Latest / The Trauma Therapist / The Human Side of Entrepreneurship — with Michael Rangel of Novo.co

Transcript

The Human Side of Entrepreneurship — with Michael Rangel of Novo.co · The Trauma Therapist

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Trauma Therapist Podcast. My name is Guy McPherson.
0:04
Speaker 1: I interview incredible people who've dedicated their lives to helping
0:07
Speaker 1: those who've been impacted by trauma. A big thank you
0:11
Speaker 1: to our sponsors and our guests who are supporting this show.
0:15
Speaker 1: So five, four, three, two, and one. Our folks, welcome
0:19
Speaker 1: back to the podcast. Very excited to have my special
0:21
Speaker 1: guest today, Michael Rangel. Michael, welcome.
0:24
Speaker 2: Hey there. Really excited to be here.
0:26
Speaker 1: All right. So Michael Rangel is the founder of Novo,
0:30
Speaker 1: one of our sponsors. It's a banking platform built for
0:33
Speaker 1: small and independent businesses. He launched Novo in 2016 after
0:37
Speaker 1: seven years in the financial industry where he saw firsthand
0:40
Speaker 1: how underserved small business owners were traditional banks. Under his leadership,
0:45
Speaker 1: Novo raised more than $ 170 million, grew to 150 employees,
0:49
Speaker 1: and began serving more than 250,000 small businesses across all
0:53
Speaker 1: 50 states and has won awards from Forbes and Inc. Today,
0:57
Speaker 1: Michael is a small business and personal finance expert focused
1:00
Speaker 1: on entrepreneurship, fintech, and the evolving opportunities created by AI.
1:05
Speaker 1: All right, Michael, just a little bit about you. Before
1:07
Speaker 1: we get going, share with our listeners where you're from
1:10
Speaker 1: originally and where you are currently. We'll dive in. Sure.
1:13
Speaker 2: So I was born and raised in Miami, Florida, to
1:18
Speaker 2: Cuban parents. That's where I'm from and where I typically
1:23
Speaker 2: am most of the time. However, now recently I'm spending
1:26
Speaker 2: more time in New York in the company headquarters.
1:29
Speaker 1: Okay. So, you know, as part of being one of
1:33
Speaker 1: our sponsors, I wanted to bring you on and not
1:36
Speaker 1: just talk about Novo and what it can afford and
1:40
Speaker 1: offer for our listeners, but.
1:42
Speaker 2: Who you are.
1:45
Speaker 1: Who the heck is Michael? I want to introduce you
1:49
Speaker 1: to our audience and talk about what you folks do
1:53
Speaker 1: because obviously a lot of Um, therapists are listening to this.
1:56
Speaker 1: Coaches are listening to this small business owners. Why is
2:00
Speaker 1: this important? So let's get into it. So how does
2:03
Speaker 1: all this start for you?
2:06
Speaker 2: How long is this podcast again?
2:10
Speaker 1: We have time.
2:11
Speaker 2: Um, great question. I mean, it's got a pretty big
2:17
Speaker 2: answer behind it, but I'll try to give you kind
2:19
Speaker 2: of the cliff notes. Um, Like I said, I was
2:23
Speaker 2: born to Cuban parents. My father was literally born in Havana,
2:27
Speaker 2: left Havana when he was four years old. They had
2:29
Speaker 2: everything over there, had to leave it all behind when
2:33
Speaker 2: the regime changed, literally came with nothing more than the
2:36
Speaker 2: clothes on their back and like, you know, a carry
2:38
Speaker 2: on suitcase and literally had to start over from zero.
2:45
Speaker 2: And I think that in and of itself, which I've
2:47
Speaker 2: only recently reflected on, has been like a large undercurrent
2:50
Speaker 2: in my life. as a result of going from one
2:53
Speaker 2: thing to the next and then starting from zero and
2:57
Speaker 2: rebuilding back bigger, better, badder, stronger. I think that's really interesting.
3:02
Speaker 2: But I think I also started that at a young
3:04
Speaker 2: age as well. My first business I had when I
3:07
Speaker 2: was like, I don't know, 11 years old in my
3:10
Speaker 2: neighborhood in Boca Raton, where my dad one day brought
3:12
Speaker 2: home a pressure cleaner from Home Depot. And I said, hey,
3:17
Speaker 2: what is that? He's like, oh, it's a pressure cleaner.
3:19
Speaker 2: I'm going to use it to pressure clean the driveway
3:22
Speaker 2: and the pool. I'm like, oh, can I use that?
3:24
Speaker 2: He's like, what are you going to do with this?
3:25
Speaker 2: I go, I don't know, but I'm going to sell
3:27
Speaker 2: my services. And I literally went door to door in
3:31
Speaker 2: my neighborhood with this pressure cleaner selling my services. Hey,
3:35
Speaker 2: could I clean up your driveway or your pool deck?
3:39
Speaker 2: And that was like my first little taste of entrepreneurship.
3:42
Speaker 2: And it wasn't because I necessarily needed to. My parents
3:45
Speaker 2: were amazing. They provided such an incredible life for myself
3:49
Speaker 2: and my little brother. But I always liked, I always
3:53
Speaker 2: really appreciated the freedom that having like a few nickels
3:58
Speaker 2: of my own kind of afforded me. And so I've
4:01
Speaker 2: always kept that throughout my life as well. In some,
4:05
Speaker 2: in some days, especially for Novo, I probably sacrificed a
4:09
Speaker 2: bit too much to, to get there. But hey, you
4:12
Speaker 2: live and you learn. But fast forward, All throughout high school, college,
4:16
Speaker 2: I worked all throughout working in retail. Got my first
4:21
Speaker 2: job in finance when I was 19. I moved from
4:25
Speaker 2: retail to finance. But I started at the bottom again,
4:28
Speaker 2: like in the mailroom, delivering people's mail, working on projects,
4:32
Speaker 2: making coffee, like all of those mundane tasks that most
4:36
Speaker 2: people wouldn't want to kind of like put their name on.
4:40
Speaker 2: But I said, hey, it's experience, right? Why not? worked
4:43
Speaker 2: all throughout college. And when I was a senior in college,
4:46
Speaker 2: I moved to a large money manager. And I was
4:50
Speaker 2: able to do a lot of great work and learn
4:51
Speaker 2: a lot of really cool stuff. However, it never scratched
4:57
Speaker 2: the itch. And I don't know how else to say
5:01
Speaker 2: it other than that, right? Like I always had this
5:04
Speaker 2: itch of wanting to do something bigger, wanting to do
5:08
Speaker 2: something form myself on my own, build something that was mine.
5:14
Speaker 2: And I knew that I didn't want to be an
5:16
Speaker 2: employee forever. And so what kind of happened intermittently, which
5:21
Speaker 2: was a complete freak accident, no pun intended, I was
5:26
Speaker 2: involved in a really traumatic accident, actually, which kind of
5:28
Speaker 2: like just totally shifted everything. It shifted my entire worldview,
5:32
Speaker 2: shifted my entire perspective on what's important, what's not important,
5:37
Speaker 2: where should I spend my time? Where should I not
5:38
Speaker 2: spend my time? Um, how was I?
5:41
Speaker 1: How old were you?
5:42
Speaker 2: So when the accident happened, January 17, 2011, so I
5:48
Speaker 2: was 24.
5:49
Speaker 1: Okay.
5:50
Speaker 2: So literally almost like at my peak, right? So to
5:54
Speaker 2: speak at my car accident. Correct. I was in Denver,
5:59
Speaker 2: super terrible blizzard, uh, Um, we were in the car
6:03
Speaker 2: for far too long. Another car ended up hitting us, right.
6:07
Speaker 2: Force us to hit the median, us hitting the median
6:11
Speaker 2: on a highway that launched into the air for two
6:13
Speaker 2: full revolutions. Um, I was in the back, right passenger seat.
6:18
Speaker 2: I broke through my seatbelt on one of those revolutions
6:22
Speaker 2: was ejected through the back, right passenger seat window. Um,
6:26
Speaker 2: I was in critical condition. I was in a coma
6:28
Speaker 2: for 10 days, had to relearn everything. You know, my
6:33
Speaker 2: doctor said I would never be normal again and I
6:35
Speaker 2: never would be able to like achieve the things that
6:38
Speaker 2: I had already achieved in my life. Right. Cause they
6:41
Speaker 2: were playing it safe. It wasn't like they were doing
6:43
Speaker 2: anything wrong. They were playing it safe. They're like, Hey,
6:45
Speaker 2: I literally sustained a severe grade on the Glasgow coma
6:49
Speaker 2: scale on like 90. I forgot what the percentage is,
6:52
Speaker 2: but I think it's like 97% and up like are
6:57
Speaker 2: not able to recover from that. They're severely impaired, whether
7:02
Speaker 2: mechanically or mentally, for the rest of their lives. And
7:05
Speaker 2: so I obviously had a beyond miraculous recovery, was able
7:10
Speaker 2: to regain all my faculties, all of that stuff. I mean,
7:13
Speaker 2: all of the therapy stories, I could spend hours and
7:15
Speaker 2: hours discussing it, but I'll spare you here. I just
7:18
Speaker 2: want to share that as kind of like the foundation
7:21
Speaker 2: for how my perspective on the world and me being
7:28
Speaker 2: in that world Totally changed.
7:32
Speaker 1: Okay, get specific. From what to what?
7:35
Speaker 2: Sure, so from one day to the next, well, I
7:41
Speaker 2: completely have no recollection of the accident. My last memory
7:46
Speaker 2: of the accident was lying down in the backseat and
7:49
Speaker 2: closing my eyes. And then fast forward, I think it
7:53
Speaker 2: was like 10 or 11 days. My next memory was
7:57
Speaker 2: opening my eyes, like flickering And I saw I was
8:01
Speaker 2: in a hospital bed and I'm like, Oh my God,
8:08
Speaker 2: what the hell? Like, is it, is someone pranking me?
8:12
Speaker 2: I had no idea how I got there. It was
8:15
Speaker 2: like a bad, it was like the nightmare version of
8:18
Speaker 2: the hangover movie, right? Like when they all wake up
8:21
Speaker 2: in the room and they're like, Oh my God, what happened? Right.
8:24
Speaker 2: But it was like the nightmare version of that because like,
8:26
Speaker 2: I had no idea how I got there. I also
8:27
Speaker 2: had no idea about my injuries. I had no idea
8:30
Speaker 2: about the accident. I had no idea that I lost
8:32
Speaker 2: my best friend. And so what kind of like happened
8:36
Speaker 2: after that was this whole journey, both physically and mentally
8:41
Speaker 2: that I underwent to kind of like rebuild my identity. Right.
8:48
Speaker 2: Because it was like, I'm being told from all these
8:50
Speaker 2: like external sources, like, no, no, no, no, no. You can't,
8:55
Speaker 2: you can't, you can't, you can't play it safe, play
8:57
Speaker 2: it safe, play it safe. But internally, I'm like, wait
9:00
Speaker 2: a second. I might not have my short-term memory, but
9:05
Speaker 2: I have my long-term memory. I know who I am
9:07
Speaker 2: and what I've stood for. And, like, I'm not buying
9:10
Speaker 2: these kind of, like, recommendations, right? I'm going to stick
9:13
Speaker 2: it to them, and I'm going to show them that
9:16
Speaker 2: I'm going to be better now than I ever was before.
9:18
Speaker 2: And so that was kind of, like, the mission that
9:21
Speaker 2: I went on. It was not easy. It was incredibly, incredibly,
9:25
Speaker 2: incredibly difficult because– By that same time, I'm going to
9:30
Speaker 2: all these therapy sessions, right? I used to be, prior
9:35
Speaker 2: to the accident, I considered myself decently smart. And I
9:38
Speaker 2: went to my first speech therapy session. And I'll never
9:42
Speaker 2: forget that day because the therapist, she was incredibly kind.
9:46
Speaker 2: And she goes, okay, Michael, I'm going to time you.
9:49
Speaker 2: I'm going to give you 60 seconds. I want you
9:52
Speaker 2: to come up with all the words you can possibly
9:55
Speaker 2: think of that begin with the letter S. Go. You've
10:03
Speaker 2: probably already come up with more words than I came
10:05
Speaker 2: up with. In 60 seconds, I came up with a
10:08
Speaker 2: single word. My brain was just completely black. There was
10:15
Speaker 2: nothing there. And I remember in the last five seconds,
10:19
Speaker 2: I was panicking inside of me because I'm like, oh
10:22
Speaker 2: my God, what has happened to me? To no fault
10:28
Speaker 2: of my own, like now my life is completely going
10:31
Speaker 2: to be altered. And I can't even think of words
10:34
Speaker 2: that begin with the letter S, which is a very
10:35
Speaker 2: easy letter. And I started looking around the room and
10:39
Speaker 2: I saw shelf and I said shelf. And that was
10:42
Speaker 2: the only word I came up with. And at that point,
10:45
Speaker 2: that's when I kind of like had the man in
10:46
Speaker 2: the mirror, moment to be as cliche as possible. And
10:50
Speaker 2: I was like, I could either go this way, the
10:52
Speaker 2: way that the doctors are telling me to go, or
10:56
Speaker 2: I could go this other way, which is probably infinitely scarier. Right.
11:01
Speaker 2: But also infinitely more rewarding. And so I obviously took the,
11:08
Speaker 2: the other way, the scary. Wow.
11:11
Speaker 1: Jesus. I mean, this, this, that whole topic sounds like
11:13
Speaker 1: another podcast episode in and of itself. Yeah. Um, my God,
11:18
Speaker 1: how inspiring is that? So, okay. So how do you
11:23
Speaker 1: take that? And where does Novo come into the picture?
11:28
Speaker 2: So why? Yeah. So I, I took that and I'm like,
11:34
Speaker 2: I lost my best friend and roommate in the car accident.
11:37
Speaker 2: I'm like, there's this whole, like survivor's guilt thing of like,
11:43
Speaker 2: why me? Like, why am I still here? And he's
11:45
Speaker 2: not like that whole thing was like super difficult for me. Um,
11:51
Speaker 2: but then in that moment, I'm like, well, I'm here
11:54
Speaker 2: to do something bigger than I was doing before, right?
11:58
Speaker 2: Like I can't just continue on that same path that
12:01
Speaker 2: it was before that would be that, that would literally
12:05
Speaker 2: be failure. If I already knew that I didn't want
12:08
Speaker 2: to continue on that path. And I wanted to do
12:10
Speaker 2: something on my own. Like this is the catalyst to
12:13
Speaker 2: do the thing. Like this, this is like the single
12:16
Speaker 2: biggest signal I could have possibly ever received as kind
12:21
Speaker 2: of like the, the proverbial fire under the butt to
12:24
Speaker 2: make a move.
12:26
Speaker 1: Right.
12:27
Speaker 2: I made it out by, you know, the tiny little
12:29
Speaker 2: hairs on my chin barely, but I'm out. So now
12:34
Speaker 2: I got to figure out what to do next. So,
12:37
Speaker 2: what I did next was I started turning over every
12:39
Speaker 2: rock in my life, right? I still retain my job
12:44
Speaker 2: that I had in finance. And I was the head
12:48
Speaker 2: trader for this, this, this small money manager in South Florida,
12:54
Speaker 2: fair home capital management. Well, small by employee count at
12:57
Speaker 2: the time it was large by assets under management, few
13:00
Speaker 2: mutual funds, a bunch of privately managed accounts. And, but
13:03
Speaker 2: it was only about, you know, 20 some employees managing
13:07
Speaker 2: billions upon billions of dollars in assets. And so what
13:10
Speaker 2: does that mean? That means each employee wears a lot
13:12
Speaker 2: of different hats, right? You might have one job title,
13:17
Speaker 2: but you're touching all sorts of different things, right? As
13:19
Speaker 2: most small business owners, as most small business owners do.
13:25
Speaker 2: And so, you know, one of the days of the
13:29
Speaker 2: thousands of times that I was reconciling my trades was
13:35
Speaker 2: I was just like, I just went down this rabbit
13:38
Speaker 2: hole that led me to effectively, you know, Nova. And
13:42
Speaker 2: what we ended up founding it on was, you know,
13:45
Speaker 2: I had to download certain reports from platform X. I
13:51
Speaker 2: then downloaded from platform Y. I had to reconcile in
13:55
Speaker 2: like Excel. Let's say I had to modify things manually.
13:58
Speaker 2: And then I had to either share it with the
14:01
Speaker 2: accounting department or upload them to an accounting suite or
14:04
Speaker 2: something like that.
14:05
Speaker 1: Right.
14:05
Speaker 2: So super tedious stuff. And like, this is like the
14:10
Speaker 2: world of finance where if like a comma is in
14:13
Speaker 2: a different place or a zeros missing, like there are
14:18
Speaker 2: going to be some problems. Right. But at the same time,
14:21
Speaker 2: like I could do anything in Excel with like both
14:26
Speaker 2: of my eyes closed and like one arm strapped around
14:28
Speaker 2: my back, even after my accident. And so at that
14:32
Speaker 2: point I was like, this seems really tedious and a
14:36
Speaker 2: bit mind numbing. Like what about everybody else? Like how
14:40
Speaker 2: do other people manage this?
14:43
Speaker 1: Right.
14:43
Speaker 2: How does like the average small business owner manage their financials?
14:51
Speaker 1: Right.
14:51
Speaker 2: And that was like the, just the tiniest inkling of
14:54
Speaker 2: the question that got us started. And that's what, when
14:57
Speaker 2: we found all of like the crazy stats about small
14:59
Speaker 2: business owners. Right. And like, at the time, you know, the,
15:04
Speaker 2: the majority contributor to the GDP, the biggest employer, right?
15:09
Speaker 2: Like all of these big things. It's like, Oh my God,
15:11
Speaker 2: that's amazing. Like small businesses are literally the engine of
15:14
Speaker 2: the economic engine of this country. But then it's like,
15:18
Speaker 2: but the leading cause of business failure is what is
15:23
Speaker 2: poor cash management. And it's like, okay. Like I understand
15:27
Speaker 2: what those words mean, but like, no offense. It's kind
15:32
Speaker 2: of a stupid reason, right? Cause like poor cash management
15:36
Speaker 2: just means you're spending more than is coming in. That's
15:42
Speaker 2: a data problem. And a data problem should be solved
15:49
Speaker 2: or it could be solved. Other platforms, other products can
15:53
Speaker 2: help someone manage that more effectively.
15:57
Speaker 1: Why is that a data problem and not a, person
16:01
Speaker 1: problem or decision problem?
16:03
Speaker 2: Well, it's, it's both, right? It's the person might not
16:05
Speaker 2: have the data to make the right decision.
16:08
Speaker 1: Okay.
16:08
Speaker 2: Or they might not know that the products that they have,
16:15
Speaker 2: that they, let's say the platform they receive revenue from
16:19
Speaker 2: has their revenue tied up for X number of days. Right. However,
16:26
Speaker 2: Their invoice that they need to pay or their payroll
16:29
Speaker 2: processors that needs to make payment, right, needs to hit
16:33
Speaker 2: before that invoice is even going to clear.
16:36
Speaker 1: Right. Right.
16:37
Speaker 2: That's where a lot of small businesses get caught up.
16:40
Speaker 1: Right.
16:40
Speaker 2: Because they don't read the fine print until it's too late.
16:44
Speaker 2: And so that's where like these poor cash management decisions happen,
16:49
Speaker 2: which is like super, super, super unfortunate.
16:51
Speaker 1: Right.
16:52
Speaker 2: And it's kind of like a gotcha that a lot
16:54
Speaker 2: of small businesses fall into. And so that was also
16:57
Speaker 2: part of the reason why we started Nova. And we
16:59
Speaker 2: were like, imagine if there was a product that can
17:02
Speaker 2: actually help people understand where their money is at all
17:06
Speaker 2: times by that product connecting to the tools that those
17:11
Speaker 2: businesses already use and love. And so it could start
17:14
Speaker 2: streamlining more of this data in one place. Instead of
17:18
Speaker 2: the average small business owner having to go to seven
17:20
Speaker 2: different online portals to try to like, you know, do
17:26
Speaker 2: crazy Herculean math to figure out what actual cash they
17:30
Speaker 2: have on hand.
17:32
Speaker 1: All right, let's pause there for a second. So let's
17:34
Speaker 1: kind of focus in and get specific about what that
17:39
Speaker 1: would look like for a small business owner, how that
17:41
Speaker 1: would help, how Nova would help in that situation.
17:45
Speaker 2: So, I'll give you an example, right? It's like we
17:51
Speaker 2: have certain integrations into other software providers, right? Where we
17:58
Speaker 2: would be able to bring in the data from the
18:02
Speaker 2: other provider and show the Novo customer all of their
18:07
Speaker 2: data and all of these other places all within the
18:09
Speaker 2: Novo product suite itself. Instead of that person having to
18:15
Speaker 2: go to, three different other places to say, okay, platform
18:21
Speaker 2: X has $ 10, 000 that isn't going to hit my account
18:24
Speaker 2: for another 17 days. Platform Y has $ 5, 000 that isn't
18:28
Speaker 2: going to hit my account for another 13 days, right?
18:31
Speaker 2: We're going to start streamlining that and bringing it all
18:33
Speaker 2: together in one platform. At least that was the initial
18:36
Speaker 2: thesis that we had when we first founded the business.
18:39
Speaker 1: Okay. And in terms of like the, I could imagine
18:46
Speaker 1: a lot of small business owners and really people in
18:51
Speaker 1: the mental health field, therapists, coaches, et cetera, they tend
18:56
Speaker 1: not to be, I would guess finances specifically and business
19:05
Speaker 1: more generally tend not to be their strong suit. So
19:11
Speaker 1: how would you say that this could help them? What,
19:16
Speaker 1: what might they do if they're interested in working with Novo?
19:27
Speaker 2: Listen, I think, well, first off, I don't want to
19:33
Speaker 2: just shamelessly plug Novo, right? Like There are different solutions
19:36
Speaker 2: that work for different people at different phases of the
19:39
Speaker 2: small business journey. And every small business is unique. It
19:42
Speaker 2: has like their unique place on that journey based on
19:46
Speaker 2: their situation, where their business is, et cetera. I think
19:52
Speaker 2: one of the things that continues to be true today
19:56
Speaker 2: that was true, even when we founded it, you know,
20:00
Speaker 2: over 10 years ago was our mission to simplify things, right?
20:06
Speaker 2: Like our whole thesis was, banking shouldn't be hard. Like
20:12
Speaker 2: banking shouldn't make the business harder to run because of
20:18
Speaker 2: the tool that they choose to bank with. It should
20:20
Speaker 2: make it easier. And so one of like our anti-metrics, right?
20:25
Speaker 2: Usually you have startups who track all sorts of different metrics,
20:28
Speaker 2: engagement metrics and stuff like that. One of the anti-metrics
20:31
Speaker 2: that we tracked was We wanted our customers to spend
20:36
Speaker 2: the least amount of time possible in the Novo application.
20:41
Speaker 2: Because when we heard from other people and other banks,
20:44
Speaker 2: for instance, of how they're tracking engagement and how they
20:47
Speaker 2: want to have that number higher, we're like, that doesn't
20:52
Speaker 2: make any sense. If they're spending more time in your app,
20:56
Speaker 2: that means they're spending more time away from their business,
21:00
Speaker 2: which is the important part, right? Right. Like the more
21:03
Speaker 2: time they spend in a banking app or any other
21:06
Speaker 2: app that is not directly connected to serving their customers
21:10
Speaker 2: or their product, et cetera, like that is time away
21:13
Speaker 2: from making money. And so we always saw that as
21:17
Speaker 2: an issue. And so that's why we wanted to make
21:19
Speaker 2: it as easy as realistically possible. You come into the
21:24
Speaker 2: Novo app, you click three buttons and you're sending money
21:27
Speaker 2: to people in your profile. Super, super easy stuff. And
21:36
Speaker 2: I think that we've continued to make true on that
21:39
Speaker 2: mission today, even while building out a whole lot of
21:42
Speaker 2: different ancillary products, both within the financial suite, whether you're
21:46
Speaker 2: talking about credit, credit cards, et cetera, or even ancillary
21:50
Speaker 2: kind of like software and other value added services as well.
21:55
Speaker 1: Are we talking about a place where people can send
21:59
Speaker 1: invoices and stuff like that? Okay. Yep.
22:02
Speaker 2: We have invoice functionality baked in as well.
22:05
Speaker 1: Okay. And finally, as we kind of close out, in
22:08
Speaker 1: terms of– we didn't talk too much about the emotional
22:12
Speaker 1: side of running a business, the emotional toll it takes.
22:17
Speaker 1: And oftentimes I think– and maybe fill in the gaps here,
22:22
Speaker 1: especially for small businesses– I'll speak for myself or people
22:29
Speaker 1: in the mental health field who love what they do
22:31
Speaker 1: and are trying to help people. When you've got the business,
22:35
Speaker 1: quote unquote, the business part of it that's just not
22:38
Speaker 1: working for whatever reason, it can make you feel like shit.
22:42
Speaker 1: And there's this whole like self-worth or lack thereof tied
22:46
Speaker 1: to it. What do you see? What do you say
22:48
Speaker 1: to that?
22:52
Speaker 2: This is kind of like the– One of my favorite
22:57
Speaker 2: things to do while I ran the company was talking
23:01
Speaker 2: to customers all the time. It was like one of
23:04
Speaker 2: my favorite things to do since the early days up until,
23:07
Speaker 2: you know, most recently, I always love talking to customers
23:11
Speaker 2: to hear from them, to hear their stories. How did
23:16
Speaker 2: they start? How did they dive into the deep end
23:19
Speaker 2: and why? Because usually there are like a lot of really, really,
23:22
Speaker 2: really good stories there, right? It's like, every person has
23:25
Speaker 2: their own hero's journey. And like, usually this, the, the
23:29
Speaker 2: inception of the business is that it's like the most
23:32
Speaker 2: clearest part of that, because it usually requires the business
23:37
Speaker 2: or not the business, but the business owner to go
23:40
Speaker 2: up against all of the advice they're receiving from everybody else. Oh,
23:43
Speaker 2: don't leave your job. You have benefits. You have your retirement, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada, right?
23:50
Speaker 2: The list goes on and on. But, It's also why
23:54
Speaker 2: I personally believe that entrepreneurship and like starting your own
23:59
Speaker 2: business is like the most admirable thing that someone can
24:03
Speaker 2: do like on planet earth. Um, I think it is
24:07
Speaker 2: just like the most admirable thing. The reason why I
24:09
Speaker 2: share that is because like to answer your question more directly,
24:12
Speaker 2: it's like this shared sense of scar tissue that each
24:16
Speaker 2: like business owner knows, right? Like I know if I
24:18
Speaker 2: look at you guy and I'm like, you've run a business,
24:21
Speaker 2: you've gone through some hard stuff. just like I've gone
24:23
Speaker 2: through some hard stuff. It might be different, but it's
24:26
Speaker 2: all same, same, but different, right? Like history may not
24:30
Speaker 2: repeat itself, but it definitely rhymes. And just like in
24:33
Speaker 2: the small business journey, right? Maybe you don't deal with
24:36
Speaker 2: the same problems that I've dealt with, but I imagine
24:39
Speaker 2: they're relatively similar, whether that be complexities in the back
24:43
Speaker 2: office or the back office taking too much of your
24:44
Speaker 2: time or certain things not being paid on time, having
24:48
Speaker 2: to make sacrifices, sacrificing everything, not only financially, but also socially,
24:53
Speaker 2: like there's so many similarities in that. And so one
24:57
Speaker 2: of the things that I noticed from like all of
25:00
Speaker 2: these conversations, especially about the question that you asked about,
25:03
Speaker 2: like kind of like the finances side of things for
25:06
Speaker 2: a business owner is like, especially early on, but even,
25:10
Speaker 2: even me, like nine years in, I was like, I
25:12
Speaker 2: thought in my own mind, like I was like inextricably
25:17
Speaker 2: linked to the business. And I see that as an
25:21
Speaker 2: issue that a lot of other business owners have as well.
25:24
Speaker 2: And because of that, it's so hard to separate Michael,
25:30
Speaker 2: the individual, Novo, the business. And because of that, you
25:36
Speaker 2: have the finance overlap as well. And so should business struggle?
25:42
Speaker 2: Should finances not be what you hoped for this year? week, month, quarter, year, whatever,
25:51
Speaker 2: you conclude that you are a failure. Right. And like,
25:59
Speaker 2: that sucks. But like, it sucks, but it's like the
26:06
Speaker 2: most human thing possible, right? Because like, our business missed it,
26:12
Speaker 2: but because we are our business, we missed it. And
26:16
Speaker 2: because of that, you might feel shame, right? You might
26:21
Speaker 2: not want to share. You might not want to socialize.
26:23
Speaker 2: I mean, there were periods in my life that I
26:25
Speaker 2: didn't want to socialize at all. And my wife is
26:27
Speaker 2: like an angel for, you know, putting up with me
26:31
Speaker 2: for so long. But there were many periods of my
26:34
Speaker 2: life that I wanted nothing to do in the social
26:37
Speaker 2: scene because maybe I was having a tough month, tough quarter,
26:40
Speaker 2: or I was stressed out fundraising or, you know, whatever.
26:44
Speaker 2: you know, require was a requirement of the moment. Um,
26:48
Speaker 2: but I can totally sympathize with that because everyone deals
26:51
Speaker 2: with that struggle. Everyone was also looking at social media
26:55
Speaker 2: and faith. They, I'm going to say we, cause I
26:59
Speaker 2: almost said they, but we, right. Always think everyone else
27:03
Speaker 2: has it figured out. And we are just the, you know,
27:07
Speaker 2: only people who don't, um, because it's just how it's
27:11
Speaker 2: portrayed in the world. Um, And yeah, that's just like
27:15
Speaker 2: one of the hard things about entrepreneurship. And like, I
27:19
Speaker 2: wish I had an answer, like a better answer to it,
27:21
Speaker 2: but it's just like, that is the thing that gives
27:25
Speaker 2: you the grit and the thick skin and the scar
27:29
Speaker 2: tissue just to keep going. And like, that's the only
27:32
Speaker 2: advice is to keep going. Yeah.
27:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, Michael, how do our listeners here learn
27:38
Speaker 1: more about what you're doing, about Novo, about getting their
27:46
Speaker 1: business act together? What's the best way?
27:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you can follow me on LinkedIn, Michael Rangel, R-A-N-G-E-L.
27:57
Speaker 2: You can find us at Novo.co as well, or follow
28:03
Speaker 2: the company profile on LinkedIn as well. And there you'll
28:06
Speaker 2: find everything.
28:07
Speaker 1: Awesome. And we'll have all that linked up here at
28:09
Speaker 1: the show notes page at the traumatherapistpodcast.com. Michael, love it.
28:15
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for being here and we'll be
28:17
Speaker 1: in touch. Great.
28:19
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
28:19
Speaker 1: Take care.