When I've gone through periods where I've been really stressed or anxious about something,
it's the three am wake ups, and I'm so glad that we're talking about
that today. That's the main reason I wanted to have this conversation was so
that anyone else who's going through all of that. They're waking up at three
am. They're feeling stress, they're feeling anxious, they think they might be
on the edge of burnout. A they don't feel as a loan and B
they know it's okay to talk about this stuff and we need to be talking
about it a little bit more. Welcome to imperfect Action. I'm Steph Taylor.
For years, I read all the books, downloaded all the freebies,
and did all the courses, but it wasn't until I started taking imperfect action
that my business had its first million dollar year. Imperfect action is about doing
things before you're ready, prioritizing consistent action over perfect action, and moving forward
even when you're not sure you're doing it right. On this show, you
can expect mindset advice, actionable marketing tips and strategies to build a business that
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the link in the show notes. Hey, welcome back to Imperfect Action.
This episode six hundred and ninety four. Today is a really special and slightly
different episode to what I usually have on this show. And that's because today
I'm chatting to a good friend, mentor, and actually my former boss,
Mike Bromley from Beyond Billabiles. Mike and I started working together back in twenty
sixteen when I had started my very first business, quit my corporate job,
and then ran out of money and needed to get a part time job.
So I started working with Mike right about the time when he burned his existing
business to the ground, and I got to play a bit of a part
with Mike and his business partner at the time building a completely new business from
scratch, which was it was wild. And today we're talking about Mike's experience
and his journey through burnout, anxiety, depression, all of the mental health
things that nobody really talks about in the business world. But that are a
really big issue and that I think, especially as overachievers and people who want
to just do more, do all of the things, chase all of the
shiny objects that we are very much prone to facing at some stage in our
business journeys. So, without further ado, let's jump into today's episode.
Mike, Welcome to Imperfect Action. It feels really interesting to have you on
the other side of the microphone, considering I was your first ever podcast guest,
it's amazing and I'm sitting in probably the way we did it in Yeah,
but for our listeners who don't know you as well as I do,
please do introduce. Who are you? What do you do? Yeah?
I'm Mike Brombly. I owned Beyond Billables, where a branding agency for professional
firms. I primarily work with legal and financial services firms in Australia and around
the world, so we do brand strategy, brand design, websites and ultimately
social content and helping them build their brand and really you know, stand out
in their markets. Now, that's Branding's a whole another episode that we could
talk about its own. But the reason I really wanted to chat to you
today on this show is because you have been through a bit of a journey
in the last couple of years through burnout and mental health, and you're also
somebody who's generally pretty open in sharing your experiences. So I want to chat
a little bit about you know what's I think last year was probably where it
all started for you, right, like that's where it got really bad,
And I'd love if you could share a little bit around what was going on
inside and outside your business that started to contribute to this burnout that you experienced.
Yeah, well, I'll actually go back further because I think I really
started to burnout as a recruiter when I ran the recruitment business. So for
the listeners, I was a lawyer and then I ran an international league or
recruitment consultancy which I owned as well in the end, and I really burn
out from the hours in the stress of our live being at the casino all
the time because of other people's decisions linked to our outcomes, and I really
struggled to communicate, I struggled with the just the constantly being on, and
I recognized that I had a lot of issues around just managing the anxiety of
it, which kind of really drove me to look for an alternative, and
I didn't know what that was for a lot of years, and for a
little bit of time we were working together through that. Yeah, and in
embracing in content and the creative side and strategic side helped me recognize that.
But so in a lot of respects, I walked away from that recruitment business
a very successful, very established business working for the best law firms in the
world, and it cost me a lot of money. And I did that
because of stress and anxiety and burnout and then starting a new business and my
business partner and I went separate ways, and then I basically spent about fifteen
months growing it from a thousand dollars a month to a business which had I
think we had five or six in the team. By twenty twenty, COVID
hit everything halved. I managed to survive that because of the lessons that I've
learned and then got through that and we were growing and we're just doing work.
And then, yeah, last year I started twenty twenty two with this
great attitude. You know, we're through these two years of COVID. We're
going to make the most I'm going to do X, Y and Z.
And then my wife ended up getting diagnosed with breast cancer in February, and
everything changed again and I had to take a big step back from a business
perspective. I really had to work out, like what my priorities were,
and that was, you know, being there for her and being there kids,
and you know, come to terms with what that looked like from a
work perspective, and also try to make it look like nothing to change from
an outsider's perspective, because you know, you do get worried about, you
know, people's perception, especially for your business when you run a service business
and going through you know, relatively private things. I just had to step
back. So the team of I've got an amazing team, and we just
looked at what didn't need to get done, and what needed to get done,
and what we need to focus one's clients and our work. And what
I didn't need to do was the millions of other projects I tend to run
at because of my shining ball syndrome entrepreneur brain and so yeah, I put
a lot of that on hold and I had to, and for most of
it, I was pretty stoic about things, but it definitely wore me down
over the course of the year, and I was really anxious and you know,
anxious, a little bit of depression by the end of the year.
And I've been kind of managing that for the last seven to or eight months,
for better and for worse at different times. But it's a journey steph
Like, So when I really look at it, it did start back a
long time ago, and you know, and I've been thinking about this,
like people's decisions, like what if I had made better decisions to my own
health ten years ago, fifteen years ago, maybe you know, wouldn't have
cost me? What did had cost me? And then so now it has
to be you know, priority, what is the priority? You know,
being healthy, being well, because those are the things that give you the
opportunity and if you're not and if your mental health is like absolutely central to
that because when you get sick, when you're probably sick with mental health issues,
you can't work very well, you can't perform for your clients very well.
So yeah, it's really showed me the you know, the men in
a mirror situation and made me just look back at these times and reassess the
price of the decisions over time. Yeah, I think you answered about five
of my questions. But I guess I think one of the big ones that
I really want to jump into is the mistakes that you may have made along
that journey. I know you touched on a couple of them. We all
do the running towards the shiny object and adding more things onto our plate.
But I'd love to know, with the benefit of hindsight, what other mistakes
do you notice that you made that contributed to all of this? Yeah?
Overwhelming? Yeah, so I think the shiny ball syndrome is less mistakes,
just who I am and that's cool, Like, that's that's completely cool,
and that's why I love things and I get so invested and it's it's fine.
But I probably didn't listen to the people around me and up when they
were telling me my relax my, like, you know, you're very stressed
all and have fit for decades. I certainly didn't recognize that. I don't
know, just making peace with who I am as a person, and then
the reality of managing as opposed to trying to fix things as well. And
yeah, so I don't really I don't really regret. I don't I don't
have any regrets about anything. I just think I'm on a journey like everyone
else, and I have known, and I've used things like my Brazilian jiu
jitsu training and physical training to help manage situations for ten fifteen is martial arts.
So it's not like I was I was unaware. It's probably just that
I probably could have committed to looking after myself a little bit more in a
real direct way instead of indirectly saying you'll be right and you're strong enough to
get through it. I think that's something that far too many business owners do,
is you know, and I'm being guilty of this as well at times
when work's really busy and it's like, oh, I'm just going to not
go to the gym today because I need to do this instead. Or I'm
just gonna order Uber eats instead of cooking a healthy dinner and that, or
you've had a stressful day and it's the easiest thing to do is open a
bottle of wine rather than actually process all of the stress that's been happening during
that day, and then it just kind of compounds and you hit that breaking
point. I'm really curious what were some of the first signs for you that
you were starting to experience this burnout, and that's something needed to change.
Bad sleep. Yeah, my my wife's saying, why you crank your life?
Right? Honestly, I could. I could tell that my own relationships
weren't you know, very they It wasn't that they weren't very good, they
just weren't as good as they could have been because I was short tempered at
times. Like I'm not short tempered, that's overstating it, but you know,
a bit shorter than I necessarily am. But the sleep thing was a
really big thing for me, he said, the two and three o'clock wake
ups. That was a really strong sign. I've always been quite anxious,
and now I understand like the the anxiety and how a lot of it for
me is just you know, it's very physical. There's certainly like just who
I am? So but I kind of thrived through that. But there's just
been different points where people made me realize that I didn't need to be that
anxious guy to get the work done, because I thought that for a long
time. I thought, no, no, no, I have to be
like this to get the work done. This is what drives me. Once
I realized I didn't and I could still get the work done. That was
a revelation to me, but it took me nearly two decades of working to
realize that, actually, you know, because part of it, you know,
there's a lot going on with your own perceptions of control of what you
do, wanting to make an impact in what you do. But at the
end of the day, I've found that taking a step back has been just
a lot better and the results are just as good, if not better,
by not forcing one thing that you did say before. And a really good
analogy by psychologists gave me. I was just talking about out like putting your
sunscreen on, right, and with your mental health especially. You know,
I put sunscreen on every time I got into beach like religiously, of course,
But why wasn't I putting my sunscreen on, which is training every day
for me or going for a walk. That's my sunscreen that mental health suns
me going. If I don't have it on, I get burnt. And
we've developed these habits. And that was a really good analogy for me because
I could relate to it because every time I go out and sign I've got
a hat on or I've got sunscreen on, and just have to do that
for my mental health. Have there been any other things? I know you
mentioned training, but have there been any other things that have been like that
mental health sunscreen for you. I've tried meditation and struggle, and I think
comedy, getting some laughs into my day. That's and of music and singing.
I like to sing a bit, as you know, but no,
in all reality, I've got some you know, if I'm seeing I'm generally
in a good happy place, even if I'm just singing along in the car,
you know, And it's a gauge to me, it's like what kind
of where am I at? Mentally? So? Yeah, but certainly Brazilian
jiu jitsu and martial arts has been the central piece for me because it's just
time where I'm completely focused on that thing and not stuck in my head.
Yeah, and I also, I can't remember which book it was, but
I've read something a little while ago about how just having these little daily anchors,
you know, if it's every I think was lunch times that you go
and train, right, every lunch time you're going and training, that's an
anchor for your brain that creates certainty. So even though everything else around you
might be uncertain, there's still that little bit of certainty and security, which
then gives your brain that it helps to well that anxiety because you can kind
of predict what's going to happen tomorrow. You can predict a little bit of
what's going to happen, and that feels really calming. Oh look, habit
forming around these things is coming. I don't know if it's my anxiety or
at HD or whatever it is, but habits for me like that are central
to me to just be a lot calmer and more anchored in light. So
that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, absolutely, And I think,
like, I love that you said you struggle with meditation. I know,
like there's most types of meditation. I can't do either, And I think
there's such a big misconception that that's what we have to be doing and if
we're not doing it, then we're not doing business right, And all the
successful people are meditating. So I'm glad that you said that as well well
trying to choke people and who other things of that. Well, you know,
flow states. I'm a big believers sports can develops and my mental flow
states. Whether you're going for a walk, I kind of feel not dissimilar
going for a really nice walk as well. So I mean pilates for me,
is that meditation, right, because it's that mind muscle connection. You
have to focus on the body part that you're moving, otherwise you fall over.
Yeah, exactly. So obviously adding in you know, adding in the
training and prioritizing all of that, But that made a huge difference. What
else did the process of getting back to normal or relatively normal look like?
For you? Just looking at my priorities and also recognizing just just being thankful
for what we have and what we are. And I've got to like the
most amazing family, and for me, I've always you know, And it
can be double edged sort because I put a lot of pressure on myself to
be the best dad, best husband, best thing I could be, and
within that context, judged myself pretty harshly in the last few years just because
of yeah, of the reality, but actually it was more about that I
just just craved time with my kids and and I just want to make the
best of it. Well I can write, and so yeah, I think
just reconnecting to what I really value, which is being healthy, you know,
spending good time with my family, getting back to having a you know,
dream and a goal to travel and reignite some passions around things like that
and other things I do, you know, like, look, I needed
to seek help. I was really glad that I was actually at a conference
about three years ago and I heard someone on stage talking about ADHD and my
wife was poking me in the ribs the whole time, say and that's you,
that's you, that's you, like all the examples, and actually prompted
me to finally go and see a psychologist because I've never seen one, and
he's been hugely helpful in the last three years. I was really fortunate that
started in January twenty twenty, and so I had that support through the COVID
situation and reframing a lot of things like that, and then last year and
yeah, engagement my doctor as well, and looking at medication and other things
that can help. And I've been through a few and had different experiences.
So just getting the attitude like I'm very shortsighted, I've had asthma. I'm
not scared of trying to fix things and improve things. And I think having
this attitude that you know, been well mentally and putting yourself in a position
where you're enjoying life because you're happier. You know, I'm going to try
to use every tool at my disposal and and share about that as well.
Sharing about it as also because that's how I started to learn that these things
other people woke up at three o'clock in the morning because I was talking about
it over drinks with some other business friends actually here at Fishburners, and they're
like, yeah, I do, I do. I'm like, I'm not
the only what like, this is something And the same thing with that story
from stage and the same thing, you know, other people telling me,
oh, I've tried that, and I'm like, oh, okay, yea.
And then I've got a couple of mates now we we chat about everything
that we've done and it's it's good. So sharing with others in that feedback
loom and just understanding that who I am that's not going to change overnight.
None of this is going to change really fast, and that's okay. I
think that's like the very first step, right, I think. I mean,
I started working with a therapist in twenty twenty as well, And the
biggest thing that I I've learned I think so far in therapy is before you
can change anything, you have to accept it. You can't change something that
you can't accept, and just by accepting it, by starting to accept like,
oh, this is how I am, this is how it is.
This is a situation that kind of dissolves like ninety percent of the stress around
it anyway. But it's quite funny. I don't know if you know this.
I got diagnosed with ADHD last year. So for anyone who's listening,
just imagine Mike and I are working in the same business together through people with
ADHD. It was very fun. And the three am, the three am
wake ups. I think that's also something that I've experienced when when I've gone
through periods where I've been really stressed or anxious about something, it's the three
am wake ups. And I'm so glad that we're talking about that today.
That's the main reason I wanted to have this conversation was so that anyone else
who's going through all of that, like they're waking up at three am,
they're feeling stress, they're feeling anxious, they think they might be on the
edge of burnout, a they don't feel as a lot own and be they
know, okay to talk about this stuff, and we need to be talking
about it a little bit more. Mike, you are a classic overachiever,
and you know, having known you for a while now, your first reaction
when there is a problem is to just do more, to throw more energy
at it, throw more resources at it, more time at it. How
did you start to come to terms of doing less and too? Like,
I can't say I was particularly wise about stuff. I just got to a
point last year where I couldn't do anything else. It was basically I was
trapped by my business and my situation in that you know, I really should
have taken time out but extended, but I wasn't in a position too for
lots of reasons. And that then made me, Yeah, really that was
a really huge wakeup call. And it wasn't financial. It was more just
the reality of running a business and throughout it at home and everything like that.
And so yeah, I think the that was a huge wake up call
for me. I mean, I just wasn't well and I lost all motivation.
And I've been a motivated person, as you know, like I've never
until that situation until I got to like November December last year, which coincidentally,
like we'd had great news by that and everything and worked out incredibly well,
like Treaman couldn't have gone any better. But that's when it really hit
me, like, you know, a load of bricks, because I had
you know, I got through the rest of the time. And yeah,
and so I couldn't I couldn't do anything else. I really had to step
back. In November, I recognize there's just no going forward fighting this,
mate, step back, give yourself as long as it takes. Now.
I didn't even do that properly first, and I set myself a goal to
be good bye like Australian Day, which is coming to January when the kids
were going back to school, and the first couple of weeks after that,
everyone comes back from holidays and wants to start projects. So me and my
business set it's like, yeah, I'll be fine by then, I'll be
one hundred percent rare and to go in six weeks or eight weeks. Didn't
work out like that, And again that was a really good lesson, you
know, early February, I'm like, oh, you're not there yet,
mate, like you know, and and again it was a it was a
good lesson. So I've had to learn the hard way. I think that's
also you know, that's such a difficult thing for the overachiever brain to come
to terms with, is that this isn't something that just goes away overnight.
It's not something you can just quickly meditate your way out of and then it's
and then you're back to normal. But I I thought what you said earlier
about you know, you're always pretty motivated. I find that really interesting because
for me, I know, whenever i'm in not in a like, not
in a I've never really had a severe burnout. But whenever I'm starting to
get to that point where it's like, oh I've done a little bit too
much, I'm starting to burn out a little bit, that's when my motivation
drops. And often what keeps me going through that is being motivated by fear.
And I wonder is that something that you can relate to as well?
Ye? Yeah, Look, because I am naturally motivated just just away am.
I've always had a drive and I really like what I do as well,
I actually do, and so if that goes away, that going away
was really strange to me. I couldn't I couldn't even end. But then
it flowed on to other things in my life. And you know, I
think this is now making me remember some of the signs like I love my
rugular league, I love my Broncos, I love my sports generally, and
all of a sudden, I wasn't enjoying that as much, and so at
that be another sign, you know, for me, it was a lack
of motivation, and I could get through because I was you know, I
was worried, but it just didn't feel as fun and as it didn't feel
like you know, I've been the TGIM guy in my life. I like
Monday. I like to get back to things, and then that didn't happen,
and Monday became hugely anxiety ridden and stressful. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday.
By Wednesday I said, feeling normal Thursday Friday as a normal person,
and I'd go back on the cycle again. So yeah, there's a bit
to unpack there, but definitely the dropping motivation, it was really strange to
me. I couldn't get my head around what's going on, and then just
not enjoying stuff like like I used to do. M that's so interesting and
like the feeling of like you're forcing it right, You're you're not things aren't
just flowing nicely in your business and it's not. And obviously they can't always
flow and it can't always feel easy, but I think those are some pretty
big signs that something's not quite right. If you're not feeling motivated, if
you're forcing it, if you're feeling that anxiety around work. It's a stage
of stress, right, like one of the state we talked about these stages,
like during this normal stage and when you look at my psychologists, great
he draws all these great like diagrams for me, and my brain really works
so that these certain things require amount of stress to do to motivate you.
But once you pass that threshold, your performance goes down, right right down.
And so yeah, and if you're really at the height, you know
you've gone past it being just uncomfortable and it's literally in the free free card
zone. A lot of things. You become too stressed to engage them,
like watching TV even or listen to like And then I became really really like,
what's the best word, you know, fidgety, and I'm just shifting
between so many things again kind of a personality thing, But that was a
good signal to me. You can't keep focused because you can't even sit down
and watch TV. Yeah, Yeah, somebody else who might be in those
early stages of you know, there's sometimes feel a little bit demotivated and maybe
wondering or maybe I'm a little bit burnt out. With your benefit of hindsight,
now, what advice would you give to them? Like, what do
you wish you had done a few years ago? Yeah, I just wish
i'd put my sun screen on, I'd learned that lesson. I wish I
had taken it more seriously, that there was a real cost like physical,
financial, and you know, emotional and you know, relate costs all across
the board. So yeah, I would have recognized that. I would have
known that I had more support there and that you could make things better as
well. It wasn't just a necessity that that's how I have to be just
burning myself out until I burn out. And this is what I have to
remind myself of now all the time, like every day, and that good
habits good food. There's such a link between food alcohol our daily habits.
Again, this is I'm just kind of learning this now. It's hard when
you're in your mid forties and you've got bad keep making the same mistakes,
but like you know, learning the effect of too much alcohol for me and
that feeding in and the wrong food feeding in its hugely impactful from a mental
health perspective, and it's really hard. I mean, we Australia in particular,
we do have such a culture of you get home from work and you
open a beer or you have a glass of wine, and that's very normal
in our society. And then yeah, realizing having the wisdom of like,
oh, I know, if I drink a little bit tonight, I'm not
going to sleep as well, and then I'm going to feel awful tomorrow.
And then it becomes this vicious circle that for me is also been something that
I've been I won't say that I've given up drinking. I definitely haven't,
but I've definitely become a lot more aware of how it impacts my own sleep,
my own mental health, my own ability to show up as a business
owner as well. I've given up the big sessions. I must say,
like I've probably had one or two in this year because I just feel rubbish.
But I will have a couple. I will have a glass or two
one most nights. But but for me, it's the I guess an evolution
with fat and it is useful in the you know, in the short term
as well. Other thing like you've got you know, we talk about having
a menu of items to select from to help manage your anxiety and stress and
any time, and you need to work out what those things are for you
so that you've got them on hand and it's okay right again, you know,
look, someone who might know better about health mindset. No, it's
not okay to have drinks. I will say, if that's on your menu,
it's much better to have that they're not. Just make sure that you
know the menu is delivering the release and what you need so you can function.
And everyone's menu is different as well, and everyone's like stress amounts are
different, and having stress is not a bad thing. Like can you imagine,
you know, just my business stress. Okay, that's fine, But
what if you're you know, you're drive an ambulance, or you're a paramedic,
or you're a police officer or a million of the really stressful jobs that
you can't change, but you're better be good at dealing with the stress.
Entrepreneurism is stressful, but I think it's you know, it's not being a
paramedic, not from my perspective, it might be more lonely because we have
a lack of connection, so there's other things going on. But yeah,
like whatever it is, there are lifestyle changes you can make to manage it,
because there's people out there doing amazing things who do manage it. Yeah,
although the way I think about it though, like you know a paramedic
or a firefighter or somebody who's in those situations, it's short amounts of stress.
Whereas entrepreneurship a lot of the time, especially when you have a team,
as things start to grow, it's this long term, persistent stress and
it can grow and it can grow and it can grow, and there's never
really a relief from it. Yeah, well that's that's true. And it's
actually a fair bit of study around like the ancillary kind of stress and the
weight of that and interesting things about just with commutes for instance, like on
a little bit of a different topic, but additive nature of stress for me,
this is the other bit. It's not about negative and bad things.
I think I didn't understand that. It was just it wasn't about bad things
happening. It wasn't about me feeling good or bad. That's it's not it
wasn't about that. It was literally like the sedimentary rock, like adding a
layer and a layer, and the good things sometimes would be the stuff that
knocked me over the top. I'd have a great weekend and I'd be so
energizing stuff, but it was just my cup was just so full by that
stage. And then what was the result anxiety? You know, And so
it's it's not bad things all the time. Those things tend to be quite
weighty, but it might just be too much of everything. Yeah, that
makes sense. Yeah. And then with you know, with having a team
and being a leader through all while you're navigating all of this, how did
you show up with your team? How'd you communicate to team that, hey,
guys like this is kind of what's going on. What kind of conversations
did you have with them? It was hard. I just I've always like
I'm lucky, like it always been pretty adult saying, yeah, obviously the
situation it's difficult, I'm struggling, and this is what I need to do
about it. I've just enjoyed the people I've got to work with and for
me, so it's never been a burden from that perspective for me. No,
I just told everyone what's done on just very and even even if I
say, look, I think next week I'm going to have quite a time
of it, which means my days I might be at work from you know,
eight till two, and then I'll have the afternoons to myself. I'll
generally like just let the team know. We're completely flexible. I've got a
complete flexible attitude towards work as well with the team. So I'm very open
and I think it's a good thing because we're a human business. I've never
pretended to be anything else, and I've just been really lucky, you know
core bit of who I hire really responsible self starters and probably you know who
been through stuff in life as well and have the personality to understand it.
Yeah. Absolutely, And then you know, thinking about like the next few
steps and your business, like the next iteration of your business. You know,
what does that look like going forward, and what are you going to
be doing differently to make sure that you're managing your stress levels and avoid yourself
burning out like this again in the future. Being more patient. That's been
a big thing for me, you know, taking away the the pressure of
ex outcome from a financial perspective, or whatever perspective. So just focusing on
the controllables, which for us is doing really good quality work first and foremost,
and yeah, hiring people to do things and taking things off my plate
and stop being a control freak about that's a huge bit, right, And
like I'm like a perfectionist control freak with high expectations. And I think I'm
certainly recently seeing how great it is when I've hired some great people who I
don't need to like over manage. I actually don't like I'm managing people anyway.
It's just not it's not a string, So hire a smarter and the
aim is to keep building out the business. So we're doing better work and
better work and better work, and it's good people and everyone's happy doing what
they're doing, and they're progressing in their own profession and their own skills,
and I think that'll look after itself. And then beyond that, putting a
sun screen on, you know every day I train or go for a walk
or i'd do something, you know like that, and starting to take holidays,
like you know, we're going on a trip, the first one.
I've probably been on media for at least nine eight years, and so I
didn't realize, but until December this year, I hadn't taken you know,
I hadn't taken any any extendedly more than Easter. So I only take to
Christmas holidays. I'd take you from Christmas Eve until basically mid Jam, and
then I would take some days to Eastern I was having nothing until last year
in November when we took a week and we went to the coast, and
I felt like a different human being straight away. So I'll be doing more
of that. There's a lot to be you think about this stuff, but
yeah, it's just so hard to get away, Like the stress of getting
away as well as always something that I just really struggle with. Yeah,
and I'm sure it's different. Obviously you've got kids, so it has to
line up with school, holidays and everything. But for me, I mean,
I've just found the only way to make it happen is to put it
into my calendar and then I just have to work everything around it. But
having that space to allow yourself to be bored, it's so it's magical.
I'm excited for you, like I can't wait for you to be bored necessary
like I have to be to do good work. That's out. That's as
a you know, as a creative person doing strategy especially and the busier I
am. It's not conducive to good it's good work. There is a necessity
for time and for things to to cook over in my head, yes,
slowly, while I'm not engaging a million other things, exactly. All right,
Last question, Mike, one that I ask all of my guests on
this show, was the time that you took imperfect action in your business or
in your life when I haven't? I? Ah, Look, I think
starting the podcast way back when was this great imperfect action. I've been thinking
about it recently. I'm starting mine up again, and I didn't have I
wasn't even clear and why what I was going to end up in. I
just knew it was a good idea, yeah, And it took us seven
or eight months to finally started and through all of that, and I really
didn't know it would end up in this where I am now, Like every
step in your life, right, But I'm so glad that I went on
journey because the people I meant, what I learned about myself, what I
learned about brand and business. So yeah, I think stepping out and taking
that big anxious podcasts. Risk was you know, imperfect action. Lots of
what I do is imperfect action because I think a lot of us, what
differentiates a lot of entrepreneurs is the building the plane on the way down.
And you have to be a little bit crazy to do what we do because
a lot creepy because the reality and I've try to slab and I talked about
this all the time, the reality is that I'd start a lot of things
without that, you know, perfect outcome perfect. I just know it's a
good thing to do, and so I have to do it, and I
think that's imperfect action. Yeah. I love that. Awesome, Mike.
Thank you so much for sharing so much about your story, your journey,
all of the all of the difficult conversations that I think nobody really talks about
and that we need to be talking about a lot more. So, thank
you so much for sharing so openly and so honestly with me today and with
our listeners today. No worries, seth love it to be here. All
right. That is it for today's episode. If you have any friends you
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