Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the next generation people and profits podcast. I’m
your host, Dan cotton and today we have a fun little episode. It was actually an episode that my wife
challenged me to record as I got home today and was working on some projects, so we’re gonna get
into it in just a second but before we do if you have not subscribed to this podcast, do that. Now if you
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content just like this. Alright, so the title of this episode is you’re running your business like your
husband builds furniture. Now if you are a man and you don’t have a husband it’s how you built
furniture. Let’s just call it how we see it. So we are talking about how we run our businesses and how it
is a lot like how most, you know, stubborn men build furniture when we get it from Ikea now what what
made me think of this? Well, I was actually at home and I was building some furniture for my wife
for my daughter’s room. I was working on it and I was telling her Hey, I’ve got to record our podcast
today. She was like what about and I was like I haven’t really decided yet. Maybe I’ll and she was like
Well, maybe you shouldn’t make it about building furniture. And I said challenge accepted. And I just
started thinking about it a little bit and just the the metaphor came to me that a lot of us run our
businesses like when US stubborn males build furniture. And that is we do really three things. So one,
we throw away the instructions, too. We get really, really angry when things don’t go the right way,
which leads us to making poor decisions that often break the furniture that we’re trying to build.
And number three is we refuse to ask for help. And so I was thinking about it and I’m like man, that’s
literally the process. I go through a lot of these times and it really does relate to how a lot of people run
their business or as entrepreneurs especially cheer gym owners kind of flounder for their first few years
and even relates to how I ran my business. So number one, we throw away the instructions and or
we don’t use the instructions well for business. There aren’t a lot of instructions. When I first got started
in business, there was no instruction manual. And I didn’t really know where to look. I’ve talked about
this in other episodes, but nowadays, there are so many resources out there. A lot of really great ones
provided by next gen that people just don’t use, or they think that they’re the exception to the rule. They
are going to figure it out themselves. They’re going to pave their own way. They’re going to just
ignore those instructions because well the instructions don’t actually know how to do it right and they’re
wrong and well that picture doesn’t make sense. So I’m just going to ignore it right? Like if you’ve ever put together Ikea furniture, it’s the most frustrating thing. It’s all these pictures, no words on it’s just pictures that say, you know, show graphical depictions and putting things together and you’re like, I don’t even understand what this means I can figure it out myself and you throw it away. At least that’s what I do.
And I still haven’t fully learned my lesson, although I’ve gotten a lot better and I was actually using the
instructions today. So I pat myself on the back there. And we do this in business all the time. We ignore
sound advice. We ignore the resources that we have and we say I can do it better. I can figure it out
myself. I don’t need help.
And I’m not going to look at those instructions. So that’s the first thing that we do and what happens
when you don’t follow the instructions you miss steps.
You miss out on things that need to happen in a particular order and that’s actually why building
furniture becomes so frustrating sometimes if you know you’re actually doing the right thing. You’re
just doing it in the wrong order and when you do it in the wrong order, then Part G doesn’t actually
connect to Part F the way it is supposed to because you did Part Part M and N and you did all those first and you really needed to do the F and G first and it just messed everything up. So it’s important to actually follow the plan and we at next gen we have a very specific plan and a very specific order of things we think shouldn’t be done in that order that we’ve learned through our own trials and tribulations and found that you know, the evidence shows that it works when you follow those methods. So we definitely recommend following the instructions within your business it
will go much much better for you so then there’s number two, which is we get mad and we break
things. And we do this all the time when building furniture at least I do I generally, there’s kind of a joke
that whenever I’m doing a house project, of which I do a lot of them there is going to be at least one
time that I’m going to have to walk away cursing under my breath. Sounding like one of the guys from
home alone, you know murder and run around.
And if I don’t throw a tool that’s a good one. I actually haven’t thrown a tool for a long time. The last
time I did it was it was trying to replace our dishwasher and it was trying to get the feet to extend to the
right length and I just could not get this wrench to fit around the nut and I was up I ended up throwing
the wrench proposition nap I didn’t break anything but it was not my best moment and walked away and
just by walking away, taking a minute taking about an hour and then coming back. I was able to do it
and I just came back in a calmer state of mind. And we do this all the time when we’re building
projects, you know, and I’ll force things right, I’m like, well, this doesn’t work. So I’m just going to
make it work. I’m going to make it fit. And that’s absolutely the wrong approach, especially when you’re
working with things like Ikea furniture because it’s going to break and we do this in business too. Right?
It’s not working so I’m gonna force it to work or it’s not working so I’m gonna get mad and I’m gonna just stop I’m just gonna throw my hands in the air and say, You know what, this marketing didn’t work. I’m just not marketing anymore. It just was it’s stupid cancel this subscription. I don’t need active campaign it’s just garbage. When in fact you just you know, we just did it wrong. And that’s why it didn’t work out because we did it wrong not because the actual principle itself was right so or was wrong. The principle is right, we just were doing it wrong. And there’s other ways this happens in business as well. You know, we we get into the mindset of you know, I had a bad employee once I
hired a full time employee and it just, it just did not work out. They were entitled and they didn’t know
what they were doing and they didn’t work hard and you know, it just gets so mad and you fire them
and you go I’m never hiring a full time employee again. Well, that is not the right mindset. First Extreme
Ownership. You got to look at it. And say, What did I do wrong? And then you got to then figure out the
right thing to do and then go at it again with a calmer state of mind. So we get mad, we break things in
our businesses. And sometimes we do it intentionally and sometimes we do it unintentionally. Well, we
rarely intentionally get mad but we sometimes are in that moment where like, I know I shouldn’t do this
thing, but I’m just so mad I’m going to do it anyways. And that’s not the right position to make
decisions emotionally is never the right point in time to make a decision. So you got to stop getting mad
and breaking things within your business just because it’s not working right yet can’t force it. You have
got to let things happen the way they are supposed to happen with time you’ve got to nurture them, and
you got to do things the right way. And if it’s not working out, unfortunately the high probability is it’s
because you’re not doing it the right way. You’re not using the right tool. So that doesn’t mean because
the screwdriver isn’t working. You go get a hammer and force the screw in. Right you stop you take a
breath and you figure out what you need to change to make it work correctly.
All right. And number three is just like when we’re building furniture, I refuse to ask for help. I am the
worst at asking for help in everything let alone something that you know building furniture so I’m, you
know, I’m going to do it because that’s me that’s my job is to build that furniture but man I will go to
Home Depot and I will walk around for 45 minutes before I ask someone where I can find the thing that
I am looking for. The only times that I go in and ask is what I am in a real hurry. And I need to know
right now because I’ve only got 30 seconds to be in there and I can’t afford to waste the time. And I’ll
even ask when I generally know where it is in those circumstances because the time is more important.
But I will be working on a furniture project and I could need five hands to do it and I will still try to do it
with my two right I just refuse to ask for help. And you know, people who are married you might be
listening to this and thinking of your spouse doing this themselves. I know a lot of my friends do this as
well. So yes, I’m making a tongue in cheek. Reference of you’re running your business like your
husband builds furniture, but you’ve probably seen it right we’re just sitting there where we refuse to ask
for help. I’ll go grab duct tape and tape things together so I can then screw them together before I ask
someone to give me a hand. Even if that’s even when people come by. I will have people come by and
say hey, do you need a hand with that? And I’ll be like, No, I’m good. Meanwhile, I’m not good. I
actually do need help. But because you asked me if I need help, I’m gonna say no, I don’t. Whereas if
you just came in and started helping, I would probably allow it after I said I got it. I got it and you go no,
well, here I’ll just hold this thing and then I’m not going to argue with you anymore because I actually
need your help. But because I have this this complex where I need to be the one to be able to do it,
which is not a good thing. I will ignore it and we do this all the time in business there are so many
resources like next gen out there that are built to help you and people will ignore it and say well, I don’t
need help. I’ll figure it out. I got it. I got it. I got it or you’ll have business friends who give you advice.
Hey, let me help you out. No, no, I got it. I’m good. Right we are so resistant to taking help in our
businesses because we feel like acknowledging the need for help is acknowledging failure. And it’s not
it’s really not acknowledging failure. It is just simply utilizing your resources. Effectively, right? I don’t I
do some things on my car, but I take my car to a mechanic because I don’t know how to fix my
car. I’m happy taking that help. I go to the doctor because I’m not a doctor, and I need that person’s help. Even though I know things medically I still go to the doctor and get their assistance and get their help because they’re the professional. So we do this all the time in our businesses to where there are people who can help us with the thing that we’re trying to do and are experts or have knowledge and we just kind of ignore it and go nope, I don’t need help. I’ve got it. I’m good. I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine. And whenever you’re saying You’re fine, you’re probably not fine.
And we ignore the elephant in the room, which is we really do need help and we’re just too afraid to
accept it or too afraid to ask for it. So how do you fix this? How do you stop running your business like
your husband builds furniture? Well, you the ultimate story is get instructions and take help right? Use
the instructions and take the help that is out there and there are so many resources out there.
Obviously next gen provides a lot of them. And we can absolutely help you in your business. But there’s
other resources out there too. There is YouTube, there is Google there is so many different things that
you can do to get help within your business. A lot of the things I’m doing now I learned myself I didn’t have someone to show me when I first started my podcast, I figured out all of it the very first podcast I ever did. I figured out all of it from YouTube, YouTube and Google that is what taught me how to do it. How did I find the best equipment that I wanted as I upgraded YouTube and Google? So there are ways that you can educate yourself without buying a service. Now it’s going to be a lot more work.
It’s going to it’s not as easy as just getting someone’s help. But you know, get that assistance take the
help. Take the help and follow the instructions. And if you do those two things, you won’t get mad and
break things you because you will have instructions and you will have help. And so you will avoid those
moments where you get mad and break things. So don’t be like me building furniture is the ultimate
kind of the conclusion of this episode, right? You don’t want to be like me building furniture you you
want to.
You don’t want to throw away the instructions first thing out of the gate. You don’t want to get mad and
break stuff. And you certainly don’t want to refuse help when there is amazing help out there. So as you
wrap up this episode, I know it is a quick one. I hope you’ve enjoyed it and maybe gotten a couple of
giggles imagining me throwing wrenches across the room. But as you as we wrap this episode up, the
things I want you to do is I want you to think about those times that maybe you could have used an
instruction manual or maybe you could have used someone who really knew what they were talking
about to bounce ideas off of and think of how those things could have ended differently. If you’d had a
little bit of help or you’d have an instruction manual to follow way to I do this thing and this thing and this
thing and then boom it automatically it will work. Not automatically but it will work. If I do these things,
and I do this work. I want to think about those those times. And then really just think about how it could
have been different. And then from there, I want you to find something in your business right now that
you’re maybe struggling with that you could maybe use instructions on and just Google the question, go
into Google and Google the question. And you can go to Google and say how do I deal with difficult
staff members, and you’ll get responses. Now, the problem with Google and the reason having like
someone like next gen is better is you don’t know what results you’re gonna get. So you might get
some Reddit column by some person who’s never employed someone in their life or so you might get
good advice, and you might get really, really bad advice. So that’s the one risk of googling things and
going on YouTube is you don’t know the credibility of your source. But go do that Google and do some
research, write, research that problem that you’re having and see if you can learn see if you can find some instructions and some help with that problem. Using the resources that are available to you on your computer and on your phone. Right do that and grow your business and crush it.
Alright, everyone, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, go over to our Facebook, like ng cheer and
gymnastics owners are not like request access to ng cheer and gymnastics owners where we engage
in amazing discussions just like this all the time. Also make sure you have liked this podcast you’ve
subscribed I don’t want you to miss an episode. If you’re looking for another great podcast make sure
you listen to the let stock talk to your podcast hosted by Jason Larkins amazing content over there.
Wonderful guy, just a lot of great stuff all about cheerleading. So make sure you’re getting in on that
podcast as well. With that we will catch you on the next episode.
