IAM2617 – Recalibrating Daily Fatigue: A New Perspective

In this episode, Gresham reflects on his own experience of being laid off, admitting that if he’d known about franchising sooner—and had the capital—he might have taken a different route.

This personal revelation has led him to pivot toward a B2C focus aimed at helping people who have been laid off find new opportunities.

Gresh candidly discusses the challenges of juggling multiple responsibilities—running a new franchise brokerage, caring for a baby, and managing fatigue—while emphasizing that there’s never a “perfect” time to start a business.

He stresses the importance of leaning on a supportive team and maintaining relentless effort, noting that progress only happens when you keep pushing.

• 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. Grist 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 subcite within CB Nation called a Franchise CEO. So you'll see some links in the show notes related to that.

But I just want 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 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. It 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.

All right, this is take three as I have my lovely assistant here. He's doing everything from, you know, passing gas to all types of things.

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But with that being said, you know, I'm just really kind of like in this spot where I'll kind of cut to the chase. I won't make this a long video or long update. I'm recalibrating, starting to focus a lot more on that B2C spot for the people that have been laid off.

It's something that I heard, it's something that I kind of took with a grain of salt, but actually I'm focusing a lot more on it, and I see the reason for that.

So, me having experience laid off in the past, I didn't go towards franchising. I wish that that was something that I knew about at the time, and I had the capital and money and all those things, but I think I did start my business because I was laid off.

But I always knew I wanted to start something. And I think understanding that and being able to kind of recalibrate and make that change of focus ends up being a big thing.

So you want to try to empower the same people to do those things. And I did a video on that, what that looks like, what that is, as he's kind of letting it fly.

But with that being said, between that, you always kind of go back in time and say, I wish I would've did this. And you can't change those things.

One of the things around starting this franchise brokerage and this business, it makes me even wonder, did I do it at the right time?

There's literally so many things that I feel like I battled through this past year. And some of those things include even this little one I have on my lap. the attention that he needs, and the lack of sleep that I've been getting as a result of that.

And there's so much that we've been juggling. And adding one more thing on, but you always know that there's no perfect time to start any business.

So you go through and you're like, hey, when I rewind it, I always say, I wish I would have started sooner. And there's good times, there's not so good times, and you're trying to balance between the two things at that.

So he's literally letting it fly, like literally right here on my lap. But that being said, duty calls, as always, this is something I'm really happy about. I'm really blessed in being able to kind of have this journey, but it doesn't mean the journey's any easier.
So I think there's so many things that I'm juggling and so few things that are like ultimately going by themselves. And I think that's what makes it a little bit difficult.

If you're not pushing it, it's not going. And I think that's where you really lean on your team, you really lean on the people that are around you to kind of get things going.

It's something to kind of take, keep in mind, you know, like if you're potentially have a nine to five and you want to add on a business, knowing that you're going to be pushing it in two different ways.

If you have another business, you want to add on another business, you're going to be pushing in two or three different ways.

There's going to be a lot that you're going to have to do. So I think it's just understanding that getting better and continue to kind of go calibrate and continue to kind of get better.

So that's something that I'm ultimately doing and we'll just take it a step at a time and we'll take it from there. Let me get this little one to get to do everything he needs to do.

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 04:53
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. 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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