--:-- Ryan Hanley: Probably starts at a young age, this negative connotation around failure. Failure is where you really, that's where the learning begins. But no one really cares about you. They all care about themselves, and we're consumed with ourselves. So the quicker you can kind of get over that, I think, the better. Let's go. Yeah, make it look easy.
--:-- [Intro music fades in and out]
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The Ryan Hanley Show shares the original ideas, habits, and mindsets of world-class original thinkers you can use to produce extraordinary results in your life and business. This is the way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to the show. We have a tremendous conversation for you today with serial entrepreneur Jeremy Delk, founder of Delk Ventures, where we discuss failure, specifically how to come back from failure. We dissect what failure means, how we emotionally rationalize the excuses that we make when we do fail. And ultimately, we dissect and build off of Jeremy's largest failure, which was losing $2 million in a four-day period as a day trader.
--:-- Jeremy's an incredible guy. This is packed with entrepreneurial insights, leadership, growth, sales, mindset. This is the kind of episode I love delivering to you guys. If this is your first time here, whether you're listening on Apple, Spotify, wherever, or watching on YouTube, please hit the subscribe button. That way you don't miss future episodes of the show. If you have a thought, a comment, an idea that you wanna share, leave them in the review section of Apple, Spotify, or jump into the comments on YouTube. And I always try to draw the guests back into that conversation to get your question answered directly. Guys, I love you for listening to this show. Let's get on to Jeremy Delk.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Jeremy, a big part of your story is coming back from failure. And a topic that you touch on a lot in your new book, *Without a Plan*, is that particular thing. So how do we fail?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah, I think it's the big part of the book that I wanted to really focus on, as opposed to just having opinions, is to show real life examples. I think we have so many of us, probably starts at a young age, this negative connotation around failure. You know, how'd you do in school? You're graded. And it's like failure is such a bad thing. I think it's the absolute opposite. Failure is where you really, that's where the learning begins. I try to really encourage failure, taking those chances, going through it. You can't fail and do the same thing over and over; that's the definition of insanity. But not be defined by it, because we get wrapped up so much emotionally. Like, what happens if I fail? It's this fear of failure, and usually it's what other people are going to think.
--:-- I talk about that all the time. No one cares about you. Maybe your mom, but no one really cares about you. They all care about themselves, and we're consumed with ourselves. So the quicker you can get over that, I think the better. I don't try to fail, but I set these paths out to go and take a chance, go through and evaluate, and not get hung up with the actual outcome until it gets to where I want to be.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I want to pitch something to you and have you respond. I have struggled with this idea of failure for a long time. Where I've come to is I don't actually believe failure exists. I don't think it's a real thing. It's a construct. It's a name we give to something. I think what we're actually scared of is not failure. I'm scared of what Jeremy would think of me if this thing doesn't work out. So the way I've started positioning it is that we're afraid of our status changing in a group, whether it's a community locally or on a national stage or in our company. Where does that sit for you, that idea?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: No, 100%. I mean, it's the core of it. First, to expand on what you're saying, that you don't believe failure exists. I've said this on probably 100 podcasts and on stage: I don't really believe there's anything that's a good thing or a bad thing that happens to us. It's the actions, reactions, the emotions that we put towards this thing that determines whether it was a good or bad thing. So me losing $2 million in a few days when I was 20 years old day trading — in the moment, absolute catastrophic, worst thing, biggest failure, suck at life, I shouldn't be here anymore. Retrospectively, 20 years later, probably one of the three best things that ever happened to me. So you get context with time and evaluation.
--:-- But two, yeah, when I say no one really cares about you other than your mother, I think that's it. We get so hung up on it. I've had big decisions, and you think about it. People want an escape, right? There's always something trending, but they want a distraction from themselves. So they may engage, and you may be the talk of the town for a day or a week, but after that, it's over. So the quicker you can look in and say, well, what am I scared of? A failure? If I bet my house on it and now my kids are homeless, that's a real fear. That's something that's real. But if it's because of what they may say about you, that's the piece. Unfortunately, most people aren't comfortable enough in their own skin, and they put so much value in that. The reality is, the opinions you get from other people that don't ever work — they're saying that about themselves, not you. It just happens to be about you, but that's how they actually feel and internalize it. It gets easier with time when you've proven it to yourself a couple of times, you've taken some steps, and it was scary, but you pulled it off. But yeah, I agree with that construct completely.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that. There's no such thing as good or bad. I think that is a wonderful construct to hold in your head, a wonderful framework or mindset, because it gives you power. If there's no good or bad, it's basically wins and lessons. It's an event. All it is is an event.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah. And you can reframe that event in any way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I had a woman, Dan DeMeo is her name. She's an artist, a jazz musician. I had her on the show a few weeks ago. Three years ago, she lost her 23-year-old son. Passed away. Fucking awful. I started to come to tears as she's telling the story. She said for the first year, she could barely move. Then all of a sudden, her producers started bringing her back into the studio a little bit. Now, three years later, she has this wonderful album that's getting national play on all these radio stations more than she's ever gotten before. She was able to take this horrifying, awful thing that you don't even wish on your worst enemy, and she was able to start to reframe it as, "I'm going to keep living for my son, for his memory. I'm going to do the work that I told him I was going to do." Now she's more energized than she's ever been before. You could sit and wallow in that moment, which is awful, and no one would question you. You lost a child — there really isn't a worse thing. Instead, she was able to reframe that and turn it into passion and positivity that has amplified her career and her soulfulness to a level she didn't even know was possible.
--:-- I think these types of conversations with people like you who've been through these failures, like Deanne, I hope it shows people that it's simply just what's going on between our ears. If we can spend a little bit of time and reframe these things, the sky's the limit on the other side of something.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: It is. One thing I try to give is an example that anyone can apply. That's devastating. I agree, there's probably not an event that could happen that would be more catastrophic. But we've all — give me a point at a crowd, a million people, everyone points around a person — we've all experienced trauma, loss, and these things. We've all probably said to ourselves, "This is the worst thing that's ever happened to me." Everyone has those two or three things. Humans innately are a pretty advanced species, and we all have self-protective properties. I don't believe in looking at the past and dwelling in the past, but we tune out most of these big traumatic events and just don't ever think about them again.
--:-- I think there's a massive amount of power — I don't think, I know there's a massive amount of power — in looking back at that, not dwelling on the event, but the fact that you're here now listening to your podcast. I lost my job yesterday or whatever the thing is, and it's worse, but now I've gotten through it. The bank took my house or whatever happened to you or your family, you're still alive and you've gotten through it. So as opposed to blocking that out, go back. When I lost all that money, and when I made the decision to go out and start Delk Enterprises 20 years ago, I was making more than my — I was on Wall Street, very successful — and I went out and made six grand my first year in business. I never would have had the balls to do it, but I looked back and said, "Well, I lost $2 million in four days trading, and I got back." So what's the worst? Can it be worse than that? I think that was the most powerful thing. It gave me the courage to go and do it, because it can't be any worse than that, and I'm still here breathing.
--:-- I don't think people should look back and dwell on things, but we've all had those events that are much less catastrophic than losing a child. We've lost a parent, we've lost a job, whatever it is. We're very resilient as a species. If you can go back and look at those pieces, that gives you courage within yourself to say, "I can do this, and I can take that, and that's worth taking." I would argue that the fear of failure is debilitating to so many people. I always ask this question when I hear the response, "Well, what if I do this and these things happen?" I always rebuttal, "Well, what if you don't do it?" But if you did do it and these things happened, what's the opportunity cost? Look at it from that perspective.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I love that you use the word "resilient" because one of the things I talk a lot about with the entrepreneurs I coach is building resiliency into their business. You can take as many risks as you want, as long as you have an understanding of the resilient points in your business. One of the first things I started to realize when I started doing this work was most people do not give themselves enough credit for how resilient they actually are. They think, "I'm not strong enough," or "I don't have enough this," whatever they think their limitation is. But let's think through some things that happened in your past. Tell me about what happened. And you're like, "Wow, you did that? You survived that? You got through that moment? You were able to maintain your business through 2008, 2009, or the dot-com crisis? You got through that? Wow, that's incredible." Sometimes you see them, and they've never even gone back in their mind and processed how resilient they actually are. It's crazy.
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--:-- Ryan Hanley: So I think one of the questions I wanted to dive in with you came out of a previous interview I had and some feedback I got from that. I had an entrepreneur on who was talking a lot about the business and what they had done. It was all incredible stuff. I got a comment — it was actually a DM, so no one can find it — and the person said, "That's all great advice, except that person doesn't have kids. They don't know what it's like to get a phone call in the middle of a business meeting that their kid is puking all over the classroom, or something happened with the buses and you got to end your day at three o'clock because they need to be picked up." You have kids, yet you're highly successful as an entrepreneur. What do you think some of the things are? Maybe talk to the entrepreneurs with parents out there a little bit. What are the primary differences, and how are you successful? I don't want to say "despite" because that puts kids in a negative light. But when you're operating with children, it is just a different world. There are certain realities to your responsibility. How are you able to navigate that world? A lot of people say, "I'm in my late 30s or early 40s, I got kids who are still not completely self-sufficient at this point, I don't know if I can be an entrepreneur. I don't know if I can make that jump." What do you say to those individuals?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah, it adds a massively dynamic layer that definitely complicates things or creates opportunity. One of the reasons — first off, I think you don't choose to become an entrepreneur. You either are one or you're not. You've just chosen to take this amp and be one. But I think innately you're built and bred to be one because it's a masochistic kind of — I don't know why we do it sometimes, but we love it. For me, one of the early drivers before I even knew what having kids was like — and I've got a six-month-old, so the struggle is real, guys.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: The struggle is real.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: For those on audio who are just listening, he's got the classic baby drool stains on his shoulder. He's teething really bad. So he's got a black shirt. Yeah, not a good choice to make.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: But one of the reasons, again, this was before kids, I wanted to be an entrepreneur because I thought about what it would be like. One of those freedoms was, "I want to be an entrepreneur so I can make my own hours and work when I want to." Obviously, that's bullshit because you work when you have — you just always work, it never stops. But having that flexibility is massive. Then you just get creative on when you go. I think the positivity of being an entrepreneur with kids far outweighs the challenges. Of course, you've got to be flexible, you've got to move things around. But what I've allowed my kids to be able to see — from a work ethic standpoint — my son, I talk about initiative and things like that when I'm putting him to bed. He sees me carrying my laptop to bed because I will hang out with my wife, then she goes to sleep, and then my best work happens. I've solved the world's problems between 11 PM and 4 AM. I just crush life. There are no interruptions, it's very quiet. But from a lesson for my son: "Who's daddy's boss?" He doesn't have a boss. Who's making him go and take his laptop? No one's making me. But that's the drive and the ambition and that mindset that you can teach by example at a very young age.
--:-- Entrepreneurship positively gives you so much more flexibility. We're leaving here tomorrow morning and going to our lake house for the long weekend. I've got a podcast tomorrow that I'll do from the lake, and then we'll go down and I'll take my kids wake surfing and tubing and all that. So it gives you massively more flexibility. But yeah, you have these other interruptions. It's just life. Your life changes too. I talk to so many young entrepreneurs on social media, and their expectation is like, "I'm an overnight success 22 years in the making." They have this false sense of what it is, but it's okay. I don't try to change them because my goals at 22 and 25 were way different than 25 to 30, and now I'm 43. So it's okay. You learn and go through it. People have to go through their own journeys.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I used to — I just exited from a company in November of last year, almost a year now. In our hiring process, when we got to 20-ish people, actually way before that, I removed myself because I found I'm terrible at hiring. All I do is pitch the company the whole time. I'm awful. I'm just like, "This place is amazing. Here's all the reasons why you should want to work here." My team was like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Why don't we step in?" But they asked me for guidelines, and this thing came out of me that I had never verbalized before. I don't even know where it came from. It was like, "I want people that walk with a limp." They were like, "What do you mean?" I said, "I'm not talking about age. I'm saying people that have been through some stuff, that have experienced something." When you first get into the game, whether it's corporate world or you're an entrepreneur, it's all pie in the sky. Everything's going to be great, you're going to make all this money, and all that is wonderful. But it's not until your experience — you're day trading, making shit tons of money, life's great, and then all of a sudden, wham. Before that experience, there were probably all these holes in your game. Then you have that experience, and you get to reflect on it. It was awful. But a lot of those with those experiences, with those what maybe "failures" is how normal culture would label them, but "lessons" is probably how we better position them — you start to fill in those holes and start to be able to see around corners that others can't. So it's almost surrounding yourself, even if you're early in the game, regardless of age, with people who walk with a limp. That mentorship piece is huge.
--:-- Was there a person like that in your life? Is there someone — do you have an inner circle? How do you stay grounded? How do you stay connected to others who push in the same direction that you're pushing in?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah, a lot of stuff there. One, from an investment thesis, I won't invest in a founder that hasn't been through a cycle. It doesn't mean you have to be a bust, but everything's great until it's not. True leaders, true people that can get through it — it's how they react and how they manage through crisis. I think the whole idea is you get paid equal to the amount of pain you can take and how big the problem you can solve. That's it. If you can solve a really big problem and handle a lot of stress and pain, you're going to do pretty well.
--:-- I never had mentors per se in a coaching component, and I do some coaching now too. I was always more — I love to try to consume content. Dan Kennedy, there's a ton of mentors that I've had via reading content, reading books. That's been it for me. I enjoy the learning piece. That's why I've invested in so many industries. I think I can make an impact, and there was a play there, but largely I was curious, and I let that curiosity drive the interest in that learning piece.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I would love for you to dig in a little more into this idea of having gone through a cycle. When you meet someone and you're evaluating them for an investment, let's take that framework, and you're starting to talk with them and learn more about them, what are some of the characteristics that you're looking for? What are some of the pieces to their personality or the way they work or the way they present themselves that are indicators to you? Not that I am advocating that people present themselves in these ways if they don't actually have this, but what are some of the things that you see pop out that you go, "Ooh, this is someone who will sustain. This is someone who will push through when things get bad or can make the hard decision when it needs to be made." What are some of the filters that you use?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Well, it's a pretty simple framework. The first comes to their implied or actual vulnerability and authenticity of what their story is. I think I can sell anything to anybody. I'm a pretty good sales guy. But I also will tell you where the landmines are because I don't know. So the first thing that will kill any deal is someone comes in to me and they have all the answers. They're either just lying, or they're naive enough to know — and that's one. They will learn, but it just won't be with me. So they're going to go out and get some marks on them and come back, and now they've gone through it.
--:-- Secondly, like you mentioned, how you are — I'm probably like that as well. I'm a glass-half-full person. I'm very positive, can figure out a way how to do it. But that's not the best for hiring because you're basically — and I guess you would have gotten this feedback — everyone that you interview, you bring the best out of them because of your energy. You're getting the best out of them, and that's absolutely what you want. But two, you want someone different than you. If they have a bunch of yous — yeah, you're a leader, you're an entrepreneur. I don't know details. I don't give a fuck about the details, bro. I wrote a book about *Without a Plan*, and that's how I've lived for 20 years. I don't think you have to get so drawn up because it never works that way. I built two Inc. 500 companies. I've done a lot of stuff. None of it has worked out how we thought it would be. We've had an idea of where we wanted to go, but I'm a big preacher of just getting started and taking that step because you're going to know so much more by Q4 or Q1 the next year than you are right now. So why try to predict the future? Get an idea and then go. I think over-planning sometimes is a negative because when you get to that fork in the road, you're pre-destined to say, "Well, this is what we said we're going to do, so we stick to it."
--:-- So that's how I can figure out a cycle, and they're being authentic. But the other piece is just saying, "This is where I'm not good at." I would rather know that from an investor. Or, "This is what scares me." So many people — and I'm talking more in this investment pitch piece — so many people want to de-risk it for an investor because that's what they think an investor wants to hear. If you have it already figured out and you have all the answers, I can't help you. Go get money from someone else. Delk Enterprises, the subline is "Strategic Capital." I solve problems with resources. Sometimes they're financial. A lot of times they're financial. A lot of times it's using my digital marketing team or my legal or whoever it is. That's the best way. That's where I talk about vulnerability and authenticity. Going into a job interview, going into an investor pitch, telling them your fears is so telling. It just connects. It doesn't mean I'm going to invest in you, but now I believe you because you're telling me what keeps you up at night. If everything's great, you're either lying or naive and you don't understand it.
--:-- If someone says, "What keeps me up at night is I built this thing, jumped off a cliff and built the wings for the plane while we're going down. I've got traction, but now I need infrastructure behind it. I'm not good at that. I'm a good leader here at vision, but I can't put this up." Okay, that's a problem that either I or someone can solve. You've shown a massive amount of vulnerability and authenticity to admit and understand there's value in understanding what you're good at and not good at. I know numbers innately and I can just see balance sheets, but I will never do books. But I can look at financials and understand what they mean. So that's the piece where I talk so much about being authentic and being vulnerable. It just gets you to where you need to be helped. You're going to an investor, you're going to a job, you want to be part of an organization. Let's leave the investment out. You want to be part of an organization. Talk to them about, "Hey, these are my strengths and what I want to be able to help. I think I can add value here. But I love this organization because I think it can help me overcome these things." That builds more of a relationship because business is very personal, and I think sometimes people try to separate that too much.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Guys, if you're not taking notes, this is where you hit the pause button and you slide your finger back about three or four minutes and listen to that section again. If you are looking specifically to raise money, but also if you're just looking to find talent or bring someone into your organization, I can say this works just as well for trying to find a strategic hire. If you're looking for an A-class player and you come in and you just tell that person all the amazing things that are going on, they are going to know that you're full of shit. That person wants to know, "What am I getting myself into?" A lot of times, an A-class player is completely okay with you and expects you to have holes. They expect you to have holes. That's why you're reaching out to them. But if you bring them in and you're like, "We're going to kill it, and our MRR is going to be this and blah, blah, blah," they're going to go, "I don't know."
--:-- It's funny. I do a bunch of angel investing. I love getting in early in companies and helping in the same way. I don't have a venture company, and nor probably will I ever, but I do enjoy that piece. I have a group of friends who bring each other in on deals. We came in on this deal, and we're listening to these guys. It was a good idea, and they were full of energy and seemed very smart, except they spent at least half of their 20-minute pitch talking about all these made-up numbers. It's just Excel gobbledygook. I can put whatever conversion rate into your chart, just like you can. I can put whatever market share piece you think you're going to get into this chart and make these numbers come out the backend. This is just an Excel sheet. How many things have you sold? What things are breaking? Where's your actual retention? I feel like there is this false sense of "I need to make Delk Ventures feel like I'm this amazing thing and everything's amazing and we're going to crush it, or they're not going to be interested." The really good strategic investors, as you just described, they don't want to hear that shit.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And it's going to fucking blow up. Yeah. It's going to blow up. It's just like dating. It's anything. Marriage, you have to just, this is how I am. We will be great together or we won't. Let's figure out the won't before we're going.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Bezos, great example. Bezos had a very distinct plan. I'm going to lose money for the better part of 20 fucking years. So that's going to eliminate a huge amount of his investment pool. Massive amount. Like that's just not the horizon, that's not in our fund or not our thesis, whatever. But there would not be an Amazon if he tried to bait and switch someone on a four-year horizon. They would have said we're going to take you over, take over the company. It's going to go through. But because he got his early investors and they bought into the vision, that's where you kind of go through.
--:-- And that's the piece where you need to go. And I think that again, it all comes back to vulnerability. Like, hey, this is why we're going to go there. Hey, we're going to hire this great growth marketing person because we've hacked it together and we don't know what the fuck we're doing and we've done something. So that's showing positivity. Like, hey, if you come in with your great skills, what can you do for it? Tell us that way.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: And then it gets there. Or most importantly, a bad hire is 10 times worse than one good hire. It's so bad getting a hire wrong for everyone. No one wants to do that. You don't want to change someone's life. They leave a job and then you have to let someone go. It's just a lose-lose for everybody. So getting to that point of finding if it's a fit, whether it's vision, culture, skill set, whatever, getting there early or before it happens is invaluable to the business.
--:-- So how do we do that intentionally? Like you're sitting there or I'm, you know, someone's listening to this and they have that idea or they're in that phase. As we've discussed, I think the natural reaction is everything's amazing. Is it just taking a step back? Is it, how do we get over the fear, which I do think is real, because I think it does come back to status as well, of man, I really want Jeremy to like me. Man, I really want him to invest in me. How do we get past that fear of being vulnerable, of sharing the warts, of being okay with that? Is it just being confident in ourselves?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah, I do. I think it's being confident and you just feel connection, right? I mean, I'm telling you, the book is a lot of business stuff. But after I wrote the first draft, I threw it away because I felt a bit disingenuous because it was only the business shit. And now it's just as much about marriage, life, I mean, that kind of advice. And not always advice. A lot of times it's shit don't fucking do. But it was just complete transparency. Like, you either love me or hate me, but that's me. And you're entitled to your opinion, but I just wanted to put it out there.
--:-- And the piece that was so telling for me, I'll use a relationship component. I struggled a ton. I lost my dad when I was young and I went through a good part of my life where I wouldn't let anyone in. So I never really had any true connection. It's a great way not to get hurt, but a really shitty way to actually live, because you don't really have that true connection. When, through a bunch of therapy and work that I've done myself, the feeling and the connection you get when you can be leveled by a partner, like your wife, with that ultimate vulnerability is scary as fuck because your world could be crushed, but the connection that you feel is so much richer.
--:-- I think if you've got that with a spouse, a great friend, that comfortable feeling, if you can mimic that with an employer, with an employee, or with a staff—not going into your personal details—but like, hey, this is where we want to go. I'm a visionary. I want to do this, and this is where I'm really good. I'm awesome at this piece. Here's a piece of the pie. We need to fill all these other pieces. We have this guy that's a great person in this role. We have this female that's in this role. She kills it. And this is a sliver that we really need as a company.
--:-- That level of vulnerability from you is going to be immediately reciprocated from that person because now they're going to say, "Wow, he's actually telling me the truth and telling me where the opportunity is." And that person is going to, if they're honest and vulnerable, tell you, "Hey, I can do it" or "I can't do it." But that's how you build a culture of "we are all in this together." I do this really well. They do that. And now we really see that team cohesive piece of, "Hey, this is my responsibility because Jeremy can't do that, and I can. But I can't go and raise the money, but Delk can." That's the piece where you can really get fired up.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Oh, dude, there's two things in there. So you won't be able to see it because it's back here, but one of my audience members made—he's a woodworker—and he made this little piece of wood and it's got three letters on it: GNF. It stands for "Give No Fucks." So this show operates by a GNF philosophy, which means trying to cultivate people into exactly who they are and being okay with that, whatever that looks like.
--:-- Putting that back to the business piece, a huge turning point for me as a leader was when I started becoming more vulnerable with my team about the things that I just simply wasn't good at. You can be strong, confident, and be vulnerable at the same time. What I found was when I started opening up a little bit—one of them asked me a question one time. I don't know where I was mentally. We're in full growth mode, early startup, about seven people. Everyone's got every hand in every department. We're just trying to get shit done and build a business.
--:-- One of them asked me a question and I was like, "I don't know." She kind of looked at me. I was like, "I don't know the answer to the question that you're asking me. I don't know what to do. That's not an area that I have any experience in or any expertise in." I think it was to do with accounting. She looked at me and I was like, "I need you to figure this out."
--:-- For me, this was a turning point moment. Her shoulders rolled back, her head came up, her eyes got wide. The fact that I had shared with her that I didn't know what to do about the problem, and that I had given it to her to solve and entrusted her to do it—dude, she came back with three options that were incredible. She's like, "Here's the one I think we should take, but if you don't like this one, we got this one." Pros and cons. It was more than I could have ever asked for if I had just been like, "Here, do this."
--:-- She owned the problem, solved the problem for us, and it was a better solution. It wasn't anything that I probably would have ever even thought of, and it ended up working out great. When I reflected on that—I do a lot of self-reflection, a lot of that comes from counseling that I've done as well—I was like, "Oh my God, I don't have to have all the answers just because I'm the quote-unquote entrepreneur or boss or leader." No one even expects me to have all the answers to all the problems. I think that's the turning point that happens, like you said, after they've been through one cycle. I think that is a relatively common insight that leaders who have been through this struggle start to get, and it's a major turning point for successful organizations. Does that relate to you?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah, no, absolutely. I'll give you another tip that I use in a business. So you had seven, when you exited, how big was your team?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: 27. Okay. So I'm a personal guy. I love being personal, but I suck at names. I just don't.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I'm with you there. I'm the fucking—I need whoever that guy was on *Veep* who stood behind her and told her all this stuff. I need that guy. I need one of those people in my life.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: It's so bad. We're in a small town in Lusby, Gonsaukee. It's a small town. I meet people. I'm nice. I'll talk to anybody. I don't care. But I'm out with my son sometimes, and I see someone looking at me like, "Okay, they know me." I'm like, "Hey, what's up man? How's it going?" And then my son's like, "Who's that?" I have no clue. I don't know. I'm the worst. But I care. It's not like I don't care to know. It's like, fuck. And then I'll usually talk to them and I'll put it together.
--:-- But for the business piece, one of the businesses that we sold a few years ago, we scaled from zero to like 50-something million run rate, high profitable, great thing. It was a couple hundred people, 150 people. We would go through monthly board meetings, and some of the shit that I was hearing was just like, "Oh, the warehouse," and just fucking drama that I would never tolerate. In the small company, you'd be like, "Dude, fuck this. Figure this out. Go." You would just squash it. But when you start to put layers in the business, all of a sudden you're too important or whatever, and you lose the approachability. At least it happened to me.
--:-- I'm the most approachable. To me, in my heart, I feel like maybe I'm not approachable all the time. But to me, literally, I will talk to anyone if I've got time. Not with my kids interrupting. I'll be happy to talk. And I was like, "Dude, I cannot and will not tolerate this kind of bullshit. These problems—like, 'Hey, we can't meet the scale'—real problems, let's bring that on. But not this mundane bullshit."
--:-- So I created—and I encourage anyone that feels disconnected or whatever—I had one of my tech guys create a little intranet portal where it was anonymous, no IP tracking, whatever. You could make a comment, a request, a complaint, whatever. And I was going to address them. The first time we got like 20 or 30 of them. I remember I was in Moscow for a conference and I did this for two months. The first time it was just dumb shit, but I read every one. I did a Loom recording, but it was me on there like, "Hey, here's the question: Why is Jeremy bald?" I mean, silly stuff. But I read every single one.
--:-- What it did was, while I'm not speaking directly to that person, I think part of the people thought, "Oh, he's gonna screen and he's only going to..." And I fucking read all of them. Some of them were just nonsensical. But by month three, I would just make a snap call. Like, "Hey, so we need an extra fridge because someone's messing up the thing in the break room." Cool. All right. They end up buying two fridges. Have them there tomorrow. So I was just action. If I could take it, I did.
--:-- Or also, "Hey, why are we doing this?" Because as leaders, we have it all planned out in our head. We know what we're doing. Sometimes we don't let the line team know. It's not because we're trying to keep anything from them. It's just that you don't have that piece. So, "Hey, I've got this and I don't understand why we do this." Well, with the information you know, it makes no fucking sense, but let me tell you where we're going.
--:-- What it did was it gave me a platform for anyone, without fear of retribution from any type of management, completely anonymous—they could be from any department, non-department, whatever—to connect with me. By going through and reading every single one, by month three and four, it was down to like seven or ten requests or notes. All the bullshit stopped because they kind of called my bluff. Like, "Is this guy just going to read them?" I read everything. It was the most impactful thing that I did for my business at that stage.
--:-- Some of them were great ideas. Like, "Hey, we're doing this in shipping. It's taking two hours long." I'm like, "Well, that's fucking stupid. We want to do this." I'm like, "Well, that's a great idea. Do it." It's the same thing that happened in your example with someone that you were probably with in leadership, giving her that he-ho. But dude, sometimes the greatest ideas can come from where you're not expecting them. Creating that access where you are approachable was a great way for me to do it, because you can't always sit down with somebody. Time doesn't give that. But this was a way that you could go through for a month, submit these things, and I would go through and take an hour, hour and a half.
--:-- I love that idea. Record it and send it out company-wide. It was a great way. But the lesson is being vulnerable and showing that you care and that you don't know the answers. I did that. Sometimes I didn't have the answer. "I don't know, but we'll figure this out as a problem." Just off the cuff, no prep, just kind of going through it. It was the best hour I did a month.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I completely agree. I actually picked up—I didn't do that, although I love that idea and we'll probably use that in the future for different endeavors because I think it's phenomenal. I actually picked up from a company that I invested in. A founder would do for his team, every Monday he would do a vision meeting and he would do a Loom. He's like, "Look, it's hard to get everyone. I don't want to waste your time with another 30-minute meeting where we talk about whatever." So he would do a 10 to 15-minute Loom where he would talk about what new development updates they pushed out, what was going on with sales. He would talk about retention numbers. So he would have things he would report on. And then he would finish the call with talking about the vision, talking about different things that are coming up. He would even give shout-outs to employees.
--:-- I would watch these things and I'd be like, "Jesus, if I work for this guy, I'd be pretty jacked up after watching this." Because he would pull out, "Hey, we're struggling with retention this month. We're missing on this. If you're in that department, reach out to me if I can help." So he was doing all these calls to action. He did it every Monday, and it would come out in the afternoon, and people would watch it at all different times. He said the amazing part was people were going home from work—because you can see with Loom when people watch the video—he's like people would be watching the video from home. So they would bookmark it, go through their work their whole day, do their thing, eat dinner. He's like 7, 8, 9 o'clock at night is when half the people in the company would watch the video.
--:-- I was like, "Man, what a good idea." I started doing that and it worked really well. That was towards the end before I exited, but that was a really good thing. I think to your point, oftentimes we have all the mission, vision, all these amazing things that are coming or that we're currently doing. We have them in here, and we are so bad at sharing it with the leadership team. But when it gets down below that, we are really bad at getting it to Sally in accounting or Johnny in customer service. We are so bad at getting that in front of them.
--:-- Sometimes it's even worse. It's got a massive net positive by getting people in power on there, but without it, we know as leaders that it's just lack of thoughtfulness and moving a million miles that we're not thinking about it. But sometimes it's really perceived the other way. "Well, I'm not important enough to know this, or they don't want me to know this," which is fucking bold. Why would I not? You're all part of the team. But that's the mindset they go through. The reasons to do it are so much more impactful.
--:-- You talked about your kid giving you crap for talking to everybody on the street. My kid does the exact same thing because I'm the same way. I see somebody—well, we got a puppy, so we'll go walk around the neighborhood and so-and-so will come out. We'll start shooting the shit and my kid will be poking me in the side like, "Dad, dad, come on, come on." He wants to keep moving and I'm rapping or whatever. I coach his baseball team and after the game I'm always rapping with parents or other coaches. I just looked at him one day and I'm like, "Look, this is your coach's kid, so this is what it is. I don't know what to tell you. I like to talk."
--:-- But you do this thing that I think is pretty interesting and I'd love for you to just talk about this Four Trip Challenge, this time that you spend with your kids. Talk to me a little bit about what this is, where this came from, and maybe what the impact has been with you connecting with your children.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah. So I stole it from a doctor that I knew back in Louisville and he started doing it. I hope everyone steals it from me. Especially when we talk about entrepreneurship and kids, entrepreneurs—a hundred hours a week isn't unheard of. You're just doing a ton. I think moms are probably the toughest job in the world and get not enough credit. Innately, mothers are typically the nurturers. Dads are doing their different roles, you're coaching baseball, but there's just a different level.
--:-- You're going on trips. My wife hates it. We're going tomorrow. I'll pack in the morning and be done. She's got everything lined up. We just kind of go and figure it out, but she takes care of the entire family to pull it together. So mom always has those nurturing components.
--:-- I've got three kids: a 10-year-old son, a five-year-old daughter, and a six-month-old son. I started doing it with my son. First trip with him was Legoland. My daughter, we went to Barbie World in Dallas this past year. I call it the Four Trip Challenge because you've got—I've heard the stat you have like 14 summers with your kids. They don't remember the first two, then they go off to college. So we have such a small amount of time to spend with our kids. We're all doing some vacation, travel baseball, different sports.
--:-- So I started doing this thing where for each kid, I do a solo trip with them and they can pick wherever they want to go. It's five years, 10 years, and I will do a 15 and a 20 year. Then they're 21, they're in college. But the amount of connection that I've built there—other than the daddy-daughter dance I do with my daughter that she just absolutely loves—she remembers those things. We go twice whenever it's in town. It's just crazy.
--:-- Whether it's just getting on the airplane together with just you one-on-one, the intention, especially if they have siblings, they're always competing for attention or you've got your mom or your distraction. I don't do any work. I just go through and it's, "What do you want to do?" It's almost like a yes trip. Anyone can do it. It's four trips. It doesn't have to be super extravagant, but saving up a little bit of money for each kid for the year, you could actually do a pretty nice little deal.
--:-- I just can't talk enough about it. My son went from Legoland at five to 10. We did Dubai. He loves cars and he's an adventure guy. I've done a lot of business over there. And all these are on my feet. The Barbie trip with my daughter. I'm just telling you, it's the greatest thing I've done. The relationship that you build there, the conversations, just because it's focused. The daddy-daughter dances are great, but that's one night they feel special. These are memories that they are going to remember forever and, more selfishly, you are. You have those things that are just so, so much.
--:-- It's just great, and they're looking forward to it. My daughter's already thinking about where she wants to go, and obviously it's going to change a million times because she's got five years to go. But it's that type of thing. "Wow, what am I going to do for my dad trip?" That piece. It's a massive amount of fun.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Dude, I appreciate you so much. I learned a hard lesson. I'm divorced. I learned a hard lesson that if your home life—if you're an entrepreneur in particular, but really for anybody, but I think this is especially true for entrepreneurs—if you don't have a foundation at home that's stable, that's filled with love and connection, I mean not every day is going to be good. We're humans. But that long-term stability, that care and compassion, if you're not nurturing that, your success in business, one, is going to be limited by that. Absolutely. And two, it's never going to feel the same.
--:-- When you can come home from—I had a pretty important speaking gig that I did in April and I talked to my kids about it. They saw me preparing for it, they watched me practicing, they saw me working on notes and different stuff. When I came home, frankly, I didn't even know they were watching and listening. But when I came home, they were so excited. "Dad, how did it go?" They're asking me all these questions. "Can we see pictures? Can we see whatever?" It wasn't about the business thing. It was more that I was doing better with my home foundation because they weren't like, "Oh, dad's gone again." They were excited because they knew when I got back I was going to be present and I was going to care about them. I just think what you just described is a phenomenal way of cultivating that continued connection with your family despite all the pulls that you have on you as an entrepreneur.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: Yeah, for sure. We share that and I talk about this in the book. You hit a bunch of things that I talk about. I'm divorced as well. That's probably a whole other podcast, but I think—my ex-wife, we didn't fight really. But we weren't growing. We grew way apart, not together. That doesn't work. We didn't have that love, passion, connection. So it's not even like you're in a bad relationship and you're always yelling at the kids. It was the inverse. But they never saw that. With my wife now, we're having water fights. It's not always great, but seeing that love and connection sets the example for what they're going to look for in a partner and what the expectation of love and relationship is.
--:-- But two, divorce fucking sucks. I have friends that go through it and I always say, "Dude, if you can figure it the fuck out, do it, because it sucks for the kids." I took being with my kids 100% of the time for granted. Now we have shared custody, like 2-2-3. I took that for granted because you come home, you work, and your kids are always there and you're not present. Now I would argue that I'm a much better, much more present dad. I'm doing droplets. I'm doing these things because now it's the expectation. Now you have limited time. Now you've got to do it.
--:-- So don't do that. If you're not divorced and you're going through it, don't take it for granted, man. It goes by so fucking quick. The kids remember that. The kids know that I walk my daughter into school every day, that I'm there for pick up at the practices. They know that shit. It was shitty to hear, but my son said to my wife, my current wife Maggie, because I don't miss dinner. I'm home for dinner. I'm all those things. It wasn't that I was that busy with work. I wasn't happy in my marriage. My son made a comment to my wife three or four years ago. He said, "It's weird. Daddy was never home for dinners and stuff, and now he doesn't miss." Maybe I've missed one in five years.
--:-- They fucking notice. We can tell ourselves whatever bullshit we want to tell ourselves, that they're too young. But I'm telling you, they fucking are sponges. They may not say anything, they may not do anything, but they do know.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: I couldn't agree with you more. Dude, what you just described is basically my experience to a T. I'm in 2-2-3, same exact experience. I had two moments with my kids that were very eye-opening to me recently. I've been dating a woman for a while now, and she's wonderful, and we have a great connection, and there may be a future there. But my son said to me, "Dad, I feel like every time I walk away, you guys are kissing." I was like, "Well, yeah, I guess." He's like, "But I'm not trying to shove it in your face." I was like, "It's not like we're making out or whatever, but maybe just a kiss or affection." I'm showing affection. And he said, "You and mom never did that."
--:-- It really hit me how much—he was young when we got divorced—it hit me how much he picked up on the fact that even though we were married and together, we weren't sitting next to each other on the couch. We weren't hugging each other in the kitchen. We weren't showing affection. And that was new to him.
--:-- The other one, to your point that they're listening to everything we say—the other day, I tend to be just like you, very positive, glass half full. "Let's go, push through, gritty," all that stuff. I constantly talk to my kids like they're adults. I do not believe in talking to your children like they're dumb. They're not dumb. In many cases, their curiosity and sponge-like brain is actually deeper and richer than our own. They're listening to every frigging word we say, the way we say it, who we say it to.
--:-- I had this moment the other day where I was talking about something and I was being kind of negative. My kid flips on me and literally regurgitates something back to me that I had said to him about baseball a few months earlier. I'm driving. I literally did this move where I was like, "Whoa." I said, "Thanks, bud. I needed to hear that." In my head, I'm going, "Holy shit. He listened to that. He was actually taking that thought in." It was a really wonderful moment.
--:-- But dude, I want to be respectful of your time and that of the audience. I want to close with one final question that we ask all our guests. Everyone is extraordinary. You are extraordinary. How do you defy being ordinary in your life?
--:-- Jeremy Delk: That's a good question. How do I defy being ordinary in my life? I think I'll answer it, not be too long-winded. But I think it goes back to when I talked about that 20-year-old that maybe doesn't have kids. Someone comes in your DM. It changes. I chased the watches and the cars and the things. So I think you always have those different pieces, and those things drive some people. For me, it's now 100% the family.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: And those experiences, those things, being able to have that luxury of some time and some experiences in travel, I think that's all that you kind of get in life. And I think everyone is extraordinary in their own right. And it's just kind of getting the courage to go in doing that.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: I think that's why I do these podcasts. I don't think I'm getting a check from you, but I'll take one. [laughs] But we don't make money doing this stuff. I think there's an obligation to serve and to share because there's someone on the other end listening and hearing that can relate and go through. And maybe they can get that courage to take that step.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: So that's how I really framed it up now to my pursuit of trying to be extraordinary. It's just to try to get more people to follow the passions and take chances and grow and learn and keep that curiosity going. Remember how it was when you were a kid. We didn't know bounds. We didn't know that things couldn't happen. And I still firmly believe that's how it is. There's not a limit on anything you can do. It's just getting out from between your two ears and having the courage to take a chance.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Jeremy, I appreciate you. I appreciate your story, and I absolutely appreciate your time. Thank you so much.
--:-- Jeremy Delk: My pleasure. Thank you.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Let's go. Make it look good.
--:-- Ryan Hanley: Thank you for listening to The Ryan Hanley Show. Be sure to subscribe and leave us a comment or review wherever you listen to podcasts.
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