S4E16: The Reluctant Entrepreneur - Drive
Does having a drive mean non-stop energy in your business?
Season 4: The Reluctant Entrepreneur | Episode 16 | 42 min
Guest: Diana Ideus
Does having a drive mean non-stop energy in your business?
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Show Notes
Does having a drive mean non-stop energy in your business? Diana and Jacen discuss the difference between the expectation that commitment and drive equate to non-stop energy and focus.
Referenced in this episode
- The Gunslinger by Stephen King
- Neil Gaiman on the Tim Ferris podcast
- The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- DRiV - behavioral assessment and 360 leadership report tool
Transcript
Hello, everyone, and welcome to another episode of Cross-Street Coaching. This is a show about business, leadership, personal and professional development, all from a coach's point of view. And this year, this season, we have been focusing on the reluctant entrepreneur, which is Diana Ideus, Master Certified Coach, and myself, our version of entrepreneurship. So it is not for those people who have just always been born and always wanted to run a business. I mean, you can listen if you want. Of course, of course, you could. All are welcome. There is a lot of helpful, but other than the two typical ways that most people start businesses, which is either it's in the family blood, or in the family legacy, or for people that have always wanted to start a business, we are directly speaking to everyone in between. But of course, of course, there's something for everyone. Diana, I mean, my mistake. Oh, not even a mistake. Takes a team. Yeah, so it's been a moment. It's been a moment since you and I have gotten to talk. We've gone through a plethora of guests, and we've talked. That's true. Back to basics. Yeah, a number of topics. And it's been a busy couple months. And you know that I shy away from that term, busy, because busy can be code for not important enough. But the Hawthorne Union gang got together last month. So great. A lot of big projects have been kicking off, a lot of great things. So this has been an excellent conclusion to the summer. But it's really nice to be able to talk to you, Diana. Same. Yeah. And so I know that there are two topics that you wanted to come back together, turn on the mics, and to discuss.
I believe you said it before we started. You said drive and passion. So drive. And then, you know, we'll talk a little bit about the difference between drive and passion, because we've talked a little bit about passion in previous episodes. And then looking at when the drive stops and closure. So where will we begin? Yeah. So I think the thing is, is that I'll just speak for myself. I've always been very driven. And what I realized is that that, to me, is a different word than ambitious. You know, I think some people look at that and see ambition or that I'm ambitious. But for me, it's more kind of driving towards something. And that was actually one of the most complicated things, I think, about The Reluctant Entrepreneur, is because I have so much drive and so much energy to move things forward. That to have something I was reluctant about, and reluctant on kind of hitting the gas pedal and going forward, felt so foreign to me. You know, and thinking about, we've referenced passion in the product episode, if not other episodes. And I was thinking about the difference between passion and drive. And to me, passion means that you love something. It doesn't mean you're going to do it. Drive means you're going to move it forward. There's a path. You know, as you think about a car, you think about a horse, there's that inherent movement. And one of the things that just even as a leader and as a person, being so driven is sometimes I'll just drive in a direction and I don't necessarily have a destination. And that may not be a bad thing. It's kind of like with Hawthorne Union. We'll see where it goes. But there's
a drive to produce and succeed that is so much a part of me. I think that is so much a part of just American culture and its definition. So I thought we could spend some more time there. Yeah, I mean, drive. When I hear that word drive and passion, actually both of them, it really sounds like gas in the gas tank, right? The ability to keep going. And when those things dry up, you stop. And that for some reason, if you're not 100% committed, and you're not this Terminator style robot that just like goes and nonstops, eat, breathe, sleep, drink business, that you just don't have the right amount of drive or passion, which is not realistic for most people because drive and passion, they may be inherently true, but how they show up kind of change depending on what's going on in your life or season or so on and so forth. So what about that kind of first notion that drive and passion only equates to nonstop energy? Well, I think that's part of that was part of my reluctance because that's not sustainable. So in my pre-entrepreneur life, what I found is that I would drive so much, I would hit a wall. And then that's how it would stop because I'd be exhausted or overwhelmed. And, you know, I had a manager who was like, hey, you need to get better at that. And, you know, we've talked about patterns. That was a pattern that I noticed like, okay, I'm so driven. And this drive serves me probably 95% of the time. But 5% of the time, it's kind of like roller skating. I can't roller skate or ice skate. So the only way I can stop is ramming into the
wall. And that's fine. Like it's a way to stop. But, you know, I'm thinking about drive. You know, I realize I feel like probably now since I've worked at it, you know, my drive probably serves me 98% of the time, but there's still that 2% where we're talking burnout. And we're talking, you know, when one of my coaches was like, you need to have a personal life. I was like, what's that? Like, what does that even mean? So I think that that was a lot of my reluctance to be an entrepreneur. I think that that might be for the reluctant entrepreneurs out there or for the people considering entrepreneurship, but with a little bit of hesitation. I think how much drive it takes, not only to start something and get it going, but then I think what's been a shocker to me is how Hawthorne Union has gained its own momentum. So, you know, we talk about in business, it's easier to keep something moving than get it started. And so oftentimes, you know, but what I didn't realize is that the business then has its own momentum and its own movement. And like a child, it's not the same as me, which is good and bad or has its pros and cons, I should say. So that's some of what comes to mind based on what you said. Yeah, I mean, when most people think about drive, which is that nonstop, unwavering energy to keep going. I mean, the only thing that I know that only has a gas pedal is like the bumper cars at Disney World, right? Or they're on a track that you just basically press the one pedal and slam into other people. And that's so the dissonance is between
what people think and what people might perceive, which is that drive is this never-ending energy. And then when you say, no, well, there's a gas and a brake. But if you've ever actually been in a car, if someone only hits the gas pedal, the brake pedal, that is the most unsmooth, nauseating, inducing ride. If you're like, you know, going back and forth. And so there's this other kind of element to drive, which is kind of the momentum, right? Which is where you take your foot off the gas pedal and you're not pressing the brake and you kind of coast and things take a life of its own and your business has a momentum to it. I love that. I actually have a plaque in my house that says coast. And it's not just because I live on the coast, but it's so that I remember, especially in Q4 when a lot of the business is booked and the money is made, knock on wood, to just kind of coast. And I have that there to consciously help myself move with the momentum instead of continuing to press on the gas pedal. So coast. And then also what comes to mind when you're talking is flow. And I think that's the different thing. Flow has all these positive connotations, right? If you can get into a state of flow, if you can flow with it. I think sometimes the hard thing is, is that if you're truly flowing with something, it's going to ebb and flow. And then there's going to be those ups and downs. But those ups and downs are reality. So I don't say drive as a negative thing because it is both a life force and a drive that has helped me
get to where I am and helped Hawthorne Union get to where it is. So there's a lot of positive benefits. But I'm a very strengths-based person and coach. So I truly believe that we can leverage our strengths to address our areas of challenge, but also that our strengths and overuse are usually our blind spots or development areas. So for me, drive is one of them because it says, hey, this is serving you 98% of the time. That 2% when I'm ramming into things or exhausted or things like that, then it's not serving. And you kind of mentioned that the first thing about drive and why it was standing out to you is because how different it was from your previous experience, being a very driven, very action-orientated person, and then noticing that it was changing when you started your own business. And that wasn't consistent with what you had felt in other things in your life. But it doesn't sound like that was necessarily a bad sign. Yeah, that's a good point. Good reflection, coach. I think for me, it felt like I didn't choose this. I don't want this. If I did want this, I would have already put things in motion to make it happen because that's how I've lived most of my life. But then to kind of flow with it and accept what comes up and also see that there were doors closing that I wanted to go through and the doors that were opening were related to entrepreneurship. And I had my little fit about that and I had trouble adjusting to that because I am used to driving towards and being successful in the things that I pursue. But yeah, this calmer approach and the more hesitant approach has
had benefits that I didn't expect. And still, this is also me we're talking about. So my version of, oh, I'm not driven is not the same as someone else's. But I feel like entrepreneur changed my whole life. Like I had to relearn and rethink. You know, we've talked about this from an identity perspective, but I find it even now from a management perspective. I've been a leader for most of my career, but being a leader in the business that I own is very different. And I didn't expect it to be different. And you would think that I would expect it to be different because everything else has changed in the progression of me becoming an entrepreneur. But I didn't realize this was such a major shift. Mm-hmm. And what do you think that could have assisted in that transition when you're learning that, hey, the drive that you had for someone else's business or other people's projects or when there was a clear assignment for you, right, as a leader in jobs that you had versus being an entrepreneur, what do you think could have helped in that transitory state? That's a good question. So what comes to mind at first, and this doesn't directly answer your question, but this is where I'm going and then I'll circle back. What comes to mind at first is I think people need to examine their own drive and also see, you know, hey, what are the pros and cons? How's that serving you or not serving you? Because I think that there can be a bias towards the driven, unless they drive too hard and then it's like, oh, well, you shouldn't have done that or you should have known better. But, you know, there's sometimes a
lack of appreciation for the subject matter experts who don't want to climb the corporate ladder. I know for myself, even having, there's another business owner in my community who I have so much respect for who wasn't sure if they wanted to grow their business or not because they weren't sure if they wanted to manage other people. And I was like, but you'd be so great at it. Like, I didn't understand. And now I have a better understanding, like I think one of the things we have to look at with drive is do you actually want to drive or are you well-placed? So drive has a purpose. It takes us from one place to another or it takes us in a certain direction. But I think first and foremost deciding, you know, is that a place you want to go? So I think that that's an important question. As far as what would have helped me, I mean, I feel like honestly for me, it was more like the train's going this way and you can get on board or you can fight it. And I just didn't really anticipate what a life change it was. So, you know, hindsight being 2020 or just with the gift of perspective, I see that that was hard for me. I was resisting. So I'm probably as driven as I am resistant. So I think it's just, I don't, I think that's a great question that I probably should continue to reflect on because I don't fully know. However, being with me in part in that journey, I would be curious if you have any thoughts. I do have a few thoughts that I could share. And one of them is just that being in business for yourself has
a different tempo than what you can expect in a regular corporate, a regular employee, employer setting. Yeah, you can't damn the man because it's you. No, no. And something akin to like email, right? There's always like if you get good at being driven to get your email inbox cleaned up, well, the benefit is that you'll get more email tomorrow. And similar into a employee relationship is that being driven is actually very easy because there's always more work to do. There's always the next thing. But when you're in business for yourself, especially when you're first starting up, there is a sense of that you can overwork and then kind of play this weird catch up. And what it reminds me of is listening to or hearing about some famous writers that I know, like Stephen King or Neil Gaiman. And what they talk about and they tout time and time again, it's not that you sit down there and just pound out a book, right? And just go from end to end. But they literally set a word count. It's something like that. No, they don't for some reason. They set a word count at like a thousand words or a couple hours a day. And when they hit that, they walk away. But the idea that they and the success that they build is about making sure that no matter what happens, rain or shine, that they try to hit that word count every single day in order to write a book. And that's just a different tempo than what people are used to. And so what they're encouraging a lot of writers when they ask these questions is not the ability to just like drive and to keep going. It's can you actually stop
when it's a good time and in order to build this habit? And some of them even talk about I've heard this probably in other writing forms as well, that some people actually stop mid-sentence. So it's easier for you to begin again the next time, especially if you leave a sentence unfinished. And so by that definition, being driven is just different in your own business. It's not necessarily better or worse, but by the standard ways that you think about being driven in a corporate setting, climbing the ladder and stuff like that, it can look different. And it doesn't mean that the difference in how that drive manifests in your own business is equate to you're bad or you're doing something wrong. That's what comes to mind for me. Yeah, and what that evokes for me, so I was talking to a client the other day about boundaries and priorities. And one of the challenges for my clients who have ADHD is that there's a flow state and a focus that they don't want to interrupt. But then sometimes that kind of focus and flow can be taxing with the time that it takes. And so it's just interesting to kind of look at that and see how much we drive and how often we drive may be different. So for my clients that do best when they kind of lean into that and produce then, then they may need longer kind of rest periods in between. So I think some of it too is also learning. The research out there about the benefits of rest and the benefits of sleep, it can be counterintuitive at least to kind of the American dream, like pull up your bootstraps and go for it and you can be anything
or do anything if you work hard enough. That can feel far away and it can especially feel far away when you don't have money. You can't pay your bills and you're like, I have to keep doing this thing to be able to feed my family. Yeah, the flow state is very interesting because they talk about it a lot as this very, very sought after zen-like state where you're perfectly aligned with inherent and intrinsic values and your passions, which we're about to move on to. And that time just flies, just flies by. And you don't even notice because you're so engrossed in what you're doing. And from what I understand about the research, it's not that every single time that you do business, that you need to enter this flow state. It's just that you do get the chance to enter it from time to time in your whole endeavor. So if even if every day and your drive doesn't lead to this perfect, beautiful zen-like mantra mode where you're just like loving every minute of it, but that every once in a while that you do get to capture that moment. I mean, that is a benefit of being driven. Yeah. Well, to enjoy the ride, even if there's potholes and traffic, right? So let's move on to passion, the other side of this coin. And they do kind of go hand in hand. Closure? Or is there more you want to talk about with passion? It seems like passion might be speaking to you. I think it is. I think it is. Because to me, passion and drive go hand in hand. And a very similar, my perspective on passion is that it is this never ending well of gas in the gas tank
that drives you no matter even when you're feeling down. No, I do this because I love it, because it's my passion. That leads you into the abyss, come rain or shine, right? No matter that you have these firm beliefs because it's so passionate that you're doing this business no matter what. And similar to drive, I think that people have a romantic notion of that that leads them to get into or to start going down a business endeavor. But passion is awesome. It's amazing. But it doesn't, from my perspective, it doesn't last forever. And neither do showers. That's why you have to take, you can't just, you gotta take them, you know, once a day and stuff like that. So I think passion is something, from my perspective, is something that's amazing, but also is not this never ending well. It's something that has to be renewed and you have to invest in. And it's a more symbiotic relationship than a never ending fire that burns within you. That's my take on passion. Yeah, it's interesting when we think about passion, because most of the times it's positive. You know, I think we, then there's crimes of passion, which is the dark side of it. What I would say is that passion is not enough if you want to turn this into a business. It's important. And it's like when people have a why or something that's driving them, whether that's passion or a North Star or a legacy, however people want to identify with what kind of moves them forward. But a lot of that is the drive. To me, the passion can help you drive farther and longer. There are entrepreneurs out there and people who are successful with things that they aren't passionate
about, which I can't really relate to, but I also understand if it's a money making enterprise or if it's something that helps people or there's different reasons. But I think that passion to me has more of a diversity of applications. Like what are you passionate about in life? What are you passionate, like who are you passionate about? Whereas drive, I more associate with accomplishments, success, achievements. That's just kind of my association. Even if it's in your personal life, I want to learn this. I want to go. So I was driven to, I wanted to go to all six continents. I wanted to go to six out of seven continents by the time I was 30. And by my 50th birthday, I want my feet on number seven. So that's some of the drive I have in my personal life. But the passion would be, I have a passion for travel and experiencing different cultures and going different places. Yeah. For me, it's easy to kind of define these things by the absence of them. So when someone is passionate but not driven, it means that they obviously speak a lot about things they wish they hoped they could do or intentions of getting involved, but that doesn't equate to action. And the opposite, when someone is driven but not passionate, you can tell that they're doing things out of some kind of need, right? The need to pay the bills, which a lot of us have, or the need to have something successful, but they don't necessarily feel the passion about the actual work that they're doing. And sometimes that's okay. And other times it really, really stands out. Yeah. What would you recommend for cultivating passion? So for the most part is that for
cultivating, it's similar to boiling down and understanding personal reasons on why you're doing what you're doing, and then making those connections. For instance, when people sell products, they may not necessarily feel passionate about that individual product, even though I know a lot of people say, I don't sell things I don't believe in. I only work for companies that have missions, I believe in, and I think that's true for a lot of people. But however, there are needs for businesses out there that may not be a lifelong passion, right? Especially if you're selling, I don't know, toiletry services, right? That may not be a personal passion that someone had from elementary school. However... It's an essential item. It is an essential item, right? So maybe connecting people with a place that they feel comfortable or safe or doing a need. That's very difficult to serve, right? Again, no one wants to talk about toiletry services, but if you've ever gone to a rest stop on a highway, that's a lot different than feeling like you're in a clean environment that you're not gonna get sick from, right? So it could be, while the passion may not be directly with the product, it could be the end result. It could be what you're providing to the customer, solving a problem that they didn't know they have or that could be solved. They're like, oh, well, I just thought no one gives a crap about the bathrooms we have in our awesome restaurant. So it's translating what you're doing and some of the reasons why this speaks to you, even if it's not inherently the specific product. I think those things can start cultivating passion, which is your connection to a customer solving problems. And you can absolutely
use those things to feel passionate about, even if it's not a direct one-for-one connection. Yeah. Yeah. So as you're talking about that, what I think of for passion is who or what do you love is the passion component. And then what are you going to do about it starts to get into, well, what are you going to do about it is the how, and then are you going to do it and at what pace is the drive? So you also had mentioned that you want to talk about closure as well. Yeah. So when I think about drive, you're also going somewhere. If it's an endless drive, then that we need rest stops, we need breaks, we need destinations, we need places to go along the way. And I think what I often see in coaching professionals and executives is you get the next promotion and then what's next and what's next. There's a drive, especially in startups where people newer in their career are very focused on making money in their career, where it's always like, what's next? So there's just that constant drive for what's next. But I think that they're also, and maybe this is because I'm a little older now, that it's like, where does it stop? Not that we won't continue to grow, but that maybe you're growing laterally or maybe there's more of a focus on your personal life. Or, for example, Hawthorne Union's my endgame. I am not planning on leaving I am not planning on leaving this gig. So though I can kind of change what that means and change my role, and you can call me whatever you want, I'm not looking for a promotion. There's different measures of success. But I guess drive indicates a destination.
And then as we think about, is there anything you want to say about that before I talk about closure? No, I mean, the whole closure part, I mean, it reminds me of Simon Sinek's book, The Infinite Game, where he talks about several industries that don't really have conclusions, right? Like fashion, fashion's never done. That's it, we've solved it, right? Medical fields and other, there are things that are ongoing. But from a coach perspective, if that you're constantly focused on the next thing, the next thing, the next thing, you lose sight of progress, you lose sight of success. If you're not identifying some kind of mile markers along the way and short term goals. I think those are the, when it comes to closure, those are some of the things that come up, especially because I would say, most recently in some of the clients that I've been working with, talk about their careers long term without ever kind of measuring any sort of progress that they've made along the way. So that just gets sucked up into the wind as they think about the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. Yeah, yeah. So I really think that there needs to be those mile markers, those destinations, that the progress markers, the celebrations. I think there also need to be the questions. So often people will achieve something and then immediately start for the next thing, especially if they're very driven and or very passionate, where it's looking at, you know, is this, do you want to rest for a while? Like resting on your laurels is given such a kind of negative connotation. But, but if you have laurels, like, shouldn't you just wear them for a minute? Like, do you
want to, do you want to stay there if you built an empire, you know, should you enjoy it and kind of rest and relax? So there's stopping with intention and I feel like stopping with intention may or may not be closure. So some of the business I work with have to decide whether or not they are going to close the business, whether or not the business is profitable. There's other people that I know who chose, like who may choose to sell their business because they're like, hey, this isn't for me. And so I've actually sold the business or have said, hey, this, this is not my gig. And kind of let the business like fade away and then decided to work for someone else. So I think one of the things with closure, there can be, there can be a negative connotation, like, oh, that didn't work or, oh, I failed at it. But one of the things I look at for closure is sometimes we do have to close a door to be able to truly focus on something else. And for businesses that aren't sure if they're viable and you're kind of, you're pouring water out of a boat that has holes in it. So it's like you may be, you may be shoveling water out, but it's at the same or less of a rate that the water's coming in. And I think it's important to look at that and say, you know, it's, it's great to be driven and it's great to have passion. But there's a quote, something like, knowing when enough is, knowing what is enough is true wealth. And so when I think about closure, it's also knowing like, when is it time to stop? And for some
people it would be, when is it time to retire? But retirement can be so many other things. People can get salt on the side and things like that. But I, I can only imagine having poured so much into the business that closing down a product line or closing down the business itself has to be a huge kind of emotional, financial, legal, almost like upheaval and process. Yeah, this is a cool topic because this is probably a different angle than what I was originally thinking about. But I would surmise that if your only definition of success is that you open a business and it stays, it exists forever, that you could largely be feeling very, very unsuccessful. In fact, most businesses, the average lifespan of most businesses that open is I think like 10, 9 or 10 years, right? And it's not that everything is meant to last forever. And the fact that if you're starting a business endeavor, and even if it's got a time delineation, that there's nothing wrong with that. In fact, that can be a good thing. And even knowing when to, you know, when to close the doors or shutter the windows, whatever metaphor we're using, can be a great thing as far as profitability. Because the opposite of that, which is like keeping a business open when it's no longer profitable, no longer passionate, no longer something you're driven, doesn't really seem like success at all. Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because it's like COVID shut down so many businesses that, you know, we didn't think would shut down. I mean, shout out to Val's Diner in Hayward that has stayed open on the weekends. And I wish them continuing prosperity because I want to go back there on the regular.
But then also I have a client that's about to celebrate their hundred years in business. And it's a family business. And, you know, we were talking about like, hey, what are you going to do for that? Because probably none of you are going to be alive the next time they have a hundred year or the next time it's a kind of centennial celebration. But I think that's not something people think about. It's almost like death. Like people don't do their wills or their paperwork or their insurance or even their life insurance because it's like, oh, you don't want to touch it. You don't want to think about it. I mean, I think sometimes it's just because it's not on the priority list or it's lower on the priority list. But it's like, I know so many people who, you know, life happens and they don't have their stuff in order. And I'm not pretending like my stuff's all in order. So but there's a way there's an aversion to it. So whether it's death or closure, there's kind of an aversion like, oh, we don't want to think about that. We don't want to touch that. I think there's a lot of stigma, whether you think about it as death or whether you think about it as failure. There's a lot of stigma associated with that, that, you know, just like the reluctant entrepreneur, to me, the reluctant entrepreneur is making a choice. They're making a choice to work through their reluctance and decide to be an entrepreneur anyway. So what if we looked at closure the same way? You know, does your business have an end date? If your business doesn't have an end date, then it needs a successor and a very viable
and continuous kind of financial plan to keep that thing sustaining, as well as a staffing plan so that it can go on without you. But those like, you know, wills and insurance and things like that, those are things that, you know, especially as an entrepreneur who's trying to make it that people don't think about. Yeah. I mean, is it something that you've thought about for Hawthorne Union that there's an end date? Because you're like, this is my retirement. So it seems like we're hoping that the coaching firm will go on forever. But do you, is that something that you actively think about? Because yeah, it does seem difficult, right? You start thinking about like, but no, no, like not me, not my business, right? There's definitely a very, I would say egocentric thing when you start to think about that. Sure. Yeah. I mean, I emailed, I got a referral for kind of disability insurance. I never followed up. I got a referral and I emailed someone about disability insurance. So I need to follow up to just be like, hey, like if something happens to me, what does that look like? One of the things I need to do is in my will indicate like where does Hawthorne Union go? Where does the money go? And that's actually something that all my grandmother amazingly bought me a life policy when I was five. So one of the things I need to talk to the insurance people about is, you know, because I don't have children or Hawthorne Union is my child. How do I, can I put that into the business? Like, is there, and I'm sure there is with like trust and legal and all that stuff. But it's one of those things
that's just like making time for. And for business owners that I've worked with where I've said, hey, you need to look at whether closure of the business now makes sense. Or, you know, if you're just going to keep going with this, but at what cost? And sometimes that's hard for them to look at because there's a way that your business, especially for founders, I think this might be different for founders. So entrepreneurs who, you know, entrepreneurs who are creating something on their own versus someone selling someone else's product or being a franchisor or something like that. The act of, you know, your kids are supposed to live longer than the parents, right? So I think there's an assumption that, you know, my business will go without me, but also, you know, longevity runs in my family. So there's a chance that I will live longer than the people who are in Hawthorne Union right now. We don't know, right? So as we go, it'll need to figure out kind of like, who does that go and where does that go? You know, and then because the business has a kind of drive of its own, also seeing like, does that make sense? Because we've talked about certain products where it's like, hey, should we continue to pursue this product? Or maybe is it a no-go and we should just not, you know, pull the plug on it or just let it grow organically. And if it doesn't grow, it doesn't grow. So I think these are hard things to look at and hard things to think about. But to Stephen Covey, kind of beginning with the end in mind, you know, I, yes, Hawthorne Union was designed as my retirement plan, but I never thought
about it being something that would live beyond me. But now, as long as there's people who want to do it, I would love to support that to make that happen so that the business lives beyond me. Yeah, I'm also curious for our reluctant entrepreneurs if there is a benefit to putting a time delineation, which is like, hey, I'm going to start this business and I'm going to try it for five years or for 10 years. And if that changes, knowing that it isn't something that's going to last forever, that changes the effort, the quality of the time that's spent in it saying like, hey, this is an experiment and I'm running it. So I want to make sure that the 10 years or five years, however long I'm doing this, if they were to start with the end in mind, knowing that a business wouldn't last forever, if that changes the relationship they have with the time they're spending in growing and developing this business, because it's not going to last forever, they won't take that time for granted. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, because so many businesses don't make it businesses or entrepreneur don't make it through their first year, don't make it through the third year and don't make it through their fifth year. So there's there's milestones at the beginning. But then I think what's what's probably hard after that, especially if you've grown the business, so you have employees and stuff like that. It's also someone else's livelihood, someone else's, you know, there's there's other kind of expectations there. And then, you know, if you're serving a need and serving a need in a distinctive way or, you know, a lot of people, I'm not one, you know, it's interesting
on the drive assessment that we have through Hawthorne Union. One of the things that measures is legacy. And I don't score particularly high on legacy. I mean, I do. I do want things to run without me. But when I'm gone, like, sayonara, do what you do. Like, I don't I don't score high on legacy. But one of the people in Hawthorne Union scores high on legacy. So it is really important to that person that they have a legacy that they're able to say, like, this is what I created. This is what I've done. So I think legacy kind of comes comes to mind. Yeah, I would say that also that the desire there is different in your 20s and 30s than it is in your 40s and 50s and that these things are changing. So if you're on the younger side of the spectrum and starting into business, you know, you may feel differently about it than if you're starting a business a little bit later in life, right? You may have a different perspective on risk or a different desire based on what you've experienced and what you have viewed as what does stick around, what does have a legacy. And if that's something that is important to you. Yeah, and I think if your business closes, whether it's because you wanted it to close or it closed without your consent. I think it's important to look at what did you learn and then how are you going to grow from that? So kind of as the phoenix emerges from the ashes, you know, there's someone I've worked with who felt like, well, I was an entrepreneur and I failed at that. So then that failure can cloud and create doubts for trying entrepreneur
again. And my perspective on that is, you know, you didn't fail, you learned. What is, I don't know that Jesse is the first, Jesse says this, he says, win or learn, right? And I know he means you should learn even if you win. So if you think about win or learn, you know, what if we just learned anyway? Like what have we learned from the closure? You know, if you think about, I have so much respect and appreciation for people who work in hospice, for people who kind of ease the passing and the kind of crossing over. It's something that I don't feel I could do because of the kind of emotional burden of it. But I'm so grateful that that's a service. So, you know, I think that there needs to be, you know, we look at like, what's hospice for business? Like what's hospice for your business? And then also because ideally, it's not an actual death. Like, what are you going to do then? And what did you learn from that process that's going to inform what you do next? I remember when Jesse was talking about that and I asked him, what happens when you're on a giant learning streak? What do you do then? And I think the last thing is that it reminds me of... Did he have a response? No, he laughed. He thought that was funny. He laughed. Oh, he laughed. I thought you said he laughed. Yeah, I mean, he learns all the time. I mean, the other thing that reminds me of is what they said is, what is a real haunted house? It's basically a business where you're surrounded by live, laugh, love signs and everyone telling you to think positive over and over
and over. Okay, that one she does laugh at. But yeah, so some kind of strong considerations for timeliness and business and businesses that are concluding and ending. Any of the thoughts that you wanted to talk about on closure before we wrap up our time here for today? Yeah, I'll come back to choice. There's a book I'm listening to right now where one of the characters, she planned her own wake because she wanted to be there for it. She was like, who says I have to die first? Or as you think about celebration of life. So I think for people to strategically look at their business and look at how it's doing and knowing, hey, the business is part of you, but it is not the same as you. And then understanding, are you moving forward or is it time to close it down? And for people who have a tendency to be high passion or high drive, that process of choosing to close may be more difficult. Maybe not if they see something more lucrative or more appealing, but I think it comes back to awareness and choice. Very strong words. As we start to wrap up today's episode, choice, drive, passion and closure. Diana, any other closing thoughts? I think I'm ready to close. Not the business, just the podcast episode. Just this podcast, just this episode of the podcast. So for those of you that want to keep connecting with us, we are on the halls of LinkedIn, both Diana and I, and you can find us on Hathornini's website, www.hathornini.com. We will have links to everything we've talked about and referenced in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in and until next time.
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