EP 93 | Lessons Learned in March

the beginning of April. It's it's April 3rd as I'm recording this and I love to do a month in review of what I learned because the intention behind this podcast is to take you behind the scenes with me as we grow this business from start up to over

$1 billion in value over the next 36 months. And so I want to be really transparent and honest about the things that happened behind the scenes that you don't necessarily see on the tick tock on the Instagram, on the YouTube for changes and pivots and growth and development that's happening in the background. And so part of that is, man, what the heck happened in March? So things I learned in March. Ready, set, go. This was a big theme of March, and it was actually probably a big theme

of the last six months. But it came to a head in March. And this piece is called Don't be reasonable. Do not Be Reasonable. And I hear Grant talk about not being reasonable all the time as it relates to your goals. Like be just totally unreasonable as it relates to your goals. That reason should not be something that you use as a filtering mechanism to establish targets to go after goals like just be unreasonable, which I love.

But there's this other side of being reasonable, which is you allow things, people decisions, negativity, time wasted in your life and you are reasonable with it. Meaning you give a reason for why that's happening and why you let it happen and you don't take cause over the situation. You're just reasonable. You allow it to happen. And in the month of March, there were a handful of things that just built that it had been building that I had to confront and say, Hey, I'm no longer going

to be reasonable. I am not allowing this. This is not going to be in my environment. This is not going to be in my professional life. This is not going to be in a contributing factor financially for me. Like, I am not going to be reasonable. I'm not going to let this continue to occur. And for you, when you're thinking about the things that you let in your life where you're reasonable, do you have team members on your team that you know are the wrong people? They

are the wrong players. They are negative. Maybe they talk about you behind your back, they undermine you, they go rogue. They do things that you've allowed them to do, but that you're not actually comfortable with. If any of that is happening, you're being reasonable. So stop being reasonable. It is your company, it is your business, it is your life. And even if you're a team member and you're like, it is not my business and I can't I can't make a change, you can always be cause in your

life you can always make a change. And the more that you allow yourself to be reasonable, even on the littlest things where you just make little like you cut corners and you like skirt around issues, that's being reasonable. And when you really can confront that, you are being reasonable. That's the first step. I am being reasonable right now about the situation. I am being reasonable about this person.

I am being reasonable about this product or this service, or I'm being reasonable about this behavior in my marriage. Whatever it is, whatever you're being reasonable about, you just kind of made sense of it. But it bothers you, acknowledge that you are being reasonable. That's the first step. You have to acknowledge that you have tolerated this. It doesn't matter how long you've been doing it, you just have to say, Hey, this is how I've been operating

and moving forward. I am going to change my operating basis. I am no longer going to operate like this and I do not care the consequences that are going to come if they're professionally, if they're personally, if they're financially. I do not care what the consequences are, because the greatest consequence is you being reasonable because it's just it

sets this snowball effect. And the snowball effect can be one of the most damaging things to the confidence of a business owner when you have a team member who's on your team but really isn't acting like they're on your team. You're allowing that person to run amok inside your environment. But then what else are they creating? What else are you allowing? Because oh, I know that if Jerry does it, then that probably means that Melanie's doing

it too, and then Roger's going to do it. And now I have a team of people who are doing something that I'm not comfortable with. But I didn't stop it because I really like Jerry or Jerry was a family member. Like, stop being reasonable. Natalie is no longer

reasonable with her environment. And that was a big, tough lesson in March, but one that I know I'm going to look back in 18 to 36 months from now and say, I am so thankful for, I guess, having it be brought to light that I'm being unreasonable because I'm so hyper aware of this now. And it's not going to be the thing that stops me from getting to the next level. Whereas the reasonableness could have stopped me from getting to the next level. But now I'm

freaking on my game. Like this has just taken me to a whole nother level. But it took gutting up to this reasonable peace and taking accountability and owning my role and just turning into this thing that I didn't want to be and I didn't think I wanted to become. But out of necessity, I am now. And it's really great. I'm really I'm ending March on a good note. Number two second lesson I learned in March There is always

a solution. There is always, always, always a solution. Even to the things that you think There is no solution. It is black or white. There's nothing in between. I don't like option A, I don't like option B, Those are my only two options. There is always a solution. And I learned this. I learned this through Grant and Brandon over the last few weeks because in my mind we're handling a situation at work where I saw it one way and it was the only way that it

could go from my perspective. And it was fascinating because when I brought Brandon into the fold and when I brought Grant into the fold with this product inside Cardinal Ventures, they're like, Well, there's option C, d, e, f, G, Hell, there's option like 462. Like we're not just operating out of letters. There's there's there's there's numbers. There's a whole

different way of of even conceiving the solution. And I do think that's the value of having mentors and having people in your life who can push you to think bigger and think differently because getting stuck in a single solution and thinking that you're so emotionally attached to this one solution, it's never real. There's always multiple solutions and different ways that you can create and be better and have more affluence and have a greater effect than whatever.

The thing is that you might be holding on to that actually is a loss. And so that's that was the situation with us. I was thinking that we were going to have to get rid of this thing and Grant and Brandon were like, Well, we could do it in these 2500 other ways, and this is how we could get creative and we could get creative in this way. And as much as I push back, it had all of my reasons because I thought of those things too. They were just more creative. And that's why they're at

where they're at in life. And I'm again so thankful to have mentors who really can hone in me. There's not just one solution, and we can make the outcome actually better than your first proposed solution. You were not stuck. Our hands are not tied. We are not victims. We're going to figure it out. And the way that they did this was just freaking masterful. So remember, there's never

just one solution. There's always multiple solutions. And you should get excited about what the potential solution is because it should be so exciting. And there's more opportunity than you're even thinking with If you feel like you're stuck right now, which I know a lot of business owners, a lot of leaders do get stuck and they're really wrestling with

how do I go from 800,000 to 8 million? Like, I can't even think with it because you're likely so stuck inside the business doing your one function, your one role. Everybody's dependent upon you, and yet somebody else could come into your business and say, Oh my gosh, I could see how you could do 80 million or 800,000,000in this industry and this product and this service. So that's just something to keep in mind. There's always another solution based

on what your target is. Next up, number three, use logic. Do not use emotion. And if you are emotional, don't.

is it shows the passion, it shows the care. It shows the real dynamic behind how important the success of the team and the business and the client success really is to the business owner. And that's oftentimes where the emotion comes from. But if you're still feeling emotional when you're having the conversation, you have to wait until you're not emotional any longer. And even if you think that there's a time constraint to make the decision, there is

always the ability to wait. And if you put this policy in place that you do not have conversations in business about your business with people that you're frustrated with in your business while you are still emotional, that is one of the best policies that you can put in place. I do not get emotional very often. I do not. I've never yelled. I think there's been like three times I've yelled inside working in this whole ten X ecosystem. Like I'm not I don't get frustrated with the team.

I'm very logical. But there are moments where I can get emotional. And there were actually a handful of moments where I got just emotional in. One thing that I know about myself is when I do get emotional, I have the tendency, I have the propensity in that emotion to want to just like call someone. I'm a high influencer on the risk assessment. I'm a high influencer. So like, I want to pick up the phone. I want to be like, Oh my gosh, this happened and this happened

and it's the wrong thing to do. And I've learned this. I learned this very early on in my career where you are not friends with your team members. You should not be calling up your team members when any problem happens in your business just to vent about it. They are not the people that you're supposed to vent to. The people you're supposed to vent to are really yourself. Like you should be able to help solve your own problems.

And if you have that tendency when you are emotional, you cannot talk to the stakeholder while you're still emotional. If you're going to fire somebody, do not fire them when you're emotional. It should be black and white. If you're going to have a corrective conversation in your business, wait until the emotion is done. Now, I'm not saying wait two weeks or three weeks like this is the other part two of this lesson. That is number three.

But you should you should wait until you're not emotional. However, learn how to regulate your emotions to where it doesn't take four days for you to get over something. It doesn't take six days. It's not a whole month until you're not emotional about it. If you're frustrated about something, you should be able to cool off in a matter of 90 seconds. That should be your target. 90 seconds at least through a good night's sleep. I always know if that's my backup plan. I'm like, I'm just going

to sleep on it. But if an issue happens at 9 a.m. in the morning, like you don't have time, there's not enough hours in the day for you to to sit from 9 a.m. until the next morning. That's a whole freaking 24 hours. You do not have 24 hours to waste on being emotional about something. So learn how to make that faster, but sleep on it. It isn't fixed. When you've slept on it, you have an issue with regulating your emotions and making a decision to

move off of something. So learn that process of emotional regulation and get off of the emotion so that you're able to just say, Hey, this is what happened. I'm not okay with how this happened. This is the impact of that decision. And unfortunately, because of that, XYZ needs to take place. And it's not a battle. It's not

a fight. It's just logic. It's pure logic. And that is one of the most beautiful things that you can do as a business owner or as a leader to set your team up for success because they're going to be watching how you handle the hard things. And the hard things should be handled logically, the hard things. That is the last situation, the last type of involvement that you should be having when it's hard is an emotional one. And walk by and distracted me. But now I'm back.

I think I ended that sentence. Okay, we're going to keep moving. Number four always be navigating what's wanted versus

what's needed from you. I spend a lot of time thinking about where I'm spending my time and energy in our organization, and I flip between these two things of what is wanted, like what would what what's wanted of Natalie as the president of Cartoon Ventures, as the president of ten Health, with all of the partnerships that we have in our HVAC businesses and our plumbing businesses and our pasta business and our manufacturing business, like what is

wanted of Natalie, because there's a whole long list, but I only have time to address the wants once I have completed my role for what is needed from me. Like where do I need to spend my time? Wants are great, needs are the priority. And so over the last month I have not been as good. I've recording podcasts because I have been needed in other areas of my business. Having a podcast is great. I love recording these podcasts. I love this content. I know that it's

helping people and I get a lot of fulfillment. And also we get clients through this podcast. However, it is not a need for me, it is a want and so I've put that on pause for a couple of weeks. It's not forever and I know how to prioritize my time, but it was put on pause. Now my book is entirely put on pause. Right now I'm at like the I don't know what the sports analogy would be. Maybe like the 80 yard line, the 95 yard line. I'm in the homestretch. We'll we'll switch sports teams there or

sports altogether. I'm in the homestretch on my book but it would be irresponsible for me to be working on my book because it's a want and it's not a need. And right now, the needs that are of my role inside our businesses is greater than what's wanted. And I know that the book is going to help so many people. In fact, I just taught our Leadership Essentials Workshop over this last weekend. Speaking of if you're interested, you should

go to our next one. It's freaking amazing. You can go to Cardinal ventures.com/leadership to sign up for our next Leadership Essentials workshop. And over the time that I was speaking, all of the questions that were being asked have to do with the next topic of my book. And I was so frustrated that I couldn't just say, Oh my gosh, when you just instead of me explaining how to do this, just go to Chapter four in my book and you'll be able to handle this whole situation. I so desperately

want to be able to say that. But right now that's a want and it's not a need. Now, the book will come out and I will find time, and that's just part of going through seasons. And there will be some seasons in your business that are much more challenging and much more difficult than others. So that would be the final piece of what I learned in March. March was a rough season for me. I have a feeling that April is is not going to be quite as rough. March was was a rough month, although April

could could surprise me. You just never know. But the reality is all of the problems inside an organization, they happen in seasons. It is not like it is always hard, but if you are a leader, you have to know that it is actually your job to solve the hard things. That's your role. Your role isn't to be the nice person. Your role isn't to be this figurehead. Your role isn't just to create rah rah energy. Your role is to get into the the biggest, deepest, most difficult problems inside

your organization that nobody else can solve but you. And you solve those problems in order to help the organization grow. And so I do view that as my role each and every day of it is going to be a marathon. I'm maybe at mile at the end of mile one right now. It's going to be a marathon of solving problems and giving guidance on the things that are either team members don't know how to solve, aren't as interested in solving, don't even know what the direction is around

the problem that they're solving. So that's my role is to to really dive into those deep problems, figure those problems out. And then once those problems are solidified, you move to the next set of problems. And so you can't begrudge the problems when you're a leader like that is the role. The role is solving really difficult problems. And if somebody else could solve the problems, then you would just go into another set of problems. And I

think that's oftentimes why entrepreneurs get a little discouraged. And brand and I were able to laugh at this at the end of last week because here all of our businesses had their best quarters in the history of our company. And like by a lot like screaming quarters. Fantastic results. And yet all I feel like is that I've got punched in the face. Which is fine because that's the job. The job is, hey, we're doing great, but these things need to be fixed and somebody has to put their

attention on getting these things fixed. And if we were sitting back just saying, Oh wow, look at how great we're doing. That's good for staying at the level that we're at right now. But the target isn't having this

quarter forevermore be the best quarter. It's to have that for next quarter and the next quarter and the next quarter and then in two years from now and then in five years from now, in order to create that kind of growth, you have to be consuming yourself with the problems that have to be solved inside your business. And for some of you, those problems are marketing. For some of you, those problems are leadership. Some of them are ops and fulfillment. Some of them might be finance

and accounting wherever the problems are. That's where you need to be. And I'm telling you, it's okay to live in that you can have a moment of celebration. I think Brian and I cheered like a couple cans of Diet Sprite over the weekend. We're like, Hey, nicely done. Like, this is this is so awesome. How fantastic. And then we got right back into talking about whatever the problem is that we need to handle in order to move that problem on so that then we can handle the

next problem. And that is building and scaling a business. And it's okay. It's your job with that. Appreciate you for listening to Building Billions. I am excited to continue to create great content. If you found value in this, if you know another entrepreneur, please send this their way. And it would also mean the world to me if you left a review. I read every single reviews. The reviews mean the world to me. If you just spent 15 seconds writing up a review, wherever you listen to

your podcasts, I will read it. I will. Thank you. And that is the encouragement that I love in order to keep this thing rolling. So with that, be great. See you on the next episode.