IAM2422 – When to Rebuild: The Signs and Strategies

Gresham reflects on one of the challenging aspects of entrepreneurship and personal growth—knowing when to pivot or stop.

Gresham explains that society often teaches us not to quit, but there’s a time for persistence and knowing when to let go.

He emphasizes that complexity can be a barrier, so simplifying processes is essential. Simplification doesn’t mean lowering standards; it’s about making things easier for your team and customers.

Gresham recommends that having boundaries—such as simplifying a process—can increase creativity.

He underscores the importance of having faith—not only in the process but also in yourself. If a pivot doesn’t work out, it doesn’t mean failure; it’s just part of the journey.

Gresham highlights the significance of understanding the why behind what you're doing, rather than getting bogged down in the how.

• Blue Star Franchise: http://bluestarfranchise.com
• Browse the Franchise Inventory: https://bluestarfranchise.com/franchise
• Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: http://bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
• Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – http://franchiseceo.co

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Transcription:

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Intro 00:00

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:26

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. And this is a special episode of our I AM CEO Podcast.

And this is actually going to be a snippet of a snippet, so to speak. I'm just doing an intro because I've been starting to document my journey into starting what is now called Blue Star Franchise.

We're also going to do a kind of sub site within CB Nation called Franchise CEO. So you'll see some links in the show notes related to that.

But just wanted to give you a little bit more insight, give you a little bit more color in some of the aspects of why I'm actually doing this.

Because one of the things I was doing as I was going through training to start up this new business was realizing and hearing from the founder of FBA, the Franchise Brokers Association, that it'd be really cool to document your journey going through and building this out.

I think it's something that would be super helpful, obviously for people that are looking for and thinking about starting franchises.

But frankly, if you're starting anything, any type of business, I think it's really cool to kind of just even see the journey and how it's been going from there.

So I'm going to share a few of those snippets from the, from the first couple of videos that have been created.

But definitely, of course, subscribe to our YouTube, check out a lot more where I figure out exactly where we're going to post this.

So I'll have that information that's available to you. But regardless, if you're a builder, continue to keep building, continue to do your thing.

The world definitely needs exactly what you're trying to build and needs you to be your unique self.

So make sure to run your own race, because nobody can run your race like you. This is Gresh signing out. I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Knowing when it's time to rebuild, I think is one of the biggest challenges for entrepreneurial people, for anybody that's kind of working through any type of relationships, projects, it could be jobs, it could be businesses, whatever it is.

When do you throw in the towel, so to speak? And I think that I'd read some years ago that there's like this culture.

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And I think that as kids or even parents, we're teaching our kids to not quit, and I think that there's a place for that to not quit. But there also is a time to quit.

And when I say quit, I don't necessarily mean like you completely throw in the tower. Sometimes it means pivot, change, move from one rung of the monkey bar to the next one.

As I like to say a lot, is sometimes you have to let go of the previous rung to move to the next rung.

So when is that time? And I think that's one of the more challenging things that I myself am kind of like working through and just kind of holding faith.

But one of the things that really has come up recently for me is simplifying things.

And I think that what I've started to realize as more and more people on the team, I have more and more things that I'm working on, it becomes even more important to simplify those things.

Not necessarily because your team can't necessarily handle the complex or can't do those things.

But I think when you look at any of the really great teams and the really great systems and processes, they are simplified.

You can go to the Steve Jobs speeches and a lot of what he talks about is around simplification.

You make it easy, you can make it easier, make it easier. And really push that boundary of how you can simplify things so that people don't necessarily have to think about doing those things.

And those people are your clients, your customers, your candidates. But also it has to be the people that are are kind of within you and on your team as well, too.

How do you simplify the process for them? So when even looking at this franchise process, it's like, OK, if it's eight steps, can you make it one step? You know what I mean?

And really starting to drill down on how you can simplify the process so that people are set up for success, but they're not missing out on anything, too.

And that's where that boundary is kind of set. And those constraints actually allow you to be more creative and innovative.

I'm kind of in that process kind of internally between you could say the three different or four different maybe even businesses and how I could potentially simplify those things.

Because I think that there's a lot of overlap as far as the journey and as far as like what services can be provided at different times.

And at what level, what degree, is it more product, is it more service-based and what that ultimately looks like.

But for me it's you have to work to get it simple and Steve Jobs has a quote and he talks about that the truly complex is easy.

It's easy to make things difficult. It's easy to add on other things. It's hard to really drill down to the essence.

I think there's a Michelangelo quote where they asked him how he created the David and he basically said, I just removed everything that wasn't David.

And I think that as leaders, entrepreneurs, business owners, we have to really understand that.

And if you're somebody who's thinking about starting a franchise or thinking about starting a journey, it's also very important to know that as well.

It's so important to be able to say, this is the essence of who I am and what I want to accomplish.

These are my goals, aspirations and what I'm hoping to accomplish and basically chisel away everything that is not that because everything that is not that is a distraction.

And that becomes really really hard because I think we as people want to make sure that we're helping support others.

I think we as people also want to make sure that we are being of service and being able to kind of make an impact and be valued and seen.

But I think one of the probably biggest things that's really hard and go back to the jungle gym is swinging from one rung to the next rung is scary.

You have to have faith. You have to have faith that it's going to work out. And frankly, you have to have faith that even if it doesn't work out, it's not a failure.

It's not the end of the road. And that's something that's really, really powerful. And you can kind of tap into that.

Seth Godin actually has a book where he talks around, when it's okay to kind of throw in the towel when it's kind of time to stop new projects.

And that's why a lot of times on the podcasts I'll say don't let the how getting away of the why.

And that's why being able to tap into your why and understand exactly what that is, it's gonna be such a huge thing.

So I'm going through this process right now to understand truly and reevaluate not necessarily what my why is but how my hows are working.

And that is a long process and it's a process that really requires chiseling away at what isn't the why and not getting attached to the how.

And that's something that a lot of us have to do. So that's kind of like where I'm at and I'm continuing to kind of work through that process for all the businesses and things I'm working on.

Please let me know if there's anything I can do to help. And of course, looking forward to giving you more and more updates.

Outro 06:45

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Want to level up your business even more? Read blogs, listen to podcasts, and watch videos at CBNation.co.

Also, check out our I AM CEO Facebook group. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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