The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Entrepreneurs: Taking Care Of Your #1 Asset – YOU

Episode Date: February 26, 2020

Entrepreneurs: Taking Care Of Your #1 Asset - YOU

Hi folks, it's Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com, thechrisvossshow.com. Hey, welcome to the podcast guys. We certainly appreciate you guys tuning in. Be sure to refer the show to your friends and relatives. Tell them to subscribe to thechrisvossshow.com. You can go there and see all the really cool stuff that we have. You can also go to YouTube at chrisvoss, well it's youtube.com forward slash Chris Voss. And of course, you can find me anywhere on the internet on at Chris Voss usually. So take and if you have some comments

or some ideas or things you want to say to the show, maybe questions you want to ask, go to Twitter at at Chris Voss and send me a message or send me what your thoughts are, and we'll see what you think and take it from there. So today, this is one of the things that I've been doing this thing lately, if you haven't noticed, where I've been going to LinkedIn, kind of cruising some of the topics on LinkedIn, some of the business aspects, topics, and finding one that I think I can riff on for the day and then giving you guys a little entrepreneur lesson from my experience of being a serial entrepreneur in my life.

So today, we're going to talk about how to deal with the loneliness of being a entrepreneur. Now, most people that are entrepreneurs are small entrepreneurs. They're people either working out of their homes or small offices. Maybe you're a speaker consultant. You know, most people don't have large companies. And I've had both. I've had everything up to 100 employees underneath me that I've got to babysit. And I've had, well, actually, with Cincinnati Bell, when I worked with them,

it was up to 800 at any given time. So I've had the experience of uh of doing both where you work in an office you go there and it actually uh kind of becomes kind of your social thing as well um but then i've also the hardest thing i think for me to transition was we had our large companies and my business partner left um and uh and i realized that once he left, I'm like, wow, man, I saved so much money. I had no idea what a drain he was. And I saved so much money that I'm like, I can start working at home, and I can actually go move my house from Utah to Vegas, which is what I did. And it was one of those things where suddenly I was alone.

I was used to having a business partner for 13 years, and he was also my best friend. So that created some challenges when he moved on. He kind of quit the company one day. He was sick of being an entrepreneur and I guess sick of making lots of money. And he quit thinking he was going to get a job someplace else. And they'd just be like, oh, yeah, we'll pay of making lots of money. And he quit thinking he was getting a job someplace else. And they'd just be like, oh yeah, we'll pay you that amount of money. Uh, it doesn't work that way kids. And he found that out the hard way. So, um, what I, uh, I had a hard time because suddenly I lost my best friend and I lost my business partner. And the other challenge for

me is I'm not married. Uh, I was engaged twice, but I just can't afford it. Until I can get up to the trillion dollar level, I can't afford it. So good for you folks who can handle it. And I don't have any kids either, so it's pretty isolated for me to work as an entrepreneur and it can get kind of lonely. Your mental health can get challenged and everything else. So let's talk about the whole aspect of staying healthy, staying mentally healthy, staying fit, keeping your mind and things broad while you're being an entrepreneur.

It certainly is hard to work at home if you work at home as an entrepreneur like I do these days. You know, you get virtual assistants around the world and all that stuff. You've got, you know, your access to your online social community, maybe your Facebook page or your mastermind group and clients, things of that nature. But it's actually kind of lonely when you spend time. You're just kind of in your house alone, sitting in your pajamas, and sometimes you get looking at yourself and you're like, this is kind of sad. I'm not getting in a suit, going to the thing and everything else.

So let's talk about a few things that are really important. First off, I want to start with mental health. We're going to talk about a few different things here. We're going to talk about mental health. We're going to talk about how to keep from being lonely. And we're going to talk about how to build a virtual board of directors, which is the way I resolve the issues that I was having with losing my partner, my best friend, and my business partner, I should mention. And what it was like to suddenly be left alone in charge of everything. Now, I'd always been the

CEO, so I'd always been in charge of everything. So I had no problem with that part of the aspect of the job. But let's talk about mental health and being an entrepreneur. I mean, that's a big thing. And this is going to address some things that even if you're a person who has a large company or a semi-large or something more than just, you know, working at a house every day. This is going to be something that will help you. And I'm going to tell you my personal journey.

I'm going to be real honest. I don't think I've ever really told this whole story to anyone. I don't think anyone really cared. Maybe you don't either. But I'm going to tell it to you anyway because I have you as a captive audience that are, unfortunately, during the channel, but one of the two. So one of the things I did is I built one of my first successful companies. Not my first company.

My first successful company that just got turned into a multimillion dollar company. We built the company with a lot of sweat equity so that we could go profitable. I think it was profitable within the first three months. And the beautiful thing about going into a company that's low capital output investment is if you run it right, you can go profitable very quickly. And the beautiful part is you can reinvest those profits and you're not maintaining debt or servicing debt as you would, you know, if you took out a home equity line to start your business, you know, right away, out a home equity line to start your business,

you know, right away you're going to have to start making payments in 30 days on that baby. So you've got that gun to your head, and it's also eating the profits that you're making. So the beautiful part about having a low investment or a sweat equity sort of business is you can start it and get her done. So that's what we did. We started our first company excuse me my apologies this is the second podcast where i've got the yannis um so what we did is we uh started this company and it went gangbusters boom uh did all the marketing right you're rock

and roll uh about a year and a half later, it was a blue-collar business. We were doing deliveries, basically, with UPS, FedEx, and other local delivery services. And one of the things that I wanted to do was get into the white-collar business, not blue-collar, because labor is just too work-intensive for me, and I'm lazy. And I like white-collar because there's usually more money in it, technically. So I started a mortgage company.

And when I started the mortgage company a year and a half into the other company, it got very, very challenging for me. And I had always had ADHD. That's one of the CEO diseases out there, the attention deficit disorder. I'd always had that all my life. And it went to the next level. The pressure on me was unbearable. And I started having anxiety fits on a daily basis. And sometimes I would destroy office equipment i'd freak out destroy a desk i i would usually get very violent and usually it was not it wasn't the people it was just like you know i'm an objects like a computer would work and usually the things that would really trigger me was stuff that should work from a mechanical logical sense

like a printer and somehow it's just being a total ass and I would start to get anxious and get pissed off and then I'd destroy the printer and then we go buy a new one which wasn't very productive when you think about it but I was stretched to my limit so I would say that one of the most important things to do is if you're a serial entrepreneur of any size of company whether you think you're having serial entrepreneur of any size of company, whether you think you're having problems or not, you might want to check into a psychologist on a regular basis or talk to your friends around you and say, Hey, how am I doing? Am I doing okay? Health-wise is, am I handling stuff? Am I handling the stress? Well, is it getting to me? So it reached a point where I was starting to pick fights with people like real fights. Um,

like I was just being a prick. Um, and then I started thinking about how maybe I want to start keeping a gun in the car and, uh, under the seat. And I just went into full blow paranoia and ADHD and anxiety. I would have these anxiety attacks that would literally shut me down. I'd have to go to sleep. My chest would just seize up and my stomach would seize up. And I was having severe problems. And I was just the pressure of starting a second company, of doing everything, the sweat equity part of it.

We didn't have enough money to hire, you know, outside help. And, uh, yeah, I, it just became a huge collapse. And I mean, that was seriously like, there's people that go to the ER for a panic attack. That was like every day for me. That was like normal. And I just nap it off and then I'd wake up and do it again. And I was working so hard back then I was literally living out of our office. And at one point I told my business partner, I said, you know, there's really no point for me to go home anymore. The only reason for me to go home is the shower and change clothes. We might as well install a shower, this fucking office. I'll just start living here. I would, my employees would come in in the morning and I'd be asleep on the couch, which is not, you know, the coolest way to run your office.

But, you know, we're a small little company trying to make it work. And we did turn into a multimillion dollar company in the end. And it was a great story overall. But we certainly were paying the price for it. At least I was. My vice president was just like, well, I'm glad you have to deal with that um so once i started having this mindset of we need i need to start keeping a gun in the car and i need to get a gun i kind of a bulb went on and went okay you need some fucking help okay this isn't cool getting a gun is not

going to make things better in fact it's probably going to complicate shit because you're being an asshole. Uh, I was being an asshole on the freeway, flipping people off and, and, uh, yelling and screaming at people. I mean, I, I totally was like, I was fucking losing it. So I went in, so I decided, okay, guns, not the right way to go. Um, let's go see a psychiatrist. So fortunately I went and sat a psychiatrist and I hit a home run out of the park. I got a good guy. And he goes, he was explaining to me what's going on. He diagnosed me, and he goes, wow, you're really ADHD.

You likely had two parents that were obsessive-compulsive ADHD. Most people have one, but from what I can tell and what you've told me, you really, uh, huge amount of ADHD. And this is one of the problems of being an entrepreneur and being a, um, a, uh, CEO. It's the, you know, it's what, this is why they call it the CEO disease because it drives us like motherfuckers, but it's not healthy sometimes. And you think that you're being, I'll get into this in a second, but you think they're being effective, but you're not. So actually, let me change the story up. So I lied. I skipped a part. So let me go back to that. The whole old age, things are going. So what happened to me is one day I was having a panic

attack and somehow I convinced myself that I probably was having a brain aneurysm or brain cancer for a long period of time, which I don't think you have a brain aneurysm for a long period of time. But I was like, I must have brain cancer because my brain would hurt, just pulsate from the anxiety attacks in my chest and my stomach would seize up. Just, it was like someone took my stomach and turned into a tourniquet um and so one day i said fuck it i was just i was just suffering so bad and i went into care and i go i go i don't know what's wrong with me my hit you know i explained the whole thing to him so they ran a couple tests and the cow comes back and she goes she goes well i think i know what it is. And I'm like, what? And she goes, you have anxiety.

And I go, yeah, I have anxiety. I also have some fear and I have happiness and I have love. What the fuck? I have anxiety? Now, I never heard about anxiety or mental health or any of that sort of good stuff, which is all the more reason if you're an entrepreneur, you may want to educate yourself a little bit, like maybe warning signs of stress for entrepreneurs or something of that nature. So she nicely put up with my bullshit and explained to me that I was suffering from

anxiety. They gave me these elephant tranquilizers that had actually calmed me down to normal. That's how jacked up i was um by the end of the nine months as i'd weaned myself off of these tranquilizers um a third of one would put me to sleep uh whereas i was taking two and that was just bringing me back out of the stratosphere into the normal world and i can actually think for a second to be calm. Um, and then there was a, I think they put me on Zoloft, I think if it was correctly. So she says, here, take a few of these home, uh, try them out, see how they work for you. And then, uh, here's some doctors you can go talk to,

but you need to go see a mental health specialist. And I was like, fuck you, you're stupid. Whatever, man. So I was like, but I was in such misery just every day. It was this horrible episode that was just my partners would watch it, people around me would watch it, employees would watch me melt down. And it wasn't good. It was not healthy. And so I went and saw a psychiatrist. And I sat down with him, and my whole attitude at the time was like, yeah, whatever, man.

But it was either that or put the gun in the car. And I knew the gun in the car the way I was. I'd probably end up shooting somebody in or shooting myself, and God knows where that would have ended up. There are certain points in your life where you've got to kind of look at them when they present themselves, and you've kind of got to do a double check and go, what path does this lead us down and is this the right way to go and so i took and i talked to the um psychiatrist he determined i've had really bad

adhd and he said well he said well i gotta tell you that the tranquilizers you're on are pretty highly addictive and they're pretty jacked up. But if you're from what you're telling me, if you take those and you're coming back to normal, you're pretty up in the stratosphere with your ADHD. And he goes, we're just going to keep on the Zoloft. He goes, but we have to dial it in to where we can find the right dosage for you because the shit doesn't work until they hit the right dosage. So it took him about a month. I think every two weeks they had to upgrade the dosage. I think about 200 is where I ended up at. And he goes, and I remember he used to tell me, he goes,

you'll know when it kicks in and works for the first time. I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever, buddy, man. You and your little pills, you have fun with that. But I'll play your game because it's either that or else I go buy a gun. And so I'll never forget the moment. I'll never forget exactly where I was at. It's one of those perennial moments in my life where I went, you could call it clear, and for the very first time in God knows probably a decade or two,

I was able to put down my thoughts, pick them up, and everything else, and I was able to stop thinking about anything. What was funny was I remember meeting with him. He says, you know what? He goes, you know what? The thing about it being OCD and ADHD is you think about the same things. He goes, I'll bet you, you think about the same things every day. Like every day at 11, you probably think about X, Y, Z, the same subject. And then at 12, you switch to think about X, Y, and I go, you know, you're full of crap. I don't

do that. That sounds stupid. That sounds complete, like cyclical recycled thinking. Why would I do that? I went home and started to keep track of it, which he told me recycled thinking. Why would I do that? I went home and started to keep track of it, which he told me to do. Yeah. I was thinking about the same goddamn thing every day at 10 AM. And then I would think about the same thing at 11 AM. And I was literally every day repeating. It was like the groundhog day of thinking every day. I was thinking about the same shit at the same different times. It was different stuff, but basically I was going through the library at the same times every day. Like my body, my brain was feeding me the anxiety, um, trips at the same

time every day and putting me through the same racket. Right. So, um, so I got on the drugs, uh, and they worked for me and suddenly I became a really nice person and I had, I did have to go through what a lot of people struggle with when they first, uh, go on antidepressants. Once you get the dosage, right, you feel a little sluggish, you feel a little off your edge. You feel, you feel kind of like, and a lot of people go off and because of that, but you feel kind of, you kind of feel slowed down and a lot of people reject it and go, this is slowing me down too much. What you have to do is you have to get your body to recalibrate and your body relearns its energy, um, and everything else. But what you don't realize is you're so far jacked up,

so far jacked up on ADHD and OCD, that you have no idea what reality is. And so when you come down, you feel like you're slowing down and the drugs are slowing down, but that's not the case. You're just so far fucking out there. You're just rejoining the human race at this point and how the rest of us think. And what I didn't realize was how horribly unproductive that was. And this is where it gets really important.

Me thinking about the same thing every day, focusing on the same anxieties, having the same anxiety, fit over the same things every day was not productive. Being able to look outside of the box, being able to innovate, being able to think about different things, be able to get on my scotomas and belief systems where I can be like, well, what's a better way to build a widget sort of thing? Or what's a way to build a better business systems as the product moves from A to B through our facilities? These are the sort of things that I, uh, needed to think about,

but because I was going through the cyclical motion of drama and, and, uh, anxiety, it was not healthy and I was not being productive. So this is really important if you're an entrepreneur, if you're getting trapped in these things, um, you know, um, so this is some real important things. So mental health is real important to you. And I think one or two times over the last 20 years since then, there's been times where my OCD has gotten so bad that I've had to go back and see the doctor. He gives me the pills again, not the, not the tranquilizers cause I don't let it get that bad. Uh, but he puts me on the Zoloft and, uh know, using it within a very short time, I'm back to thinking like a normal human being.

And so this is really important. Monitor your mental health when you're a self-employed person. See how you're doing. If you're feeling stressed, if you're having issues of anxiety or OCD, ADHD, if you think you're overthinking things, write stuff down. One thing that used to help me at night is I used to sleep, I used to be awake all night thinking about everything I had to do the next day and worrying about it and thinking how I was going to do it. And what I found was part of that is your brain is trying to remind you of stuff so you don't forget. It's like, hey, man, don't forget to do that tomorrow.

Hey, don't forget to do that. And it really helps if you write stuff down because then your brain kind of lets you go and goes, okay, that's on paper. He's not going to lose it. So I don't have to sit and harass him about it. So that's really good. But take a monitor your mental health. Hopefully you have some pretty good mental health to start with.

I'm not sure I did. But some mental health to start with when you start your business. But make sure you monitor your mental health. One of the things I did used to do through my business was I went through a lot of stress because we had like three running at the same time and a bunch of ones we were invested in. And it got pretty crazy. And so what I would do is every weekend I'd go get a full body massage, a good hour,

an hour and a half, you know, the kind of deep tissue massage where I fall asleep halfway through it. Basically I just die. And, um, my employees could always tell if I skipped a week cause I got to the point where every week I go get a full body massage at the end of the week and that would clear me out on Saturday. And then I could, you know, have a clear head for Sunday and then get ready for the big game on Monday. And that was really healthy for me. And my employees could tell if I skipped the week because I'd be being an asshole somewhere in the middle of the week. And somebody would be like, you didn't go to your massage this weekend, did you?'d be like you can tell and like yeah we can really fucking tell so there's that so you may want to you may want to invest in some of that

thing if you're making some really good money invest in some self-care uh take in uh take into day spas you know women love day spas if you're a woman do day spas uh men i like a good massage uh another thing that was healthy for me in the in this is the beautiful part about being an entrepreneur don't be afraid to take vacations the the worst thing i did for the first bunch of years i think eight years or companies or something i never took a vacation i never took a break um yeah there were every now and then when i take off for a weekend or like a three day weekend, I'd take off and do something where the most part, I never really took

any vacation time off because that's the problem with being an entrepreneur. It's your life. It's 24 seven and you're going for it, but don't be that person. That was very unhealthy for me to do that. Um, and I gave him my personal life for a lot of the first years of our company too, which was not healthy as well. Um, you've got to have a balance and I know it's so hard to be like, Oh man, I gotta, you know, I got, there's so much I gotta do. And I remember the point owning my own company where it suddenly became where it used to be like, it used to be with them in the business small i could be like okay i i gotta do this today and then once i do that i'm done and i remember

reaching the point where i'm like it doesn't matter how many hours i stay here none of it's getting totally complete like someone's gonna get complete but i just have to accept the fact that i can't that everything cannot get done today and probably not tomorrow, but it's just, you know, eat the elephant one bite at a time. So, um, and delegate for that matter too. And that's another thing you may want to look at. You may want to look at, um, sometimes if you feel too stressed, you may want to look at, do I need to delegate? There came a time with our companies where, uh, having a vice president to help me wasn't good enough and I needed two executive secretaries. And so, um, I had two executive secretaries to, uh, help me do everything I was. And I think I still wasn't keeping up at that point, but we're trying. Um, but take a vacation,

take a break, take timeouts, get some perspective. You know, one thing I'm lucky enough is I have my dogs and you probably have kids or something like that, or maybe a spouse or significant other. Take time out. And I take time out during the day. I go, I go play with my dogs, take some photos of them to upload to YouTube because they love the Siberian dogs on, on Facebook and stuff. Or I'll go out and play with them in the backyard. And sometimes it's just maybe five or ten minutes, but it gives you that perspective that's so good. One of the most valuable things I found in my business was learning to think outside

the box. And I've talked about this on another podcast where I would take a small little weekend jaunts and I would have someone else drive and i drive you know we drive someplace and uh which is much better than flying because it's hard for me to think on a plane because i just my brain's screaming the whole time like fuck flying um and that or my brain's thinking bring me more vodka i'm gonna make all this go away um i really have trouble flying i probably should see a psychiatrist about that, but I mean, come on. It just, I mean, it is what it is. So, uh, so I used to write down this legal

pad to be outside my business and gave me a perspective of seeing my business from the outside because I wasn't in it all the day long. So here's that. Excuse me. Use that as a way to monitor your health and to get outside of your thing and to kind of give a reset button, kind of tune out. Do different things. Make time for you, basically. but make the mistake of, well, I take time off my business and I go play with my kids and my family or cook dinner or take care of my husband or vice versa. And one of the problems with that is it's great, but you need some you time. So schedule some me time. Take care of me.

Decompress. One of the biggest challenges I had too is you've got to get people around you that understand what you're going through. One of my biggest problems is, and this is probably step two of our conversation here. One of the problems that I had was a lot of people don't realize what our experience is like as an entrepreneur. You know, they have jobs. Um, they, they go to job from nine to five and nine times out of 10 when they come home, they punch out. They don't have to think about that fucking job ever again. You, on the other hand, are living it 24-7, my friend, dreaming it, eating it, pooping it, peeing it. You are the entrepreneurial tank,

if you will. And you can wake up in the middle of the night and be like, oh, let's do that for me. People that work for somebody else, they don't have to worry about any of that shit they just uh i'm going home and i'm done and i'm gonna go watch tv and do me time so um it's really important that your family understands what you're going through the pressure that you're going through um one of my problems was uh people that I was either engaged to or dating would completely take me for granted, but they were really good at still spending my money. And then when I would try and get them to understand me,

they'd tell me I was being an asshole and we need to go to the oyster bar and probably spend more of my money. But you need people around you that can understand you. And it may be that you need to go to this counselor for something like that. Um, but where I'm going to get into some other things here, but here's some ideas and I'm going to pull some of these ideas. Uh, someone wrote a great article on Forbes. So we're going to pull some of this data here from Forbes.com. So just for record, this is not mine. This is actually an article called Being an Entrepreneur Can Be Lonely. Here's How to Overcome It.

This is by Tori Utley at Forbes.com. She wrote this thing. Do we have a date on this? July 31st, 2017. Being an Entrepreneur Can Get Lonely. Here's How to Overcome It. And she outlined some steps. So I'm going to share some of these steps with you, with her. Um, number one, she, uh, put down, find an entrepreneurial community.

One of the things that I've used over the years is meetup.com. Uh, now meetup.com is kind of going through a transition. It was bought out by WeWork and WeWork is struggling to survive. A lot of people left the platform. Um, but platform. But see if you can join some entrepreneurial meetup groups in your area. In places like Vegas and California, they're very huge. They're very active. You can go make friends with other entrepreneurs, talk about your experiences and what you do. You can literally hang out with people who are in that space. There are Facebook groups you can join uh where people are entrepreneur based uh fortunately on facebook and my social media i have a lot of entrepreneurial friends so i can call them up be

like what's going on your life how's the book coming oh yeah like how's your book coming you know we can kind of share notes on the misery sharing notes in the misery that's the new shirt i'm releasing my new album sharing notes in the misery. That's the new shirt. I'm releasing my new album, sharing notes on the misery. It's a goth album. I don't know, man. It's new age, sharing notes on the misery, the notes of sharing on the misery. All right. So anyway, quit playing with that, Chris. Um, final entrepreneur community. Another thing is a lot of cities

will have like a Lions Club still. I can't believe those are still around. Another good one, if you're a speaker, that I've had a lot of friends that have used, I never use them. I'm forgetting, who's the guy who did Think and Grow Rich? I think it's him.

There's a, man, the name escapes me what it is, but it's a speaker's bureau. And you can find them. They have chapters in almost every city or larger city around the nation. I cannot think of what it is. So if you can, good for you. But just find communities and groups. One of the other things that's real important that I've seen entrepreneurs and I've done over the years is I get another entrepreneur

and I take them to lunch. And we kind of make lunch a regular thing. That's another way to get out of the house. Make lunch a regular thing. And what's beautiful about that is I can go talk about my business. They can talk about their business. We can sit and share notes. Sharing notes on the misery.

The new song by Chris Voss. The title. Note sharing the misery the new song by Chris Voss the title note sharing the misery I don't know why I find that particularly interesting sadomasochism what can you say the business of being an entrepreneur that's pretty much what it is

the suffrage is real Chris how would you describe entrepreneurism of being an entrepreneur, that's pretty much what it is. The suffrage is real. Um, Chris, how would you describe entrepreneurism? Hmm. So the select sharing of notes in the misery, the misery, the misery is the most important part and I'm getting a ring from somewhere. So there's that. Um, that's okay. Yeah. So anyway, it's one of those days going on this is like a long podcast i should make this part too so um that's really important i would say um meetup.com's the rotary clubs uh the chamber of commerce usually has a really good thing you can go to like a breakfast usually once a week and you exchange cards and business leads, things of that nature.

But I would make some friends that are other entrepreneurs. People that are other entrepreneurs make really good friends if you can get someone to spend the time that you will to build that relationship. And then you can ask them questions and you don't have to pay them for it. It's kind of like when doctors get together, they can be like, hey, did you see that infection last week? They don't have to pay each other for it. You know, doctors, whatever. Another thing she mentions is prioritize your relationships. And basically, you need to balance your entrepreneur hustle while trying to be friends with everybody.

Keep up the relationships you find value in maintaining long term. And you may need to spend less time with people and acquaintances. This is another you time. You may need to cut back to where you're not partying at clubs all the time and doing whatever unless you can balance it and, you know, focus on the most important aspects of your life, especially the people who are supporting you. Number three, she says, start saying no. So, you know, she had, she would, it looks like she'd say no to some of the coffee dates she would have

or some of the external stuff that weren't really contributing to making her better as she could be. Work with a mentor. This is good. A lot of people hire a mentor or a coach to kind of help them. Give them operational awareness. Give them a mental health check-in, give a coach to give a boost. I've never been one to really want to coach. If anything, I use my fellow entrepreneur groups as a coach, but this is one way to

do that. And remember who you are. You can lose friendships because of your dedication to your business, she writes. When this happens, you may question your decisions or focus on your startup. But, you know, in the end, keep a balance. And remember, this can get really lonely because you're the person where the buck stops, and that can get really lonely in your head. The third part of the series I want to talk about that I did,

and this is when I lost my business partner and best friend and kind of some of the other people around me at the time. I kind of lost him and I lost a girlfriend at the same time. Drove away a girlfriend or ran off or told her to hit the highway. We've been engaged for, I think, a year or two and it just was not working out. And finally, we had to make the call ball to do it. I tried to make it two and it just was not working out. And finally we had to make the call ball to do it. I tried to make it work. And after two years of being engaged, it just kept getting worse. And I was like, this isn't, this isn't something that was going to be working five years from now. So I broke up with her and, uh, I kind of was losing everybody in my life at that

time. So, um, it was really hard mentally and hard mentally and dealing with being alone for the first time. So I came up with something that was very proactive, and this is something I recommend most people that are entrepreneurs should do. Create what I call the virtual board of directors. Virtual board of directors. Now, with most board of directors, you have to pay them. You gotta, you know, give them an office to meet in. You gotta give them, you know, articles of corporation and put them in all that bullshit with a virtual board of directors. It's just a virtual board of

directors. So what I did is I took, uh, enlisted all the entrepreneur friends I had and I called them up and I said, Hey man, I need, uh need people to bounce stuff off of. I need friends to talk to and people that are in my same sort of boat and I need a virtual board of directors. And here's what I'm willing to offer you. If we can work together as a virtual board of directors and I don't require a lot of your time other than I might call you at night and be like, hey man, here's a problem I have. How do we solve it?

And I'm going to give you the same audience. So the same return. So if I call you and Ben, your error, you get the right to call me and Ben Meyer. So you're in my board, virtual board of directors. I'm in yours. We don't pay each other. We just share professional notes. And, uh, that's really a great way to go. It's cheaper than hiring coaches. Um, because you, you're both going through the same experience. You're both entrepreneurs, and you both have got to understand what's going on. And then what's cool is you can run ideas past them. So like, you know, I'm thinking about selling this or changing the product of this or doing

this or doing this innovation inside of our processes. And they can give you advice. And what's nice is you can build this virtual board of, I think I had about five people that I could call up at any given time. And so I'd run through the numbers and I'd be like, okay, what do you think of this? What do you think of this? What do you think of this? And I'll fight people up. And they would give me their insights. And because they were entrepreneurs, I got really good, solid advice. The problem with being an entrepreneur is asking normal people that have jobs how to do something. They just look at you like with the daring headlights going, what the

fuck are you talking about? I understand. Like I go to a job and I get paid. What is your problem? An entrepreneur knows, you know, they have to know all the aspects of the business from front to back, um, you know, from the entry point to the assembly line to the door. Um, and, uh, you know, just no one knows the experience like other entrepreneurs. So that, that can really, really, really help you out. And one of your, what I advise to on your virtual board of, uh, uh, virtual board of directors is if somehow you can get an attorney friend in there without having to pay him, that's fucking money. Uh, cause attorneys friends are really nice to have, especially if you don't have to pay him. But see, here's the thing. You can give them advice. Maybe

you can help them with marketing because they always struggle with anything that isn't law based. So you can help them with marketing or coaching. You know, a lot of attorneys are small time attorneys. They're single sole entrepreneurs as well. So they're dealing with the same sort of issues you are. So, um, you can help each other and work together from that aspect. Um, anyway, that's how I did it. And I got to tell you, it was really healthy for me to have a virtual board of directors. Sometimes I could just call them up and be like, Hey man, what's up? You want to go have a coffee? And, uh, by having that and then offering it as a reciprocal service, uh, just made it all the more better for everyone. So if you can, and it costs virtually fucking nothing, that's the beauty of it. Cause you've ever seen what a board of directors costs and salaries and, or pay or however pay or however you're compensating those people or giving them stock in your company.

This is a whole lot cheaper, so do it that way. And so that's the basic overall picture. And the final note I'll make that I'll go back to that I went to before. If you're in a relationship with somebody who doesn't understand the struggle that you're going through as an entrepreneur, um, get some couples help or get, get, you know, some sort of psychological help where you sit down with that person and you, you try and either get them to understand, or you have a therapist that helps them understand what you're going through and the mental challenge of it and the dynamicism of the Olympic sort of thought process you have to take and do. Because it's really hard for people that are entrepreneurs to get it.

And it's really hard for them to support us when they don't get it because they don't get it. They don't understand what all the stress is, the pain and the misery and the, you know, everything that we go through, uh, they don't understand it at all. And so for a lot of times that just causes conflict and the conflict makes things worse, which doesn't help you. And, uh, just, you just end up in a sick little shitload of hell.

So I would highly recommend that you monitor your relationships. And if people that are very close to you are having trouble and you're having conflicts, go get help. And I think that probably can be a theme throughout all this. You know, I started getting anxiety attacks thinking I want to keep a gun in the car. I went and got help, uh, over the next couple of years. Anytime I got to that point, I didn't get to a point where I wanted to gun again, but I got to a point where I could tell, I can understand that I was, I couldn't put my thoughts down anymore. I can control stuff. So I would go get help.

Um, I think one of my last girlfriends that I was engaged to, I think I, I wanted to go get help and then she didn't want to because she knew that the doctor was just going to tell her that she was the problem. Um, I think she actually said that, that was the funny part. Um, and she was a nice person, but you know, it just wasn't working out. You try people on sometime. That's what happens. You know, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't and doesn't mean they're bad people. But, uh, you know, I'm just, uh, giving you the, some of the limits that I ran into.

So you've got to have somebody who understands what you're going through, understands what you're building and the vision of it and can support you. And that's really important. Even maybe if they don't understand it, they just can support you and realize that you're doing probably one of the most toughest jobs on the planet being an entrepreneur. So anyway, guys, that's my advice. Monitor your mental health, okay? If you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling overwhelmed, if you feel you want to break, if you're feeling like you want to hurt people, like you want to throw office things against the wall, or you are throwing office things against the wall, get some help, please. And one of the problems we run into as entrepreneurs,

we go, I don't have the time for that. I don't have the time for an hour to go see it. You do, you do. It might be the most important hour you'll ever get or spend and here's the whole thing that I would wrap on too. This just came to me. The most important asset that you have in being an entrepreneur is not your office, it's not your phone, it's not your phone. It's not your web page.

It's you. You got to take care of you. And especially if you've reached a point as a successful entrepreneur where you have a lot of employees, you kind of start realizing, you know, I've had enough employees where you're signing half a stack of paychecks every other Friday and you kind of start to realize that if anything happens to you, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs and probably lose their income and probably have an impact on them, which kind of gets a little freaky after a while. Cause you're like, holy crap. If anything happens to me, I'm fucking screwed. And these people are too. So realize the most number one important asset is you and you've got to take care of it. You've got to monitor it and you've got to ask people to help you. Um, and, uh, that's the big thing, man.

And sometimes you just might need, might need a virtual assistant, but go get a massage, go have a spa day. Excuse me again, go have a spa day, you know, pamper yourself a little bit, reward yourself, give yourself some little bit. Reward yourself. Give yourself some little rewards. Because the hardest thing to do is when you burn out being an entrepreneur is you just don't feel rewarded anymore. And so go baby yourself. And the nice thing about going to maybe a spa like, you know, getting your nails done or something like that, as you can still read your emails, but you're enjoying that, you know, you're enjoying a little me time, if you will. So I highly recommend that. I highly recommend, like I said, for years,

I went where every weekend I just go get an hour and a half massage and I just have them just tear me apart. I get, I get like these, these uh these lesbian female bodybuilders that had these arms like the russians like we will crush you and your little man body and uh i i love those women you don't get the hot skinny women because they with the skinny arms no you want you want some big russian muscular chick who's just gonna like twist you in a pretzel and break all your muscles down. And then you're going to just leave there like a bullet fucking jello and sit in your car and just go, I can't feel anything. I don't care. Why is Chris describing this whole episode?

I don't know, man. It's take care of yourself. That's the most important thing. And you want to monitor it. You may want to put on your task list, how am I doing mental health-wise? Because sometimes you can go by for a while and you're doing good, and then you get stuck kind of in that cyclical thinking or that rut, or you're getting dark and depressed.

And sometimes you just need to go out and see the fucking sun. You know? One of the problems I have with both me and some of my friends that work on computers a lot, we have to take extra vitamin D because we suffer from a vitamin D deficiency because we don't go out and see the sun. So you might want to go see the sun. Get out of your house. Go do something. In fact, recently I made a decision to go hang out with one of my friends.

Every Saturday we're going to go eat someplace different. Not the same place, different. Every Saturday we're going to go try something new and someplace we haven't eaten before. And just to get me out of the house, to get me looking at someplace new, to kind of spark that original ingenuity of me going to the same place every time. You don't have to think about it. You don't have to experience it. You're just like, I don't know.

You can just fly through it. But the beautiful part is if I go someplace new, there's new challenges. There's new paradigms of thought and belief system I have to do, food to discover. And discovery is fun because that's part of the things that I love about being an entrepreneur. So anyway, long in the tooth here. Hopefully you learned something and be good to yourself. And like I said, remember, you're the number one asset in your company. And if you don't take care of that asset, you're going to lose all the others

because being sick or getting hurt or losing your mind and up in the funny farm probably won't help your business much. Hey guys, be well. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time.