IAM2576 – Navigating the Unknown: Day 229 Reflections

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless reflects deeply on his current position in his Franchise Broker journey, now 229 steps in, while balancing fatherhood—symbolized by feeding his son during this very moment of contemplation.

He expects to be further along by now, ready to move into the next big thing, but instead, he finds himself pausing, questioning, and reassessing.

Gresham is drawn to the idea of contributing without being consumed, valuing flexibility, win-win collaboration, and authentic relationships over rigid structure or ego-driven competition.

He's encouraged by the openness of potential collaborators and sees this as a chance to build a more organic, impactful presence, possibly even stepping into leadership or influence roles like MemCom.

Moreover, he’s taking steps forward with cautious optimism, ready to explore how the right culture and strategic positioning can unlock meaningful growth and contribution.

• 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 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.

And just like that, is a 229 on this Franchise Broker Journey. I got the little man here. I'm literally feeding him as we speak.

And I'm sure he's going to be making words, making words, and saying things because he's laughing right now.

With that being said, it's hard to tell you and believe like just kind of where I'm at, but I'm, I really thought this would be up and going already.

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And then I could transition towards the next thing that I wanted to do, but now I'm confused.

Honestly, I'm just trying to understand, should I do the thing that I should have been doing, which is the most unique thing that I have, which is the blog and the podcast, and all those things, and build out that franchise piece as I do that, or should I just go in to build a franchise?

The reason I'm saying this is because I'm looking at joining a networking group, rejoining me, and I found a chapter, actually, where people are a lot more, it's not the same chapter, it doesn't have the same amount of people.

But it's very, very good at being able to create, I think, the atmosphere that I'm looking for, where I want to kind of be in, but I don't want to be all the way in.

And it's crazy just because the thing, the creativity of this chapter is huge. And I think that the biggest thing that I'm seeing is that you want to make sure you have that collaboration.

You want to make sure everybody's, quote unquote, eating too. I think that's the really big thing.

So, I'm going to go back and do my due diligence to try to reach out to the people to see what might be some of those opportunities.

But yeah, I mean, I really want to be in. I think I also want to probably try to, this is one where I'm joining, and I would like to be able to kind of step into something like MemCom and things like that.

So maybe I can get a little bit more influence going into the next year. The thing is, I'm not, he's been, he's been in the chapter for a couple of years, so people might end up changing things, but we'll see.

We'll see. I think if you were able to kind of create the right culture and the right fit, I think some really phenomenal things can happen.

He's also very open, the person I thought I was going to conflict with the most, very open to collaboration, very open to win, win, win opportunities.

I think the thing that probably I think I think when you meet somebody that is and has a better company than you have, they're not intimidated by you.

And I think that's what happened in the last chapter. It's like it's one of those things where we're at least equal.

Maybe they don't see themselves as being as great as they are. And it wasn't my intention to kind of walk in and kind of take anything from anybody.

It was my idea to walk in and collaborate. I'm going to go and pass business right now. So, with that being said, I'm super excited to kind of step in.

I think to this, I think I want to apply to this chapter when I'm meeting this week, but there'll be a meeting the week after.

And we'll just see how these things are going. I'm very much so locked in on this opportunity to be able to build and to grow.

And I think that being able to do it in a way that has a lot more flexibility is going to open me up to that opportunity of doing that.

So, we'll definitely see where we're going, what we're doing, and then just ultimately take it from there.

Because if we are able to do that, then it's going to allow me to be in the organization without having to be in the organization.

And I don't have to think that, hey, I have to spend this amount of time.

Now, I think it's going to be important that it makes me want to come more into the chapter and to give even more, largely because you sometimes feel like you're giving your time.

But with less time, more flexibility, you have the opportunity to ultimately kind of give in a different way.

And that's what I'm most excited about, seeing what I can do there and seeing just how those things can kind of grow.

So, I'm excited about this, excited about seeing what happens, and then we'll kind of take it from there.

But more than anything else, you know, one door opens, one door closes, another one opens.

But it's left me wondering, should I join, you know, should I join for the thing I ultimately want to join for?

Or should I join for the thing that, you know, is the franchise brokering? And I think the franchise brokering makes the most sense because if I'm able to easily get that opportunity, pays for itself.

And I think that's where I got to kind of look at this and just kind of float from there. So, we'll see what happens.

And then, obviously, we kind of take it from there. This little man starts to cough, and I'll close this out, but it's so big to be able to kind of take the steps and be in the right place. I feel like this is where I'm going.

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 06:46

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.

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Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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