When Have I felt Lost?
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Audio Transcript:
Have you ever been asked a question that kind of stops you in your tracks, and you think, oh, how am I going to answer this?
And not like a math question of how hard is this, or whatever, you know, so the bullet, you shoot a bullet on a speeding train, whatever, you know, not that. More like soul type question. Well, I'm going to answer one of those today.
So before I get into that, though, I do want to ask, if you have, if you find value in this, I would love for you to drop a review in whatever podcasting app you're listening to, or whatever, and we, I hear this on podcasts all the time. You hear it.
I don't typically ask for that a bunch, but, you know, knowing if this is valuable to you, you know, rate it. That'd be cool. You know, give us whatever stars you think is is is deserved in terms of what we're putting together here.
You know, if you want to share your thoughts about a particular episode or whatever, I just really appreciate it. So all right. First up, do you think your imposter syndrome ever completely goes away or is it just something you learned to manage?
This is a great question. OK, so this is about Frank. So if you've been following along, you know that I have an imposter syndrome that I have named Frank, and I have actually leveraged him many times to be better.
But it doesn't mean that it's always positive. It kind of grinds me sometimes and all that. And so we've talked about that.
But this question in particular is, you know, does it really ever go away? And I don't know. I got to tell you, from my experience, it does not.
It does not. Maybe yours does. I hope.
Maybe first. Well, I don't know. Again, I see mine as an asset.
So I want Frank to be here. So I've embraced him in that way. But I'm telling you, even when I'm not actively thinking about him and thinking about what's there, it will, he talks and creeps up.
So I got to think that's kind of innate, but maybe, I don't know your psychology, maybe it's different. We all have voices in our heads, and I'm not trying to, you know, discount true mental challenges and health and stuff. But I doubt it does.
I doubt it ever goes away. But I guess, again, my point, I didn't, I'm not trying to make it go away. I've embraced it.
I've found him to be an asset for me. And I know I begin to sound a little loopy as I talk about that.
But having that additional me, but the critical me, that I can, I guess, if I try to fight it, and I try to push him away, I wonder if I don't like ignore something that's a part of me.
Because remember, I think the reality is, sometimes Frank is right, and I need to hear him. And I need to take that advice and work on it. I just can't let it crush me.
So anyway, I've not seen him go away, but I've also not embraced him. But I tried to kick him away early. I think a lot of us do, because we don't want that.
Like, you know, it's got to be all positive self-talk. We've got to get in affirmations. And trust me, I absolutely am a 100% proponent behind the stories you tell yourself matter.
And so those narratives in our heads are important. And I guess that, for me, that's why, instead of recognizing it as just me or as some voice from the inner depths, I just put a name on it, and it's my ride along. He's my ride or die guy.
He's going to be there, and he's going to antagonize me at times and whatever, but it's a value to me. So I haven't seen him go away. If you have, I'd be interested.
If anybody's been able to make it go completely away and they like that life better, I'd be interested to hear about it. All right, next question. Along the same line, still on posture.
This is an interesting topic that brings a lot of interest. If someone is listening right now who feels they aren't good enough for the role they're in, what's the first thing you tell them to do? The first thing.
So first of all, I always struggle giving advice. I don't know your situation, but I can tell you in my experience with people that I've worked with who are concerned about whether they're doing well or not.
You know, there's different groups of people here. Sometimes it's the people who are doing fantastic. They're killing it.
They're absolute winners, yet they don't think they're doing well. Some people are killing it. They know they're killing it and they want you.
They want to act like they don't think they're doing well, so they can hear you tell them they're doing well. You know, it's just a fact. This is part of it.
But other people are not killing it, and they think they're, they know they're not killing it, and they want to hear from you that they're doing well, and they're not going to like for you to hear them. You know, they're going to like what you hear.
You might say, you're not doing well, and here's what could help you do better. And then there's a lot of folks that aren't doing well and don't believe it. They think they're doing awesome, and that is what it is.
So this camp, I guess, could be several different of those groups, and I think I'll address the folks who are doing, I'll address all of you.
If you hear that voice and you're thinking you're not doing well, you probably should listen to it first and say, am I not? And like objectively figure it out. So what's the first thing to do?
Well, feedback, feedback, feedback. We just talked about it in the last couple of episodes. It's awesome to get feedback.
Now you got to get feedback from the right people and all that. So there's certainly some self-assessment. You don't want to go wild and half-cocked because just ask people generally, hey, give me some feedback.
You may not get something constructive. And so from my experience, I want to think about, well, what do I think I'm failing? Where do I think I'm falling short or whatever it is?
And then I'll shape some questions or some outreach to folks I want feedback. It doesn't have to be a forum like we did, or it doesn't have to be anything super formal or anything. It could just be a question.
But I'll have a couple of questions. And so I'll make sure I can get to the quick on what's the thing I think I'm failing at. Sorry for the dangling prepositions of my own language or teachers of all my life.
But anyway, the things that I think I'm failing, I can ask that person specifically about it. Maybe it's a skill or it's a technique or work ethic, whatever you think it is.
Then I would also add some general stuff, because what they might be able to supply you with is general things that may, fundamental, foundational things, that might help you be better.
I think about advice that I've gotten through the years when I thought I needed advice about, how many of us want to work around the margins of our health, right? We want to focus on this latest new vitamin or whatever else.
And the advice you might get back is, you could ask, hey, is my vitamin regimen okay?
And somebody could say, I don't know what your vitamin regimen, but you're staying up late playing video games or watching movies or whatever else, or hanging out or going to the bar, whatever it is.
And then you're getting up early and trying to go to work, you're not getting enough sleep, and you're not eating well, and all the basic fundamental things.
So I guess, yeah, you may not be performing well, and you might think it's something that you should ask about it, but you also ask that general piece under there.
So again, I hate to give advice because I don't know your situation, but I wouldn't just ignore it. I wouldn't just ignore it. It's there for a reason.
And if you find consistently that you think you're not doing well, and the feedback around you is consistently, you're doing awesome, I still wouldn't lose that edge. I still wouldn't lose that edge.
But I think it's okay to go ahead and maybe let yourself off the hook a little bit, and maybe not let it haunt you. So I guess that's what I'd say. Now, if you're not asking, if you've never questioned, am I awesome or not?
Am I doing well today? You might be in that last group, so you may just want to check in and get some feedback somewhere to make sure you are killing it, if you care. And if you listen to this podcast, you care, right?
Or you wouldn't probably listen to it. Okay, here is the question that I really... On the surface, I can answer this.
I could answer this easily, and it would be no big deal. But we're trying not to be on the surface, right? Trying to be authentic and genuine, and that's uncomfortable, and I don't dig it.
And as you know, I got Frank in my back of my mind, say, who cares? Nobody wants to hear your stories. But here we go.
You seem to have a strong sense of purpose, but have you ever hit a moment where you felt completely lost? And how did you work through that? So there's not just one moment.
I feel lost lots of times. And that's part of, you know, the more you're lost, the more you learn to kind of self-orient and get direction. And so that's and rely on those around you and the signs and all the kinds of things.
So that's a whole podcast if we want. But I felt lost many times. But I remember the time that came to me that thought I didn't I was like, OK, that but what else can I talk about?
And it just kept feeling inauthentic to not share this one. So here we go. The time I felt the most lost may be in business.
Let's just talk about that. Boy, you know, just like four more things with my mind of life and as a father or husband or whatever. But let's talk about a business moment.
We were I don't know what year it was. It's been a while. We were we were struggling.
The economy was struggling. Our market was struggling. We had just been served several curveballs, if you will, or storms or whatever, whatever challenges, adversity, whatever you want to use.
It was it was bad. It was a it was a confluence of outside and inside events. You know, things maybe I'd made some strategic decisions that weren't right.
We over invested. We under delivered all the things. Right.
And it was one of those moments where we'd already been through a couple of those. And I was tired. I was I was I was kind of toast, to be honest.
I still love the people I worked with. But I was like, this is my the experiment that we're trying to run, that is mountain leverage, is a failure. It's failed.
The experiment, you can't do this. You got to do it like everybody else told me to do it. You've got to do it in the way that all the businesses run.
You got to not care about your employees. You got to just grind it in. You got to do all the formal things.
You can't be real. You can't be a full human in the midst of your work and all the things. Right.
Throw them all up there. You've heard me talk about in the podcast. If you haven't, you'll hear more in the future.
But I just thought this is over. I've just I've just failed here. And we were we we had no no money to pay payroll.
There's things that was a smaller company at the time, but we just toast. And I was I had resigned myself to say this is over. It's time to probably just shut the doors and close up shop and everything else.
And this this is a testament to the people you surround yourself with. So I'm super transparent in on this, but also in our business. So people know what's going on.
And there was no hiding it, but they didn't know where I arrived. And I remember grabbing everybody together. And we're remote calls, so remote company.
So this was a call. We got together on a conference call. And I don't think it was a video call, honestly.
It may have been a video call, but either way, we got everybody together and just kind of laid out there. So here we are, guys. It's it's here's where here's where we are.
And I think they probably all knew. I mean, if you asked him now, they probably knew I was I was done. I was I was toast.
But something in them and not just like a slow clap builds, it wasn't like that kind of thing in a movie. It's something in it was in each of them. Most I mean, maybe all of them, I would assume.
But they all kind of rallied out, rallying together. And it was there was like a decision like, how do we do we continue to work without pay? Do we continue to do without a guarantee?
It's not like we had some big contract was ready to just pay and we had delayed payment. We didn't have the pipeline. We didn't have the revenue.
We didn't have there was we didn't have necessarily a plan because it was all this new stuff just hit. We burned up our cash.
It was one of those moments and there was no big, there was no sugar daddy for this hillbilly that was going to fund us through. And so, but they all they had this hope and this agency that we would figure this out together and we would push through.
And I got to tell you, that was a moment that I just was blown away. And they drugged me. They tied me to the boat, not in a keel-haul kind of way.
I mean, I guess I should say, tied me to the boat. They carried me through, I don't know, was it days? Was it weeks?
Was it months? They carried me and buoyed me. And I finally got my stuff together and really kind of got back on my feet and said, okay, let's do this.
They led me, they pulled me through this. And then they said, okay, now lead us. And I could tell you, that was an experience.
And when I look at this and say, have I been completely lost? I was super lost. And as a leader, that's a hard moment because you are the one that's supposed to lead.
You're the one supposed to know. You're supposed to have the ideas. You're supposed to have the vision and the way for how to get out of this.
And I didn't have any of that. And nor did I have the energy or the heart to even keep pushing. And every story you read about a leader coming through a business challenge, what else?
They're almost always written as, you know, and I stood up through. Yeah, I mean, I've done that at times for sure. But this is not a proud moment for me.
I was I and Reneman's never quit. I mean, we don't give up. And I was ready.
I was ready to give up, but they weren't ready to give up on me. And that was big. So so, you know, that's that's the question I didn't really want to answer on a podcast.
But here we are. We're doing it. So how did I work through it?
Well, those were those moments where sometimes you can't work through it.
Sometimes you have to rely on the people you've surrounded yourself with, which is why it's so important to surround yourself with people who get you, people who who who align with your vision, who align with what you want to do.
For me, if I was around people who were just there for a paycheck and just there for and, you know, I know it's popular today to say, don't do anything for the company because they won't do anything for you.
I get all that and find, you know, repost it and like it. And OK, let's all hate on the company. I get it.
But when you when you build a company of people who with the company, there has to be a construct and organization to bring us together to help us do that. You know, so that's just that's the construct we're working in.
When you gather a group of people around you that are like minded, that have that vision and have the the the heart and the willingness, the agency and the hope to put all this together.
When when you have that moment where you're completely lost, the point of being completely lost is you don't know what to do. And for me, that's what that's all pulled through it.
I could show you lots of stories where I felt completely lost and I'm like, oh, I'm not lost and I doubled down or whatever else. I've done that. Yeah.
So we've got those stories as well. But this is the one that I wouldn't. This was like the one I couldn't get around when I saw the question.
And, you know, don't ask questions like this makes it makes it hard to be genuine because if I don't share it, but here we are. So I've shared it. It is what it is.
It doesn't make me magic. It makes those around me magic. And I love it.
Yeah, sure. I bring my magic to the table, too. But this was a moment where I was out of magic, man.
Whatever movie you want to watch, the wand was empty. The spell didn't work. Whatever.
Right. And they did. And I will never forget that.
Never forget that. So when there is a challenge today, all these years later, when there is a challenge today, that moment doesn't leave me. That stays pretty close.
And I draw on that often. And I also, I remember that moment. And it also has helped me to really try to manage and lead in a way where we don't get into a moment like that again, because I had some blood on my hands there.
You know, that was probably, how could you, as a company, everybody says, oh, I blame the economy. I blame this. Yeah, OK, those are things that there's always something happened.
There's always another storm to come rock your boat. But as the ship captain, did you turn the boat in the right way? Did you stay out of the water?
Did you see the storm coming? There's so many things. And that's that's my role in the company.
So how could you not have blood on your hands there? And so so it's really helped me be more sensitive to that. And I've I've not lost it.
I don't dwell on it, but I've not lost it. And who knows, there might be another moment like that. God forbid, there might be another moment like that coming in the future.
We've had lots of challenges. We've never been down to that that moment again. But again, it's important to surround yourself with the people that get you that are part of what you're trying to do.
So anyway, didn't know we'd get there. Here we are. I hope that what I do here is value to you.
You know, I get I get feedback from from folks and I really appreciate it. I think it is my my my buddy Frank back there in my head tells me that how can it be valuable why you're up here blabbering? But I hear from you that it is.
And so I'm not I'm not pandering. Don't it's fine. I'm just saying.
So we'll continue. So we'll continue this. And so with that, I would just ask you, I know I asked earlier to review the podcast, start however you think it should be started.
Make a comment if you want. But I'm also going to ask, you know, right now, really deliberately, if you're getting any value out of this thing, share it, please share with just one person. I mean, you won't put it on your feed.
That's that's cool, too. I mean, some of you people are rock stars in your space and all that. And so I'm sure that'll go great.
But just to share with people that that you think might benefit from this. And I'd appreciate it. So anyway, if you've got questions, you know, again, you want to ask you to to accumulate these questions and put them together.
You know, we'll do another Q&A episode in the future as well. But you can send a note to flourish at reneman.com. So that's flourish at R E N E M A n.com.
And I'll answer as many as I can on an upcoming Q&A show. So anyway, thank you all. Thanks for following me on this journey.
Hopefully it didn't get too touchy feely and sappy and all that. But hey, man, that's all part of the tapestry that is me in that regard. So all right.
Hey, I don't know what you're doing this Friday or whatever day it is, but I hope wherever you are and whatever you're doing, you are flourishing.
Alex Reneman is the founder of Mountain Leverage and Unleash Tygart and host of Flourishing w/ Alex Reneman. For 20+ years he has worked as CEO of Mountain Leverage, honing the concept of flourishing and experimenting with it in the business. In July of 2024, he decided to begin to share this idea with others, which led to his podcast, social content, and the plans for other initiatives in the future.
