In this episode, Curt Kempton and Melody Edwards tackle a phrase that strikes a nerve for many entrepreneurs: “It’s just business.”

What does it really mean when people say this? Is it a harmless way to explain tough decisions, or just a convenient excuse to avoid responsibility for how business impacts real people?

Curt and Melody dive into their personal experiences, sharing stories about layoffs, difficult choices, and the challenge of separating emotion from entrepreneurship.

Along the way, they explore whether you can, or even should, detach your personal values from your business, and why the phrase “it’s just business” so often feels like a dismissal.

Get ready for honest conversation, a few hard-won lessons, and a fresh look at how business decisions touch our lives. If you’ve ever wondered where to draw the line between what’s personal and what’s “just business,” this is the episode for you.

Welcome to the Sole Proprietor Podcast.

I'm Kirk Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions and dilemmas that keep entrepreneurs up at night.

We love talking about the soul of your business, which means having tough conversations that challenge what we believe and push us to think deeper about business values and what really matters.

Whether you're building your own company or exploring life's big questions, you are welcome here.

Hey, Kurt, Here we are.

Hey, Melody.

I'm really, really excited to dig in today.

What are we talking about?

Well, it's a phrase.

It's a phrase that I've used probably differently than most people.

It's a phrase that makes my skin crawl.

It's a phrase that probably, if I didn't need therapy, would be a perfectly fine phrase.

But I want to talk to you today, Melody, about the phrase it's just business.

Oh, yeah.

My favorite phrase ever.

As you know, I am not a fan as well, but apparently it's because I need therapy too, probably.

And we say that with all love, because growing up, I thought people went to therapy, were broken, and then I realized, well, we're all broken.

So I'm like, we should all be in there.

So what does that phrase mean to you?

I'm not loading it in any context right now.

I just want to hear what it means.

Well, for me, what that means is kind of a way for people to excuse bad behavior or not considering all parties involved in a business situation, being able to dismiss somebody else's feelings about.

Because I keep saying feelings.

Right.

But business also involves emotion and a lot of other things.

And so for me, it's more about it's dismissiveness.

And it's also, I just think bad people, even though I know so many people who would say that, and I think they're great people, I don't have the ability to shut myself off from my business in that way, meaning from my personal self.

So when I say.

If I say it's just business, it's also personal.

It doesn't get separated.

Yeah.

What about you?

I feel like that's actually pretty accurate for me, the excusing bad behavior or something that I know is socially unacceptable or unethical.

Yeah.

It reminds me so much of the phrase of no offense.

But when I say no offense, your feelings have to shut off because I already told you, you're not allowed to have offense.

Right.

So, yeah, it's just business to me is a phrase that people use to say that numbers matter more to me or the business entity Matters more than what I'm about to say next.

Do you think it's the business or numbers matter more than people in that, again, so important.

We need to have, like, constant asterisks popping up on the screen or in the.

In the audio that they're like, what is about being said.

It's like off the cuff.

Please not take this as the actual feelings.

I feel like, oh, I don't know.

I don't like what I'm about to say.

Typically, what it means is, is that there is a really good deal for me that I want to have that will lead me or my business or my bank account or my time or whatever I'm about to do.

So it's just a business decision.

And what I'm about to tell you, I have enough social awareness that you're probably not going to like it, but I do not want to take responsibility for that awareness and I do not want to have to feel any guilt about the fact that what I'm doing.

So this is a Novocaine.

I'm going to inject that for me, doesn't do jack squat.

You know, you can inject that Novocaine into me all day, and then whatever comes out of your mouth next is still going to hit just as hard.

Do you think that actually works for anybody?

You know what?

To be told that I'm going to.

Use an example of an autistic person, because I know several really brilliant autistic people who have shocked me with their ability to separate from, like, sometimes I wish I was autistic in some ways somewhere on the spectrum, because there is such a blessing that comes with that separation.

Now, I don't think you have to be autistic to have that gift.

I think that some people just are naturally born with it.

In fact, I would say that I want to be coached probably by someone like that someday.

But I also don't want to lose my edge.

And I do feel like part of my edge in this whole sole proprietor podcast is that if you've heard my story, and if you haven't heard my story, feel free to go back and listen to it.

But I am really emotionally connected, spiritually, emotionally, to the things that come out of my hands, the things that come out of my mouth.

And I hold people to that same standard, which might be a weakness, but it's also my superpower.

Melody, why is it a weakness for us to hold people to a standard of.

I've heard too many things, but I would immediately think of it as emotional intelligence that I can use both my emotion or that I would expect other people to not say that to me because they have a bigger understanding of how humans work on an emotional level, on a social level.

At the same time, I have been coached by so many people who are great with twisting around the thing that I would naturally believe.

And they would say emotional intelligence is being able to separate themselves from the business.

And I don't disagree.

I mean, look, we both have a common dear friend.

Josh Latimer, marketing genius.

He sees the world like if I'm looking at the world head on.

He has the profile view.

He's one of those people who can say stuff like that, and then it makes me rethink everything.

Yeah.

And I would actually go on record right now.

I'm going to say that Josh Latimer is a evil genius and also a wonderful good genius.

In television shows, they always talk about people being foils.

He's probably my foil.

We get along just fine.

It's not foil like you would think of in those terms.

But I could be saying a whole sentence out of my mouth and he would hear the sentence and be like, oh, so you really like that?

And I'm like, did you hear what I just said?

Because he can hear it from.

Not can.

Will hear it from a totally different way.

And as a coaching thing, that's what you're saying, is that you say what you see and then your coach goes, that's so interesting that you see it that way, because I've looked at this my whole life, and you need to take one step back and three steps to the right to see what it actually is.

So as we get into this phrase, I think one of the big things that I'm going to try hard not to beat to death is that while I can respect that this phrase can be used properly and with judgment and all of that, I also must say that part of who I am, big part of who I am, requires a responsibility well beyond business.

And I don't hear it.

I don't hear it as a reasonable way to do something wrong.

Now, if I said, I've got to go to Nashville on business, yeah, I'd rather be at home.

But my business requires this of me and that sacrifice.

I've got to make sure that it's worth it and I'll do it for going for business.

But I have to punch you in the face or do something unethical.

But it's legal.

Yeah.

I have to forage your company and break it into little pieces.

But it's not personal.

It's just business.

You know, there's another way that you can say it's just business, which we've probably said as well, which is, you know, it doesn't matter.

It's just business, which it matters.

But I'm always looking at life from the greater view of.

And so for me, business doesn't mean the same thing as it would mean for probably 95% of entrepreneurs.

I would guess maybe not.

Oh yeah, I think it's probably pretty accurate.

If it's okay, I'd like to share an example from my life of where I had to do something that was just business.

But from the perspective of my business is forcing me to do this.

So I got in a position where I love all my employees.

And you know what?

My good buddy Brandon Vaughn, he would tell you, they're teammates, not family.

And he's right and I'm wrong.

But he one time asked me, brandon, anyone who knows Brandon?

He started one of the founding member with Josh Latimer actually of Conquer coaching has run and grown massive home service business.

And now he's got other ones.

He's franchising, very smart guy.

And I love Brandon Vaughn with my heart.

He said, kurt, at what point did you feel like you have to pay people to be your friends?

Like what?

I'm just wondering, do you have a friend deficit where you have to pay these people like your employees become your friends?

And he was doing it to change my mindset, obviously.

But anyway, that gives you an idea into my head of what people have seen.

And kind of my personal truth is like, even though I disagree that I have to pay people to my friends, I do feel like people I am paying.

I only do business with people who are I'm friends with.

Right.

Yeah.

I only do business with people that I like.

Yeah.

And trust.

Yeah.

But anyway, I let my business get a little out of control expense wise.

I was trying hard to pull some levers that I thought would cause growth.

I was wrong.

I hired against it, put payroll up.

I added more expenses than I had income.

I did many things that increased expenses but did not increase the results that I had hoped.

And as a result of that, those many decisions, they were all decisions that I thought would lift the company.

I'd stockpiled a bunch of cash and I used all that cash to try to make these different experiments to work.

None of them worked.

And I watched the airplane on the Runway not at takeoff speed and the Runway is quickly coming to an end.

And it required me to fire people who had done nothing wrong.

Why?

I had to.

I had to clear.

Clear the books of expenses.

You know, I had to.

Obligations.

And I want to keep people on payroll.

I want to keep the business alive.

But in order to do that, it's going to require me to really sit down and figure out which expenses I can slash.

No.

Did I start with softwares I wasn't using or a contractor that was really expensive and wasn't yielding results?

Obviously, yes, I cut deep and I, of course, tried to not cut people.

At the same time, I do believe people need to be accountable to what results they get and if they're not producing results.

But it doesn't change the fact that these are good people who didn't inherently do anything wrong.

I was the one that did something wrong.

I had to right size the business.

Yeah.

Do you feel like you really did something wrong?

You took a risk, which is entrepreneurship.

Yeah, that's true.

So isn't that what we do?

Yeah.

It's just business.

Right.

So in that sense, it is.

So, yeah.

But I did.

I miscalculated things.

And like you said, I calculated risks, and those calculated risks resulted in having the right size.

So I've been in a room letting people go who did nothing wrong, and it's happened more than twice.

But in two instances, I had to do this for two different businesses.

And I guess all I'm saying is, is that when you're talking to someone and you go, you've done nothing wrong, you have to go.

If I'm going to keep this business and I'm going to be able to keep all the commitments to everyone else that I've made, I have no choice but to cut somebody.

And this really hurts.

But instead of saying it's just business, the take that I have is that in order for me to keep all of the commitments that I possibly can, which I realize means that I'm breaking a commitment to you who has, by no fault of your own, you're have to suffer for this.

I don't know if you take any solace in this, but this is hurting me a ton too.

And I know it's hurting you more.

I know that.

And you cannot appreciate the pain that I'm going through because the pain you're going through is so much more.

But, Kurt, that's really nice way to say it.

Yeah.

But I mean, the fact is, is that my business required me to hurt somebody who didn't deserve to be hurt.

The problem is, is that I can't tie the revenue back, you know, there's people who bring in revenue and there's people who can survive a little bit without because they don't bring in revenue.

And so those decisions have to get made.

And to me, it's not necessarily that the phrase it's just business doesn't have a truth in it.

It wasn't personal.

I'm not letting you go because it's like I got a vendetta against you and I'm going to think about you a lot even after you are gone.

And I will write letters for you and I will hop into interviews with you.

I will do whatever you need.

I'm there, man.

But the business required me to make a decision and I hate that there wasn't a decision I wanted.

Well, you know that this is what I have to do all the time in my company because we're a recruiter, we're constantly recruiting.

And it's not just internally for my company, it's for our clients as well.

And sometimes it's not a virtual assistant's fault that they're being let go.

It might be that the client is having financial problems and we don't have another person for them.

There are a million reasons why.

And I would say that I have let go more people in the last four years than I've ever let go in my entire business career.

And it's still very painful and I hate it so much.

Also, though, there are things that I do to make sure that I can feel less guilty because the fact that I even have guilt, I think it's just business.

That thing is, I don't feel people maybe who say that have internal feelings about it.

They really can shut off that.

And some people just like, you know, being a shark in business.

Right.

But that's not you and me, we're not like that.

And so I'll do anything.

I'll pay them an extra week.

I will find somebody outside of our company.

I'll go online and say, hey, I've got a great person, you know, I'll do anything I can, just like you to make sure this person lands on their feet when they're really good.

But it's like my least favorite part of growing a company.

I hate it.

So, Melody, it's just business when you have to let em go.

It's not personal.

So why does that phrase that you and I are so intimately familiar with the truth of, why do we associate it with it being some sort of weird, like, permission to be evil?

Well, I've seen a lot of movies, so that's one thing right there.

Wall street movies always have somebody who's saying, it's just business.

It's not personal.

But also the kinds of people that I've heard that from, it's just something that.

It's kind of like in the south, everybody says, bless your heart.

It's kind of like that.

Okay, you can actually bless somebody's heart for really.

Oh, you could, but no one, certainly in the south, it would almost be impossible, because that is not a.

Nobody is blessing your heart when they say that.

Now, I don't care in Massachusetts because we don't say that here.

And so I think it's adorable when somebody tries to crush my soul by saying, bless your heart.

But it matters to people in the south, right?

And I just think in the business context, everybody knows what it's just business means.

And we all make choices every single day to be ethical humans or, like, we make little moral choices every day.

I am on my moral high ground now, but I'm not.

This is just what I believe, and it's what I've always believed.

I don't shift my views or change my views in my inner belief system.

Right.

I would love people to shift my belief system in some way because it would be so much easier.

But I just really think that that whole attitude of it's just business, it's so dismissive.

It's dismissive of the person you're sitting across when you're saying it.

I don't know.

Obviously, you and I are on the same page, that this is not the kind of thing that we would say in our world, and yet we have said it.

One time, I said it meanly because I wanted to hurt somebody's feelings, but I took it back.

It was a little sarcastic.

And I've been told that many, many times.

And every time I've been told that even recently.

Well, in not so many words, but in those words, it's that it never stops being painful.

I can't ever get on board and feel like, oh, I get it.

No problem, right?

Because when they say that, they really know that they're gonna hurt me in some way because they know how connected I am to the work that I do and how that's connected to my beliefs about how I treat people.

And it's especially hard when it's people that you feel like you've aligned your values with.

Like, you feel like you understand their value system.

When somebody like that can say it to you, and it might not be about you, it might be probably about them.

But it feels crazy.

Like, wait, am I missing something?

I actually usually go internal with those things.

Is it a me problem?

And you know what's funny?

I'm thinking about this.

I think it is an us problem.

But is it?

I'm going to say something that isn't very earth shattering, but I think we both are totally fine with it's just business as long as you don't say that phrase.

So let me dig in here.

I just gave you an example.

I'm not going to repeat it, but I gave you an example of a time when it was just business, not personal.

And you.

I happen to know some of the things that have gone on in your life recently and they could not use the words outside of it's just business that I used to soften.

Like, hey, look, it hurts me so much.

This has to be.

I've looked at all the alternatives and this is the only way I can bless as many lives as possible.

What you and I do is we hear this phrase that's been used and synonymized with other things.

You know, Wall street movies is what you used as the example.

And I'm wondering if people were using different phrases with us.

Let's go back to the most recent example in your life where someone didn't use that phrase but basically was saying it.

The difference is, is that we go back to what the definition of it's just business is.

Well, I think when people do that, there's excuses and there's not true validation of the emotion.

When you gave your example, you were saying to your employees, this is painful for me.

I can only imagine how painful this is for you.

And you were letting them know that this.

You understood that you were hurting them.

You understood that this was going to affect their life in a big way.

You weren't saying, you'll jump back on your feet, everything's going to be fine.

Nothing's going to change.

Right?

Nothing's going to change.

Okay, you know what?

You've not only swayed me, but that last phrase just convinced me that it's the use of that phrase or like that it's the whole, this is not going to affect you.

It's not a big deal.

It's not a big deal.

Nothing will change when the other person on the other side is like, literally, you just changed it.

You just made it so I don't have a job.

You just made it so that we have to be enemies now.

You just made it so that I can never be seen in public with you again.

You know, like, so if you had said it's not going to change anything for me, then what you just said was is that I don't care about.

And it's the I don't care.

And that's the same with the non.

Validation is when I tell you that this is how it's going to have to be.

The next question is, do you understand the full effect other than how it's going to affect you?

Do you understand the full effect of who is affected by this and do you care?

And I think that is where I just became convinced is that the phrase itself isn't really all that, that has no teeth.

It just stands for the whole part of that.

Yeah, it's the either I don't understand how this is going to affect all parties or I don't care how it affects all parties.

And I refuse to acknowledge that or take any ownership of it.

It's the refusal to acknowledge.

I also think for people who are really deep into the business world, they don't want to sit with that pain that you just caused somebody.

Of course you don't want to.

It's not fun.

But also if you respect that person and if you care about them in any way or if you respect them as a associate or whatever and you want to do business with them again anytime in the future, you have to listen to them and say, I hear what you're saying and I'm so sorry.

Because there are ways to say it where it's meaningful and then there's ways that are dismissive and that are kind of like people trying to coach you out of feeling that way because they don't want to experience uncomfortableness in those moments.

Yeah.

And I think I've always seen it the opposite way.

Is that they don't.

Well, no, maybe it's right in line.

I'm teasing this out in my head right now.

Do you have feelings?

You know, like that's kind of in.

The first thing is like I feel nothing.

I said this and it excused all my feelings.

I have to deal with that discomfort.

And maybe that's actually the opposite.

Maybe they have all of those feelings and they just.

This is their way of dismissing their mending.

Yeah, they don't want to be uncomfortable.

They don't want to deal with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so much a part of business and business world and I just find over and over again.

So we just talked a little bit about generally some examples in my life that I've experienced.

But when a prospect, I've done sales calls or whatever.

When a prospect comes back and says, hey, I'm sorry, like, I really loved meeting with you, but you're just out of my price range.

Right.

I don't take that personally.

It's not like they're doing something to me, Right.

And they could say it's just business and I wouldn't care because I would get it.

It's not affecting me.

I mean, if I was super sensitive, I could say, oh, no, my.

But it's not that it's not a personal thing.

It's just they're looking at their options.

This one didn't fit into, you know, everything.

So that's a different way, I guess, to.

To look at it.

But it's really.

When it is personal, it's bad.

When somebody's saying, it's not personal, it's just business.

When we all know that it's personal, that's when it really cuts.

Or when it's not personal for me because I win.

Yes.

Oh, yes.

Because that's actually, in my opinion, almost the worst one, where it's like, I actually think you're a pretty great guy, you know, or a great gal.

Right.

But I can make a hundred thousand extra dollars this year personally, you know, you didn't do anything wrong, but, you.

Know, like, what's our number?

What do you think your number would be?

What would cause you to break your stickiness on this idea of how much we hate when people do that?

Is there a number?

Well, I know what my number is higher than.

I don't know what my number is, but I know that I had a very real.

I'm getting ready to ask you a question more on a much grander scale, too.

But I think this is good to step back and have these thoughts because there was a time in my business when things were just so hard and I saw how much money is coming in gross each month, and I thought I could make all of this go away and just fire everyone, continue to collect checks until everyone just leaves this product.

Like, this is like those thoughts where you have about suicide that you're not actually going to do it, but you're like, what are my options?

Well, you know, I could kill myself, which is, of course, a horrible.

And if you're struggling that way and, like, you're really in those thoughts, obviously you need to talk to a professional for sure.

But business suicide is, in my opinion, it's where you fire everybody and you let the business just.

If I just went three or four or five months, how much money could I stack?

And, yeah, I would hurt everybody else, but then I just never have to think about anything ever again, you know?

Okay, so I'm saying I know that when I had that number, I was like, what a heinous thought.

And no, that.

That money's not even close to, like, coming to it.

And it was pretty large amount of money.

I remember thinking, that is a lot of money.

Hmm.

That's so interesting.

I honestly can tell you this.

I don't know if I have an amount of money.

I must, I must.

But I don't think of money.

I really should, but I don't think of money as a thousand is a lot compared to a hundred thousand or a million.

Because my ideas in my brain are just like.

Well, I could just make that in a different way.

I don't know how to explain it.

Maybe I would do it if it was so much money.

No, because if I was like, nevermind, I don't think I could.

Yeah, well, if you could convert it.

Because what I did to myself is I converted that dollar amount.

I'm not truly motivated by money, but if I was like, I could just hang out with my family and go wherever I want in the world for the rest of my life.

I wonder if that changes it for you, Melody.

Like, does that know if I just.

Hurt 10 people, I can hang out with my family for the rest of my life?

I don't know.

Yeah, well, listen, not being motivated is not super unique.

In fact, we have a whole generation coming up.

They're saying that far more than 50% of millennials are incentivized by life and experience.

More so than money.

With my window cleaning company, even I knew that.

And most people didn't care if they made more than a certain amount.

They just wanted enough.

And then they left.

Their time, freedom.

They wanted all of these things that me as like a hustler workaholic who grew up as a Gen Xer.

I never thought about those things because I was trained to just be a workhorse.

So, yeah, I'm not surprised.

Well, let me pose a question to you that's in the same vein.

It's so funny you asked me that question.

I have a question along the same vein, but it's a little more on the spiritual side.

You know, some people who know, if they've listened to our stories, they kind of know where we're coming from.

Similar but different spectrums.

Some might say, well, Kurt, you're not money motivated because obviously money is not going to motivate you as much because you're into this whole eternal life with God.

And, you know, I have these deep feelings and I know that in your story we talk a lot more about how, you know, I don't know.

I just don't know what to go when it comes to God.

But I know for sure that just by me questioning human exists.

I'm going to go to hell for it.

Definitely going to hell.

Yeah.

So my question is, is that some people are doing it all for the big reward, the eternal reward.

Right.

And I go to church, these people, and they make me sick.

To be honest, I actually think it's hilarious.

You're going to be good for a reward, so you're not going to be good for you.

You're not going to be good because it's the right thing to do.

You're selfish or you're having a bad life here.

Like my grandma, she never had control over her life.

She has always just talked about that's her dream.

And the Poor lady, she's 95 now.

She's just been going on and on, talking about heaven.

It's a long, horrible life.

Yeah.

It's not that it's horrible, but she didn't get to be her own person in marriage with her parents, all the things.

So it could probably be one or the other.

Okay.

And that goes back to that experiment of, like, kids who will wait to eat a marshmallow so they can have two marshmallows.

Like, you know, we've heard about my.

Grandma, she waits on that marshmallow and.

She'S like, I'm gonna have a hundred marshmallows.

I'm not eating this one.

Yes.

In heaven.

Okay, so cool.

Right on.

That's a motivation for people.

And listen, that's actually shows great discipline, but I don't know, that shows authenticity because you're afraid to be who you are.

So my question is, what is it in you, Melody, that motivates you?

Or what is it that makes it feel like it would be so wrong?

Because I often look at atheists and I'm not putting in the category of atheists by any.

I want to make sure.

If you haven't listened to Nelly's story, you need to listen to this story.

But I'm often jealous of the fact that they know for sure why they're doing what they're doing.

Because there is no higher power.

There's nothing else.

Yeah.

So let's see, what are your thoughts on.

You would never do the things that we've discussed, you know, give yourself the get out of jail free card.

But you're also not necessarily doing it for the reward.

I'm not doing it for the reward, that's for sure.

I can tell you that 100%.

I think about this a lot because I wonder why myself a lot of the time, especially when I'm holding.

There's just some morality that was partially infused in me from like my religious upbringing.

But also there's just things that I am, you know, that I stand for, that I am.

I've always cared about human life, you know, I've always cared about humans and people and just maybe I'm too empathetic, I don't know.

But I always feel that I don't know what my moral compass is.

It's based on how I was grew up.

Do you think it's part of who we are when we're born?

Like, I feel that people are born in different ways and they have different, maybe spirits.

And I've always felt that was part of my spirit, a gentle soul.

This isn't taking us away from the topic, so I'm not rabbit holing here.

Do you believe that you're made of a spirit and a physical body?

I kind of do because I've had a lot of loss in my life and I really used to struggle like I would go dark for long periods of time.

When my ex husband died for two years, went and just was crazy.

I could not stop thinking about him, his death.

And so I started to think about where that energy went because he was like a vibrant force of nature.

Where does that kind of energy go once somebody leaves?

And I've always felt like there has to be some spirit within.

And I don't know how that lines up with Christianity or anything else, but I just decided that he has to be a star somewhere up in the sky because there are so many billions of stars and their energy.

And I just made a decision about that because physics and it made grief easier.

Okay, physics.

I didn't get to that physics class.

But nor did I.

That is beautiful though, and thank you for sharing it.

But can I say one other thing?

The different flipping of the coin and I hate it when I hear coaches talk about this, but it also makes me doubt myself.

A lot of coaches will say, who are like deep work coaches will say you're a good person who has certain moral beliefs because you're selfish because you want to be known as a good person.

You do good things because you want to be seen as good.

And in a way, of course, we do good things because we want to feel Good, right?

Like a concrete example.

Just throw a concrete example out there for the people listening and watching.

I have raised money for people a couple different times where I'm the person who will see a needle and I can't not see it once I've seen it.

And then I'll figure out how to make that change.

If I know that I can do something about it, I'm going to figure out.

And no matter how much time or energy it takes me, there was a really big instance of it last year in my life.

One of my friends children is in hospice.

And so I saw a need and I just went gung ho into it.

And I think sometimes it's way too deep.

I just invest everything in that.

I've done that over and over again in my life.

It's a common theme.

If I see somebody in a fight on the street, I will run to the fight.

That's the kind of human I am.

I pulled over, my kids were in the car, we're driving, and this guy was like, is attacking this girl.

I, like, drive over, careen off the road, jump out, and I go to grab the guy, and the girl's like, it's my brother.

He's just giving me a hard time.

So I guess we're a little more similar than.

Than you think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it makes me wonder, though, I'll just take it to the fullest example is that when I hear people talk like that, because what they're saying is you have to acknowledge that this is a part of who you are because of your selfishness, and only then can you be authentic.

But I'm thinking, but I've always been authentically me.

Like, it's one of my worst traits in the business world.

It's like one of the worst qualities that you can have is being yourself in business.

To illustrate your point, we know we've heard this one before, is that if you're a bad marketer, you're just being selfish and not letting your product that's so good get into the hands of more people.

That's another example of the thing that makes me overthink things and turn them around and around until I'm spinning.

But let's get back to this other question about why you hold yourself to this standard.

You've used the idea of a spirit.

You've used the idea of an energy.

It's just who I am.

Yeah, like you're born with it is one of the things you said.

I kind of feel like that.

And also I think childhood trauma let's just say that out loud, too.

There are a lot of things in my life, and I've talked about cult church.

That's a childhood trauma right there.

When you're following in a church like that, you are being taught to only listen and serve.

Like, that's the whole point is like, you're going to give up your life to serve others.

Essentially, when I was, like, born, my parents put me on the altar and said, you're going to be a missionary.

And so when you're told that kind of messaging your whole life, you tend to look at other people as more important than even yourself.

He who shall lose his life for me will find it.

Right.

Sure.

Is that a verse that I should know?

Yeah, yeah.

One of the things that I do find similar in me as well is that I might have been born this way.

I think there's a lot.

If you take personality tests, you know, a lot of them will point to personality style, and we may very well fall in that same 16 personalities.

What are you?

I'm trying to remember right now.

I'm a mediator.

No matter how many times I take that stupid test.

Infj.

I think I probably.

It sounds familiar.

I just remember the word mediator.

Okay, Well, I think INFJ is what I am.

Here's what I would say that I'm curious if you would line up on it is that we saw injustice.

Young and traumatized might be a strong word, because I don't really feel that I had the kind of childhood that I could properly and be respectful to those who have received real, real trauma.

But we saw injustice, and at some point we said to ourselves, that's not who I am.

I will fight to the death.

It's a.

You see a movie and a guy is like, he just snitch right now and save his life, but he won't snitch.

And I'm no snitch.

I feel like that's where I'm at right now, is where I will go all the way down.

Not being a causer of injustice, that's literally me.

But it also drives me crazy because anything that's not aligned with that idea feels morally bankrupt.

It's almost like because I can't do.

It's law and order, black and white.

It's just.

I can't just see it as like, oh, it's just a decision you're making.

It has to be one or the other in my head.

And I say that.

And then I also think, well, there are times when I make excuses or decide things that are a little out of alignment.

I can't think of examples, but I know it's happened, But I feel guilty and I know it.

You know, but they're not big, as.

A believer would say.

That's part of not being the perfect.

Yeah.

The perfect God, you know?

So I think we've discussed into our own echo chamber of this black and white thinking.

And I'm just going to extend black and white thinking because what you and I have just discussed as far as justice and injustice, very binary, it causes a lot of damage because we live in a grayscale world.

But the problem with trying to be as white as possible is that any shade of gray we toss into black.

Ooh, I just had a thought.

This is actually something we can discuss and have two opposing views.

But we could talk about the thing that happened with responsicon a couple of years ago, if you're willing to.

Because you guys did nothing wrong and I did nothing wrong, but I felt deeply injustice.

I felt deep injustice.

Right.

It's something we might want to consider talking about because we both had a point of view.

And if I didn't talk to you or I didn't know, I promise you, Kurt, if I hadn't approached you, I don't know how I would feel about you right now.

Do you know what I'm saying?

Yeah, but we don't have to.

No, it's one of those things where I certainly don't mind punishing myself for eons of time about not seeing your side ahead of time.

I would hope you wouldn't punish yourself at all.

But you see, how it is is that everything was white and white and white until it became gray and then it was black.

You really did a good job.

And the people who are listening are like, woo, dealing with the juicy story.

And, you know, with the amount of time we have left, maybe we could tell a little bit of that story and just really get the bones of it out there.

Because at the end of the day, well, there's another party of the story that probably doesn't deserve to be brought up without their permission.

But I do think that there's a really important, it's just business element here where it's like, as an entrepreneur, I am carrying forward doing business, and then as we get into the actual meat of it, we can't possibly know everything.

And there's more.

So I don't know how far can we take this without imposing on the party that we haven't asked permission?

I don't Think it would be imposing because it's nothing against that party.

We'll call them a party.

But let me just give my perspective, and then you can give yours if you.

Yeah, yeah.

So I don't think you knew this at the time also, but your team was sending out invites because I had been a vendor at your event that you had been running.

Right.

And they sent out invites for the next event.

I had just had a concussion not so long before that.

When I was out, I was just out.

And so I definitely missed that first invite to become a vendor or whatever.

But at the same time, there's this other entity that had started that you were a part of.

Maybe we can't talk about this, but I think we could.

And you had to have membership.

And I think the reason, from my point of view, before I understood why I wasn't originally invited into the membership, I had thought it was personal, that I hadn't gotten an invitation.

What I later learned is another member thought that it might be a.

What do you call it?

Conflict of interest.

Conflict of interest.

But I had never understood that up front.

I always just go to what's wrong with me.

And later, though, when they decided it wasn't a conflict of interest, another company that's similar to mine got invited into that thing, and then it made it so that they ended up speaking on a stage at your event, and there was no reason to not have that.

The event that you were invited to one time that you had a concussion during and that.

That I had gone to every year, I had been to everybody.

I loved it.

It's like my favorite thing ever.

I'm a big Kurt responsibid supporter.

And when I reached out and said, hey, are you guys doing the show?

Or whatever, you know, your person said, yeah, we are.

But just so you know, somebody else has a company like yours, they're going to be there and they're speaking on the stage.

And I felt really humiliated because now that I'm thinking about it, this is definitely a big thing that I have internally.

I think about what it's going to look like, what's the perception going to be?

When I've been there, they know my company has been around a long time, been in the industry, but that somebody else with the same type of company is on stage, because to people who attend these events who don't understand, because I used to be that person who don't understand how people get on stages, it's just going to look like, well, they're the expert, they're the most expert of all experts, or else they wouldn't put them on a stage.

Right.

And so my first thing was like, I can't go to this event.

Like I'm going to be humiliated.

It just felt very personal to me, especially because we had relationships or I had relationships with a lot of the people, people involved.

And it wasn't anybody's fault though, except that there was a lot of other stuff going on.

But I went.

I'm really glad I did.

I had a lot of fun and I just made it work for me, as I always do.

But it was something that I think the reason I ended up going was because I sent you.

Was it a 10 minute video?

I think so.

And I just want you to know it took me like two or three days and probably 10 to 20 minute videos to just get it down to one 10 minute video where there was not overly emotional.

And it was probably still quite emotional.

I was emotional watching it.

But you know what, Kurt?

That was the first time that you and I had a real hour long heart to heart conversation where I got to hear things about you.

Your beliefs, your ideas about things that made me feel even more connected to you.

But you validated.

You didn't come to me and say, hey, Melody, so sorry, it's just business.

Yeah, you validated what I was feeling.

You felt like very sorry.

And you also understood, you didn't like, say, it's fine, Melody, everything's fine, just come enjoy yourself.

And so that is why I was able to get over it quickly, to not feel as hurt by it, because it was not a personal thing, I don't think, on your part or about the event.

So what was it like from your perspective?

Well, I think you did a great job of describing it from my perspective too.

I just got emotional thinking about that kind of that first time when I realized that I had hurt you.

One of the things that I remember about anytime you ever put on a show, if you've ever put a show on, it's like chasing a bunch of monkeys around.

You've got the hotel that you're chasing around for things.

You've got the speakers you're chasing around.

You got your vendors you got people you're trying to get tickets to, and then they have all the special requests that keep coming in.

And then you got dietary restrictions and you've got.

I mean, like, it seriously comes down to like, can you breathe the same air as this person?

It gets really complicated.

So it's a big balancing act and you send out your initial Invites, and then the people start replying to the invites, and then ticket sales start going, and then you need to follow up on some of those invites, and then you need to, like, start following up on people who are replying to you and start getting a floor plan built out.

It's a whole thing.

And I think that if you know that amid Mellie's story, you can imagine it was chaotic.

But by the way, I'm running a business.

This isn't my business.

This is a thing I do to lose money every year to build community.

These hotel shows, I don't.

Until you've put one on, you get to work your whole butt off for this exceptional amount of time that will go get harder and harder and harder right up to the day of the event, and then you'll make no money because the hotel makes all the money.

I think it was worth it.

You made it look easy, you and your team, and it was always just fantastic.

Well, it's nice to hear that.

Best event I've ever been to, by the way.

And I've been to a lot at this point.

Well, thank you, and that's very, very kind.

But anyway, Melody sent me a message that amid the chaos, it was just one of those things.

This is going to sound extreme, but this is very similar to how I felt.

Remember, I was doing some lumber work in the garage one Saturday, and my little boy.

I mean, you know, he's 13 now, but she must have been like 8 years old or something.

And I pick up this 20 foot long beam, and I say, beam.

It was a 2x4, a 2x6.

I don't know what it was.

I picked it up, and he calls my name as I just picked it up, and I turned, and he was just at the end of that beam.

And when I turned that beam, I mean, that's a lot of leverage.

Whack right into his face.

It was right at my hip level, and, you know, it was angled a little bit, but it just was at the perfect angle.

It hit him right in the forehead.

Now, I'm actually grateful it hit his forehead, because that's probably the hardest spot I could have hit, you know, with that.

And luckily, he was able to recover from that in a very short amount of time.

Not like hours, not like days or whatever.

But, I mean, I remember thinking, I killed my kid.

Like, it's just that moment of I'm just doing the best I can over here.

He calls my name.

I even turned.

Like, I didn't ignore him, and what did I do?

I did exactly the opposite of what I wanted to do.

And if anyone's ever experienced something like that, you know, doesn't have to be with a two by four, obviously, but you have a feeling of like, Kali, I'm just trying to.

The hardest I can to be a good.

Whatever work.

I'm trying to do a good dad.

I'm trying to be attentive.

And here I am doing exactly the opposite.

And that pain that comes with it is this whole thing of, like, it's just business.

Well, I was just turning around.

But that doesn't change the fact that you were just turning around.

But take a second and acknowledge, like, you don't get to say, well, when I turn around, you can't hurt.

I was just turning around.

No, you cracked him in the face.

Obviously, it's hurt.

And I think any parent would have no problem understanding that concept.

I mean, you're wrong.

Some parents are like, put some dirt on it.

Well, that's actually kind of the normal dad I am.

But I did that to them, and I dropped the two by four or whatever it was, and I run over to.

I grab his head, I cradle his face.

Son, I acknowledge, like, you know, not in these words, obviously.

I acknowledge you're in pain.

I validate your pain.

I am so sorry for the pain that I caused you.

I gotta just say that watching that video was like this 10 minute slow motion of watching.

I knew when I started watching the video, and about 30 seconds in, I knew exactly where.

I've always seen you as one of the good guys.

I could almost recite it to you.

I didn't say that.

Yes, you did.

Yes, you did.

You've always been one of the good guys, one of the guys that I've always looked up to.

I looked at you as being one of my people, and I just knew.

I knew when you started, I could see the 2x4 turning.

I was watching it in slow motion.

You told me about your perspective, what you saw, and the pain that it caused.

And, you know, you just feel so bad and you think, mellie.

And so I cradle your face and just say, I'm so sorry.

You did cradle my face.

Because you emailed me and said, I want to talk to you right now or whenever it was.

And we made a time.

And it really meant so much to me that you did that, because I think in the video as well, because remember, it took me 500 takes to get just one that wasn't over the top.

But that really spoke to what I was actually feeling.

I Didn't change my ideas about who you were.

I just wanted you to know because I trusted you.

I trusted who you were.

I needed you to know that I felt this way, that something had happened to me.

And in order for me to release it, which was the whole point of that video, I had to tell you.

Yeah.

And I think obviously you were right about all of that.

You know, I still do think I'm one of the good guys.

I know I'm one of the good guys.

Yeah.

My gosh, of course you are.

Here we are on this podcast together.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm trying to dedicate my entire life to being one of the good guys.

Right.

And not to please somebody.

I'm doing it to be authentic to myself.

But it does bear out that doesn't matter how hard you try, you're gonna screw up.

And, you know, in business, we talk about that in the mistakes is where you get to actually show who you are as a business.

I think same goes for as a person, as a husband, as a parent.

There's so much that goes into what we do with our mistakes.

But anyway, I just remember that I felt that when you said it.

You didn't say, I thought you're one of the bad good guys.

And now I know that you're a bad guy.

That's not what it was.

It was.

I'm so confused.

You know, you probably had this growing up too.

We talked in both of our stories about how much our parents mean to us.

And if my mom or dad ever said, I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed.

Oh, the worst.

I mean, yes, I did get some hands across my butt.

There were times when.

When I got that.

But you know what?

It doesn't affect my kids.

I have a couple kids that are in fact.

But I have two kids that if I said that to them, they'd be like, sweet.

I just.

I know.

Yeah.

But we are made out of that different cloth where I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed, is literally the most painful.

It's like a two by four to the head.

Yeah, it truly is.

And the trauma that would come from that, definitely not physical trauma, but definitely that mental and emotional anguish is real.

And so those kinds of things, knowing that about our personality and knowing that the audience who's listening to this, there may be people who are listening to this to try and understand people like us.

But the people who are listening, who are like us, they understand that the phrase, it's just business, it can be perfectly fine.

But the meaning and validation and understand that it's not a get out of jail free card.

It means that you'll probably never use that phrase because what you actually mean, if you're leading with your heart and if you are trying to be genuinely a good guy, that phrase isn't the way it comes out.

If you are thinking it through, it would be something to the effect of, I have thought of every way to not hurt you that I can possibly think of.

All of them in a way that is not feasible.

It won't work.

This.

I acknowledge your pain.

I understand if you don't acknowledge mine, because I understand that you're at the receiving end of this.

It's hard for the guy who swung the two by four to say, please stop acknowledging your pain and please acknowledge that this is hard on me, too.

No, no, you can't do that.

And so it's very much about, I don't do this on purpose.

I don't do this because I have a vendetta.

Now, from an accountability perspective, if you did something wrong and you have to go, that's not what we're talking about here.

That's not just business.

That's.

Your performance will not allow you to stay here.

And that's not what we're talking about.

So I think that that is if you acknowledge and if you have empathy and if the person is truly not at fault.

I just don't think that phrase would ever escape your lips.

No, if you had said that to me, I would have said to you, I thought you were one of the good guys, but now I see who you really are.

I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed.

And then I'm done.

Yeah.

But that's the difference is, you know, I just had an experience that was similar, and it was a gut kick.

Right.

Like, it just killed me.

And yours was Melody, just to validate that.

Thank you.

Yours was a donkey kick to the abs.

Like that.

Yeah.

But the reason why it was hard to get over is because there was no apology.

There was no anything the way that you did.

And I told my feelings to this person who I trust.

And the sense I got was, you know, it's not you, it's just business.

And that's the difference between, next time we'll talk about something I've done bad to you.

Okay, so.

And by the way, you didn't do anything to me.

Like, when we look at this as a whole, you didn't even know this was happening.

So it wasn't about you.

But.

Yeah.

Well, as we Sort of wrap things up here.

I do think that we don't need a tit for tat on this by any means.

I do think it's important to say though that you have hurt people before and I can't think of anyone you've ever, anytime you've ever hurt me in any way.

I've definitely hurt people for sure.

But we all will with the best of intentions.

And I think that that's what I want to leave people with, with this whole it's just business thing is that if you are engaging in life, there's no way that you're going to avoid hurting people.

And I would just share that from my own personal spiritual beliefs is that the worst part of living in this life is that everyone has their own agency to do what they will.

I know in the Bible it talks about him intervening a lot and doing things to, you know, either push his objectives forward or to stop people from keeping his objectives from moving forward.

And he's imposed things that have stopped people's agency.

I have never personally really experienced anything from God like that.

It seems to me that God is super interested in letting everyone exercise their agency to the fullest extent.

Even took massive amounts of intentional pain caused all the way up to unintentional pain.

And from as mild as it can possibly be, where people who are looking to be offended all the way up to somebody who just is never hurt and gets crushed.

God seems to just really want that to be part of this experience on earth.

I think that while it's the worst part, it's the best part.

And it truly goes back to what I said earlier, and this is sort of kind of my final comment on it, is that every business has their opportunity to show who they are in the time of a crisis or a problem.

That is an eternal truth.

And I believe that God wants to know who you are.

And so I would encourage all who listen to really take the adversity, take the stuff that you present to other people and just take each of those opportunities to show who you really are.

I totally agree with that.

And that feels like vindication and validation for all the pain and suffering that have in this world is that I'm still aligned with my values and I haven't.

Despite wanting to change a million times, I don't think I probably will change in that way because it's who I am, it's authentic to who I am.

So thank you.

Thank you, Melody.

Gosh, I love talking to you.

This has been really good to sort of search the soul for it, but.

Yeah, business therapy, as always.

Thanks, Kurt.

SA.