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About Dan
First full-time job at 14, Contestant on The Biggest Loser season 5 at 21, Nashville recording artist, Debut album “Goin’ All Out” charted #7 on Billboard. Currently: Founder/Partner in 10+ companies; Restaurants, Real estate, Youth programs, Tech company.
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The Two Words Holding You Back (Pt. 1) | Dan Evans
I’ve got an awesome friend of mine for a long time in the studio. This dude has been on The Biggest Loser. He has been in the country music arena. He’s had an album released. Most of all, he’s an amazing friend. He opened a restaurant in the middle of COVID. We’re going to talk about my most favorite word to hate, the word can’t, and bring up his most favorite word that he’s got going on inside. Dan Evans, what’s up?
It’s good to be back.
How long has it been? Years?
Sometime in 2020. Time flies, it feels like five minutes ago or five years ago. It’s that weird thing.
I love what you’re wearing too.
We’ve been working on some branding for a new restaurant group. We’re buying another restaurant. We opened one in the middle of COVID. It’s always fun when you do something like that. I come from a family of risk-takers as you know. You know my family well. We’ve started many businesses over the years. People said, “As restaurants were closing at an unbelievable rate of speed. You open one.” I said, “You got to have the kahoonas to play ball.” That’s what it was. If you are ready, and you are ready to jump in and go headfirst, as we do in so many things, and go all in, it was buyers market. If you’re prepared to take that risk, there are some incredible opportunities out there if you can hang.
I’ve been there. I’ve eaten there several times.
You’re one of the regulars. You’re a Platinum rewards member.
I did help stock your bar a little bit with some whiskey.
You’ve got the knowledge and the palate for the delicious whiskey so I had to lean on you for that.
I love taking my boys there too because I get to watch Chive TV.
It’s bubblegum for the brain because it’s constantly video clips of internet-y things, you could stare at it for hours. It’s fun.
You launched this restaurant. This is going to come into a lot of what I want to talk about. I was walking you through the studio here. I’ve got this canvas sign on the wall that I’ve had up for a few years. You’ve been here before. It’s easy to miss, but it’s right there on your way out. That’s intentional for everybody else that works here too. It’s the word ‘can’t’ with a big red X through it.
Slashed out. Ugly scratched.
I want to take a knife to it to upgrade the canvas a little bit to give it some real scratch marks. There’s something that I’ve trained my people that have worked for me over the years. It’s something that’s ingrained in me too because that’s the word that I was talking about that I hate. I hate the word ‘can’t.’ I shifted a while back from this because it annoyed me. More so it annoyed me because in sales, it was an objection that I would hear from everybody else and then it annoyed me, even more, when I went through my own weight loss journey. We talked a little bit about that in the last episode. Go back and read that. We talked about our own weight loss journeys.
I don’t want to cry again. It got deep and I love it.
Going into that, if I ever thought that I couldn’t before and I said that “I can’t lose weight,” or whatever it is, I realized that I was freaking lying to myself. I would hear this back in sales engagements with prospects to where they’d say, “I can’t spend that. I can’t do this. There’s no way I can go,” which is the same thing. It’s phrased in a different way. I started hearing it from people that were working for me too. It was more so that they were saying it to our customers from a position of technology. I would hear this a lot from the Comcast people or any tech crowd that I hear because it’s that stereotype of the tech industry, the condescending whatever where a tech would come and say, “ You can’t do it that way. No, that’s not it.”
“Now, I’m going to. I’m almost going to mad do this project because I will.”
We were talking about that, pissing ourselves off just because despite ourselves. I would hear this and it’s like, “That’s not the real meaning. That’s not what you mean when you say, ‘I can’t.’” This is where I want to jump off here and hear your thoughts on this. This is where we can have some amazing dialogue and help everybody that’s reading because we’re going to hit hard. That’s what I want to do. Drive home like Thor to Thanos with his ax right in the head or chest. I also want it to be good teaching times, too We’re not going to pummel into people without giving them a reason or hope to actually be able to come out of it either because that’s needed. This episode, we’re going to call bullcrap.
Let’s lay it down.
The word ‘can’t,’ to me, and we’ll start from here, means you won’t or you don’t.
“I don’t want to.” Laziness and self-limitations fall into that category. A lot of times, people find identity in their shortcomings because for some reason, you’ll meet people who say, “I can’t drive in traffic. I can’t get up early.” I almost am sensing a hint of pride in the limitation that you’re owning. It’s incredible how it’s some weird deflective defense mechanism that people can use to cover a lot of things that are ultimately coming down to a small set of things.
It’s something inside you that you’re not allowing yourself to achieve that next level to set yourself apart and become something that is truly greater. Is it because you’re afraid of success? You’re afraid of what might come with that? You’re afraid of the responsibility that could come with that? Many times, it’s an instant moment for diagnosis to figure out, what are you doing? What are you holding back? What are you afraid of? Why are you protecting yourself with this word that we should slash out of the situation? Ultimately, what are you scared of?
Is it protecting yourself though?
Yeah.
When you say that, are you protecting yourself or are you just avoiding the scenario?
To me, speaking of the weight loss journey and something I’ve done, even when I’m not feeling comfortable with myself or anything, the old wear a hoodie when you’re not happy with the way you look sort of thing. There’s this lie you tell yourself that I somehow look thinner with a hoodie on, which isn’t true. That’s the thing. Are you protecting yourself? No. You’re wearing the hoodie of the word can’t, but yet, it’s glaring. It’s something that everybody can recognize, but in your mind, you feel like it’s helping, I’m hiding behind this. Ultimately, it’s a false layer of protection that’s doing nothing for you.
There’s a lot of running I feel when it comes to the word ‘can’t.’ I then start to analyze because I see that. I’ve got such great compassion for people. Coming out of my weight loss journey and a lot of other things that I’ve been through in life, for a brief moment, because I’m human like anybody else, and I don’t feel this way in my heart, but there are thoughts of judgment. I come on and it’s like, “I went through this.” I know the reasons why I was saying that I can’t and it was that I wouldn’t or I didn’t want to, or that I didn’t for blah blah blah.
There are a lot of times I want to Vulcan mind meld and just understand. I started realizing too, it’s no judgment at all. There doesn’t need to be any because I see that that word, can’t, sometimes could be a reason to say it, “I’m not sure why.” It’s an identity thing, too, because they’re not sure where they’re going, what they want, or even more so, how to get there. That becomes I can’t, but it’s really I won’t because I don’t have the knowledge yet. I don’t because I have these fears that I have to overcome first. I don’t want to because I don’t feel like it’s something I have the energy for because I have all of these other chaotic things in my life right now.
Sometimes it takes a vulnerable side of us to admit why I’m using the word. If somebody presents a giant project that seems near impossible or difficult, but that doesn’t mean can’t. Maybe that’s when we say, “That’s going to be a huge undertaking, but I think the outcome is going to be so worth it. Let’s dive in and try and figure this out.” It’s a different answer than, “We can’t.” You’ve ended it. There’s room for unlimited possibility when you remove that word. Let’s go through why. What is it? You’ve never done it before? Okay, let’s bring somebody else in who maybe has a little more experience in the background. Let’s take a little study time. Let’s learn.
There are many times where I have friends coming to me looking for advice, as if I’m an expert on something. It’s like, “No, I just spent countless hours reading, studying, finding experts and listening.” Whether it’s a podcast, an audiobook, or whatever it may be, I’m spending my time in traffic and in my car soaking in this topic because for me, ‘can’t’ isn’t an option. I’m going to can, whatever it takes. For somebody to turn to me as if I’m an expert, I look at them and go, “Dive in.” Nobody told me some secret.
The secret that I was told when I was younger is how to learn, how to love learning, and how to have a passion for devouring information and looking through things that don’t make sense. Before you know it, 2 or 3 hours of diving into something, it starts to make sense. If you spend a few days or a week on that topic, before you know it, people are turning to you like you’re an expert. When one week ago, I was about to ride the can’t bus. It’s that willingness to dive in and push past and go to the uncomfortable, and go into the scary unknown and say, “Get rid of the n’t, and let’s leave can.”
There’s another word you mentioned that ties back into this. You said the word lazy. Nobody’s going to like this, but that’s okay. I feel that there are just some straight-up lazy people. There are probably reasons behind that. If you’re reading, cool, that’s great. Maybe you cannot be lazy anymore after reading this, that’d be great. You’re talking about loving learning, and a lot of times the reason why you can’t, why you don’t or won’t, is because you don’t understand everything you need to know about what you’re trying to achieve.
I’d love to go through some specific examples too. We can talk about business, relationships, weight loss or finances. Those are four off the top of my head that we can dive into all the can’ts, all the stupidness, and all the BS and laziness that has surrounded all that. We’ve got stories that we can pull from to, tons and tons of stories. The lazy aspect. There have been times in my life where I’ve been lazy AF. Those are usually the times to where it’s I have a desire to escape me. Versus, there can be a longing for your true self but there can also be a desire to escape your true self.
Your true self and staying in that requires effort. There is so much around you that’s going to pull you away from that. It’s the expectations of other people that will pull you away from that. Now it becomes, instead of dealing with your own self and be like, “If it was me, nobody else around me or whatever that it would be a lot easier to just be me.” When there are expectations of other people around you, now it becomes more effort. Here’s the question, is it more effort to not be you, or is it more effort to be you? Which is easier?
We went to another layer.
Which is more difficult? Is it harder to put all this effort and energy into not being you and saying, “I can’t do that?”
I’m soaking that up because I’m even reflecting on myself in moments where I find my own self-limitation. I have to stop and take a moment of wonder, “What is it that’s creeping up in my life? What am I feeling? What am I hiding? What is it that I’m afraid to expose or afraid to push through to that other side?” That’s the thing is even when you feel like, “I’m the Mr. Can,” all the time, that just means you’ve only broken through your latest layer because no matter where it comes, whether you’re starting your first business or you’re now on to business 10, 20, 30, it doesn’t matter, wherever you are. You will find your new layer of limitation.
My brother and I are close in business. Business partners in a lot of ventures. I get deep into research and study. I want to understand something and I will lose sleep. I will even be trying to close my eyes and go to sleep, and I’ll grab my phone because there’s one more little thing I want to search and get that. Where he is more, “Pull the trigger and go, we’ll figure it out. We’ll figure it out as we go.” Where we have a great balance in that is I’m like, “Let’s make sure we think through all these things. We don’t want to run into a brick wall when we get to this point.” He’s like, “We can’t run into anything if we don’t get running.” “You’re so right.”
That’s where we bring a great balance with each other because, for me, I want to load the toolbox. I want to be ready. That’s, again, where we work well with each other because I’ll bring up things that he’s like, “That’s a good point, you’re right. We should go through that. We should take these steps. We should get a hold of these vendors,” and whatever it may be before we get off enrolling, because we could see issues right away, but he’s ready.
I’ll spit an idea out, and he’s already calling and trying to get a corporation formed and open bank accounts. Get something up and rolling. Meanwhile, I’m here researching ideas behind logo psychology. Each time we learn from each other and figure, “We have done this enough. We are smart enough. We’re capable enough. We’re willing to lose sleep enough that these little roadblocks that come up are not going to be a big issue.” Over time, it becomes simple.
We’re like, “Let’s get this next one roll. Let’s do it. Here’s how we go.” Eventually, you start to find your new, whatever it might be, ceiling of sorts where your can’t wants to start creeping up. Whether it’s going from 1 business to 2, that’s doubling. That’s a lot. If you’re going from 10 businesses to 20, again you’re doubling and that’s a lot. You’ll find, “I can start these things all day but when I’m pushing out to this new territory, I have to continually check myself and say, ‘Am I doing too much due diligence because I’m a little afraid?’ ‘Am I trying to just ready myself for battle?’” That’s a constant within us all.
It’s almost like a self-sabotage mentality then. Now I’m soaking it. Am I doing too much to where I’m preventing myself from even going into it or am I preparing for battle? You’re doing so much to try to prepare yourself because you’re scared. The more that you do, the more you research, the more you try to get all of your ducks in a row, it’s keeping you from doing in the first place.
You’ve gotten so granular that why are you that far down the road? We got to get rolling. There’s an opportunity. There’s a chance. There’s something, money is right, the conditions are right, the climate is right for this opportunity, and you could plan yourself right out of the window. At the same time, going into things blind is not a better solution but it’s the balance because sometimes our I can’t can be shrouded in your other ways of hiding and your other ways of, “No, of course, I can. I’m just doing way too much research, and that helps somehow.”
“Of course, I can when I blah blah,” but when is that blah blah going to actually happen?
It could be a goalpost that even on yourself, you keep continually moving.
That’s huge too because you can always find other ways to not do something.
That deep inner voice that would like to draw me back to a lazy starting point would love to find those. Would love to whisper up those little ideas and you wonder, “Did I just have an idea or is it that inner me who’s slowing me down and giving me little negative feedbacks?” Ultimately, I’m researching so much because I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I can’t. “I’m using that word again. I’m in a bad spot. Let me find my brother, we balance each other out. He’s going to push us forward. He’s going to drive, he’s the driver. He’s the bulldog.”
I call him the bulldozer because he just drives through in such a good way that it helps me go, “You’re right. What am I doing? I’m trying to be two years out to plan this granular situation that is not important for the launch phase. We will have so much time to plan that out and get there.” Of course, have a roadmap, make a plan, and like they always say, “Plans are changeable,” and that’s the best thing about them, they’re changeable but there has to be one in the first place. Don’t let that become your hiding place, your little excuse farm that we can live and die in.
I had a visual of a farm.
Harvesting excuses?
Decrepit little animals. That’s what it is because the excuses are that. They’re horrible pieces of shit. Everybody has an excuse farm but I just don’t want to live on the farm. It’s a place that I know that I can always go back to because it’s never going to go away. All those excuses are going to be there and they reproduce. They keep multiplying, then you have even more excuses. The more you’re doing all the I can’ts, all of a sudden, there’s going to be a lot more things. What’s interesting, too, is that excuse farm is tended. The shepherds of that excuse farm are a lot of the people that we know that are close to us. They’re like, “I brought twenty more animals out of this excuse farm. Take a look over here. You need to come back to the farm for a little bit just to remember why you can’t do this.”
The topic we talked about starting a restaurant during one of the most incredibly volatile times to expand the restaurant business that we’re in. For all the people that said, “Why are you launching another restaurant right in the middle of all this?” That’s not positive feedback. You didn’t say anything nice. You didn’t say anything mean, but he gave me a tone that was like, “You’re the exact reason why I didn’t go over this with you.” I don’t need it. In this business, I don’t look up to you in the world of foodservice and restaurants. Even in real estate looking at opportunities and financial opportunities. I don’t look up to you for any of that. I don’t care that you think this is a good or a bad time because, quite frankly, I don’t think that you even know that. Somehow, you fed that excuse farm, and I have to recognize that and pack it up and put it away because there’s so much room for that to fester and grow wild beasts on the farms of excuse.
For sure it is, I still get crap for going through an IPO. I’ve even heard people who do this professionally via SPACs and those are $400 million, $500 million and $1 billion deals.
The big blank check.
They’re like, “This might not be the time for you.” Being the CEO of a public company sucks, “Can you give me a little more info?” “No, it just sucks.” “What about all the time it’s going to take away from your family?” “I don’t think that’s going to be it. Yes, I have to put in more work,” but my son’s sitting in the studio with us. He’s involved in what’s going on. Everyone that can come around you to be the naysayers. It’s interesting because you and your brother, and we’re talking about business, if we can shift a little bit into relationships in this word can’t, too. It’s almost like saying don’t take marriage advice from somebody who’s never been married or someone who has had eight divorces or something like that. I’m not saying that it’s bad to be divorced because that’s not the case. It just happens sometimes. That’s actually maybe even a good place to start too. I’ve had this conversation on the show here and there. Divorce rates are up over 2020 with the pandemic. People are stuck at home with each other for so long like, “Sorry.”
“Are you sure you don’t have any calls to go on?”
It’s a shift of focus. The whole, “I can’t do this anymore,” or, “I can’t put the effort into this.” Can’t can go both ways. Can’t can be a reason to get divorced and it can be a reason to stay together too. It’s both of them. I can’t get divorced because I can’t. I can’t stay together because I can’t. What’s the don’ts and the won’ts behind that? I feel like it always comes back to your true self. It becomes the expectations of other people. I know if I looked at me, I grew up in church, an ordained pastor. It’s not highly praised if you end up divorced because that’s the expectations of other people. It’s also highly praised if you have a marriage that lasts forever, but who’s to say what’s right or wrong besides your own self? Now you’re living on the expectations of other people again, and now your can’t becomes ‘I won’t’ because of what that person is going to think about me.
I heard somebody say once, “We live in this world where we base ourselves around what we perceive that other people perceive us as.” It’s a double layer of perception. I might get in this cool car because I think that my friends will think that I’m cool. You then start to realize, “I’m living in this world of dual-layered convolution. I am going to stay with this person because I think that these people surrounding me will think this about me if I don’t.” In so many ways, “Get out of this relationship because they all think this about me for staying in it, I think.”
You start to realize, “What am I basing my decisions on? What am I formulating these concepts around? What I think that they think about me? When chances are what I think that they think that I think that they think, and we get so lost that my decisions are no longer based upon my inner self and my journey, whether it’s spiritual or it’s educational. Through your mentors or wherever it comes from, you realize that I’m living through this double layer that ultimately doesn’t even exist in the first place.
Now, I’m trying to keep up something, get rid of something, or live out something based upon something that you can’t even write down, that doesn’t exist. I can’t point to that on a map. Yet, I will use that to guide this ship through my entire life. At that point, you step back, and it’s that deep internal self-realization and self-examination of saying, “Where should I be? Who am I? Who is this person with me to me?” Not what do I think that they think about me, but instead, is this person good for me?
We’ve all heard it a million times. Look at the friends around you and that’s what you’ll see either where you’re going or where you’re headed or whatever it may be. That’s not saying, “Look at the people around you and think about what they think about you.” That’s not goal. That’s not the point. It’s diving back into the deep self-diagnosis of sorts of saying, “Am I helping them? Are they helping me? Are we on this journey together or are we not?” Friends, relationships, business partners, family.
I tell people all the time, “Obviously, you can’t pick your family and that whole thing but you also don’t have to emotionally always invest in their opinion.” Because, yes, you might be my cousin, my uncle, my brother, my mother, or whoever it may be but that doesn’t mean you know when it’s the right time for me to make a business move. That doesn’t mean you know the deep inner workings of my relationships. I might have to shift and maneuver because I’m no longer going to live on this double layer of what I think that you think about me?
Instead, say no. What is this for me? Where’s this going for me? Are you limiting me and boxing me back into some more, “I can’ts?” Because of words, negative inputs, or whatever those things may be? Are you saying, “You know what? I think you’re lying to yourself right now, you can. You’ve done this before. This is no different than before. I get it. You got a lot going on right now. Your plate is full but you know what? I’m here for you. Call me if you need anything. Let me know how we can help. I’ve got some great people. I’m going to send somebody by your office on Monday for a chat if you have time. If not, let me know. Let me know how I can help,” or, “Really? Don’t you already have a lot of those businesses going?” I don’t think you’re helping because of what I think that you think that I think.
That needs to be the lead in this episode. When you’re saying, “Is this is this person right for me?” There’s the inverse of that, too, that gets people trapped in the can’t. They start asking themselves, how am I right for this person? You then start to think about what they think about you, and you’re trying to make the decision for them because it’s not up to you to determine what they think about you or if they feel that you are right for them. That in itself can box you into an I cant’s from both perspectives again. “Should I stay with them?” “I’m good for them. They’re my project.”
I got my garden and my relationship.
They’d be in deep depression if I wasn’t with them so I can’t go, or the inverse. It keeps you from something good. Business, relationships, or whatever, you’re saying, “Am I good for this person? I don’t think I am.” Now you’re starting to put yourself into that same spot to where it’s like, “What do they think about me?” I think that they think that I’m good for them or I’m not good for them. You’re putting yourself in the same boat saying, “Am I good for that person?” “I can’t be with that person, business relationship, or whatever because I don’t think I’m good for that person.” “I feel that they think that we would clash.” That’s such a conundrum. It hurts my head trying to say it and keep it straight, but that’s where our heads go.
Meanwhile, you’ll be at the clothing store holding up a shirt wondering, do I think that they’ll think that I look cool if I wear this? “This business opportunity is going to be so cool because all of them, I think that they’ll think that I’m up with some cool stuff if I do this.” It’s a wrong reason.
I don’t know how many dudes walk into a suit shop and be like, “I hope my girl likes me in this,” and that’s the reason why they buy it. There’s a little bit of difference in emotion. I had an episode of male vulnerability, too. That probably should be the way that most men are emotionally connected. It’s a wrong application of that because when a woman goes in and buys a dress and thinking, “I’m going to get this dress because I want them to like the way that I look.” Buy for yourself.
Does it make you feel beautiful or confident? Does it accentuate something about you that gives you that pep in your step as opposed to, “Will they like me?”
If you had to choose between only telling lies all your life or you had to speak the truth for the rest of your life, what would you choose? This is coming back to the same thing about, is it harder to not be you or is it harder to be you? It’s easier to be you. I’ve done this and I’m sure you have to especially in the world that I came from in church and everything else. Sometimes I feel that when I’m on stage. What do I need to bring so they’ll like me? I don’t think this way anymore. I’m going to bring me and that’s going to be it because I know that I have what they will need.
I know what I can bring to this moment right now. It’s a lot easier to be me. I can’t say 10x, 100x, or whatever but it takes exhausting effort to not be me and put all these stopgaps in place to where I can cut my true self off and say, “No, I can’t because of that person. I can’t because of this situation. I can’t because of this.” Now you start to put all these self-sabotaging things in place to where you have to take action in order to can’t. Sometimes you don’t have to take any action to can or to be but you have to take way more action to can’t.
A journey for a lot of people is ultimately discovering, through all of that the, “Who am I?” Especially, in my younger life, I spent so much of my time trying to fit in and trying to do what my friends are doing. I would listen to music because they did. You hit this point in your life, where at some point you have to start to understand who am I? Where does my deep true happiness come from? What is it that is inspiring me? What is it that makes me want to get up in pushing and do something that’s going to suck? I understand the outcome. I know the other side of it. There are so many things in life that suck, but the outcome is worth it. Whether it’s parts of exercising, lifting weights, and all of that.
There are days that suck.
It totally does but you’re in it for the long haul and you’re in it for an outcome that you truly desire. That’s such an important place where a lot of people need to take that time to self-reflect and understand is this for me or is this for what that you think that I look like if I do this or that I like. It’s much easier for you to be you but there are many people who haven’t got to the core of figuring out who they are outside of those layers of convolution of my perception of your perception of me. That’s truly self-work. When you can get to the other side, the suck doesn’t suck so much because you’re doing it for a true reason that you understand deep down in yourself.
A good friend of mine, we’re co-writers and we’ve done a lot of music together and did a lot of things. We had a slogan that was called Embrace the Suck. You’ve got to embrace the suck. Every new startup business is going to have some suck. There’s going to be moments in relationships that you do see a long-term thing here but right now it sucks. What am I going to do? Am I going to embrace the suck because I understand what the outcome is in projects in so many things?
Starting restaurants during an entire shutdown of the industry had a lot of suck. I understand the goal, the purpose, and I understand the me through it all, where I can embrace that suck because it’s no different than pushing through and doing a few more reps on the weight bench. Those last ones suck but for good reason. It’s not suck for the sake of suck. Sometimes, I feel like living in Illinois and shoveling snow sucks for no reason because you don’t have to live here. Not all of it has to suck.
When you’re talking about embracing the suck and the outcomes you know what the outcomes are going to be. Do you find it true that in order to understand the outcome that you want, you have to know yourself first because then it becomes worth embracing the suck?
Yeah.
Because that outcome that you want, might not be something that’s possible. When I say possible, that’s totally different than the word, can’t because the outcome could be something else, or be that outcome with somebody else or doing some other thing. If it’s a relationship, job, or business, you could still get that outcome, but it might not be that road that you’re currently on to get there. That road that you’re on typically has to do with relational people. It’s business partners, industry, or whatever else but where we currently have ourselves planted in that environment, that environment might have to change in order to reach that outcome.
That environment might have to change in order to allow you to be you and you can decide when you can be you if it’s possible to be you without having that pole of somebody else saying, “No, you can’t because of.” Do you find that the word, can’t, is somebody else telling you that? You’re almost projecting. It’s the same thing. You’re projecting it onto yourself from the other person. You’re thinking what they might be thinking then projecting it back onto yourself? “They would tell me that I can’t because. I must not do that because that person knows what’s best for me. I’ve been business partners with them for years,” or, “I’ve been a brother or a sister with them for 30 years,” or, “I’ve been married to them for five years, or whatever else and they would say that I can’t because.”
You accept that you internalize it because of this dual-layered perception of what that they think that they think about me.
You can almost hear their voice when they say that too, “You can’t because of this.” “I’ll go back over here.” Now, you have to put in more effort again to not be you because of all the can’ts.
You shot another layer there. I’m sponging again. Ultimately that comes back down to the true self-discovery of yourself in the motivation. Simon Sinek said it best with Start with Why. What is my why? If my why is to please other people and hope they think that I’m cool that doesn’t go far. If that why comes all the way back to because I believe in it, I can, this is something I’m passionate about, I love the outcome and this will affect a lot of people in a great way, that’s what I’m passionate about. I’m passionate about helping people but not helping people think a certain way about me. I’m still sponging it.
Relationships are a tough one, especially coming out of this 2020 and it’s any kind of relationship too, because it’s business, person and family. There’s a family that I haven’t seen in well over a year because of what I’m going after in life because I’m being me. It was so much more effort to not be me around them when they would come over when we go out for dinner or whatever else. It’s an extended family that I’m talking about for the most part because immediate family being straight up, I’m talking siblings.
My immediate family thought I was a little crazy when I started doing the things that I’m doing now a few years back, but now it’s like, “I get it.” They eventually came back around, but the extended family might be a different story in this, too, especially those that I grew up with. If it’s close friends or other people that I consider like family friends growing up where they said, “I don’t think you should do that. You can’t do that because X, Y, Z is going to suffer in your life.” It’s not because this is what I want to do.
I see you and your brother and it’s awesome the relationship that you guys have. Because he’s the trigger guy and you’re like, “I have to go research everything,” and I’ve often looked at this as visionary and integrator and you guys are exactly that. It’s funny because he’s ready to go without having everything in place and you want the whole picture there before you go. Could you imagine being partnered with somebody, whether it’s family or not, whether it’s husband, wife, whatever, business partner, that is the same as you in that regard?
There have been moments in time that I’ve worked with different people on different projects. When I’m too similar with somebody in that regard, it has this weird feeling of awesome but it’s not because it’s like, “We’re going to go nuts.” We’re planning so granularly. We’ve got Google Docs going, Trello boards, and all this stuff going on. We’re getting so deep, and we’re into sub-ideas, “We could make t-shirts and coffee cups,” so we start designing those we’re so far off track.
We’ve been there in a bar before you and me.
I’m positive. You get so far in the weeds that it feels great because neither of us is pushing each other into an uncomfortable place. There is no balance there and we could easily spend months and months to no end down that road. If you don’t have that balance in your life, you’ve got to surround yourself with someone or people or in some way, bring that balance. Too much weight on one side might seem great but going all the way back to relationships, the two people can’t be identical. My wife is organized. She never misses a bill being paid on time and all of that. Where I’m more of, “We go for this, do that and do that,” even if it’s opening a credit card. It’s like, “We’ll never get all these paid if we open another one.” She was like, “I have never forgotten to pay a credit card.” I was like, “Oh.”
That’s crazy to me. If it’s not sitting on my dresser unfolded right next to my wallet in my keys, I will forget about it because it’s not staring at me. She’s like, “I’ve never forgotten to pay a credit card.” That is the wonderful thing about us and our relationship. Even still, in businesses so on it is a trap to be with somebody who is far too much like you and not have that balance in your team. Even if they’re not the person running the company with you there’s somebody that you can lean on for that area of weakness because it’s a drug. It feels great at first, and it’s all fun and awesome but it will not be a long-term solution to your issue if you have too much of the same.
We’re going to move into part two. Even reading so far, check out the second episode on this because we talked a lot about the word, can’t and now, we’re going to talk about the reasons why you can’t, which has to do with the word yet.
Important Links
- Dan Evans
- Start with Why
- Previous Episode of All In with Rick Jordan
