Jon interviews mindset expert and business strategist Mark Franklin about The Four Fears® that every business owner faces: fear of not being ready, fear of not being good enough, fear of not having enough time, and fear of failure. Mark shares his insights and strategies to help listeners overcome these fears and achieve their business goals. Along the way, Mark and Jon discuss their mutual love of music and how it ties into their professional journeys, with personal reflections on perfectionism, impostor syndrome, and time management. This episode is packed with actionable advice and relatable stories to inspire small firm founders in the architecture industry.

Today's Guest...

Mark Franklin is an author, speaker, mindset expert and business strategist with over 20 years’ experience supporting business owners to embrace their Four Fears® - the most common barriers preventing them from having the business or life of their dreams. His Four Fears® Programmes are designed to move business owners and their teams from inertia to victory and find joy in that journey. Mark’s vision is to help others write a better story for themselves and their families.

Episode Highlights...

00:00 Introduction

01:42 Meet Mark Franklin: The Four Fears® Guy

04:53 Exploring The Four Fears®

09:33 Fear of Not Being Ready

14:39 Fear of Not Being Good Enough

24:48 Balancing Quality and Efficiency in Work

25:24 Fear of Not Having Enough Time

30:19 Overcoming the Fear of Failure

31:42 Launching the Podcast: Jon's Journey

39:17 Embracing Vulnerability and Moving Forward

41:07 Favorite Travel Destinations

43:58 Connecting with Mark Franklin

44:32 Closing Remarks and Next Episode Preview

Key Takeaways...

Accept Mistakes and Keep Moving

You don’t need to be perfect to make progress. Waiting for everything to be just right can slow you down. Taking action, even when things aren’t perfect, is often the best way forward.

Face Common Business Fears

Many business owners worry about not being ready, not being good enough, not having enough time, or failing. These fears are normal, but they don’t have to stop you. The key is to recognise them and take action anyway.

Find Support and Build Confidence

Talking to others can help you push past doubts. Whether it’s business friends, mentors, or a supportive group like the Architecture Business Club, surrounding yourself with the right people gives you the confidence to take bold steps.

Links Mentioned In The Episode...

Connect with Mark on LinkedIn

Visit Mark’s Website

Buy Mark's Book > How to Embrace the Four Fears® of Business Ownership

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In The Next Episode...

Next time Jon chats with Helen Nurse about using WhatsApp in your business.

Have you ever felt like perfectionism is holding you back?

Or perhaps you wanted to do something but feel like you weren't good enough?

Or maybe you've been so concerned about failure that you've given up on a

great idea before you even got started.

I'm joined by Mark Franklin, a mindset expert, to talk about the four fears that

every business owner faces and how you can overcome them to achieve your dreams.

In this episode, of Architecture Business Club, the weekly podcast for

small firm founders who want to build their dream business in architecture

and enjoy more freedom, flexibility, and fulfillment in what they do.

I'm John Clayton, your host.

I know that building an architecture business can feel hard, especially

if you're a sole practitioner.

The good news is that you don't have to do it alone.

In 2024, we launched our membership community to a small group of

founding members, including architects, architectural

technologists, and interior designers.

We meet online each week and occasionally in person to support

each other in building our businesses and to have some fun along the way.

In 2025, we are opening the doors to a limited number of new members.

If you'd like to join this supportive group of like minded

professionals, now's your chance.

Just go to architecturebusinessclub.

com forward slash waitlist or click the link in the show notes and enter

your details So we can let you know how you can join this incredible group.

And if you have any questions, just email John That's J O N

at architecturebusinessclub.

com.

Now, let's explore the four fears

Mark Franklin is an author, speaker, mindset expert and business strategist

with over 20 years experience supporting business owners to embrace

their four fears, the most common barriers preventing them from having

the business or life of their dreams.

His four fears programs are designed to move business owners and their

teams from inertia to victory and find joy in that journey.

Mark's vision is to help others write a better story for

themselves and their families.

Head over to Amazon, or reach out to Mark via the link in the show notes to grab

a copy of Mark's book, How to Embrace the Four Fears of Business Ownership.

Mark, welcome to Architecture Business Club.

John.

It's a delight to be here.

It really is.

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to this conversation today.

I think this is going to be a good one.

Mark, we have a shared love of music, and I know that in your

free time that you are a drummer.

Could you tell me a little bit about that and about the, uh,

The bands that you play in.

Okay.

This could entirely take over the show, John.

It really could.

Uh, so yeah, I mean, I've been drumming since I was 12.

So this is a bigger part of my life than pretty much

anything else that I get up to.

Um, I've been playing in all sorts of bands when I was at school.

It's kind of, you know, the classic kind of metal bands that you always

get into when you were a kid.

Now it's a little bit calmer, it's more sort of new wave, um,

alternative, Young Knives y, XTC, Elvis Costello sort of type of stuff.

But it's, as I say, it's formed quite a significant sort of

foundation within my life.

My closest circle of friends are the guys that I've been in

bands with, the guys and girls.

I met my wife through music.

Uh, my very, very best friend in the world was the front man

in a band that I used to be in.

So it's, it's just this massive passion of mine that regardless of where I am

in business and in life, I always enjoy finding my way back behind the drum kit.

Oh, I love that.

I love that.

I'm um, I'm a guitarist.

I don't play in a band, but I play a lot at home and I've always been a

big lover of music and we've already said actually, Mark, before we hit

record on this interview, we could probably have another conversation about

music that might last several hours.

Yep.

Yep.

we might need to save that for another day.

but I do look forward to that.

Actually this ties into our theme of fear.

I've always liked the idea of playing in a band, but I've

never been brave enough to do it.

So, yeah, that's definitely somewhere my fear has showed up for me in my life.

Interesting.

Interesting.

Yeah, I confess, I mean, I am actually an introvert by nature.

Uh, even though, you know, I sort of do a lot of speaking and things like that.

And playing the drums, it's kind of, it's that lovely way of sort of being

on stage and performing and being in front of everybody, but at the same

time, Being at the back of the room.

So, although you're having this kind of impact on the night, no one's really

paying that much attention to you.

So it's a lovely kind of little balance that I've found.

So take up the drums.

Oh, that's, that,

in the

be, yeah, yeah, that might be the, the gateway instrument

for me to get into playing in bands.

Although, uh, yeah, my drumming, I'm sure is pretty, it'd be pretty

atrocious having not really done it.

So, um, yeah, might need to work on that.

So, Mark, we are going to talk about fear.

And there's specifically four fears that we're going to, we're going to talk

about in this episode, and we're going to do that so that the listeners, they

can work, work their way around these fears and ultimately be more successful

in their business and their life.

Mark, you are known as the four fears guy.

Now, what led you to focus on this?

Again, it's, it's a sort of long and varied story, I suppose.

My background is actually graphic design.

So graphic design and communication, that's what I did at uni, those

were my first jobs and within sort of marketing teams and so on.

I loved this role of creating or solving your client's problems and

presenting something that would connect to their audience in a way

that would make them take action.

And the last proper corporate job I had which lasted 20 odd years.

I started again in the marketing team as a designer creating.

Catalogues, leaflets, brochures, putting on events, incentives, web stuff,

as it kind of was in the early days for this really diverse sales team.

And what I learned through working with them, and again, coming back to my design

roots, I thought it's really important to understand your audience, what it is

that kind of excites and delights them, or will actually help them take action.

So I spent a lot of time getting to know them.

And within those conversations, it became apparent that You can give them

the best catalogs in the world, you can give them the best sales tools, the best

websites and all that, if they still don't have that internal motivation,

that desire to do something that's right for them, nothing's going to change.

And it's through that kind of realization of, okay, so what does that look like?

How can we help the sales team with their mindset, with their confidence, with that

belief of what it is they really want and why that's so important to them, they're

going to go out and do something about it.

That's how I got into Learning and taking courses on coaching, like

say mindset, personal development, limiting beliefs, et cetera, et cetera.

And as I grew within the company and kind of took on more responsibility,

shifted the focus onto that more and more.

And this kind of magical thing happened in that we suddenly

started selling an awful lot more.

It was children's books.

So we started doing really, really well as a business because the sales team

were really connected with what it was.

It was important for them.

And that was the kind of magical moment for me.

But within those conversations, the things that had been holding them back,

they just kept coming up, these kind of four recurring hesitations, I suppose,

which were what became the four fears.

And that leads perfectly onto my next question for you,

Mark, which is the four fears.

What are the four fears that you talk about?

Could you give us a quick rundown of those?

I will, yeah, and essentially To kind of pick

each one out separately, um, I would list them as follows.

So you've got the first one, which is the fear of not being ready.

So this is essentially perfectionism.

It is that idea of there's this thing that I want to do, but I'm not

going to do it yet because I still want to tinker around with it and

make sure it's absolutely perfect.

The second fear is the fear of not being good enough.

And although I talk about the four fears separately, they overlap and interlink

so much because going back to that first fear, when you're saying this thing

isn't ready yet, what you're actually saying is, it isn't good enough yet.

And as you dig deeper into that, it's kind of more the question

of, am I good enough yet?

And the whole, I'm not good enough sort of fear is that kind of comparisonitis, that

looking sideways, that imposter syndrome, the, what will other people think of me?

Mm.

Third fear is the fear of not having enough time, which kind of

leads us into procrastination and, you know, finding ourselves easily distracted

doing the things that don't serve us.

And it's never really about not having enough time.

It's more about those first two fears.

There's what is it that's stopping me from taking action?

What is it that I'm worried about in terms of what other people

will think when I do the thing?

That I should be using my time to do.

And then finally the fourth fear is this overarching fear of failure.

The what if I get it wrong?

Which again links back into those first three of what will people think if I put

this thing out there that isn't ready, therefore it isn't perfect, therefore

it's not good enough, therefore I obviously didn't spend enough time on

it, and therefore I'm going to fail.

I think I can honestly say that I've, I've experienced all

four of those at different points.

Perhaps sometimes at the same time, various points throughout my life.

Could we talk a little bit about the first fear the fear of not being ready.

How have you seen that particular fear hold people back?

This is, it's an interesting one in so much as People

don't necessarily see it straight away.

So I mean, I can think of clients and conversations that I've been

working with recently where there's something that they want to do.

But for whatever reason, they're just not doing it.

They're not getting across the line.

And when you kind of have that coaching conversation, right,

you know, what's the worst would happen if you put it out there now?

It's relatively easy to break down that hesitation.

If you start sort of applying some logic.

So there was someone I was speaking to.

Actually, rather than use someone else, um, I'll use my own story.

Uh, when I first started out on my business, one of the first things I

thought I had to do was get the website out there and it had to be perfect and,

you know, explain everything that I did.

At about three months, I think, it, uh, sort of launching my business, I

had this massive pivot of, actually, I'm not going to do this one thing.

I really am going to go all out on the four fears.

But I had this lovely website and it didn't quite talk about the four

fears in the way that it should.

And I was like, but it's lovely.

I don't want to take it down and I don't want to kind of, you know, rewrite it.

And someone basically I just put it out there to a community.

I was, you know, that's what basically said, you know, should

I just turn the website off, keep talking about the business?

And then as the business kind of moves forward and I get.

The kind of detail of what the forfears website should look like then I can

launch it they're like, yeah, of course Why why are you hesitating?

Yeah, this is what you do yourself Kind of falling victim to your own sort of

not following advice, but it is that There's this thing in front of me.

I should be doing it And I'm not because I don't think it's ready And a lot of

the conversations I have in terms of helping people embrace that is that

you've got all this list of almosts and yets, things that I'm almost ready

to do, things that I'm not doing yet.

How can we turn those almosts and yets into action?

Yeah, I, I've experienced this a lot, like not feeling that.

Not feeling that I'm ready or the thing that I'm working on is ready.

I've had more success in recent years at just getting it done.

But historically I have been quite a perfectionist and

procrastinator on things.

Like you mentioned about your website, I've definitely experienced that

where I've spent months working on.

I remember the first website that I had, uh, would be back in 2011.

There was so much time that was spent on that before it went live.

You know, it's not ready.

It's not ready.

And even when it finally did launch, I mean, I still wasn't happy with it,

but then websites, the way I look at it these days is more that websites

are never finished anyway, that they're always going to be constantly developing

and being iterated and improved.

The last website that I launched, I managed to do it.

Within two weeks from deciding to do it to actually getting it launched.

So I was really proud of that because I think the first

one took about nine months.

You're absolutely right, John, in terms of that.

It's kind of how we find ourselves in a better place in terms of our

relationship with perfectionism.

So you're welcome.

Oh, again, linking into the second theory, in fact, you know, good enough.

What does good enough need to look like right now for me to move forward?

If I may just kind of ask you a question, as you said, you know, you've got, you've

found yourself in a better place, uh, in terms of that not being really, what, what

do you think's helped you make that move?

I think there was a few things that Have helped me take

a bit of a step back to look at the bigger picture of the business.

Particularly the website thing I've done a few different websites over the years

and I think I got to the point where.

I just got so frustrated with previous attempts to do it and I just sort

of realized that actually that in the instance of the last site that

I did, it was more a case that look, done is better than perfect and it's

just, it's never going to be finished.

I think it was a few different factors that sort of led me to just

get to a point where I was a little bit more able to let go of some of

the previous perfectionism, I think.

Not sure if that quite answers the question, but, Hmm.

It does.

Yeah.

No, I totally get it.

And you're absolutely right.

I mean, done versus.

Yeah, perfect perfect is Kind of the secret sauce really isn't it?

It's the kind of linking into the kind of the second fear that good enough even

if you Take that brave decision of okay.

I'm just gonna put it out there even though in the back

of my mind I'm not convinced.

It's good enough yet the reaction you get and the fact that No one, no one

is kind of ringing you up and sort of, you know, pestering you to say,

Oh, you know, the typeface on the second page is a slightly different

sort of pixel width to the first page.

And, you know, you really should have worried about that, John.

Yeah.

Other people are no way sort of focusing on that level of perfectionism that

you yourself put on your own work.

I think with that, with that sort of second fear,

the fear of not being good enough.

are a lot of us that feel that way, and that's definitely something that,

a fear that's shown up for me, and I think something that has helped me, and

feeding into what you just mentioned, Mark, is that when you look at it

like your own, your own standards, the standards that somebody else is

expecting are not necessarily aligned.

There could often be quite a big gap that you may hold yourself to a particularly

high standard, but actually for your audience or your potential customer

that you're trying to connect with they might not notice some of those

things like you might be fretting over like, Oh, you know, um, this case study

that I want to add on the website.

It's not good enough.

It needs more of this and more of that.

I think this is a particular problem for design professionals.

Obviously, you have a background in graphic design,

and my world is architecture.

And in that, I was always taught from my mentors that,

Oh, the devil's in the detail.

It's all got to be perfect.

It's all got to be right.

But that training has sort of spilled into other aspects of my life as well, where

actually the stakes were a lot lower.

Say, there's some kind of structural detail or something on a building

that you're working on that, or something where it's like people's

safety are at risk versus the same approach to crafting a LinkedIn post.

You know, it's kind of like, look, it's just a LinkedIn post.

This doesn't need to be perfect.

You can just post, you know,

Totally.

um, a recent guest Mel Barfield talked about brain

to fingers where it's just like.

Don't overthink it.

Just write the words, post it.

It'll be fine.

A lot of people are not even going to see it anyway.

There is that.

Yeah.

Brain to fingers.

I love that.

That's great.

yeah, it's a good one, isn't it?

Yeah.

Why, Mark, why do you think that so many people experience that

second fear of not being good enough, or not feeling good enough.

Why do you think that is?

just pick up on two things from your story there, John.

So firstly, again, as you say, from personally from a creative

background, such as yourself.

I think creatives tend to be more emotionally connected to the work they do.

And therefore, that emotional investment can lead us to very easily overthink and

become over attached and therefore fret too much over that detail, like you say.

Obviously, for people who aren't in creative industries, there

is still an element of that.

But the other point that you make, which I think is really interesting and

worth picking up on, the idea of the client's expectation of the work we do.

I think there's a difference between the client's expectation and the

expectation that we think the client has.

And that expectation that we've created In our own mind is where that

fear of not being good enough exists.

There's a lot of sort of work that I do in terms of helping

people embrace their fears.

Plays this kind of premise out between two versions of the same story.

So you've got the kind of factual version of the story and the emotional version.

And the factual version of what your client actually expects from you.

So again, in the world of architecture, yes, there are genuine need to dig into

the detail because Of safety and all sorts of very important aspects of the build.

Those are based in fact, whereas the emotional version of when I put this

pitch together, even though I've drilled into all of the necessary

sort of elements that will make this building viable and safe, etc, etc, etc.

But you might still get caught up in the emotional version of, but

what are they going to think of me when I hand over this document?

And it's that, that, that difference is that I'm good enough.

I'm not good enough fear.

Sorry is the one that kind of circles around my own brain the most.

It's the one that I'm kind of closest to, I think.

And what I find fascinating about it is that it's born out of this

primal instinct of we want to belong.

We need to belong.

There's safety in numbers.

We will be a part of that tribe.

We're always looking sideways in terms of the.

Yeah.

Again, that sort of historic, you know, the strongest survive and the

weakest will get sort of picked off.

So you're looking sideways thinking, am I the weakest and by the next one to get

sort of, you know, eaten by the saber tooth tiger, those kind of risks, that

danger no longer exists in that format.

And yet our brains are still kind of trying to protect us.

The challenge is getting our brains to understand that what

it needs to protect us from now is very different to what it is.

historically been trained to protect us.

So it's re evaluating again that kind of fact versus emotion.

That's interesting.

It's that, um, tens of thousands of years of evolution to instinctively

protect ourselves from danger.

But the danger is just like, as you mentioned, it's not the

saber toothed tiger anymore.

You know, the danger could just be, Oh, I, I look a bit of a Wally for, you know,

in, in front of a couple of people because something, you know, I don't know the

social media posts or, that didn't go down as well as I thought or I upset somebody

or in the case of the design, it's like, well, I'm working on an architectural

design for a client and I want to please them and I want them to be happy with it.

And.

Oh, well, it's not quite what they were looking for.

They don't quite like it.

It's this fear of, it's like a fear of rejection, I suppose.

Isn't it sort of.

yeah, yeah, it plays directly into that,

that sort of fear of failure.

But going back to what Mel was saying, because she's absolutely right, all

those things that we're worrying about and hesitating around, hardly

anyone else is seeing those, or certainly they're not paying attention.

Do any attention mainly because they're all thinking about the things that they're

imagining everyone else looking at them.

So it's this kind of, we're all stuck in that.

Everyone's here really analyzing every single post I put out on social media.

They're analyzing every single word.

They're analyzing, you know, this podcast and in the first few minutes,

what's Mark coming and R'ing?

Oh dear, then he can't be very good as a Pod.

Yeah, all those kind of things that no one cares about.

No one else cares about.

Yeah, because they've got their own Fears and hesitations.

So again, it's kind of, can we, kind of the great solution, can we kind of redraw

those parameters in which we can accept that, yeah, it's okay to hesitate because

we do want to, you know, do the right thing and we don't want to put ourselves

in genuine danger but actually we can take risks and we can go out and try to fail

again because The worst thing that could possibly happen isn't actually that bad.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I totally agree with that, Mark.

just thinking actually, we were just talking about that again, that fear

of not being good enough and I had a recollection of how that's shown up

in my own work in the past, where we could have a really small project

that was just like, I don't know, a single room extension on the back of

somebody's house, something really simple.

And because I'd had that training and by nature be more of a perfectionism and

that, oh, this has got to all be perfect.

I would produce drawings and details to the same, with the same care and

attention, uh, and the same level of detail that I would if we were working

on a school or a hospital or whatever.

There's an argument to say though, and it was something that I found is that

in a lot of instances on those really small projects that that approach whilst

admirable and nice for the customer, often those particular customers.

Their expectations were so much lower, like literally all they wanted

to know was are these drawings good enough for planning and for whatever

that building control needs and can my contractor get enough information

from them to price and build my job?

So I would put my all into it and be really emotionally invested and, oh, it's

all got to be the best set of drawings in the world and take all this pride in it.

But the downside of that was that often it wasn't appreciated by the client

because their expectations were, look, all we need it to do is just A, B and C.

We're not bothered about whether you've drawn every screwhead or not or how many

hours you spent over our fascia detail.

And I did find that that certainly held back the growth of my business

financially because capacity was limited because you're spending too many hours

on every job and the fees that I was able to secure on those small projects

actually weren't high enough to be able to justify that approach on those jobs.

So that's definitely something where for me it's shown up.

It's affected my approach to work and then it's actually led to affect

my bottom line in my business.

It's been quite problematic in the past.

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Now back to the show.

It's, it's a genuine tightrope because as you rightly

say, this idea of embracing what good enough looks like for you.

On the one side, of course you want to do your best, and we're not talking

about sort of lowering your standards.

We're talking about finding that happy balance between doing the job that

you can be proud of, that you know delivers, but also does so in a way

that doesn't exhaust you, doesn't drain you, doesn't pull you, as you say, back

down, both financially and emotionally, uh, to a place that just doesn't

serve ultimately where the business wants to go, and where you want to go.

Yeah.

Could we talk about the third fear that was that I don't have enough time?

Now, all, in theory, we've all got the same amount of time.

We all get 24 hours in a day.

So.

How have you seen this fear show up, and how can we make better use of

the time that we actually do have, to get what we want out of life?

Yeah, we've kind of already touched on this one,

actually, um, and it's interesting.

You're absolutely right, the whole sort of 24 hours in a day thing is very true.

Uh, there's, there's the risk of slipping into the sort of toxic positivity of

time management, where you sort of accuse people that you've all got the same

time, so why aren't you using it in the best possible way that you can for you?

And it's a fair question.

But again, tying back to those other fears, it's never about the time.

Because we do have the same amount of time.

And if you did just do the things that make the biggest

difference, that would be fine.

But the reason you're not doing the things that make the biggest difference, even

if you know what they are, even if you could put them on a list and prioritise

them perfectly and know exactly where you need to start, those fears of not being

ready, not being good enough, the what if I fail, that's why you're not doing the

things that ideally you should be doing.

So, I mean, in the work that I do, it's kind of this,

there's two approaches to it.

Firstly, there is the proving that it's not about the time.

So you can do the whole piece around sort of almost gamifying your working week.

You know, what is it you're doing this week?

What value is that adding?

Are there things that are?

Reducing the amount of value you're providing, are there things that you

should be doing that are not there and therefore not adding the value that

you could be adding, blah blah blah.

That's relatively easy to do.

And in some ways it's eye opening because it becomes apparent just

how you are spending your time.

Again, this theory is all about the procrastination.

But even when you've got in front of you this, right, I work seven

hours a day, five days a week.

That's 35 hours that I could be perfectly productive.

Dangerous word, perfect, but you know what I mean.

I could be super, super productive and achieve all sorts of

things, probably only in 30 35.

But I'm still not doing it.

So it comes back to those conversations of embracing what good enough looks like.

Done rather than perfect.

If I do get it wrong, just how bad is that?

You know, again, viewing it from a factual point of view rather

than an emotional point of view.

Um,

There's something that I just wanted to pick up on there you talked

about, The things that we, we could be doing that perhaps are the most high

impact things to move the needle, if you like, uh, in our business or our life.

And those are the things that we're not doing because those, that's,

we have a fear around those.

This is where these fears show up because maybe the things that are a

little bit outside of our comfort zone.

And there was, I might get this wrong now, but I'm going to say it anyway.

Is it Paretio's rule where they talk about this 80 20 rule where it's like

80 percent of the results come from the 20 percent of the most impactful

things, sometimes folks will look at it from a financial lens and say.

Well, 80 percent of the revenue comes from 20 percent of your clients or

80 percent of the success in your business comes from 20 percent of

the activities that you focus on.

Of all the different things that I do in an average week, if I was able to

work through the fear more to, to play.

A little bit more outside of my zone of comfort that it would make sense that the

results of the things that I'm going to achieve are going to be bigger and better.

And I actually, and this may go for most people, but I think I, I know

a lot of the things that I could be doing that would be the higher impact

things that I've been trying to face those fears in the last year or two.

And for a long time I haven't.

So it's things like public speaking would be one of them.

This very podcast.

There could be a whole podcast episode about how all these fears tie

into this, um, this podcast getting launched or not getting launched

for many years as the case may be.

But those are the sorts of things that I've been looking

at recently thinking that.

If you only had like a really limited number of hours, like if you went

from having five days a week to work on your business, and then all of a

sudden you only had one day a week, what would be the most important

things that you would have to focus on?

And then it would be okay.

That looks like one heck of a scary day, because in order to do

all this high impact work, I'm.

I'm going to have to do some work on myself to work through some of these

fears and in order to be able to do it.

The last fear, the fear of failure, which I mean that, that in it on its

own like, that must stop so many people getting started, the fear of failure.

How come, how do you think we, we can change the way that we look at failure?

What are your thoughts around that fear?

Again, our relationship with failure is essentially a choice.

Uh, it's, you know, it's, it's a point of view.

It's a matter of opinion.

We can view much like, you know, what does good enough look like for us?

What do?

The prize winning tasks that we could be doing today look like for us.

It's all very much unique to our own story.

So it's what matters to us.

There's an exercise that I do with my clients, which I call the five

whys, and it begins with the question.

What is it you really, really want from your business?

And why is that so important to you that you're going to take the brave action?

You know, to make it happen.

And when you've got the answers to those two questions, you

then repeat it five more times.

And why is that important to you and why is that important to you?

Because there'll be things like the podcast.

John, just to pick up on that, if I may, you know, this is obviously, you

know, a medium that's important to you.

Hopefully it's something you really enjoy.

Hopefully you get a great deal of pleasure for all the guests.

You have Avo and you learn something, you know, there's, there's a huge amount

of value for you and for the audience.

But at some point.

There was that switch that you made between the this is something I want to

do, but it's not happening yet To the this is so important to me that I'm recording

episode one And I think just coming back to the sort of fear of failure thing there

was a point That specific moment where the idea of failing mattered much less

To you compared to the idea of this being so important that I'm going to be brave

There was a number of things that led me to that point.

I think that I'd, there'd been a few sort of challenging years personally.

I'd professionally sort of got to the point where I was ready for a

different direction and wanted some kind of change, but wasn't exactly

sure what I wanted that to be.

And.

I'd had the idea for a while about creating some kind of content to help the

small business owners in architecture.

So the sole practitioners, the solo architects and technologists like me,

because I'd Struggled with it, so I'd struggled to make it work for me and

that struggle had then led me down a rabbit hole of going on trading

courses and workshops and attending conferences to learn about marketing,

sales and marketing and business.

And yeah, I just had a few challenging years and then it would

have been 2023, we'd Moved house.

So that was kind of like a fresh start and I don't know like it sort of felt

like There was a bit of weight that had been lifted off my shoulders So I got

to the point where I was like I felt Ready to do something was gonna push

me a little bit outside of my comfort zone and those years prior Because of a

number of other factors and things that were going on personally and with work I

just I wasn't I wasn't at a point where I could be brave enough to do that.

Um, whereas that year I just got to that point.

And then what happened was I, I attended a conference and

spoke to some business buddies.

Um, this was the Atomicon conference up in Newcastle in 2023.

I'd been thinking about ideas for what I could do.

And then before I. Before I shared what those ideas were, people would

then be mentioning it to me, saying like, Oh, you should do this thing.

Like you should do something to help other architects and architecture technology.

So why don't you launch like a podcast or something?

And then I was like, Oh, I've been thinking about that already.

And then I had a follow up chat with a previous guest on the

show, Bob Gentle, who was a guest on one of the early episodes.

And.

Again, this was something that before I had the opportunity to

share that I'd been thinking about this, Bob just sort of called this

out and was like, you could do this.

Like you could do a podcast and it would be amazing.

There'd be all these benefits and absolutely you could do it.

And he sort of saw that.

And I guess those couple of things that summer was the, were the,

the triggers that got me to the point where I was like, Okay.

Well, if they, if they recognize this and think that I could

do it, then maybe I can do it.

And actually what's the worst that's going to happen?

And it got me thinking about that, that fear of failure that I'd had

before and that fear of not feeling good enough to be able to do it.

I thought, well, these are pretty credible people.

Like if they think I'm good enough and, actually worse that's going to

happen is maybe not that many people.

Listen, and maybe that was the worst that would happen.

And yeah, that kind of realization point that I got to led me

to finally launch a podcast.

Well, I mean, good for them, but also good for you.

There's, you know, there's this, those serendipitous moments are so important.

Again, when you have that kind of external permission, I suppose, you know, someone

who can see, you know, that sort of, Bright light shining in you and say, yeah,

yeah, I really think you can do this.

It gives you that kind of confidence, but it still comes back to you, John.

You're the one who still have to invest in the tech, investigate the tech,

set up the show, book the first guest, work out how you're going to do it.

You're still the one who's made it happen.

And the fact that you've had some people say to you, we think you can

do this might have helped dial down comparisonitis and that not good enough.

And am I ready, et cetera, et cetera.

Am I going to find the time?

Uh, which is.

Incredibly helpful, as I say, timely.

But you still were in that place where you're like, as you say, for everything

that kind of been going on in your life, and there was this perfect,

not perfect, terrible, wasn't it?

I keep using, keep using the one word that I myself criticize a lot.

Um, you just found that ideal moment whereby you're like,

right, I'm going to do it.

And you have, so it's still on you.

The success of this show is still on you.

I think it's my point.

Oh, I appreciate that, Mark.

Thank you so much.

Was there any other questions that you, you had for me?

I have a couple more questions for you, Mark.

Well, to be fair, I think you've kind of answered this one

already, but I guess just, just for the audience really, if there is any one

of those four fears that kind of really leaps out to you in terms of your own

story, which one would it be and why?

I would say maybe the, I'm not good enough and

I would say that that one.

I think that's sort of imposter syndrome.

Who am I to host and produce a podcast or, who am I to do this, that or the other?

But I think what I've come to realize is that, everybody has

some value that they can share.

And sometimes that if you do have something that you can help people

with, like you don't have to be a guru.

You could just be one or two steps ahead of somebody else and in a position to be

able to help them and that's good enough.

And to them that's amazing, you know?

and I think that that mindset shift, it really kind of helped me to be able

to sort of recognize actually, yeah, I'm good enough to do this stuff.

I've got this, I'm not.

Proclaiming that I'm like the world's expert on anything.

I'm not trying to be a guru, but you know, I I do have a lot of wealth of

experience and I think that's the same for everybody else that there's so

much, so many skills and experience that we have, and we're a story to

share, like everyone's got stories that are worth telling that could be

really impactful and helpful for others.

And I think a lot of the, we don't see the value.

We can be standing on top of a mountain of, of value that we just can't see.

I could not agree more.

Yeah, absolutely, John.

It's, I kind of refer to it as this body of evidence, again, within each

of our lives there is this entire story full of moments and proof.

Of just how good enough we are, how ready we are, how, when we find the time, we

can create and achieve amazing things.

And because typically we are very close to our own stories,

it's easy to overlook that.

But when you do take a moment to step back, or again, going back

to the conversations you had with Bob and so on, when you've got

someone else pointing out to you.

Yeah, that story and reminding you of those wins.

Yeah, there's an awful lot of good stuff to glean from

what you've already achieved.

We just need to remind ourselves of those moments.

Absolutely.

Mark, what would be the main thing that you would like everyone to

take away from our chat today?

the more that we talk about sort of the fears and the

hesitations, my hope is that people start feeling a little bit more

comfortable and realise that it's okay.

It's okay to hesitate.

We all have these fears.

Again, there's a mix, there's different kind of levels or, you

know, amounts of ingredients from each one that kind of make up our

story, and that's absolutely fine.

And you're never not going to hesitate, you're never going to be

entirely fearless, again that's okay.

But the more you can lean into that body of evidence, the more

you can become comfortable with the idea of what good enough looks

like for you, the closer you are.

To be able to see and understand what's so important to you and

why you want to do these things.

That you're going to be brave and give them a go.

The easier it is just to embrace those fears and keep going forward.

I love that.

Was there anything else you wanted to add, Mark?

Ooh,

I don't think so actually John, no.

It's, again, it's always a pleasure for me to talk about the fears.

Um, and the , the joy that I get from what I do is seeing those,

seeing people move from where they are to where they deserve to be.

Uh, so, and I'm always very mindful that you know, it, it's, it's a

subject that encourages vulnerability and not everyone is immediately

comfortable with putting themselves in that sort of vulnerable space.

So hopefully, again, listening to our conversation and so on, it

just gives people permission to.

Well over some of those hesitations and reframe them, but in a safe space, you

know, in their own time, in their own environment, that that's always my hope.

Yeah, I hope so too.

Now, I've got a question for you.

It's nothing to do with fear, but I like to ask all of the guests.

I love to travel and to discover new places.

Um, I'm a former backpacker from my twenties, which seems

like a very long time ago now.

I was wondering if you could tell me about one of your favourite

places and what you love about it.

So it could be anywhere, near or far.

I

Oh, okay.

Um.

The first place that pops into my head, which is in no way glamorous,

or most people won't think it's glamorous, but it means an awful

lot to me, Southend on Sea in Essex.

Now I've lived in London most of my life and, well not most of my life, half

my life, thirty years ago I moved into the Cotswolds, which is where I am now,

so I've always been quite landlocked, but when I was a kid, um, weekend day

trips out to Southend on Sea to be by the waterside to be on the beach.

I'm not going to call it a beach, that's being generous, but on the

pebbles, um, to play in the arcades.

It just evokes so many amazingly fond and happy memories.

I do like to be by the seaside, that's, you know, any hot holiday

destination normally involves being by the water's edge, but there's something

peculiarly romantic about South End.

Have you ever been there?

haven't.

Should I visit?

Well, you're going to go there and think, what

on earth is he talking about?

But it is.

It just, it means, it means an awful lot to me.

And it's, it's just a, a very typical English seaside resort,

you know, and that's it.

So yes, one big up to Southend.

Southend.

you go.

I love that.

I'm a huge fan of the seaside.

I grew up in and around Morecambe, up on the coast in

Yeah.

And again, that's another place where if you went there,

you might be like, Oh, what's all the Why's John raving about this?

But I, I love it.

We go back and visit my parents who live just outside of Morecambe.

And, yeah, just some nice walks up and down the promenades, bit of

fresh sea air, fresh fish and chips.

Like, you never get better, better fish and chips than at the coast.

Um, slightly sort of life's small pleasures.

Oh,

Couldn't agree.

Couldn't agree more.

Yeah.

But yes, it's a peculiar place.

Again, anyone who goes there, um, if they want their money back,

don't come complaining to me.

I love it.

I love it, like I say.

Um, and in terms of local delicacies, if you go to Leon C and the old

Cocklesheds, if you like good quality seafood, that's the place to go.

If you're into comfort, uh, comfort food though, the ice cream and the

baked jam roll and custard, Rose's Cafe on the front, that's the place to go.

you're making me hungry now, Mark.

Why have you done that?

It's almost lunchtime, surely.

Yeah, um,

too early for baked jam roll anyway.

yeah, sounds good to me.

This has been awesome.

Thanks so much for being a guest on the show, Mark.

Could you just remind everybody the best place to get in touch with you?

Where would be the best place to connect with you online?

Uh, so I spend an awful lot of time, probably too much, on LinkedIn.

Uh, so very easy to find on there.

Mark Franklin UK, I think, is the handle.

Um, but you'll spot my face.

My website is very easy to remember.

markfranklin.

co. uk Uh, and if you're an Instagram sort of person, I'm on there as well.

Awesome.

Well, I'll make sure we put some links in the show notes.

And, uh, thanks again, Mark.

It's been a pleasure.

Thank you, John.

It's been really good fun.

Next time I chat with Helen Nurse about using

WhatsApp in your business.

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