IAM2401 – Unleashing the Power Within: Running Journey

Gresham Harkless shares that he wasn't always a runner and didn't enjoy it initially, but he started running after the tragic loss of a friend's daughter to cancer. This motivated him to participate in his first long-distance run for the Lynn Marie Foundation.

Gresham emphasizes the importance of “running your own race,” focusing on personal growth rather than comparing yourself to others. He found peace in this mindset, recognizing that progress comes with consistent practice.

Running became a way for Gresham to clear his mind, gain clarity, and avoid emotional, reactionary decisions in moments of uncertainty – it became a time for personal reflection.

Gresham recalls how early in his business journey, he didn't prioritize physical fitness and later recognized its importance for overall wellness.

Furthermore, Gresham point out how the discipline and self-awareness fostered through running have enriched his approach to both life and business.

• 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 00:29

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.

If you run your race, you can't lose. I'm a big believer in that. And I think that that's one of the reasons I've always found so much peace in running.

I'm not a runner. I didn't run in high school or anything like that. I actually did not like running.

But I discovered running, I think, the first time one of the friends, one of my friends and the co-working, or actually in the BNI chapter I was in, lost her daughter.

Her daughter was my age and she lost her to cancer, a fight with cancer. So I did the first run that I've done for long distance, the Lynn Marie Foundation run.

And in that run, I started to begin to love kind of like that process. I'd never run three. 0.2 miles, let alone anything close to that really ran miles and things like that in school and never really truly embraced that.

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But I think so many times around running is like you get lost in what the other lane is doing. You get lost in what the other person is doing.

One of my good friends growing up, we used to play basketball together. He was always like the best runner.

He would always get the six minute mile and five minute mile. I always wanted to do that and I always felt like I was right outside of knocking on the door to the gold medals that we used to get our presidential medal.

And a lot of times I never got it just because I couldn't you know do the mile run in the six minutes or seven minutes or whatever it might have been.

But I got really clear that running very much so like everything else is something that you have to practice and something that you can get better at.

You start working on your breathing and things like that, you get brighter. Sometimes it's not even a physical thing.

Sometimes it's just your breathing thing. But the grand scheme of things, it's always like understanding that if you run your race, you can't lose.

And I think so many times we get caught in looking what other people are doing and we say, we're not successful, we're not here, we're not that, we're not this.

But the reality is that we're exactly where we're supposed to be. And if we lean into that, we might have lessons and opportunities to kind of get better, but we have to kind of lean into our race.

We lean into what we're supposed to do. And I think that's really why I felt a little bit more in love.

I won't say I'm completely in love with running and that process. Don't get me wrong. I'm always like, hey, I should be doing this mile here and this mile there.

But one of the things that I really love about running is when you just set out to run. Like I mentioned I have a lot of changes that are happening.

And I think so many times you're kind of getting lost in the sauce so you can make those emotional reactionary decisions.

But I really want to continue to kind of create space in order to just kind of have clarity around what it is that I'm doing and running has definitely been a way for me to do that just going out for a run.

And just saying hey, let me find out where I'm at let me take the steps let me just be more than anything else it's always been like kind of clarifying.

So even during the run today in and of itself it's just been it's not my typical run I ran about two miles or so it's cold outside about 20 something degrees.

And but I usually, when I like to run, I like to just go and just see where my body takes me, how far my body can take me, see if I can push myself.

It's just that challenge within that run that you really enjoy. But I think that there is so much great space in doing things that are hard, doing things that are uncomfortable, doing things that aren't always what we want to do.

Because I think, again, it creates that hardness in that specific moment or in that specific period, so that when the hard does come about in life, you're not completely thrown out about it.

And plus, you have a literal shown example of how you challenged, you answered challenges, how you stepped up to the plate, how you did what you had to do to get things done.

And I think there's so much power in that. And I feel like running a lot of sports are simulated ways to do that, which is why I think it's so important to kind of move your body.

That's one of the things that I don't think I did very early on in my business that I would have done a lot more.

As a matter of fact, when I first started my my business when I was going to do freelance writing initially.

This was maybe about 10, well probably around maybe 13, 14 years ago. I knew how important it was to really get back to moving your body, get back to being in physical shape as they are mentally and emotionally.

And I went to go play basketball to where my Achilles tendon, that's probably another topic for another story.

But the point that I'm making is that when you get in that space of understanding how important it is for the physical, it starts to help you out with your mental and your emotional as well too.

So whether it's running or something else, for me, it's always been running. You might see more of these where I'm like pouring down sweat, have a cap on and all those things just because I went out for a run because I really want to get back into doing that more consistently.

Doing the other things but definitely the running has always been something that has been something that has helped me to kind of clarify my thoughts and kind of take out and de-stress and do those things as well.

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

Outro 06:39

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast, powered by CB Nation 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.

Check out the latest and greatest apps, books, and habits to level up your business at CEOhacks.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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