I think if we focus more on who we are, what we're doing, preparing ourselves, and less about the results and ensuring that we position ourselves in a place, whether it's our business, our personal life, that we don't have regrets, then we're just going to be right where we deserve to be, and we have to be okay with that. What's up everyone? Welcome back to another midweek modern craftsman. It's gonna be a couple weeks late here, but I'm recording this podcast on May 6,
which is my wife's 40th birthday. I married an older woman. Don't let her hear me saying that, but hop over to her Instagram and wish her a happy birthday. Better late than never. So in this week's midweek, I'm reflecting on an article about off road racing legend Caleb Russell, and you don't have to know who he is, and this article is not about off road racing, it's about something that he said in that
article that I, uh, it resonated deeply with me. So it's about his surprising decision to retire early despite being at the top of his game. And it talks about his honesty about the fear of losing. And that really sparked some personal reflection on how fear of failure can shape your choices, even when you are an individual who's driven to succeed. So I'm going to explore how that fear shows up in business competition and life, and how we can work through it to hopefully reach
our full potential. So I was recently reading this article, trying to stay off my phone at night, sitting in bed reading the magazine with with Selby. And it's about this off road racer, Caleb Russell, hugely successful, I think he won like eight GNC titles in a row. You know, if he had 90 races in that eight years, he won 63. Of them, he had like a 66 70% winning
percentage, just somewhat unheard of. And at 30 years old, he decided to retire when he was really at the top of his game, and honestly, young enough to continue to be at the top of his game, and he shifted his focus more into mentoring and
coaching, and he wasn't racing professionally anymore. I don't even know if he was racing as a hobbyist anymore, and a lot of people questioned why he would walk away at such this young age, especially after being so dominant for so long, and realistically, the potential have his best years ahead of him. So it's been five years, I think, four race season since he's retired, and he recently came back. He's on a new team, a
new bike. He was a face of KTM. He's on a Yamaha now. He was working basically as the coach for the off road team, and developed a lot of great racers through KTM, but the opportunity to race again was not there, so he went to a new team, and he's racing again. He's doing well. He hasn't won anything, but he's doing well, but he hasn't raced in in four or five years. So in this article, there was a quote that immediately, when I read it, I was like, Holy crap. That's so powerful and so
relatable to me. And what he said was, when they were asking him why he why he retired, and how he's back now. And, you know, having the hindsight and the wherewithal to understand where he was at 30 and where he is now, at 35 with the family, young kids, and just a bit of maturity and life experience. And he said, I had a great career, and at the time, I was more scared of losing than I had the desire to keep winning, so the thought of what would happen if I lost, kind of made the
decision for me that hit me extremely hard. It brought me back to my wrestling career. It brought me to, you know, the past few years of racing and riding dirt bikes, it brought me back to many job opportunities prior to starting my own business interviews. It brought me back to leads from clients and projects that I was looking at from architects. It just all of a sudden I understood why that fear, at times, prevented
me from reaching my full potential. And I thought for a long time, you know, that I was the only person who felt this way, and hearing this from somebody with the chops of. Brussels and what he's done, and what he did in the off road spectrum, really made me understand that a lot of people feel this way and right my whole my whole life, my career, I've
wanted whatever I've done, I've wanted to be very good at it. At times I wanted to be good at it, and I didn't put in the work, and I had to accept, when I didn't reach my full potential, that, yeah, there were some regrets I had, and there's things that I could have done differently, but there's also
been times in my life where I was fully prepared. I was the best out there, and while walking up to the line while meeting with the client, while, you know, getting ready to enter competition, the fear of what if I lost, actually was easier for me than stepping up to the plate and proving that I was going to
succeed. And there's specific instances in my life that I can recall where I essentially opted out, where I backed down, where I was in the same boat as Caleb, where it's like you have this target on your back, you're expected to come away number one or land the job. And the fear of what if I don't, was so strong and so powerful that I decided to take that into my own control and fail somewhat intentionally, because I was scared, because I
was afraid. And that's not the easiest thing to admit, and I can look back on it now and realize when I did that, and I have a lot of regrets for those things, but at the end of the day, it wasn't that I It wasn't that I didn't want to win. It wasn't that I didn't want to be the best. But again, that fear of losing overshadowed and overpowered my desire to win, and what Caleb said in this article is just it hit the nail on the head for me to be honest. So, yeah, I wanted the success.
I didn't necessarily do it for the accolades. I did it because I wanted to be the best for myself, not because I'd get a medal, not because I'd stand on the tops up the podium, not because it was a, you know, the client hired me, I got the position. Those things were good. But to be honest, a lot of me, wanting to be successful was driven from insecurities with myself. The perfectionism, wanting to be at an elite level
was insecurities. I wanted to prove that I could do it and and a lot of times when, when it comes down to it, and when it's on the table, and when the stakes are high, those insecurities creep in, and you choose not to put all of that work into place, because it's easier, because it's difficult to have the target on your back, because it's difficult To be at the top, because it's not easy to be the hunted in life, I've realized that I would rather be the hunter than the hunted, but
we position ourselves when we want to be the best to constantly being the hunted, which is completely counterintuitive, right? You want to be the best, to fight and dispel all of those insecurities, and to feel good about yourself and to reach your true potential, but then you have this target on your back which can exploit some of those insecurities that you actually have. So it takes a very strong
person. It takes a lot of willpower, and it takes a lot of mental strength to be at the top, not only to battle those insecurities, but to also put the work in place to get there in the in the first place. So how many times have you guys or girls done something similar, turned down an opportunity, passed on a potential lead, chose to not apply for a job or walked away from something not because you weren't ready for it or you weren't prepared for it, but because of fear or internal
dialog. It's not that you lacked that drive, it's not that you lack the preparation. It's because that fear overshadowed, overshadowed your desire to win. I think that most of us want to succeed, not any of us you know grow up saying we want to be a loser, and I think that we don't always realize how much pressure comes with that until we are in that position again. Being at the top is tough.
People unfortunately are watching you're creating a lot of accountability for yourself, and a lot of people are waiting for you to stumble. And that pressure is extremely real, and that pressure can be very exhausting. I'm gonna pause real quickly for a little plug for myself. So if you are a contractor, a smaller Owner Operator, do you feel that you're working tirelessly just to make ends meet, struggling to
understand how to charge for your time? Do you find that you are working 80 hours a week just to bill for 40 is your business consuming you and pulling you away from your family and robbing you of happiness, stability and freedom. If you're somebody who can resonate with that, who's having trouble navigating your numbers, understanding, lead generation, social media, marketing, sales, client experience, pre construction or profitability, I can help you. So to date, I just
looked at this. I've worked with over 100 contractors and business owners in the same boat as you and me, and I've helped them find a clear, manageable path forward, not only in their business, but in their lives, as well as small contractors, we must capture every hour and manage our time wisely. So if you've hit the point where the stress, the headaches and the constant grind feel unsustainable, I'm here to help you so you can shoot me an email if you'd like to discuss this,
but I offer one on one consulting. There's no commitment beyond a single virtual call or phone call. Some clients just have some specific questions that they want to ask. They want to dig into my business. Some and one phone call is enough. Some clients want more accountability, and they want ongoing support. So I have some clients where it's once a month, once, where it's every quarter, whatever you need, whatever your program, I am more than willing to suit
those needs of yours. So reach out to Tyler at TRG home concepts, if you are interested, to find out more and get that conversation started. So, as I was saying before, I found in life that it's easier to be the hunter than the hunted, and it's a it's a strange realization after I've spent most of my life working very hard, hustling, training and preparing to be the best version of myself to reach my full potential. Because when that moment comes to put all that hard work to the test, why
at that point does the fear creep in? Shouldn't we be celebrating the chance to showcase all of our hard work what we built? Why are we so afraid of not coming out on top? Is it? Is it that you know you've truly value a silver medal? Silver, silver, silver, silver metal, much less than the gold? Why are we allowing that fear, the the failure, the rejection, to outweigh the satisfaction of putting it all on the line and giving it everything that we've got and
celebrating our efforts. Because if you've worked your ass off, if you showed up when it mattered the most, when you've done the work behind the scenes, when nobody's watching, and you gave it your best, that absolutely should be enough, whether you're on the top step of the podium, whether you are awarded the job, you land the new position within the company, you get the the excuse me, promotion that you wanted. None of that defines your worth or really can summarize the effort
that you put into this. None of that work on the back end. None of the the self growth, the Self Realization goes away if you don't win, if you you know you're taken out, if you don't get the job, if you don't get the promotion, if they award it to somebody else. So these are all for me, opportunities to learn and grow. And I'm sure that you've heard people say, you know you're defined by your losses, not necessarily your wins, and that's when the true change happens. But I look at it
as what, what could I have done differently? Was it just a fluke? Right? Did something go wrong? Did you have issues? Was it a mental lapse? Were you not fully prepared? Were you just simply outmatched? Did somebody outwork you? Did they have a better product, a better system, or were you just not the right fit? Right? These losses often teach us so much more than the
wins. And reading Caleb's words reminded me that even those people at the very top right where you're putting on a pedestal that you're chasing because you want to be them, because they're the best, and they must have everything, and it must be easier for them. It's not. It's typically way harder. And when you look at somebody like this, who had been at the top of their game for so long, and literally was like the proverbial goat of his industry and his profession, quit, you.
Because being at the top was too hard, too many people wanted him to fail. There was too much pressure. It was too hard to get up every day and perform, probably not physically, like it's not easy physically, but mentally, that's a lot to deal
with day in and day out. I think if we focus more on who we are, what we're doing, preparing ourselves and less about the results, and I've recorded podcasts on this before, and ensuring that we position ourselves in a place, whether it's our business, our personal life, that we don't have regrets, then we're just going to be right where we deserve to
be, and we have to be okay with that. I'll admit it's oddly comforting, and I'm sorry for this, but it's oddly comforting knowing that somebody like him wrestles with a lot of the same feelings that I've struggled with for years, because for a long time, I felt that I was alone in feeling this way and fighting those internal battles and doubting whether all of my efforts were actually good enough. And I think that at the end of the day, my desire to win was there. It's always been
there. It's been there through athletics. It's been there growing up. I mean, I don't even play board games with my family because I want to win so badly, and I know that if I don't win playing clue with my kids, that I'm going to be upset. I do it when I watch Philly's games, when my kids play sports, sometimes the desire to win is too much, and not winning creates so much anxiety and tension that it's just easier not to do it in the first place. And that's something that I need
to work on. That's something that I've been experiencing my whole life. And there's times where people have reached out to me with a with a lead, and I ask who they're bidding this project with, and it's people where I'm like, maybe my insecurities creep in and I can't compete with what they do. And I'm like, you know, I'm going to pass on this. But I've realized that there's things that can make me deal with that better. There's,
you know, there's no reason why. If I'm not selling, if I am able to sell what I do, and I'm able to differentiate myself, and I'm able to be confident that I'm the best at what I do, and if this person doesn't choose me, and I worked as hard as I could, and I prepared as much as I could, and I put the time and the effort and the due diligence in, and I'm not selected, that
that's not something I have to fear. That's not something that I should walk away from beforehand because of my insecurities, and if they walk away, or they don't choose me, or if I don't win, that I can, I can walk away from that experience and have something to hang my hat on and hold my head high, and just realized that, hey, didn't work out this time. I wasn't the right fit. I wasn't the right contractor. This person was better than me. I had a mental lapse. I wasn't a good
fit from the get go. There's a million reasons why, but if you're positioning yourself and you're putting the work in behind the scenes, fearing this failure is something that it can be a motivator for a lot of people, but it also can just be mentally and emotionally draining to constantly walk into everything with the expectation of perfection and a seamless product and nothing going wrong and always winning and always
Being at the elite level. It's difficult, and I think a lot of times we are actually preventing ourselves from reaching our full potential because of the pressure that we're putting on ourselves and this fear and not allowing just a will and a want and a need and a desire to win, to be the motivation for the preparation that we put in place.
I think that when we start doing that, and we focus on the positives, and we work on really dispelling those insecurities and facing the fears that we have and understanding, hey, what's the worst that could really happen here? Why am I afraid of this? Why, like, why are my insecurities creeping in? Then you have a path forward, because you can say, hey, it's because I know that my pre construction isn't robust enough. Hey, I know that my stamina and my endurance isn't
great. Yeah, I have the sprint speed, but my stamina is not there because I took, you know, a few cheat days, you can start working on those aspects for your life, your business, your training, whatever your preparation is in whatever sector of your life that is to better yourself. I think that when we focus on the fear and the anxiety, that actually probably begins to weigh on us too much, and it takes a lot of
the fun out of the things that we're doing. And I think it's hard to achieve great success when you're constantly putting
that pressure on yourself. Life. So really neat article, great story, you know, not absolutely construction related, but it really just did resonate with me, because I can look back on times in my life where I walked away from something, or I chose not to sign up for an event, or, you know, I lost a competition at sport because I kind of through it because I was afraid of having to step out on that line and and really test myself.
And it's not that I wasn't the better person. It wasn't that I wasn't more prepared, but fear drove me to throw in the towel. And I have a lot of regret in life for that, and I don't want to feel regret or shame. I want to position myself in life and business and sport. I want my kids to as well where it's like, Hey, you go out there and you give it your best shot and whatever happens happens, as long as you understand that the result is a direct correlation to the effort that you put in.
You shouldn't let the stress and anxiety dictate the results. So one more thing that I want to quickly announce, so Nick and myself, the modern craftsman team, are looking to put out a monthly online workshop. We're hosting them through zoom. So the goal is, with this, each month, we're going to select the topic or pre select the topic, more than happy to accommodate your needs. So if you have something from an online course that we develop that you want to dig into, that you have
questions about, shoot us an email. Hello at modern craftsman.co, but basically, I think from the outset, we want to select the topic, a worksheet or a form from one of our courses and dive deeper into that with you. If you don't have the course, no problem. If we're hosting a workshop on this, we will provide that resource and the workshop for absolutely free. All you need to do is sign up for our newsletter to be in
the loop for this. So our goal is to expand our content offerings more than just right here on the podcast, to be able to have and create a more personalized experience for all of our loyal followers, our loyal listeners. For example, we recently gave away a business scaling worksheet, which is part of our scaling course that we launched, and we gave that away for free to our mailing list, which that works. That worksheet outlines a clear path, goals and growth strategy for residential
construction businesses of any size. So in the live workshop, we walked through the entire worksheet, we filled it out for our own businesses, step by step, and then we answered any of the questions from the attendees. Again, there are a lot of people in the workshop that didn't enroll in the course, but we did give them that resource for free as a thank you for being on our mailing list. So you'll hear about resources that are coming out for free any of these
workshops via email. You There are opt outs within the email sequence. If you don't want to get certain reminders, it's all customized and tailored to you. But if you want to be a part of this, sign up for the newsletter to get access to all of these free monthly workshops. If you have suggestions you want, topics, you have resources that you want us to cover, let us
know. Once you're signed up, you will need to pre register for each session through the Zoom link, which we will also provide you for being on the newsletter gets you access to the pre registration and any news, any free resources that we're providing, but you're not automatically registered. We'll send you a link. You will have to pre register for each session, so that pretty much wraps it up for this week.
Hopefully we will see you at the next online workshop. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, if you haven't signed up for the newsletter, modern craftsman.co you can opt into that there. You can opt into it on our Instagram, modern craftsman pod. There's a million ways to do this if you're really having trouble and you can't figure it out, shoot me an email, Tyler at TRG home concepts.com or Hello at modern craftsman.co I appreciate all of you hanging around listening,
and I will catch you on the next midweek. Have a good week.