This week Nat and Pete take on the topic of personal responsibility. As business owners and entrepreneurs, they have been tossed roadblocks and problems. They could have gotten overwhelmed or blamed others, but they didn't the persevered.
They said "Good!" and got to work! They are about personal responsibility.
This is important to maintaining a good entrepreneurial mindset and being successful. It will also help you move past you fears and anxiety in becoming a business owner.
This episode features a video from the Jocko podcast and you can watch the original video here.
Pete also mentions a Forbes article on personal accountability.
Pete: How are you, man?
Nat: I've been doing great. It's been a little while.
Pete: Oh, you got it. And boy, it's fall here or what? Like I just walked outside today, it was like 40 degrees outside, incredible.
Nat: I know. I have a deal with my son; he's going to in-person school. And I'm like, you can do this, but you have to ride your bike every single day. And he's kind of pushing back, pushing back. And I'm like, okay, well, as long as it's above 50 degrees, you have to ride your bike; we did a handshake agreement on that.
So yesterday, sure enough, it's 48 degrees. Dad, it's not 50 degrees, and so I'm like, well, I'll hold to my agreement because I said only if it's about 50 do you have to ride your bike. But I would really be impressed if you would man up, put on some gloves, and ride your bike to school. It's about three miles, so it's a little way.
Pete: Yes.
Nat: And so what do you think happened?
Pete: How was driving him? Was it good?
Nat: Yes, exactly. He made me stick to my commitment, but when you and I were growing up, I felt like it's definitely was that walk-up hill both ways to school. And you were in Minnesota, so I know you had; it was a little bit cold up there.
Pete: Oh, my dad was ruthless; he would not allow people to drive me home in the middle of winter. He wanted me to run home from wrestling practice, so I would be stronger from standpoint.
Nat: Be better and faster, you're like the terminator.
Pete: Yes, absolutely. So it's not so good when you're in street clothes in that cold weather carrying all your books, getting very dark because it gets dark at like 4:30.
Nat: Minnesota people are crazy. Like I'm in Chicago, and I swear when I go up there, it's like 20 degrees, and they're walking to Starbucks in shorts and a t-shirt, and I'm like, oh my god.
Pete: Yes, they just live life. So well, welcome to the hire yourself podcast; Nat Truitt and myself; we're here every week. Really what this idea is we've been in business for a very long time, we like to share wonderful ideas and stuff like that.
So welcome to the podcast. Nat, I was at my buddy's cabin speaking of Minnesota; my buddy has a cabin there; we were just there last weekend. And the funniest thing, so we're sitting in, and it was in the evening. So he had put on UFC fighting, right?
Nat: Yes.
Pete: I got to tell you, I wouldn't make it about two minutes in there, right? Because they got the cage, and this is like martial arts, wrestling, boxing, it's all in one. I was just amazed how crazy a sport that is. Have you watched that before?
Nat: I have watched it, and it is brutal. But I love it because it's kind of like brass tacks, right? There's no place to hide, and you're beating each other up. Have you seen who's that navy seal guy that does? I think he was actually a martial arts guy that did that one video, the good video?
Pete: The good video; I don't remember that one.
Nat: Jocko.
Pete: Jocko, okay. I think I've seen that one time, right? He's like a stud from a standpoint.
Nat: Yes.
Pete: Maybe we try to find that because that is a really impressive that video, if I remember correctly.
Nat: Yes. I like it because it's a lot about personal responsibility, let me see if I can find that.
Jocko: One of my direct subordinates, one of my guys that worked for me, he would call me up or pull me aside with some major problems, some issue that was going on. And he'd say boss we got this and that and the other thing, and I'd look at him, and I'd say good. And finally, one day, he was telling me about some issue that he was having, some problem.
And he said, I already know what you're going to say; I said, well, what am I going to say? He said you're going to say good. He said that's what you always say. When something is wrong and going bad, you always just look at me and say good. And I said, well, yes, when things are going bad, there's going to be some good that's going to come from it. Didn't get the new high-speed gear we wanted? Good. Didn't get promoted? Good.
More time to get better. Oh, mission got canceled? Good, we can focus on the other one. Didn't get funded? Didn't get the job you wanted? Got injured? Sprained my ankle? Got tapped out? Good. Got beat? Good, you learned. Unexpected problems? Good. We have the opportunity to figure out a solution, that's it.
When things are going bad, don't get all bummed out, don't get startled, don't get frustrated. If you can say the word good, guess what? It means you're still alive. It means you're still breathing. And if you're still breathing, well now, you still got some fight left in you. So get up, dust off, reload, recalibrate, re-engage and go out on the attack.
Nat: Oh man, I love that video; it pumps me up every time.
Pete: Wow, is that impressive or what?
Nat: Yes. I got my voice hooked on that, too; I think my 16-year-old has that memorized. So he always uses it, of course, to bust the chops of his younger brother. Like, oh, it's 48 degrees. Get on your bike, good.
Pete: That's good. Well, his message is powerful.
Nat: Yes. We need more of that, especially like as business owners, and we got to strengthen our muscles, and sometimes you get knocked down. COVID has got you locked down? Good. Get back up, make some phone calls, close some deals; I love that guy.
Pete: Well, I mean, business is like personal accountability, right? It's your business, and you've got to figure it out. So to the point is hey, if you're struggling, good figure it out. Go find another way to market, find another way to find good people, but go do what you got to do.
Nat: Exactly.
Pete: But really, as we try to instill this in our kids, but for all of us, right? It's very easy to get caught up into well, it's somebody else's problem because I didn't get promoted. Or hey listen, the marketing isn't working from that standpoint. So we're in a culture where I think a lot of people, it gets very easy to just to blame somebody else when something's going wrong.
Nat: Yes. I always remember this one story; it was pretty impactful for me. I was working with a candidate that I can't remember if he bought a subway or he owned it. I think he was like kind of, he had bought it, and it was like a struggling subway because it was in a bad location.
And you'd think like oh, why would you buy it? But he was telling me this story like he himself the owner, he went out and this was like years and years ago before like there was all the catering and delivery.
But so with subway, he actually went out and did a lot of business-to-business sales and started getting all these lunches and orders for catering and all that. And it ended up being one of the best subway locations, but it was because it was kind of almost like a back-office location that was fulfilling all this b2b stuff.
And like, I was always pretty impressed with that. Because instead of just waiting for customers to come to him to that store, he went out and got customers and probably had better margin on him anyways.
Pete: Yes. I mean, I remember my dad growing up, and again my dad was tough from a standpoint. But I wrestled when I was younger, and I remember I had this match, and I got beat, and I came off, and I was kind of complaining to my dad.
My dad just said, hey listen, it's all on you, it was you out there, that was you, and so you can't blame anything other than you need to train harder, you need to get better at your moves, you got to work harder than anybody else if that didn't work in that match.
And those things carry a long way with me, and so I've tried to apply that to business too. It's just always having this entrepreneural mindset of how do you figure it out, what do you got to do. So okay, there's a roadblock.
Nat: Exactly, figure out how to get around it. I always say you never want to mess with wrestlers. I swear, whenever you're working with somebody that was super tenacious, and then you find out that they were a wrestler, you're like yes, that explains it, that you guys are crazy.
Pete: Well, I'm not claiming that I was a good wrestler, right?
Nat: Yes. With that workout thinking going out there, oh, you need to cut two pounds good, get in the steam room or the sauna, and start sweating it off.
Pete: Yes, those coaches were brutal, right?
Nat: The good old days, right? I don't know if they do that anymore.
Pete: Yes. I think they probably could call out for abuse from that standpoint, probably a little dangerous in many ways. So that's good. But as we go forward, even as a country, it's accountability for what we do. So I think we've got a long way to continue to have that Jocko entrepreneurial mindset. Is that hey, if something goes wrong, we just got to figure it out. Good, let's go; we need a lot more of that, I think.
Nat: Yes, exactly. We have, plenty of people are getting kind of weak and lazy just expecting whether it's the government or companies to kind of provide for them or give them a roadmap and everything.
But really, like they think that COVID actually has been a good pressure test. I know I got stacked up on some extra food and got a little bit more like a homesteader.
Pete: Well, yes, so think about some of these franchises, and I'll pick like budget blinds, right? So budget blinds, we go into this COVID-19 and before they would come to your business or your home, and they would do an estimate, right? And so COVID-19 comes along, and their sales representative can't come out, right?
To give you an estimate or their design professional, whatever we want to call it. And so what do they do? They say good. We got to figure this thing out, so they did now virtual estimates. So they do zoom because everything is done with zoom nowadays, right? So whether it's family holidays or estimates, right? So they set up their franchisees they can do zoom estimates.
Okay, show me the window, okay, can you measure it for me? Great. Show me the surroundings; what are you looking for? And they do it virtually. And that's happening in all types of different industries. But those are examples of, hey listen, we got a roadblock, we can't walk into your house. Okay, how do we make this happen?
Nat: Yes. And the crazy thing is a lot of times; I think some of these companies are going to pick up some margin and be more profitable even because it's like a more efficient way of doing things. That if they hadn't been pushed, or there hadn't been a catalyst, we get comfortable in our ruts and keep on doing things the way we're used to doing them, right? Years after, years after years.
Pete: And I think it's going to change the restaurant industry, right? I think you're going to see a trend going towards that there are restaurants where they don't have any seating, right? It is basically just take out, their big kitchens. And even kitchens that can cook multiple different types of foods with this idea, it's just basically a center where you can get take out.
Nat: The cloud kitchen type?
Pete: Yes, absolutely, because COVID has really kind of changed this from that point. Or even our city, right? So they had to do outdoor seating. And so they shut down the streets so that they could put outdoor seating.
And somebody asked me that hey, do you think they'll do that next year even though we don't have this? Because it seemed like it was a great idea to allow the businesses to do that.
Nat: Yes. All those old sayings, it's interesting because, at some point in your life, you realize wow, there's a reason for that saying, or it makes a lot of sense, and kind of that turning lemons into lemonade type thing.
That's what we've been able to do, a lot with COVID and even just having the kid's home a little bit more. It's like good, time to re-engage, play some more board games, have some more family meals together, good.
Pete: Yes. I think that's right, we as a family did the same thing, right? I looked at it as yes, we're locked down. For 90 days, we just kind of as a family hunkered down, and it was probably one of the best 90 days we ever had, right? This idea that we could spend time together, and we actually connected the meals, and the kids weren't running out the door, and we had theme dinners, and we played Sari every night. Oh, by the way, I suck at the game of sorry, so just for clearance.
Nat: How could a person suck at Sari?
Pete: I don't know, but I suck at Sari. It's all just basically random, but somehow I seem to lose all the time, so yes.
Nat: Maybe you're just being nice to the kids so they will play with you again.
Pete: No, I wouldn't do that, so be it. Well Nat, you know I think as Jocko put it the best way, right? This is all about personal accountability. Whether it's your personal life or business, and we just have to do that. There's some great articles I was spending some time looking at that the other day about personal accountability.
So there's some great articles and resources that if it's something that you're interested, it's about improving or getting better personal accountability, there are resources out there. Because I think it's a big part of being successful to work through issues, whether it's personally or professionally.
Nat: Yes, totally. Let's try to find some of those links, and we can try to put them on our website where the podcast and everything, so people can link to them.
Pete: Yes, I think there's a great Forbes article that I read.
Nat: Okay, so have a great rest of the week.
Pete: All right, Nat, thanks so much.