💡The Path - Ep #11
My Entrepreneurial journey in Tokyo began as a confident adventure, but soon turned into a mild question:
"Where am I?"
Over time, the question deepened into doubt:
"I don't know where I am?"
Had I lost the path?
Today's "Sunday Sip" is inspired by Bryan a Tokyo Business Leader and Coach who reached out on LinkedIn to share that:
- "The content that I look forward to seeing from you is content about how you learned from your past ventures/ follies and are now using this move back to Chicago to make a living in support of your family. "
It was truly a joy crossing paths with Bryan at a Leadership Latte, and I remember him asking some pointed questions about my entrepreneurial journey post JNJ in Tokyo.
One such question, "So... are you making any money consulting?"
Which I quickly responded with, "Ya!" we both immediately smiled.
This was true. I had landed two clients, one with a downstream shared success model (revenue sharing) and one with a milestone based payment plan.
I was confident, that we would see further financial success.
I was wrong... at least on the time horizon I predicted.
My first client required me to operationalize my business (hiring)... without having initial revenue.
The second client wasn't able to lock into a commercially viable product market fit... meaning I only received the initialization payment for our partnership.
And as I continued networking with other potential clients in Tokyo, I cycled through the loops of:
- Confidence: I'm sure of my footing and strategy!
- Doubt: Where am I?
- Fear: I don't know where I am!
- The Path: I know who I am...
Confidence: I'm sure of my footing and strategy!
As an entrepreneur, a healthy relationship with confidence is vital to securing future success.
Notice my emphasis on "relationship" vs just saying you need to be more confident as a founder.
If you imagine a teeter totter, which is simply a long beam resting on a fulcrum... picture Confidence being on one side and Hubris being on the other.
A person with either Confidence or Hubris is completely sure of themselves (the fulcrum)...
- But one is on a path that will lead to success (Confidence)
- The other has made a fatal assumption leading to self destruction (Hubris)
The challenge is that you're never 100% sure which side of the teeter totter you're on until looking back from your success/failure. Did you rise high or crash into the dirt.
For example, today I'm incredibly confident about the value my community on Skool will bring to Engineers, Global Leaders, and Entrepreneurs.
That said my sister who is also a phenomenal content creator and artist... shared huge hesitations she has about my 2nd round of entrepreneurship.
She cares for me and my family, and is confident that what I'm trying to build will fail...
Directly calling out that I am not confident... but rather disillusioned by hubris.
How is one to know that they're on the path... or just lost in the woods?
Doubt: Where am I?
I was so confident about my 1st round of entrepreneurship in Brand Management and Community Building.
I had written "copy" for the first time and successfully drove traffic from LinkedIn to a waitlist for my community on Skool. But something seemed a bit off when folks committed to joining but didn't follow through with payment.
There's a difference between having an intention to purchase and actually purchasing. I started feeling this strange dissonance between my prior confidence the present doubt...
"Where am I?"
I had researched community building, waitlists, and marketing for months if not years. I had a decade of engineering experience at JNJ and an audience 24,000+ from 5 years of content creation and digital storytelling.
But I began to question, "Maybe... just maybe I'm lost in this whole entrepreneurial thing...
Maybe my business model has a major flaw...
...Or maybe I need to lock in and push harder?"
I chose the latter and forced it.
Fear: I don't know where I am!
Burn rate is one of the most intense psychologically challenging phenomenon I've ever personally experienced. Especially when everything is running to zero and you burned the boats in Japan leaving no return path to the US (or so I thought).
Doubt turned to fear when I was following up with a close friend who initially committed to joining my community yet stalled in the process.
His email broke me:
"Hey Joe,
I booked some time to talk on Wednesday (I think your Thursday).
For me it’s not the money aspect of it, but more so your intentions and what you believe I am to you now with all of this. I mentioned in our last 1:1 that I’m happy to help you in whatever skillset capacity I might have (which might be nothing now since you’ve evolved way past engineering, and that's completely fine) but this isn’t what I had in mind. I also have no financial interest or financial intent in this, especially as friends, since money seems to complicate all things. Note that this doesn't mean I think what you are doing is not valuable, but rather I'm not looking to add any further complexity right now.
Again, my miss and most likely a lack of open communication. Let's talk more later if you have time."
His words cut deep, exposing so many missteps in how I had approached marketing/sales and the value positioning of my first product...
But even more importantly, it illuminated how l had mistreated a friend who had been in the trenches with me during my JNJ Japan days.
"I don't know where I am!"
This was a defining moment for me as I needed to take 100% accountability for why this email ever needed to be written in the first place. A full root cause investigation and deep commitment to make things right.
I have so much respect and gratitude for my friend's candor and that he took the time to meet with me.
We went line by line through his email and explored where my words, product positioning, copy, DMs, etc made him feel the exact opposite of what I desired for anyone trying to find their way as an Engineer.
Acknowledging that we don't know WHERE We Are is foundational to discovering WHO We Are.
The Path: I know Who I Am...
It was a vulnerable call...
A reconciling call...
...and it radically shifted my entire approach to business.
For context:
My community was focused on helping Engineers, Global Leaders, and Entrepreneurs find their way...
So they could secure "Their Next" best opportunity.
My main course, "How to Say Goodbye" contained 9 modules that pulled in lessons from my strategic exit from JNJ so folks can break through the inertial forces that keep them in jobs that are killing them.
KPI - equip folks to land a new job targeting a 30% increase in pay, loving where they live and what they do.
Here's the problem...
If someone needs a job, they're not ready to pay for knowledge, coaching, and community to find a job. I hated having sales interactions where I ended up turning someone away who genuinely needed what I was building but lacked the capacity to buy.
Receiving ,"the email" was a catalyst for me to recognize who I was.
To be able to say "not like this..." "No one ever feels this way again..."
Even if it means my burn rate is burned.
Even if it means a return path to US and a full restart at 32 years old with 4 kids in Chicago.
"Not like this... I know who I am".
So I started reaching out to everyone that I had previously interacted with, and told them I've reimagined my business model and I was launching a free community with full access to the everything I was building. And folks started coming, little by little.
I burned the boats on my own business ... Venturing out on a longer time horizon.
Personally I'm also paying $100/month to host my community on the platform, I'm putting 100's of hours into the content and engaging with as many folks as possible to help them land a job that is equitable and enables them to provide for their families...for free.
I even got my first testimonial!
Mobin's Story!
And then in July 2025, I'll launch two paid communities that enable folks to go deeper in their journey to become the Engineer, Global Leader, and Entrepreneur that they desire.
Trusting that I can provide even greater value at an equitable price to a segment of my community... without excluding the majority from the flagship course.
I know who I am.
I know the value I can bring to folks at different stages on their journey, and there's a huge group on the front end of their careers that need to learn How to Say Goodbye (for free).
Knowing who you are... reveals the path.
We can spend so much time, effort and anxiety trying to escape the woods... rather than trusting we have the evolving capabilities necessary to find our own way.
To fully embrace our own journey rooted in a deep knowing of who we are, letting what we do flow from that.
Benediction:
So may you take pause and look inward.
Stop spinning on whether you're crashing towards the earth (hubris) or soaring high (confidence).
Instead consider what lights you up and question if your day is oriented around that.
If you know who you are, you'll find that your foot lands with greater confidence, even if you can't see where the winding path will take you.
And as always friend...
Keep changing the world!
