Ep 6: The freedom of starting your own business can be overwhelming, and graduates know a lot about freedom. There are boundless opportunities and a willingness to explore new challenges. It’s hard to predict what shape our careers will take - but who will we become?

This week, business psychologist Hazel Showell meets Sam, to explore the trials and tribulations of being ‘self made’. Developing emotional resilience, self awareness and even choosing the right business partners – there’s no set toolkit for these things. From this conversation, you’ll learn that launching your own business can be empowering, but can leave you uncertain of your own own identity. 

If you want a better understanding of the endings happening in your own life. We have the perfect thing for you, Hazel’s 5-step worksheet, developed specifically for listeners of this podcast.

** Click here for your Thriving Through Endings worksheet now. **

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Apologies for the typos, this is an AI transcription

Endings Transcript Sam Jones

Starting a business from scratch, then letting go of it can be a tough process. But first, let's go back to the beginning.

It's a strange way to go but it's, it is like it is. And that, I think one of them got a photo on the time and in that photo we actually looked like the happiest we'd been in mum's cuz it was over really. So yeah, I think that was the time. I, I think sort of before that we kind of believed we could get out of it and I think we, we were approaching it in pretty rational ways as well, where we just, we were just trying to work our way for it basically.

Most businesses have tough times and that was ours. And it obviously didn't end the way you at we wanted it to, but it is what it is.

Uh, and that's, that's often like, say what happens, but I suppose I'm still interested in that moment. The release and the relief of it's over. You know, that's as bad as it's gonna get.

Like humor is our approach to everything really. Like if we're in trouble, we'll try and laugh our way out of it. If stuff's going great, we'll have a laugh. Do you know what I mean? So it was kind of a bit, sort of on point for where we were anyway, but it was just that point where we sat in the office. We was about to go through a door, met a guy, meet a guy we've never met before, and basically agreed to shut the business, and we was just sat in silence.

There was all this stuff going on around us. The office we had the meeting in was pretty chaotic cuz there was people like packing up the computers to go work from home and all that sort of stuff. And we were just in reception, laughing our heads off. We must have looked like three Mad Men to be honest.

And, and that's the one that probably doesn't cross your mind really, but like, if you're in that situation, you've got no charge really, but to just deal with it and, and that's what it was in the end.

We just completely like almost lost ourselves in the business side of running a business and kind of. I think now that, and probably for Rick as well, that's probably where we fit naturally. So I guess we've kind of gone into it with an idea of who we were from a, professional standpoint and come out of it almost the complete 180, because they are opposite sides of completely different kinds.

So there's that, I, I kind of think in a way that running a business or wanting to be an entrepreneur or whatever you call it, is a mental illness in a way because. A lot of the time, it's horrific, let's be honest. There's always, and it's stuff that you can't predict. You'd just be having a nice like Wednesday afternoon and then something's just going to hit you in the ribs from the side that you couldn't have ever predicted with a thing at all.

And after a while, you kind of live for that really. And, it is nearly two years since, we shut Chew in Fish now, and I've had a bit of time out, I've been doing a bit of consultancy and stuff and I'm. Getting itchy feet to start something. And I'm like, what? Why? Who in their right mind would put themselves through that again?

So if that's what you're good at, then. Incredibly well-fitted to do this insane job that is running a small business.

And basically we got approached and someone was looking at buying the business in the sense that where they'd probably buy 70%, we'd have 10% each, and then there'd be some investment put in to grow it, and then we'd exit together basically. I think, that was the start of how things turned out the way they turned out really. So I think probably two decisions that I got wrong in, in that period was one, I was working on the deal, hired the senior sales guy who sold himself to us. Great. But that was the only thing he did sell Joe in that whole process, which was straight and yeah.

And then I was kind of working on the deal that dragged on a bit as deals do so, the whole of me coming out of the sales team is kind of growing back the longer this deal goes on and then it, the kind of deal was more or less agreed and we got to the point where it was ready to go over the line and it got pulled.

The reasons for that, I'm not entirely sure to be honest, and I'm not sure of all I'll ever know. So try not to think too much about that. There was a lot going on at the time. There was like an election called and that was the kind of stuff. Which said to us, but I'm not sure that's the truth, I'm kind of over it enough.

And yeah, basically the pandemic port put an end to all of that, and we just decided to. Call it a day before the kind of decks got absolutely chaotic if that makes sense.

And we like, basically the sales guy you had mentioned a bit earlier, he'd, he'd tipped off a journalist what was happening, which was probably the most initiative he showed during that whole period, which is crazy, but it is what it is. So that blog went out probably a bit earlier than we wanted it to. And to be honest, it was great once it did everyone knew you weren't lying to anyone anyway. You wasn't really seeing anyone during that pandemic. So that was the end of it for me. I think once that happened, that was the laundry under it. And then you can start moving on.

Doesn't it say how liked you are if people can just want to support you? When something like that happens, if there's only one negative message in a thousand.

But basically, it's along the lines of, look, I've made some mistakes. The business has gone under, I'm sorry. And that was kind of it really. And where is I dunno where again, when you've run a business for a long time, you see businesses probably a couple go under a year and there's always a bit of blame passed around or something like that. And with this, there wasn't really any, it was my decisions that put us in the grave really, and a little bit of the pandemic, but I think that'd be a cop-out. Authenticity had always been pretty important to us as a business.

So to kind of close in the most authentic way possible was really important to us. So that was it.

I think when we talked about it, I said, Hmm, there are a lot of advisors in a deal that can tell you it takes longer than you think. So I think feels like you're being a bit hard on yourself. Have you heard that before?

I don't, I'd always liked to drink and we'd always kind of liked going out and never honest. There was probably a bit of a drinking culture within our business and I think there definitely is within the local business community. And I almost crushed that threshold a bit where I'd gone from like enjoying going out and drinking to go out to almost drinking to forget a bit, if that makes sense.

Drinking on my own or drinking in the house, which I've never really been. So yeah, again, in that first pandemic, stopped drinking. I think I don't really keep a track of it, but I'm probably about two and a half years sober, but now feel much better for it. I've always had issues with anxiety and panic attacks since I was a kid anyway and it's helped that massively still go out, but just don't drink and kind of leave when everyone gets to the point where they start chatting absolute breeze. So I guess it was quite good for me in that sense, really, where it's allowed me to kind of get a handle on that.

And I'd seen a lot of the good that it had done for him really. So it was one of them things that I knew I needed to do. Just before that lockdown I checked into the aa. I know it's anonymous and you're not meant to talk about it, but here we are.

So I checked into that, done a couple of sessions, and then we were like, we moving it onto Zoom and I didn't think that was for me.

But when it comes to things like stopping drinking or ending that I can also be just a choice. This needs to stop. Yeah.

So you can't figure out who you are now until you've stopped being Sam from tuna fish. You can't work out the man you want to be until you are sober. All of those things have to stop. Yeah,

and maybe it took me a little while to work out who some without tuna fish is ever honest. And we had like two really long lockdowns where I was just sat in the house chilling with the dog. And then it's, it probably took me a bit too long to almost like, I feel like I've worked at a million miles a hour now for 10 years.

And then I had that almost force break, which everyone had with the pandemic and then it probably took slightly too long to maybe get through the gears again, but yeah. It is what it is.

The layers of who you are, because there'll be many of those layers. Are still there, that, you know, the values that you have, the parts of you that are still you don't change. There might be some bits you've learned through this process that you think, okay, I don't wanna be that version of me anymore.

But I like this version of me, so that'd be interesting, you know? Is there anything yet that's caught your eye that you think, yeah, I could care about that enough, maybe to work on for the next 10 years?

Yeah, I don't know enough about it, but it's one of those things that. Yeah, sometimes taking a bit of time to figure out what you care enough about and also be seeing what turns up. As you said you gave your first 10 years to doing something very particular, and it's okay to take a bit of time to figure out what next and what matters. Is there anything you definitely wouldn't do? Learning from the first 10 years?

And that's not, that sounds like really negative. It isn't in my head. It's not because of the way it ended. It's just a case. I had 10 years doing it. I want to try some other stuff. Probably won't do a service based business again for the same reason ever. I just wanna see what happens and go from there.

Because if you think of yourself as three intersecting circles, there's who you are to yourself. There's who you are to other people, and there's who you are as a professional. The more aligned they are, the more authentic people are gonna find you. And frankly, the less energy it takes, it's so much easier.

If you have to be someone very different, any of those areas of your life, it always costs you. And it is worth checking from time to time that it's the cost you are prepared to pay. Now letting people see the real you or even bringing elements for yourself a little close together so there's less difference, can make life easier and feels rewarding.

So when people really like us, they're like us and not the mask we wear, but if they don't, it says probably more about them than us. Now through the process of building a business, it can feel like sometimes people like that professional mask. And it's how close that might feel to the person we are inside.

And in some situations who he was as a business owner the guys that were having fun after work and the drinking culture, all of that became who he was and his identity. And being Sam from Tuna Fish was somebody he was for 10 years. And it's something we see a lot in people who've run businesses for decades and then sell them that one day.

You think, well, who am I now if I'm not that? And Sam admits he found not being Sam from tuna fish is quite hard to figure out. Well, who? And that process is something that many of us take time over to figure out who are we? Who are we when I'm not in that relationship, or who are we when I'm not that job?

Or who are we when I'm not that title? And it is worth taking time on. It's not a fluffy thing. And yet it's something that people. Spend enough time on and it is the bit that will rip your heart out. Certainly. I spent a bit of time doing some research on how it felt to sell your business and some of the descriptions I heard were things like, it's like having your soul ripped out or doing a hand break, turn down the motorway.

This is not easy stuff. And that was nothing to do with the act of selling your business. It was how it felt. Cuz that's all about changing your, I. You might have also found that the emotional process, and you might have heard some of the emotions that some went through because you know, clearly somebody's pretty resilient, but your brain has to process the end of something.

You have to process loss and our brains process loss as grief. We have to let go. That idea of allowing grief is like any kind of sadness. The movement of sadness is to take us away from society for a little bit so that we can heal, and then when we're ready, we're ready to rejoin. So Sam has taken a little time to step out and step aside to heal, and when he is ready, he'll rejoin.

Clearly, he's got some views on what he'll do when he rejoins, and I'm sure everyone will absolutely wish him all the best when he does. But as with people, when they end relationships or end businesses for different reasons, the grieving process is one that needs to be attended to because the initial, what can be sadness or anger, the negative emotions have to be processed in their time.

And that there's a point when you truly let go of the past when you can say the old ways. The new way is not yet set in stone when you're in this weird, neutral zone where nothing's certain, it's a bit strange, and that's the stage you hear that slams in right now. But many people going through loss, once they can physically and emotionally let go of the way things were of being the person they used to be or doing the job they used to do, being able to let go of the things that they need to end or stop.

That's when this new time can be because yes, it can feel. A bit unsettling to be in a situation where the old way's gone, but the new way's not set in stone. But that can also be a period of self-discovery of finding out who do you want to be when you finish paying for who you have to be. That is Carl Young, by the way that's not me. That is a really interesting time of innovation. Giving yourself a little time to figure out who you want to be next before you launch into something new is healthy, and whether that's because it's the end of relationship or a business, it doesn't matter. Giving yourself some time and then when you're ready, you move on cuz.

Then you can see what's possible when the old ways have gone, and you can create a new plan based on a picture of the future that inspires, that makes you feel hopeful, that it makes you want to play the game again, and most of all focused on a purpose. And that way you're not running from a failure or from an ending, but towards a start and a new.

So thank you so much to Sam for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed today's episode of Endings. If you'd like to share any thoughts, I would love to hear them and you can reach me at Hazel Cs on Twitter or on LinkedIn if you are interested in understanding the endings happening in your life a little.

I'm the perfect thing for you. It's my five step worksheet. It's developed specifically for listeners of this podcast and based on years of my research. The first step will only take you 20 minutes to complete, but it will bring you a lot closer to understanding how to make these difficult decisions around endings.

Click the link in the show notes to download your Thriving through endings worksheet now. And finally, if you know somebody who is wrestling with decisions about ending their business or winding up, then please share it with them. I'm Hazel Sha. I hope you'll join me again for another episode of Endings.

Endings is produced by Fascinate Productions