44
SPEAKER_03: That's right.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: And I've been in some dark places with it, and I think that any entrepreneur has.
33:49
SPEAKER_03: I have nothing special about that, even though they may not admit it.
33:52
SPEAKER_03: That's the difference between me, is I'm open about it.
33:55
SPEAKER_03: But I don't want to see anybody in that position that that that I did.
34:00
SPEAKER_03: I don't know that I can handle it.
34:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I just did, but I don't know how I'm gonna handle the next round.
34:04
SPEAKER_03: But I sure the hell don't want to be an advocate saying that it's okay because you know there are millions of other job opportunities to go down that road.
34:17
SPEAKER_03: And and what people need to remember is you know, there's nothing glorious about being an entrepreneur.
34:24
SPEAKER_03: It's actually extremely normal.
34:26
SPEAKER_03: And it's actually the basis of our economy.
34:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
34:30
SPEAKER_03: Everybody in America had to be an entrepreneur, absolutely, or a business owner.
34:33
SPEAKER_03: Rewind back before the 50s, before industry became big, before all this, you know, before Ford Motor Company, right, and all the benefits and all this standardization corporate conglomerates, everybody was having to work for their own self to survive.
34:48
SPEAKER_03: But it was about survival, and entrepreneurship is a hundred percent about survival.
34:54
SPEAKER_03: Yep, right?
34:55
SPEAKER_03: Surviving until you break through.
34:57
SPEAKER_03: Um, but now we've glamorized it, and so you now you have different categories.
35:02
SPEAKER_03: You got your founder, you got your entrepreneur, but then you also have your solopreneur, you have your freelancer.
35:07
SPEAKER_03: And I don't like to work with those people in the middle at all.
35:10
SPEAKER_03: Like, I'm sorry, like uh I not that they're not great people or smart people or whatever, or they might even provide a good service.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: But if I run across an independent contractor that's a solopreneur, and I find out real quick that they got into business because they wanted to have vacation time and all this flexibility, my respect level goes straight down the toilet.
35:31
SPEAKER_03: I don't like fractional stuff, I don't like any of that because you're trying to there that's a that's an unknown territory in my brain.
35:41
SPEAKER_02: You see it like trying to cheat the system almost.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, you're trying to extract benefits without dedicating to it the same way.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: Exactly.
35:48
SPEAKER_03: And there's also now I don't I'm not saying that they do not provide good service.
35:53
SPEAKER_03: I'm saying for me, I want people my job as an entrepreneur when I'm at full risk is to build people, team, clients, partners, vendors, vendors and and contractors, vendors are part of the the the stool, the the legs of the stool that keep the business up.
36:12
SPEAKER_03: And if I select vendors and partners that have that type of mentality and shit starts getting rough and hits the fan, they're out.
36:22
SPEAKER_03: Because guess what?
36:23
SPEAKER_03: It interrupted their balance.
36:25
SPEAKER_03: I'm not looking for partners, and I'm not looking for team members, and I'm not looking for clients that are trying to get balance.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: I'm looking for people that are trying to contribute, that have purpose, that are going forward, that are trying to freaking win and be successful and all in.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: You know, I want winners.
36:41
SPEAKER_03: And uh, and so I've seen a lot of that happen in the fractional part because, like, oh, you don't have to pay for me full time, but yet I'm still gonna charge five grand a month.
36:50
SPEAKER_03: And I'm sitting in my mind going, well, how many hours?
36:52
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, that gives you five to ten hours per week.
36:55
SPEAKER_03: And I'm like, dude, you're talking you're over here making$250,000 and and you have no accountability.
37:03
SPEAKER_03: You know, like that's that sounds great, you know, and and and there are certain folks, like if you're working in a major company and you're a software tech stack developer, backend genius with AI, you might be able to slip out and do a little bit of that because you're so peculiar, you have such a peculiar skill set.
37:21
SPEAKER_02: Your job is so needed that you yeah.
37:24
SPEAKER_03: But if you're you know, in a lot of the other lanes that are kind of general interest, like whether it's attorney or or whatever, like the work it'd be tough.
37:34
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's like don't don't I don't I don't want that.
37:37
SPEAKER_03: Now there are people that are in that category that I do investigate or talk with, and I find out that they're actually like mind their intention is not to have a balanced life, their intention is to really help small business or help these people do these certain things, and they've processed it and made it where the cost is lower.
37:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
37:55
SPEAKER_03: That's a different model.
37:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, you know, they have a scalable mindset to it and they're trying to grow the business.
38:01
SPEAKER_03: Um, so it's not about being just are you just alone, but it's the solopreneur mentality that's that you know I just don't have a place for.
38:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: I just don't.
38:10
SPEAKER_02: No, that's real.
38:11
SPEAKER_02: All right, I know you got to get out of here before we before we before we bounce out.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: Quick, quick hot take.
38:19
SPEAKER_02: This or that.
38:20
SPEAKER_02: All right, you just give me your answer, this or that, okay?
38:23
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I can't I can't get into details.
38:25
SPEAKER_02: No detail, and that's absolutely necessary.
38:28
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna keep it high level.
38:29
SPEAKER_02: So don't make don't make me all rile up.
38:31
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no, no.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: We we starting simple.
38:34
SPEAKER_02: 3-6 mafia or bone thugs in harmony.
38:36
SPEAKER_02: 3-6.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
38:37
SPEAKER_02: If you could have lunch for one of these people, who are you choosing?
38:42
SPEAKER_02: First one can't be hot.
38:43
SPEAKER_02: 3-6.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: Easy.
38:44
SPEAKER_02: Gangsta boo, gangster boo, baby.
38:46
SPEAKER_02: I'll manage the scarecrow people.
38:48
SPEAKER_02: Oh, dude.
38:49
SPEAKER_02: If you can have lunch for one of these three people, who would it be?
38:52
SPEAKER_02: Sam Walton, Henry Ford, or Jesus?
38:59
SPEAKER_02: I don't want the legal legend.
39:00
SPEAKER_02: I don't want the legal legend.
39:04
SPEAKER_02: Sam Walton, Henry Ford, or Jesus.
39:06
SPEAKER_02: Oh Jesus, man.
39:07
SPEAKER_02: It's gonna be Jesus.
39:10
SPEAKER_02: I was surprised.
39:11
SPEAKER_02: I'm surprised what you going you going red velvet cake or fresh pick strawberries?
39:20
SPEAKER_02: Which one?
39:20
SPEAKER_02: Red velvet.
39:23
SPEAKER_02: That shows all my fatness.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: All right, a day in the woods or a day on the water?
39:28
SPEAKER_03: Well, wait a minute.
39:29
SPEAKER_03: What kind of water?
39:30
SPEAKER_03: Like you on the lake.
39:31
SPEAKER_03: No, I'm in the woods.
39:33
SPEAKER_03: You in the woods?
39:34
SPEAKER_03: River?
39:34
SPEAKER_03: I'll be in the water.
39:36
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
39:36
SPEAKER_02: Different types of water.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: Fair enough.
39:38
SPEAKER_02: Fair enough.
39:39
SPEAKER_02: Beach, I'm out.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I know.
39:40
SPEAKER_02: I didn't say beach for the season.
39:42
SPEAKER_02: I knew you were 100% out on the beach.
39:44
SPEAKER_02: All right, last one.
39:45
SPEAKER_02: I like these.
39:46
SPEAKER_02: These are fun.
39:47
SPEAKER_02: Last one what?
39:48
SPEAKER_02: Start a company from ground zero or take over a major company that's been derailed.
39:54
SPEAKER_02: Ground zero.
39:56
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just mine.
39:57
SPEAKER_03: That's your forte.
39:58
SPEAKER_03: That's more for that's where I uh it's my comfort zone.
40:01
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:01
SPEAKER_03: It's my fun zone.
40:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
40:03
SPEAKER_02: Zero to 10, yard line-ish.
40:05
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:06
SPEAKER_03: I always said zero to twenty.
40:07
SPEAKER_03: Zero to twenty or whatever, but yeah.
40:10
SPEAKER_03: Because I I mean, did I' CEO right now?
40:12
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:13
SPEAKER_03: I don't bel I don't need to be CEO.
40:17
SPEAKER_03: I've always been very aware of that.
40:19
SPEAKER_03: But but I will play the part and do what I need to do to get it to where it needs to get to.
40:23
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
40:23
SPEAKER_03: But I mean, there's better people at at managing bigger, bigger organizations.
40:27
SPEAKER_03: But I mean, then again, I could be great.
40:29
SPEAKER_03: I have no idea.
40:30
SPEAKER_03: I've never I've never tried it.
40:35
SPEAKER_02: I think you could do it.
40:36
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, man.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
40:37
SPEAKER_02: I think you could do it, bro.
40:39
SPEAKER_02: Here's the motivation to myself.
40:40
SPEAKER_02: This is gonna sound as insulting as it is flattering to you.
40:45
SPEAKER_02: But I tell myself, if Eric Howerton can do it, then I can do it.
40:51
SPEAKER_02: I literally say I know this man.
40:53
SPEAKER_02: And if I know him personally, and if he can do it, anybody can do it.
40:58
SPEAKER_03: It's because you see me go into crowds at like events and stuff, and I don't change.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: Oh, places you're supposed to be sophisticated, places you're supposed to be like nice and dressed up.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: Like, oh, what's up?
41:09
SPEAKER_02: What y'all doing, man?
41:10
SPEAKER_02: Like, it's just crazy, bro.
41:12
SPEAKER_02: Straight.
41:13
SPEAKER_02: It's just bro, and I love it.
41:14
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, man, if that dude can do it, and anybody can do it.
41:17
SPEAKER_02: I can do, I can be myself and be successful.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: You can, man.
41:20
SPEAKER_03: I've told you that.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:21
SPEAKER_03: Like you're getting, like, you'll, you'll, you, you can, you'll supersede anything I've ever thought about doing.
41:31
SPEAKER_03: Appreciate you, bro.
41:32
SPEAKER_02: You're welcome, man.
41:33
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for your time.
41:34
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
41:35
SPEAKER_02: This episode of Big Talk About Small Business is brought to you by I don't know, bro.
41:42
SPEAKER_03: Don't try to take over, man.
41:44
SPEAKER_02: Do we got sponsors or anything yet?
41:47
SPEAKER_02: This is brought to you by Mark and Eric with Lil' Splashabang.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: See y'all next time.
41:58
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42:02
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42:16
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42:20
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