Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to From Caving in to Crushing it, the podcast for those who find themselves immersed in adversity and choose to write their story instead of having others write it for them. I'm Drew Duraney and I'm your host, Sterling. How are you, my friend Drew?
[00:00:25] Speaker B: Good. Thanks for having me on. Good to see you.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Good to see you too, man. I've been excited about this for the last couple weeks, actually, ever since, since this was on the calendar and from our last phone call. And it's just a pleasure to have you on.
So, you know, I love your backdrop. I know the audience can't see it, but no matter what, and I always like to start with the journey, the story. Can you tell me what, where you got that from? And I'd love to hear it.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Yeah, well, the no matter what hashtag is really part of the comeback. So to share the comeback, I gotta share a little bit about the fall. And things started out really easy for me. You know, I did relatively well in school. I grew up a fifth generation grocer in my family supermarket. And right out of college I wanted to do something that was a little bit different.
So I started a retail software company with my dad, which, long story short, we end up selling to a group in Silicon Valley where it becomes the Apple Pay. Before Apple Pay.
[00:01:30] Speaker A: Oh my goodness.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: And it, it was insane. I mean, everything you're imagining is probably right on. We raised $550 million multi billion dollar valuation. Have you seen that movie, the Wolf of Wall Street?
[00:01:43] Speaker A: I have seen that movie, absolutely.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: It was like a scene out of that movie, you know, models in the office, parties at the Four Seasons. I'll. The rest I'll leave to yours and everybody else's imagination.
But I thought, you know, it's just a matter of time until this thing goes public. I cash in and I crown myself the next Steve Jobs, Right?
[00:02:02] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: And it was living the high life for a while until the housing market collapsed. And this is 2008, 2010 timeframe.
And we had grown to such an extent. 700 people, offices all over the world, but we didn't have enough organic growth and revenue and cash flow to support. Support the business that we had built or the infrastructure we had built. And when the housing market collapsed, we couldn't raise any more money, at least on terms that were acceptable to the board. And the whole thing comes crashing down. Half a billion dollars gone.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: In what time frame was it within a couple years or was it almost overnight?
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Oh, it was fast. It was almost overnight. I remember one meeting Sitting in a conference room in Silicon Valley and we're talking about how we're going to meet payroll that Friday.
So it happened in a matter of weeks and you know, it probably limped on for a number of months, but pretty soon the bankruptcy courts got involved. I, I totally detached from everything involving that company. And you know, I end up playing the sad country song of a story where I go from literally a penthouse apartment, floor to ceiling, windows looking out over the Bay Bridge in downtown San Francisco to my parents house.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: There we go. So how quickly did the victim mentality kick in?
[00:03:29] Speaker B: Oh, immediately.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: It was immediate.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Okay, it was immediate. Yeah. It wasn't so much the, the failure in and of itself. You know, there are a lot of people involved at that company, but I had so attached myself not just to the company, but how I defined myself, what success was, what my life was going to be about, that when the company crashed, so did I.
So it wasn't just like I no longer had a job, but I didn't have any cash flow and I was too ashamed of like the, the tower I had built, the success that I was riding on to reach out and ask for help and to do very simple things like reach out to friends and say, hey, I need a job. Yep, absolutely, I need help.
And it got to a point where I literally bottomed out six figures of debt and even my girlfriend broke up with me. It was like every single beat of that depressing country song I hit.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. You know, it's interesting because what, what you're telling me is, and it's, I'm sure it's a lesson you learned when you tie your self worth to an external circumstance. Yeah, you're. It's like a bad game of poker where you have awful cards. All you need is one, one bad card and your self worth is gone. So tell me about. So, so you were, I think you told me you were 30 years old, living at mom's ballpark. Ballpark. So sorry. So. So now I see you on the couch or with the pity party. Tell me what happened next.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: So it was really a very dark moment for me. Like it would be hard to overstate how hard that time was and because literally I, I lost everything. I felt like, you know, this has been my shot. I had a good run. I screwed it up. Maybe I should cut this whole life thing short and, I don't know, end it. Ended all there.
[00:05:27] Speaker A: So that deep, that deep, that depth.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: That deep, that dark.
[00:05:31] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:31] Speaker B: And my mom said this thing when I was younger. She still Says a lot of things, but she had all these like, anecdotes and sayings. And the one that came back to me as I'm like contemplating ending it all is the way out is through the way. It's actually Robert Frost quote, but to me, it's always my mom.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: It's your mom's quote as far as we're concerned.
[00:05:49] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:05:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:51] Speaker B: And to me it means you go through the things you're scared, scared of, you're embarrassed about, you're fearful of. And what you're looking for is on the other side.
And the thing that scared me most, above everything, believe it or not, was speaking in public.
[00:06:08] Speaker A: You're kidding me, right?
[00:06:10] Speaker B: I'm one of the many that would in the coffin than giving the eulogy.
[00:06:14] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Hands down.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: And I. I think I was always a little bit afraid of it. But when I had lost everything that I had attached my identity and self worth to, right.
I totally collapsed. Like, I was so nervous to stand in front of one person, not to mention many.
You know, my face would get red and my hands would get sweaty and I would stud. I couldn't get words out of my mouth. I mean, it. It was about as bad as you can get.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:42] Speaker B: And right then, as I'm having this epiphany, I'm like, okay, mom, let's put this thing to the test. The way out is through. Let's go. My email dings and it's this conference in Singapore.
Just a general email inviting thousands, if not tens of thousands to be attendees. And I hit the reply button. I said, why don't you have me speak Bess Sterling? I still have the email.
Crazy, right?
[00:07:07] Speaker A: You did it scared, right?
[00:07:09] Speaker B: I did it scared, right? Well, it was a little bit of a game. Like it didn't seem real at that point. You know, when I wrote the email, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna send it. Nobody will get back to me, won't go anywhere. But I end up getting on the phone with the conference director.
[00:07:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: And in this fantasy world that I'm living in, with nothing to lose and a lot to gain, I talk him into being not like a breakout speaker, but the keynote speaker of his conference in Singap.
[00:07:36] Speaker A: Unbelievable, right?
[00:07:38] Speaker B: And it wasn't until he sent me the legal agreement a couple of days later that it all hit me. It was like, sterling, not only do you have this huge failure on your resume, you don't know what you're going to say, but you're terrified to do it, right? And I did What I think everybody should do when confronted with a big discomfort like that, which is I committed in a way where there was no going back. I signed that agreement, I sent it back to him as fast as I possibly could before that self doubt kind of talked me out.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. I'm reading the thinking grow rich and I remember first chapter with Desire, it talks about burning the boat that you landed on the island because there's no going back. And you really need to do that. If you have an intense desire, don't give yourself a plan B.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Right, Exactly. Yeah. In my book I call it get a tattoo. Not necessarily a literal, literal tattoo, but you commit in a way where there's no going back. You put something on the line, you're at risk.
And the key is having that commitment, being stronger than whatever discomfort you're facing. It's that commitment that's going to pull you through the discomfort right. To whatever's on the other side.
And I, I knew I needed help so I, I called my sisters right out of Georgetown University with a marketing degree and I said, listen you, you know, I'm already down and out.
Will you, will you help me? And she said, you're an idiot, Sterling. Of course I'm going to help you. Yeah, I don't want any money or anything else. I want to go to Singapore with you.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: Wonderful. Wow.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And thus began not only her helping me, but importantly, she was holding me accountable to doing the things that I wanted and really needed to do. I needed to practice, I needed to write the script, I needed to create the deck. I needed to get more comfortable, at least try to get more comfortable speaking in front of people in the mornings. When I didn't want to do it, she'd say, Sterling, let's, let's go 10 o'clock, we've got a meeting. You're going to do another run through whether you want to or not.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: That's wonderful. You know, when we're down and out, you first need somebody to hold you accountable until you can learn how to hold yourself accountable.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:52] Speaker A: And she's a blessing to be there for you. And so tell me, how did the Singapore stuff go?
[00:09:57] Speaker B: Yeah, well, so I didn't know it at the time, but having since done a lot of research, when you're personally accountable, you're 95% more likely to achieve your goal.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[00:10:09] Speaker B: Right. And I think self accountability is great and it's necessary, but it's really best used for maintenance if you're really looking to grow in any meaningful Ways like I was at that time and like I still am. You need some external accountability, Something that's a little bit stronger. Yep, absolutely. So I practiced like an insane person. True. Like hundreds, thousands of times. Like my sister, poor girl, she listened to it so many times. She could probably give you that talk verbatim to this day. That was almost a decade ago.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:10:42] Speaker B: And leading up to the talk, I wanted. I wanted to back out. I wanted them to call me and say, you know, we don't need you anymore. I was hoping I was getting sick. It felt like I was like back in grade school, like wanting to be sick so I didn't have to take the test.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:10:59] Speaker B: But I. I had made the commitment. I was accountable. And so I had built this structure without knowing it that was forcing me through kind of the eye of the needle.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Did you feel at that time that it was unconsciously or was it still conscious that you needed to push yourself through, or had you practiced so much that you felt it was part of your unconscious brain to push you through, or did you have to think about it?
[00:11:23] Speaker B: Well, I think there's something in all of us that calls us into the world of adventure, the world of the unknown as Joseph Campbell's hero's journey. In big ways or small ways, there's something in all of us that's kind of pushing us to create something new, to go into discomfort, to grow beyond maybe the things that we can see from where we sit right now. And I definitely had that. But I was so nervous in the weeks leading up to this thing. I wasn't sleeping, I was having panic attacks. I wasn't really eating all that much.
And the day finally comes. We had flown to Singapore. My sister's there. I'm sitting in the audience like dreading the moment when they're going to call me up to the stage.
And when I did finally get up there, it's a good thing I practiced because I think I blacked out. I don't remember giving that talk.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Unbelievable how the brain works. So. Wow. Okay.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's so I stumble through it. I did do it. There's a recording of it. It actually happened. I get off the stage and I think I totally bombed.
[00:12:28] Speaker A: You know, I time when you got off.
[00:12:30] Speaker B: Exactly. I had. All the self doubt had descended upon me. I felt like I had screwed it up. I didn't really know what I said. I had tripped over myself more times than I could probably count. And I'm kind of covering my eyes and I just want to get out of that conference facility as fast as I can. Chalking up another loss to my name. That's what it felt like.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: Wow. Okay.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: And the conference director, of course is making a beeline towards me because I'm the keynote speaker in from the U.S. right. He wants to say something and I think he's going to say something terrible like I, I want the money back or you know, you're not welcome back here. Right. Like I really had the doom and gloom played out in my mind. And he looks me in the eyes, I'll never forget. He says, sterling, that's the best talk I've seen in my 17 years doing this.
To this day, I don't think he was in the same talk I was in.
Like, I think he just wanted to say something nice to me.
[00:13:26] Speaker A: So.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: But it wasn't incredible.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: You went from the, the, all those self doubt voices to hearing that feel. Do you remember how that felt?
[00:13:36] Speaker B: Yeah. I didn't believe him.
[00:13:38] Speaker A: Did you question him? Are you sure you. Or did you kind of.
[00:13:42] Speaker B: I didn't have enough wits about me to question him. Like I really was in that like cut and run mode of like, let me just say, enough to keep this guy happy and move on. And I, I really didn't think he was either in the room or had seen what I had just done. I, I really thought he just wanted to say something nice to me.
[00:14:02] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:14:04] Speaker B: And, and to get me out of there without it being too awkward. But he did go on to put me in touch with all of his conference director friends. And all of a sudden I had this. At least the beginnings of the career that I have today in keynote speaking.
And it turns out my mom was right. The way out is through. We just have to go through no matter what.
[00:14:26] Speaker A: You know, it's interesting because I was going to ask you what was your defining moment? And yeah, you could say when the conference director said, I think your defining moment was your mother saying the way is through. Right. Because if mom didn't say the way is through, you may not have gotten to you. I don't think you would have gotten to that.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: I don't, I don't think I would have.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: And, and if your sister had said no, that would have, you would have collapsed. I mean, totally. So you have those.
[00:14:55] Speaker B: Well, I'm not sure I could have collapsed more than I did.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess you can't go any lower than rock bottom. But, but I don't think I would.
[00:15:02] Speaker B: Have had the wherewithal or the support or drive to do anything Else.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: Right. So let's fast forward, let's accelerate forward to where you are now and tell me a little about what you're doing now and what kind of amazing things you're helping the community, because I know you are.
[00:15:23] Speaker B: Yeah, well, thanks for that. So I found this research out of the University of Michigan. And you felt physical discomfort before. Like you stub your toe and emotional discomfort, certainly, like maybe you break up with a loved one or lose a big sales deal.
It turns out whether it's physical, mental or emotional, the brain and body process it almost identically. So much so you can take acetaminophen, like Advil, it will help you with emotional pain.
Now, I'm not a doctor, that's not a biohack. All the disclaimers about that.
[00:15:54] Speaker A: Right.
[00:15:55] Speaker B: What I do suggest, though, is that we take the next step, which is if where we meet discomfort is the same anywhere, we can grow our capacity to deal with it everywhere. It's a muscle you build. You go to the gym to build your biceps. Well, if you want to build your resiliency, your growth, your breakthrough results, you hunt discomfort no matter what form it's in. And as soon as I realized that, the speaking being the first thing that I went after, I started looking for discomfort anywhere and everywhere I could. Thus started the marathons, ultra marathons, cycling across the Rockies, skydiving, shark diving, trekking the Sahara, of course, more public speaking.
[00:16:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: And along this journey, my life was being transformed by this discomfort. It was first my sister that saw it, and it's like, you know what? I've supported you on this. I want to go after this myself.
And like too many young people, especially young women, she suffered from body dysmorphia and an eating disorder. And I'll never forget the day she said to me, yeah, I'm going to take this on, Sterling. I'm going to be healthy no matter what. I will be healthy no matter what.
And that day she signed up for a bodybuilding competition. And today she's a championship professional bodybuilder, believe it or not. It's insane.
[00:17:12] Speaker A: Unbelievable. All right, so let's think about. She was your accountability coach, per se.
Did you turn accountability coach for her when she decided to make that bold move?
[00:17:26] Speaker B: I was more. I think there's a couple main roles that you need when you're growing.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: One of those being inspiration. I think, like, she had seen, like really the behind the scenes, down and dirty of the fear, anger and grief that I went through. And it was that, that kind of inspired her to do it herself.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:17:45] Speaker B: She found mentorship and accountability with, with the professionals, with people that knew how to shape bodybuilders, what you need to do, how you do the check ins, the lifts, how you eat, like all of those things. She found somebody that was not just holding her accountable to whatever she said, but had a level of expertise and professionalism to get her to the goal she wanted to reach.
[00:18:11] Speaker A: So you were the, you were the inspiration? Yeah. There was an interesting quote. I don't even know where I got this from, but it's like the, the worst advice is bad advice. And bad advice usually is free. Yeah, you got good, free advice from your sister. She was astute enough to find the advice for the bodybuilding from the experts and took the inspiration from her brother.
[00:18:32] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:18:33] Speaker A: I want to ask you a little about. We talked about self worth.
Right now, I think it might be safe to say that you're not. Your self worth isn't contingent upon external circumstances anymore. Tell me about your self worth and how it's grown.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: Well, it's still a journey. I mean, there are some things that I noticed. I'm like, wow, I was really attached to that particular thing. But starting with my sister. There was then somebody that I had known from my professional past and he started a beef jerky company, coming over as a Cambodian refugee. Didn't have any money, flat broke, didn't speak the language, and going through the at least an early version of the system. He's selling more Cambodian beef jerky than he can keep up with. He just bought a Lamborghini, believe it or not. I've been looking at pictures on Facebook. I'm like, this guy's crushing it.
[00:19:25] Speaker A: He's. I mean, the business got to go in the beef jerky business, right?
[00:19:28] Speaker B: And then like one person after another, I started reaching new health goals and professional goals, creating new businesses, creating new sales records, starting new families, community initiatives. And it was in that moment, Drew, that I realized I've been so like consumed about myself. I started this thing just to dig myself out of the hole.
[00:19:51] Speaker A: That's true. Right?
[00:19:52] Speaker B: But, but my life isn't about those things. It's about supporting others to achieve their big goals, their dreams, their aspirations, no matter what they were.
And you know, I think where I would have based my self worth really did base my self worth on, on money and who I was dating and where I lived in the past. Now it's much more contingent, not just on where I am and what I'm doing, but the impact that I'm making with others. So it's totally shifted from something that's let's say concrete and dollars and cents to something that's really based in the most important things in life like love, gratitude, joy and encourage. Does that make sense?
[00:20:34] Speaker A: It totally makes sense. And the service piece is really brings us to success. The more we can serve and pick people up. That's how we should be measuring success. Success isn't how much money you have.
It's the amount of service you can provide others. To me that what makes me or us successful. That money follows.
[00:21:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: Supposed to. You know. Yeah.
[00:21:02] Speaker B: Well you know coming from somebody that's thought about exiting this life a little bit early.
[00:21:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: And backed up by research. No matter how much the world changes, no matter how much your life changes for the better, for the worse, the things that are most important to human beings proven by deathbed research again is not your bucket list. And it's not your bank account. It's not the car you drive or the career you have. It's the courage to live true to what's most important. And what's most important to human beings are those things that ironically no matter what happens in the world can never be taken away from you. Like love, connection, courage, joy. Like it's those things that are most important to us. But we very easily lose sight of it in the kind of crazy modernity that we live in these days.
[00:21:50] Speaker A: It's so true. I mean you know, I was in healthcare for 24 years and reading the research on the death and dying with their regrets.
Many also say not not really being themselves. We tend to people please. Because we have that exterior we want to show the world because we think the world wants to see it. I'm telling you the world right now is craving authenticity.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: And authenticity 24 7. Don't worry about the reaction of how people are going to react if you are yourself. In a way.
I have learned how to reframe rejection. If somebody doesn't like me for who I am I thank them because I don't want that toxicity in my life. And I think that's the direction we all need to go in is build your self worth for yourself. Not based on somebody else.
So last two questions before we wrap up. And I always ask you and you kind of answered it. So I'm going to ask two questions. One, what knowing what you know now, what would you tell your younger self? Let's say younger self is your 10 year old. That'll be the first question. The second is before you started Your business way, way, way back then, what advice, knowing now, would you give to your young business self? So personal self for life and then business self. So share that with the audience. What you'd say, what you don't.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Yeah.
So thinking about those two things, it's. It's actually the same message for me.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Wonderful.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Which. Which is failure's okay. Messing up is okay. Looking bad is okay. And not only okay, but it's necessary on your journey for growth. You know, my book's called Hunting Discomfort. I talk a lot about discomfort. And the thing that I hear most from people is, Sterling, you got to look at my relationships, my bank account, my business. I don't need to hunt discomfort. I'm surrounded by it.
[00:23:50] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:50] Speaker B: And my answer is always the same, which is, you're not hunting discomfort. You're living with it. You're rationalizing why you have it. You're placating the situations around you. And that's certainly what I did in my younger life. Had I hunted discomfort from an early age, been okay with the uncomfortable things, well, my life would have been very much different. But all the same, I'm very grateful for the journey that I've been on to get where I am now.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: I definitely hear you. That's wonderful advice. Yeah. We can't live with regret.
I often say to. We need to replace regret with forgiveness.
Forgive ourselves for any personal discretion and forgive others for what they did.
Because if we live in regret, that causes a lot of depression. So, yeah, go with forgiveness. And I say be great. Be grateful for right now.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:51] Speaker A: And. And go after fear. Hunt. Hunt that, like you said, and do it scared.
[00:24:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: That's how we grow. So I want to thank you. I do want to ask you, tell me a little about your book, how we can get it, and then other things that you're working on that you'd like the audience to know so they can have more of. Sterling Hawkins.
[00:25:11] Speaker B: Yeah.
Well, the best place to find out about the book and everything that we're up to is huntingdiscomfort.com and what I do is really work with a lot of businesses, growing businesses, established businesses, some of the biggest businesses in the world to help their leadership and their teams to achieve results regardless of the circumstances. And there's a lot of them these days. Right. We've got pandemic fallout. We've got a looming depression, We've got inflation, that global instability, really a universal instability. And I work with these teams and leaders to create the results that they want in their business and their life. No matter what they're facing.
One of the things that I would suggest that you can Also find on huntingdiscomfort.com is a quick 15 question quiz. What's standing in the way of the results you want is not just hard work. It's not money, it's not time, it's not the connections you have. It is discomfort. And as you can identify discomfort going through this 15 question quiz, it doesn't cost anything. I'm not selling anything here.
It will give you what that main discomfort is. There's five of them that stand in the way for all of us, but there's one that's really stopping whatever it is you want next. It will identify that for you and give you a pathway to hunt it, to break through so you're forever free of it.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Well, that's wonderful. And I know I'll be the first to go up there and answer that, answer those questions because I'd like to find out what mine is.
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Well, you have to let me know what you get.
[00:26:46] Speaker A: I will let you know. So thank you so much for coming on and just I want you that you're going to tell me, tell the audience one last thing before we go. What was Mom's suggestion?
[00:26:59] Speaker B: The way out is through.
[00:27:01] Speaker A: The way out is through. Bless you, Sterling. Thank you so much for coming on, my friend.
[00:27:06] Speaker B: Thank you, Drew. Appreciate you.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: All right, appreciate you too. Take care.
Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the episode, please subscribe and give us a review to help others find it. If you find yourself immersed in adversity and would like to find support from other other men in times of struggle, please become a member of my Men's Supporting Men Collaboration tribe by emailing me at drew at profitcompassion. Com expressing your interest and I'll get in touch with you, speak to you soon.
