In this episode of Hello Chaos, host Jennifer Sutton welcomes Keith Ablow, the founder of Pain to Power and Help 22. They dive into Keith's entrepreneurial journey, discussing his experiences and lessons learned along the way. Tune in to hear the real, raw, and honest stories that epitomize the chaos of entrepreneurship. This episode is brought to you by Orange Whip, a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs.
[00:02:45] Every business is a story.
[00:07:10] Repurposing pain as power.
[00:10:39] Self-defeating decision-making.
[00:16:12] Ingenuine.
[00:18:00] Becoming a shrink through listening.
[00:23:56] Sharing our vulnerabilities and pain.
[00:29:11] Fear of failure in startups.
[00:31:06] Trusting those with a limp.
[00:36:43] Pursuing passion despite rejection.
[00:40:23] Losing passion and finding purpose.
[00:44:19] Finding your true purpose.
[00:48:30] The power of storytelling.
[00:53:53] Empowering individuals to become themselves.
Swell AI Transcript: Ep. 73 Keith Ablow.mp3
SPEAKER02: Wait, what?
SPEAKER01: Well, there we are. Welcome to Hello Chaos, a weekly podcast exploring the messy and chaotic minds and lives of founders, entrepreneurs and innovators. We talk to founders and entrepreneurs from different industries at different company stages of all shapes and sizes. We take care of the spectrum of foundership. We hear real, raw, and honest stories that are, you know, and why our mantra is where aha meets oh shit. These are raw and unbiased. We have new episodes that drop every Sunday, so get you ready for the week ahead. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That is OrangeWIP, W-I-P, for work in progress. OrangeWIP is a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs and affiliate cities through hyper-local media platforms that are designed to inform, inspire, and create connections to help founders succeed. OrangeWIP is an all-in-one content hub for founders with fresh and engaging stories, curated calendars, and a dynamic roadmap to navigate the local ecosystems. We've done all the hard work for founders in these markets, so they only need to go to one trusted place to find all the local information they need. Every market that has an entrepreneurial ecosystem needs an OrangeWIP. My name is Jennifer Sutton. My friends and family call me JJ, and I'm the founder of OrangeWIP, and I'm your podcast host today. And we have Keith Ablowa, the founder of Pain to Power and Help 22. But you've done a lot, Keith, and I want to welcome you to our podcast. Welcome to Hello Chaos.
SPEAKER_00: I appreciate it. Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_01: Well, why don't you just start us out and tell us about your entrepreneurial journey?
SPEAKER_00: Well, so everything I've done in my professional life revolves around story and getting the narrative to hang together and be a nonfiction narrative. Even when I'm writing novels, which I've done, written a bunch of novels, a bunch of nonfiction books, 16 in all, a couple of bestsellers. But the real message that I'm trying to deliver is that everything's a story. So everybody's life is a story. Every business is a story. That's right. So, you know, when you create a deck or you put together a team or you try to effort putting together the company, it's all about is the story nonfiction? Right. Because the fiction will kill you. And and that's also when I started pain to power, which is essentially coaching for individuals and CEOs and founders and entrepreneurs. Basically, it's because people have an inherent desire to avoid pain. Right. And so we tend to gloss over the trouble spots in our lives, sometimes in chapters long ago. And those two, those complications, if you can't understand them, then they'll manifest themselves later as either depression or anxiety or bad choices. Same thing when you're starting a company, very often in the back of your mind, you know that there's something about it that doesn't make sense. It's a pain point. And you gloss over it because it's more comfortable to tell a fun story, one that tends towards success. But in the end, getting into the pain makes you more powerful. And every founder, I'm a founder too, every founder knows that it's in those painful periods as well of the journey that you might find the most important strength. that your company needs to develop or exploit. And anyhow, flexing your muscles as a founder, entrepreneur is part of the journey too. You're getting tougher, smarter, faster, wiser.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, my goodness, you're speaking my language. I was, I mean, I could just, I'm almost speechless. There's so much things I could, you know, so many things I could talk about. You are, because I'm a brand branding strategist. So we talk about, you know, what is the essence of your brand, and it really starts with your vision and really uncovering The the good the bad the ugly and one of the reasons we wanted to start hello chaos and talking about founder stories Is it's really those it's those. Oh shit moments those really painful painful moments is where actually the aha's happen and and that's where you can find kind of those those magic moments within not your own only yourself as a founder and But those aha moments are what really drives and can stimulate and grow your company. And the people around you. So, oh, my goodness. Okay. So, keep going. So, how did you get involved? were you you know already a storyteller and uh so you know that that led into this like how what inspired um the pain to power um and then you also have an organization called help 22 what inspired these so help 22.org is is really the same
SPEAKER_00: basic message, but it's targeted toward veterans who have survived very difficult things. It was born because 22 veterans a day take their lives almost incredibly and tragically. That has the same message, that not-for-profit has the same message, which is to repurpose your pain as power basically, you know, to sit and allow things to develop, sometimes the hardest thing to do is to stay and watch what's going to happen. I always tell founders, clients who are life coaching clients, or friends, if you're in a movie cinema, one thing you'll never see when the main characters in trouble is people throwing their popcorn away in the middle of the film and saying, let's get out of here. Tom Cruise is in a jam. Let's go. He's going to run. It's all ruined. No, everybody does the same thing. They sit there and they say, I wonder what's going to happen. Now that takes a lot of power, a lot of strength to do that in your own life and in your own company, um, when things are really tough, but you know, you can't sell a screenplay and I've sold a few. You can't sell one if it doesn't have plot points in it. Plot points are points at which everything changes generally for the worse before there's a resolution. So you have to expect that if you can anticipate it, then you're steeled against being blown back in your chair and throwing your hands up and saying, I can't do this. We're either gonna be out of money or my God, the patent didn't issue or my God, my God, there are lots of those moments. That's called, your story, right? And living through it, and it'll make you stronger, but sometimes it's very difficult. So it's difficult for people in their lives, and it's difficult for people in their companies. But if you can reorient and say, well, my job here is to stay seated to watch what happens, and also to have, I tell people, look askance at the tough things that happen to you. So in my own life, when tough things have unfolded, nobody's immune to them, by the way. And when you're going through them, I've found it can be very helpful to sort of say, well, that that's interesting. Sort of, that's interesting. Yeah, puts it not quite as a dagger in your own heart. And you can say, I wonder what's going to happen. How is this going to be repurposed to the good? Because that's what happens. I know it sounds perhaps Pollyanna-ish or overly optimistic, but it isn't. Everything that happens is meant to make you stronger, whether as a person, a leader, an entrepreneur, or your company. It's all meant to make you stronger. It's actually not meant to make you disintegrate and give up.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So the message.
SPEAKER_01: So when you're talking with founders and you're coaching them and you know, are you, or for companies, is this kind of in that brand, I'm gonna call it the brand story framework or kind of like that best screenplay where, you know, as a founder, am I the protagonist or am I the guide? You know, how do you relate kind of that storytelling and those plot points as the founder?
SPEAKER_00: That's a great question, JJ. I think it's a combination of an autobiography and a biography. So you find the story of your company, but it's also your story. And I like to think of myself as a co-author. So I'm not like a coach from on high or someone who says, you need to be accountable. I might say that, I also, for better or worse, lean in and I summon my Rolodex and my creative chops and I say, all right, well, this is now my story too. So I'm a co-author of your existence if you are going to be a client in that way, trying to perfect your life story or your company's evolution if we're working on your company. And sometimes it's both because the two are often inseparable. Because it's hard when you're efforting something that's so close to your heart and that means so much to you. You're the musical instrument that's playing the song. And so if you're tempted to give up or if you're making decisions that are self-defeating, we're going to figure it out. And that's what I like having practiced psychiatry for 30 years. It's not like I throw my CEOs and founders on the couch, but I do a little bit. Yeah, they need it. Because, right, because I can't tell you the number of times that the decisions that people make in their businesses or in things that they really care about were dialed in from dynamics that came very early on in their lives. And we tend to bury those things because they're hard to understand or they're painful. The trouble with that is that they then tend to repeat themselves because they're very deeply felt. So if these things happen when you're nine, 10, 11, 15, growing up, early defeats, disappointments, losses, they register so powerfully because you were young and it was new and these were major characters in your story. Because of that, the intensity of it reverberates.
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: You're likely to either avoid things that you think might harken back to those moments or to reproduce them. Neither one is generally good. Right.
SPEAKER_01: So it's like somebody that if you grew up and didn't know how to handle disappointment or challenges, like the resiliency, right? You know, your rubber band hasn't been stretched. When you go into being, you know, becoming a founder and a leader and a, you know, that stretchability will manifest its way out, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. Exactly. I mean, if you had controlling parents, right, you may not be able to tolerate someone with very good but pointed ideas. Now, those are the people you want in your organization. Yeah. Patsies. But if you have glued together the early pages of your life story so you can't read them yourself because they're so jarring or you think that they're so shadowy, then you're going to avoid it. And you're going to say, why is it that the people I end up hiring don't challenge me? don't seem to take the reins. And believe it or not, you know, sometimes we trace the roots of that to, well, tell me about your dad. Well, yeah, he never let me get a word in edgewise. And he was authoritarian and this and that. Okay, well, isn't it interesting that you have nobody who speaks his mind in the company or her mind? So that happens.
SPEAKER_01: I often do marketing workshops for a lot of companies and I talk about it's almost like a therapy session because we're uncovering stuff as a team. I'm wondering, when you go into a company or work with founders, Obviously, you're a psychologist, so you're getting kind of that therapeutic energy in there, and you're uncovering a lot of the insights. How are the founders relating to it, or how does the team relate to it, if you're kind of coaching a business?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you know, it's interesting because Well, while people might think, or I might have before I did this for a long time, that when you meet the past in the present moment, that you want to run from it, or that you're terrified of it, or you find it upsetting, the opposite is true. So people actually are warmed by the opportunity to connect the dots and have these aha moments where they're like, what?
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And to say that I'm making these decisions based on something we can literally trace, sort of like a divining rod, back to early life experiences I had, I'm amazed. Is that possible? And so it's kind of like a moment of epiphany. People can have, if people haven't done this work, they can expect and they should expect more than one moment of epiphany. They say, wow, I mean, this really adds up. I can't dismiss it. If you could dismiss it, by the way, then it lacks the ring of truth. Right. Right. People always say to me, well, how do you know if that's the real story? Once you borrow to the core, how do you know you're at the core?
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Because the person will say almost like levers flipping or dominoes falling. Oh, my God. Wow, that's it. And human beings, that's the other reason that companies don't work if they have fiction involved in them. Human beings have a sixth sense of truth.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. We can sense out inauthenticity, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, as a brand person, I think you might agree, JJ, that if something is faked, forget it. It's not going to work.
SPEAKER_01: Right I mean you know that's we can sniff out a brand you know like I'm not gonna do business that brand it's it's yeah fake it's inauthentic or it's um it just it feels uh Ingenuine. Why do I want to do… and that goes to the people behind those logos, right? The people that started it. It's, you know, if that founder is fake and authentic… I'm not going to say that word. Ingenuine. Yeah. uh or or even like we the inconsistency I mean even in in things that I you know I've tried to work on as a founder of you know I've got these thoughts and and I've got to be very consistent of of and be committed um and we tell that with brands that we work with of you need to be consistent you need to be um committed to whatever that message is, but because if you're not, it comes across as complacency, which is also not good. So that's interesting. So Pain to Power, did you write a book on that subject?
SPEAKER_00: I wrote a book called Living the Truth, which for all intents and purposes could have been called Pain to Power. I thought of retitling it, but basically that's the same notion. And I've done a bunch of white papers and tools that people can use, action sheets at my website, Paying to Power. Okay. The number two, payingtopower.com that people can have for free. But basically I kind of keep selling the same inborn, maybe, ability that I have. I have this sixth sense for when I'm like, yeah, that doesn't feel like the real story. It kind of bugs me. I mean, most of becoming a shrink can be summed up with listening to yourself as you're listening to other people. If you can refine that ability and say,
SPEAKER_01: Something's not right here. Something's not adding up.
SPEAKER_00: Right. Exactly. Something doesn't feel right. And then, you know, also if you can put yourself in the shoes of, for instance, a potential client or customer of the venture that's being started. Yeah. Saying, so wait a sec. So, all right. So I, I order this or I sign up for it or I become a client of yours. And why does that feel good for me? Why does that advance? what I want and how do I know it from the beginning? Because that's also part of the story. And so, we all know that sometimes, right? So you'll get something delivered to you or you'll use something online and you'll be like, wow, this really does what it says it would do. And it's useful to me and I don't have glitches and OK, I'm going to make it part of me.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Right. And people, what do they want to make part of them? Not lies. They really don't unless they have trouble in their own backstories that they want to collect lies. Otherwise, they want the real deal. That's the whole notion of branding anyhow. Like, I mean, think about it like these brands that are worth a zillion dollars. They didn't do that by accident. That's why they destroy their excess goods and won't discount them and send them to discount retailers. Because they're like, look, it's going to do damage to the overall story. And you can't cheat. The world's almost perfect that way. You can't cheat anyone about anything.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to get found out.
SPEAKER_00: You'll get found out.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to get found out. It's not going to work.
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's what I like to do. I like to help people to say, listen, there's nothing to run from. We'll look at the weak parts, the parts that need work. Let's see if everything's authentic, if everything holds together as a nonfiction story, including you. And, you know, let's really think about the feedback you're getting also from people around you. Are you keeping your team together, telling you they can't work for you. Just tell me. Just tell me.
SPEAKER_01: What's the friction? Like, what's the friction in your life?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't do to, you know, I've been in therapy myself. And yeah, so and it doesn't do to go in and not share the truth. I'll give you an anecdote. When I was chief resident in psychiatry, And so my colleagues were saying, you gotta go, you haven't gone to therapy. So I go to this guy who's an 80 year old man named Dr. Man, which was, and he said, why are you here? And I, I was spinning, uh, you know, well, my colleagues say to come in this, you know, there's this girl, blah, blah, blah. And he looked at me at 80 years old and he said, do you ever get the sense as you're talking that you're completely full of crap? And I said, sometimes. And he said, well, it's your time and it's your money and it's your life. And if you want to waste all three, I guess I'll sit here with you. Right?
SPEAKER_01: It's like, you're like, oh my God.
SPEAKER_00: All three, you know, especially my life. And so from that moment, I think, since Dr. James Mann told me that, I said, that's it. That's like, why would you want to waste any of that? Let's get to the raw unfettered truth. And very often it's not pretty, but it's always healing.
SPEAKER_01: Does somebody have to be humble to be able to embrace this thinking? Or do you have to go in and go, okay, this person has massive ego or arrogance. I got to really chip down at that. I'm just I'm I'm just curious of does it take a certain personality trait to be able to do that kind of homework on themselves?
SPEAKER_00: I think they have to feel safe and in the company of someone who knows that they are imperfect and doesn't mind. Right. And knows that we all are. Right. So it's about kind of cajoling and reassuring Um, someone that, listen, you're in the right place. Like, dude, right? Like I, I like to say, listen, you told me you're married and it's been 20 years and you say, everything's great. How could that be? That's not possible. Impossible. I've never heard. Who are you? Are you from another planet? What's wrong? Tell me the stuff that's wrong. I can't help you as much with the stuff that's great. I had a talk show for a year that was a nationally syndicated talk show. Before the cameras rolled in order to get the audience… So you're like a Dr. Phil. I know, except it didn't go as well. It was canceled for a year. But nonetheless, yes, I was going to be Dr. Keith, like Dr. Phil. Still hurts. I'm sorry, sorry.
SPEAKER_01: Didn't mean to bring up that pain.
SPEAKER_00: AJ, Dr. JJ. So yes, so I used to tell the audience before we would roll the camera, listen, if we all, all 200 of you or whatever, if we all stood up and read from the top three lines of our resume or shared our greatest accomplishments in life, we would leave this room, all of us strangers. Nobody would care. If on the other hand, we shared the things, one thing that we're really loathe to share, because we think it paints us in a bad light, or it's the thing that caused us the most pain in our stories. We would leave this room moved. and connected. And what's more, if only a few of us did that, all of us would still be connected, because that's what really binds people together is what you've survived. Not the awards. It's nice. You got an award or you made a ton of money. That's not what really connects people. It may even inspire a kind of envy or feeling like, well, You know, I wish I had that or, or maybe I don't think that person deserves it. Those aren't great feelings, but it can be inspired by that. But if somebody really tells you, look, I've been through some things. We all know what that is because we're all mortal. We're all vulnerable and we all want to do well, I think.
SPEAKER_01: Right. And it brings up kind of the founder community of that was my, you know, I started a marketing agency in 2013, but it really wasn't until 2018 that I realized I needed a community of a safe place to be able to go. I've got pain as a founder, as a business owner, and I'm not sure who I can tell that pain to and who's going to understand it and who's going to help me through it. And, you know, joining a community in this area that led me to do, you know, some other founder things of on a national level and in other markets. And, you know, but it was all about this thirst for connection. And that's what we hear over and over again of, oh, my God, I feel so good to hear these stories because I'm not alone. Like, I thought I was alone in this, like, you know, sitting in this isolation of running a company or being a startup or whatever, you know, wherever you are in your stage, you just, you know, it's a lot of painful journeys.
SPEAKER_00: A lot. And also, you know, when you're in that, when you have that perch where you're running something or you're starting something, You know, you don't have the opportunity to bleed very much. And I've worked with senators and generals and professional athletes. And, you know, Nixon said it when he was president. I didn't work with Nixon, but he said there are lots of things that Nixon might like to say or that I might like to say or feel, but Nixon can't.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_00: OK. And that's what, you know, you have to know that that's what it means to be a leader or a CEO or a founder is that you're not able to sort of say, I'm scared necessarily, but you ought to have someone that you're able to say it to, man, this sucks.
SPEAKER_01: That's right. Cause you can't let them see you bleed, but you need to have that circle of whoever that is in your circle. You need that. You need that release.
SPEAKER_00: You need that release. And then so deep down, you also need what I think I can convey to people and help them believe themselves if there are reasons that they don't. Listen, you do get stronger from going through tough times. So really, you can believe it. But you also do need a place, which it sounds like, JJ, you found and you've offered other people where you can say, wow, I got to go in tomorrow and lay off four people. Um, that sucks. Right. And I mean, uh, you know, and how do you convey that to someone? Listen, yeah, we're going to go on, but we can't have you here right now or whatever it might be lonely. Yeah. It's lonely. And people worry about things like, you know, how many entrepreneurs and founders don't worry about being embarrassed if it doesn't work?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Right. It takes you a while to figure out. Yeah. Sometimes it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to I don't want to fail or I don't want to fail others. You know, or you've you've taken a lot of risk, financial risk, right. Your risk. Yeah, it's so you it's that it's that fear of failure. but you know how do you I think in the the startup community I think there's this culture going on of it's okay to fail right because you just you just got to get back up and keep moving but you know it is that if you haven't gone through it or not a part of a community that that has that culture of it's okay we're all gonna fail well like just right just get up and dust it off, and yeah, might be a little embarrassing, but you know what? Wear it as a badge of honor.
SPEAKER_00: Well, right, and you, thankfully, people learn that after a while, and it can be conveyed to them.
SPEAKER_01: But it's not easy.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not easy, and you know, you go home to a spouse, or a significant other, or you're out at a restaurant, and you're meeting with, what's going on, they say, with your company.
SPEAKER_02: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Right. And being able to say and mean it and not feel like I want to crawl under the table when you say, we had to wrap it up. Right. You know, to really be able to say, I own it. I learned from it. I'm thinking what's next is an art form. And it's also aligned, by the way, with the truth. Yeah. Because as you're writing each of these companies, you're writing your own life story. And I've told more than one CEO or founder who comes to me with blood on his or her shirt. Listen, if you were a stock, I'd be buying right now. Why? What do you mean? I just hit the ground, like burst into flames. Like, yeah, that's why. Because the next one is the one, right?
SPEAKER_01: You learn from it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. You learn from it. And and anyone who hasn't gone through that. Yeah. Here's another quote. I actually was talking to a general and he's establishing a community or. veterans who need a new start and they build tiny homes and they stay there for one to two years building these houses and being part of the community and then they leave and other people take them and build more. Okay. Anyhow, and I said, well, you know, um, we were talking about a friend of ours and I said, well, you know, he's really, he's, he's been through things and he's, the general said, Keith, I don't trust anyone anymore without a limp.
SPEAKER_01: Huh?
SPEAKER_00: I love that.
SPEAKER_01: That is fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah. It's so good. It's like, why would you want somebody who emerged from the battle unscathed? It doesn't happen.
SPEAKER_01: That's right. Those are unicorns and they aren't believable.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly. And that's why my special purpose or calling or ability is to say, there's nothing to fear. Don't worry about it. Tell me everything.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Right? Where are the bodies buried? What have you been through? What's really not good? And by the way, if there are things that aren't good right now, I can tell you, they're not new, actually. They're tied to the past. And unless you've been through a process already, a really glistening, high-minded process, you don't know how the dots are connected. But let's find out, because it's always good.
SPEAKER_01: So in your own founder journey, what has surprised you the most about yourself?
SPEAKER_00: OK, so the most surprising thing to me about myself is that I have a friend who's a venture capitalist, and it'll show you how much you can be blind to your own traits. And he said, when we start this venture together, you're not doing the hiring of the top three people. I'm like, why not? He's like, because you favor and gravitate toward people who are injured, right?
SPEAKER_01: You're like, I want the lips, people.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly. And so I've adjusted for that, but that was a very important revelation where he was like, look, you're going to recruit people who you want to give another chance to, and that's okay, but a whole team of them could be challenging. And so that's one thing. And I think the other thing that's been startling or revelation is just in my own founding journey, the fact that it has to be fun when it has to be a kind of fun when things don't work the way you thought. So I should have known this because writing manuscripts is the same thing. Right. So that's kind of the fun of it. You're editing, you're doing drafts. And I remember when we started one of the companies that I started my co-founder, when we realized, okay, we've been off on a quest that needs to be radically adjusted. And I think I was like, you know, blown back in my seat and was like, Oh my God, it's a full rewrite. You know, are you having fun yet? And I said, No, this was like 15 years ago. And he said, but this is the fun part. You have to try to get there. And being able to now tell people that and say, look, this is what it is. You're rewriting and editing. And because of this, you're going to be stronger. And the company is going to be stronger. And it had to happen.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: So what's been your biggest, oh, shit, like, OK, I've started these ventures. What walls did you hit?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think many. Right. So believing that you needed less capital than you do. Right. That's one thing. Secondly, probably I think at certain points in my own ventures, underestimating the. refinement and the sort of deep inquiry that people who are going to give you their money, if they're serious people, will exact, right? Because I'm a storyteller. So for me, if the story sounded glistening, and you couldn't really poke holes in it, I was like, well, what are you doing? You seem to be like using liquid paper or something. I don't know what you're doing. Trying to get inside my story, which is all constructed perfectly. So being able to invite that became an art form. OK. So I think one is it takes more money usually to do things than you think. Secondly, people will are less likely to adopt it immediately than you think.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So it takes some longer. takes longer. And I should have known that because when I wrote novels, it was like, okay, you might send it out to 15 people who say, I don't get this. And then the 16th would be like, wow, this is great. Well, what about those 15 people? You have to be willing to go further and further in pursuit of your passion and readjust your vision the whole time. There's a, one of my favorite books is Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. And he sent it out to 120 publishers who said no. And then the 121st said yes, and offered $3,000 as an advance and said, money isn't the point with a book like this. And Persig was asked, why did you send it out that 121st time after 120 no's? And he said, sending it seemed to have higher quality than not sending it. That's all. and right then 10 million copies sold. So I think that's a good lesson is when you sort of pull your own heart, does the idea, does the company, does the quest still seem to have quality to you? And you just, you're a pull of one in the end, right? And you say, look, I still believe. So I'm gonna keep going.
SPEAKER_01: I'm solving a problem for somebody.
SPEAKER_00: It's solving a problem for somebody, and I'm willing to listen, which is a gift. It's your venture. And yet people, which is an interesting thing, people are willing to tell you the good, the bad, and the ugly if they're good people. And that's a gift. It's amazing. Like, oh, it's my story. You're willing to pour yourself into my story. Great. Give me more. We don't tend to ask it enough. I don't think founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs tend to say to people enough, but tell me why it might not work. Tell me what you think the problems are. because it's pain. It's pain. It's like, what? Wait, I didn't really want you to tell me that much.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're right. Because the ecosystem and everyone's like, do it, start it, just go for it. We'll figure out the problem, find your value proposition. But you're right, nobody's doing the, I call it black hat thinking. of put that black hat on and just talk about all the dark that can come from this idea or this challenge. And I don't, you're right, I don't think we do that enough as self-reflection, nor do we surround ourselves with people that sometimes, that we need people to say that for us.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly. And look, you know, sometimes even in success, need somebody to say, it's not a success for you, by the way, right? Because if you're a talented person, and a lot of founders, CEOs, others are very talented, and they can do things, even if it isn't in their heart to do them. Right? So I can't tell you the number of clients I've had who are miserable in success. And that's why they come to me. And they say, I don't know, I'm not happy. This isn't, it's, I'm not myself.
SPEAKER_01: Huh. And is it because they're coming to you? Cause they're like the company successful, but I don't think I belong as the founder. Is it a, is it an imposter syndrome or is it more of I started, but I've lost the passion. I'm no longer happy.
SPEAKER_00: You're good at this. It could be either of those or it could be that they never, there was never their passion.
SPEAKER_01: They were just chasing the money or it was a problem they were trying to solve, not necessarily, this is what I want to do. It's more of like, I need to do it.
SPEAKER_00: Absolutely. Absolutely true. I mean, I had a guy who was the head of a giant, giant law firm. Miserable. Right. And he's now designing houses very successfully. He's a builder. That was a big pivot. Oh, that's a tremendous courage. Yeah. To say, I'm sorry. This is not it. I've been reading these lines from this script. It's all been wrong. Here's the script back. I need a different script, if that's OK. So, you know, I remember there was a trading firm that wanted to hire me. one of the most successful stock trading firms in the world. And I sat down with the founder and I said, I'm not the guy for this. And he said, why? I said, because I'm a nightmare for you. If your top trader out there is actually a poet, I'm gonna find out. And you know what's gonna happen? He's gonna leave, right? Because he's like, you are a nightmare. I don't want anyone to fake. I think people do best when all 12 cylinders in the engine of their souls are firing effortlessly, in a sense. Because then it's a war that you're like, look, yeah, I got bloodied, but I don't know what else to do. I wrote this thing, or I started this company, and it's my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Well, because then it really hurts. I mean, as we've been talking about workforce development and talent recruitment and retention, when you don't have a team that, I mean, no one's ever going to be as passionate as you are. If this is a passion project or if it's a, you know, you've developed something, you've created and designed something, nobody's going to be, and it's yours, right? You've taken the risk, you've done it, but no one's going to be equally as passionate. Nobody and nobody and that's hard to to accept as a founder. That's that's a really hard and then even when you're trying to recruit people you do get this um uh you try to do all the right things in recruitment but the end of the day if somebody's passion is um to go build houses and they're coming on board they already have a foot out the door that meant they come on to your onto your team, because they're looking how to then find their truth and their passion. Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: It's tough to raise your hand and say, this is who I am. Yeah. When I was training in medicine, I thought kind of that I was going to be an ophthalmologist, an eye surgeon. And I was saved from that by my mentor who sat me down and said, you know, if you want to stay, you can have the residency here. I already told you that. Right. And he was my mentor. Yeah. And he said, but, you know, he said, you know what I was doing, what I was reading when I was in your position? So I see you're reading novels and you're reading about psychology. I said, no. What were you reading about? He said, The Eye. Right?
SPEAKER_01: He's like, you don't care about the eye.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I can see the whole world through the retina. Like, you can? I mean, it was like talking to a foreigner. I'm like, you're kidding me. And he's like, no. He said, I think you're a psychiatrist. But think about it. And you come back to me. So I came back to him, and I said a week later, listen. I think you're right. I'm sorry. I'm not going to take the residency position. And he said, well, then why are you sorry? That's who you are. Right. And that's a great mentor. Oh my God. So good. Um, and that I think is what I like to do for people to say, number one, are you doing what you were meant to do? Number two, if you are, let's make sure you're strong, like a warrior to do it. And I've got a paperweight on my desk. It's a Winston Churchill quote that says, if you're going through hell, keep going. Right. Because the other side of it, there's something different. And you have to be able to bear a lot of pain. And there will always be pain. Yeah, there always will be on the journey to creative, you know, joy.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I love it. So if you could pick two things that you would change about your businesses, What would they be and why?
SPEAKER_00: That's a good question. What would they be and why? Well, if I could make what I do on the pain to power front viral to more people who can do it, that would be wonderful. I haven't figured that out exactly. I'd like to figure it out.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, I really love doing it. I'm not sure if I would love being the pied piper of how to do it as much. I love doing it. So there's that. And then secondarily, I would say, hmm. I'm not sure there's another thing, but on the pain to power front, I'd love to find more of those keys that turn things for people, right? So more of the ways to look at their lives where they could say that lens brings things into focus in a really clear way for me. And so I'm always efforting how to find those and what those are. And having more people do it.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not the best marketer, really. I don't think I'm the best marketer.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think you've got your story down very well.
SPEAKER_00: I've got my story down. And so, yeah. And I've really, you know, it's interesting because when I look back, and I encourage other people to do this, and I say, what's the common thread? What are the beads strung on? Who are you? What's the DNA of who you are? I look back and I've been like, you know, it's all been the same thing, which is what's the true story? That's my thing.
SPEAKER_01: That is your thing, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yes. Yeah, and you'll be fine. That's the other wonderful thing. You'll be fine if you embrace it. It's not a mistake. It's not- It's your gift. It's who you are. Yeah. And even the tough things you've been through and the times companies didn't work or the times relationships didn't or the unexpected defeats or the terrible things that unfolded, terrible. They're all meant to make you better, believe it or not, because things tend toward the good, not the bad. Life isn't meant to defeat you. It's meant to perfect you. It really is. And if you can believe that, then you believe like what the Stoics said. They said the obstacle is the way, and they have that amor fati, which I have on my desk also, which means love your fate. So it's not enough. If you find yourself on a battlefield, there are eight of you. If you look across the field, there are 800 of them. They have better weapons. You're not going to run. That's not a good story. You're not going to say, all right, well, I guess we're screwed. That's not a great story. You're not even gonna say, well, all right, let's do this. That's not a good, you have to get to the point where you're pumping your fists in the air saying, if we win this and it seems to be set up for us, it's for the history books, okay? Let's go. That is an art form getting to that point, but it's certainly a worthy goal that of your fate, don't abide it, don't run from it, love it.
SPEAKER_01: So powerful. So you love stories, and you love, what is your greatest novel of all time?
SPEAKER_00: What's your favorite book? The best book I've ever read?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Or one that you go back to over and over. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: I know. If it's one of my own, then I'll sound like a narcissistic lunatic. And it isn't. It's Granny and Zoe. written by J.D. Salinger. And there's a beautiful part of Franny and Zoe where, so this is, he's writing about the Glass family. It's a novel, it's fiction. And the Glass family is a family that is comprised of very smart kids who go on a quiz show. And they're also mercurial and difficult kids and the rest of it. And one of them isn't alive anymore, Seymour. There's a point at which Franny, who's an actress, as well as going on this quiz show, comes home and she's reciting a meditation because she's realized everybody's fake in the world. And she's not sure who she is anymore. And her brother calls her on the phone. He's in another room. They have two lines. She picks up and he says, you know, I was watching you in playboy of the Western world in summer stock last summer. Do you know that? And she said, no, I didn't know you were there. And he says, Franny, you were good. And she says, I was. And he says, you were. He says, you know what that means? And she says, what? He says, you're stuck with it now. All an actress can do is act. Act for God if you want, right? And then He also tells her, he says, you know, when we used to go on the quiz show, and this goes to quality and truth, he says, Seymour, their older brother, used to tell me, shine your shoes. Your shoes aren't shined. And he would say, what difference does it make? We're behind a podium. Nobody sees my shoes. He would say, people see everything, right? They know whether your shoes are shined, even if they can't see them because they're behind the podium, because it's part of you. Right. And so I think that that goes to the branding exercise we talked about. Everything, people know everything. They know whether your shoes are shined, even if they can't see them.
SPEAKER_01: Yep. That's great. Are there any, what TV shows are you watching? Do you watch TV?
SPEAKER_00: I don't watch much TV. My references to TV are too old, I think, because I've gotten old. I'm 61. But no, so I don't watch much TV. My kids like Black Mirror. It's kind of fun. But I liked Rescue Me, of course, because of the truth involved. So I memorize scenes because I have sort of this ability.
SPEAKER_01: You were writing scripts.
SPEAKER_00: And I write scripts. And there was one scene where the main character comes into the firehouse and there's a psychologist seated in the lunchroom. And he says, it's Dennis Leary, who I love. And he says, well, who are you? She says, well, I'm a psychologist. I've been sent here to help, you know, help you guys. You're under a lot of stress. And he says, Oh, okay. He says, well, okay, let me try this on you. Uh, he says, uh, uh, called to a five alarm fire the other day. Um, I go into the house, there's a cat and a little girl. Right. And so I care. Little girl's not leaving without the cat. I get the cat, I get the little girl. I'm going down the stairs, I'm giving mouth to mouth. Cat, little girl. Cat, the little girl. Get to the bottom of the stairs. The cat made it, the little girl didn't. You gonna help me with that? Right, and so it's those moments where, you know, I'm like, reality bites. And the answer to that is, yes, I will help you with that because what you just said is very human and you're broken or you think you are, but you're not.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Right. Because you're only stronger because of what you just told me. And the fact that you could tell me that's empowering. I hope so.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah. Well, we are out of time, Keith. I know the, I always say this, these things go by so fast. I love these conferences. I really, this was very special episode for me. I've enjoyed the conversation. Well, before we depart, where can people find more information about you? How do you want people to connect with you? What do you want people, what do you want our listeners to know?
SPEAKER_00: Well, know that they can reach me directly through pain and then the number to power.com pain to power.com or info at Keith Abloh.com. Um, and that, uh, it's my great joy to work with individuals who want to become themselves and that that's always enough.
SPEAKER_01: I love it. The truth connector, the truth connector.
SPEAKER_00: Good.
SPEAKER_01: Well, thank you for hanging out with and chatting with me. I appreciate it. And for everyone listening and watching live, thank you for joining us. And again, this episode will drop on this Sunday. And we'll be publishing and we'll be sharing it next week. So subscribe to Hello Chaos. You can find us across every one of the podcast platforms. My personal favorite is Apple. But I know Spotify is pretty popular, but wherever you enjoy your podcast, you will find us under Hello Chaos. Hello Chaos is one of the many resources brought to you by OrangeWIP. That's OrangeWIP, W-I-P. We are a multimedia company dedicated to serving founders and entrepreneurs across affiliate cities. We are 100% free. Just an email to join the community. It's a one-stop content hub just for founders delivered in a weekly email every Sunday. We are currently in three markets in South Carolina, Greenville, Columbia, and Charleston, with goals to expand to be in 30 markets in five years. Every city needs to have an OrangeWIP. Also, check out the edition that will be coming this weekend. It's on talent recruitment and talent retention, so around workforce development, which is a huge challenge post-COVID for a lot of founders and startups. Great stories, amazing stories, and stunning photography. Very excited about this upcoming edition. So find your city and enjoy. If you'd like to be a guest on our podcast or support us in any way, send an email to hello at Orangewipf.com. Y'all thank you so much for tuning into hello chaos. It's where aha meets. Oh shit. I'm your host, Jennifer Sutton, and I'll see you again next week. Thank you.