Old Guys Still ROCK

Blair Armstrong (00:29)
All right, right, all right. Good morning. Good afternoon. Good evening, wherever you may be. This is your first time here. This is going to be the best podcast that you've ever seen or heard before in your whole life. We are old guys still rock. am Blair Armstrong of team Armstrong, co-well banker. I'm a global luxury specialist in the world of residential real estate. And on my left, possibly your right is the other host of the show and good friend from

of mine for almost 30 years. Brent Wright of Brent Wright, Incorporated, man with many, many different hats, from detail shops to body shops to payroll companies to multiple property owner. Him and his wife started a wellness center in Eugene called Wright Wellness Center. He is not the owner, just the financier sometimes.

Brent Wright (01:19)
you

Blair Armstrong (01:20)
April is the owner. So April, when you hear this, I hopefully I got that right. He also has a venture capitalist, I guess, which you could say with a couple other guys, and they just started a great company. If you have YouTube TV, if you're a streamer, but I know for YouTube TV, I'm not sure about the rest of them, but you've probably seen his his ads on their busted tease.com. We'll talk about that in a little bit.

great if you're into novelty t-shirts, there is no other place for you to go because they have everything that you can possibly imagine on that. This is not an ad. This is just a promotion of my good friend's business. And then one really good thing, probably, he probably say this is the most important part of his life or his career outside of his family and wife and kids is he is a great, great personal coach and business coach. So.

We were basically at episode number 129 today, I believe. which first and foremost, that's a massive accomplishment in this world of podcasting. If you get past five, you're amazing. So we're at 129. And, if you don't know who we really are, who's Brent Wright is, go back and watch our 128 other episodes on there. Find out if he's a fit for you. He'll tell you right up there. He's not everyone's cup of tea.

Brent Wright (02:29)
You

Blair Armstrong (02:45)
But if you're looking for like, I'm stuck, I need a really good accountability partner, I need someone to hold my feet to the fire. This is your guy. There are no rainbows and butterflies in his speech. He's helping you win. And that's really what this podcast is about is no matter if it's stuff, business stuff, entrepreneurial stuff, entrepreneur stuff, that type of stuff. We're discussing wins and losses and how to help you get better.

because we know that it takes a community, not some self-help book. So here we go. A little chili pie, not only in Oregon, but it's also very chili pie in this beautiful world I call Southern California or Palm Desert, California. So woke up to a nice 50 degrees this morning. ⁓ That is not on my wish list for weather here.

Brent Wright (03:25)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Beautiful, beautiful.

Mm-hmm

Blair Armstrong (03:42)
stuff like that. But so how are doing, man? What's going on?

Brent Wright (03:46)
Good,

good, good. Weather has kicked in. It's official. Winter is here. And now I know that is I turned on my heated floor in my bathroom that I put in last year.

Blair Armstrong (03:57)
Wow.

Brent Wright (03:58)
two years ago now, but to turn that on means there's a change in humidity, change in temperature, change in direction. So I woke up this morning.

into our restroom area, bathroom area off of our master. And the floors were warm and I was pretty, pretty stoked by that. So yeah. No, no, I did electric radiant heating in there and we have it set on a timer. So it starts getting warm about two hours before I get up. And so when you go in to take a shower and the floors are nice and warm and all that fun stuff, and then it shuts off during the day and then kicks on at night. So that way we go in there and.

Blair Armstrong (04:15)
Nice, huh? Are they water, water heated? Radiant? Yeah.

Brent Wright (04:35)
take a shower and it's all warm again. yeah, yeah. Feeling, feeling into the winter vibe. I got my nice warm chai tea that my wife brought me today. thankful and grateful, you know, that she does that for me and serves, serves our community and serves, serves us. So.

Blair Armstrong (04:46)
Where'd it go April? I had to make my own coffee this morning. Yeah.

Yeah,

that's awesome, man. Yeah, you're speaking of, you know, kind of cold weather too. I know this is kind of sounding weird, but we have a mountain. We call it the, it's basically where the tram is, Palm Springs Tram. So if you guys have ever been out in the desert, know about the Palm Springs Tram. But I looked up this morning, there is, it's about 8,500 feet, but there's snow on top today. And we're going to actually get some more rain here later today through Saturday.

We'll probably have some more snow in there. So kind of cool because we did not have snow in the mountains last year in November. It was kind of warm all year. So it's just it's kind of cool when you have 75 degree weather, which were typically in November. But when you kind of have that 75 degree in the valley floor and you look up and there's snow capped mountains that are really an hour away, if that it's kind of a trip. So it's awesome. But just go ahead.

Brent Wright (05:51)
Crazy. Yeah, I can't wait. I can't wait

to get snowboarding. I'm gonna take the boys snowboarding this year, so.

Blair Armstrong (05:57)
Are you?

He'll probably be teaching snowboarding after two practices.

Brent Wright (06:03)
He's a little adrenaline junkie like me, so a little bit crazy.

Blair Armstrong (06:08)
That's awesome, man. So brother, I've been kind of going through some stuff. And I know we talked about this a little bit before pre show of, know, I had a situation yesterday with we've collaborated with a company called GPM. And one of our team members was this kind of going through life for the last couple of weeks. And it culminated a couple of days ago with a little speeding ticket. And

You know, her situation money's a little tight. It was just like kind of one thing after another. And, she reached out to, her mom and was kind of like, you know, what the F do I have to do? I mean, it's like just constant one domino is falling in front of me. Another just constantly blocking my path, path of progress. And that's kind of what she was feeling like. Right. So I'm hearing this story.

Brent Wright (06:56)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (06:57)
From her mom, but I also talked to her beforehand and she calls like I'm having a really bad day I'm coming in but I'm gonna probably be a little bit a little bit after the time I'm supposed to be there which She's not an hourly employee. So when you get here you get here. It's more for them. But point of that is it's like okay, no worries, know speeding ticket So long story short mom tells me kind of what's going on in life and stuff and like and she said yeah I told her if she didn't need to if she

you know, she was just feeling too bad. She didn't have to come in and just come home and shut it down. And she came in anyway. And I didn't say anything at the time. Because it's just kind of like, I know that sucks. I'm sorry about that. There's a lot of stuff going on with you. I'm glad that you, you know, glad to see you today. And hopefully it gets better by tomorrow, that type of stuff. that

Brent Wright (07:44)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (07:50)
I woke up the next morning and realized what a trigger is the stuff that we've really been talking about the last couple of weeks on, you know, are you addicted to losing, which, we kind of have basically, there's a three part episode culminating with Deb Bennett, but ⁓ yeah, it's, good. And there's a lot of chatter around because a lot of people know her and like, Hey man, we saw that. It was awesome.

Brent Wright (08:05)
Great information from her, by the way.

Blair Armstrong (08:14)
I think there's some stuff that you and her can do actually. I'm trying to figure out how to get that connected, but I think there's some stuff that, ⁓ right wellness center and how that ties in. But yeah, for sure. Right. But anyway, so I'm sitting there thinking the next morning and reading my devotionals and doing my journal. I'm like, man, this, this girl's 26 years old.

Brent Wright (08:20)
Mm-hmm.

Well, and possibly even the coaching, right? So.

Blair Armstrong (08:36)
You know, we got this youth that we kind of feel like, you know, sometimes they get labeled as being in a title, they're not working hard enough, blah, blah. So she had every reason to shut it down. There's times that I get in situations that I'm just getting left hook, right hook, uppercuts, blah, blah, blah. And it's like 10 o'clock in the morning. And I'm like, screw it. I'm just going to shut it down today. Today is just not my day. I'm going to go shut it down and I'm going to go watch TV, blah, blah. The point I'm trying to make is this girl persevered, came in here.

stayed longer because she was such and such late. Again, not getting paid hourly wages at all in this. This is just to help build the company, so on and so forth. Stayed longer and I was thinking like, man.

Brent Wright (09:16)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (09:19)
You had every reason to shut it down. You came in here and stuck it out and did it. So I called her the next, I was driving around and like, and just kind of hit me. So I called her and I'm like, I am so proud of you for just making a really shitty situation. And and it sucked throughout the day. It didn't go away. The feeling sucked. The stresses were still there. All that was still there.

But you went through, you got everything that you needed to get done. You went home and continued to work and to get stuff done. And just like it happened. There's not a lot I can do about it right now. And I need to push forward. And it just, I don't see that a lot in adults because I know that I, you know, I'll tap out once in a while, but to see that younger generation, to see her and use her as an example,

Brent Wright (10:07)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (10:12)
when she really didn't need to, especially when basically her boss, her mom gave her an out and she still came through. I was just proud of yours. But, and you, you know, you brought up this great topic before we got on here, failing forward. I was just, you know, with all your failing well, excuse me, yeah, failing well, you failing well. So we had, you know, we talked about, we don't, we talk about wins and actually hear a little, you hear more in these podcasts and these special books of how to win.

Brent Wright (10:25)
or failing well, are you failing well? Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (10:41)
But we don't ever hear a lot about what happens when you lose, right? No one writes a book about how to lose, how to lose well. So, well, there we go. We got something started there. By the way, we just copyrighted it. So if you try to steal it, we just bought it, as far as you know. So don't try it, because we'll take you to court. I'm just kidding. But anyways, man, so.

Brent Wright (10:46)
Mm-hmm. How to lose Guel, right? So maybe that's a new book.

Blair Armstrong (11:05)
I know I just kind of gave this long-winded example and I hope that kind of hit and it made sense for a little bit. But I also, you know, in your coaching stuff, as your coaching career is growing and you're going through this, are you finding this is kind of like a hurdle that you're hard to get over or have you, you know, where in your coaching career have you used like an example like that for someone that even though that they failed, they didn't persevere and how did you get them over that hump?

or have you been there?

Brent Wright (11:37)
So thank you for the synopsis. First question that comes to mind before I get into your question is, why did mom give her an out?

Blair Armstrong (11:44)
Yeah, you know, and so I will speak clearly about this. And when they see that they'll understand is that there's been so much going on behind the scenes that mama bear kind of went into mama bear instincts and wanted to to embrace and to cuddle and it's going to be okay. And. And I know you have a lot going on and nothing's that important. So let's just take care of you instead of like.

Brent Wright (12:11)
Hang on buddy, something's squealing. Hang on a sec.

Blair Armstrong (12:11)
Is that me or?

Brent Wright (12:14)
battery backup just gave me an alert. Sorry about that you'll have to cut that out.

Blair Armstrong (12:16)
Ha

absolutely. Super simple. But, you know, so she's wrapped around.

She knows that there's so much going on the back end with family and all that stuff that, and just work and all these other stresses that she wanted to protect instead of enable. Enable in the right way, like, no, you know, I'm sorry that happened. I know it sucks, but we have to go forward. So.

Brent Wright (12:30)
Mm-hmm.

And we weren't there to hear the discussion or anything like that, but that's just the one thing that first comes up. And so we've talked about this before that if, if you're a true friend, you're going to hold your friend accountable. you're, parenting, you should, walk through the process of how you got here. What did you learn and what are you going to do to move forward? Right. And so, obviously, you know, every situation is different and every person handles things different, but in the coaching.

Blair Armstrong (12:46)
Sure.

Right.

Brent Wright (13:10)
scenario, I see a lot of people trying to see what can they can throw at the wall right now and see what sticks. For instance, couple of my coaching clients have tried advertising in certain ways. Mailers, hiring canvassers, things like that. And some of it works and some of it doesn't. But what do they do with that information? Well, typically we talk about

the same things. Did you learn? What are you going to use it to grow from? You know, what are you going to use this experience and how are you going to grow from it? And then what are you going to to do next time when this is presented to you that you should be doing something like this? Are you going to be afraid or are you going to evaluate the situation, each situation by situation instead of just

throwing it into, well, that didn't work last time, so I'm just gonna just not do it, right? And so I wrote down some notes here about...

Blair Armstrong (14:05)
Yeah, right.

Brent Wright (14:10)
you know, how are you handling failure? Are you doing it in a constructive manner? Are you feeling defeated by?

Are you analyzing your failures to extract valuable lessons? And how does this contribute to personal and professional growth? Well, clearly this person used this as an opportunity to enhance or push forward in her personal and professional growth and not taking it on the chin. Or when you do take it on the chin, use it as fuel. Since we are old guys still rock, I've used this.

this analogy before that movie, Red Dawn with Patrick Swayze. So when they killed their parents in the lineup, they all went back up to the mountain and they were all crying and upset and emotional and all that. And Patrick Swayze's character kept saying, use this as fuel. Let the pain turn into something else.

let the suffering turn into something else. Again, I don't remember the exact movie quote, but that was the analogy right there, right? And so I think it's important to...

talk about how failing well cultivates resilience and adaptability and enable you to bounce back stronger after setbacks. And not just learn from it, not just check out or not check out, it's how are you gonna use it as a tool?

Blair Armstrong (15:26)
So holding on to that one, so that last comment, this is another thought that came in my head. So how do you use it as a tool? So my next question to you would be this. If I didn't recognize that, what are the chances that person actually uses it as fuel or continues to stay in a cycle? So I recognized what this person did.

that they persevered through yuckiness, just a culmination of stuff. If I didn't recognize you, you think that person would have just said, you know what? This is just where I'm meant to be. And this is my life.

Brent Wright (16:03)
Well,

so as a mentor, as a partner, a business partner, any of those types of things, you did the right thing. You provided a win for them in face of a loss. They thought they were losing until you held them accountable in a good way, right? You said, look, you did good, proud of you, awesome, keep going.

Blair Armstrong (16:24)
Right, right, right.

Brent Wright (16:31)
And, and again, I'm summarizing cause I wasn't there for the conversation, but, you provided that mentorship that might've taken the sting out of the loss a little bit and provided them with some traction to keep going. And that's what we're called to do is to help others move forward. And, you know, as far as coaching goes, coaching is just a mirror. All I'm trying to do is mirror back what happened and what

and use examples of things that could have happened and how would you have handled those? And then what are you going to use it as again, like I said, as a tool to move forward? You know, does it.

Does it really debilitate you? Like, do I have the right abilities to continue to go forward? Or do you use that as an opportunity for improvement to say, I know I have the skills to go forward. I'm going to push forward and I'm going to believe in myself. Well, what happens when you get your butt kicked so hard that your belief system starts to deteriorate? Do you have a support system in place? This person was her mom.

Blair Armstrong (17:32)
Right.

Brent Wright (17:38)
Is your support system going to hold you accountable? And if not, you should reevaluate that support system. Again, mom, not trying to tell you not to be a mom, but if you're gonna be this person's boss, then separate. So you need to ask the question, mom, are you talking to me like I'm your boss? You talk to me like I'm your mom. Two different conversations. Is your mom?

Blair Armstrong (17:59)
Right, right.

Brent Wright (18:04)
Go do what you need to do. Go take care of you. Let's regroup. As your boss, you're late for work.

When are you gonna get here? What are you gonna do to move the needle? And how are you gonna engage to make up the difference?

not the same conversation.

Blair Armstrong (18:17)
Yeah,

right. I think that's, you you said there is that harboring that that stuff is okay, just to shut it down, which using different words in what you just used harboring like, it's okay, just do what you know, whatever this come home today, have some chicken noodle soup and watch some Netflix and everything is going to be okay type of thing. I'm just using those samples, obviously, but

What my hope was when I did recognize that that in that somehow Put a stake in the ground like you know what? Okay. I did succeed How do I how do I use this experience to go help somebody else? So hopefully when or if this person watches this episode in there to know that not only did you help yourself move forward

Brent Wright (19:06)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (19:12)
Knowing that if that situation arises that you can kind of get through it. But now how are you going to use that? Loss that in essence became a win To go help others win when they're losing as you said, you know, so those are I just my my fear is and maybe it's it's more of a

bleak outlook that there's not enough of that recognition when someone does something or struggling and they do persevere. And it's such a minute move, right? I mean, realistically, you get a speeding ticket, you drove 10 more minutes to come to work. It's not in topically, it looks like that's not that big a deal. Everyone gets a speeding ticket and come to work.

Brent Wright (19:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (19:58)
I don't think it needs to be completely celebrated. Like we don't need birthday cake and stuff like that stuff. Like, my God, you came to work after you got a ticket. That's amazing. But having, having your mentor or your leader or your boss, or maybe even a peer, if you may say, dude, that was awesome. Like you, I know you had a shitty day, but you just totally came in and rocked it today. So keep going. and you know, today is today. Tomorrow's tomorrow type of thing.

Brent Wright (20:03)
Hehehehe

Yeah, you don't even know how much impact that probably made to her, honestly.

Blair Armstrong (20:27)
I don't see.

And she mentioned, she's just real, thank you for recognizing that. And I'm like, okay, because.

No, I I don't know why I just felt like that was a big deal Maybe it was a calling from you know from from God that day just like you know She really needs to hear this right now and because I'm typically not that guy You know like tell you got a speeding ticket buck up buttercup. Let's go, you know, right? mean daytime daytime Blair and nighttime Blair there's I'm gonna take the heat off you for a little bit rather

Brent Wright (20:53)
Yeah.

I appreciate that. You know, one of the... Go ahead.

Blair Armstrong (21:04)
But so, you know, and I

think that's, there's a lot of stuff that I've learned from you over the last couple of years, and obviously the last couple of podcasts on there to recognize stuff like that, which I typically would just kind of blow off, right? And so when we were talking about, you know, why you're such a good coach later, you know, earlier in this podcast today, and obviously some other podcasts in there.

Those are the type of things that when you kind of get stuck in there that you may not recognize and all of sudden like that trigger comes up, right? You have an opportunity to recognize greatness and around about way I could picture what the situation that she did again, even though small could leave a massive ripple effect of greatness coming up to the future. And that really just comes from conversation and really thinking about stuff and having those little triggers that we've set over

a course of 128 episodes kind of like embedded into this crazy brain once in a while that like, I remember when we talked about that. Let's recognize that. Let's celebrate that win. it's super small, let's celebrate it and let's go instead of like, no, that's what you're supposed to do. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?

Brent Wright (22:07)
Yeah.

Well, because not many people help to create a mindset shift for others. That mindset shift is you looked at it as an opportunity to celebrate improvement or growth. And instead of reflecting on this person's inability,

Blair Armstrong (22:21)
Right.

Brent Wright (22:35)
to succeed.

Blair Armstrong (22:36)
Yeah. And I think another thing, yes, I did. But I also think, you know, why, why did we do this podcast? Right. Why, do, why do we think that we have this is because we're, we're building, we're helping in or assisting in building leaders, uh, in this community. And if we come on here and we talk every freaking week for 45 minutes to an hour, depending on what the subject is, and then we go out into the real world, it's kind of like the church thing, right? You can go to church all the time. If you don't go out.

Brent Wright (22:50)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (23:05)
practice it, what's the point?

Brent Wright (23:07)
Well, it's no

different than anything. So if you're a runner and you're not running and practicing, you're not gonna be a good runner. you, you know, if you wanna get good at target practice or at shooting in general, but you're not target practicing, you're likely to not understand what you're supposed to do in the face of stress or opportunity or, you know, resilience.

Blair Armstrong (23:11)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (23:32)
adaptability, all of these things that are needed in life, in every situation.

Blair Armstrong (23:38)
And now again, just said another trigger to me, you it goes back to we talked about. I was actually with a bunch of a bunch, I would say probably six, seven guys last night for dinner and which is not my wheelhouse. Well, we just talked to we had a Canadian there. had a person that just sits on a different side of political views of some of us were in there.

But the end of the day we had conversation and somehow that topic kind of came up about, I don't agree with your politics, but there's still room for communication to understand. And I said, this is exactly what we've been talking about for weeks. That no one, everyone has lost somehow unless you're like best friends and there's two of you talking like we're doing now. But when you get in a group of people.

You know, our conversations become so stale sometimes about, how'd you play golf today? Did you hit a birdie? my God, I got it up. And there's no meat to it. Instead of like, so I understand that you're, you you're in this part and you believe this spot and you may not agree with everything that's going on here, but you, know, so having those conversations and actually building relationships. And that's one thing that we've been, you and I have been really trying to say is you can rely on this.

legacy media, reading headlines and all this stuff to go ahead and come up with your idea of the way the world is running. And you can live in that world, totally okay. Or you can take the bits and pieces information, have conversations with somebody else that may not have the same beliefs as you, but there's always that common thread. So this goes back to what, even though what we were just talking about was communication of what this person did.

Brent Wright (25:05)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (25:22)
that again, as I said, could have been left unsaid, but was brought up in the spotlight, basically put a spotlight on it, recognized it when, and now that becomes a part of conversation. We build on that. Remember when you did this, this, and then this, and you came in feeling shitty and how it actually made it like, you know what, I did win today, and it got me through one more day.

Brent Wright (25:36)
Mm-hmm.

Well, and that goes.

Yeah, that goes back to you should always seek feedback. So you offered feedback good on you, but maybe it would have been, you know, maybe the trigger or the key or the golden nugget, as you say, would be seeking feedback from others when you fail to see how they would have handled it, to see how they think you should have handled it.

maybe even to seek feedback as an accountability to what you should do.

actually, and then take action on it. Does failure impact your innovation?

Does your actions afterwards encourage you to take more risk, to experiment, to do what they call in marketing, A-B testing, right? So you're not gonna throw all your marketing budget into one thing. You're gonna test a little bit here, test a little bit here, test a little bit here. And so that way you limit the exposure of your failures.

Blair Armstrong (26:42)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (26:43)
I

believe life is A-B testing. I'm always testing supplements, peptides, exercise routines, lifting strategies. Like I do this thing now after seeing it, I saw it on this guy that I follow and he's doing these, what he calls wood choppers. You take a 45, wait.

And you do that a hundred freaking times, 50 times each way. Big difference. It started ripping my obliques and my core and actually defining my core a lot more. And I felt stronger. I felt better. My back felt better. I sit a lot in meetings and things like that. And so are you always seeking feedback from others? Are you always innovating? Are you always doing A-B testing on yourself?

Blair Armstrong (27:08)
Yeah, I know what...

Right?

Brent Wright (27:30)
spiritually, emotionally, physically, how is that leading into your emotional intelligence? How is it, how are you utilizing that for building skills?

Blair Armstrong (27:40)
Yeah, you know, and I'm glad that you just said that because right before we got on.

One of one of my friends colleagues just text me they lost him a pretty big account and Probably a three, you know, it always happens kind of right in the holidays, right? who loses big account you're kind of struggling already financially here and there and Like just tell me it's gonna be okay And so I was caught in this quandary like okay, do you want me to you know, I didn't say this

Brent Wright (27:55)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (28:09)
back in the text, I was in this little quandary, okay, should I give them the rainbows and butterflies answer or do I give the real answer of what it's gonna be? And so I wrote back.

I said, you are in a transition and it's going to hurt a little bit, but it will be fine.

And then so, and then basically said, you know, you're even though that you're losing this, this pretty big account, that's going to hurt a little bit financially, you're actually already in the other side, picking up ones that are actually better for business in the long run. There's a little bit more meat on the bones. There's a little bit more relationship in that business and so on and so forth. But as what I, the whole purpose of that, that starting in that comment was I kind of said, yeah, it's going to be fine. And literally I said,

Brent Wright (28:30)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (28:54)
It's going to suck. It's going to hurt. There's nothing. The bandaid came off. There's an open wound. It's going to bleed for a little bit. And I'm expanding basically what I said. So yeah, it's going to suck, but eventually it's going to get better because you're already picking up stuff to fill that gap that's losing. It's not going to be as great financially right off the bat, but in the long-term, it's going to be better, not only mentally, financially,

a better business model for you in the long run because just of the relationships are, it's not so topical as these other ones were.

Brent Wright (29:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (29:34)
So that's, know, and I'm sure that you have that too. You know, these guys like, I'm struggling. just, you know, I'm losing these accounts left and right, especially right now. mean, this economy is, it's rough, brother.

Brent Wright (29:44)
Well, and on top

of it, it's a season of change, right? Everybody's looking at what am I gonna do in the first of the year? Is this a good fit still? You know, we see it in the payroll industry in particular. This is the time of change. We call it selling season because people are looking for opportunities to change. It's super clean change. Less set up fees, less impact on needing data, things like that.

Blair Armstrong (29:46)
Yeah.

Brent Wright (30:10)
this time of the year, so they start Fresh Jan 1, it's an easy transition. Again, less impactful on their staff and things like that. yeah, this is, if you're gonna feel pain and suffering, this is the time to do it because like you said, they probably lost this account, but they probably gained others that were looking for a change as well. And so.

Blair Armstrong (30:27)
Yeah, yeah, and they haven't.

It's just been a lot better. I mean, again, financially, it can't replace what those big ones that are lost right now.

Brent Wright (30:35)
But maybe that customer

wasn't a good fit and they were sold in a way that didn't align with the business model anymore or something. There might be other opportunities to learn from this and to glean something out of this perceived loss.

Blair Armstrong (30:54)
Yeah, I think it's too in. I'm kind of going to this right now. It's maybe when you're first starting out a company and maybe you felt this way too. I mean, over the course of 30 years and all the companies that you started, sometimes you take the low hanging fruit. The low hanging fruit is not always the easiest ones. There are always ones to do. I'm getting to a point now that I'm not saying no to business. I'm just telling you this is the way that we like to run it.

Brent Wright (30:54)
the

Blair Armstrong (31:22)
And if I'm not your guy, it's okay. But don't ask me to compete against Joe Schmo because he's giving you a better rate or he's going to tell you a higher price. This is what it is. I know this area and I'm using this for example, anybody in sales, I know my product, I know this and I'm the best at, you know, we're becoming one of the better ones out in the community. Again, whatever it is, whatever you're selling or your service is.

Brent Wright (31:32)
Thank

Blair Armstrong (31:50)
But the point I'm trying to make is when you have, you're just starting and you're trying to gather so much, sometimes you take the bad ones and those guys or whoever it is in business don't really care. They're like, okay, or, I don't know what I'm trying to say is, they don't have the respect for what you do. And so when it's time for them to like, okay, I'm just done with this, I'm done with this toy. I'm just going to throw you out. It hurts your ego.

Brent Wright (32:16)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (32:19)
It sucks, but now you learn from your lesson. what did I, Brent has basically said multiple times to this podcast. What did you learn? Even though that you just got basically kicked in the face. What did you learn? the next time you go in a relationship, what are the parameters? What are the things that you're going to do? How are you going to say that again? Failing. Are you failing? Well, so

Brent Wright (32:41)
Are you failing? Well.

Blair Armstrong (32:45)
You can take that as, I failed. thought I was going to keep this forever. I thought we were going to add a bunch of business with this person and it didn't work out. So I can look at it as a failure, but what did I learn from it and how am I going to use that as a win?

Brent Wright (33:00)
One other tool that I teach is similar to the along the lines that we talked about before. So if you're having a bad day, what do I tell you to do?

Go serve others.

Blair Armstrong (33:11)
Yeah, go Sir brothers. You said that. Yeah.

Brent Wright (33:13)
Right. And so in this situation is look for opportunities to support others in their risk taking, align yourself with people that are living or working in a way that you would like to live and work.

Blair Armstrong (33:28)
Yeah. Yeah.

Brent Wright (33:30)
Don't do this. If I could buy you lunch, would you give me an hour of your time? If I could buy you coffee, that doesn't really work anymore because nobody's got time. What you could say is just be straight up. I've had some L's lately, got kicked in the teeth. You appear to be winning a lot. And I'd like to get some feedback from you on what you're doing when you fail or when you lose because you seem to take it on the chin and keep moving.

And I like the look of that and I wanna learn how to do that. Are you willing to talk to me and show me how to do that?

So the trigger here is to support others. However, in supporting others, they will support you typically.

Blair Armstrong (34:12)
If it maybe this has happened to you early in your stages. So when you say that and someone comes in and man, Brent, you look like you've been winning a lot lately. And there may be that perception that you're winning, but you're actually getting your ass kicked too. mean, right.

Brent Wright (34:26)
Well, and that's what I was trying

to go to is if you're gonna get honest feedback from somebody and they're gonna say, you know what, I have been winning a lot, but how many losses did it take me to get to this point? And what did I do? And so you're asking me what I did. I did X.

Blair Armstrong (34:37)
Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's the most important spot is it don't glorify that I mean glorify the wins for sure but I think that what Brent just said is that part is just let them know if there is a lot of there was a lot of triage to get to that. A lot of blood and guts laying on the side of the street to get to that spot. So.

Brent Wright (34:54)
Mm-hmm.

For sure, for sure.

And no different in this format, similarly placed with relationships. Get people to share their stories and examples with you, or share your stories and examples with them. Have a candid conversation about what it looks like for people that have turned failures into successes and really take the time to dissect and illustrate that concept.

because there's probably a process that they follow that you're not privy to.

Blair Armstrong (35:29)
Yeah.

Do you feel that you said something that right there, do you feel that stories are better than facts?

Brent Wright (35:35)
Facts tell, stories sell is what Ed Milad always says. So the story has to be true, believable, and has to be action oriented for it to be positive.

So you need to frame out your story. can't, it just can't be, you know, hey, I had a loss, I understand. No, I had a loss, I understand. This is what I did.

Blair Armstrong (35:58)
So guys, one thing that all of you guys either watching or listening to this today, I really want you to, we're coming up to the holiday season. What Brent said too is pretty good guy in business wise, actually relationship wise, because there's there's so much going on financially and just other things in this world, but business, whatever it may be, there's just, this is the season for transition. mean, I even just told our team last week, like, okay, we have one more meeting.

and then 2026 starts December 21st. Like why are we starting on December 1st? And I said why are we not? The point of it is is we can sit there and talk about it for the next six weeks or we can just get up and going. So the point I'm trying to make on all of that is is that

there could be.

payroll cuts, business cuts, relationships ending, so on and so forth. And as we always said, it's kind of being a lookout and recognize those people that may be going through it and how they're going through it. And even if there's just a glimmer of success in whatever transition that person is going through, recognize them for that. This is a lesson that I have learned this week. This is my big takeaway from me that I hope that I can pass along.

Brent Wright (37:00)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (37:11)
Try to find that like, hey, I know that you're going through it, but I saw this the other day and you freaking rocked it bro or rocked it sister, whatever that may be. ⁓ I understand it's a small win in the grand scheme of things, but that win is going to take you to a thousand different places.

Brent Wright (37:23)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (37:36)
That's why Golden Nugget to you, and I'm sure Brent's gonna give you another one here in just a second is, but when you're hearing somebody that's struggling and you know someone's going through a transition, whatever it is, they lost their job, they gained a job, they lost a relationship, they gained a relationship, tell them what does that win that you saw, so not only do they feel recognized that they're doing the right thing, but second of all is that you can basically, what we talk about a lot of time is you engage them,

you equip them and then you empower them. And those are the type of things to do. So I am glad God put that in my lap this week. It helps me on a lot today, there's, you know, it's, there's some, topically there's not some, there's not a lot of fun times in there, but there's a lot of great, there's a lot of great small wins. ⁓ And sooner or later, those small wins are gonna turn into bigger wins. And it's just gonna be.

Brent Wright (38:28)
Mm-hmm.

Blair Armstrong (38:34)
We all sat down, we sit back and look back and you did well, my good and faithful servant. You know we did right, right? So anyways, any final thoughts for you, my dude?

Brent Wright (38:41)
Amen. Amen to that.

Really just be paying attention to what people say. Actually hear, digest, reflect, and then use those three tools.

that you just gave us. And as always, just go make a damn difference. Try, care, produce.

Keep going.

Blair Armstrong (39:06)
All right peeps, we're gonna come back to you a little bit day earlier next week because we don't know what we do, but we don't wanna get away of your turkey day. So we will be going on Wednesday of next week. So we're gonna get this out here the next 24 hours to get you out to out there. If you haven't done so yet, I know we asked this a lot.

Brent Wright (39:14)
Yeah.

Blair Armstrong (39:27)
But we're gonna keep asking as we keep growing, because we grow organically. Again, we don't have any sponsors, we don't have any advertisers. Unless Busted Teas wants to sponsor us sometime, I don't know about that, but whatever. Anyway, with that being said is, if you liked the show or you didn't like the show, let us know in comments, but most of all, hit the subscribe button, hit the notification bell on whatever you're watching. If it's Amazon, Spotify, YouTube.

Brent Wright (39:36)
No.

Blair Armstrong (39:52)
trying to think what is iTunes, I heart, all of those things, hit them down there so when we do put a new episode out, you're notified on there, but most of all, share the freaking show. Share the show, it's awesome. And then you can go ahead and you get to be the guiding light for whoever watches that show for this week and you did your job for the week. So until we see each other next week, guys, stay safe, but most of all, God bless.