[00:00:00] Hey everybody, this is Libby with FEARLISNESS. What is FEARLISNESS? FEARLISNESS is the underlying
[00:00:05] grit that empowers us to forge ahead as entrepreneurs, even when hope seems distant. It's the courage
[00:00:11] to walk through the fires of hell knowing that we'll come out stronger and smarter on the other side.
[00:00:17] Stay tuned and learn how to get FEARLISNESS. I, does do my marketing for my service company and they have been phenomenal. Shout out to my account manager, Reese. And communication and just getting us results
[00:01:42] and just open and honest transparency
[00:01:45] and communication as far as like what they can do,
[00:01:47] what I need to do for them. So my great great grandfather was a farmer and owned his own farm And then my grandfather started a steel manufacturing business here in Kokomo, Indiana Called Hoosier Rips blind brooch. No, they didn't make like the jewelry broaches Even though that's most of the people I grew up in high school thought my dad like made jewelry
[00:03:00] So and then you think they like the shop today. What's going on with so-and-so employee, what's going on with so-and-so customer. Bob, Bob, you know, all those conversations. That was like normal what I heard. It wasn't just, you know, how was math class today?
[00:04:23] Or I think a lot of people, when you grow up in a home
[00:04:26] that isn't entrepreneurial or doesn't own their own businesses. I'm a student of like learning with getting my hands dirty type of student But I never really like excelled in school and luckily I got offered a job Outside of school before I finished that was in the world I wanted to go in which was an agency world and I was an employee at an agency for three years kind of really saw how the Sausage was made
[00:05:41] How to grow an agency? I was the third employee hired at that agency by the time I left three three and a half years later
[00:06:46] Like I said, zero nepotism other than like you got the opportunity to be the guy who swept the floors. Same for us. Like we would mow the yard at the shop and like half the time get paid for it maybe.
[00:06:52] And then number one summer.
[00:06:54] Child labor band.
[00:06:55] Exactly 100%.
[00:06:56] I think there's this one summer, the front of the office or the shop needed painted.
[00:07:01] So I have like these terrifying memories. They had like a forklift that they used in the shop. If you ever really want to take over the business, it's yours. Let's work through that But it was also like this moment of encouragement is like I also don't want you to think I Don't you know, I wouldn't want you to let you do your own thing, right? It was like this underlining messaging It's just so good and I've actually started using that line on my kids now
[00:08:21] You know if my son asks you know, it's so good, right? Because it's it's got triple meaning to it
[00:09:23] do something better. You know, so that that was always my dad's response is like, now you'll do something better. And I don't know if I'm doing something better, but I definitely
[00:09:29] am doing something on my own. I don't think digital marketing and like precision steel
[00:09:33] manufacturing have anything in common. But you know, so it's, it's been a cool path.
[00:09:39] And now I'm like starting that cycle over again with my kids. So it's, I had their eight
[00:09:43] and 10. So they're definitely get to be Chris. And how do you live with that person? But then the other side of that too, is raising kids in an entrepreneur family. Like with a topic that is actually very rarely talked about. And I love this topic because they see us work all the time.
[00:11:01] They see us struggle, they see us fail.
[00:11:04] I'm sure my kids have seen me lose my shit, I'm sorry.
[00:12:02] Austin's kind of like, well, I want one too. Sure, yeah.
[00:12:04] And they see you go through those things.
[00:12:06] But from a kid's perspective, I feel like it's a really interesting journey to watch
[00:12:10] your parents or family because I come from an entrepreneur family as well.
[00:12:16] And so I'm going to say, I've seen my family not really, they're old school.
[00:12:23] I'm just going to give it, they were old school.
[00:12:25] They did not treat employees that great. that, with my father passing away and my grandfather, most of the things I heard were these stories that I had no clue about. And they were all just like, Oh, your dad did this for me. And when my back was against the wall, your dad was your mom and dad were there for me and did this or like your grandfather, he did this for me. And I'll say this like
[00:13:42] so one of the stories, it's it's fine to show remorse and like guilt, you know, or, you know, if I don't show up, it's because like, they truly loved these people and like these people did a lot for them from a friend situation as well as a boss situation. It was a cool thing. It was a really cool thing. That's an awesome story. And it's so interesting to hear that because, but what advice would you give the child version of yourself or even the advice you'd give your gift of like a lesson that you've learned that you would have done sooner? Yeah. I don't know. I always say, you know, because the first few years of business for everybody or probably the harder ones, right?
[00:16:21] And I remember we started to grow.
[00:16:24] I think I had like two employees at that point the context of what you do, then not, that's such a win. I can't imagine
[00:17:40] owning a business that I just didn't have because it has to condition us that as the risks get bigger, we've conditioned that hard, but it also has to be hard because as we grow, we become more and more responsible for to like the Gordon Ramsay's of the world or like those celebrity chefs. In the last like 15, 10, 15 years, like it's been glamorized, right? But like, if you ever really want to see what it's like to be a chef, just peek your head into any kitchen on a Friday night at a busy restaurant. Like it's the definition of organized chaos, right?
[00:20:24] It's hard.
[00:20:25] Like you have burns all over your hands.
[00:21:27] You can either start working out and eating right at a younger age, which is hard because working out is difficult, right? It takes discipline and it's like literally your sore all the time like working out is difficult or you could ignore all that.
[00:21:33] And when you're older, you're going to have a lot of health problems and like that's going to be really hard.
[00:21:37] You're going to be on tons of medication, things like that.
[00:21:40] But I mean, that's it's so true what you're that there's an easy button. I get this question all the time and I just like, I worked all, literally, I worked all weekend this weekend to create a new onboarding for new customers because I realized we weren't activating as fast as we could, getting them to the point of activation. So yeah, I worked all weekend.
[00:23:01] Was that fun?
[00:23:02] No. starting out or starting a business, do your absolute best to not pay attention to anyone else. For like, the first two to three years, like, hunker down in your own world and like really just worry about you and your thing and don't spend time comparing yourself to others that are trying to do the same thing. Because comparison is the thief of joy. It's such a true statement. So if I've blocked you, it's not because I'm mad at you. It's because you're a distraction and I don't want to speak. So I want to, um, you know, continue on that joy, right? So Drew, how houses you can buy, all of that equals financial success. So when you start out, like that's, that's it, right? Like I'm going to show my previous boss that I can make more money on my own than what he was paying there. She was paying me my last job, you know? But then, you know, it grows into more of that. It grows into just general, just happiness is such a powerful thing that I think we've
[00:27:03] have forgotten about as sad as that sounds. more successful. Success is the happiness of my staff, the security of my staff, the fulfillment and like the joy my staff feels doing what they get to do for a living. My happiness and success comes from them genuinely feeling and trusting that I'm taking this thing in the right direction.
[00:28:23] That's a layer of success to me that when you And somehow it got brought up that my dad's staff at the shop, they weren't asking if they could carry his casket. They were telling us they want to carry his casket. And out of sign of respect of like what he did for them as their boss, a sign of respect to what he did for them as their benefits, to give better things, to purchase things for the business. But, you know, I think that, and this was, this was a, probably a while ago when your dad passed away, you said right before you started. So nine years. Yeah, nine years. So, you know, and with that being said, like there's this whole shift in what
[00:31:02] people want.
[00:31:03] It's, it happened with COVID, right?
[00:31:05] With the kind of how we It is the ultimate KPI. It is. It is. And it's so hard to hear people, you know, with saying, you know, oh, I just pay them, they should show up. I think as humans, you know, we are naturally
[00:33:22] And then also human successful, right? Like you have to be that tough guy.
[00:33:24] You have to be that rocker feller
[00:33:26] that was always known as like this tough human being.
[00:33:29] And that's why he was successful in business.
[00:33:32] There's this myth that you can't have both.
[00:33:34] And it's just not true.
[00:33:36] There's been enough examples of people in the world
[00:33:39] that did both,
[00:33:42] and were successful in both sides of that spectrum.
[00:33:45] So let's just get rid of that different, you know, different agreements. But I want to work on getting rid of that myth that both of those things can exist. And they can, you know, so it's, it's such an empowering moment. But I just think it's a learned skill to balance that. And, but it is, to me, one of the markers of success. We're going to call that the ultimate KPI. I love it. Drew, so, you know, in all of this, like the learning, the struggle,
[00:36:23] how do you stay motivated?
[00:36:25] What motivates you and your wife? I'm going to go to the center. Initiative ownership. Oh, come dummy. Hold on. One of our core values here is confidence. And all of our core values are like a word with like a sentence underneath of it. And it basically says like we will do the things that other people say we can't do.
[00:37:40] And like that's kind of been my life.
[00:37:44] And it's such a great thing to do with your team is kind of like have this invisible enemy. You know, like they don't want us to win. Well, not to speak like DJ Khaled too much.
[00:39:01] They say that like, you know, they say that nothing unites a team like a common enemy.
[00:39:06] It's true. and people who buy ink by the barrel. So like, I've got those in the back of my head and those don't really exist much later, a decade later. But I want us to always be like, we're the underdog. No matter how big we are, we wanna do some wild and crazy things. And a lot of people don't think we're gonna be capable of doing them,
[00:40:20] but we're gonna do them.
[00:40:21] You know, and that's what motivates me.
[00:40:25] So that so resonates with me It's all these again. I'm competing against some of these owners, primarily men, most of the time. But it also motivates me to say, I'm the underdog. I'm going to do some crazy stuff. I'm going to innovate faster than any of them can because if there's one that lights me up, man. I love it, you know, and I think it's such a fun attitude and mindset to have, um, is that like, Hey, people are counting us out. Let's go win this thing, you know, because like how good it's going to, it has to feel so much better.
[00:43:03] Winning as an underdog rather than like, if you were just the number one favorite to win it all has to feel so much better.
[00:43:06] So like that's what I'm running for.
[00:44:04] The cleaning industry is high up on that list right now because we've got quite a few in that world right now that we're having really great success for as well. So who knows in 2025 that
[00:44:09] might be our our other our newest subsidiary that happens is that something for that cleaning world.
[00:44:15] But Green Grow I'm really excited about it. I love the people in the green space industry.
[00:44:19] They're just such a sweet fit. They're so smart green industry and also the cleaning space because they are some of the hardest working people you will ever meet. I mean, I cleaned houses and scrub toilets at the beginning as well. And I sucked. I was horrible. I was the worst cleaner ever. I was not efficient. Yeah.
[00:45:40] I deep cleaned everything.
[00:45:43] So, Drew, where can our viewers find more information about you?
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