IAM2681 – The Sky is Not the Limit: Turning Setbacks into Starting Lines
Special Episode by Gresham Harkless Jr.
The Power of a Distorted Reality
Gresham Harkless opens the episode by exploring the concept of a “distorted reality” shared by legendary entrepreneurs like Steve Jobs. He argues that great leaders succeed because they possess an unwavering belief in what is possible, often operating at a level where challenges, speed bumps, and setbacks do not signal the end of the road. Instead, these obstacles become the exact point where the true story begins. By staying hyper-focused on an ultimate goal, common hurdles become insignificant, allowing the builder to maintain momentum despite external doubts.
Shattering Limits and Social Boxes
A central theme of the discussion is the quote, “Don't tell me the sky is the limit where there’s footprints on the moon,” a mantra Harkless has embraced since starting his business in his mid-twenties. He reflects on how society often places people in “boxes” based on environment, race, or background, which can create artificial limits on potential. Harkless emphasizes that entrepreneurs have the opportunity to “kick open the door” to these limitations, especially when their immediate circles lack a roadmap for success—whether that means being the first in a family to earn six figures, go to college, or launch a franchise.
Documenting the New Frontier
Harkless introduces this episode as a “snippet of a snippet,” documenting his personal journey into launching Blue Star Franchise and the accompanying “Franchise CEO” sub-site within CB Nation. Inspired by the founder of the Franchise Brokers Association, he aims to share the raw building process to assist others who are starting any type of business. He concludes with a call to action for all “builders” to remain their unique selves and run their own race, reminding listeners that the world needs exactly what they are trying to build.
- Blue Star Franchise: bluestarfranchise.com
- Browse the Franchise Inventory: bluestarfranchise.com/franchise
- Is franchising right for you? Check this out to see: bluestarfranchise.com/assessment
- Franchise CEO (A CBNation Site – coming soon) – franchiseceo.co
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Transcription:
Gresham Harkless 00:00
If you listen and read a lot around Steve Jobs, you listen and read a lot around these great entrepreneurs and CEOs and business owners, they have a distorted reality. This is possible because I know it's possible because I've seen it, it's been given to me, and I know it can happen. And I think when you start to live and operate in that level, your challenges, your speed, your setbacks, your speed bumps, all those things don't become the end of the road. They actually become where things start. This is where your story starts to begin. And it become honestly nothing because you know, you're so focused on the goal that you have.
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. and this is a special episode, episode number 2287 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 for the 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 people 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 Herald Leonard Post is. 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.
Gresham Harkless 02:06
Don't Tell me the sky is the limit where there's footprints on the moon. When I first started my business, that was one of the quotes that I honestly fell in love with. I continue to tell myself this over and over again, even to this day. I think so many times as you go through life, and especially when I started my business, I was very young, not extremely young. Nowadays there's like 19, 20 year olds starting businesses. And it was all relative anyways. But I was around 25, 26 when I started my business. And I told myself these things because I never wanted to put limits on, but I felt like I was capable of doing. I wanted to just see. See how far I could get, see how far I could fly. And I went back to this quote, and I don't know who actually said this quote, but I say it a lot on the podcast and anytime I'm on the podcast as well too, because I think so many times we as people can be rooted in this limited perspective on what the world could do, what you youth can do, what age do, what different genders can do, what different races can do. Anytime we put a box on that, I feel like there's an ample opportunity to be able to knock over that box, rip open that box, kick open the door and say, hey, this isn't how it has to be. And that's why I love that quote. And I think anytime that you're starting something new, especially as CEOs, entrepreneurs, business owners, you're going through this process of really trying to do something that maybe hasn't been done before. And what I really want to say is that people sometimes based on your environment, can create these blocks as well too. Sometimes it's not as big as saying like, hey, you can't, you can make a dollar from entrepreneurship. If no one in your circle has made a dollar, then it becomes impossible. And that's where you have the opportunity to say, the sky is not the limit because there's footprints on the moon. Maybe no one in your family has been able to make six figures, and you're able to make six figures. Maybe on a personal level, it's going to college. Maybe it is starting a business, maybe it is buying a franchi. All those things become apparent when you start to tell people your dreams. You start to tell people your aspirations, your goals, and you often hear people say, that's not possible. I don't know anybody that does that. So when I first started my business, I started to share that with a lot of people. Hey, I want to start a business.
I think it'd be really cool to do that. I heard so much doubts, so much limits, so many limits, so many things that made me feel as if, like, I wasn't good enough, that it wasn't going to be possible. So I still, to this day, kind of, like, work through those things. But this quote really, really stuck with me because I think it's such a powerful nugget, because if you tell yourself that you can do whatever it is, because there was once a time that people say the sky was the limit, when the sky is the limit, because there's people that have gone beyond that. And when you start to get yourself buried in that mentality, you start to say that not what is possible or what is what I see is possible, but ultimately anything is possible as long as I can start to imagine and start to train. And even beyond that, there's things that are beyond. So I think it's such a powerful thing for entrepreneurs and business owners to kind of lean on that. You hear a lot of the most successful people are those people that have a distorted reality. And I remember. And of course, he's. His life has changed a lot since when I was listening to his video, but I remember listening to a Diddy Puff Daddy video where he was talking around how he's crazy, and he's crazy in the sense that people say that you can. You can't do something, and he automatically believes that he can't. Now, obviously, he has gone through a lot, and his life is so much different than when it was 15 or so years ago when I was listening to these motivational videos. But I think the point is that if you listen and read a lot around Steve Jobs, you listen and read a lot around these great entrepreneurs and CEOs and business owners. They have a distorted reality. This is possible because I know it's possible because I've seen it. It's been given to me, and I know it can happen. And I think when you start to live and operate in that level, your challenges, your speed, your setbacks, your speed bumps, all those things don't become the end of the road. They actually become where things start. This is where your story starts to begin. And they become, honestly, nothing because, you know, you're so focused on the goal that you have. So I really want people to kind of take that in and really step into that process and step into that mindset of saying the sky is not the limit because there are footprints on the moon. When you're able to step into that, some phenomenal things can happen for you, your business and frankly, your life as well, too.
