Many potential franchisees and entrepreneurs hit a wall of fear at some point in the investigation process, and many don't even get started because of one thing. Overcoming fear in business is hard.
Fear of Uncertainty.
This is a normal feeling. But what most people don't realize is that this fear is getting in the way of their happiness.
The guys discuss the fear, what they have seen in candidates, and how to move past the fear and anxiety of uncertainty for you in this podcast episode.
Even if you aren't a franchisee, you will have some uncertainty at some point in your life. Everything in this episode, including the advice, will help you find your happiness and help you in overcoming fear in business.
Nat: Hi Pete, so I was looking at this next podcast topic, and I was trying to get my mind around it. So the topic you guys had brainstormed was, are you going to choose unhappiness or uncertainty? Now, what exactly, like what does that mean? Tell me.
Pete: All right, do I have to explain it to you? I can't believe it, all right very good. So I was at a conference, and this was a conference, and somebody said something that really caught my attention; I'm always listening, trying to pick up new things, right? And they said listen, you can either pick unhappiness, or you can pick uncertainty. I thought to myself, holy cow, that that is really kind of cool, right?
So when you think about it, what we're going to discuss today is that there are a lot of people out there that they decide that, although they're happy, they're going to stay with what they're doing. So I've been in a job, and I hate what I do; every day, it's terrible getting up. But this idea of uncertainty, if I don't do this, I got to go do something else. And that uncertainty is just too much for me to bear, so I just stay in my unhappy place. So that's what we're going to talk about today. Does that make sense?
Nat: Honestly, I'm still trying to wrap my mind around it. So are you happy if you have uncertainty? Is that the concept?
Pete: All right, well let's talk about, we're always going a different angle here, all right. So when we talk about uncertainty, uncertainty is not bad, right? That's what life is in front of us. If it's just certain if you know exactly what's going to happen, it's not fun, all right.
That's why we're entrepreneurs, I mean, with your 1776 business, right? I mean, I suspect you have all kinds of surprises every day, new little things coming and that makes it fresh, that makes it interesting that allows us to continue to grow to develop and stuff like that.
Nat: Yes. Actually, a lot of times, I feel like I promote the fact that every day is different when you're an entrepreneur or you own your own business because you're problem-solving. So I definitely like that because otherwise, you can feel like you're in a little bit of a rut.
Pete: Yes. Well, and you think about even like marriages, right? Somebody, they're in a marriage, in their marriage for 15 years, and they're just in the marriage, they're unhappy. But that's just what they know opposed to going out there and basically restarting their life from standpoint, so.
Nat: That sounds like a different podcast.
Pete: That's a different podcast; yes, that's relationship 101, right? So back to this, right? As an entrepreneur, we like uncertainty, right? I mean it's part of our core, and we're always solving problems, right? So a good entrepreneur they solve problems, whatever comes in their way, is that correct?
Nat: Yes, that's a 100% correct. And so you're kind of thinking along the lines that like if you're unhappy at work, just kind of come up with a strategy to figure out what some other options are.
Pete: Well, go find happiness, right? So there's an interesting stat, right? 50% of people in their jobs are unsatisfied. They're not happy, right? They're not happy. So if you're unhappy, go do something, life's short. You got to find something that makes you happy that you enjoy.
And as we started out the podcast, there's uncertainty of going and doing something new. But you owe it to yourself not to stay in that being unhappy. Because you don't want to wake up and 30 years later, you're going god, I missed out on life; I was never happy, never enjoyed it, never followed my passion.
And when you go start looking for hey, what do I do? There's many different options out there today.
Nat: Yes. What's that one sports saying like you miss 100 of the shots you don't take? I can't remember who said that. But I think that's kind of along the lines of what we're talking about.
Pete: Yes. And I guess we're even learning now that the world is always changing. And so you might as well be doing something you enjoy, but there's uncertainty with it, right? If I go and I decide that I'm going to leave my industry, I want to get out of the restaurant industry and go into a new industry. I have to go reinvent myself, there's uncertainty.
Nat: So just playing the devil's advocate a little bit, because I know you like when I throw a monkey wrench in things.
Pete: I love that, yes.
Nat: Because I definitely get people that come to me saying, oh, I'm super passionate about, let's just say golf, for example. So they want to own like a golf business. And sometimes, we kind of start to unpack that, and then what are your thoughts about like trying to find a business or buy a franchise that's kind of exactly your niche that you're super passionate about, that theoretically will make you happy.
Versus owning a business that is profitable, can be executive run, which then frees you up to do, and basically invest your spare time into like your hobbies or things that make you happy. Like, unpack that a little bit.
Pete: Oh, here we go. Thank you very much. I appreciate all the little things you're sharing with us today. So I think a little bit about the term, right? You don't want to make your hobby your business, right? Because a hobby is something, you do outside of work. And if you take a hobby and you make it your business, then it becomes work.
So I always tell people it's not necessarily about the widget, it's about what you do to help others make customers satisfied and stuff like that. And so what we're looking for is good honest businesses that we can build, and we can grow, and part of it is building and growing it and helping employees become better and satisfying customers, that's where the passion comes in, whatever it may be.
And then to your point, right? If you build this business, that allows you then to spend more time drinking wine or shooting skeet or whatever, playing golf, whatever it may be. But I think the idea is we take our things that are our hobbies, and we don't make them our business. But rather, go find businesses we can grow and bring the passion and the energy to that.
Nat: Yes, I think a lot of guys, there's just such a weight off their shoulders when they invest in, they own their own business no matter what it is, and then they are driving the ship and making the decisions.
They feel like they have some semblance of control, without having to; remember that old movie, the office space? Where they had always had the TPA yes reports every week or whatever. It's like you don't have to do reports just to do reports anymore; you can do stuff that's productive and enjoyable and hire people to do the stuff that you don't want to do.
Pete: Yes. Well, I use the term I get up every morning, and I pinch myself because I can't believe I escaped the corporate world, right? And when I think back in the corporate world, it is you basically have a boss that's riding you, right? You sit through senseless meetings, right? It's an hour and a half meeting; you could probably solve it in five minutes, right? But you got to sit there, and everybody's got to say something.
Nat: Yes, it's not always about solving it in those meetings; sometimes, it's just about having.
Pete: Yes, everybody's going to have their position right, or you have artificial objectives. Well, how did you come up with that objective? Well, that's what the top of the house wanted. Oh, okay, well, there's no sense behind the numbers, right? Do I get more budget for that?
Oh no, you don't get any more budget; you just got to deliver the new numbers, right? So I think from that standpoint, the idea is that as an entrepreneur, you're in control, and you have the ability to live life. And so I get to go do things that I enjoy, which is helping others, right?
Nat: Right, totally. Yes, I love that. All right, so I think I have a little bit better understanding what this uncertainty versus unhappiness. So I always feel like it's always going to be a little bit of leap of faith to kind of go from corporate to owning your own business, like what are some tools or kind of like, how do you support the guys that you're working with to make that leap of faith as they're kind of thinking through all this?
Pete: Well, I think whether it's from a corporate world to owning your own business, or in a career doing one thing and then moving to a new industry, a new career, right? It's having the ability to make that transition, having the courage to the stuff like that.
And however, you choose to do that, whether you're changing a career, you hire a career coach to help you change industries, right? Sometimes when you get locked into industry, it's really hard like the auto industry. If you've been in the auto industry, it's really hard to break into another industry.
And so that's the same thing as whether it's career, or it's a franchise, right? So if you are looking to invest in a business, just a resale, go hire an expert or have an expert help you on the way to get to where you want to go. If it's a franchise, use a franchise consultant.
It's a free service, but have somebody help you make the transition because we don't want to stay in that unhappy state, right? Although it's certainty it's unhappiness, let's go find something that challenges us, builds us, we grow, and we have a little bit of that energy of hey, what's next?
Nat: Right. You know one thing that just popped in my mind as you were talking, and actually, I realized I've forgotten about this for a couple of years. But one good strategy too, I think, is I've seen people and myself included have success.
Is actually to work out more, like clean up your nutrition, like eat healthier and work out more and kind of like get in like kind of take back your own body for that matter and feel better. And that can actually start to kick off a domino effect.
When you think about like the one thing, sometimes like hey, if I can go work out three times a week and eat better and start to feel better and have more energy, then that can maybe help me start to make some changes in my life, and start to knock those dominoes over.
So that's just something that just popped in my head a little bit random, but I do actually; I think that that's something you can control. I think it's just really important to control what you can and then start to knock the dominoes over, so you can get where you want to go over a period of months or years.
Pete: Sometimes, when we go into these recessions, people can't control their jobs. They can't control their income if they're working for somebody. And so I heard a speaker talk about this, where basically you can control how you feel about yourself, right? To your point, you can work out; you can take care of beauty.
So when we talk about like fitness and beauty health and wellness, all those hold up really well in a recession because people feel like they can control their bodies, how they feel about themselves. They can't necessarily control their income unless they're their own business owner stuff like that, so I think you're right.
Nat: Yes. I was driving into work today, and I drove past an orange theory, and I looked over, and I like looked like the parking lot was pretty false; I don't know how; I'm assuming all those cars were at the orange theory.
But people really want to get back into their routine and working out, and it's just like you were talking earlier; it's just problem solving and making changes and evolving, and hopefully, things are getting better, right? So it's exciting.
It's exciting time to be alive really, the uncertainty spurs a lot of creativity and all of these different businesses, and I think in families and personal life and schools like we're seeing so much change right now. But I think it's, we can kind of keep a positive attitude about it, and see it as like progression and we're able to do things we weren't able to do even six months ago.
Pete: Yes. I mean, when you think about it, have you ever thought your kids would be doing school virtually, right? Where you'd be celebrating holidays through zoom. Mom, it's great to see you, right? Exactly, well, that might not be a bad thing. But anyway, the idea is that it is a changing world, and I think you have to be in a state where you're always learning, and you're a big consumer of learning.
You're always looking for stuff to develop yourself, and I am too. I love that kind of stuff. And so as we are in a maybe a place of unhappiness, we can use education. Learn, continue to learn. I think we did a podcast on the book.
Nat: Yes, Darren Hardy.
Pete: Yes, so we did, now we did a podcast on the compound effect, and I thought that was a great example of people taking back their lives.
Nat: Exactly, it makes such a huge difference over period. A lot of times, I think it's probably like a three year period, maybe a little bit longer, but that compound effect really starts to make a huge difference.
Pete: You know what makes me happy?
Nat: I don't know; Coffee in the morning?
Pete: No, it's Friday, baby, it's Friday.
Nat: TGIF.
Pete: So, yes, it's Friday, so it makes me happy.
Nat: Awesome.
Pete: I once had a boss that said there's no such thing as a bad weekend; I've always taken that into account.
Nat: Exactly.
Pete: Nat, you got this figured out now, unhappiness versus uncertainty? We good there?
Nat: Yes, I'm choosing happiness.
Pete: I'm glad we could help you.
