IAM2379 – Embracing Humanity in Business Success

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects on the personal challenges and emotional journey he's experienced while building his franchise brokerage business, particularly on the human aspects of entrepreneurship.

He shares that he started his business about 11 years ago, and how different his life was back then.

Gresham discusses the emotional weight of losing Star and other family members, including his grandmother and uncle, within a short period.

Gresham expresses how these losses have resurfaced recently and how they affect his focus and productivity.

Despite the challenges, he emphasizes the importance of acknowledging and addressing the human side of business—especially the emotional toll it can take.

He also mentions the importance of giving space to personal grief and recognizing how it might affect your growth in business.

In addition, he advocates for others to be honest about their emotional struggles while growing their businesses and to make sure they address those feelings rather than ignore them.

• 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 00:01

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 00:28

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.

Don't forget about the human part of business. This is day 24 and going through my franchise brokerage journey for people that are just joining.

I'm helping people to basically start businesses, but I also want to give a little more insight into how the journey was for me, like how it is literally to start.

When I started my business, I was turning 25 or might have been turning 26. It was it was 11 years ago.

So 37 now. So you do the math. I was 25 turning 26 and in a different quite a different place a decade ago.

It's hard to even believe exactly, like, where I've been. But one of the things that I really wanted to talk about today was the human part of business.

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For whatever reason, I called the brokerage Blue Star Franchise, named it after my dog, Star, who passed away.

As I was going through thinking about doing this, seeing if I was going to do it, what it would look like, and she's been battling cancer all throughout the year.

She didn't make it. But for whatever reason, like right now, I'm, you're feeling that loss a little bit more.

And it's difficult. I think one of the things that I really read when I first, looked into entrepreneurship and business, I looked at the age of people that had started businesses.

It was a lot higher. I'm sure that number has changed. I'm sure it's evolved just because starting business can mean many different things, and that's one of the reasons I started the I AM CEO Podcast.

But the reason that I bring all this up is because as I'm going through this loss of Star and I'm missing her and I'm like, hey, I literally just came downstairs and I stepped on something and my mind immediately went to Star because she would always be up under you, literally wherever that you went.

And it's really, really challenging. I mean, there's no other way to kind of frame it and put it in mind whenever you have some type of loss.

So I don't know if I'm going about this the right way. Like I said, I think that I probably should have waited a couple months, for probably about six months or so for the baby to come, for me to get the people on the team more settled in.

But sometimes people flourish in those moments of having a lot to do, having an elephant to eat. And I definitely think I'm one of those people, but sometimes I have my days where it just feels a little bit overwhelming.

And I don't know why, but it's coming up for me a lot more today and probably over the last few days of just missing Star.

I think it's just, sometimes when you're doing something new, and she was a German shepherd lab mix, and Chow actually too.

I really connect with that shepherd because that shepherd helps you go and shepherds you to certain things.

And for me having her for 10 years almost, to me now, like where I'm at, it's been a transformational journey for me.

As I start to go through this transition and do more things, I miss her. And there's no other way to kind of put it.

I'm in a lot of support groups and things like that for losing pets and losing dogs and losing people, frankly, because my grandma also passed away two weeks ago.

Two weeks after that and then two weeks after the star passed and then my uncle passed away about a year ago so have a lot of loss kind of going in our family.

But the reason I want to bring up that human part is because so many times we put our human part here and then we put our business part or our relationships or whatever it is and i think one of the reasons that a lot of people were more stable, I don't know if that's the right word, but maybe more established.

Maybe you are married and things like that when they start businesses because it does take so much out of you.

Doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be that, because obviously I've been able to do it without that to some degree.

But I think as you start to have that stability in your life, it makes a little bit easier. You have those routines, you have those things. Doesn't mean that things aren't crazy because you probably have more, but you just feel like you have a little bit more stability.

So I think that's why sometimes those entrepreneurs were a lot older. So I'm not saying that you have to be older. I was 25, 26. I know 21, 23 year olds, 19 year olds, 80 year olds, people are all different sizes.

But I think understanding that human part of business and make sure you're giving space for that.

You know how important that it can be to your success is going to be huge. So with that being said, I'm continuing to kind of work through, missing star, missing grandma, missing uncle.

I just wanted to kind of record this just to say, hey, I miss and sorry, but also don't forget about the human part.

So whatever aspects you might be that might come up and kind of bother you to stop your growth, make sure that you address those things and be honest about those things as you grow.

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

Outro 06:32

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at Blue16Media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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