Piyush Patel: Pain as a Catalyst for Change

Summary

In this conversation, Christian Brim and Piyush Patel explore the intricate relationship between personal growth and business evolution. They discuss how the traits that drive entrepreneurial success can also become liabilities as businesses grow. The dialogue emphasizes the importance of trust, delegation, and understanding attachment styles in leadership. They also touch on the role of community support and the therapeutic process in navigating emotional challenges and fostering growth. In this conversation, Christian Brim explores the intricate dynamics of emotional communication, particularly in the context of relationships and entrepreneurship. He discusses the challenges faced by entrepreneurs, including the emotional toll of business ownership, the impact of generational business dynamics, and the importance of mental health. The conversation delves into the parallels between parental love and entrepreneurial passion, highlighting how identity can become intertwined with business success. Brim emphasizes the need for self-awareness and the dangers of self-sabotage, ultimately encouraging listeners to seek support and understand their emotional responses to failure.

Takeaways

The love for a business is akin to parental love.
Entrepreneurs must evolve personally as their businesses grow.
Transitioning from physical products to digital requires a leap of faith.
Trusting others is essential for effective delegation.
Attachment styles can significantly impact leadership dynamics.
Pain can be a catalyst for personal and business transformation.
Peer support provides valuable perspective and accountability.
Emotional processing often requires external support.
Understanding one's own limitations is crucial for growth.
Community can help illuminate personal flaws and foster change. Emotional communication is crucial in relationships.
Calmness can help de-escalate emotional situations.
Entrepreneurs must adapt to changing business models.
Generational businesses face unique emotional challenges.
Identity can become entangled with business ownership.
Entrepreneurial love mirrors parental love.
Self-sabotage often stems from fear of failure.
Mental health awareness is vital for entrepreneurs.
Support systems are essential for navigating challenges.
Understanding emotional responses can lead to personal growth.

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Transcript

Christian Brim (00:00.088)
The love of the idea of this object called a business, right? And when they talk about parental love, what that really is is, look, if either one of us had a kid in middle school or grade school and they fell off at PE, we'd stop the interview and go, right? This is how we're wired. That same wiring is the call to that business. I've gotta go, I gotta go, it needs me. It needs me more than anybody. But it's not me that's wrapped up in it.

Right. I'm there to provide much like you would provide for a child. So it's a different way to look at it. This is the Chris project where we discuss mental wellness, self-awareness and mindset with entrepreneurs and experts. Set your perceived ideas and biases aside and let's go on our journey for yourself, for your family, for the world.

Christian Brim (00:58.126)
Christian Brim joining you from the Dream Big Studios and I have with us today the interview I've been waiting for a while, the esteemed P.S. Patel. Welcome, sir. Thank you. I've been looking forward to this interview because you have been so much part of this journey that I'm exploring. So I'm going to kind of go off script here that we don't have a specific study that we've prepped. You've read a lot.

of studies. if you have one, I would love to discuss it if you have something that piques your interest that you want to discuss. But I want to start with an idea I had in an interview last week that really crystallized something for me. And that is that the character traits that we have as entrepreneurs that help us be successful at starting a business, those same character traits

then become a liability as the business grows, right? And I'd always heard in entrepreneurial circles the whole what got you from point A to point B won't get you from B to C, right? But what was interesting as I was reflecting on that was when I heard that, I was thinking in terms of people, processes, things external to me, right?

Maybe I'd need to be doing things differently, do different things in the business as the business grew, but really didn't catch that I had to change. What in your entrepreneurial journey has your experience been around that personal growth affecting the business? You know, it's no different than when we visit with our employees, right? So if the company doubles next year, does each employee's

capacity double, right? Does their intellectual capacity to manage this business double? And often most people say, no, it can't. But for some reason the entrepreneurs can, right? Cause they're the only ones sticking around. And so, yeah, I think there's a cycle of growth and that initial growth is having an infant and you're trying to figure it out and feed and diaper this little baby. And then once it starts to become a teenager,

Christian Brim (03:22.05)
you have to change your approach. And I find so many entrepreneurs stick with the diapers and baby food approach and then wonder why their business isn't growing. looking back at digital tutors, where, what did that look like in that specific business? You're having to change you. Yeah, I think it was me starting to take a lesser and lesser role every year in terms of being the voice of the company, the producer of the content, the

guy who ships everything out to starting to hire people way smarter than me and allowing them the space to grow the business. The real pivotal point of like, we're kicking the baby out of the house to let it grow up on its own was the day we decided we're no longer going to ship physical products and we're going to go streaming. And it took a leap of faith because the reality of it was, this was three years before Netflix went streaming. So customers really didn't understand what that nomenclature meant.

And so, yeah, you talk about shoving your kid out the front door and saying, go figure it out, you know, become an adult. That's when we really became an adult because at that point, nobody in the company, including me, knew what would tomorrow turn out to be like. Up until then, I had kind of just rinse and repeated my processes, just at larger and larger scales, but nothing really changed. looking back on that, that pivot.

How would you compare it to when you started the business as far as like what it took from you mentally? my gosh. When we started, it was just, I taught all day. So as a college professor, I'd get home at six. I'd work, we'd make dinner, we eat dinner, and then I'd work till about one, one 30 in the morning. Drive 20 miles down the road to drop these packages off, get up at six and do it again. And I did that for almost a year.

And so that is not sustainable. You just can't continue that. so early on there were no systems. It was just figure it out as we go and deal with the fire of the day to evolving to having the systems run the business. And so we can think about other things than fires of the day. So that initial startup was more what I think entrepreneurs call the grind, like just, just get it done, whatever it takes.

Christian Brim (05:47.02)
The mental struggle of saying, okay, I'm changing my business model. I'm essentially firing all my customers and hope they come back. What was that like mentally? Very scary. I mean, we were at, you know, millions in revenue and lots of warm bodies that work for me that I care about. And I walked in and said, okay, on this date, we're gonna pretty much shut everything down and tomorrow morning we're going to start something new.

I hope the customers get it. How did your team react to that? You know, it was mixed. had, for the most part, everybody got on board. There were a few holdouts that were like, Nope, I think we're going off the cliff. And I think they'd still believe we're going off the cliff, right? Because change is very scary. And once you've got something that's established and it works, but we had to change, right? All my cash was tied up in these plastic disks and few ordered one of everything.

That was a 26 pound box and each disc holds, let's say five, six hours of content. You're looking for a 10 minute clip. Good luck. And I think that was the hard part for us to really communicate to people, which was you don't want to go through five hours. That's an old way of thinking, but they hadn't really adopted a new way yet. And so when

How did you lead your team through that change? So you had people that were on board, had people that were not on board and had other people that said, well, I mean, I guess if this is the way we're going, we're going, you know, kind of. So how did you lead through that change? Yeah, I mean, I always say we're as entrepreneurs, we're benevolent dictators, right? And I cared about the process. I cared about what are we missing, not missing. But the reality is, is we had to evolve.

You know, just the writing on the wall, all our cash is tied up in plastic. And what do we do? So I just, look, everybody's got their own way of what I call motivation, which is a code word for manipulation. And mine is let's all rally together and we're going to do this together. Partially because I feel like if we're all going to go off the cliff, it'd be funner to go with everybody than just by myself. So I just, I.

Christian Brim (08:09.614)
dialed up the motivation, like we are gonna go change. So you know, our big B-hag, or wild crazy goal was, we're gonna become the ESPN of our industry. ESPN doesn't provide weather news. They don't really provide political news. They are sports and they are trusted. The score shows up on ESPN, it's pretty trusted. We wanna be that in that industry of visual effects and movies and video games. And you did it. And we did, yeah.

But everybody had to be inspired to go, yes, this is what we're going to become. And to do that, we have to do this. So where in that process of making that pivot, did you find that your old ways were getting in your way? Yes. So still running meetings the old way, right? So we adopted EOS and put in a system of even the cadences and the meetings and

what we're going to work on. Part of it was also me having some discipline in myself, which I don't have a lot of. and so I empowered my staff to hold me accountable. So I would run in and say, Hey, wouldn't it be great if we did this today? And they had the permission to go, that'd be great. What would you like us to stop doing? And my old way was I don't want you to stop doing anything. I just want you to do more. Right. Right. And so, you know, really understanding.

Look, I pay my people for 40 hours of work. In reality, I'm getting 26. Right. And so having that understanding that, wait a minute. I'm not, if I add more to your plate, we're all losing. Right. And so those kinds of things, I had to really change the way I approached. How do we manage our folks? How do we manage the budget of payroll? And are the things we do actually making a difference or are we just putting out more fires that we are starting ourselves?

Yeah, for me, what you're describing is patience, which I haven't met an entrepreneur yet that is patient. Like they come up with this idea and they wanted to start it yesterday and they want everybody to buy in and get on board, right? And having someone say no to that doesn't feel good. What other characteristics did you have that made you successful in the startup?

Christian Brim (10:37.888)
that became hindrances in your business? Yeah, so I grew up with a, if you want done something right, do it yourself. Looking back now, that really is just a trust factor, right? I had an unusual attachment to my parents in that I didn't know if I could trust them. So I would trust myself to do it. That's kind of what that means. And so I had to really stop doing that, right? And

What happened was my wife is my business partner. And so she comes in with a very secure attachment style. She is even keel, salt of the earth. And I am wired like a Christmas tree. So having her in my life allowed me to rely on her to go, okay, wait a minute. She's very consistent. I'm very inconsistent. Maybe I don't have to do everything myself and I can trust other people. And so that journey healed me in many other ways than just

building a business. told me, you recalled a story to me. I recall a story you told me. And I don't remember the specifics, but it was some process in your business. You had delegated authority to do something, but somehow it always ended up back in your lap. I don't remember what the process was. Is that an example of that trust factor?

Let's take it back one more step, right? So we produced a video based content for people who make movies and video games. Phase one, I will make the videos. That's me. That's I'm that guy. I make the videos. my gosh, I can't make all the videos. Now what do I do? You know what? Why don't I get a bunch of really smart people? They can prep all the videos, but I'll record them, right? Because only I can record the videos. You see the limiting factor here. The revelation of, wait a minute.

What if I stop recording the videos and I empower these other really smart people who are prepping everything to record the videos? That one was a hard one to let go because it was my voice, my image, right? And so how do I stop making essentially a show where I'm the host of the show and build out a network where we've got all of this content? That was a huge trust piece because

Christian Brim (13:02.07)
I'm hoping what they say on this video is accurate, reliable, what the customer wants, right? Not that I had all those answers, but I would trust myself to have those answers, right? And so little things like that. You know, not being in charge of the payment system. That was a huge one for me to let go. I've got to trust this team of people who are now going to manage millions of dollars coming in and out of this business.

But I need to do that because A, I'm not good at it and B, it's the worst use of my time, really. So you said it was a trust factor. You said it's self-reliance and that that goes back to you said, I couldn't trust my parents. With your permission, I would like to dig into that a little further. What do you mean when you say that? Well, I don't mean in terms of trust as in they would violate my trust, right?

So if we look at, for example, Bowlby's attachment styles, Within that attachment, there's four different types of attachment. Essentially, if you're a securely attached person, what that means is when you're a baby and you cry, your parents are gonna tend to you, take care of you, change your diaper. If you are anxiously attached, what that means is your parents may leave and then they may not come back in. When you're calling them or need them or you got a wet diaper, people are busy.

And so you start to form this reliance of like, can just do it. Or within that case, you scream even louder to let it know and I need help. I need help, right? I'm always arguing. And so, you know, my parents worked crazy, crazy amount of hours. They were just trying to put food on the table. see that now, but at the time, gosh, I didn't know if anyone was going to hold me if I need to be held. So you form these systems very early on in childhood.

and then you carry them into your adult world. And so that's what I mean by, you know, having parents who were so busy that cooing me and holding me was the least of their daily issues for the day. How many kids were in the family? Just my brother and I. Okay. And he's younger? He's six years younger. We had a large extended family that we all stayed together. Okay. So that's interesting. You bring up attachments.

Christian Brim (15:23.806)
I recently read the book Secure Love. Have you read it? Yeah, great book. It's a great book. And my wife listened to it we're kind of going through it together. And what's interesting to me is that these attachment styles, so she's avoidant, I'm anxious. And so how they play against each other, kind of feed each other.

But what's more insightful as far as the business is concerned is how that anxiety of attachment impacted the business. I can see it in the personal relationship. I could see it easier than I could see that the impact that it was having on the business. So was there at some point that you realized, hey, I'm the problem? what, like...

like a revelation of like, this is why this is wrong in the business is because of the way I'm behaving. Yeah, no, I don't think any entrepreneur could see that. We always got the right answers, right? And I surprisingly surround myself with people who also agree with me that I have the right answers. So it's really hard to really parse that out because you are constantly surrounded by people who have a vested interest in maintaining their job because of their personal needs and security, right?

And so for me, it really was closer to the sale of the business that I realized maybe this is about as far as I can take this project that I've started. And I don't know if I want to do it for another 10 years. that was part of your motivation to sell. That was, yeah. The company was never for sale and we get a phone call and it was sold in six weeks. it was. Interesting. So you, you had made a comment to me.

after the sale that you said, I'm glad we sold it when we did. Cause it was, I don't know if you use the word dumpster fire, like that there were problems, right? Were you in a space mentally to say, can I change to fix those problems to like, can I, can I level up? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if it was a, I wouldn't say dumpster fire. was, it was the healthiest it was ever going to be.

Christian Brim (17:47.406)
And then the next step of that would be such rapid growth that I probably wouldn't be the best leader for that, primarily because I get so attached to my employees and to triple the head count and really go gangbusters also comes with having to make very hard decisions about letting old folks go because you need more bandwidth, right?

And I'm not wired that way and I recognize that about myself that I would be the limiting factor of this business What I my experience is and I haven't sold my business, but I walked away from it and and when I came back Really started this journey of of change of myself but what's what's interesting to me was I didn't

start it as a change of myself. I started it as a, we're going to implement EOS because what we've been doing isn't working, right? I felt like I'd hit that limit. And, which is why I had walked away because I was so frustrated with it, right? So come back and I'm, like, I'm going to implement EOS and we're going to do this until it gets back on track. And then I'm going to exit again, cause I had lost my passion for it.

But what happened through implementing EOS was I realized that there were underlying problems. It's like, I don't know what the analogy would be, but you you put the pattern up on the wall and it starts to make sense, right? And that issue was trust. Interestingly enough, we had tried to implement EOS a few years before. Self-implement, we did not hire an implementer.

And it failed. And it wasn't until we were like year two or year three implementing EOS the second time that I realized the problem was trust. There was no trust in the organization, right? And by trust, mean, you know, I use the word trust. You know, that's an ambiguous word. I trust that you're not going to pull a gun on me as we're sitting here recording this, right? But, you know,

Christian Brim (20:13.814)
would I trust you with my infant child? I don't know. That's a different level of trust, right? And for me in the business, the trust factor was, will you do what you've agreed to do from my standpoint? But what I didn't realize is their trust factor, and there was a mutual lack of trust, right? And their lack of trust was,

Well, this is just gonna be something that you change your mind on in three or six months and go some other direction. what, or, or you're gonna ask me to do it and then you're gonna step in and fix it, right? And so there was just this overall lack of trust and that's what it revealed to me. Yeah, how'd you overcome that? I think in a lot of ways I'm, I'm, I'm still working on it, but what, what I, I think the,

The thing that was pivotal was realizing that it was me. You know, like I had to change. And that was a difficult pill to swallow, but it was also very apparent that I had to change. I didn't have a clear path as to how to change. I just knew I had to be different. And as I did and the trust grew,

the business changed immensely since we implemented EOS. So we don't serve the same customers. We don't have the same products. We don't have a lot of the same people. The leadership team is a hundred percent different. My brother, who was my partner, is gone, completely different entity. but none of that could have happened if I had not changed my

understanding of myself and my behavior. Yeah. And what was the tipping point of the pain that caused that change? Cause most people don't want to change. Well, no, no, they don't. And I think I actually at that point was anxious and avoidant, right? And so I did what any avoidant person did. I ran away from the company. Okay. Right. left my brother in charge and I started a software company.

Christian Brim (22:39.406)
That's a story for another day. what drew me back in was the business was failing. You know, it had dropped 20 % in two years and Nathan, my brother, was not cut out for that role, right? He took it because I asked him to, but he didn't necessarily want it or have the skills to do it. And so it was financial pain that pushed me back in, right? I mean, and I think you bring a very valid point is that

and maybe you can speak to this more from a clinical standpoint, is that people, I accepted a level of pain to avoid an unknown pain. That's right. Right? Yeah, a lot of people do that. And in reality, the...

I would say the pain of changing was less than the pain that I was experiencing, right? Yeah, the perceived pain was greater than the reality of the pain. Yes. And so how would you advise somebody that's been there and gone through that? And I see it now is that it's when I'm coming up to that upper limit problem, going into something that is new and I still have those fears,

It's easier for me to identify and deal with them. But, but if you're, if you're just starting out, how do you, how do you advise someone to deal with that perceived pain? mean, that's a really tough one because each scenario is different and each person is different. but I think having a peer group where you can be vulnerable and honest, shines light that

most people can't shine on themselves. And so seeing it from another person's perspective and going, are you really addressing that? You know, why are you running away from that? And it's okay. Sometimes you have to run away. You sometimes you have to step back to go, wait a minute, what am I here to do? Right. So we're both an EO in your forum. Did that peer group, help you see yourself? absolutely.

Christian Brim (25:02.446)
Absolutely. And I got to see other people get close to the edge. Some people tip off the edge, right? So I got to see people have great success in their business after huge pivots, which gave me confidence. And then I've seen people who've lost everything, which makes me a little gun shy, right? And not as overconfident as I should be. so seeing even other people's journey without EO, I would just be on my own.

on a racetrack with my own car wondering, am I winning, losing? Where am I in the pack? You don't know. But when you're with a pack, right? A little tribe going through life together, all being able to relate to each other, all of a sudden you start to see your own flaws just in what you're sharing with people, right? So why am I scared about that? Why am I running away from this? Why don't I want to address? Why do I keep bringing up the same thing every month, right?

And which is a reflection on, just don't want to deal with it. And so a little bit of accountability, a little bit of mirroring and having just some friends who can say, I understand what you're doing and what you're going through. And I don't know if I can help you, but here to listen. Well, that, that does half of it, know? Yeah. Cause I mean, you're in the therapy space. the, the, ability to process your feelings,

just by yourself is extremely difficult. Clinically, do you have any explanation for that? Why can't I sit with my emotions and sort it all out and figure it out by myself? Why do I need to, whether it's a peer group or a coach or a therapist, why do I need that? A lot of people can. So, and we do it daily, right? We're not with a therapist 24 hours a day. So, you know, we use our partners to talk to, we

talk to our family, our friends, peer groups. So we are actually doing that all the time. You know, but the therapeutic relationship, really is, I've got to stay a very even keel. My prefrontal cortex is calm and regulated. The person sitting across from me is dysregulated and moving 100 miles an hour. And within that 45 minutes, their brain is going to start to mirror me. And so as long as I stay even keeled,

Christian Brim (27:27.362)
they will match. You see this a lot with kids, right? So the kids are screaming and yelling. The worst thing the parent can do is scream louder because you're just reinforcing, yes, this is the mirroring I want you to do. If you just stay even calm and keel, it may take a little while, but they will drop down to match you because they want to communicate at the end of the day. So that's very interesting because when I did couples therapy,

marriage therapy, counseling with my wife, what I was able to notice was, know, my wife and I would have this conversation at home when we weren't in therapy, it's like, why can't we do this without her, right? And my observation was, well, she doesn't have any emotional skin in the game, right? She's not feeling vulnerable. She's not angry. She's not scared. And so she can maintain like a

I'm not a referee, you know, the calm. And I think in couples, you see that, at has been my experience in my marriage, that it's hard sometimes to get out of the emotional cycle, right? It's not the problem that you're really disagreeing about. It's the emotional insecurity that goes along with it.

coaching and consulting. If you are interested in implementing some of these suggestions that you've been hearing about or in general, you feel like there's parts of your mental game or actually your implementation strategy that you feel is lacking and you love the opportunity to actually start to build yourself into the person that can create the success that you're looking for. Please reach out vis-a-vis the link in the show notes to grab a free consultation with us to see if we can help elevate your mental or your business game. Thank you very much.

Christian Brim (29:29.238)
Now let's apply that to an entrepreneur who is faced with needing to change the business model. And now every one of those emotions is rewrapped up and it's hard. It's hard to process that on your own. you think you could have pivoted your business and gone streaming without having that peer group? Do you think you would have? No, it wouldn't have even been on my radar. This idea of reoccurring revenue, which was so early on, right. Had a form made.

do a presentation on, think I'd like to start this idea called reoccurring revenue. And I was like, wow, that's really fascinating. Tell me more about that. Mailbox money. I like that idea. How does that work? And then within a 45 minute presentation, I walked out of there going, I got to change everything, right? Just hearing that idea, hearing other people talk it through and go, wait a minute. Well, what are the pitfalls? What's the, within 45 minutes, it changed my entire life trajectory. Interesting.

Do you consider yourself open to new ideas? big time. Yeah. Do you think that's unique among the entrepreneurs? I think it is unique amongst the entrepreneur group because you started with an idea, right? I find less of that in generational businesses where

dad's or mom's legacy, can't let down. So we can't change anything even though we need to change things. So now a lot of people can break out of that cycle and I've seen them have tremendous success, but it's almost taken an event like a really, you know, clean separation of retirement or illness or something has caused the founder to step away and allow others to go, okay, I think we can make changes. Yeah, I've seen that.

and advising my clients over the years with family businesses and that intergenerational transfer. And it's fascinating to me, you know, you have on one level the economic, which is, you know, the founder needs to, or feels like they should walk away with a certain amount of economic benefit from this thing that they've built. But then there's the whole family dynamic where

Christian Brim (31:55.642)
It's even if it's a healthy relationship between the father and son or mother and daughter, whatever the parent child, it's still fraught with all of the undiscussed emotions, right? And it doesn't become about the sale of the business anymore. And so I think that's why more than anything, you don't see a lot of generational businesses being passed on like they used to because

It's just, mean, I never thought that my kids were going to go into the business, never crossed my mind, never set that expectation with them. I wonder if that is why there are fewer of those situations now, just because there's so much family trauma that gets wrapped up in it. Well, and to credit modern entrepreneurs versus older.

entrepreneurs, we are able to disconnect our identity from the business over time, where I think when you're all in as a generational business, it is your identity. So you can't turn your back on the identity of our family. Can you? That's a tough one. Well, let's talk about that for a minute because we've discussed that on previous interviews about the

self-identity being wrapped up in the business. You were talking about making all the videos and you were the voice and you were the face. And obviously you were the business, right? Talk about how you went through that separation of, know, P.S. Patel is not digital tutor, tutors anymore. My goodness. it's, it's, sold that company 10 years ago and I still struggle with it.

Right. I'll get a rant. got, I got a random email on Saturday from a kid on the other side of the planet. And he was like, one day, you please restart this business? And there's nothing like it. And it's just like, warms your heart. You're like, I'm back in the game. No, I'm not back in the game. I'm too old to get back in the game. Right. so it's just hard. I, I don't know if there's a real answer to how, how to do that, how I did it. It was, it was, process and evolution. can't.

Christian Brim (34:19.66)
point to like one day that, if I, if I did have to pick one moment, was laying on a hospital table and the guy says, we need to do a catheter up your main blood vein to check your heart. this sounds like, my God, I'm going to have a heart attack today. Right. And all I could think about is there's no way my wife could run this business. Right. Even though we're in this together, we do two totally different parts of the business.

And it's not fair to her to say, here you go, this is your retirement, right? Try to figure this out. So that was the kind of precipice that put the thought in my head. I need to work myself out of a job. This thing needs to run without me. But yet you still have feelings for the company. I do, yeah. Right? Yeah. There's a great article.

That's a few years old now, but it's, was done in, I believe, Finland and it's called entrepreneurial and parental love is entrepreneurial love the same as parental. Yes. I've read that one. We haven't discussed it yet. No one's wanted to take that one on. I don't know why, but go ahead. I want to discuss it. No, think it's, I think it's just, it's very eyeopening in the science of love. Right. So they use a Sternberg's.

triangle of love, right? And within that, they pretty much have scanned brains of entrepreneurs and brains of fathers. And they chose to work with men because there's already been a lot of data produced on love and in females. so, you know, when you stop and think, wait a minute, the same parts of the brain light up with your child and your business. You will fear the loss of the business.

You will celebrate the wins of the business. And if you go back and reread the article, what's fascinating is they actually asked these folks questions while they're in the fMRI machine. And they asked them questions like, people who don't own a business, but have children, will your child be successful? And they show a picture of their kids and they were overconfident. Yeah, yes, of course. They're definitely going to become successful. When they asked entrepreneurs the same question, were, of course, of course it's going to be successful. They could not.

Christian Brim (36:43.564)
distinguish in the brain. If you showed the two scans side by side, you would not know which one was the entrepreneur and which one was the father. Right. So we see that and you know, I'm still proud of what I built much like I'm still proud of my son, right? Who's no longer my baby child. He's 22. Right. But I still feel for him as he's, he will always be my child. Right. And so you said something that really kind of made me think.

So we discussed in a previous interview, the study on narcissistic tendencies. And then one of those narcissistic tendencies is overconfidence, right? And that's one of the things, the character traits that helps entrepreneurs be successful. But you're saying that it's also wired into that same part of the brain as we look at our children, right? And so I'm wondering if

the overconfidence that we experience in starting a business is really more love of the business than love of ourself, right? So like, it's not that I have confidence in me, and I think that's, you know, it's kind of an interesting thing because, you know, how many entrepreneurs have this strange

paradigm where they're feeling exuberance about the opportunity for their business, but at the same time self doubt about like I'm an imposter. Sure. Yeah. Those are two different things, right? They love of the idea of this object called a business, right? and when they talk about parental love, what that really is, look, if either one of us had a kid in middle school or grade school and they fell off the, at PE, we'd stop the interview and go, this is how we're wired.

That same wiring is the call to that business. I've got, I've got to go. got to go. It needs me. It needs me more than anybody, but it's not me that's wrapped up in it. Right. I'm there to provide much like you would provide for a child. So it's a different way to look at it. That's really kind of eyeopening because I, I've thought about that and, you know, we've had many conversations and forum, around the imposter syndrome over the years and like,

Christian Brim (39:12.238)
you question yourself, right? But how can you hold that in your mind at the same time that you have this confidence in your business? Right, yeah, really fascinating. you know, we'll finish this topic. So within Bowen family systems, there's this idea of triangulation, right? when I, we'll just say mother, father, fathers or mothers, doesn't matter.

The couple has a dysfunction. Oftentimes they will rope in a third person, typically the child. And it's, it's either going to be the oldest or the youngest, right? If there's more than two. And what happens is you go from this dyad, right? It's like this pair to now a triangle. But what really happens is a new dyad forms and it's usually one parent and the child are now supporting each other and scheming against the third.

Okay. And it's very dysfunctional and believe it or not, that's that generational trauma that happens. Cause that triangle then just reforms in the next generation and the next year, cause it was patterned to them. And so part of my research for my dissertation is considering and looking at if the entrepreneur sees the business as a child and within their romantic relationship, does the business become the third leg of that triangle?

And does it create unnecessary dysfunction within the relationship, specifically around marital and sexual satisfaction within that relationship, when you've got this third object that holds one person's attention more than the others? Well, yeah, and I can speak to that, to my experience. I mean, I don't know how many times, my wife and I started the business together. She left

you know, active a couple of years into it and was back and forth in the business over the years. But what I heard from her many times was, you know, that business is more important than I am. Right? Sure. Yeah. And it's from my standpoint, it was, if you flip that over and we're talking about your kid, right? You think that Catherine is more important than I am. Yeah.

Christian Brim (41:42.702)
Would it sound the same? mean, because, you know, it's kind of like, I'm just wondering if I'd had that insight back then, would I have been able to handle it differently? Because from my standpoint, I didn't think that the business was more important than she any more than I thought that our daughter was more important than she was. Right. But your behavior, though you didn't think that way, your behavior said something else that she picked up on. And because of her attachment issues,

she couldn't address it, right? She would just bury her feelings and not deal with them, right? Well, the fact that you both started it, they call that a copreneur or copreneurship where a romantic couple starts a business together. Unfortunately, they're never 50-50 partners in all decision-making. Somebody takes a dominant role and somebody takes a support role. statistically,

The male usually takes on the dominant role and the support role goes to the female partner in the relationship. And they're put in a situation where they're supposed to sympathize with the person in charge, but they're not really the parent of that business. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's a great example because we didn't treat our business vis-a-vis our relationship the same way we handle parenting. Right.

Very interesting. There's so much to dig into. Anything else that you would like to give as experience share or advice around the importance of mental health, self-awareness mindset to entrepreneurs? my goodness. Yeah, so this is my whole next chapter of my life, right?

You know, there's lots of coaches out there and I'm, I'm really starting to get into the no advice business, right? Because it's, it's unvetted for that person. and I've, and I've come to realize that even within the mental health space, there is stigma against, successful people, especially when you're, know, when you're sitting across from somebody who is just trying to make their house payment and here you are.

Christian Brim (44:06.326)
making millions of dollars a year. That's a tough, that's a tough situation to be in. And I've come to the realization that one of the things that holds entrepreneurs back the most, hopefully all your listeners can maybe sympathize with this, is this idea of cressing a peak of success and then sabotage, self-sabotage. And what that is is that

that little voice in the back of your head that says, man, when I was in ninth grade and I got bullied by that guy and he told me I was a piece of crap, that I'll never amount to anything or that uncle who said you're never going to amount to anything. You know what? I'm about to amount to something, but what if I can't? You know what I'm going to do? I'm going to shake this whole thing up so I can stay in chaos. And you know, I was going to be successful, but the market turned on me and we had to let all these people go and

We just ran out of money and all these self sabotage things. Not conscious then. I think so. Totally subconscious to just be a protective factor to stop the perceived pain from happening. And you've seen that happen. yeah. Yeah. I've probably experienced it myself. If I'm honest with myself. Yeah. I call it throwing a grenade in the meeting, right? Okay. Hey, let's burn this place down and see how we can rebuild it because I'm afraid what if it's really works?

And when I overcame that is when the company took off and it was me holding back the company for fear. What if I'm really not good at this? So what I'm going to do is I'm just going to keep everything in a state of chaos and a little bit extra control that I can exert. So that way, you know, it's not me. That's the problem. Right. When it really is. Yeah. You know, I, I, if it hadn't happened to me, I wouldn't have believed it.

I came to the realization, a few years ago that I was intentionally not making more money than, than I was, or that I should have been because I didn't want the conflict around the money with my spouse. And it was

Christian Brim (46:29.59)
It was totally subconscious. I couldn't point to any one behavior that was causing it. But, you know, the idea that just realizing that I was avoiding the conflict by removing the problem, right? How crazy? I mean, you talk about clinical, that's nuts. Why would you do that? Yeah, and I guess that's what I'm hoping that...

people gain from listening to stories like yours is that one, you're not alone. We've all been there. Two, to really start a process of self-evaluation. Like, why do I do the things that I do? Why do I feel the way that I do? And dig into that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's critical, right? Because we as individuals have to continue growing if we're going to expect

business to grow. And then you also have to understand, I need to let somebody else manage this big machine, even though I got it started when it was just a wrench, right? But now it's so complex. And I'm also a big believer in, you know, simplifying. But as soon as you simplify, it's going to become complex again, and you got to simplify complex. That's the cycle, right? What you can't do is get wrapped up in

I want to keep it simple because I'm afraid of it getting complex. I'm going to keep it. I hear this a lot. we don't want to add any new customers. You know, we're happy where we're at. Says nobody, right? Except folks that are very fearful that if I take this next leap, what if it doesn't work? I'll just stay where I'm at. It's safe. And I'm not saying all businesses need to go gangbusters and

Do you know, change the world and do all of that, right? but why stay in a state of stress and pressure when a little bit of extra growth can alleviate that. Yeah. And, and, and to your point earlier, you made that the pain of the change is, mean, in my experience, it's always been less than the pain I was experiencing. Yeah. Yeah. Typically is. Yeah. But the fear response.

Christian Brim (48:52.918)
It's way stronger in that moment. That fear response is way stronger than any pain. Well, it, it, it reminds me, of the book, the big leap. Have you read that? It's some Stanford psychologist. He's written multiple books, but that's one of them. And he talks about, calls it an upper limit problem. When you get to that point, when you're going into unknown territory, how your, your mind and, and by proxy, sometimes your body.

will start shutting down and sabotaging you, which is what you're talking about and how to get through that. And I think for me, it's gotten easier. The fear response doesn't necessarily wane, but it's like, okay, I know what this is and I know how to handle it.

You know, the very extreme end of this is suicide amongst entrepreneurs. And part of that is the fear of failure publicly, right? The fear of, you know, gosh, what if I am that person that's not successful and I've built this? not that I shouldn't say I'm fascinated by that. That's an area that I want to eventually spend a lot of time helping folks through that process, just because

It's already lonely being an entrepreneur, right? And then you get your identity wrapped up into it. And then if we think about entrepreneurial love is similar parental love and your, you know, business dies and you don't really know how to grieve that. And so many therapists are like, but why are you grieving that? Right? It was a job. It's a business move on. And so.

without the real understanding that no, this is like a child to that person and they have to grieve that process and create a structure of grieving around that. I find that very interesting. is and it's compelling. I don't know, did I share the story of what started this? I didn't tell you about my client. Okay, so I had a client, this is

Christian Brim (51:18.338)
probably 10 years ago, had a successful business, was in his 50s. And it had grown way beyond what he had thought it would or probably what he wanted it to be. And he just got tired of the grind. And so he wanted to hire a president to run his company. And he asked me to go on the interview. And we go to lunch and this guy proceeds.

over the course of an hour to openly braggadociously talk about his adultery. And we left the lunch and my client asked me, well, what did you think? And I said, well, if he treats his wife's relationship like that way, if he cheats on her, he's gonna cheat on you. And my client hired him anyway.

A year later, the president was arrested for trying to bribe a contract officer and proceeded to throw my client under the bus. And my client, I believe him, he said, I had no idea this was going on. he didn't, you know, from my standpoint, he didn't need to. Not only was that not who he was, there was no reason for him to, right? He gets sentenced to El Reno State Penitentiary or Federal Penitentiary for two years.

The president, you know, being the first one to roll, got off, you know, didn't spend any time in jail. And then a month before his release, his scheduled release, he killed himself in prison. I never talked to him after he went to prison. So I don't know what was on his mind. But what I came away from that was he, you know, his wife was adamant that he didn't kill himself.

And I'm like, yeah, but no one had a reason to kill him. I mean, it's a minimum security prison. It's not like there's gangs, you know, I mean, I think he couldn't face the consequences of that failure. And then I go back to his decision to hire this guy in the first place. And I didn't understand the pain that he was in, right? Like I'm so sick of running this business that I'm going to hire a known cheater to do the work for me. That's how, and.

Christian Brim (53:46.638)
And, you know, I think that's what I'm wanting to get out there is just the discussion. Like you're not alone. You need to talk to somebody and don't go down that path.

Christian Brim (54:02.232)
Thank you for listening to The Chris Project. You are important. Your work is important. Do not give up.