IAM2189 – Leveraging on Media to Promote Positivity and Support Entrepreneurs in their Journeys – Part 1

Gresham Harkless discusses the difficulties of launching Blue16 Media, emphasizing the unpredictability of entrepreneurship and the loneliness that often accompanies it.

Gresham highlights the importance of media in today’s entrepreneurial landscape.

He explains how his background in journalism influenced his decision to create media platforms that provide valuable content to help businesses and entrepreneurs thrive.

The conversation delves into the necessity of delegation in managing multiple projects.

He emphasizes the importance of empowering team members and the ongoing challenge of balancing control with trust in his business operations.

Gresham believes in leveraging media to promote positivity and support entrepreneurs in their journeys.

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Transcription:

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Sean Weisbrot Teaser 00:00

Everyone knows that starting companies isn't easy. So I'm curious to know what was the hardest thing about starting Blue16?

Gresham Harkless 00:06

A lot of times with running a business, there's so many things that go wrong. There's so many things you don't know. You don't know that you don't know.

You feel like you're the only one that doesn't know, but in reality, we're all kind of figuring it out and taking steps along the way.

Intro 00:20

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast, and I wanted to share with you one of the episodes that I was a guest on for someone else's podcast.

I always talk about how important it is to build a media company. One of the next best things you could do is be on somebody else's media company.

So I had the pleasure of being a guest on this podcast, and I wanted to share a little snippet with you because it would help support the eight business pillars we've really been trying to focus on with a lot more of our content and a lot more of the solo episodes that I'm doing.

So make sure, of course, that you subscribe to our podcast, but, of course, you take some time out. Check out the show notes.

Subscribe to the podcast that I've been featured on as well too, and get to learn about some of those eight business pillars and how you can continue to leverage and build that up so you can go from builder to architect to, of course, rock star and luminary.

So this is Gresh signing out. I hope you enjoy this I AM CEO special episode.

Sean Weisbrot 01:13

Welcome back to another episode of the We Live to Build Podcast. Our guest today is Gresham Harkless Jr., the CEO and founder of Blue16 Media, which helps entrepreneurs and business owners to increase their visibility and generate more opportunities using the web, and the CEO and founder of CB Nation, which helps businesses utilize their resources to increase their visibility and be successful.

He also runs the CEO Chats and I AM CEO Podcasts, CBNation TV, Rescue a CEO, Teach a CEO, Hearpreneur, DM VCO, and many more.

In total, his network is comprised of over twenty thousand entrepreneurs from around the world. I first met Gresham by responding to a help of reporter.com request he had submitted asking entrepreneurs to be on his podcast.

My episode with him aired earlier this year, and we'll share a link to it in the show notes found at welivetobuild.com.

It's where in today's world that you meet people like Gresham who make you feel like he's totally present, attentive, and an open book, willing to share of himself without thinking about what he can get back in return.

And that's why I asked him to come on and share some of his favorite CEO hacks. So today, we honor his passion for helping CEOs grow their identities and expanding their reach.

Let's give Gresham a warm welcome. Welcome to We Live to Build. My name is Sean Weisbrot, and I'm an entrepreneur, investor, and advisor based in Asia for over twelve years.

Join us every week to fast track your personal growth so you can meet the ever increasing demands of the company or companies you are passionately building. Time waits for no one, so let's get started now.

Gresham Harkless 03:25

Sean, thanks so much for having me on the show. I appreciate it.

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Sean Weisbrot 03:27

Yeah. What do you think of the intro?

Gresham Harkless 03:29

I loved it. It got all warm and fuzzy inside, so I appreciate the all the things that you said so much. And you've been a great guest on my show, so I appreciate you for coming on and providing so much value as well.

Sean Weisbrot 03:40

Let's go into this quickly. When did you become interested in entrepreneurship?

Gresham Harkless 03:45

I, was the kid that sold potato chips on the playground. I had a family newspaper when I was ten. So my dad went TDY, so he went to a completely different country.

And as a way to connect with him, pre Skype, Zoom, all these kind of technological things that we have at our advantage would be like, face to face with somebody. We used to just talk on the phone once a week.

We would get emails through AOL, the whole dial up, and then we would send them care packages. So him not being able to know what was going on in our family for that year so that he was away, in the military, I basically created this family newspaper.

So I got all the news that was going on our family. And then I basically just put it into a Word document, got some fancy clip art, printed it out, and then would send it over to him every single month.

And then I would sell the subscriptions to my family members and those that were close to our family. And that was, like, those things that I went back to when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up.

That was like, okay. Well, you seem to have some entrepreneurial tendencies even though you probably don't even know what the word entrepreneur is at that time.

So fast forward a lot of years trying to figure all of that out. I started to really interview entrepreneurs and business owners because I read a little bit about it. I was like, hey. This sounds like something I would be interested in.

It sounds like something that is in alignment with who I am. And then next thing I started out with the blogs and everything. I mean, at the basis, it was just like, hey. You have a business. I would love to learn from you. Could you tell me some of the things you wanted to do when you started the business?

Maybe things you feel like you would did better, and it just evolved from there. So I would say that I found that I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but it found me before I even knew exactly what it was.

Sean Weisbrot 05:27

I've heard a lot of people talk about the first thing they did was they would sell food at school or they would like you said, creating this, newspaper. I never had anything like that.

I mean, I took Ritalin as a kid, and I always used to tuck it under, like, the couch, in between the couch cushions because I really didn't wanna take it. If I was a born entrepreneur, I probably would have been, like, selling the riddle into the other kids.

Gresham Harkless 05:50

Right.

Sean Weisbrot 05:51

Five dollars a pop, ten dollars a pop. But I didn't think like that, honestly. I never had that mindset. It's interesting how I find myself immersed in entrepreneurship, and I love it.

And I love listening to people's stories and figuring out how I can help them and what I can learn from them as well, like you. But a lot of people I talk to have a similar story, and I just don't have it. I don't know why.

Gresham Harkless 06:16

Yeah. But you're still doing phenomenal things. It's so funny that's the beauty of the story as you touched on when you have that opportunity to hear how somebody got started.

And I think, from learning through the podcast that nobody's story is always the same, and that's what makes being human and being an individual so magical and awesome.

Sean Weisbrot 06:35

I talked about this with, another guest before, so I won't go too deep into it now. But my first real interest in business was when I moved to China, and I started watching how Chinese people did business and how I thought they were doing it strangely.

I thought, oh, but if you just did it like this, then maybe you would make more money. So I started learning by predicting how you could do things better, and I didn't know how to sell.

I didn't have a desire to be a business owner. I had to start my first business and go broke doing it only to find a mentor who taught me how to make money and understand my value.

And that's when I started to be successful, when he helped me to understand how to sell. So, yeah, my journey has been probably very different from the average entrepreneur, I would say.

Gresham Harkless 07:20

Yeah. I think people call that the accidental entrepreneur.

Sean Weisbrot 07:24

You right. So who is your inspiration for getting started, and how was it that inspired you? And I don't mean the newspaper stuff. I mean, kind of more with Blue16 Media.

Gresham Harkless 07:33

I think I came from a family of people that always had, like, be this side thing that you did. I think me seeing my mom start her embroidery business was huge because I remember, I think for Christmas, I got her, like, a business plan book and things like that.

And I actually leafed through it more than maybe she probably even did. My granddad, he sold a lot of different things, and it was just always in our blood, so to speak.

But I don't know that anybody was really, like, going all in and trying to do it full time. So what you said resonated with me because it was like seeing something and saying, how do I potentially do that full time and have a legit business?

Sean Weisbrot 08:06

So what made you be interested in having a media company?

Gresham Harkless 08:12

It went back to the family newspaper. It was one of those stories that I felt was unique enough to where it might speak to who I was as an individual.

And it just started out with writing and being interested. I always say I'm a journalist at heart and love to ask questions and hear people's stories.

So it was just finding a lane that resonated with me, and mine's end up being entrepreneurship and business.

But not to say that I'm not interested in other things, but I think that was the thing that just spoke to me at that time that I was trying to figure that out and a lot of it was just discovery and understanding that this is what entrepreneurship means, but how really do you run a business.

And really asking those questions of people that were running businesses, were really what led me into that in building the media company.

And then because of journalism, kind of I don't wanna say crashing and burning, but kind of evolving and changing tremendously.

It was just one of those times where I really looked at an industry that has really been really badly affected.

How can I potentially create, like, some type of model or some type of change that can help out people in that industry, but also help people get the news that they want?

Sean Weisbrot 09:19

We used to be able to look at the news and see positivity. Oh, someone saved this person's cat, like local news. And now all of it is people overdosing from Oxycontin or kids being shot in schools.

I think it's important that we find things that we can be positive about. So I think what you're doing by working with entrepreneurs and helping them is a very important and positive thing.

Gresham Harkless 09:45

In this day and age, we all have the opportunity to have our own media companies, and that's good in some aspects.

Sometimes it's bad because everybody has their own microphone, has their own notepad, and their own video camera, so to speak, to be able to say whatever message they're hoping to say.

And that's really great at sometimes, really not so great at other times. So, I just try to hopefully use the powers that I have, so to speak, to hopefully bring out some good in the world.

Sean Weisbrot 10:11

Everyone knows that starting companies isn't easy. So I'm curious to know what was the hardest thing about starting Blue16?

Gresham Harkless 10:17

A lot of times with running a business, there's so many different things that go wrong. There's so many things you don't know. You don't know that you don't know. You feel like you're the only one that doesn't know.

But in reality, we're all kind of figuring it out, and taking steps along the way. And I think that loneliness, while sometimes it allows you to be able to just chart your own path and choose your own lane and go with it at times when you're unsure of yourself, unsure of what you're doing.

And how exactly, the decisions that you make, will impact certain things. You're just confused and you don't know.

Set that environment that allows you to succeed is probably one of the biggest challenges overall, and I think that you have to be very aware of who you're surrounding yourself with.

Sean Weisbrot 10:58

When I was first looking to go to China, my family was never, like, oh, you're gonna fail. My brother was the most vocal about it, but my the rest of my family was like, oh, do you have to go? Like, why can't you stay? America's such a great country. And but I needed to do my thing.

As far as the loneliness, I definitely understand. I've been working remotely for seven years and not having a support network, not having the people around you that understand you.

Sometimes you can't really talk to your employees the way you might wanna talk to someone like yourself.

So, like, while I have a very open relationship with my employees and they know I give them a weekly report of what I've accomplished so they know what's going on outside of their own realm in the business.

But even then, sometimes you can't really say everything you wanna say. And so it's hard to find people like that.

And because entrepreneurs are so busy, it's hard to find entrepreneurs that have the time to be your support network, which makes it even worse because the only people you find yourself wanting to know are other entrepreneurs because they're the only people who understand you.

So entrepreneurship is a blessing and a curse on multiple levels. You have two podcasts. I've just started my first. It's hard. I'm doing it alone. Why the hell did you wanna do two?

Gresham Harkless 12:14

So the first podcast that I had, it still is kind of going. It's not as regular as the daily podcast I have. CEO Chat Podcast was a podcast I literally just started because I was interviewing entrepreneurs and business owners for the blog.

I would listen to the recordings, and then I would write up a blog post and then send them the blog post, and they just have the recordings for myself.

And I was listening to some of the recordings. I was like, hey. This is like, pretty valuable information. So that's really how that podcast started.

Fast forward about two or three years, I had it up to being a weekly podcast. But one of the things that we touched on in the very beginning, that I love you did so well is that you get that opportunity to really build connections and relationships through podcasting and it can blossom into other things and other opportunities.

So I had the goal of creating a daily podcast, and I knew that the way that the CEO Chat Podcast was set up was not equipped to be daily. I really went back and I figured out what are the best questions, what are the most impactful questions, what questions can I ask consistently that the guests know what's to come, I know what's to come, but at the same time, it lends itself to be, like, conversational?

So that's the only reason I started it because I always try to hold my why at the front, which is hopefully to create content and information to help people's lives better.

Sean Weisbrot 13:27

I don't know how you do it. Like I said, I do this all on my own right now. I wish I had help. I've found some software that helps to automate some of it, but it's not easy. That's for sure.

Gresham Harkless 13:37

That's why I'm so appreciative to be here that the time and energy and the being present is so big and any opportunity you get to have somebody's time.

Because I know, obviously, we're recording now, but there's a lot more you'll do after the fact, and that's why I'm appreciative of everything that you're doing.

Sean Weisbrot 13:52

Do you have people you're working with or you do it all on your own?

Gresham Harkless 13:55

Yeah. So I have an editor, and then I have someone that helps out in editing just the video part, the audio part, and then actually creating the blog post.

So I'm really just, doing some of the outreach right now, and even that, I'm hoping to delegate that out.

One of my internships I had, my boss said, don't let the perfect get in the way the possible. And I tell myself that all of the time because it's definitely an art, and I appreciate my editor and the team so much because, I know that wasn't in my zone of genius.

And I know that the quicker that I unloaded that would allow me to be present in interviews and get an opportunity to really hopefully provide value a lot more.

Sean Weisbrot 14:29

So at what point did you realize that you needed to delegate all of your things? Because you have, like, ten blogs and two podcasts.

Gresham Harkless 14:37

Yes. I tried to delegate from day one, honestly. I understood that I wanted to start a business, and I know that I didn't want to do all of the things.

But I tried to take on jobs or opportunities that I knew that I could do and hopefully start delegating them out and using things like Upwork to be able to find people that are still on my team as of eight years ago.

The reason that I tried to do that is I didn't read the book at the time, but there's a book called The E-Myth, and it talks a lot about how people are really great at what they do when they decide to start a business.

And they realize that running a business is about so much more than the work that they're doing, and so they get overwhelmed and they don't realize, like, there's different aspects of business.

So what I really try to do is understand that often we are the bottleneck to our business as leaders. What can I do to take myself out of it?

And it's still kind of a tension that I have is especially when things don't go as well as I want them to go or somebody messes up on something with a client. You wanna jump in and just do it and just, like, I'll just take care of it.

But I know that is one of the worst things that you can do because you really wanna teach and empower the person. Granted, if it's the right person, sometimes that happens where it's not the right person.

But assuming it's the right person, you wanna coach them up and get them going and give them the information so that they don't do it the next time, or they at least are going to communicate so that things go well.

Outro 15:51

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh again, and I hope you enjoyed that special episode of the I AM CEO Podcast.

Just like I mentioned in the beginning, we're really trying to laser focus on these 8 pillars to show you as a builder how you can leverage these 8 pillars and really level up there so it helps to level up your business and organization.

So hope you enjoy this episode, and definitely please check out the show notes so you can learn more about the pillar, learn more about the person that I guested on their episode, and, of course, learn more a little bit more about us as well too.

This is Gresh signing out. Hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

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