Ep. #1074 - How to Let Go Enough to Scale

Matt Watson 00:00
And we’re back for another episode of the Startup Hustle. This is your host today, Matt Watson. I’m excited to be joined by Jeff Munn, who’s a professional coach. I’m going to use this as my safe space today, I think, to talk about all sorts of problems that he’s going to help me and my businesses with. And for those who are listening, I’m sure we can help you too. But this is my moment. I’m ready for it.

Jeff Munn 00:20
So I’m coaching Matt as much as you want.

Matt Watson 00:23
Before we get started, I do want to remind everybody that today’s episode of the Startup Hustle is powered by FullScale.io. Hiring software developers is difficult. Full Scale can help you build a software team quickly and affordably and has the platform to help you manage that team. Visit FullScale.io to learn more. So to set the stage just a little more, before we get started, Jeff, I think really what we want to talk about today as entrepreneurs, at some stage in the business, we really get right in the fucking way. I don’t even know how else to describe it except that way, as we get in the way. And if we would just get out of the way, things would be better, right? Like there’s a place somewhere where that happens. Is there any other better way to describe that?

Jeff Munn 01:07
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I had a client. The way a client described it to me, and we continue to work on it. Because it’s not easy to do this, let go of what you need to do. He said, there is one thing getting in the way of this moving from a small business to a big business, and that thing is me.

Matt Watson 01:29
But how do you convince people of that?

Jeff Munn 01:32
Yeah, that’s well, so even if you do convince them, it’s still hard to do. It’s hard to let go. It’s hard for them to let go. Because when you think about the trajectory of a startup, right, I’m gonna take the classic. You know, a college kid with a great idea, you know, starts a business in her dorm room. Okay, but, you know, they get some customers, they get some employees, and they have to do everything first. And then the success or failure of the business hinges upon them because it’s only them. And they get so used to doing everything that all they think about is, okay, if I want the business to succeed, I need to do more. I need to exert more control. I had a client come to me a few years ago, saying, here’s what I want to work on with you. I want better time management skills. I want better project management skills. I need to be able to stay on top of things. I have 30 employees, and things are exploding. And I just need to find better systems too. And she kept using that term, staying on top of everything. And I said that’s not what you need at all. What you need is to hire good people and get out of their way.

Matt Watson 03:03
Trust them. It’s a trust issue, right. Like, it’s a control and a trust issue. And, I think we get conditioned to it in the early stages of the company because we have to do all these things. And then if we feel like we delegate something to somebody, and they don’t do it quite as well as we want to, and then we pull that thing back, and we want to keep doing it right. And somebody once told me, and actually, maybe it was you, when we talked before. It was if you’re gonna hire somebody, and they will do the job 80% as good as you did or as good as you want. That’s a huge, just 80% like, it’s never going to be 100. If you can tell yourself 80% is a huge win, then it’s a lot easier to let go.

Jeff Munn 03:44
Yeah, I was talking with one of my clients yesterday, and he said I have this huge problem with being good enough. So for him, the thing that gets in the way is that extra 20% Well, what if we could just make it 90? What if we could just make it 98. And that’s the thing that gets in the way. But if you think about that 80% And the other possibility, which is more likely than people want to admit to themselves, is that that person that you find is actually going to do a better job than you? Yeah, ideally, they will like it, especially if you’re hiring a finance person, I’m hiring a salesperson, I’m hiring a prod, you know, a product person. They should be able to do that part of the business better than you as long as you empower them to do so.

Matt Watson 04:38
Right. That’s exactly it. Yes, you’ve got to empower them to do so. And you can’t expect them to start the first day and be perfect at it right. Like, come in, you get your feet wet. You start doing some stuff, and then really, what you got to hope for, or at least from my perspective, is I just want to see progress. I want to see progress every week. Are we getting better at this thing, and but the problem is most people expect perfection right away, which you’re never gonna get, and you’ve got to just foster that environment to allow them to continue to build that progress and improve.

Jeff Munn 05:15
It does take, it takes a willingness to do the groundwork, the foundation set, right and, and, and, and I often talk about it in terms of expectations versus agreements. So, Matt, you may bring someone in, and you may have, I was like, well, this person is a, you know, what makes up a finance person. So I have these expectations that this is what they know. And they’re going to run with the ball, and they’re going to make my organization, you know, more financially effective, more cost-effective, all these things. But unless you sit down and make explicit agreements with that person about not necessarily how to do their job but what your goals are for that person, right?

Matt Watson 06:08
Yes, they’re gonna flounder, and then you’re gonna think, well, who’s this idiot?

Jeff Munn 06:09
And then it’s going to prove to yourself that there aren’t good people out there and that you have to do it
yourself. And what you don’t see is that you actually caused it.

Matt Watson 06:24
Well, I’ve seen this firsthand, right? You hire somebody that has experience and leadership before, you know, director, VP, whatever you bring them in, you think, Oh, they have the playbook, they have the history, they’ve done these things before they can help me figure out how to do whatever it is sales, marketing, development, whatever it is, right? But then, as you described, right, if you don’t work very closely with them, then they just start going and doing stuff. And if you don’t support them, and then eventually what happens is you get frustrated with them, you’re like, Well, why didn’t you do this thing? And it’s like, well, I’ve tried to schedule meetings with you. I’ve tried to talk about what the goals are and how we want to do this and all these different things he’s like, but you don’t collaborate with me. Right? And so then the problem is like you described, and the business owner, eventually, it gets very frustrated with this person because they haven’t accomplished the goals, but they haven’t supported them to accomplish any of the goals, right? Like, as you said, like, I’ve seen that happen many times, actually. And yeah, but what do you do about that? Because ultimately, it’s the business owner’s problem, like they’re not fostering the support that these people need?

Jeff Munn 07:29
What do I do about it as a coach, as I call them out on it? But another thing, and it’s some of the more upstream work that I do, is most people, like I’m gonna go a little woo on you. But I think it’s important because I think there’s a lot of leverage in this insight. You know, each one of us is living in a reality that we are creating in our own heads. Yes. And we treat it as if it is real and objective and outside of us, and it’s really just our own stories and experiences projected onto the stuff that’s happening to us. And when we see that about ourselves, then we get really, then we realize, oh, wait, I’m living in my own reality. Matt’s living in his own reality. I don’t know what he’s bringing to this conversation. I better be curious and ask. And so when we can operate from that place, we’re just both curious about where this meeting places in between us where we agree, Oh, these are the three objectives we’re working on. And I have some ideas about how you might do that. And you have some ideas about how you might do that. And I’m not automatically thinking I’m right. And anything that disagrees with me is not right. It’s more like, Oh, this is a conversation. This is something we’re creating together. And it just takes a lot of the energy out of it. It just changes the tone of the conversation.

Matt Watson 09:11
But do you think there are some people that struggle with planning and detailed work that it’s hard to get them to stop and like to do that? Or if they do it, then they don’t. They don’t follow through with any of it the next day? More than a ladder?

Jeff Munn 09:28
Well, everybody’s got we’ve all got these little automatic programs that are running that we don’t recognize as automatic programs. So one of mine is if I’m not careful, I just start doing shit to be doing shit. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And typically, I’ll notice now, after a few days of this, that I’m kind of feeling exhausted. I’m kind of feeling stressed. He’s like, Oh, wait a minute. Is this just activity for activity’s sake? Or am I actually being purposeful, and then I’ll catch myself? And then I’ll think about, okay, what’s, if I can, if I can let myself quiet down a little bit, if I can let myself settle a little bit, it’ll become obvious, instead of, here’s a list of 25 things to do, go do them, that there’s one thing that’s really key to do next. And if I do that, then the next thing will appear, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Matt Watson 10:41
So going back to kind of where we started earlier about control. And what are, you know, I see, I’ve seen this a lot of times where you’ve got somebody, the company gets to a certain size, right? It’s like, hey, we have 50 employees now, or whatever it is, it’s not the same company anymore, right? And it’s like, they’ve got to hire, they’ve got to delegate, they’ve got to give up control. You know, what, where do you see those? What are some of the more problems you see around that area where you get to that stage, or like, I gotta get out of the way. And me being in control is actually the problem?

Jeff Munn 11:15
I’ll say that because I thought ahead to your question that I lost it.

Matt Watson 11:20
Yeah. What are some of the other problems and people that you have to coach people on in those situations? It’s like, you know, you need to give up control so that your company can grow?

Jeff Munn 11:33
What are the different ways to get them to give that up? Or what are the side effects of that? Not giving up control?

Matt Watson 11:42
How do you coach them on those issues? Like, yeah, tell them like, you’ve got to do this, like, one is this idea that they, as much as they would like to think that they have, they’re all seeing and all knowing they are not?

Jeff Munn 11:48
You know, that bringing in someone with a different perspective, and a different type of expertise could be really helpful to them? Part of it is just, and they will throw out excuses, right? It’s like, Yeah, I know, I know. But you know, we’re really busy right now. And I just gotta get through XYZ. And then, and then I can find that finance person or that salesperson or whatever. But you know, and the thing is, things when you’re in that mode of, I need to do it all the things show up to do. And, and I think another interesting, interesting, maybe flip on this, do you feel like a lot of it is they make excuses for it, right?

Matt Watson 12:46
They’re like, well, I need to hire this person, or I need to fire this person. And a lot of it comes back to excuses, like you mentioned.

Jeff Munn 12:58
Yeah, it’s excuses in the service of a story that I’m essential to the business. So if I can’t find, if I’m convinced, I can’t find good people, you know, there may be a story behind that, that, you know, this is my baby, this is the critical, you know, I’m the only one who can figure this out. And I remembered what I was going to say before. So when you, when you think about the reward system in our brain, we can get all kinds of little dopamine hits, when we do tasks that we know how to do and do a lot of them. And so you think about the classic business owner who’s trying to manage his way or her way through a crisis, you know, they can go fight fires, and get these nice little dopamine hit and feel like they did something, but the thing that they should be doing, and at that stage of the business, you know, that scaling stage, you’re bringing in experts, you’re bringing in people in the different silos. They should be thinking about the longer term questions that don’t have clear answers. And your brain will do anything it can to avoid that because it’s uncomfortable.

Matt Watson 14:15
I think you’ve just nailed a big part of the problem, right? It’s easy to do busy work like, hey, I sent this email and I did this follow up. I wrote a social media post. I edited the website. I do all these little things, right, that make like we’re making progress. Yeah, you’re you’re just nailed it. It’s like but as a leader, I really should be training people. I should be hiring people. I should be mentoring. I should be firing strategy, like all these higher level things that require a lot more kind of emotional work and strategy and stuff instead of like these little tactical things. But yeah, you do little tactical things, and it feels good.

Jeff Munn 14:51
Right, right. I got my little firefight for today. I got 12 things off my to do list. But I didn’t have that uncomfortable, super, you know, call with that supervisor of half my business who was really struggling right now. And I need to let him go, but I can’t bring myself to do it.

Matt Watson 15:15
So how do you coach? So how do you coach people through that?

Jeff Munn 15:21
Ideally, I get them. I just did this today. So it’s kind of fresh in my mind about two hours ago. So he’s going to be out of town next week. Normally, I meet with people, you know, three times a month, so we would normally be meeting next week, he’s going to be out of town. But we’re meeting the week after, and I had him make a commitment to me that he would have a conversation with this person before we met the next time, and that then we would debrief in that session. Now, if he doesn’t have it. Again, there’s material in that? Where is the resistance? What’s the discomfort for him? It turned out that he shies away from feedback conversations, because in his history and his family history, anytime anyone wanted to have a conversation with you about anything, things went south really fast. So he associates those conversations with, you know, I’m going to make it worse, and the person’s going to leave. And he literally hasn’t been wired to have positive feet and like, have had a conversation that’s about good and bad. Like you’re doing all these things. Great. You’re struggling with this part. And I’m here to support you. And I know you can do it. And I know we can make this work together. It’s not really part of his management vocabulary right now.

Matt Watson 16:48
Well, and most people, they hear this a lot, they have some sort of issue from their family issue, but something about their childhood or whatever, right, that has shaped them in different ways. Yeah. And, and that manifests itself in a lot of different ways. Right? Like, my wife has a lot of issues with making decisions and competence and stuff like that, but it’s because I wouldn’t allow her to do any of those things. Right. Yeah. And then, you know, I have my own issues, I think from some trauma that happened with me, with my step dad when I was like, 10 years old, that I think still sticks with me. But everybody has these weird, different things, I think it shapes their personality and weird ways. And a lot of us don’t even though it’s invisible to us.

Jeff Munn 17:29
Yeah, I mean, I, you know, I’m, I just turned 58. And I’m still learning these things, right? I mean, just in the last year, I realized, Oh, when I was growing up, and my dad passed away a long time ago, like 35 years ago, this year, but when I was growing up, you know, my dad got along with everybody he was, he was the homecoming king, he was super popular, I was not any of those things, but But I realized the downside of that is that my dad would just kind of go along with people to get along and not really talk about what he actually wanted. Until it just got so frustrating for him, he blew up. And, and, and that was like, I figured out relatively recently, it’s like, oh, that’s in me to like, just the idea of having a conversation with someone and saying, This is what I would like, without anything on it. It wasn’t even available, available to me as a possibility. I had to get really mad before I ever wanted something from somebody.

Matt Watson 18:41
So you, I mean, do you feel like part of your coaching that you do is trying to uncover some of these issues for people like trying to figure out some of this like, is it Taina? Was there a professional issue that they have?

Jeff Munn 18:55
Definitely, and the way that you know, if you if you want to look for this in yourself, as like, you know, because it’s really hard to see this in ourselves, but, but if there is something that you want to do, and that you know, you should do, maybe it’s a difficult conversation, and maybe it’s a hiring decision could be anything. But you just don’t seem to be able to do it. The chances are very good that what’s getting in your way is something historical, that you haven’t really quite looked into that you haven’t quite uncovered. And even when you see it, it can still be kind of tricky, and sometimes the only clue is that something’s going on. You know, early in my coaching career, I would notice this tightness in my stomach like we get to something really juicy Matt and I’d see something in you and was like, Oh, I don’t know if I can say that. That feels really uncomfortable. And the reason I would know that is because of this tightness in my stomach. And then I started experimenting with Well, what happens if that tightness in my stomach? What if I treat that as this is a sign, you really should say this and just see what happens. And I found that, as I use that as a barometer for myself, like, Oh, here’s, here’s a site, here’s a sign, you should say, this difficult thing. Let’s see what happens. At least nine times out of 10, I got a response. Like, I’m so glad you said that. I think you’re right, I really struggle with that. Thanks so much for pointing that out. To me, it was incredibly encouraging. And so I developed this positive association with it. And then it just went away. And then I just said, what was on my mind?

Matt Watson 20:50
Well, I, so you bring up something that I really believe in. And before we get to that, I do want to remind everybody that finding expert software developers doesn’t have to be difficult, especially when you visit FullScale.io, where you can build a software team quickly and affordably. Use the Full Scale platform to define your technical needs. And then you can see what developers are available today to join your team visit FullScale.io To learn more, I think, to me, our bodies physically are way ahead of us. Mentally, right, and Oh, yeah. It’s like, your gut instincts are almost always right. Or they’re telling you things that you’re not necessarily agreeing with. Right. And this especially goes through with like relationships, like, you know, like you’re in a relationship like, you know, your wife, your spouse, whoever, whatever. And like you’re depressed or you know, you start having all these these, these things that are happening, you physical symptoms that are because you’re you know, having issues with your relationships, but it’s like you’re denying the fact that you have those issues, but your body is telling you that you do right. Like it’s crazy how that works, I believe.

Jeff Munn 21:53
Is there a story you’d like to tell us there, Matt?

Matt Watson 21:57
You know, I got divorced, and you know, happily remarried now. But yeah, I’ve been divorced.

Jeff Munn 22:02
And I’m happily remarried as well. So I can relate to some of those. Yeah, I was the last person to know how miserable I wasn’t.

Matt Watson 22:10
Yes, yeah. Oh, yeah. I think, yeah. I told my mom, I was like, I’m getting a divorce. She’s like, Thank God, you finally figured it out. Like, well, you know, you could have beat me up about this before. But yeah, we, but I think it relates to our profession too, right. Like, we walk around every day. And we’re not necessarily happy, like, we know, we need to do some of these things. Right. But we just still struggle to do them. Like we’re in denial that, that, that we have these issues. And, and I’m sure that’s got to be a big part of what you do is kind of unpacking that would be evil, right? It’s getting them to realize like, oh, you really take care of all these problems, and getting them to figure out what the problems are.

Jeff Munn 22:49
Well, and just the way someone says something, you know, like, yeah, I’m really happy.

Matt Watson 22:58
Like, you don’t really, oh, shit.

Jeff Munn 22:59
Yeah. Sure about that. Yeah, yeah. 100%. And just helping someone to be honest with themselves can be really powerful.

Matt Watson 23:16
So, as you talk to people, do you see the same kind of patterns? A lot of times, like you talk to me for five minutes are like, Oh, this guy is just like, So and so are like, similar sorts of bizarre patterns to a lot of this.

Jeff Munn 23:31
There are and they show up in lots of different ways. I think that maybe the art to it is to see different symptoms, how is it showing it? Well, it’s kind of two levels. One is that I need to be able to see the pattern, and depending on the person that can take a while. And then But then the second piece is, can I show that to the person in a way that they actually get it? Yeah, instead of just Well, it sounds like you’re blah, blah, blah. It’s like yeah, but they don’t really it’s just information to them instead of this. Oh, I didn’t see that before I was working with a client who was talking about her own management style and she tends to work very hard. And she said something and I am mad. I honestly don’t remember the exact words that she said it was something like Yeah, I know they’re getting that. Lots of stuff done but that doesn’t really count does it or something like that? And it was like she was saying that anything the business got done that did and involved her she wasn’t giving herself any credit for. And, and therefore, she had to do everything. And I pointed to the essay, so you don’t you don’t give yourself any credit when your team gets something done. And she hadn’t ever seen that before. It’s like, oh, wow, there’s a lot there isn’t there? And I know when I get like that it kind of stops you in your tracks, right? That someone has seen something.

Matt Watson 25:32
So when people meet with you are they usually pretty open minded about trying to improve their issues, or they are still kind of defensive about it? And like, you have to beat down those walls a little bit, to get them to see these things. By the time they get to you, they’re like, Okay, I know, I need someone to help me.

Jeff Munn 25:50
It depends on the topic, ideally, yet, because everyone has stuff they’re willing to address and stuff, right? aren’t quite ready to address. Yeah, but most of the time, now, someone is coming to me, because someone referred them to me, and they were actively looking for coaching because they knew something wasn’t working, right? Like they were totally stressed out. They were totally exhausted. They were in that kind of I don’t think I can man, you know that phase we were talking about at the beginning of the conversation, right? I just, I just can’t manage anymore. And the business has to grow. And I don’t know how to do it. And then it hasn’t even occurred to them, that there’s this other way. But they know there’s another way. And so they’re open to hearing about that. Even if they don’t know what it is. They’re kind of like give, they’ve given up like, like, just just helped me. I’m about I’m die here.

Matt Watson 26:48
So how often are they receptive to it, though? Or I mean, how often do you think this stuff sticks? Like you help them work through some of these issues? How often do you think the results of that help, like, stick with them, and they actually make a change.

Jeff Munn 27:05
If they see it and apply it, it sticks and they don’t go back because they see it works better? It’s resistance is in the initial implementation, because of that discomfort, that wiring that thing getting in the way that they don’t see about, you know, how their father treated them or whatever. If they can get through that, and onto the other side of that, and begin to play with other possibilities and see that they work and are powerful. There’s no, there’s no regression after that.

Matt Watson 27:45
He gets about getting them to create new habits.

Jeff Munn 27:49
Yeah, well, so some of it is habits. That’s really interesting. And I’ll and I’ll throw in an example that a coach used with me. Do you need to get into the habit of not touching a hot stove? No, no. Because you see immediately that it’s really helpful not to touch a hot stove, like you, you touch a hot stove, you’re like, Whoa, never do that, again. Well, you have a positive experience with one of these things, as opposed to the negative experience that you’ve had trying to control everything. I mean, yeah, some of its habits, but a lot of it is just seeing, Oh, wow, this really works. I’d much rather do that than this.

Matt Watson 28:38
But some of it, like in that example, I think this is what scares us from our childhood, right is like, Okay, we burnt ourselves on the stove. And now we refuse to use this stove. We’re used to walking by it, we refuse to talk about it. Right. Like those things are unpacking from childhood. Right.

Jeff Munn 28:55
And I think that the stove can be useful. Yeah, yeah, yeah, here’s how to use a stove and to use it well. But, and then you make an omelet, and it was really good. You’re going to be inclined to use the stove again.

Matt Watson 29:10
Yeah, but I mean, those are the kinds of things that scare us, you know, or shape us from our childhood. Right. And so I’ll give you an example of one I think that impacts me is I’ve never been like a super emotional person. So I was like, even when I was five, like you told me that I got Christmas presents. I’m like, okay, cool. Like, I’m not. I’m a pretty, even-tempered, emotional person. But I’m pretty sure I was around 10 or 11. My stepfather used to beat the shit out of my mom. And he likes multiple DUIs. And he took an ax to his truck, like literally took an ax to his truck and smashed up like, smashed up his own truck, took an ax to the house, put holes in the wall, like all sorts of crazy shit and this went on for months. And, you know, sitting here today it kind of dawned on me one day, because I’m the kind of person that you could tell me the building is on fire. And it would not faze me. And I think for me, I think some of it probably goes back to that, like I had been almost desensitized to like horror horror horror going on around me that it doesn’t faze me. I’m like, I’m totally unemotional about it. And to me, I feel like it probably comes back to those situations that I had to live through.

Jeff Munn 30:32
I’m really sorry. That’s awful. Yeah. And I wonder, I wonder if there’s a peace with it. It’s no big deal. But no, and I appreciate that. And you’re, you’ve definitely got a level of peace, just being willing to share it, right. And I am sharing this because I had a client who didn’t involve an ax, it involved a pair of scissors. Okay, he was like five years old. And he had a pair of scissors. And he was hiding under the dining room table. And he found a lamp. And he decided, you know, he had taken the lamp underneath the dining room table, and he kind of knew that he was doing something you shouldn’t be doing. But you know, he was a kid, he was experimenting, and he thought, I wonder what will happen if I cut up the lampshade with the scissors. And his father found him. And immediately, you know, just blew up, didn’t hit him or anything, but just blew up and grabbed his wrist, took it, took him to, you know, the five year old took him to his room, grabbed his favorite toy and destroyed it in front of the kids eyes. And so what he took from that was, and this took some unpacking, it was like, because he was having trouble. He was having trouble giving feedback. And what he seems to have internalized from that is if I don’t keep control of my emotions, if I get mad, people will destroy my shit. Okay, because that’s literally what happened to him. And I wonder if for you, you’re you’ve absorbed this message. Like, if I lose control, I may destroy my own shit. You know, like bad things happen when you lose control. So I better stay in control.

Matt Watson 32:45
Right? Yeah, it’s weird, man. No idea how, you know, all those past things affect us. It’s fascinating.

Jeff Munn 32:54
But definitely, we absolutely come up with these unconscious rules for life, because that’s what we’re doing.

Matt Watson 32:59
Yeah, we’re all defense, like, how do I stay safe?

Jeff Munn 33:00
Yeah, I have this thing called life, I’m this vulnerable little kid. You know, I have to have people who will take care of me and feed me and all this, like, I need to navigate that. And so I developed these rules around how to do that.

Matt Watson 33:16
And so to bring it full circle, right, like these sorts of things in our past, affect us and our, you know, all, all, all facets of our personal life, but also in our professional life, right. And so, as entrepreneurs, no doubt, it limits our ability to do something, right, something, you know, gets impacted by these sorts of things. So, what are the kinds of suggestions and tips you have for entrepreneurs that are running a business and they’re feeling like, this business has outgrown me or I’m, I know, I’m the roadblock, you know, in this business? Like, what are the kinds of tips you have?

Jeff Munn 33:55
Um, I mean, my first tip was get a coach, but something a little self serving them that you’ll find someone who you can you can trust who you can bounce things off of, preferably someone outside the business because as the you know, as the as the CEO of a business as the founder of a business, it’s really hard to get people in the business to tell you the truth. Yeah. So someone, you know, like, I mean, I know clients who’ve had really good success with YPO with Vistage with some kind of peer group where you’re, you’re in a room with people kind of in similar situations. Getting outside professional help, can be you know, talk to your accountant to your bookkeeper to you know, that kind of sometimes your lawyer I mean, it depends on the situation, but an outside and outside perspective, can be really helpful. Sometimes it’s just To validate Yeah, you’re at a really difficult stage right now, sometimes it’s yeah, this, this is a person who’s had experience with 10 Different businesses instead of just yours. And they can see what you’re not seeing. I think that the most valuable thing is like, try to get out of your own head and see this set of facts from a different perspective.

Matt Watson 35:23
So I 100% agree with you.

Jeff Munn 35:38
You’ve got to have people that you can network with and relate with stuff like that, especially as an entrepreneur business owner, because you know, hanging out with your mom and dad and sister brother, probably not going to help from that perspective right now, to get a real job, Matt?

Matt Watson 35:41
Yeah. I tried something new this week that I don’t know if you’ve heard of that I thought went really cool. Was this thing called Lunch Club? Have you heard of the lunch club? No, tell me about what I had never heard of. This is not like a sponsored plug or something. On some websites, you go to and you sign up. And basically, once a week, you meet with a random person. And it matched me up with another entrepreneur who was a super cool guy. And I talked to him for like, 45 minutes. And, you know, it was great. We had some similar, a lot of similar, you know, a lot of interests that were similar and you know, different things, or notes, entrepreneurship and all this stuff. It was a great conversation, like just what we’re talking about, right? Having somebody that you can bounce ideas off, like relate to all these things. And so I think that’s another one to add to your list of suggestions. The lunch club was actually pretty cool. And I’m gonna keep doing it. I like it.

Jeff Munn 36:30
Yeah, yeah. And I’m thinking about it. So there’s an upside to those kinds of things. And like anything, there’s a doubt, there’s a potential downside. And the potential downside is, if you begin to reinforce and buy into each other’s stories, and create yourselves as victims, and woe is me, and you’re right, people do suck. And you’re right, it is really hard to find. I mean, that’s just not helpful. Like anything that you can do to recognize you’re the one creating all of this. And you have the power to uncreate it or to create it differently, depending on how you show up in this situation. I mean, that’s incredible. When, when people really get that about themselves, and to begin to get past some of that history. And, you know, history has kind of built these walls around us. And we’re, it’s very hard to kind of poke through those walls and see that they’re actually not real, right? But once we do, then it’s like, then we can do whatever is called for, then we’re free. And that’s amazing.

Matt Watson 37:37
Well, anything, some people in the network, even though they talk to people and bounce ideas off with them, they almost use it as a way to validate their own echo chamber.

Jeff Munn 37:45
Exactly. Exactly. Yeah, people suck, don’t they? Yeah, I can’t find so and so.

Matt Watson 37:52
Right. And then they feel more confident in their decisions. But they’re, they’re basically asking people to agree with them.

Jeff Munn 38:02
Yeah, and we do have these.

Matt Watson 38:06
And some people aren’t nice enough to disagree. That’s the problem, too.

Jeff Munn 38:09
Yeah. Well, yeah. And sometimes you actually do agree. And most people, we write these stories, we write these stories about ourselves and about the world to keep us small and comfortable. And if we can find confirmation of that, we will keep ourselves small, uncomfortable. But if we want, and this is what I love about the entrepreneurial mindset is you’re already starting from this challenge of that you’re already starting from this. Yeah, I don’t think I want to be living inside a box in a corporate org chart. I think there’s more to life than that. And I think I have a way of doing something different that might actually work and serve people. I mean, that’s already a big leap, compared with, you know, 99% of the population.

Matt Watson 39:00
I don’t know how anybody lives in that box in the corporate world, by the way, I don’t know how they do it.

Jeff Munn 39:05
They do it because they do it because it looks safe.

Matt Watson 39:07
Yeah.

Jeff Munn 39:10
And I can tell you having been laid off a couple of times in my career. It’s not. It’s an illusion.

Matt Watson 39:18
Yeah. Well, if you do need to hire software developers Full Scale can help. We have the people on the platform to help you build and manage a team of experts when you visit FullScale.io. All you need to do is answer a few questions on our platform to match you up to our team of fully vetted highly experienced software engineers. At Full Scale. We specialize in building a long term team that works only for you or more when you visit FullScale.io Well, Jeff, this has been an awesome conversation, and I’m so glad you’re on the show today. If people want to reach you, your website is J mn m u n n.com. Right and they can find you on LinkedIn. Jeff, mon. Anywhere else? Are you on TikTok where I am?

Jeff Munn 40:01
Tik Tok, I do have a very small but growing YouTube channel, but you can get to the video content through my LinkedIn. I put out videos every week on topics like this, I write a lot on topics like this. I’m in. I mean, a lot of my work to this point has been one on one coaching work with primarily founders. I’m in the process of putting together groups of similarly situated founders. So if you have any interest in talking about that, I think the group environment because of that similar situation. And and I mean, I’ve been part of group coaching situations, both as a as a coach and as a participant where you know, the person, the person next to you know, metaphorically next to you in the Zoom Room, right is asking the question that you’re going to be dealing with in a month and you just don’t know it. Yeah. So it’s like, it’s incredibly valuable. Right? Yeah.

Matt Watson 41:07
Well, you can. You can also find me, by the way, on TikTok and reels. And everywhere else, Matt Watson, I post daily videos about entrepreneurship and stuff.

Jeff Munn 41:16
So, yeah, I’ve watched your videos. They’re awesome.

Matt Watson 41:19
Thank you. I was supposed to be on LinkedIn. But I think I figured out LinkedIn doesn’t really care for the video that much. So I’m not going to post videos there.

Jeff Munn 41:25
They don’t. Yeah, it’s almost like you’re punished for putting a video up on LinkedIn. It’s bizarre.

Matt Watson 41:31
Yep, I’ve been punished for the last two months. So if you’re a quick learner, you’re gonna have to join me on Tik Tok and YouTube and everything else instead. But, yeah. So as we finish up the episode today, do you have any final tips or words of wisdom for entrepreneurs out there?

Jeff Munn 41:48
I think I just want to go back to that, you know, if a lot of people come to me and explicitly say something like, I want to see my blind spots because they recognize something is getting in the way, but they can’t quite see it yet. And this goes back to the point that you made, Matt, about how intelligent our bodies are. And if you notice some weird sensation that comes up, like just beginning to observe patterns in yourself, and it’s like, well, I really wanted to have that conversation. But you know, and you notice there was a tightness in your chest or a tightness in your throat or something, like a notice that begins to explore it. It’s kind of hard to do on your own. But doing it with someone else was like, oh, yeah, I remember that takes me back to when my aunt got mad at my uncle and blah, blah, blah happened. I mean, you’d be surprised. If you really look just at the physical sensation, how often you’ll almost have this little flashback quality. And that can be the beginning of unlocking some of that stuff.

Matt Watson 42:59
All right. Well, thank you again so much for being on our show. And again, yeah, I love Jeff Mon. Mun in and find them on LinkedIn or worlds. Thank you, Jeff.

Jeff Munn 43:09
All right. Great talking with you, man. Thanks. Take care.