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So here's my question: What Does It Take To Become A Successful Entrepreneur? What type of business should I start? Which ones do I avoid? And where am I going to be successful? If you're thinking of leaving Corporate America and starting a business, you should be asking yourself all of these questions. Luckily, today's guest can help us out with that! Rebecca Monet is a franchise expert, CEO, and Chief Scientist at Zorakle Profiles. She's also been a mentor and friend for the past 12 years. In this episode Rebecca and I talk about franchises, careers, professional profiles, identity, skills, and what does it take to become a successful entrepreneur.
The “musts” to be an entrepreneur, how to properly find a market that suits you, and society's changes through the years are some of the topics covered in this episode. We invited Rebecca Monet, a franchise expert, CEO, and Chief Scientist at Zorakle Profiles to help us figure out how to be successful when starting something new.
The “musts” to be an entrepreneur, how to properly find a market that suits you, and society's changes through the years are some of the topics covered in this episode. We invited Rebecca Monet, a franchise expert, CEO, and Chief Scientist at Zorakle Profiles to help us figure out how to be successful when starting something new.
Join us as we answer some of the most challenging questions together.
Host: Marcos Moura
Co-Owner & Chief Development Officer at Amada Senior Care
Guest: Rebecca Monet
Franchise expert | CEO & Chief Scientist at Zorakle Profiles
Highlights
00:01 - Introduction
01:53 - Welcoming Rebecca Monet, franchise expert and CEO & Chief Scientist at Zorakle Profiles
03:00 - Rebecca and Zorakle introduction
04:56 - How Zorakle works
12:34 - Should you only work with something you’re passionate about
14:26 - The “must” to be an entrepreneur
15:24 - The concept of being a hungry, humble, and smart entrepreneur
20:21 - Can you be a jerk and be successful?
23:49 - Changes seen in entrepreneurs over the years
27:18 - The bubble-wrap society
29:22 - Changes in our comfort zone
35:28 - The silver linings of society changes
37:14 - Advises for people who want to start something new
39:49 - Closure
Mentioned in this episode
The Ideal Team Player, by Patrick Lencioni - https://www.amazon.com/-/pt/dp/1119209595
Simon Sinek - https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonsinek
Tips, questions, and suggestions
E-mail us at marcos.m@amadaseniorcare.com
Creators & Guests
Host
Producer
What is Made of Questions?
Its a show were I ask questions from experts in business, leadership, psychology, science, politics, and life. The goal is to have a panel of reoccurring experts, 4-5 of them who tackle different questions, instead of always having different guests.
[00:01 - Marcos Moura] You have questions and I... I don't have the answers.
But I know who does.
I'm, Marcos Moura. This is Made Of Questions. Welcome to the show.
[00:26]
Hey, welcome to another episode of Made Of Questions. Great episode for you guys today. My guest is Rebecca Monet. I've known Rebecca for a very long time. She is one of my biggest mentors, specially in the franchise industry.
What’s amazing about Rebecca. Rebecca is a behavioral scientist. Her company is Zorakle Profiles. Rebecca's an over a hundred and fifty thousand profiles of entrepreneurs, and her profile was different. It's not just like a DiSC Profile or the profiles to tell you, you know, what are you like. Her profile actually goes through and tells you, what type of business should you start? Which ones do you avoid? And where are you going to be successful? So, it's an incredibly incredibly valuable tool that hundreds and hundreds of franchise opportunities and businesses out there use to evaluate entrepreneurs.
And that I know of, it's one of the only profiles for entrepreneurs. Now, here's what's important about this episode with Rebecca. Rebecca is seeing trends over the last 30 years that entrepreneurs are changing, and this is great and scary at the same time.
[01:26]
She’s seen, for example, that initiative is going down and that the sense of community is going down and empathy is going down. But there are silver linings. So today, we're going to cover with Rebecca, data scientist who has gone through over 150,000 entrepreneur profiles and learn what makes a great entrepreneur, what type of business should you follow? And what are the trends that you could expect today to find the best business for you and for your family so you can also leave a legacy?
[01:53 - Marcos Moura]
Rebecca. How are you?
[01:59 - Rebecca Monet]
I'm fabulous. Fabulous. Life is good. No complaints at all.
[02:03- Marcos Moura]
Not one complaint.
[02:05- Rebecca Monet]
Well, maybe a little about the humidity. But that's about it.
[02:10 - Marcos Moura]
That's about it, that's fantastic. So if you're joining us here on LinkedIn, then you probably, you know. What I think is interesting about LinkedIn is if you're joining us, you probably know either me or you know Rebecca, because we're connected on LinkedIn, and so it'd be awesome if you guys want to join us, we're going to talk about entrepreneurial things and talk about what makes people tick. And it's probably nobody better than Rebecca in this world to tell you what makes people tick and why people do what they do, why people start businesses, why they fail, why they succeed. And, so you're welcome to ask any questions you want or make any comments on LinkedIn. We actually are able to see it. So, if you have any comments, if you have questions for Rebecca you can ask, and we're excited to have you guys here. So welcome or Becca.
[02:52 - Rebecca Monet]
I'm glad to be here. Especially if we're gonna talk about entrepreneurship, business ownership and performance. Those are my cup of tea.
[03:00 - Marcos Moura]
So, for those of you who don't know, Rebecca is the behavioral scientists behind the company Zorackle. And the company Zorakle and, and you'll do a much better job of talking about this. But listen, the company Zorakle has been one of the most important things for us, growing our company Amada Senior Care. And I hear this from so many other franchisors out there. So what Rebecca's company does is it allows us to get a profile on the entrepreneur, that is trying to become a franchisee of a modest in your care. And it is such a valuable profile because we get an insight into what makes that entrepreneur tick and Rebecca. If you go through the years of Zorakle, how many profiles have you done over the last however many years, like what's the number?
[03:45 - Rebecca Monet]
I can tell you in the last eight years actually, almost nine years, we've done 140,000 assessments, as of a couple of months ago. Now obviously some of these are franchisees, top mid-low, performing franchisees, but a large portion are prospective franchisees. So it's been really a fun journey to watch and also as we talked about earlier, this idea that there are trends and things change in the world of Entrepreneurship in the world of franchising, in the world of business ownership. And those coming into the idea of buying businesses is also evolving and changing, and who was the ideal franchisee is also different today and who are prospective franchisees are are different today.
So, I love love, love love looking at trends and then looking at how those trends play out and how franchisors and business owners have to adapt to those trends. But if we can see them in advance, that's a fun thing for me that we can prepare for what's about to come down the pike.
[04:56 - Marcos Moura]
So, okay, so anyone can actually you can go to Zorakle profiles and do the assessment, right? Anyone can go in there and then take the assessment, and we have everyone who's interested in a modest in your care. We send them the assessment. It's actually really cool, and it's amazing to see that if you want to become an entrepreneur, it's the only assessment I know of that you can take, and it gives you insights into what type of entrepreneur would you be. And not only that, what's really cool is Rebecca has been doing this for so long that she's also able to tell you what business opportunities would be best for you. Which I think is so amazing and that comes from the fact that you've been able to pull entrepreneurs of all types of different brands and to see what their profile is, right?
With that said, if I take your Zorakle profile, if I take it, and it tells me what I'm like. Does that mean that I should not open a Jersey Mike's or should open an Amada, or should open a Jamba Juice? I mean, what do I do with the information, what I got it now, I know what I'm like, and I've got more insights, but what does that really mean?
[05:58 - Rebecca Monet]
So, the assessment answers two primary questions that anyone thinking about going into business is asking themselves consciously or unconsciously. First, it answers the question: do I have what it takes to be a business owner? Am I wired to do that? Because not everybody's wired as, you know, to be entrepreneurs, to be business owners, to be franchisees. So answers that question. The second question answers “What's the right business for me”, right? So someone who is going to be a good, Amada franchisee may not be a good Jersey Mike’s franchisee, and vice versa, right? So, we have to know exactly what makes for an ideal franchisee or ideal business owner in various businesses before we can say “This is the kind of business you're going to be great at”, and of course, we use reverse engineering to do that. We actually assess all the franchisees within a franchise system or as many as we can possibly do, we assess those franchisees to determine how the high mid, and low performers might be similar. But more importantly, what makes them different? Why are certain folks knocking it out of the park in one concept? And then you got folks that will be B players and C players in that exact same concept. It is not the business model, clearly, if some are succeeding. It's the franchisee or the business owner that may just be the wrong fit. They may be a better fit somewhere else. So that's to me the two biggest questions that the tool answers both for the prospective business owner and then the concepts that are using the tool to determine “Is this guy or gal going to do well?” within our concept within our franchise system as an example.
[07:51 - Marcos Moura]
So I have an - and I've told you the story before - but when we moved to United States back in 1991, my dad goes to a franchise show, and I was 15. My dad goes to a franchise show, and he finds Blimpie and Blimpie was cheaper than Subway. That's why my dad bought it. My dad's like “They’re just like Subways, they’re the same thing, but it's cheaper, so we're gonna buy a Blimpie”. So in our town - this is in Provo, Utah - there was a South Provo Blimpie, and there was a Middle Town Blimpie. The one was on by my dad. The other one was owned by... I can't remember his name, but it was an entrepreneur who had owned that Blimpie's restaurant for like 20 years.
[08:25 - Rebecca Monet]
Wow.
[08:26 - Marcos Moura]
And what's interesting is that both markets were very similar. The stores were the same size, opportunity wise, the same sandwiches, everything is the same, but in one store, there was my dad who absolutely hated his life as a Blimpy franchisee, just could not stand it. Now, nothing to say about Blimpie, and actually they're even around, so I don't think I'm offending anybody, but he hated it, he absolutely hated the business. And then you get the other guy who ran the other location, and he loved it. He loved it. He could not get enough of it. He had to own the location forever. He was a sponsor to the football team. He was part of the community. Made great money, was super excited about it and so, that's, that's exactly right. I wish that my dad had taken, his Zorakle profile back in 1991 to be able to see that. That is not what my Dad should be doing. And my dad today is a professor, at a university. He's 82 years old and still working, loves to teach. He loves to teach like he is so happy in front of the classroom teaching. He was miserable as a owner of a fast food sandwich place.
[09:27 - Rebecca Monet]
It just wasn't him, it just wasn't him, and if he’d taken a little time or been coached along and some way to look at himself… It always goes back to know thyself, right? And once we know ourselves, we have a better idea of where we belong, what culture of an organization, we belong, in what stage of growth of an organization, we belong in, what we value, what's important, and your dad's case. It sounds like he really wanted to make a difference, he was an educator. He liked to edify others and advise others, empower others and have an impact. And so, you feel somebody's tummy for a little bit. That's about what we do with Blimpie, right? So it didn't fill his soul.
It didn't speak to who he was. Where the other gentleman, you know, he was about community, and family, and relationships and getting together, and he had a whole different wiring. So Blimpie was a perfect fit. And that's what we need to know.
[10:32 - Marcos Moura]
There's also ego. An interesting thing about my dad is having a costumer come back and go “You put mayonnaise on my sandwich when I told you not to put mayonnaise”.
My dad, you could see he turned red, and he was like oh he was just like “How am I, after all the things I've done in my life” you know, “And I'm a college” it was demeaning to him. It's funny because I don't see that as a derogatory thing on my dad. It's okay for you, to have an ego. It's okay for you to think that I don't want to be in a situation where somebody comes back and says, “You give me my money back because you put mayonnaise on my sandwich”. That's gonna make you mad like you shouldn't be doing that, right?
[11:12 - Rebecca Monet]
I love this story because at the core of all of us is an identity that we want others to see. We want to fully express this identity that we have, and if we're in a job or in a relationship or in a business that doesn't allow us to show this identity. It's like, fingers on a chalkboard. Maybe even worse than that.
You know, God created us a certain way and he spent time and energy learning and developing his skill, and it wasn't to put more mayonnaise on something, right? That wasn’t who he was. Where you have somebody else that just has the gift of hospitality. They love making people happy in that way. That would take that as “Yay, I get to do more things for another person”, but your dad was a completely different wiring and this is what I see again and again. It is if folks don't take the time to figure out who they are and who these companies are, to see if they can fully express themselves. They're miserable, they're miserable. Never mind, they're not as successful as they could be if we can find a business that is echoing or mirroring and truly expressing who that individual is,
[12:34 - Marcos Moura]
But how much of it is… If you love cars, and you get to car businesses? If you love dealing with like… and so many people go “What I really want to do is this” and what I've seen is, sometimes they go toward that because it was a passion of theirs, and they're still miserable. So what do you do about that? Should you unemotionally go do something like… I don’t know, having something like a daycare business, even though you’re a cat person. What do you do?
[13:02 - Rebecca Monet]
Well, there's a difference between cycle graphics and interests. We can have interests. We could even have passion about animals or children or the elderly or real estate or whatever it is, we have passions for and interests, but that doesn't necessarily mean we should have a business based around that. We may not be wired for that. So there's a distinct difference. Now, there is some overlap when you have certain values and certain beliefs, that there is some overlap with interest, but we really have to separate those two things. I don't know what the statistic is.
But it's quite low when someone goes looking for a franchise of the businesses, they actually go versus what their interests are. You know, they may decide “I love autos, I love cars,
I love all that”, and they end up in something completely different because it's about what the business can do and how you can express yourself. And that's not always what we're interested in.
[14:08 - Marcos Moura]
But you've told me before that there are certain characteristics of an entrepreneur that it's like the must-have in a way. Right. So in 40… how many profiles in eight years?
[14:21- Rebecca Monet]
140,000 in the last eight, almost nine years.
[14:26 - Marcos Moura]
So is there a pattern of must? Is there one, two or three things that if you don't have this - and maybe it's silly. But maybe it's something that is super simple to explain - but is there a must that you don't be an entrepreneur unless you have this one two or three qualities?
[14:41 - Rebecca Monet]
Yeah. I want to qualify that because there really is some must. Keep in mind, the “must” do change, based on the type of business. Some must are: you have to have sales skills, or you have to have good leadership skills, or you have to have conflict management skills, because an of certain type of business. But there are some universals that… This is a must-have before you should even think about going into business, and the person that actually describes it best in my mind is a guy named Patrick Len... you know, I believe is l e n c i o n i. How do you pronounce that?
[15:21 - Marcos Moura]
I've no idea
[15:22 - Rebecca Monet]
Some Italian name, right?
[15:23 - Marcos Moura]
Patrick
[15:24 - Rebecca Monet]
We’ll call him Patrick, and he talks about four, three primary things. One is, are you hungry? Two, are you humble? And three, are you smart? And, of course, our assessment assesses those and there are many markers within that. So for example, hungry would be, “I have a drive for success. I am willing to do whatever is necessary to have a certain level of success and growth and control”. So I'm committed. I take initiative, I'm adaptable, I have optimism. These would all come under that category. I'm hungry, and I believe in a future and that I can create it. The humble part - specially in franchising, is so important. Humble is that I have just enough self-confidence that I'm willing to take the risk and step out, but not so much self-confidence, where I'm arrogant and unteachable, uncoachable, and not open to critique and feedback, so I can continually get better. So it's kind of a fine line and in our assessment, the minute someone - a prospective franchisee gets over what we call a 12.5 on a scale of 1 to 16 in self-confidence - that's going to be a franchisee that's going to struggle to embrace the franchise or leadership and systems because there's already very capable and very confident, right? So we want someone with just enough self-confidence, but they're not too arrogant or know-it-alls, and they're able to embrace. You know what the leadership is sharing with us.
[17:09 - Marcos Moura]
And there's a place for the know-it-all, right? So it's interesting, there's a place for that know-it-all. But it may not be in a system where you have to learn and be humble, it may be starting your own thing, right? Go and do it yourself because you have all the answers, and you probably do have all the answers or be wrong and you'll feel miserable. But if you have all the answers that you're right, great. Like, that arrogance may not be a bad thing.
[17:32- Rebecca Monet]
No, it's not a bad thing at all. In franchising, we do have, what I call, a sweet spot. And then the third component is that smart, are you smart? Are you humble? Are you hungry? Are you smart? And smart is not IQ, it's emotional and social intelligence. Do you have self-discipline self-control self-motivation? Do you understand your emotions and your thoughts? Are you able to see how they affect your performance? Social intelligence, how are you at building relationships? Can you build teams and collaborate and build consensus? How do you operate under conflict? Are you a good leader? Are you socially aware? Know what's going on in the world and can read through your empathy what other people are thinking and feeling and what their needs are? So this is what's meant by smart and all of these markers combined are important, but if you want to just give them headers, you know, are you hungry? Are you humble? And are you smart? Those are things you have to have when you're choosing to go in business.
[18:41 - Marcos Moura]
Now on the smart side. You have people that have emotional intelligence to know how to read a room, but they do not have the ability to be in front of that room. So and again it's not so much that any of these are disqualifiers. Is it more about understanding how smart you are? What kind of smarts you have? Because no one is a complete idiot when it comes to this. You not going to have a profile that says “You're an idiot”, in those terms, right? Yeah. Zero like you should not do anything, but it is more of the self-awareness than it is a strike, right?
[19:14 - Rebecca Monet]
Yes. Yeah. I mean what you're describing within that smart category, is it in some businesses, you have to have strong influence, ethos, credibility, authority the ability to persuade, right? So I call that influence, which is an SQ, a social intelligence marker, and in some cases, it needs to go even further than that. That you got lots of competition, and you need to go up against that competition. So not only do you need to be influential, credible, have authority, be transparent, be genuine… All of those wonderful SQ attributes, but you need to be a change Catalyst, you need to be able to change somebody's mind and have them go to another direction. Now, not every business requires that, but the businesses that do, you need to have those smarts to be able to step up to the plate. Otherwise, you're going to struggle, and that's the last thing we want as business owners. So we want to look at where we’re strong, where we’re weak, and how can we leverage the strengths that we have.
[20:21 - Marcos Moura]
What about… do you see a correlation with being a jerk?
Here's what I mean by that, you know, there's a lot of you read, all these books about people that say, you know, “servant leader”, and you know, “care about your people” and in case Simon sinek, just did a post on LinkedIn that said, “don’t buy a product from a company where the employees don't enjoy working there.
And I read that, and I was kind of, like I disagree, we buy products from awful companies all the time, we buy products from companies where people hate working there, we buy products from companies where the leaders are awful and abusive, and bad people. So can you be a jerk and be successful?
[20:59 - Rebecca Monet]
Yes you can be a jerk and be successful. You're going to struggle, right? You're going to struggle, and hopefully, you have a buffer between you and your clients, right? Where this jerk side doesn't show up too often, right? Because what makes a jerk, I mean, how do we describe that? It kind of reminds me, Marcos, I had some years back, a franchiser that called me and says, “Rebecca does your assessment determine if someone is a turd?” And I said, “describe turd”
[21:37 - Marcos Moura]
That’s awesome. Yeah, that could be a different thing for everybody,
[21:39 - Rebecca Monet]
Right? What's a turd?
Someone that doesn’t follow the system. Someone that's argumentative. Someone who's on coachable, someone who's always picking fight. What is it? What makes somebody a jerk. What makes someone a turd, and the reality is: yes, jerks can be very successful, right? Depending on how they set up their businesses. I would obviously encourage as a past therapist that you work on that side of yourself because you probably would have greater success if you didn't have those issues. I know Simon talks a lot about empathy and compassion.
It's really kind of a foundation of all of his beautiful work and especially in today's environment with social media and people saying things that they normally wouldn't say face to face or in a group situation but in social media, they are being jerks, right? And or unkind and “un-empathetic”. And that is a marker, coincidentally, we call it understanding others, but it's an empathy marker that has dramatically dropped in the last three and a half to four years and those that are looking at businesses.
[22:55] - Marcos Moura]
Empathy has decreased
[22:57- Rebecca Monet]
Has decreased
[22:58 - Marcos Moura]
our ability to feel empathy for others
[23:00 - Rebecca Monet]
Has decreased. We don't have that same humanity we had before. So I can understand Simon's position and why he's preaching this, right? Because he's shouting a warning that down the road what's going to happen as these empathy markers can continue to drop? What kind of businesses are we going to have? What kind of relationships are we going to have. Simon, is very futuristic. He thinks way out there. But today, in fact, there are all kinds of research about this. Nice guy finished first, not always, right?
[23:34 - Marcos Moura]
Yeah.
[23:35 - Rebecca Monet]
Not always, but this empathy marker is a scary marker for us at Zorakle to be watching, and it'll be interesting, how people do business in the future without that ability to understand and care for others.
[23:49 - Marcos Moura]
And this, I think when we first started the call, you talked about how you've seen patterns, which I never would have expected, I would expected that an entrepreneur in the 80s was an entrepreneur in the 90s, an entrepreneur in the 2000s. And you're seeing that there are patterns that you're seeing that maybe not the case, that the entrepreneur is changing or the opportunities are changing. Talk a little bit about that.
[24:09 - Rebecca Monet]
I think the entrepreneur is changing, and the opportunities are responding to it or need to respond to it.
[24:14 - Marcos Moura]
Interesting
[24:15 - Rebecca Monet]
That's my opinion. So empathy is one of the markers that has dramatically changed. Another one that has started to drop pretty dramatically is initiative. So, initiative is a form of courage, it's the ability to go do what you need to do, whether you want to or not, whether you're good at it or not, or whether you're confident or not, it's courage, right? And we are seeing a society becoming more, having more difficulty taking initiative, taking risks. So, and the way that's affecting many of our clients is a sales cycle for someone to make a decision. To buy a business is being extended, and we're seeing more and more lucky loose folks that look over the cliff and go “I'd like to be there”, but are unwilling to do so. So it's also changing once they're in the business. How much personal initiative they're going to take to get out on the marketplace, do the hunting, they need to do the business. It's causing more and more pressure on the franchise ORS, who now have to take over a lot of the marketing and do a whole lot more to drive the business to those business owners. So several markers like that, they're scary.
[25:37- Marcos Moura]
So initiative is down and what it's crazy about this is that this is not just… I feel like initiatives is down, you're actually seeing this. You're seeing data showing that initiative is down and for you to be able to see it, it has to be a deviation. That's pretty big, right, but I try to have my boys, not be that way. And you've, I think you've met my boys and my wife.
[25:56 - Rebecca Monet]
I have, yeah.
[25:57 - Marcos Moura]
And we were in the car, and I said “Tristan call Big O’s Shack and order the bagels, you know what? We’ll get it, just go ahead and order. I'm doing something else” and he was like, he's 13, he's like, “what would I say?” and I “what do you mean ‘what would you say?’ You order the bagels”. And so, I dialed it for him because he didn't know, and I put the thing in his ear and so, the person picks up says “Hi, thank you for calling Big O’ Shack”, you know, “How can I help you?” and Tristan freezes, and he looks at me, I look at him, and he just goes, “I want bagels”.
[26:33 - Rebecca Monet]
There you go, that’s a start,
[26:34 - Marcos Moura]
That’s a start. And, you know, the person on the other side says, “Okay. We have those, how can I help you?” and then kind of start doing, but it's interesting because it's I never expected that even just that initiative… in my mind it was like you call the place, and you put the order in, and then you tell them what you want, and there's no formula to it, you don't have to do a script. But to my Tristan at 13, and I don't know if I was that way at 13, it was a monumental thing to have to do. And even when I did everything for him, he didn't know what the heck to do when he called. Now he's a 13-year-old, but even that, right, is the ability for us to do simple things. Imagine hard things, you know, not only order a bagel, but actually start a Big O’s business. Imagine that. What is driving that? Why are we so scared?
[27:18 - Rebecca Monet]
We are living in a bubble-wrap society, right? There's a whole lot more fear in this world and unknowns, you know, unprecedented that we've had ever before with the pandemic and other fears that we're dealing with, wars, etc. So parents have become more hover type of parents, right? They're having to protect their children. At least they feel they have to protect their children from everything, from abduction to bullying. Because empathy is dropping, right? Empathy is dropping, so they're getting more bullying going on.
[27:55 - Marcos Moura]
Listen, nobody got more bullied than I did. I think bullying was just how it was. We got bullied all the time. My kids never get bullied. I wish they had a little bullying sometimes. Just a little bit. Is that bad? Maybe that's bad.
[28:09 - Rebecca Monet]
No, I agree. It builds character, right?
[28:12 - Marcos Moura]
A little bit
[28:13 - Rebecca Monet]
And tenacity and determination. It also builds your identity, which is “I can stand up to the bad guys if I have to. I don't always have to step back or be accepted or be approved”. That I am a human being, but we are, especially with social media and other things that are going on, there is this longing to belong, a fear of rejection and not being accepted, or proved of whether that's how you look or how you're not living in the right ZIP code or you don't have a certain title, whatever it is. We're all desiring to be approved of an accepted and because these empathy numbers are dropping in, and some other numbers are dropping, it's becoming harder and harder to be accepted. And, of course, that reduces our ability to take initiative before living in fear, fear of rejection. Fear of, not being approved, fear of being bullied or whatever. We're not going to take a whole lot is we're going to play it safe. We're going to be underneath.
[29:21 - Marcos Moura]
Play it safe. Yeah
[29:22 - Rebecca Monet]
We're gonna play it safe. That's the other thing that's changing, by the way, now that we're talking about it, is comfort zone, right? We used to have smaller comfort zones. Meaning, the idea of a comfort zone is where you feel pain and where you feel pleasure, right? The sooner you can feel pleasure, the more often you're going to do that behavior. The sooner you feel the pain, the more frequently you're going to do something to not feel that,
[29:50 - Marcos Moura]
To avoid it
[29:52 - Rebecca Monet]
But our comfort zones have gotten larger and larger. Everything from we're now comfortable, you know, not having the grocery zone, the grocery store shelves like we used to have, we become comfortable with the high gas prices. We become comfortable with, you know, working at home.
[30:12 - Marcos Moura]
So like, we can tolerate. Well, does that mean we've gotten tougher, or just more desensitized?
[30:18 - Rebecca Monet]
We're desensitized, that's a good way to describe it, Marcos. Our comfort zones have gotten larger and that means we're taking action more slowly.
[30:31 - Marcos Moura]
So, I can take a bad boss much longer than somebody used to in the 90s in the 80s, because I'm just gonna take the bad boss or whatever bad situation. Were you saying we're staying in bad situations longer than ever before?
[30:40 - Rebecca Monet]
Yeah, we're staying.
[30:42 - Marcos Moura]
That's, that's insane. That's crazy.
[30:44 - Rebecca Monet]
That's, that's crazy. It is crazy. Especially if you're not wanting to be an entrepreneur or a business owner. Decisions, oftentimes as a business owner, have to be made in a split second, right? And you have to notice your P&L statement and how things are going sideways, and you need to make tough decisions, right? Make tough decisions and take tough facts. And if our comfort zone is, “okay, so I'm only two million dollars in debt”, you know, two years ago or five years ago if I was 200 thousand dollars on that, that would have been uncomfortable, and I would have done everything possible to generate more business to get out of that debt or whatever. So, our comfort zones are now larger. And we're seeing more and more perspective franchisees coming in with that, which is making it harder for them to become business owners, right? If it's more comfortable to go back to the job where you are not being respected, you're not being appreciated, you're not being promoted. But it's safe, its secure - or at least that's the perception. Which I don't always agree is a proper perception - you're going to do that. So that's another big change that we are seeing is these comfort zones, or the frightening to me, you know, having been in this business 30 years.
[31:54 - Marcos Moura]
So we're screwed. We're screwed. The aliens are coming. We’re not starting businesses anymore, whatever.
[32:05 - Rebecca Monet]
Whatever! Yeah, whatever. Aliens are coming, you know, war? Ok, fine. Whatever. 7 dollars a gallon, who cares? And it's not that they don't care, it's just they don't feel like they have control, right? And so you have to desensitize yourself to it. Your freedoms were taken away through this covid thing, and you adapted because you have to. You didn't fight back against it
[32:31 - Marcos Moura]
By the way, that is very interesting. That is very interesting. The amount of and there’s not a political statement to this, the truth was that the freedoms were gone, right? You had to abide by this, for, whatever reason, and that is further desensitizing you to taking action, because it's like, you know, just you just usually got to go with the flow. You just gotta, you just gotta stay in your apartment, dude. You can't get out there. You can't go outside. You gotta put that mask on and stay in your apartment. And so, yeah, it's interesting how further, we see that I think with, with a lot of the… My brother's is a professor in North Carolina, and he teaches business, and we're talking over this weekend, and he said, there's a such a big difference between these kids that were the covid kids that they were the kids that got locked up during high school, and it's such a sad, I think. And I think there are more stats coming out that they were, they had been changed forever. Before covid, he had office hours and doing office hours, he'd said, he would have a line of kids. They would come in and discuss and talk, and he would have to stay longer. You'd have to kick him out because you wanted to go home, and they’re all there. He said there's nobody in off. Not… We're not talking like less, there were dozens of kids, that would come to his office hours and to try to work with them. There are none now. They don't show up, they don't show up, and he'll even turn on his computer for folks that want to do it. So, he'll just put a Zoom link and anybody can join, and then he just sees, and he talks, and he says, almost nobody. Which is such a weird stat, right? Is what you're talking about, which is… your further… just almost like we're trading, right? They don't go out. That initiative of “I’ve got to go talk to my professor, I got to go sit down and pair this up”
[34:10 - Rebecca Monet]
To that point. Not only has this now removed, our ability to take risks and increase our comfort zone, and we don't have the courage and the initiative, but it's also reduced our human interaction. So our longing for connection, our longing for human interaction, and a desire to belong, be accepted be approved of has increased. While we are becoming more and more isolated, and more, you know, just me. So, think about the long-term ramifications of that where you feel like you're an island, you can't ask for help from your professor, you can't get coaching or mentoring. You feel embarrassed that you're not doing well I mean, think about psychologically the things that are happening.
[35:06 - Marcos Moura]
Especially because you want it. And yet you want belonging, you want community, you want that.
[35:12 - Rebecca Monet]
It’s a human need that we all have. And obviously, there's going to be some effect in business because of that. Now, it could turn into some positives, it could turn
[35:23 - Marcos Moura]
Yeah, we need to go that way because this is depressing, Rebecca.
[35:27 - Rebecca Monet]
I know, I know
[35:28 - Marcos Moura]
But, silver linings, so, and here's, and I'm gonna guess that one, I think that, and everyone is doing this, and everyone's kind of going that way, I feel like there's a tremendous amount of opportunity for those who don't. As in, there's a tremendous opportunity for those who still have initiative, who still build community, who still overcome fear, maybe even more than ever because so many fewer people are going to crowd, even the entrepreneurial side there's less, is that a silver lining?
[35:58 - Rebecca Monet]
I think that is a silver lining, that it'll be easier to get to the top because there's not a whole lot of competition. Meaning, everybody else is in a comfort zone and kind of resting on their laurels if they have any. Those that have an innovative side, that have high drive, that hunger that we talked about that they're taking the initiative, they have optimism, they are driven to do, whatever is necessary. Those grit markers including adaptability, they will start to rise to the top. Those that have understanding of others, those that know how to build teams, know how to collaborate will begin to rise to the top. So there's some good that will definitely come out of that and a little, you know, we'll see as a year continues. I'm also concerned about those that will be left behind because there's going to be a bigger gap, it's going to be a bigger gap, and it's going to affect the middle class, right? And we're going to have more elites and more here. So we're seeing it already, we're seeing it in the test results and the last few years. Fewer and fewer people are capable of being business owners and entrepreneurs and those that are going to knock it out of the park.
[37:14 - Marcos Moura]
Yeah. So there'll be so much room for them to go. So, what's your biggest advice to somebody who is… so many of the folks that, I think audience wise on LinkedIn, a lot of people have connected with me because they are in Corporate America. They've been doing it for 20, 30 even some of them 40 years and even though they don't hate their jobs, they feel like there's more to them, right? That they want to do something different. They want to start something. I think a lot of times, it's… most people, I think, I don't know if it's most, but a lot of people just don't have the spark of an idea. “I'm going to do this” as they're like, “what the heck do I do?” So, what's your advice? What do I do?
[37:54 - Rebecca Monet]
First discover who you are, you know, know thyself figure out what your human design is. And then once you understand that, then look for businesses that mirror that. That mirror your values, the things that are important to you, that mirror your beliefs system, find a business where you fit within their distinct cultures, and you can see that in franchising in particular where you fit, so you can be yourself. Know what your strengths are, both your hard, competencies sales, marketing operational skills, but also the softer ones, the emotional, social intelligence, which have many more financial markers than can you sell. Or you're good at technical skills? Your EQ SQ will take you further than any hard skills will ever take you. So know yourself, know yourself, and then, you know, find businesses through, you know, enlisting others, to coach you through it. But find businesses that echo it, and you'll have success in the long term if you can find that. And trust me, there's some incredible businesses out there for the future business owner future entrepreneur.
[39:16 - Marcos Moura]
There really are. That's, I think that's, and I don't talk just about Amada, but we're in this franchise industry for… and you've been such a mentor to me, and I'm always so thankful. And it's amazing to see how many amazing opportunities there are to make money in so many different ways, and it’s not only the money, but if it is that you just want to make money, great, if you want to serve the community, if you want to, you know, help people. There's so many different ways to do it and I think better opportunities than ever, like, just amazing, amazing concepts out there.
[39:49 - Marcos Moura]
So, thank you, Rebecca. Thanks for being here with me. Thank you for a long time. How long did we go? Here? We went 40 minutes. That's incredible.
[40:02 - Rebecca Monet]
I always love our conversations. They get deep really fast.
[40:07 - Marcos Moura]
We just, we just can't help it. Hey, so if somebody wants to take a circle assessment, I would you guys. If you comment on this and we'll see it, we can send you a link to a Zorakle assessment. But iIs there somewhere people can go to take a Zorakle assessment to find out what they're all about
[40:24 - Rebecca Monet]
Zorakle profiles.com. They'll be a button there. You can take the assessment out there and get results immediately
[40:32 - Marcos Moura]
Awesome. All right, everybody, thank you so much for joining us for this podcast, and for this LinkedIn live Rebecca. Thank you for your time. Thanks for being here with us,
[40:40 - Rebecca Monet]
My pleasure, enjoyed this.