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Telling the stories of startup founders and creators and their unique journey. Each episode features actionable tips, practical advice and inspirational insight.
Townsend (00:02.09)
people have a hard time getting out of their own way. So I still wanna, well, I think in 10 year event horizons, I think in 10 year timeframes, right? So I start with the question, what do I wanna be doing in 10 years? Well, I wanna be working with three to five founders and we're probably on the third or fourth company that we're selling. Worked with 190 founders so far, about three dozen have taken them to exit and it's been brutal work. So the idea was, well, what if I didn't get them at...
to two and a half, three mil, when all these problems are already there, what if I picked them up earlier? Like, let me go way upstream. So I was like, well, why don't I create a community for folks that are trying to get to a mil? There's not a lot out there for that. Let me serve these folks really powerfully. Let me get them where they're supposed to go. And I'll be like, getting to decide who I work with. So I'm literally creating my clients, my clients, for 10 years from now. I got plenty of work today, so I'm like.
Greg Moran (00:56.49)
But it's awesome.
Townsend (00:59.48)
Yeah, what would be a lot of fun?
Peter Dean (01:00.532)
Yeah, that zero to one is kind of hard. That's a hard thing to do. Yeah.
Townsend (01:05.851)
It's impossible. Like you wake up and it's like your booby prize is you're still not making any money, right? You're still doing all the work. It's like, I made two million. Yeah, so what? Your wife's still going, when are you going back to work? When are we gonna stop living off home equity? At least that was my deal. And yeah, go ahead, sorry.
Greg Moran (01:07.436)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (01:12.583)
Hahaha
Peter Dean (01:22.026)
the
Greg Moran (01:23.458)
Yeah, join the club.
Greg Moran (01:28.25)
I was just gonna say, I normally like, we would normally have a chat and I hit record, so we're already recording on a lot of big... You were on a roll there, but so we'll stop, we'll do a quick intro here just for the editors to get it so we'll officially start, but I started recording when you were talking about this, it was like gold to...
Peter Dean (01:29.837)
No, it's cool.
Townsend (01:34.562)
Yeah, yeah, cool.
Townsend (01:47.038)
Yeah, perfect. I'm always on a roll, man. I'm always on a roll.
Peter Dean (01:51.56)
Yeah, and I think we should start back up with those questions about that Zero to one and then the two to ten um, because those are really interesting And it's so it's so funny because you get you want to do the intro and then i'll ask this Yeah, go ahead
Townsend (01:59.479)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (02:02.487)
Absolutely
Greg Moran (02:07.67)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me, all right, so we're just going to keep going. But I, so welcome back to the Founders Journey podcast. We already started, now we're restarting, so we can actually introduce our guest here. Townsend Wardlaw is our guest. Townsend runs, I think for lack of a better term, and he's going to get into this, a Founders community called foundersos.com.
Townsend (02:09.475)
Or we'll just riff for three hours and let the editors sort it out.
Peter Dean (02:13.424)
Yeah, exactly.
Greg Moran (02:36.91)
does a lot of work and really helping founders try to really find some, I think, peace around the journey. While they're still building great companies, this isn't soft stuff. This is really about not only finding success, but also finding some peace and happiness while you're on this path. So, Townsend, welcome to the podcast. And now we'll pick it right back up to where we just left off, which is...
Townsend (02:51.371)
Yeah.
Townsend (03:06.424)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (03:06.518)
which is what you're doing. So good night, Peter.
Peter Dean (03:08.52)
So it's interesting, I'm really interested to hear what you think. Like I saw this thing on YouTube the other day and it was this guy saying, I'll show you how to make a million dollars like tomorrow. And I'm just like, who is this person? Like to make my first million for my first company, it just took forever. It was like painful. And it's not like there was a secret that I was missing, right? It was like, what are your thoughts on that? Like.
Because you're talking about helping these people go from zero to one. That's that's a big step. Right.
Townsend (03:41.674)
Yeah. Yeah, it's a huge step, right? I mean, it's, it, I don't know what the numbers are, but very few companies ever make it to that. Man, where do you even begin? I do think, I think my journey is interesting, because what I've really set out to do is, like a lot of coaches, help people where I got stuck. Right? That's what I'm most qualified to do. It's not a lot of things I'm good at. What I'm really good at is helping people at
Peter Dean (03:48.654)
Yeah.
Townsend (04:11.666)
not getting in the hole that I found myself in. So I got kind of a late start professionally. I didn't have a real job as I say, I was 27. I wanted to be a professional bike racer. I had grit and determination and motivation and all that. The genetics didn't work out at all. When I finally got to a certain level, I was like, who are these people? They're just not, they're not human. So that didn't work out.
Greg Moran (04:33.599)
We're with you, Tads. You look a lot, Peter and I were trying to be professional triathletes, and you look more like a professional cyclist than Peter and I do professional triathletes, I can tell you that. So, go ahead.
Townsend (04:41.698)
Hahaha
Peter Dean (04:43.216)
We're at the back of the pack, let me tell you.
Townsend (04:45.106)
Yeah. So life was great and I didn't think anything of it. And I remember waking up somewhere around, you know, 27 years old and was like, you know, it'd probably be nice to make some money and being thus unqualified for anything else. I got into sales, took a shitty sales job, cold calling the whole deal. Well, I set a land speed record from working in a burrito shop and racing bikes to making, you know, 270,000 a year working for a fortune 500 as a VP. Did that about six years. So it was impressive.
And I hated it. Hated it.
Greg Moran (05:15.406)
Peter, are you still there?
Okay, down to just, we just lost you after the burrito shop. You said you took a big transition and it froze up.
Townsend (05:26.202)
Oh, okay. Yeah. I, yeah. So, you know, I was, I was working in a breeder shop at night, rolling burritos, racing bikes during the day, trying to make it work. That wasn't going to happen. You wake up one day and go, yeah, life isn't that much fun on 14,400 a year. I'll get a job. What do I do? I'm not qualified for anything. I'll get into sales. That'll be great. I'd always been selling. So I kind of spent a, I set a land speed record from rolling burritos and racing bikes to being a VP at a fortune 500 company making 275,000 a year. Did that in six years.
Peter Dean (05:27.608)
This is the end.
Townsend (05:56.47)
which was great, but I hated it. Hated the corporate life, hated that whole world. I decided I'm gonna start my own company. Didn't know what I was gonna do, but I started my own company. Had that for about seven and a half years and made it work, figured stuff out. Made every mistake in the book, got to almost three mil, had 80 people working for me, and it all came crashing down. There's only so many chances you get to make really bad mistakes. And as I was crawling my way out of that mess,
What am I going to do? Well, I tried my hand at sales consulting, and I could make a lot of money with that, but it wasn't very enriching. What I found I loved doing was assisting founders that kind of got stuck where I did, specifically around sales. One of my gifts is creating revenue. As companies grow, you get to a mill, that's like you throw a party, because you can't believe you got there, but you still don't pay yourself, life doesn't change. If you can get to two mill plus or minus,
life starts to get pretty good. Like pay yourself, have an office, get to get to do some fun stuff. But it's a lifestyle business, right? Nobody's gonna give you money for that. Somewhere between 2 and 8, a lot of magic can happen. A lot of magic can happen if you get there, right? So I started serving people on that journey. How do I get out of the business, work on the business, not in the business, have somebody else besides me do the, do the selling? That was my specialty. I loved that.
Over the course of about 15 years, I served about 190 founders. I took about three dozen of those all the way through to exit. And that was fun. Along the way, though, I witnessed an amazing phenomenon. I call it, I've been to the other side of the rainbow. The dream, the founder's dream, you wake up one day and you got 20, 30, 40, 50 mill in your bank, and they're still deeply unhappy. They're still deeply unfulfilled. So there's something interesting going on here. So
For a lot of years, I thought, well, I'll just do this consulting thing, showing people how to do the right things to get their company where they want to be. But ultimately, there was something else missing. I call this the whole idea of working at the level of their being. Who they were being that was doing the doing ultimately made them miserable. And it didn't matter how much money they had or how much they conquered, they still felt deeply unfulfilled, anxious, frustrated, disconnected.
Townsend (08:18.73)
So back in 2018, partly because I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life, also partly because I'd had some incredible experiences with coaches in my own life, I said, well, I want to pivot over to coaching. And I thought, well, I'll just help people on the inner journey, the peace and the equanimity. And I did that for about six months and was bored out of my mind, right? Because seriously, it's fun, but I'm like, I like playing the game called Growing Things. It ain't just like the Kumbaya stuff. I was like, well.
What if I kind of combine the two? What if, what if I still help people grow their company, but instead of what do you need to do, let's look at who's showing up to do the doing. So that's where the evolution of my business from consulting and telling people what to do to a hybrid of, well, it's not just about what you do, it's who shows up every day. That driven, relentless, unshakable mindset that a founder has to have.
to get to a million to survive, to get to the next level, to get to the next level, reinvent, that doesn't, there's no off switch for that. So it's like the booby, yeah, go ahead.
Greg Moran (09:27.591)
No, I was just going to say this concept of doing versus being is a really interesting one. Can you explain that a little bit more? What should you be doing? I'm using the word doing, but where should a founder exist?
Townsend (09:32.013)
Mm-hmm.
Townsend (09:40.29)
Well...
Townsend (09:44.054)
Well, it's a good question. Here's the way I think about it. We play for results, right? And outcomes. Anybody says it's about the journey, not the, yeah, whatever. We like the destination. So we measure life to varying degrees based on outcomes. Okay, well, how do you produce outcomes? Well, you gotta take action. Outcomes don't happen. Outcomes are all a function of taking action or the doing. So there's lots of consultants out there.
or programs like you were talking about, Peter, I'll tell you the things you need to do to get to a million dollars. Okay, that's fine. Well, why don't you just pick up Richard Branson's book, do what he said and be a billionaire if it works that way. It ain't about the doing, right? And here's why, it's because everything I do or don't do starts with a thought. So there's the thinking, right? And last time I checked, we do a lot of thinking. Now, that's interesting because now you get into the world of mindset, right?
Peter Dean (10:16.217)
Ha!
Greg Moran (10:23.22)
Oh, right.
Peter Dean (10:24.164)
Yeah. Right.
Townsend (10:41.11)
You need to have positive thoughts. You need to reframe. And it's always working with your thinking. That's not a bad thing. But the question nobody asks, or not a lot of people ask, is why is it that I walk in a room and I have certain thoughts about what I see and what's going on and what needs to be done? And Peter has different ones and Greg has different ones and everybody has different thoughts. You see, I spent years teaching people to do things only to walk away, come back three months later and nobody's doing them anymore.
And it's because their thinking says, well, I don't need to do that. That's not what you do. That's impolite. That's rude. So I got really curious. Well, what is it that causes me to think the way I think in the exact same circumstances that somebody else is in and they have totally different thoughts? Well, I call that being, who I'm being produces my thinking about life and then I take actions and I produce results. Sometimes I call this our human operating system.
Right? So I'll say being our human operating system, we're all programmed from a very early age to see the world a certain way. And here's some examples. I coach a lot of high performers who they walk into a room and they see all the things that they could take responsibility for. All right? Oh, I'll do that. I'll do that. I'll do that. And they take responsibility. And the people go, Oh, let's promote that guy. Oh, let's give her more money. Oh, let's give her praise. So
they get rewarded for it, so they do more of it. So responsible is just not something they do. It's not just an action they take. It's a way the world occurs for them. It occurs for them. You know, you've been to a party and there's somebody going around picking up everybody else's stuff. It's not that they have a different habit. It's that they see things that require them to take responsibility for them. That's our being, right? And that is malleable. It's not fixed, but it's very deeply rooted, right? My responsible way of being
was programmed into me at a very early age, right? And there's lots of ways of being. Anything that I'm doing, any thought that I'm thinking comes from a way that I'll say the world occurs for me. Somebody else just doesn't even see it that way. It's fascinating. So if you wanna create massive change, you can work on the doing over and over and over and over and over again. You can work on your thinking and do your mantras and your meditation every day and hopefully, you know.
Townsend (13:02.074)
over time things are, or you work on what's producing the thinking. And if the world occurs to me differently, I will have different thoughts about it and take different actions. So let's take this to our founder, right? What does a founder think when they walk in a room? Well, the founder thinks that person's an idiot. I need to do that. They probably screwed it up. Why is that? Well, because they see themselves as responsible. They see themselves as superior. They
They see the world as it's up to me, which is why they started business in the first place. And those are very useful, powerful ways of being that produce thoughts and actions that generate results so they get what they want. The problem is someday they're on the other side of the rainbow, but those thoughts don't turn off. That way of being doesn't change, so the world isn't any more fun.
Greg Moran (13:53.836)
Yeah, it's so...
Peter Dean (13:55.184)
We- I've never experienced that, ever. Hahahaha I don't- I don't- I don't have any clue what you're talking about. Hahahaha
Townsend (13:57.986)
HAHAHAHAHAHA Sure
Greg Moran (14:01.798)
Yeah. So, so let me, the, the sense of being that you're talking about, right? You, when you and I were doing, we're kind of chatting a couple of weeks ago. I had said to you, why do you change this? Right? How do you change his mindset? You said, you don't, you don't try to, you don't, you, you just work with it. Can you talk about that a little bit?
Townsend (14:05.484)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (14:12.857)
Really cool.
Townsend (14:18.426)
Yeah, yeah.
Townsend (14:26.154)
Well, so the answer is you can change it over time. The most important thing is to be aware of it, right? So let's go ahead, you got a question, Peter?
Peter Dean (14:37.248)
No, that my point was like just my thought was what you just said. Like you probably just need to be aware that that's happening or that you're doing it, then you can then maybe. If you're not aware of it, you're just going to keep doing it, right? You just, you can't help yourself, but when you, when you're aware of it, you can say, Oh, I know I've act this way. Maybe I can step back and let something happen and see what happens. Right. And, and just.
Townsend (14:46.7)
Yeah.
Townsend (14:52.958)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Townsend (15:03.798)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (15:06.132)
not do something even though your body in your mind says go do this or say this or do something.
Townsend (15:12.27)
That's right. Yeah, so I'm working with a founder right now and he's going out to raise his A round, five, 10 million bucks, something like that, pretty standard thing. And he's a brilliant human. And you look at him, he's tall, he's physically strong, he grew up on a farm. Just looking at the guy, what you know is, he knows how to work hard, right? Like literally life for him is, if I work hard, I get what I want. So if you watch him, you'd say, well, what he does is he works hard. What I would say is actually,
who he's being is life is hard and I'm gonna work hard. So he walks up one day and he says, okay, I need to raise some money. Well, what he's gonna see in the world, literally what he's gonna perceive in the thoughts in his head are gonna be all the things where he could apply his superpower of I know how to work hard. He can do hard, hard or hardest. What he will never see or perceive is the door marked, oh, this is easy, just go through there, one guy will write you a check, will be done in 30 days.
So when we started talking about this, he had this whole plan laid out and he was doing all the things you would normally do to raise around. We've all been through that. It's a lot of work and you gotta do this and you gotta set up the document room. And yeah, okay, I got it. I asked him a simple question. I said, hey, you got a brilliant plan here. You've done a great job. Let me ask this. If you were looking at this whole thing and you're like, man, this is gonna be easy. We've done in 30 months, sorry, 30 days. What would you see?
Peter Dean (16:31.926)
Okay.
Townsend (16:43.758)
And he had to sit there for a minute. I said, yeah, if this were easy, if we could do it like this, and it was right there, but you weren't looking, what would you see? And he goes, oh, well, I would call that guy and just ask him if he wants to be our single check. I said, yeah, I want you to do that. And it was done. I don't need to give him the advice of what to do. What I can do is allow him to see who he's being as I'm going to have to work hard here, and all the possibilities for working hard will reveal themselves. If he considers, well, this could be easy.
He'll see where it could be easy. That's just one simple example of it.
Greg Moran (17:18.122)
Yeah, I didn't develop that kind of self-awareness though, right? Because that's the, what that requires this is really deep sense of, like in his case, right? You know, he, you suggested it to him, but he was willing to act on that and not say, well, no, that's not the way you do it. You do it this other way. And Peter and I have worked with founders of that type all the time. Right, exactly.
Townsend (17:36.718)
Mm-hmm. Ha ha ha.
Peter Dean (17:40.02)
Yeah, I'm just gonna go grind.
Townsend (17:44.365)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (17:44.464)
I'm just gonna go work hard again and yeah.
Greg Moran (17:47.32)
Right.
Townsend (17:47.422)
Yeah. So here's what's fun about working with founders. They don't listen to anybody and they know everything. And it's very validating for them to make their own mistakes and smash their own head against the wall. I used to spend a lot of time trying to convince them that there's an easy button here because there is. However, they're not ready to work with the easy button until they're ready to work with the easy button. So there's possibility.
Greg Moran (17:55.855)
Yeah.
Townsend (18:16.454)
is created when somebody wants to do something different. Everything works for us until it doesn't work for us anymore. So for some people, you just let them do what they're going to do until they start getting tired and they're ready for another way. So this process, if you will, working with me is actually very simple. The work that I can do with folks doesn't take a long time, but you have to be open to the possibility that the world could look different to you than it looks. And as long as that's working for you,
How do I put this nicely? Sometimes, and I speak personally from my past as a founder, waking up, grinding an aisle day, collapsing in the bed every night, that was the source of my pride, right? The easy button, well, that's for losers. Now, after a divorce, a bankruptcy, some health problems, I was like, hmm, maybe I'll find something else. And I was open to it. That's an extreme example. So it's never my intention to try to...
yank somebody off of their journey that they're currently enjoying and this is how they want to do it and filling their own destiny and sorting out their issues with their dad or childhood or whatever, great, do it. What I can promise you is you're going to hit a wall someday. I promise you that. This problem ain't going to go away. Sometimes it takes you three companies to realize, hmm, this doesn't get any more fun. Okay, well, I'll be there then. I'm not in a rush. I'm not in the business of getting people off the path they're on. I'm simply saying, hey, I'm going to do this.
When this becomes uncomfortable, untenable, well, we got other ways to do it. And what you're doing is perfect. I'm not in the business of trying to stop people from, I often asked if somebody had come along to me, let's just say circa 2008 and said, oh, Townsend, this could be fun and easy. I would have used some expletives with him and thrown him out of my office, right? So.
Greg Moran (20:09.614)
Right.
Townsend (20:12.034)
This isn't difficult, but the student must be ready for the teacher to appear, literally.
Peter Dean (20:21.476)
So does a entrepreneur need to go through stepping in some holes before they learn that or. Okay. And this is something that we've talked to other guests about, like getting like the experience you get from doing it and going through the process creates some level of wisdom, hopefully. And if it doesn't, then you're just going to keep pushing the rock, you know.
Townsend (20:28.278)
100%, 100%. So.
Townsend (20:33.302)
Yep.
Townsend (20:39.47)
That's right. That's right. Yep.
Townsend (20:46.002)
Over time, yeah, Sisyphus. So most of the clients that I've worked with to date are on the other side of the rainbow. They've sold the company, made the money, gotten the divorce, right? And they're like, they're tired of it. That's a real easy conversation. The problem is that takes a lot of time and there's a lot of pain. And there's not a lot I can do in the meantime, right? Sometimes I get lucky, I meet somebody along the journey.
Peter Dean (20:51.108)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (20:51.738)
Mm-hmm.
Peter Dean (21:05.817)
Mm-hmm.
Townsend (21:16.218)
and we can kind of help them avoid the pain. But that's also not pretty. But what I decided to do, and I started this early this year, is I'm going to create a container for folks who are on the journey that they're on. Much earlier, I work with folks, I start with them on the journey to a million, and I'm going to help them with what they want help with, how they want. I'm not going to try to push this wacky being stuff on them.
Right? I'm gonna help them with sales process. I'm gonna help them with finance. I'm gonna help with marketing, just the stuff that they need. They, they want what they want when they want it. So I'm gonna help them with it and create a community. So that's what I've built. I call it the Founders Operating System. There's a community for founders on their path to a million. And we convene, I coach them, I work with them, and I coach mostly on the doing. I don't get into this, this being stuff, because they're not ready for it. And as they mature, as they go on their journey, there's the opportunity to
suggest politely that, hey, I could, I could help make this a little easier. And I get to choose those folks, not try to force this upon them. Because I really do respect and honor that every, every founder is on their own journey. Right? And for some, that journey is, no, you got it, you got to go down to the depths of hell and the dark place before you're ready for that. And far be it for me to tell you that's the wrong way to do it. I sure did.
Greg Moran (22:34.786)
Right. And that's, I mean, that's why, you know, when, when we started this podcast, we, we called it the founder's journey, right? Because so much of this is, you know, look, the marketing strategy, the sales strategy, the go-to-market, how do you hire, how do you build? This stuff is all, we can teach this stuff, right? Like we can, we can tell people, Hey, here's the three ways to do this. Here's the five ways to do it. This stuff is not rocket science. The hard part,
Townsend (22:41.72)
Yeah.
Townsend (22:47.422)
Yep.
Townsend (22:56.671)
Yep.
Peter Dean (22:59.76)
It's not usually the problem. Yeah.
Greg Moran (23:01.922)
Well, it's never the problem, right? The hard part is getting the hell out of your own way. And so much of that, I think, is caused by just the intensity of the fear that most founders experience, right? And I'm curious, how do you coach them through that, right? How do you coach them through that fear? Because they're probably not gonna articulate it like I'm scared, right? That's not...
Townsend (23:02.038)
That's not the problem now. Yeah.
Townsend (23:07.438)
That's right.
Townsend (23:16.802)
That's right. Yeah, yeah.
Townsend (23:28.854)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (23:30.54)
No. Yeah. It could be that they they're clutching their product too much and they're like, not listening to their customer. There's so many ways it's manifested depending on the person. You know?
Greg Moran (23:31.266)
really in the nature of most founders.
Townsend (23:42.134)
Yeah, yeah. So it's interesting, and we could probably spend two hours on this. First and foremost, for me, fear, anxiety, stress, I refer to those as the smoke, that's not the fire. Those are the byproducts, right? Like I do this, I build up heat. So how do you get rid of the heat? Well, you gotta stop rubbing your hands together, right? So fear, anxiety, self-doubt, all that kind of stuff.
In many ways, those are the byproducts of the fuel that they put in their car. One very powerful way of being, or call it operating system coding, that a lot of people have but founders have is this idea of I'm behind, or kind of like I'm the underdog. So if I see myself as the underdog, if I see myself as I got to work hard just to catch up, if I see myself as behind, I'm the underdog.
Well, that fuels me, right? So when I am behind, I'm energized. That's wonderful, and I feel this burst of energy. Now, in that energy production, I've got some byproducts, anxiety, doubt, fear, et cetera. The problem is, that's the smoke coming out of the tailpipe. If you keep driving the car and putting the fuel in, you can't do anything about it. You can wave the smoke around, it doesn't help. Now, what's interesting is, ultimately, if you wanna reduce the fear, what you have to do is change out.
the fuel that you're using to drive the car, right? If when I have the thought I'm behind, I'm never gonna make it, that energizes me, well then I actually thrive on that. And yes, there's a toxic byproduct called fear that sometimes paralyzes me, but there's also a problem when there's no fear, right? When there's no sense of behind, because all my energy goes away, that's the paradox. The paradox that I see for the founder is, oftentimes the fuel that, you know,
fuels their journey, the particular fuel that they use to keep their journey going, produces a toxic byproduct. So they say, well, I don't want that. As soon as they start reducing the use of that fuel, they start feeling bored or de-energized, or it's not working, right? One of the toughest spots for a founder, and I'm working with a guy right now, is you get to the point where you can sort of see the finish line, you're where you need to be, and what you need to do is stop, stop touching stuff, and let what you've built play itself out.
Greg Moran (26:10.516)
Right.
Townsend (26:11.879)
And every day for the past decade, you've woken up, with your firefighter's hat and your action in your extinguisher to put out fires. And there's like no fires. You're like, oh, I know what to do. Let me get a match. And the Jerry can. So you start setting these because like, when there's no fires, this doesn't feel right. This can't be okay. There's gotta be something burning. I gotta find it. Well, maybe I'll light it. So it's an interesting paradox. It's like we become addicted to this.
Peter Dean (26:19.812)
We don't need you.
Greg Moran (26:33.71)
Right? This is, it's wild. It's right. Well, you look at, but like you said, it's a whole, this is the whole concept. This is the whole concept of the Superman complex, right? That like almost every founder that accomplishes anything suffers from this to just awful degrees, right? Which is that concept of like, if it's going to happen, I got to do it.
Peter Dean (26:36.769)
It's so true, like you want to be a warrior, but there's no war. We don't need you to be a warrior now.
Townsend (26:41.23)
That's right. That's right. Yeah.
Townsend (26:48.779)
Yes.
Townsend (26:56.29)
Yep.
Greg Moran (27:02.034)
I have to go in, I got to save the day. It's Superman with kryptonite, except Superman's just flying around looking for kryptonite. That's that, it's that complex. But a lot of what you're saying, Townsend, which is so interesting to me is, and I think the perspective that you're taking on this is totally different in that a lot of people in sort of convention, in the conventional world, sort of the non-founder world, right? Doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of convention to it.
Townsend (27:03.638)
Yep. Yeah.
Townsend (27:10.794)
Yeah, yeah.
Yep. Yeah.
Greg Moran (27:31.106)
would sort of consider, would sort of, the normal people, right, would sort of look at this and say, well, these are negative emotions. And really what you're saying is they're actually not. They are the fuel. You just have to figure out how to harness this, right, in a way that actually drives the car forward, not backwards.
Peter Dean (27:31.364)
Hahaha
Townsend (27:31.629)
Yeah. You mean the normal people who aren't crazy?
Townsend (27:45.4)
That's right.
Yep. Yeah, yeah.
Well, yes, and there's a possibility you can use another fuel, right? So as an example, if every day for most of your life, let's use the metaphor of fuel, you've woken up and you say, I gotta go to the gas station, I gotta put some fuel in my car, and instead of the 87, 91, 93, it's like, I'm not enough, I'm behind, it's all up to me. And you choose, I'll use it's up to me today. And that's what you fuel your car with. The good news is it gets you where you wanna go.
The bad news is the more you use it, the more fuel you consume, the more the toxins. Well, what you don't realize is there's another set of pumps over there, whole another set of pumps that say, like, everything's going exactly according to plan. I have everything I need. I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. And you go, yeah, my car can't run on that. Well, it can. You just don't know that. You weren't programmed. It wasn't installed in you that will work too, right? Because, you know,
Peter Dean (28:26.891)
Mm-hmm.
Townsend (28:49.162)
It feels different. Well, I tried that once and it felt boring. Yeah, it is boring. Just getting what you want without any strength. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Greg Moran (28:53.826)
Right, right.
Peter Dean (28:54.752)
It's more boring than you. They don't need you to save the day right now. Right? Like they don't need a, yeah, they don't need the fireman. Like I'm not like action now I'm ready to go. Like we don't need you to do anything.
Greg Moran (29:00.566)
Right, yeah. That doesn't give me the hit.
Townsend (29:05.186)
That's right. Yeah. What? Yeah.
Greg Moran (29:11.095)
Right.
Townsend (29:13.482)
Yeah, when I come to work for a founder, you know, formally, you know, and they're paying me usually, they're, you know, in the last 25% of the journey, the finish line is close enough, we can get there, what have you. I sit them down, we have a conversation, I say, Listen, this next 12, 18 months, it's gonna be the hardest of the entire thing. You're gonna hate this, I promise you. Because all I'm doing is telling you, stop, don't touch that, put that, shut up. Take it out of me, right?
Greg Moran (29:37.891)
Right.
Townsend (29:40.578)
Talk to me, yell at me, do whatever, but we gotta let this thing work. And I know personally how painful that's gonna be for you, right? Because you're like, well, I want my opinion in there. I see things they don't see. Yeah, but now it's time to let the baby go out and drive a car. Or nobody's gonna wanna pay you for the baby, right? Nobody wants the thing that you're, right? This is where valuation comes in. If you don't get out of the thing and you're still involved in anything, well, whoever's coming in to give you money goes,
Greg Moran (29:45.016)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (30:07.108)
Nothing to sell.
Townsend (30:08.862)
Goes, OK, cool. How about a 10-year earn out for you? Then I'll buy you.
Greg Moran (30:12.502)
Right. I've literally experienced that multiple times with founders going into a process, right? From my own fund, where we're investing in companies going into a process, sit down with a founder and they tell you, in no uncertain terms, this business is 100% reliant on me. The entire business can do nothing without me.
Townsend (30:22.37)
Yes.
Townsend (30:26.092)
Yeah.
Townsend (30:35.582)
Yeah.
Townsend (30:40.435)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (30:41.978)
And if I go away, you as the investor have nothing. And you sit there and it's like, okay, so what am I actually investing in? What am I buying in this company? I'm buying Peter, this mortal guy that could go out and get hit by a bus tomorrow, then I'm out? That's your pitch, but that's the mindset. That's that shift that needs to take place to say to...
Townsend (30:54.082)
Yeah.
Townsend (31:02.366)
Yeah, yeah.
Townsend (31:08.526)
Sure.
Greg Moran (31:11.478)
a founder, no, that's the opposite of what you need to be saying to me. You need to be telling me. I don't have to touch anything. Like I've got such a great team and such strong systems and such strong process. This place runs without me doing anything. I just want to think about how to make it better and bigger.
Townsend (31:15.582)
Yeah, yes.
Townsend (31:20.706)
Yeah. Yep.
Yep. Yeah.
Townsend (31:30.998)
Yeah, and it's exactly right. And think about it. To get to a million and survive, you must be involved in it. You must be indispensable. Or it ain't going to happen, frankly, even to get to the next level. But from there on, to get to the point where somebody is going to value this, it is an entire progression of working yourself out of a job and making what was indispensable an appendix. If.
Greg Moran (31:40.602)
Absolutely.
Peter Dean (31:41.346)
Yes.
Townsend (32:00.11)
But think about the upheaval, not from a doing or even a mindset standpoint, from how the entity is wired. Somebody who sees themselves as indispensable will do the things necessary to get their company to a million. That's not just what they do. That's who they are. That's their identity. So now you're saying, great. Now stop being that. Stop being indispensable. And I want you to show up and be useless. And they're like, huh?
Greg Moran (32:18.326)
Absolutely.
Peter Dean (32:19.78)
Uh-uh.
Greg Moran (32:23.086)
Alright.
Peter Dean (32:27.877)
So, your example before about this guy grew up as a farmer and he has this built into him. Like, how do you, I mean, that's a whole lifetime of, you know, having a chip on your shoulder and just saying, I'll just work, I'll work you.
Greg Moran (32:28.483)
Right.
Townsend (32:38.55)
Hmm
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I'll work you and anybody who's not working hard where there's no value there, right? The question, right, the question everybody asks is, well, how do you swap that out? Here's the simple answer. Your identity was installed, right? We're all the same baby, cute, bubbly, right? Nothing, we could speak any language, what have you.
Peter Dean (32:50.479)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (33:02.09)
Mm-hmm.
Peter Dean (33:06.753)
Mm-hmm.
Townsend (33:08.81)
And then it started with like, you know, hey, you're Peter, right? Mama, right? Everything was installed about you, about how the world is, right? What money is, right? Our parents, our mothers, our fathers, our teachers, our preachers taught us everything. This is how the world is. Money is hard to come by. Life requires hard work. If you haven't worked hard, it's not worth it, right? It's all the stuff that was literally programmed at a young age. The short answer is you gotta go reprogram that.
Peter Dean (33:15.768)
Mm-hmm.
Townsend (33:37.386)
That's what I do with people and I teach them how to do is access that level of programming and slowly but surely uninstall. Oh, I have to work hard if it's going to mean something to literally, hey, I can have everything I want and it'll be fun and easy. And what we use to program is this coding language called our word. Everything about you was spoken to you. All you do all day is speak.
The truth about how the world is, when you start paying attention to your words and your thoughts, you get a glimpse of the being or the operating system that's creating them. Then you could start talking back to it and changing it. So one of my core ways of being is responsible. I am responsible. I do responsible things, I take responsibility, but I walk in a room and I look for what to take responsibility for.
I see things to take responsibility for that other people don't even see from how the world occurs to me. I've had to do a lot of work to acknowledge, oh, I'm being responsible, not just doing but being it. Let me pause that. Let me hit the backspace on that code and I'm going to install. Everybody else is responsible for their own experience of life. Like at that level of granularity. So there's a lot of, you know, what you would call, you know, talking.
kind of stuff, but we have to talk to ourselves. We have to observe our thoughts. When I listen to somebody speak, all I'm listening for is what's the being that's having that thought that's saying that word? It's like when I go to a movie theater, I watch what's on the screen, but what I know is it's coming from the projector. If I don't like the movie and I wanna change the movie, I can't yell at the screen or scream at the screen or tear the screen down, I gotta go to the projector. That's kind of the approach we take is we gotta go at that which is creating every thought and stop.
dealing with our thoughts. Because what we tend to do is we have a thought, we don't like it, we try to make a better thought, we turn that negative thought into a positive thought, we reframe that thought. That's not changing the projector. That's like yelling at the movie screen.
Greg Moran (35:41.834)
Right. Yep.
Townsend (35:44.491)
And it takes time.
Greg Moran (35:46.35)
Absolutely. Well, this is super fascinating, Townsend. I'd love to have you back on. I think we could easily do three hours on this entire concept because it's such a huge issue, I think, for...
Peter Dean (35:59.988)
It's core to core to founders like it's. Yeah.
Townsend (36:01.93)
Yeah, it is.
Greg Moran (36:04.69)
There's no doubt. And it's core to the experience that they're gonna have. And I was talking to somebody earlier today about the challenges that so many founders have around mental health. And just the issues that really start to creep in where there's only so long you can...
Townsend (36:09.078)
Yes.
Townsend (36:19.159)
Yeah.
Townsend (36:25.272)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (36:28.43)
beat yourself into submission, right? There's only, because that's ultimately what a lot of this is. And there's just, there's only so long, if you're gonna make a career out of this, that you can do it before this stuff becomes so deeply ingrained, that I don't care who you are, it becomes just incredibly, it goes to a deeper level and starts to cause a lot of other problems. You don't have to end up at the divorce. You don't have to end up, you know, on,
Townsend (36:33.64)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (36:57.906)
with substance abuse problems. You don't have to end up suicidal. You can stop this. No, it's not. But I think it's almost accepted in a way that both of our sons are pilots, right? And a lot of other people have normal jobs, right? And it's not accepted in those jobs. But for some reason, as a founder, flogging yourself on a d***.
Townsend (37:00.49)
Yep, it's not inevitable. No, it's not. Yeah.
Townsend (37:18.989)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (37:24.802)
hourly basis is completely acceptable and it's or it's thought to be acceptable and it doesn't have to be that way.
Townsend (37:32.306)
No, you said it right. It's not only acceptable in my mind, it's judged as wrong if you're not doing it. Oh, he's not serious, right? If you're not flogging yourself, people aren't gonna take you seriously, right? It's so deep in the ethos, they don't realize it could be fun and easy. I mean, that's the most difficult part is I feel bad. I literally will coach people. They're making more money than they've ever made. They're creating more than they've ever created. They're having a blast. They go, I feel guilty.
Greg Moran (37:40.578)
That's right.
Greg Moran (37:47.407)
That's right.
Townsend (38:01.166)
because all my friends are stressed out. I'm like, I'm like, yeah, we'll send them to me. We'll sort it out, but don't feel guilty.
Greg Moran (38:01.498)
I hate it.
Greg Moran (38:06.106)
Right, right, right. But it is, a lot of it is that kind of guilt, right? Or, you know, you were in the, and I know, look, I struggled with this myself. We, you know, in the later stages of my business, we had gotten fairly large and, you know, I had a team and Peter and I used to talk about this all the time. It was like, you know, there were days where it was, you know, I would sit there and be like, I don't really know what I'm supposed to do today. Like there's nobody's, I have nothing on my calendar.
Townsend (38:11.618)
That's right, yeah.
Peter Dean (38:31.085)
Hahaha
Townsend (38:31.714)
Yeah.
Peter Dean (38:36.322)
No one needs you.
Greg Moran (38:36.822)
I, nobody needs me, so I'm going to go break shit. Like there's gotta be something I can break. That's right. Peter, that's usually what Peter would say. No, please do not do what you're, whatever you're thinking right now, don't. But it's real.
Townsend (38:36.862)
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Gotta be something.
Peter Dean (38:40.484)
There's some fires. I gotta go. There's gotta be a fire I can make and then fix. Ha ha ha.
Townsend (38:47.489)
Ah, yeah.
Peter Dean (38:53.484)
I don't think that's a good idea.
Townsend (38:56.452)
Yeah. I used to.
Peter Dean (38:57.26)
And then everyone's like, we should do more with this company. Let's, let's do this for, you know, the next thing. And you're like, no, just do what you're doing. Don't change anything.
Townsend (39:05.162)
No, no, yeah. Let's sell this and then we could do something else. Yeah, yeah.
Greg Moran (39:06.358)
I'm sorry.
Peter Dean (39:09.988)
Just keep going, don't stop. And keep going means you don't have to do as much now, which is ultimately like, we're like, I wanna own a company so someday, you know, I can be that guy, but, or girl or woman. But at the end of the day, that's not, that doesn't feel right, cause to get there, you don't, you're the opposite. Like you're the opposite. That's so cool.
Greg Moran (39:11.022)
That's right, that's right, that's right. Well.
That's right.
Greg Moran (39:30.87)
Right. Yeah.
Townsend (39:30.946)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and so many don't know what to do when they get to the other side of the rainbow. It's like, okay, now what? Now I feel empty, I feel bored, right? Like that to me is, that's probably the greatest sadness for me. You reach the dream and there's like 45 seconds of satisfaction and then, okay, well now what? Like you've never celebrated, you've never taken a break, you've never enjoyed it. And you think, well, when I hit this goal and then hit the goal and there's nothing.
Greg Moran (39:36.686)
Great.
Greg Moran (39:51.351)
Yeah.
Townsend (39:59.826)
Okay, well, let me set a bigger goal. Maybe it wasn't a big enough goal and you do that again. After three times, you're like, maybe it's not any of that.
Greg Moran (40:06.326)
Yeah, well...
Peter Dean (40:07.092)
If you hit that point and you're a founder, you're listening, come on our show, talk about your journey. We'll take up your time. You can help other founders. It's like a great thing to do. So.
Townsend (40:07.508)
Yeah.
Greg Moran (40:12.303)
Ha ha!
Townsend (40:12.606)
Yes.
Greg Moran (40:17.678)
It really is. Well, this is awesome Townsend. We will definitely get you back on, I'm sorry, it is Founders OS as an operating system, foundersos.com. The founders, I'm sorry. So we'll put that in the show notes. I know you are pretty active on LinkedIn. Somebody can follow you there. They can, if they wanna DM you or something, I'm sure they could do that as well.
Townsend (40:17.906)
Yeah.
Townsend (40:24.334)
I'd love that.
Townsend (40:29.868)
TheFoundersOS.com. Yep, that's right.
Peter Dean (40:32.344)
The FoundersOS.com, yeah.
Townsend (40:41.314)
Yep. There's not, not a lot of towns and ward laws. So you can, you can find me pretty easily. Yeah, I'm launching, I currently have this fledgling community of founders that I coach. It's all funded via scholarship. I'm in the process of launching community software to support it. And we're going to blow it up from there and have like tons of resources and tools and basically all the stuff I've developed in the last 20 years, all
open-sourced, if you will, for founders to use in their business so they can grow, so they can get to where they want to get to. And maybe the window will crack a little bit. We can talk about this being stuff. But as I said, I'm not trying to get somebody off their journey. Let them bang their head in the wall until they're tired. Then we'll talk.
Peter Dean (41:23.221)
Right. Yeah.
Greg Moran (41:26.022)
Awesome. Well, so if you're interested, reach out to Townsend, the founders.os.com and, and Townsend awesome having you, awesome having you on today for the, so we'll see you in the next edition of the Founders Journey podcast.
Townsend (41:29.815)
Yeah.
Townsend (41:36.514)
Thank you, gentlemen.