Josh Cemelich – Facing Difficulties Head-on and Taking Risks
In the fourth episode of Season 1, Lee talks with Josh Cemelich, Owner/Operator of ABT Modern, an industry leader in the high-end mid-century modern furniture space. Hear them talk about overcoming challenges and taking on risks with the right mindset, all while being honest about the adversity faced as entrepreneurs.
Have a guest recommendation, a question, or just want to connect? Go here: https://www.harvardmurray.com/exploring-growth-podcast
Connect with Josh Cemelich - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshua-cemelich-7111763b
https://abtmodern.com
00:00:00:02 - 00:00:18:01
Lee Murray
Welcome back to the Exploring Growth podcast. I'm Lee Murray. Today I'm interviewing Josh. Similar age from about modern and we talk all things mindset accountability discipline. It's a great episode. All right, Josh, welcome to the Explorer and Growth podcast.
00:00:18:12 - 00:00:21:03
Josh C
Thanks for having me.
00:00:22:08 - 00:00:27:17
Lee Murray
Did you ever imagine that you would be here? I mean, look around. Just take it all in.
00:00:29:12 - 00:00:51:05
Josh C
I, I never really thought that that one day that I would be staring at your face and your whiteboard and all the. The things you got going and I'm in my kids room right now because we tried this out yesterday with my office, and the acoustics are so bad and they're inside. And literally there was like a picture of a giraffe that was right here, and I just moved it.
00:00:51:06 - 00:00:57:12
Josh C
So now. So here you are. So do you guys think that I'm calling from President?
00:00:57:12 - 00:01:24:19
Lee Murray
It's a blank slate is what you have. You know, listen, I. I wrote a few things as a for an intro, so I'm going to do that to give people a little bit of a context, at least from my perspective, and then we'll jump into it. Okay. Let me introduce Josh Similac. Josh is an old friend, but he's also a very successful business owner and entrepreneur.
00:01:25:16 - 00:01:50:22
Lee Murray
His company is about modern. We'll leave a link in the description so everybody can check that out. Tell me if I'm wrong. It's a high end mid-century furniture company sourcing amazing pieces. From what I can tell, looking at your product from all over the world, Josh is very creative. He's a strategic thinker. He's one of the most thoughtful business owners that I know and loves the challenge that entrepreneurship brings.
00:01:51:08 - 00:02:18:23
Lee Murray
Whether you would admit that or not, from my perspective, Josh is a great representation of the person out there who is relentless about personal growth and is very intentional about relationships and isn't trying to get rich quick. We see a lot of that these days. And but instead is focused on a slow, careful path to success for himself and as many people around him as possible.
00:02:19:05 - 00:02:57:15
Lee Murray
Welcome again, Josh. Listen, you know, we've had a lot of really good conversations about life and business and relationships. And, you know, when we talked about how when you come on, the one thing that really stood out to me was this idea of mindset, because that seems to be a lot of the things that we talk about lately as entrepreneurs, as business owners, managing people, partners, you know, trying to care for our customers and clients and think, you know, strategically but thoughtfully about all of those relationships is difficult.
00:02:57:15 - 00:03:21:03
Lee Murray
It's a lot of plays to keep spinning, and that's just the business side of our life. And I've always said for myself that, you know, this journey of being an entrepreneur or having your own business and doing all these things is really the the end result. For me, the outcome has been about personal growth because I can sell a big project.
00:03:21:06 - 00:03:49:04
Lee Murray
I can hit a certain revenue goal, I can do all the things that measure success in a business. I can stay alive, you know, for 3 to 5 years. But what I've found over the last two decades of just going at it hard is that I've come away with growing more personally, you know, more than anything. And of course, I've hit a lot of those milestones and had a lot of failures too.
00:03:50:03 - 00:04:16:12
Lee Murray
But this idea of like expanding who I am as a person and growing my myself in every facet, mentally, emotionally, you know, financially, physically, even, you know, all these different aspects of our of our life. We've talked about a lot of these things, and I wanted to kind of open this up with this idea so we can talk about it.
00:04:16:19 - 00:04:43:22
Lee Murray
And, you know, I was listening to I listen to on occasion Gary Vaynerchuk, Gary's podcast. And, you know, one thing I love about him and what he brings to the world is and maybe I think people would get a lot of different things, but what I get is accountability. Like he's got a lot of really good energy, but he also brings accountable because and I think that he demonstrates that for himself.
00:04:43:22 - 00:05:20:05
Lee Murray
I mean, he's an entrepreneur, a business owner. And what you see on the surface is not necessarily who he is in his business day to day. He's an operator and all that. But I was also on his podcast, he had Tim Ferriss on, and I think this was like a replay from 2017 or something. I love Tim Ferriss to a lot of his different thoughts and it jog my my mind on the mentality or the mindset that you have to have as an entrepreneur and what yogurt was kind of off the cuff.
00:05:20:06 - 00:05:38:20
Lee Murray
Tim He was promoting his book at the time as Tools of Titan, and he was saying, You know, I have all these different people that I look to in different areas of my life, like, you know, keeping me mentally strong physically. And he kind of goes down all these same kind of personal growth rabbit holes. And so that stuck out to me.
00:05:38:20 - 00:05:59:11
Lee Murray
And I thought, I wonder if I think about it the same way. And so I kind of opened up a note on my phone and started to list the different categories, and then people inside of those categories. And I recognized that, yeah, that's, that's how I look at it too. I have people in my life personally and in business that I physically will be around.
00:05:59:11 - 00:06:32:08
Lee Murray
And then I have, you know, the bigger idea, people that I don't know personally, like Tim Ferriss, you know, Jocko Willink, Gary Vee, these kind of people. Andrew Huberman that I look to. I found that I look to for specific things, leadership, you know, physical growth, strength, mobility, those kind of things. And so I'm curious if you have people if you think about it like that and if you do, who do you look to for for what?
00:06:32:13 - 00:06:38:01
Lee Murray
Especially the, you know, keeping a solid, strong mind.
00:06:38:01 - 00:07:14:17
Josh C
Some of those guys that you mentioned or guys that you know with some of their high class to it's in the articles I guess kind of in thinking about this. I probably think about a lot of my life sort of in this kind of like body mind and spirit type of kind of triad and and I think that as you kind of look at those experts or doers that you have, you know, you have you know, you'd say like a Andrew Haberman, he'd be a good mind guy, as is neuroscience as well.
00:07:15:03 - 00:07:53:03
Josh C
And, you know, Jocko might be good for the mind for leadership, but maybe you kind of focus on some of his takes on physical training and all of that kind of get into this. And so for me, you know, there's different, I guess, kind of like mentor type figures that I look to that are helpful to me. And it's actually you mentioned Gary and I saw Gary talk probably about a week ago and he was talking about like, I'm giving all this out for free.
00:07:53:04 - 00:08:31:14
Josh C
You know, he says this, I'm giving it all out for free. And 99% of you aren't going to do anything with it like you have it right there. You're not going to do it. It's right here. You have to pay for it. It's free. And I think that, you know, as I'm looking to see whether it's like you and I having a conversation, other friends that I have, you know, that are in small business that are consulting, maybe more like mentor figures, you know, I want to be challenged and I want to have kind of stimulating conversations that kind of get the ball ticking.
00:08:32:16 - 00:09:10:11
Josh C
But the reality of it is, is with all of this information that's so readily available to all of us, you're probably going to need to look in the mirror maybe the most. And that's something that I think I've been thinking about a lot lately. And some of these guys that, you know, you mentioned that I think that they a lot of what they're trying to motivate people around is kind of that idea of personal accountability, honesty with yourself, you know, or do you actually have a goal?
00:09:10:12 - 00:09:34:10
Josh C
Have you thought it through? So you have short term goals. You have medium goals. You have long term goals. Are you did you check stuff off this week? Did you prioritize things this week if things didn't get chopped off as like a reasonable rationale? And then at that point, are you going to make excuses if you didn't? Or you're going to look into yourself and say, Hey, what can I grow here?
00:09:34:11 - 00:10:02:11
Josh C
What do I need to do better? I need to partner with. So. So, yeah, I kind of thinking about like mentors and all of that. I think that that's something that I've wanted to have in my life because I didn't really grow up in kind of that type of community. You know, I look at people who I know whose parents are successful in business, the well-connected, and they're kind of groomed in that world.
00:10:02:11 - 00:10:25:05
Josh C
Or maybe people who are physicians or lawyers trying to come up with that value set, but also with the community that comes with, you know, those professions. I didn't have that. So I wouldn't say that I was starting from scratch because I know I have advantages that so many people in history and time and our place in the world don't have.
00:10:26:03 - 00:10:55:11
Josh C
But to do what I've done, there wasn't anybody that I could go to and be like, Hey, how do you do this? I didn't have anyone in that circle. So I think that I'm really thankful to have access to books and the library and the internet because it's almost like you have that opportunity. If you have an ear to listen, that if you're going to be in that closed circle with somebody, you might never have that opportunity in the lifetime.
00:10:55:15 - 00:11:02:21
Josh C
And you literally can just go to Spotify and it's right there.
00:11:02:21 - 00:11:37:09
Lee Murray
Yeah, you know, I've had that thought maybe a month ago where I was listening to Jocko podcast with anti-government, and it just sort of occurred to me that, wow, I'm listening to two individuals, retired Navy SEAL leader and a neuroscientist from Stanford talk about dopamine and motivation and discipline and things that are, you know, central to success and growing yourself and growing anything.
00:11:38:08 - 00:12:11:18
Lee Murray
And it just occurred to me like, wow, I get to listen in on their conversation for free. How what would this cost if it were if you put a price on it, you know, probably something I could afford, you know? I mean, I thought I just think it's amazing them the access that we have now and especially now from a marketing standpoint that people like them are are having this understanding that, hey, we we need to put the content out there for free because that gives it, you know, the masses access to us and allows them to do things with their brand.
00:12:13:10 - 00:12:33:08
Lee Murray
But I think it's we live in kind of an amazing time on that regard. And on the other side of it, it's all there for us to to consume. So, you know, you get back to the analysis by paralysis or paralysis by analysis. And I've personally lived in that state for a long time. I would didn't want to think that I was in that state.
00:12:33:21 - 00:12:59:16
Lee Murray
I want to think that I was actually progressing in doing something when I really wasn't. You know, that was a really hard lesson for me earlier on, probably earlier in this last ten years of looking about myself in the mirror, as you said, and being accountable to myself saying. Am I always entrepreneur or am I actually risking my reputation?
00:12:59:18 - 00:13:19:19
Lee Murray
Am I risking my finances? Am I putting putting something on the line to have some kind of return? And my answer was sort of jarring. I, you know, once I came to that conclusion that I wasn't and then I was kind of just acting, that was that was tough.
00:13:20:06 - 00:14:00:00
Josh C
Yeah. I mean, you know, knowing you a little bit. And I think that maybe that's something that you and I kind of have in common is that we're but we really are very analytical of different things. You know, it's like maybe it's our great strength, but it's our Achilles at the same time. And I think I've kind of gone through a similar process over the past couple of years in growing in the way of am I moving in the right direction versus Do I know everything I need to know to perfection to get here?
00:14:00:17 - 00:14:24:10
Josh C
Because you're just losing so much time, not being in forward motion because you think that you have to have every I adopted, every T crossed, and then you run the record again. You run the record again. And then four years of your life gone. Never going to get to this right now. Yeah, that's right. So I get that.
00:14:25:14 - 00:14:32:14
Lee Murray
In that whole time, you're the way I would put it for myself is I'm just fooling myself, thinking that I'm doing something when I'm really not.
00:14:32:14 - 00:14:33:00
Josh C
Yeah.
00:14:33:16 - 00:14:59:19
Lee Murray
You know, I mean, it's easy to sit around and pontificates easy and sit around and talk with your buddies about ideas or, you know. But to what degree and to what extent, you know, what are you actually moving forward? And that's why it always comes back full circle for me to personal growth, because when I had that honest conversation myself and allowed myself to realize, like, this is really where you are, you're not where you think you are.
00:14:59:19 - 00:15:07:14
Lee Murray
The measurement changed in how I look at myself. And so then it really ramped up personal growth.
00:15:07:14 - 00:15:08:08
Josh C
Yeah.
00:15:08:08 - 00:15:12:18
Lee Murray
As, as a, as a primary driver to professional growth.
00:15:13:12 - 00:15:48:00
Josh C
I think that and I wonder if anybody's talked about this or, you know, put in a constant out about this. But I think that you have kind of like this diagram of like overlapping things like the analysts. And you have the entrepreneur and sometimes the entrepreneur isn't the analyst and sometimes the analyst is not the entrepreneur. But when you have that entrepreneur who is the analyst to kind of to ask yourself when you're being analytical, am I an entrepreneur first or my analyst first?
00:15:48:00 - 00:16:13:20
Josh C
Because I think that if you exist in that position where if you really are the analyst, if that is your brand and that is your business, then then there's probably more value in every single chart being perfect, you know, moving towards that outcome. But if your brand isn't that, you need to ask yourself, Am I growing? Am I moving forward?
00:16:13:21 - 00:16:34:01
Josh C
Am I communicating my product, my services to my community, and my reaching a community that I'm not afraid to reach and my taking care of clients, all that stuff? Or are you wearing your hat now of I'm the analyst and you forget really who you are. And what's most important is you prioritize what you're supposed to be doing.
00:16:34:14 - 00:17:04:09
Lee Murray
Some yeah you know that's that's interesting when it comes up in my mind is I have I guess sort of maybe right around the time I don't I don't really know when that time was. But I have it in my mind that I started to get honest with myself and started to say, okay, I'm either like if I if I actually bite this off and actually, you know, do the work of an entrepreneur or do the work of a business owner, I could fail.
00:17:04:09 - 00:17:43:01
Lee Murray
Right. And so I think that was my fear. And as I waded into the waters of actually doing and risking so that I could actually fail, I started to in weird sort of sums, maybe sadistic ways, putting myself in very risky situations that I had a lot of uncertainty. Right. And, and I did it to test myself to see how would I perform in this situation and what's the outcome going to be.
00:17:43:01 - 00:18:13:11
Lee Murray
And it almost became sort of a scientific, experimental thing that I was doing on myself, right? As I'm thinking about it, that's really kind of how I got started to really work on me as a person and as an entrepreneur. And it would it would play itself out in situations like I'm working with a client and I'm constantly, I'm constantly have anxiety over what's currently going on with our agreement right.
00:18:13:11 - 00:18:43:17
Lee Murray
And I am nervous that they are going to not renew. And so, you know, it's a it's a real life situation where there's money on the line and I may not have all the all the pieces I may there's some uncertainty there. So what I would do is I would force myself to ask them the hard question of where do we stand instead of trying to beat around the bush and kind of like have lots of conversations and build up my value in different ways.
00:18:44:01 - 00:19:10:01
Lee Murray
You know, I would just have the business conversation and say, okay, I'm going to have this conversation and then I'm going to know more about where I stand. Hopefully, and it'll be more black and white. And it was so nerve wracking that as one example, to to have the uncertainty, to know what's going to happen, you know, if this goes away, then what's going to happen financially for me and this whole mental, emotional game starts.
00:19:11:03 - 00:19:40:07
Lee Murray
But it was so freeing because a lot of those risks that I took paid off because I had to walk through that situation, that uncertainty, and I had to feel all of those, you know, emotions. And so, you know, I think uncertainty first of all, I think accountability is a huge deal. And I think uncertainty is it's sort of second cousin because those two just go together.
00:19:40:17 - 00:20:08:21
Lee Murray
You know, when you have uncertainty, you have to be confident in how you're holding yourself accountable in order to walk through those situations. So that's another question I want to ask you as well. We've talked a lot about uncertainty in our businesses right? We're at some level always, always going through some trial or struggle. Can you think of some times that or maybe one time that was uncertain?
00:20:08:21 - 00:20:15:03
Lee Murray
And how did you handle it? Like what? What was the outcome and how did you approach it?
00:20:17:10 - 00:20:58:17
Josh C
That's a great question. I think that any time, say in small business and I think anybody else's and small business that might hear this would know that like each time you want an incrementally take, that next step of growth, unless you just have like a ton of capital and like the money doesn't actually really matter. Like if the money really matters for you taking that next step, whether it's making like large capital purchases to try to grow or setting up for campaigns, you know, bringing in new staff or contractors, like if there's like a big allocation that hasn't been there.
00:20:59:23 - 00:21:35:18
Josh C
And I imagine, you know, probably in your business, that's probably part of the conversation a lot because you probably have business owners that are on the other side of it that are like we we theoretic, we know that this thing has value, but I'm still cutting checks that are going to post on Friday. So, you know, how do I how do I step forward in a way where, you know, I'm not getting hit by a train after I'd make that step forward, you know?
00:21:35:22 - 00:21:51:09
Josh C
So like, I mean, I can give you examples of that, but I think it's it's more of like a general experience that I've had that's probably just super common to everybody. So I think it's like.
00:21:51:23 - 00:22:05:13
Lee Murray
Yeah, and to give, to give a little context also, you know, maybe jog your memory too is, you know, Josh's business is a maybe it'd be a good time to like kind of talk about your business. Like, what is it that you actually do?
00:22:06:11 - 00:22:24:05
Josh C
Well, I am like least said nobody's going to put me on the New York Times best selling list any time soon because nobody wants to hear about, like, the slow, plodding way of growth. That's not sexy.
00:22:24:05 - 00:22:25:01
Lee Murray
That is true.
00:22:25:01 - 00:23:08:21
Josh C
It's like in it's like stormy, sexy fun. So I started about Maiden in 2013 and I had some e-commerce experience before that and I kind of joke with people that, that I exist in kind of the online retail space with specialty products. And I've literally picked like the most inefficient, hardest way to exist in that space. Like, I joke with you, I'm like, You couldn't do it any dumber when I've done it because I really haven't picked an easy path for, you know, if you have an invention that you make and you now can sell 100,000 of your product or a million or whatever, great.
00:23:08:22 - 00:23:33:11
Josh C
You know, or you have your content that you've created that now exists. And I literally primarily sell one thing one time and it's not, you know, $50 million penthouse in Manhattan. It's it's period furniture that's that's kind of what our specialization is.
00:23:35:00 - 00:23:40:22
Lee Murray
But, you know, from a marketer standpoint, well, what about how I would describe it is that you've carved a niche for yourself.
00:23:41:03 - 00:23:45:03
Josh C
The that's the positive side. And I think that that is it.
00:23:45:04 - 00:23:47:20
Lee Murray
It's true. There's no one that does what you do, really.
00:23:48:09 - 00:24:27:12
Josh C
We have arguably the largest collection in the state of Florida of what we deal. And now there's other collectors that have like a broader selection that have more pieces in their collection or they might primarily have a consignment based model where it's not actually their product, but they have more product that they can offer to the public. But arguably, we have the largest collection in Florida, and we deal in pieces that are primarily post-World War Two to my 1889, and we deviate from that a little bit with other design styles.
00:24:28:17 - 00:25:03:18
Josh C
But it's mostly mid-century modern and mostly mostly Danish modern. And you know, we work with a lot of interior designers and collectors. Our pieces primarily shipped to major markets in the US, some major international markets too. And it's the type of thing that for people who might not have exposure to this marketplace, you probably know that person who has the watch collection or the watch or has a collection of a car.
00:25:04:03 - 00:25:27:12
Josh C
And it's all about, you know, this particular detail on this line of this design we made it and how rare it is and how beautiful of a design piece that was, whatever that thing is, that kind of checks that box box for you personally. We exist in that space with furniture and home decor and a little bit of art.
00:25:27:12 - 00:25:51:10
Lee Murray
Yeah, you know, the thing that stands out to me and I think a lot of people are listening to this podcast, are thoughtful, small business owners. You know, they're not get rich quick kind of young entrepreneurs or even old entrepreneurs that are just trying to hack their way to a sold company for X, you know, multiplier. What I like about what you're doing is that you're passionate about it.
00:25:51:17 - 00:26:18:04
Lee Murray
I think some days more than others. Right. But, you know, you're really invested in the end in service of the product, the sourcing and the handoff of customer care. You're very invested and that's what really keeps I think that's what allows small businesses to really have a success in not only financial success, but going back to personal growth.
00:26:18:04 - 00:26:41:15
Lee Murray
Like when you get to the end of your life or you get into this business whenever that may be, you look back on the time you spent and was it all just chasing more revenue? You know, was it all just chasing automation? That's kind of hollow, I think. You know, I think being more personally invested in a little more passionate about it is is where you went.
00:26:41:21 - 00:27:10:09
Josh C
Yeah. I mean, I think for me personally, you know, kind of in respect to what I do and what we do is about modern, you know, I want to first and foremost, you know, I'm married. I have two daughters or twin daughters and that I want to provide for my family and, you know, represent myself and the community in a way that's that's right by my family.
00:27:11:09 - 00:27:32:16
Josh C
And then I have people that I partner with and I care about them as people. I care about their families and, you know, the same type of thing I'm trying to create for for me and the people that I love the most. I would like to create those type of opportunities for those people that are working with me, and then that works for us as a team.
00:27:33:12 - 00:27:58:18
Josh C
And so the clients that we serve, I actually have a client, but the messaging over the past couple of days is a repeat client and you know, in our business, every now and then in any business, things go wrong, not the way that you hoped. And we had a we had an issue with the delivery of like a really rare high end product that sucks.
00:27:58:18 - 00:28:27:06
Josh C
You know, like that's not what you want to have at hand. You know, we make stuff right. And this client reached back out like three years later and was like, Hey, you helped me out four years ago. I need help again now. Can you help me? And I was able to kind of help make connections for them. And now we just shipped more product out to that client because it's, it's those types of relationships, I think.
00:28:27:10 - 00:29:03:04
Josh C
Right. Things like that are captured, you know, Walmart or Amazon because that's not what that model is. But that's where, you know, we're specific, we're intentional, we care about details, but you're wrapped up in every detail. So we we care about you. That's right. And making sure that your experience start to finish is is the best. And if it's not, let me know because you're actually going to talk to me or somebody who's really close to me that has my ear so that we can give you the best care and service possible.
00:29:03:04 - 00:29:06:01
Josh C
At that point.
00:29:06:01 - 00:29:34:17
Lee Murray
Yeah. And you know, it goes to the your character, too. I mean, I knowing you personally, I you up the coffee shop or wherever and you'll take the time even if you're in the middle of a call or working on something and to talk to somebody that I think could maybe sometimes have lesser importance at the moment. And I think that that, again, going back to personal growth and mindset, it's you have an outlook on the world.
00:29:34:17 - 00:30:09:06
Lee Murray
I mean, everyone does. And are we challenging that outlook? And for you, I think you are, you know, because you're looking at people and caring for those people. And years later, you have relationships with your customers in a world where, you know, you're probably not best friends with that person you mentioned, but you're you formed a, you know, a meaningful relationship with them over the years in a in a business that is not doesn't have a ton of, you know, solid relationships because we're talking about products here and they're shipped, you know, talking virtually and all that.
00:30:10:08 - 00:30:28:02
Lee Murray
And I think that is a huge win as a business owner to, you know, three years later, ten years later, be able to have the phone number of someone that you could pick up and text and just say, hey, I was thinking about your project or I was thinking about your thing. I just wanted to see how it's going.
00:30:28:07 - 00:30:51:00
Lee Murray
And there's no motive. There's no motive to sell them anything. There's it's just genuinely a relationship. And I think that's pretty phenomenal. And I think that's a huge outcome, huge successful outcome of the work that we get to do actually, this morning I was driving back from Orlando working on a project down there and it occurred. I was just thinking about a couple of different things.
00:30:51:00 - 00:31:08:16
Lee Murray
And two, to pass clients came to mind and I thought, you know, I need to I just need to text them and say, I'm thinking about you, you know? And so I did. And both of them responded positively. And we hadn't talked in years. And they both said, hey, you know, I was just thinking about you the other week kind of thing.
00:31:08:16 - 00:31:37:13
Lee Murray
Like sort of like serendipitously. But, you know, we just had that little interaction and I'm not trying to get them to sign up for an e-book or like, you know, do anything. I'm just generally at that point where I can reach out and talk to people who I enjoyed working with. So I think that's a that's that's like a sort of a like a byproduct almost that comes from dealing intentionally with people.
00:31:37:13 - 00:32:15:10
Lee Murray
And I think it starts with holding ourselves accountable to how we should operate with, you know, in our personal life and in our business life for sure. You know, one of the thing that I've been thinking about lately, and this is sort of just kind of going rogue off of our script here, but not that I really have a script, but I have a couple of questions I want to ask you is, you know, and I think this goes this goes for all leaders, all CEOs, all business owners, small and large managers, especially as a teams.
00:32:16:17 - 00:32:44:19
Lee Murray
I think I've crossed across this bridge lately where I've been thinking about who I'm leading by just being and just living my life the way that I'm choosing to live it. And who am I influencing for the good? And this idea of like leading leaders right in my business, that's advisory consulting. I work with a lot of executives and these are all leaders and they're probably leaders in their home.
00:32:44:19 - 00:33:12:17
Lee Murray
They're definitely leaders in the company. They're all, you know, performance driven. And I think to have influence with those people, I have to charge myself again, going back to accountability with to some degree, trying to lead them not only strategically or tactically or, you know, giving them a piece of knowledge that maybe they were missing, but but doing it in context to where they're meeting them, where they are.
00:33:12:17 - 00:33:42:20
Lee Murray
And and so all this to say I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I think it all comes back to accountability. I know I've said it a lot, but if I want to lead a leader in whatever context and for them to be responsive to that leadership, whatever that looks like, again, in context, I have to be accountable to what that looks like in my own life.
00:33:42:20 - 00:34:09:23
Lee Murray
I can't purport to for them to do one thing when I'm doing another thing, you know, that just doesn't work for me. You know, if I'm saying you should do X, but I'm doing Y it, that's not going to work. You know, so lately and we've been kind of chatting about this lately, like this idea of expanding ourselves, going to the next level, you know, whatever you want to call it.
00:34:11:07 - 00:34:45:06
Lee Murray
I've been thinking about that. How can I hold myself more accountable to, being disciplined in certain areas or having self-control in certain areas that will translate to better, more solid and even greater influenced relationships, both personally and professionally. So I'm interested to know where are you at right now? You know, in your mind scape and the things that are going on in your world, where does that where does that fall for you?
00:34:45:15 - 00:34:50:23
Josh C
Well, I'm trying to do like my com like podcast thing. Like it's like.
00:34:51:20 - 00:34:52:21
Lee Murray
Yeah, you're doing a great job.
00:34:53:03 - 00:34:57:17
Josh C
It's like this is like I'm channeling my inner NPR, but yeah.
00:34:57:17 - 00:34:58:04
Lee Murray
You got it.
00:34:58:13 - 00:35:06:13
Josh C
But, but you know me. That's sometimes when I get excited about this stuff, I'm like, like poor man's drill sergeant, but I.
00:35:06:15 - 00:35:07:04
Lee Murray
Just do it.
00:35:07:12 - 00:35:33:17
Josh C
Looks like a little bit of like Ric Flair Energy and like, like a lot of Woo's and that kind of thing like that running around the world. I think that I remember having a conversation with you and I don't know if you remember this, but Lee and I, we see each other a good bit at a coffee shop here in town, but we had a period before this period where we all go to different coffee shop.
00:35:34:10 - 00:36:07:14
Josh C
We were out of the conversation at the different coffee shop and I remember telling you just how I'm competitive person. I've always been pretty competitive. I like to win and you know, a lot of that drives me and is kind of kind of propelled me to where I'm at and maybe deciding at some point on the path or being an entrepreneur or I played sports as a kid, not great at all, but like enough, you know, competitive enough to be on the team.
00:36:07:14 - 00:36:09:20
Josh C
So like barely make collegiate teams.
00:36:10:08 - 00:36:11:06
Lee Murray
Good enough to know.
00:36:11:06 - 00:36:35:00
Josh C
Yeah, good enough to know I'm not great, but, like, good enough to where like some college would give me a jersey type of thing. So like, you know, at that level and the world of small college sports and just, you know, never being like the blue ribbon boy, but always kind of wanting that and always kind of having a little chip on my shoulder, a little gritty, like it's part of who I am.
00:36:35:00 - 00:37:07:19
Josh C
And that's I don't think I'm going to lose that. But something that I think has changed since that conversation that we had in their coffee shop is a hopefully growing and maturing as in being competitive and seeing that in myself and acknowledging that am I going out and saying like, am I going to be this other business today, you know, or internally in a business, or are you going to help sell this other person in this department?
00:37:07:19 - 00:37:33:15
Josh C
Are you going to like like we compete like that so often? Am I going to get a nicer car? So my neighbor sees how successful I am and that they're both successful to me or like whatever that thing is that I think that so often competitive people do. And I've been asking myself lately, am I being the best me that I can be?
00:37:34:12 - 00:38:04:06
Josh C
Like, Am I competing against myself? And that's a little bit newer way for me to consistently think. And, you know, I kind of have gotten a little bit back on it. David Goggins took a couple of months ago and he talks about his accountability there. And a lot of what he says is like, you know, in his energy is cool and he's got a great story and it's obviously a lot of people.
00:38:05:04 - 00:38:30:20
Josh C
But what he's saying is that anything you you know, Gary being saying, I give all of the stuff to you guys for free, you're not going to do anything with it. That's not new. You know. KING So there's nothing new under the sun like I got me I got to that. Am I being honest with myself today? Do I have a plan today?
00:38:31:04 - 00:38:54:07
Josh C
Yes or no? Is it a good plan? Do I know how to evaluate? If it's a good plan? And if I'm falling short, do I even know how to have that conversation with myself? Am I rubbing shoulders with people that can drop some good nuggets for me to pick out that. Hopefully I'm dropping some good nuggets for them as well.
00:38:55:22 - 00:39:25:20
Josh C
So I'm just trying to be is honest with myself as I can be. So like in my faith tradition that says that the only way that we can really know that is through God. So that's something that I'm praying about. Like I want to see myself as clearly as I possibly can see myself. And then what I want to do is I want that to push me towards action that's positive.
00:39:26:03 - 00:39:58:23
Josh C
It's moving in the right direction. And oftentimes in life you're moving in a positive direction and something changes, something deviates and you know. But am I still am I going to respond to that and to keep keep on the path and keep moving in that direction? So that's kind of where I've been out, you know, of late and it's a weird thing even kind of talk about because I think that you're almost like a little superstitious, like I'm the jinx myself or I'm going to sound like a big phony that like I'm excited about like wanting to grow and do well.
00:39:59:11 - 00:40:29:23
Josh C
But then like in six weeks I'm just going to really like Doritos again and sleeping in and like skipping just because I like being late on my emails to people I shouldn't be late to. Like, like, who am I going to be? Well, the only way that I can be the best version of me is if I'm on the sofa with the Doritos, not responding to the e-mails, binge watching the next series and really not doing anything to propel positive growth in my life.
00:40:30:04 - 00:40:51:07
Josh C
And when I get up and I go to my room, I go to the bathroom, I still got me in the mirror. And am I going to ask myself, am I being who I'm supposed to be in my pursuing that path or not? And I'm trying to put this in front of my mind constantly, because if I don't, I know how I'm going to live.
00:40:51:07 - 00:41:15:05
Josh C
I'm going to default to comfort the default to laziness. I'm the default the victim. Wait a week, a month, it's the next quarter. And then at some point, you know, all this stuff that we talked about over beers or bourbon or coffee or whatever, we're just going to have never done it, you know.
00:41:15:05 - 00:41:43:12
Lee Murray
I agree 100%. And, you know, I would add to that as a next point in the conversation is you look at yourself in the mirror after you've gone through this cycle and you judge yourself or you give yourself a bunch of excuses or you have some kind of response because you're at a certain place with yourself. Right. And that's really what you're talking about is for growing yourself.
00:41:43:12 - 00:42:12:14
Lee Murray
You're being more honest, accountable with yourself. How do you get more honest? And I think for me, I've realized that I have judged myself very harshly when I felt myself. And no one else knows about any of these conversations because I'm only having them with myself. And I think I've held myself back a lot and allowed myself to drift into paralysis by analysis because I, when I feel I judged myself harshly.
00:42:12:14 - 00:42:37:11
Lee Murray
And so I don't want to fail again for myself. Yeah. So, you know, being an analytical person, I have arrived at a place that in thought allows me to deal and what that looks like is experiments. So basically the way I think about it is in an effort to give myself a little bit more grace, but hold myself accountable to the growth that I'm currently in.
00:42:38:01 - 00:43:03:03
Lee Murray
I'm going to run an experiment on one thing. You know, if it's getting up earlier or if it's eating less carbs or if it's, you know, go down the list, making more phone calls, whatever it is. And I need to test, I need to take the risk and I need to fail so I can get feedback. But when I get the feedback, I have to remember that it's feedback, a little bit of judgment, a little bit of grace.
00:43:03:04 - 00:43:26:09
Lee Murray
Let's move forward. I mean, a little bit of accountability, a little bit of grace. Move forward now what? Right. I hold myself just for myself to do that next step. And that's really helped me a lot because it takes it off of me as a character flaw that I failed myself again. And I'm on the couch for three days and I look at it like, okay, well, let's examine, how did I end up here?
00:43:26:21 - 00:43:47:22
Lee Murray
Well, I bought Doritos. That was a problem. Right? So you're not going to stop buying them. I'm just that I stopped buying them. If I remember to look back over the last two weeks, I haven't eaten Doritos because I didn't like them. So hey, now I'm winning. And now I have to reward myself. You know, in my mind, I have to remind myself that, hey, I am actually making progress.
00:43:47:22 - 00:44:13:16
Lee Murray
There's I don't need to come to the table with complete judgment every time it's such for me. Since I'm such a thinker, it's hard for me to get out of my head and do so by biting off really small pieces. I don't like it because I don't feel like I'm making enough progress fast enough, but I do like it whenever I learn from the mistake and succeed.
00:44:14:06 - 00:44:43:18
Lee Murray
And so it's this constant self conversation that I'm having. And then the other part of it that I've recognized too, to go to what you're saying is every time that I try to do something new, I generally get some kind of external feedback that's negative, right? Like let's say I'm going to wake up earlier in the morning. Well, that's going to affect my wife because now she's getting woken up while I'm waking up and she doesn't like that.
00:44:44:01 - 00:45:04:12
Lee Murray
And it means I have to go to bed earlier so she doesn't like that I'm spending half an hour, hour less with her at night, you know. And so now all this friction comes in and it's this friction between if this is going to be the path, am I going to be able to navigate through this, this emotional, mental friction that I'm having here to continue and stay on this path?
00:45:04:16 - 00:45:27:12
Lee Murray
Because I think on the end of the at the end of this, a result is more growth. And that's tough, too, because there's such a drawdown. And I think this is why people don't want to grow. I think they're perfectly fine with just watching Netflix series, you know, and eating Doritos on the couch because it's easier or it's so hard.
00:45:27:15 - 00:45:34:07
Lee Murray
There's so many things at play when you when you actually call on yourself and are accountable to yourself to go to the next level.
00:45:34:09 - 00:46:04:06
Josh C
Well, yeah, I think I agree with you to a point, but kind of like that last thought of like it's so much harder to do this stuff that's probably better for you. I think it is initially, but I think that, oh, totally, 100%. But I think that you get to a point where actually not only is that thing that you defined is so hard and such a challenge, you know, now it's habit.
00:46:05:08 - 00:46:29:18
Josh C
But what kind of superpower that gives you in all these other things that are interconnected and so on? And that's where, you know, we've been talking a lot about mindfulness, as you know, I'm trying to be in a place in, you know, my my wife's, you know, she she knows that I can be hard on myself. And we're having a conversation about that.
00:46:30:12 - 00:46:59:02
Josh C
And she's saying, Oh, you're being too hard on yourself. Or maybe I'm being hard on her being hard on everybody. You know, that's just kind of how I can be. And I think that it's like trying to reframe failures for me because I kind of imagine failures into like, if you're going to break down failures really simplistically, there's positive failures and there's negative focus.
00:46:59:02 - 00:47:23:00
Josh C
Hmm. So if I'm moving forward in a direction that's good for my family and good for myself, for my mental health, my physical health, it's good for my business, other business ideas, whatever that that path is that I'm on by moving forward and I'm failing as I'm moving forward. Those are all positive failures. You know, sales one on one talks and Saturday's sales guy.
00:47:23:03 - 00:47:38:21
Josh C
Listen, ten calls I'm going to hang up on you and nine calls. One of those calls, I'm going to get your Taylor 100 sales guide who wants to call thousand people. That's like why this the nine failures are inconsequential. They don't matter, you know.
00:47:39:13 - 00:47:39:18
Lee Murray
Yes.
00:47:40:04 - 00:47:56:20
Josh C
So and then those things for you, the analyst, you have this failure, but you're learning something there. And as long as you actually have something that you're moving forward towards that has value as meaning, you prioritize the time and all of that in a way kind of recalculating as you go, but you're still moving forward. But failures are huge ones.
00:47:56:20 - 00:48:27:03
Josh C
The tremendous ones, the failures that I think we need to be honest with ourselves about, though, are the ways that we're excusing bad behavior. We're we're calling what we're calling our laziness, whether it's relationally or as we allocate time and energy to our business, so to ourselves or else. And we're reframing that as it's a can. It's what everybody says.
00:48:27:05 - 00:48:47:16
Josh C
This is just how you do. That's why, like most people are just status quo, because they're living status quo, you know, and I want to call that what it is and what I'm doing that I don't want to be like, Oh, a little jealousy. It's okay. It's just this hard to avoid because part of your heart, you know, it's like and it's going to be complaining about the government all the time.
00:48:47:16 - 00:48:51:00
Josh C
When you complain or your boss didn't give you a raise.
00:48:51:18 - 00:48:52:09
Lee Murray
There's no rules.
00:48:52:09 - 00:49:13:20
Josh C
To your life. What about people like what's your life like? That's the freaking conversation and you're looking forward to it. Oh, like we just released a new show that we can all binge watch together. Like, wake up, people, this is your life. I want to look at myself in the mirror and wake up. Josh, you're in this most and it's not okay.
00:49:13:20 - 00:49:31:21
Josh C
Yes. And if I keep this mantra before me, if I say it enough, I'll say it to you. Forget about it for a little bit. Like, hey, you remember that time that you said this? Did you believe it then? Is it still true now and then? Maybe. Maybe I'll get back on track and I want to live my life mostly on track.
00:49:32:08 - 00:49:56:11
Lee Murray
So there's so much wrapped up in that that we could just keep unraveling. But we're getting kind of long here, almost to an hour, which is fine by me. I'm letting this kind of be organic, you know? Hey, so anything else you want to you want to say to the audience? Before we go, I have a couple parting questions for you.
00:49:57:04 - 00:49:58:21
Josh C
I don't fire with.
00:50:00:21 - 00:50:29:16
Lee Murray
What resources, if you are talking to one of our audience members who's out there, if they're looking for to learn more about, you know, being an entrepreneur, running a business, it could be, you know, mindset driven. It could not be could be something kind of random. The things that you've looked through, the resources, podcasts, books, people, what would you where would you turn people to other than my podcast, who's.
00:50:29:17 - 00:50:32:00
Josh C
Earlier that was going to be my number one.
00:50:33:23 - 00:50:34:07
Lee Murray
Good.
00:50:36:10 - 00:51:08:13
Josh C
Man? I really I mean, we talked about Tim Ferriss. You know, I read the four hour workweek. I had a business before this business. And gosh, I haven't succeeded or what Tim suggested in the four hour workweek. But I think I've been really slow and painful to try to even in that direction of how can I create roles so I can I create apartments, how can I set up systems in place so that things can run themselves?
00:51:08:13 - 00:51:36:20
Josh C
So I think that, you know, Tim, Tim versus that's always been helpful to me. I've always liked Seth Godin for marketing and he's kind of helped me as I've kind of grown in on a marketing sort. I think Jack is good for leadership. I really like him. I like a lot of the kind of like war time analogies that he uses.
00:51:36:20 - 00:51:53:08
Josh C
I think that they're super helpful. Like I literally if I'm thinking about I don't know if he's ever talked about this, but I think that my mind just gets rolling. I've been thinking about like the whole like students are marching like left, right, left, right, left. I'm trying to produce my life down to that and stuff that I do now.
00:51:53:08 - 00:52:16:14
Josh C
It's like, you know, like in AA they talk about like you get your one day check, like let's break stuff down to like the most singular thing, which is hard for big picture guys like me because that's like not where I exist that I'm trying to expose myself to that kind of thoughts. So I guess that's a yeah.
00:52:16:14 - 00:52:45:12
Lee Murray
It's amazing how many analogies you can draw from military life action systems, how they're set up, all of that. I went through a whole phase probably back in 2011, 2010, 2011, where I was just trying to completely transform myself because I didn't like how I was looking at the world and who I was at the time and a lot of that.
00:52:45:12 - 00:53:20:23
Lee Murray
And I went very military on myself, physically, mentally, just kind of to your point of like the the left, right, left, right. It's funny how I always kind of gravitate back towards these military modes. And so I enjoyed listening to him as well because it's very grounded in logical, common sense, thinking, you know, and plotting. And this other term that I was going to mention earlier is incrementalism.
00:53:20:23 - 00:53:39:06
Lee Murray
I don't think he would use that term, but I like that I heard that somewhere and I love the idea of incrementally improving yourself. I know there's a there's some other famous person that has a 1%. I can't remember who it is, but, you know, 1% every day or every week. And that's sort of what I ascribe to as well.
00:53:39:06 - 00:54:02:14
Lee Murray
So the military is there's something about it was never in the military glad that I wasn't in the military, but I grew up in a military family. So there you go. Let's see if people want to find you and order some amazing furniture from you. Where do they go? How do they get in touch with you to talk more about your personal habits?
00:54:02:14 - 00:54:23:21
Josh C
My website, ABC Maidencombe. So that's Alpha Bravo Tango Modern dot com and ABC Modern on Instagram, Facebook. Do you want to talk habits with me and email me you can find me on the website is a contact form I'm.
00:54:24:02 - 00:54:24:16
Lee Murray
There you go.
00:54:25:04 - 00:54:30:15
Josh C
But yeah yeah go get them today's all we got we got.
00:54:31:05 - 00:54:48:10
Lee Murray
A Josh I very much enjoyed it as always. I'm just glad we were able to capture one of our conversations and document this of the many that we've had and will have. So thanks again for being on and I will most definitely have you back and maybe season two once.
00:54:48:11 - 00:54:50:21
Josh C
Good, great, great podcast. Thank you for the opportunity.
00:54:50:21 - 00:55:16:22
Lee Murray
We thank you so much for listening to this episode. You know, I mindset and personal growth are topics that I think about a lot and and I'm really working to, you know, grow myself and I really think it's the secret sauce to being successful as an entrepreneur are really professional in any right so I hope you enjoyed this episode with Josh and all the links to everything we talked about will be in the description.
00:55:17:16 - 00:55:39:23
Lee Murray
Also, we have just launched a an email newsletter that follows this podcast. So if you want to stay in touch with all the guests that come through and you may not have had a chance to listen to all the episodes, go to the link below. Harvard Recon Slash Exploring Dash Growth Dash Podcast to the podcast page and sign up.
00:55:39:23 - 00:55:51:04
Lee Murray
Just put your email in, hit subscribe. And it's a very short, brief email that comes every week once we release a new episode. So hope to see you there and keep exploring.