The Four Fears 👹 Holding Your Business Hostage, with Mark Franklin

Welcome to Building your Leader Brand. Today on the show, Bob is speaking with Mark Franklin. There are two questions that I would ask every single person that comes in front of me. And those questions are, what is it you really want? And why is that so important to you? You're prepared to take the brave action in order to make it happen? And they seem like very simple questions. But the deeper you dig into each of those, the greater the clarity in terms of the, okay, that's the level of the fish tank that I want to be swimming at. That's where the thermometer needs to be set for me to live the life that I deserve or have the business that I deserve. And I'm feeling a little bit more confident around taking the action. Hi there, and welcome back to Building your Leader Brand. My name is Bob Gentler. Every week, I speak with incredible who share their secrets to building, marketing, and monetizing their expertise and the mindset you need for your business to grow and thrive. If you're new to the show, then while you still have that device on your hand, take one second, or possibly more like four or five, to hit the Subscribe button. That way you won't miss a single thing. And it really does help me a lot, more than you can imagine for the sake of clicking a button. If you're new to the show, then you will also probably love the Personal Brand business roadmap. 100% free as a gift from 50 pages, which is probably too many, of everything you need to start, scale, or fix your expert business. So there is probably one number one reason people fail to thrive, and it's not the tech. It's not the strategy, it's not the tactics. It really comes down to one thing. To help me with that today is author of the Four Fears of Business Ownership. Mark Franklin, welcome to the show. Thank you so much, Bob. It's lovely to be here. Fear. We're going to be talking a lot about fear today. I think you'll probably agree, it's more prevalent and more endemic and probably the biggest barrier to anybody's dreams than anything else. We're going to get into that. For the listener who's meeting you for the first time, can you maybe just tell us a little bit about who you are, where you are, and what you do? Certainly can. Thank you. I am Mark. I am the For Fears guy. It's the brand that I have attached myself to. I'm essentially a transformational mindset coach. I work with business owners in their teams to, as you were just saying, embrace those fears, those hesitations that getting our way. I'm based just outside Oxford, although I'm originally from East London or Essex. So accent occasionally creeps back in when I get closer to the M25. But yes, my passion is helping people close that gap between what they've been telling themselves they're capable of and what they're actually capable of. I think where I'd like to begin is what you might term easy fear, perhaps the fears that are closer to the surface. Maybe before we get into that, your book has a very specific title, The Four Fears of Business Ownership. So maybe it makes sense if you expand on that a little bit and maybe tell us a little bit about what are these four fears, and then we can get into the wider conversation. Absolutely. In terms of easy fear, which is a way of introducing the four, because I think that's a good way of describing them. The four fears are, over the years, what I've come to hear and see as being the most common hesitations, the things that crop up all the time in those conversations around what's holding me back. So they are, I'm not ready, which is another way of describing perfectionism. I'm not good enough, which is the imposter syndrome, the comparisonitis. I don't have time, which is More often not the first fear that creeps up in the conversation because it's the easiest, or we think it's the easiest to qualify. And then the fourth one, which is the overarching fear of failure. What if I get it wrong? Each of those sounds very, very simple, but it really is a bucket. Each of them is a bucket inside of which live a whole mess of little demons and monsters. Absolutely. I guess one of the things with demons and monsters is don't like the light. The reason I call these the easy fears is for a lot of people, especially under the beginning of their journey, they, if they're self-aware, more importantly, they understand the surface fears a little bit. And these are probably the surface fears that would most readily drive people towards somebody like you. In your experience, what is it that drives people initially when they come to speak to somebody like you? I think the initial reason for beginning the conversation is around that I'm stuck. I'm stuck. I either do know what I need to do next, but I'm not doing it, or I don't have that clarity around what I should be doing next because those mind monkeys, those demons, those monsters are suggesting things that are getting in the way. So it's that brave putting up of the hand and saying, I could see there is a better version of my business, of my life, of my story, and I want some help closing that gap, crossing that bridge. What I'd like to explore first is, obviously, as a business and mindset coach, one of the questions I wanted to ask you before we started recording, but I wanted to hold on to this question because you described your book as, It's really the essence of me. It's It's what I stand for. It's what I keep returning to. A lot of business and mindset coaches, if you speak to them and you ask them, I think you should write a book, and then they subsequently go on to think about, What will they write a book about? They come out at the other end of that with a book proposal that is the unified theory of everything. And yet you are really looking at these four fears as the four corners of your table. This is the hill that you really want to defend and die on over aggrandising it, obviously. What was it? Because I don't imagine it's an accident that led to the four fears being your thing. You are the four fears guy, after all. Thank you. Yes. I'm not going to say it's autobiographical, although there is a lot of me in that. So from the very first conversation as I was having with leaders and business owners back in my corporate days, when I was essentially supporting a sales team to have more conversations, put more products into people's hands and so on. That made me aware of these four recurring wobbles, as it were. So they weren't booking the calls, they weren't generating the leads, they weren't doing the sales because of a mixture, a combination of those four things, things that they were telling themselves, even though everyone else around them and us, the corporate team, could see how amazing they were, how talented they were, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Those four things were Yeah, just cropping up all the time, looking sideways, looking at other people in the sales team saying, They're so much better at this than me, blah, blah, blah, blah, So what, 12 years ago, I suddenly became aware of these recurring themes. The autobiographical element is that when you spot these things and you start to reflect on your own story, you think, Well, hold on a minute. It isn't just people in sales roles. I see a lot of myself in this. And then you think about all those moments in your backstory where you've retreated away from an opportunity or you've shied away from a conversation. And you wonder, Why is that? Why did I How can I do that? And so I suppose with the book, all I've done is pour all of those stories. So there's genuine conversations, and there have been thousands over the years. So that, for me, validates the, like you say, this the hill to dial because these are the things that keep coming up. But also from the what I now do, how I serve the people in front of me, et cetera, et cetera. Why that's so important to me is because I see it in myself. I see it in everyone I meet, it's not just business. The book, How to Embrace the Four Fears of Business Ownership, one of the most common bits of feedback I get is, well, this isn't really about business, is it? Because it's about life. It's about every aspect. It's about parenthood. It's about relationships. Those four fears get everywhere. They're little buggers. Like you say, demons, monsters, however you want to call them. I call them mind monkeys. So shining a light on them, I think, is that first step to saying, you know what? We all have them. It's okay not to be okay. It's okay to have those wobbles. But embracing rather than dismissing or trying to deny or dim the light, shove them back in the corner. If that doesn't work, if If you try and ignore them, they will keep creeping back out of the dusty cupboards. So we need to look at that energy and turn it into something really powerful that serves whatever it is that we want to achieve, as I say, business, life, relationships, whatever. One of the phenomena I see all the time is if you're not in business, then you probably have a job, and you go to work, you do your job, you come home again. If you're comfortable with that, then there's no real requirement for you to embark on a quest, if you like. This is the metaphor I'm going to use? Yeah. From time to time, you may build an appetite for promotion, or you may be called towards promotion, at which point the quest starts to call to you. If you don't have a quest, you probably don't have sidequests, you probably don't have the challenge that's going to expose you to question your own identity. You're not necessarily going to be exposed to the things that might trigger fear. The reason business owners are different is because they've chosen the quest, and the quest is they've got to do what, again, to ruin a metaphor, is probably quite a difficult journey. They've got to go out. They know there's going to be a challenge. They know there's going to be demons and monsters and sidequests and trials. One of two things can happen. The people who are naturally courageous, because courage is the obvious antidote to fear or a productive response, maybe. But the other one is, I don't want to see it. I just don't want to see it. Therefore, there's a subconscious shying away from really fulfilling your own potential. That's the bit that bothers me, and I see actually the most often. I think when people come to people like you and I, it's because they've accepted the call. But I see an awful lot of people who you really wish would, and I think those are the people that I genuinely feel that your book has something really important to speak to. Because if you can acknowledge a fear, you understand. The fear will generally only appear when you're on a threshold of some kind. Yes. Again, I think you and I probably move in similar circles where we work with people in the expert business space or solopreneur businesses. But increasingly, I'm speaking to some very senior leaders, and exactly the same things are there. They've achieved a certain level of competence and seniority and accomplishment because they simply followed the line of least resistance. But then they're at a point where they could really do something new and spectacular, but exactly the same psychological things are helping them or almost blinding them to the fact that this potential is there. They would rather not look at the fear and rather look at comfort. I don't know what the question is, but I think what I'm interested to hear from you is, how resistant are your clients sometimes to looking at the fear that's really holding them back? If I may, I will come to the answer to that question shortly, but just to go back to the start of what you were saying there in terms of the comparison between someone who has that let's call it a day job, and feels comfortable in that routine compared to the entrepreneur, the self-employed, the solopreneur, the someone who's gone out on their own. I would challenge the idea that someone in a job doesn't have those fears. I think they do, but I know they do. I think what tends to happen is someone who is in that established routine has found a level of comfort that they are less inclined to test or challenge. In many ways, the fear potentially is more prevalent. Because if you think about, and again, I come from a corporate background, there were many, many meetings where I chose not to speak up in case I made myself look silly. There are many times when you're working as part of a team, you look sideways and think, Oh, they're much better at this than me. I should just, again, I'll retreat back into the things that I know that I do well and so on, so on. I think those fears are there. I think the difference between, well, this is a very It's a weeping statement. But I think the generalised difference between someone in a job and someone who's gone out on their own is that person who's gone out on their own. And I love the way you describe it as a quest. They're the one who's put their hand up and said, I want to go on a quest. I want to try something different. I want to shape something that is more about my personal journey, wishes, desires, desires, values, strengths, vision. And within that, they are then more likely to come face to face with an obstacle or challenge, a fear, because they are putting themselves in that position of discomfort by choice. So So coming back to the original question in terms of how resistant are people to talking about their fears, there's a lovely... I say lovely, I don't know if that's the right word, but there's certainly a very positive feeling or trend at the in so much as everyone is starting to understand the importance of embracing their own vulnerabilities and having those conversations with themselves, with a loved one, with a peer, someone who they trust, around this idea of, This is where I'm stuck, and I'd like some help with that. There's still reluctance, and I think as you were talking about the board level, the CEO, the high-flying exec, there's still that reluctance to be seen to be vulnerable. In those situations, because again, the whole looking sideways, the what will people think of me if I demonstrate that don't always feel justified in my rank position, pay packet, whatever. But I'm also mindful that certainly in terms of what true leadership looks like, if you read all the Brené Brown books and so on, those voices, which are hugely important and very valuable. True leadership is about accepting that we have those faults, hesitations, wobbles, weaknesses, is the wrong word, but you know what I mean. But we want to do something about it. I agree with you. I was stereotyping the job versus the entrepreneur for a theatrical effect. I absolutely agree with you. The vulnerability question, I I think is one that is important. Here's a good way to look at this, I think. There's a really good book by Paulo Coelho called The Alchemist, and I really enjoy it because it talks about personal growth and the importance of challenge in shaping our personalities and our potential. For me, it was a really important metaphor to describe that life is not a case of you see an opportunity, you go through a process that can be quite difficult, and then you arrive at your final destination. The final destination that you think you're aiming for is simply the beginning of the next step. I think a lot of business owners go into business. Similarly, I think actually people in day jobs maybe look at this a little bit differently because they know there's different levels they have to go through to reach their full potential. But if you're in business, you think, Well, I'm going to start this business. Then you start that business and it's quite successful. But in that success, your identity is challenged, you overcome some challenges with small Cs, you overcome some small F fears, and then, achievement unlocked, you've arrived. When you arrive, you think, I'm the man. Everybody agrees, I'm really, really good at this. Then you think, Oh, what I could do this. Suddenly your identity is challenged again and you have to go back to vulnerability and again, go through all those battles and quests and growth in which your identity is going to be challenged again. A lot of people look at that and they think, I don't need to do this. And so they do tend to stay small. A metaphor, and I find myself using quite often with clients, is we operate a little bit like a fish tank, where you've got the fish at the bottom, you've got the fish in the middle and the fish at the top. They never really migrate very much. As human beings and as business owners, we're a lot like that. We like to hang out with people like us, and we like to do business with clients like us because it feels safe. For me to suddenly move from doing business and supporting clients who maybe do 100 to 400,000 a year to dealing with multimillion dollar clients, I'm thinking, I can't do that. All the imposter syndrome crashes as in, and this is what I meant at the beginning, that really competent people think they've arrived, and so they settle because they don't want to look at who they need to become again. These are specifically the people that I get really excited about your book for. Does that resonate at all? Regardless of who you are, where you are, employed, self-employed, business outside of business, that next level of ambition, yes, my hope is that the book would encourage and give you the tools and allow you to practise some activities that allow you to look up at that next level and practically take some steps to move there in a way that dials down some of the fear, encourages some of that bravery, and makes the journey feel more possible. Where we should maybe go is, and for the listener, I apologise for my waffling so far. I think what I wanted to highlight, it sounds like I planned it. What I hope we've highlighted is understanding and seeing that you have these fears that are holding you back is the key to being able to move forward at every stage of business. It doesn't matter where you are. Maybe this is a useful place. Now we've got some background noise. The listener understands. I might have thought I was super confident, but if I I do have this big, shiny vision, I'm going to have to get uncomfortable again. What's that going to look like? Let's plan for fear rather than reaction to it. Maybe this is a good place to introduce, let's actually go through and explore the four fears individually. And have a conversation about what they look like. Sure thing. Where my head's gone with that, Bob, actually interesting is we began with the small fears. I'm wondering now, whilst digging into those small fears, what we then get into is bigger fears, if we may. So the four fears, as we said, it's that procrastination, perfectionism, imposter syndrome, fear of failure, which are the earliest and most common manifestations of, I can't do that thing yet. I can't move up to the next level yet. Digging underneath the surface of those and thinking about all that conditioning that surrounds us, so the schema, the societal, relational, our own personal stories, everything we've experienced throughout our lives, the people that surround us, like you say, those experiences almost subconsciously create those barriers for us. We think we belong in a certain space or at a certain level. We think our capabilities should be kept at a certain point. Our version of comfort versus discomfort, the barriers around that are set by everything that surrounds us and reinforces those opinions, I guess, those decisions that we make for ourselves. So coming back to how we could help somebody move up that next level, there's the, I suppose, the, it's probably a bit harsh here, superficial transaction, sorry, non-yes, transactional coaching, historically, where you have a conversation around, so what is it that's holding you back and how does that make you feel? And if you could take that brave leap, what would it feel like? And all those open questions which are helpful in the moment of encouraging somebody to see why it's worth taking that brave action. But long term, it doesn't alter those barriers, those guardrails we've put around ourselves in terms of where I deserve to be. So digging more deeply, and these are the big fears, I guess, digging more deeply into somebody's backstory history, why at some point they attached a meaning or decision to a moment, to an event, to a behaviour, to a throwaway comment that someone said in their past that they've now held on to in terms of the, Okay, that's my level of good enough. That's as great as I will ever be. I think that's where the conversations that we have with people in business and everyone around us, that's when that gets really exciting, because what we're starting to do. Coming back to the, are people resistant to having those conversations? This is where you might get that sense of prickliness and proper discomfort because you've gone beyond the, I don't have time. Well, you do have time. We all have exactly the same amount of time. Equally, you know what it is you should be doing. You're just choosing not to. That's harsh, but it's honest. And the reason you're choosing not to is because of those bumpers you've put around yourself. Let's look at those. Let's dig into that story however long ago that you're still telling yourself around, it has to be perfect, otherwise I can't put it out into the world. If I put it out into the world when it's not perfect, it's not good enough. I should have spent more time doing it, but I didn't have the time. Therefore, there's no point me doing it because if I do, it's guaranteed to fail. And that's how the whole thing proliferates. Stop all that and come back to the, whoa, what do we mean by failure? What do we mean by good enough? What perfectionism is entirely subjective. Tell me about where you have set this ceiling for yourself. It's almost like a thermostat. Exactly. Yeah, beautiful. Look at the thermostat. Why are we setting it here? What is it that you've been telling your sofa however long that there is no place for you above that? Because I'm quite certain if we explore your story and all the things, all those moments in time when you have been good enough, when you have been ready, when you took the time and created something fabulous that the world needed and the world celebrated, let's lean into those to shift those perspectives, remove those barriers, or expand those barriers out to the point where your comfort zone takes you that little bit further. And as you say, tiny little steps, move you up the fish tank. I think it's really interesting. I think this thermostat is something that often springs into my mind because people seem to reach a certain level and then they fail to push beyond it. And sometimes it's associated with a number in terms of how much money they're making. A lot of the time, it's identity-driven because they're comfortable with this identity. If they do start doing things, the consequences of those things working are actually more scary than the consequences of them not working. Who am I going to have to become if this is new? Through my podcast, one of the things I've really had drilled home to me again and again and again is if you'd parachuted me into Tony Robbins business, I would destroy it in a week because I am not the person that I would need to be in order to make that work. Tony Robbins, a decade ago, would have done the same thing. He would also destroy that business because he hasn't become that version of him yet. This process of becoming is something I think people often avoid as well. It's also fear-driven for exactly the same things. It's just not the practical what if things go wrong, but it's what if things go well. Sometimes they're equally potent. Yes. I think more often, no, it is the things you describe there where, I don't think I can sell. I don't think I can speak. I don't have time to create content. These things are all false. Again, it's just the things that people are telling themselves. Working with somebody like you is obviously a really productive way to surface these things because most Most people, if they're honest, they are avoiding looking in these particular corners of themselves. First, I guess I'd like to understand how those conversations typically go and how you lead people towards looking in those corners. But also, particularly for people at home who are thinking, Okay, I might take a peak. What's a productive way of beginning to explore how you're feeling about things on your own? So one of the first things, well, Two points I think I'll make. Firstly, there are two questions that I would ask every single person that comes in front of me. Those questions are, what is it you really want? And why is that so important to you? You're prepared to take the brave action in order to make it happen? And they seem like very simple questions. But the deeper you dig into each of those, the greater the clarity in terms of the, okay, that's the level of the fish tank that I I want to be swimming at. That's where the thermometer needs to be set for me to live the life that I deserve or have the business that I deserve. And I'm feeling a little bit more confident around taking the action that's going to make that happen. That's part one. But the other thing I would always want to get into with somebody is essentially their story so far, because some of the work I've been doing recently, and this is part courses that I've just completed and other coaches that I've been working with. They call it quantum physics. I'm no quantum physicist, so I don't know if that's an appropriate label, but it is this idea of going back into your past in order to shift the perspective to provide the future that you deserve. So digging into somebody's story to find out where, again, those barriers, those bumpers, those limits have been set and why. Because a lot of the conversations, actually, particularly recently, last month or so, a lot of the conversations I've been having, there is that gap, again, that disparity between this is what I wanted to be, but this is what I've become, or who I wanted to be and who I've become. And as you were saying, there's an element of, well, I've settled for this, but there's also that underlying resentment, frustration, questioning around, but what if? But what if? Digging into that backstory, A, highlights the gap, which gives us something to work on. But more importantly, gets the person in front of me thinking about those moments in their story where they made those decisions, attached those meanings, and on reflection, there's that clarity or reality that perhaps those decisions were wrong. Perhaps they interpreted it completely the wrong way. If that's the case, what new interpretation can we bring? That question of the quantum physics, I think you've hinted at something actually very substantial. This whole idea of... I have a client who is a physicist, and we speak about stuff like this occasionally. This idea of retroactive causation is really interesting. I'm not going to go into that. Anyone can Google it, but it did bring to mind as you were speaking. I'm reading a very strange book at the moment, which I won't go into. But in that book, there's a story about a story, which is a very famous Russian science fiction film. It came out in 1950s. Don't know what it was called, but essentially it goes like this. Aliens invade. They stick around for about two years and then they disappear again. But they leave behind all this technology. One of the pieces of technology they leave behind is a machine that can make your dreams come true. The problem is nobody can make it work because nobody can work out what they actually really, really, really want. Yes. Love it. There's a secret here, and I think you hinted at this, which is once you can spend some time courageously looking at what you really, really want and not compromising and not hedging and not thinking, Well, I think this is what I'm capable of, so I'm not going to reach for what I really, really want. But once you identify what that is. It's so motivating that suddenly, looking in those corners becomes really important. I think that's why it's actually quite inspiring to help people think about that first, because after that, everything's easy. I really like that. It's easier, I would say, because, again, they've still got to do the work, they've still got to put in the brave steps, they've still got to take the action. But it's that clarity, bravery piece, which can be absolutely magical. When they're working with you on this, this is conversational, it's going to surface. If somebody's at home, I'm imagining things like journaling can be quite useful. Do you have particular recommendations for anybody who does want to approach this on their own? Outside of by the book? Because the book is probably an obvious companion to this. Absolutely by the book, yes, totally. I certainly journal, and I have found that to be very helpful. It's what works really well for me, that particular activity, is the leaning into the three things that went well today. Yeah, really simple. Or another thing, three things that made me happy. That's a powerful one because our default often, bearing in mind, our brains love patterns. Our brain loves to lean into something that it's seen before so it can do it again. And we naturally are inclined to not look at or not remind ourselves of the things that went well. The three things that made us happy, they could be just foolishly simple things. I woke up this morning, I didn't have a toothache. Daft, things like that. It's surprisingly challenging on a daily basis. There'll be days when you wake up and we're all human. We have those wobbles. We feel a bit grumpy today. It didn't go too well. For whatever reason, something's going to happen that I was hoping it would have happened. I'm sat there. Right, now I've got to think of three things that made me happy. But as soon as you shift your brain into that mode of positivity, that's a good thing. Journaling, for sure. For Any physical activity as well. Just giving yourself a half hour, quarter of an hour even to get out, go for a walk, lift some weights, whatever. Just move your body. Because the cleansing effect of emptying your brain, if anything other than putting one foot in front of the other, enjoying the view that's around you, or again, if you're in the gym, focusing on the weight you're about to pick up, that is huge in terms of, again, resetting some of that noise. I suppose another thing just very quickly, and this is a technique that just really started to introduce the work that I do, which is something called havening. I don't know if you've heard of havening, but it's a psychosensory modality Without boring... The science is there. It's like 25 years of incredible science around how it actually rewires the neuro electrochemistry in your brain and essentially disarms historic small T traumas. Again, things that you might associate or historically associated as being bad or limiting. It can undo that. But the very simple physical principle is whenever you were a kid and you fell over and grazed your knee and you just wanted that hug, havening is that hug. It's that gentle self-touch of just calming the brain, essentially. That's one that I suggest people look up because it's very interesting. I'm going to add two on your behalf. One One is, to use the quest metaphor, a companion, somebody who knows the path and knows where all the monsters are. I think this is the importance of coaching. It's very easy to look at. I think a lot of people do look at things like needing coaching as, I can't do it on my own, so I need help. That's not what this is about. This is about companionship on a stretch of the path with somebody who knows that stretch of the path well. Another part of this, and you'll probably echo this, the conversation we're having today, it's not the conversation that you generally have with people that you encounter through the week. You might in your business, but in the gym. You wouldn't down the shops and in the pub. The people that are listening at home probably rarely get the opportunity to have this conversation. Finding fellow travellers for whom these unusual conversations are ordinary will, over time, make doing unusual things normal. For me, that's been really important. Being around fellow travellers for whom difficult things are just part of what they do every day, it frames difficult things, and they don't look the same anymore. I think, again, that's really important and why people should spend time with people like you. I wish I'd said that one, Bob. That's much better than my three. You're absolutely right. I think you're a naturally very pragmatic person, and I don't know you well enough to say this, but what you do is foundationally important. If you can't overcome these things or if you can't understand how you operate around these four fears and all their ugly friends, then it doesn't matter the tech, the tactics, how you network, how you build funnels. None of these things will help your business grow unless you have enough self-knowledge to understand what's genuinely holding you back. If you're normal, you won't look there. That's normal behaviour. If you want to be an unusual, uncommon person, you're going to have to do what unusual and uncommon people do. That's why what you do is really important. Thank you. Yeah, that's a fantastic way of putting it, for sure. What does an amazing client look like for you? When you get to go out and choose the clients, what do they look like? As I said earlier on, it's that wonderful, magical moment when someone A, puts up their hand and says, the usual words, I want to be unusual. I'm not satisfied where I am. I want to go on a quest. Let's do it. So that's the beautiful first moment. But the magic for me, when we set on that journey together, yes, I am the companion, but I'm not. I'm going to lean into my Lord of the Rings analogy here. I'm the Samwise Gamge. I'm there, I'm the support, I'm the good guy, hopefully, but you're the one carrying the ring. You're the one who's got to climb Mount Boom and dispense of that evil thing that's been holding you back and draining you and limiting the that fantastic capability that you have, you've still got to do the work. So the ideal client is that someone who, again, has put up their hand and says, Yeah, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. I'm going to struggle. You're going to have to carry me up through the past, occasionally. But I really want this. And because I can now see what that next step is, I could see what unusual looks like for me. I'm excited by that. I'm determined. I have that that nasty and that resilience to accept that the fears will come back. There will be moments where the noise does drown out that next step forward. But it's a journey. And it's okay to pause as long as at some point, I take that deep breath and I take that next step. I get really excited by people like that. If people want to connect with you, they want to go deeper with you, obviously, they can buy the four fears of business ownership. But how else can they connect with you and engage with you? They can. I'm very active on LinkedIn. Very easy to find as well. That's a great place. There's a tool that I share for free on there, which is like a score app quiz, which essentially digs into that clarity and bravery piece. So it's like four quadrants that balance out clarity versus bravery, starting from a fearful Fred, who lacks both clarity and bravery all the way through to a fearless Freya, who's got it all going on. And it just It helps you assess where you are on that journey, again, where you are in that fish tank of fear, as opposed to... So that's a useful thing, which, again, is my gift to people, just to start allowing them to ask those questions of themselves. I think there's a danger people listening will think this is all about dragon slaying. That's not necessarily the case. I think the reason this is important, the compound effect is in mind here. This is about consistency. It's about consistent effort, not about the big grand gestures. They're great, the spectacular fireworks displays. But everyday courage is not that. But everyday courage is what really delivers long-term results. So I think to put things in a little bit of context. I will put links to all of your stuff in the show notes as well as the book. Mark, I've had the best time. It's been a lot of fun. I've probably I've talked more in this episode than I have for a long time. And that's not because you don't have anything to say. It's because I'm outrageously enthusiastic about your book, what you stand for, and how you approach it. And thank you very, very much for your time. I like you so much, Bob. And even though we haven't had that many conversations before, the fact that you immediately jumped into my passion for mythology and Dungeons and Dragons and Lord of the Rings, all that, how did you know? Because I could go on about that for hours, if not days. That's a whole different thing. If you're into Dungeons and Dragons, I have two people I need to introduce you to. Okay. But I don't know. Dungeons and Dragons is one of these things I always thought I'd love to be able to play that, but it's also one of these things I always look at, I think, I don't have time for that. Maybe there's a monster there. Perfect. For everyone at home, thank you for listening. If you did enjoy this, again, you will love the personal brand business roadmap, 100% free as a gift from me. Just visit the link in the show notes. Again, don't forget to subscribe. Thank you very much for listening. Mark, thank you for your time. Thank you so much, Bob. It's been a pleasure.