IAM2505 – Understanding The Dip: Overcoming Challenges

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless discusses the five phases of change: uninformed optimism, informed pessimism, the valley of despair, informed optimism, and success and fulfillment.

He identifies with the “informed pessimism” phase, acknowledging the frustrations that arise when initial excitement gives way to challenges.

Gresham explains the significance of understanding these phases to maintain perspective and motivation during tough times.

He also emphasizes the concept of strategic quitting, noting that sometimes stepping away from certain approaches can be necessary to realign with one's core goals.

In addition, Gresham inspires others to stay true to their “why,” adapt their methods as needed, and continue moving forward despite setbacks.

Check out our CEO Hack Buzz Newsletter–our premium newsletter with hacks and nuggets to level up your organization. Sign up HERE. 

I AM CEO Handbook Volume 3 is HERE and it's FREE. Get your copy here: http://cbnation.co/iamceo3. Get the 100+ things that you can learn from 1600 business podcasts we recorded. Hear Gresh's story, learn the 16 business pillars from the podcast, find out about CBNation Architects and why you might be one and so much more. Did we mention it was FREE? Download it today!

Transcription:

The full transcription is only available to CBNation Library Members. Sign up today!

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.

All right. And it's day 194 in this franchise broker journey. And I wanted to kind of go through this book that I actually haven't read.

I've heard a lot about it. I think I pieced together some of the tidbits from it, but it's called The Dip by Seth Godin.

One of the reasons I like this is because it talks a lot around anytime we start something new and just the excitement that you have in the beginning and how it's not always sunshine and rainbows.

[restrict paid=”true”]

So specifically, there's five phases of change. And this is identified by Don Kelly, Darryl Connor applied to the dip as identified by Seth Godin.

So there's this graphic that I'm literally looking at, and it talks around like a lot of times how you start something you have uninformed optimism, you're super excited around this, I'm gonna crush the world, I'm gonna do all the things.

And then you start to have a little bit of a dip where you have informed pessimism.

Informed pessimism is where you get a little bit more of that market feedback. You get a better idea of, hey, this isn't what I thought it was gonna be.

So I'm a little bit more pessimistic. And then you drop into what's called the valley of despair.

The valley of despair is like, I don't know what I did, why I did it. I made a huge mistake.

And then you start to climb a little bit more out of that, the informed optimism, where you're a little bit more optimistic, you get a little bit more informed, and then you have success and fulfillment.

Overly simplistic way to kind of explain all this but one of the reasons I really like it is because I feel like I'm in that informed pessimism is not the valley of despair right now where you have a lot of that frustration that happens after you've started something.

After you don't have that initial success and that could happen in many different ways and in many different periods it doesn't necessarily always mean that it's a complete dip.

But usually whenever you start something you're not going to always have upward trajectory the entire time you're going to have steps back or there's going to be things that are more challenging and they manifest themselves in different ways.

So anytime you start a business, anytime you start a thing, you're going to go through that process.

And this is a little bit more of where I'm at. And what I wanted to kind of speak to today is just like how important that mental part is.

I think so many times I say on the podcast is that I feel like a lot of times, people fail because they don't know what they're getting into.

If you know that when you start something that you're going to go through a dip, after you have that excitement, it gives you a little bit more of awareness around what's happening.

Or frankly, even if you have that naivete or you're kind of anti or against that, you say, that's not going to happen to me.

You have awareness that if it does happen, what's actually happening, you're not failing.

The process is just going throughout. The process is just happening. And so I think that what happens is if people can continue on past the dip, past the valley of despair, past the, oh, I made a mistake, or this is not what I'm cut out to be.

All the negative thoughts that happen, and they're creeping up for me, you can start to be a lot more informed about the things that you're doing.

You can take the steps that you need to to get to where you want to be. That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this, because I think as much as we talk about the execution of the things that you're supposed to do, the marketing, the sales, the advertising, the financial, the hiring, the leadership, all those things are, of course, important.

You also want to make sure that you're aware of what this journey looks like.

And I think that, it's been a while since I've started something and actually continue on.

It's been almost 11 years since I started my digital marketing business. I know I've had those thoughts.

I've had those thoughts in different periods along the journey. Like it doesn't just happen as soon as you just start out.

When you try a new marketing campaign and you try a new network and you go through those processes, you have to understand.

And I think that's what Seth Godin talks about in one of his other books as well, too.

It's like sometimes, quitting is not necessarily a bad thing. Quitting is the thing that's necessary.

So sometimes you do have to throw in a towel because you're going to try something else.

It doesn't necessarily mean that you've given up on, and that's why you want to be really focused on your goals and your aspirations.

It doesn't mean you're necessarily, throwing a towel on the business. You might be throwing in a towel on the marketing campaign.

So you're going to do something else. It's just like, you don't want to get stuck on the how rather than the why.

And I think so many times when we get stuck on the how we lose sight of the why. The how can evolve and change.

And it's going to be necessary for it to evolve and change. But the why is something that you're going to be deeply rooted in.

So there's many different ways to help support your why. So I think that's one of the big things, is that as you reach that dip, make sure that you push through.

But also be very open and transparent around this maybe is not the thing I want to do, or maybe this is not going to help me to get to my why.

So I think it's having those honest conversations, starting to drill down on what exactly you want to do, and then just kind of taking it from there.

That was something that was coming up for me last night, actually after I recorded the video.

So I wanted to kind of touch on a little bit more today. So back, home, back, in a little bit more of a flow.

It's going to take a little while, but again, just wanted to kind of drill down that because I feel like I might be hitting that dip.

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 06:43

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.

Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five-star rating. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

[/restrict]