Sometimes you just have a "blah" day and if you’re an entrepreneur, the pressure to stay “on” can make you question everything. This episode is the business owner’s confessional: Melody admits she’s feeling stuck and a little sun-starved, and Curt brings stories of finding creative flow and how wisdom (or sometimes, exhaustion) shapes what actually matters in your workday. They talk through not-so-sparkly days, bike-racing and doping analogies, the myth of endless hustle, and why sometimes the best thing you can do is outsource, nap, or both.

What They Talk About:

1. Why Melody feels creatively blocked (and why pretending otherwise just makes it worse)
2. Curt’s analogy to Tour de France doping: is chasing old levels of productivity actually the goal?
3. The story about driving above the clouds just to see the sun again and why that’s sometimes a business move
4. How ADHD brains tangle them up in complex spreadsheets we’ll never look at again
5. Why Melody finally hired someone to build her sales funnels (and stopped pretending she’d love email templates someday)
6. Curt’s take on “who, not how” and the relief of paying for help instead of DIY purgatory
7. The difference between being a founder building with sheer hustle and having wisdom about where your energy actually belongs
8. Honest thoughts about humility, hiring your own boss, and knowing when to step back

Key Takeaways:

1. Trying to push through mental fog usually just wastes more time and gives worse results, sometimes it’s better to pause or get help.
2. You don’t have to keep doing everything just because you can; wisdom is cutting tasks that don’t move the needle for you.
3. Knowing your limits and hiring people who love the pieces you hate which is a sign of maturity, not failure.
4. Adapting how you work as your business grows is required; who got you to Point A probably isn’t who’ll get you to Point Z.

Timestamps:

0:00 – Chasing sunshine (literally) and admitting creative block

2:00 – The myth of endless founder flow

6:45 – Tour de France doping, business, and wisdom over hustle

13:30 – Outsourcing, the “who not how” rule, and hiring your own boss

16:00 – Wrapping up: humility, naps, and knowing yourself

I'm going to go climb the tallest mountain in Massachusetts to find the sun.

It's interesting you bring this up. I'm going to draw a quick analogy for all of our people who listen, who are major Tour de France fans. Welcome to the Sole Proprietor podcast. I'm Curt Kempton.

And I'm Melody Edwards.

Each week we dive into the ethical questions that keep entrepreneurs awake at night.

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

Hello, Melody.

Hello, Curt.

How are you today?

I'm feeling a little blah. Maybe it's a little rainy here, a little gloomy.

Meanwhile, I'm sitting in a place where we have 364 days of sunshine. I'm so jealous. But I have heard it's a thing when it's been cloudy and drizzly.

It's a week of this gonna be. It's a lot for the human. So I think we were made for sunshine. Unless we're sleeping. That's what I've decided.

I can't tell you. I've been there. When I was a missionary for my church, I lived in town called Trail, British Columbia. And when I was there, I think I got there in, like, November. I didn't see the sun in November, December, or January. And I finally just lost it. And we had a car, but we only had, like, you could only drive like 20 miles a day, kilometers, so we couldn't drive that much. I just lost it.

I drove to the top of the hill. There's a town called Roslyn right above Trail, British Columbia. We went above the clouds of sun. And I remember that matters.

You saw. You went to the, like, you found the sun. How can I find the sun?

I went to a mountain I have.

To climb higher than the tallest. I'm gonna go climb the tallest mountain in Massachusetts to find the sun.

I don't know if it'll work for you. It worked for me. And I. I just remember that feeling of, like, it is so cold and so warm at the same time. It was so wonderful.

Yeah, it might work. I might just drive to the top of the highest mountain, though. Okay, good. Yeah. So that being the case, we were just talking about, like, what are we talking about? Even though we have a sheet full of topics, they seem pretty deep. This is a short episode, and today I'm feeling blocked, feeling like there's a lot rambling, just rumbling in my head, and there's not a lot of, like, creative flow happening yet.

As an entrepreneur, your vision is supposed to just be this constant propagation of idea flow and creativeness and all that.

Wait, what's my vision again?

So now you're not. You're not being a good entrepreneur because you have a block day. So you might as well go sign up, get a W2 somewhere. You're done.

It's been three days. Definitely giving it some thought. I will say one thing I'm very grateful for is that because I have an all virtual team, they don't know when I'm blocked or when I'm shiny, sparkly. And I have a lot of freedom on days like this to just be a little lazier. I don't know if this happens to you. When I try to push through what I call the cloud in my head, it just gets worse. And if I get anything done, it took me 50 times longer. And it's not even a good output.

It's anti flow is what I would call it.

I can't say that I fully relate, just to be completely honest. So I want to make sure you know that as I say this, it's maybe a derivative of it, but I've been in places where ADHD and entrepreneurism. I think it's the same diagnosis probably, but. But I'll sit down and I just don't know where to begin. I have so many starting points. I don't even know where all the starting points are. I haven't accounted for all of them, but my experience has been more of that. Like, I don't know what to do right now because there's.

I've only got this much time today or I've only got this much creative ability, or I. I don't feel creative, but I've got. I know there's like 70 things to do, but I don't know which one of them's not popping in my head. But for me, once I get one of those threads, once I get one of those threads in, I usually just find the flow. I can find the flow, but unfortunately I get my flow and then it's time for a meeting start or it's time for someone comes in and needs an emergency.

I'm saying create a creative flow. But to be honest, the thing I needed to do this week is not in my brain, very creative. I just have to. We're having somebody do some landing pages for us and I just had to pull all the information together. And there's a lot of things that you have to think about, you have to think of. And it's not just landing pages. It's like you have to do funnels and so you have to have email templates and you know how it is. It's like a lot of things.

And sure, I could just go on ChatGPT and have it write everything down for me. That's not gonna work for me though because I still have to get through all of those line items and they have to make sense. It's just my brain doesn't want it, it just doesn't want to do it today.

Yeah, yeah, I will say actually that and I'm curious of any of the listeners right now, Please go by our website, sole proprietorpod.com leave us a note about this if you relate to this or leave a comment down the section wherever you can. But for me that is the one where I never wanted to start it. I never like what you just described is exactly what I never want to start. A landing page, a website, some sort of mousetrap. You got to build this mousetrap in order to capture new people. It's like this thing you put off, put off, put off, don't want to start. And what'll happen is usually around 3pm I had to get it done today and at 3pm I got to get started on this and typically that's like around 9pm is when I finish. Because the mousetrap, while you don't want to start it, it is the perfect example of the thing that pulls you into it.

Like you got seven open loops, you got the Yes, I have the website, but I got the page, I got form. The form has to have its success actions and then you've got the follow up nurture emails that go with it, the lists and the tags that go into the CRM. Then I've got to make sure that that automation that's being kicked off will kick off the other automations to notify. And what happens is like yeah, you started at three, but at four you're starting to find success. But if you stop you won't be able to come back because there's too many open ends. Like obviously you're fighting through it, doing stuff. I mean is it just pure grit or do you, do you see somebody or do you take anything or what do you. Mel, it's interesting you bring this up.

I'm going to draw a quick analogy for all of our people who listen who are major Tour de France fans. Don't worry if you're not a Tour de France fan, you're going to be okay. So back in 1998, 99 and then like all the way up into like 2005, it was the golden age of the Tour fronts. Lance Armstrong came on the scene later, but kind of before Lance Armstrong, Marco Pantini, Jan Ulrich, some of these, like, really big names of people who maybe you've never heard of, but they were amazing. I mean, like, inexplicably amazing. If you don't believe me, go to YouTube, do a Google search for, like, maybe. I don't know, I think it's like 1998. Marco Pantini, Alpe d'.

Wez. Just start typing in Marco Pantini. It'll come up. There is a man who sprints his bicycle up the side of the mountain. It's like impossibly, like he is going faster than you can drive a car on his bicycle. And he's being chased by Jan Oric, who he finally ends up cracking. I think Jan was probably about at 30 seconds behind him or something at the. At the top of the mountain.

But, like, these guys are going and everybody's just cheering, like the sea of fans, everybody's just rooting him on. So that was what sealed the deal. That doping is awesome. Like. Like, I don't care how you do it. Epo, human growth hormone, blood doping, take out some of your blood, transfuse it into yourself right before you start, get yourself all doped up on your own blood. I'm not gonna even rule out cocaine in the very early days because they didn't have good check. You know, they're very bad at checking.

So these people are absolute machines. And then Lance Armstrong comes on the scene and he is the best doper because not only could he dope, but he could hide it better than. He was able to hire Dr. Ferrari, which is a great name for a doctor who helps you go fast. Dr. Ferrari's job was to secretly meet with Lance in addition to his other health doctor. And that was weird. Why does he have two doctors? Oh, don't worry about that.

Gets him all the drugs, all the masking drugs, the UCI, the United Cycling, whatever, like, league that checks all the doping. They can never find any dope in his system. He is testosterone it up.

He.

People don't know. Lance Armstrong's only got one testicle, so he's got to. He has to offset with extra testosterone just to get to normal levels, but he's also doing other things to mask that. Anyway, these guys for years just keep getting better and better and better. And the only way anyone can ever ride with Lance Armstrong, including the pirate or Marcos Pantini and Jan Ulrich, they're all doping, Tyler Hamilton, all these other people that were so nice, nice guys, you'd interview them and like, wow, these are really likable guys. So then it comes crashing down. Lance Armstrong ruins the career of all the people who are calling him out, like, saying that they're. They're liars and basically ruins their life the best he can.

And it still came out, and then the whole wall came tumbling down. So you would expect, Mel, that now, with all the new regulation and all the ways that they can find it, detect it, and I do think they're writing clean now, by the way, you would expect that performance decrease would happen, but no, they're still so stinking fast. Why do I bring this up? This has nothing to do with what you're saying. Yes, it does. The reason I bring it up is because you talk about sort of life pre concussion and post concussion and sort of like when you're tired. And I, I was just telling one of my employees this morning, I'm older, my body is different now. Like, I'm just not the same guy I was when I started my business. It's interesting that in the new era, bicycle technologies have changed and change the game.

Training technologies have changed and it's different. Like, it is different now. Please, please, I hope this age as well, fully clean athletes who are performing, knowing what the human body can do under dope conditions. We're seeing people perform at really high levels. What does that mean for us as entrepreneurs? I think that we have to sort of look at what we were able to produce before, and I think we have to sift through. You talk about, like, we need to have time to think and I need to get out of meetings, right? What makes me effective? If I look back on what makes me really effective, I can't really think about all the meeting that I've been in and all the things that sort of filled my time. Just like a, maybe a professional cyclist can't look at, like, what they doped to do, the training, but maybe like the actual training that made the difference. The actual part of the bike, the aerodynamics that actually matters, the part of weight in the wheel versus weight in the frame, makes a difference.

And just as you add up all the things that you get from your wisdom experience, what I think I'm getting from this is that when you're blocked, it might be an opportunity to say, what are the things that actually matter? What are the things that I can do? And is it possible that I could perform at a higher level now based off of Wisdom and experience that I wasn't capable of when I was able just to hit it hard with just raw enthusiasm and vigor. Because. But I. I think. I think the answer is, yes, I think you actually can. But it just takes a little bit of, like, stepping aside and looking back and going, I'm not going to keep doing this. It's just not a good use of my time. And frankly, nobody cares.

And it also just dawned on me. I'm talking about being tired, all of these things. I might be getting sick right now, and maybe this conversation is going to have a completely different be. Like, of course I couldn't do that stuff because I was on the verge of this thing and I don't get sick a lot, but that's why I don't know. And it just dawned on me, like, these, the things I'm experiencing might be a little different right now, but we'll see. I'll know by, like, tomorrow whether. What's going on. I do think that it's my wisdom that tells me when I look back at the things where I would spend 10 hours working on 8 hours, 10 hours working on a spreadsheet for something and then never look at it again.

And I can't tell you how many times I did that over and over and over. I know that I did it because I thought it was important or that it mattered, but I also knew in my brain, like, it was only going to matter if I used it. And I was aspiring to use it, but it didn't mean that I actually would. And so the things that I try to make now are more like, I either want to be just doing the very highest level thinking, like the fun stuff, the visioning, or I want to be doing only the things that I can do, which I know is literally the message that all people talk about when they are talking about being like, the best business visionary.

But you did, you did bring up a really critical point. I mean, you did bring up the fact that when you were building that spreadsheet, you knew in your heart, if I'm not using a spreadsheet, this is all wasted work. But that is a trap that we all fall into, is that I'm working really hard right now, and then tomorrow morning I'm going to wake up and work really hard again. And it goes back to kind of the analogy I just was talking about is that, like, if you've already done the work and it was worth it and you already weighed it, maybe the discipline of just using the tool that you've already Put the time and energy in and sacrifice to make. Maybe that's actually the thing. And it's. It's not so much about how hard you got to work. It's about the discipline of maybe using it.

Back in the day when I would make these things. And maybe you went through this too. I was aspiring to be a different kind of business owner. I didn't understand that. My ADHD brain is not going to accept. Even though I can do the work, I can make a brilliant budget spreadsheet. Right. With all the details in it.

But my brain is not going to be able to focus in on that detail ever again if I. It'll take me like 20 minutes to just get it again, which is a lot of time to get back. And what I want now, now in my life are things that I can get quickly. Usually very simple things.

So how do you bypass that? How do you bypass the. The problem that you have With a, like, okay, I could build a spreadsheet for budgeting and blah, blah, but I'm not going to use it. But you still have to budget. So what do you do to get around that?

I hired somebody. Yeah.

That's what I did too. Like a fractional cfo. You just pay money to somebody who will have an hour meeting with you.

Twice a month who's passionate about what.

They do, has their own tool.

Yeah.

And will just make it clear as day for you.

But that takes a lot of practice to get to that point, wouldn't you say? Like, sometimes I'm still pushing to do things that, like I just hired the. This guy to do this funnel stuff for us because we've been trying to build our own funnels for so long and we're horrible at it. Why waste time? He's going to build us our templates now and all that kind of stuff.

Well, Dan Sullivan didn't write the book, but he's the author of who, not how. So he found a who to write a book for him.

And who is Benjamin Hardy?

Is that the writer?

Yeah. He owes me a coaching session because I met him last year, the year before, and he said, I'm going to coach you for I have it on, I have it on video. I'll send it to you. But I'm, I'm saving it for a special occasion. He doesn't know.

Use it before you forget about it. But and who not how. It says if you have a problem and you have enough money to solve the problem, you no longer have a problem is basically the, the gist. I Know, I didn't quote it perfectly, but it's close enough. And I think that that's, that's the thing is, do you have the discipline to separate yourself in the very early days of your business? You don't have money, you have a lot of problems and you have no money. And you begin a pattern that will take you to the next place. That pattern will not take you to the next place. So that's probably how I would classify.

You know, this particular thing we're talking about is like, as you get wisdom, there's also you become who you need to be to get to point A. Then you go ahead and let go of what got you to point A to become someone different to go to point B. And you have to do that again until you get to point Z. And it maybe not core values. I know we've had discussions about this in the past, but I do think that like in operating principles, growth wise.

But I think there's a certain point where you need to know who you are, you know your limits, which comes with experience and with, you know, age. And I know what my limits are. I know that I could bump my head against a wall and try to do something and continue to be blocked. And that's what I do. If I still had that hustler mentality that I had when I was younger and I still hold in myself somewhere. But I know that's not who I am, it's not how I am best, that makes sense. Like some people are just what you would call a rock star hustler. You know, I'm not an A player.

I am okay with that. I want to just be in my brilliance in that and then like hire out the rest as much as I can.

And takes humility. I think when you've gotten the company to point C and you realize that at point C, you have to hire someone to be your boss to get the point.

Oh, my God, I can't wait for that. That sounds fantastic. I have so much humility. I'm so ready for it.

You know, a name pops into my head for this, and I don't think anyone would think any last of it. But Daniel Dixon is the CEO of Syngen. Him and anyone who knows Daniel knows that his mind is just brilliant. He's smart, but he didn't start that company. Josh Latimer started that company and built a cool product, hyped it. But now we need someone to manage the dev team and the sales team and the marketing team and the onboarding team. And no Dig. No shade at all to Josh Latimer.

But, like, not my thing, you know.

I'm more of a Josh than I am a Daniel.

But Daniel walks in and takes that company, just blows it up. Why? He was the right person to do it. And Josh had the humility to say, I'm just going to admit something to you guys right now. I'm not that guy. He hires Daniel, and Daniel runs with that ball down the field. And you know what? I don't know if Daniel would agree with this or not, but there's a chance the company outgrows Daniel and we need somebody else. If Daniel agrees or disagrees with me, that's fine. But I think that Daniel, at the very minimum, will have to change his tactics and numbers he's tracking and even the way that things are being done, not just like the numbers are being tracked, but like.

Like, things will have to change in the company. And either he will have to change or he'll have to find someone who has the experience of that other level. But I think that's a good example of a company that's just thriving because the person Daniel could. I don't know that Daniel could have gotten it to point B or C, Right? Like, he had to accept it at C and continue it on.

I like that. That was a good example. And I think this is a good place to end it, because guess what? I'm going to go take a nap.

All right, step one. Just empty your mind.

Go to step one. Dash A. How do you do that?

Well, it's hard. I know.

Well, enjoy your next meeting.

Well, thank you for joining me today. And for those of you who are listening, I'm super stoked for the community that we're going to build here. If you know somebody who'd like to be on the show or you yourself would like to give us something to talk about on the show, feel free to go to our website. It'll be in the show notes, and you can reach out to us there. We'd love to hear your thoughts about either what we talked about today or something we should talk about in the future. Thanks, everybody, for joining us at the Sole Proprietor Podcast. It has been an absolute pleasure having these discussions with you. If you wouldn't mind taking just a few minutes to rate and review us wherever it is that you listen to podcasts, it would mean so much to us.

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