IAM2554 – Embracing the Franchise Journey: Day 213 Insights

In this special episode, Gresham Harkless emphasizes the importance of embracing the full journey, specifically the difficult and uncomfortable parts that often signal real growth.

He acknowledges that while many people begin a new venture hoping for quick success, true development often doesn't start until the challenges arise — what he refers to as the “failure reps,” moments where things get hard and self-doubt creeps in.

Gresham recommends that these painful, questioning moments shouldn’t be seen as signs of failure or misdirection, but rather as powerful indicators that you're on the right path and being stretched toward growth.

Moreover, Gresham frames struggle not as something to avoid but as a key part of the process—where resilience is built, purpose is tested, and deeper breakthroughs are unlocked.

• 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.

Now it's day 213 of this Franchise Broker journey. And one of the interesting things around this is it's truly embracing the journey. And I think that so many times, whenever we start something, we want to be extremely successful.

Sometimes it happens the way we want it to, sometimes it doesn't. But I think if we truly embrace the journey, we start to realize that even the struggles end up being something that you appreciate.

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Now, often, I'll be the first to tell you, you appreciate it after it's done. You don't necessarily appreciate it when you're going through it, but I think there's this there's a thing, I don't know who it was, it was some athlete, I don't know if it was like Mike Tyson or something like that, that talked around they don't start doing like workouts until it starts hurting. The workouts, the reps don't start until you start hurting.

So, you start being in pain. And what I think that we should really take away from this is that a lot of times when you have the challenges, that's when things are really starting.

When you start to feel the challenges, that's when things have started. I think so many times I could look at this and I could say, hey, it's 213 days, but maybe it hasn't been 213 days.

Maybe it's just been 30 days since it started to, to, to feel it. You start to hurt and start to say, hey, is this really what I should be doing? And you start to question yourself, just all those things.

So, I think really adapting, adopting that mentality is, it's huge because I think people throw in the towel before they ultimately should.

Now, after a period of time, when you get to where you want to be, maybe you decide that, hey, I don't, I don't want to do this.

This isn't the right thing. Or maybe you legitimately say like, hey, this is not the right spot for me. And I respect all of that.

But I think so many times when we go through a journey, whether it be, having a newborn or it's having a 10-year-old, or maybe it's, starting a franchise business or starting a brokerage business or starting to get married, whatever those challenges might be, those things that you're going through, those beautiful thoughts, you do it because of the thing that lights you up and that excites you.

And I think when the troubles happen, it doesn't mean you should throw in the towel.

It doesn't mean it's evidence of you doing anything wrong. It actually means that's part of the true journey.

And I think once the more we can embrace that and frankly say that when those challenges happen, not if they happen, when those challenges happen, that's when I'm starting. That's when I'm getting tested.

That's when I'm getting better. That's when I'm building my resilience. That's when I'm building my perseverance. I think that mentality and lock is, is it being like a huge thing?

And I think that as I go through this journey, as it starts to quote unquote hurt, as it starts to be challenging, as it starts to, wonder if you're doing the right thing or you start to pivot and change, well, maybe not so much pivot and change, but I guess the reality is that you're doing something wrong.

So, you have to change. So that means that you're embracing or feeling some type of failure.

And I think when you get in that space, that's when things really unlock if you're able to lean into that.

So, it's like, you're, you're working out and you're embracing and you're attacking and you're wanting to feel that failure rep. That failure rep is the thing that's going to allow you to do one, two, 10 more reps.

It's going to challenge you to a point where you say, hey, I can do more. And as a result of me doing more and me doing the things that got me to the failure rep, I'm going to be better off.

And I think that's something that we really have to step into and lock into and do a better job with.

So, I'm looking forward to just taking these next steps and seeing what that ultimately looks like. Yeah, find that failure rep, and when you get to that failure rep, don't fail, don't stop.

That's when you keep going. That's when it actually starts. And I think the more we can embrace that, the more we'll be better off, frankly, in starting businesses, or frankly, even in life. So yeah, embrace that failure rep, and then just keep going from there.

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 05:56

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.

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