The Adaptable Entrepreneur’s Guide: Measuring What Matters and Mastering Risk

Starting the conversation:

Dynamic goal-setting and decision-making support the necessary action needed for achievement. Uncertainty is normal, and at times heightened by what is going on within your world — in addition to what may be happening nationally and globally. Shaping your risk comfort zone will help you navigate during times of high pressure and low mental/emotional capacity.

Risk tolerance is a skill that you can build. It will come from experience (from action), learning (from other’s mistakes), and letting go (scenario planning and delegation). Your risk comfort zone isn’t something to set and forget — it is something that evolves with you, your team, your company, and your trusted advisors. The collective will provide information to help you be decisive in decision-making and align business goals with how your business fits into life goals.

Dive into the secrets of maintaining confidence in times of uncertainty. Discover practical strategies to turn your “what ifs” into “what nexts” and drive your company forward, even when the path seems unclear. Join Christy Maxfield, President and CEO at Purpose First Advisors, Dean Barta, Founder and CEO at Barta Business Group, and me (Jess Dewell, Managing Partner and Growth Strategist at Red Direction) live for a discussion about what makes it BOLD to identify your “risk comfort zone” and expand it strategically.

Host: Jess Dewell

Guest: Christy Maxfield and Dean Barta

What You Will Hear:

03:40 Why Now? Why is how to turn “what ifs” into “what’s next” important?

• We need to maintain confidence during times of uncertainty.
• Why not now? Doing what’s important today for tomorrow’s achievement.
• Decisions we make today determine our future business performance.

06:55 Mindset around risk, failure, and reward.

• Different tolerance levels for risk in business and personal life.
• How business goals are linked to personal well-being and family goals.
• Importance of being clear about risk tolerance and its impact.

20:20 Using values as part of your KPIs for strategic positioning.

• Values guide decision-making and help align actions towards goals.
• Communicating the need for transformation through shared values.
• Leaning into values helps manage change and achieve long-term vision.

30:58 Risk comfort zone: balance between risk, ambition, and life.

• Risk comfort zone requires effort, energy, and time investment.
• Balancing risk portfolio to manage exposure in life and business.
• Finding that edge through testing and learning from failure.

53:27 Risk versus bad choices and the importance of calculated risk.

• We can’t always afford to play it safe or be careless.
• Using scenario planning and experimentation for better decisions.
• Distinguishing between strategic risk and blind choices.

55:38 Jess Dewell, Christy Maxfield, and Dean Barta takeaways:

• The worst thing you can do is … nothing.
• Don’t get lost because it is avoidable.
• Goals for your life and your business impact each other.

Resources

• How To Get Comfortable Taking Risks (According To These Eight Entrepreneurs)
• How To Stretch Your Comfort Zone For Business Success
• LEAD Model for Better-Decision Making and Problem-Solving

Transcript

Dean Barta 00:00
Dreams without goals are just dreams and they will fuel disappointment if you don’t empower them.

Christy Maxfield 00:08
There’s always something in our life that we can point to. That said, the world does not end. I actually am resourceful.

Jess Dewell 00:16
The worst thing you can do is nothing. That was my biggest takeaway.

Jess Dewell 00:21
I’m so glad you’re here. Thanks for stopping by. At the Bold Business Podcast, we are normalizing important conversations. Yes, there are tips. Yes, there are ways to solve problems. More importantly are going to be what do you need for yourself to be able to solve those problems and make the most of the education, the training and the programs that you are already using? This is a supplement to that. It can sit on top of it. Fuel your soul, fuel your mind. And most importantly, regardless of where you’re at on your journey, maybe you’re starting out, maybe you’re ready to scale, maybe you’re going through reinvention. The conversations we are having will help you at each of those stages. So hang around, see what’s going on and I look forward to seeing you engaging with our videos.

Announcer 01:13
Welcome to Its Your Business, brought to you by the Bold Business Podcast. This is your source for navigating today’s ever-evolving business landscape. In this program, Jess, Christy and Dean share the realities of current business challenges and triumphs. Get ready to lead with depth, understanding and achievement.

Jess Dewell 01:33
Hey and welcome to It’s Your Business. I’m glad to be here live with you today and I have two other great advisors and people that care about business as much as I do and it’s fun to speak with them to bring topics of information together for you and we want you to participate in this It’s YOUR Business program. So not only are we the go-to source for navigating today’s ever-evolving landscape, not only are we going to help empower you to assertively navigate those dynamic challenges of what it means to have a business today and stay modern and stay ahead of the curve as we face change after change. We want to do it and get achievement. So let’s venture together in what it means to be a Bold Business. I’m so glad to be here with my peers, Kristi and Dean. We’re going to take a minute and we’re going to introduce ourselves. Kristi, how about if you start us off?

Christy Maxfield 02:26
Sure. Christy Maxfield Purpose First Advisors. We focus on growth consulting through the lens of exit and secession planning.

Dean Barta 02:34
I’m Dean Barda, Business Group. So we serve the small businesses with bookkeeping, controller and fractional CFO services.

Jess Dewell 02:43
And I’m Jess Dewell, Red Direction growth consultant and host of the Bold Business Podcast that makes this possible. And we’re going to just jump right in. Right. Going to jump right in. And I actually posed us a question and I think this question somewhat changed over time, Christy and Dean but that’s okay. We’ll start here and we’ll just change it real time. And the thing that I think that we want to start with is why now? Why is how to turn what ifs into what’s next important to us right now? Us as me, Christy and Dean, but also us as business owners, us as making a difference, us as wanting to last through times of turbulence, which we’re feeling. I’m not sure if you saw this, Christy and Dean, but I will tell you that I saw a stat today and the stat was that the confidence in small businesses, so Main Street dropped another 10% of what this year is going to look like. And can they actually grow?

Christy Maxfield 03:43
Yeah, it’s a year of uncertainty for sure. Disruption, ambiguity, all of those things. But when I think of the why now? I also look at it through the lens of the exit and secession planning that I do. And the answer is why not now? We always think that we’ll have time to do a lot of things and uncertainty creates an incentive to do some things right now. But quite frankly, having a future-oriented approach to your business, being really clear on what it is you want and how you’re going to get there, means that you have to be thinking about things today that don’t feel very timely or relevant. That may not give you an instant gratification in that I was able to reap rewards in near term but are incredibly important to your long-term success. So for me, why now? Is because why not? And you don’t always get to come back and do it later on.

Dean Barta 04:38
Yeah. And just really to add to that is, and that’s a really good introduction, Christy, is what you’re doing today affects what’s going to happen three months from now. I have the old saying, it’s like you don’t get obese from the burger you eat today. You’re not going to get immediately obese, but you do a hundred straight days of whatever food or whatever indulgence, it’s, that’s what accumulates. Then all of a sudden you can’t fit in your pants 90 days from now or whatever it might be. So that’s why it’s important to do things now, so that you’re set up for success into the future.

Jess Dewell 05:18
That’s, I love how we set this all up. So I’m going to summarize this because I’m going to probably say this a few times. Christianity in the first. So why now? We need to maintain confidence during times of uncertainty. Why not now? And doing the things that are important today so that we’re setting ourselves up for tomorrow’s achievement.

Christy Maxfield 05:41
Absolutely. I think as Dean was talking, I was writing, you are the accumulated decisions that you’re making. And so if you think about that, what you want out of your business is a series of accumulated decisions, many of which can be changed. You just simply because you make a choice today doesn’t mean it’s the thing you stay with forever. But it is the accumulation of those decisions over time that will determine whether or not your business is performing the way you want it to perform. And I’m a really big proponent on focusing on what you can control. There’s so much right now that we can’t control. And so the best use of our energy isn’t to spin out wondering about the what ifs that other people might impose on us, but rather what ifs can we actually turn into reality by focusing our time and our energy on the things we can control in our business?

Dean Barta 06:33
I wholeheartedly agree with that as well because it’s those little decisions that you make that you really honestly do have control, especially when you’re feeling out of control. Those little small decisions are, can give you ease because you’re, you’re moving forward. It’s that one step at a time kind of action.

Jess Dewell 06:54
It makes me think of a quote from Napoleon Hill, author of Think and Grow Rich. One of the things that he said that stuck with me is that the way to develop decisiveness is to start right where you are with the very next question you face. And one of the things we’re going to do is we’re actually going to talk about that. We’re going to talk about the how a little bit. What is our. So let’s start here with our first section of our discussion today, which is around mindset, the mindset around risk of failure and reward. With that and what are our expectations and how can we show up to it? Speaking of controllables. Christy?

Christy Maxfield 07:28
Yeah. And I think what’s very interesting is I invest in my own continuing education. So just as I hope people are tuning in and engaging in this conversation with us, I’m always seeking other folks who will push my thinking. And this idea that we might have different levels of risk tolerance for our business and our professional, our personal life. I’m sorry, but that those two things for business owners are inextricably linked. Right? The goals I want for myself, the goals I want for my family, whether that be health or wealth or well-being, are very much tied to the health and wealth and well-being of my business. And so I think it behooves us to take a step back and think about what our risk tolerance is not just for our business, but how does that orientation towards risk also impact our ability to achieve our other goals, Our personal, our personal financial, our personal spiritual, our personal familial goals that we have. And so that’s where I come in from on that topic of really understanding what’s, what’s going on in your head. Is it head trash or is it head treasure? And what is that helping you achieve?

Dean Barta 08:42
Yeah, actually you mentioned that. I totally agree. You lead with your head. It’s a, it’s an old skiing term. When you’re skiing trees is your body will follow where your eyes go. So you don’t look at trees, you look at the space between the trees for obvious health reasons. And that’s the same in business or in health or anything else is like, hey, what, let’s look at where that window, that’s a possibility rather than the obstacle.

Christy Maxfield 09:11
I love that because it’s very much a. Energy follows intention. And if I’m looking at the trees, I increase greatly the likelihood I’m going to collide with one. Also, if I focus on the things that I consider most risky or disadvantageous to the business, in all likelihood those things will come to pass or at least create some of the roadblocks that I’m trying to avoid. So that’s brilliant. I’m going to, yeah. Look at the space between the trees.

Dean Barta 09:40
And there’s a peripheral vision of it in business is that you got to have the peripheral vision of the trees. Okay. So that’s the risks knowing that, hey, if I don’t, I don’t self-correct into the gap between the trees, bad things are going to happen. And so it’s a healthy balance of, okay, I’m not totally ignoring the pitfalls that I are out there.

Jess Dewell 10:04
I’m going to add optimization to this. Right? This risk-reward mindset piece. And it’s anecdotally related here, so hang with me. I was, I’m doing a lot of research on nutrition because I have a teenage athlete and we’re talking about how do you add mass without in a healthy way and how do you make sure that you have enough fuel to just grow, let alone add this extra muscle mass that you’re looking for. And one of the things that came up in my research yesterday was specifically related to energy drinks and pre-workout drinks and that they actually are creating these chemical things in our brain that are pre-serotonin. And so here we have our body learning how to or being fed potential for serotonin instead of our body knowing what to do with the serotonin. And are we actually going to be able to make it on our own? There’s the setup. And let’s talk about risk-reward. If we have a low tolerance for risk or if we are very uncertain and lack confidence, the only we can optimize all we want, but the only way to change the outcomes and have the long-term benefit of that within. I’ve got a pulse, I can feel it. I, I can listen to what’s around me. The team I have surrounded myself with is bringing the information that they’ve learned to listen to is where we can actually have that potential for success, that potential for what can come next. And if we don’t have that, we are looking for other places. And so as cool as those drinks are, and as cool as they may help in the moment, to the point of what Dean was saying about something that happens, what you’re doing today and impacts your tomorrow. Once we know better, let’s do better.

Christy Maxfield 11:56
A hundred percent. I think it’s accepting that we all make choices that we sometimes learn through experience were not the best choices for us. And so using that learning and then making new decisions and tapping into that untapped potential in a new way opens up a lot of opportunities. One of the things I think of too is just knowing what your personal timeline is. And in the, in the personal sphere, we tend to look at longer timelines of the arc of our family. How kids are going to come to age and leave home and then we’re going to different phases of our life. And we tend to see it as a longer timeline. And in our business we tend to see things in a much shorter timeline. And so if the two have to support one another, my personal goals and fulfillment are very much intertwined with my goals related to my business. Then having two very different timelines can also put a lot of strain on the business’s ability to support those goals. So those are some of the things that come to mind when I’m what, as we continue to riff on the topic.

Jess Dewell 13:11
How do you? I’m curious for the three of us. I’m curious. And if I was listening, I would want to know what are some of the elements that you consider coring your mindset around risk or risk tolerance or failure?

Christy Maxfield 13:26
Dean anything? Or I’ll just…

Dean Barta 13:31
Add and is like in any area of my life or?

Jess Dewell 13:34
Yeah, I think. And I think yes, because just like my anecdotal thing or the trees, they all can relate and be applied other places. So how are they showing up for us? What are we? How are we like…?

Christy Maxfield 13:43
Dean skis and goes out on wilderness and probably climbs a mountain and fords a stream on a regular basis. And I don’t do any. To me, those things feel very risky because I’m not prepared. I don’t have the experience, I don’t have the expertise and I don’t have the guide that I would need there. So, like, for me, things that Dean does for pleasure and effortlessly and has prepared himself to do because it’s been routine for him are very, very scary for me by comparison.

Dean Barta 14:15
But yeah, and yeah, and I understand and I. It’s been so ingrained in my kind of lifestyle. But hey, there’s things as far as sales and stuff like that. And I know you two have, you know me long enough that you probably would be surprised by this, but I can be shy. Really, overcoming that and reaching out to people and stuff like that. And of course, the keyword is that in there. And that whole thing is action for me is like when I’m in action, there’s basically the fear, whatever it might be, the intimidation of it just goes away. I have more fear if I sit still than, than if I’m in action because I’m like, oh, I have enough life experience and a whole body work that things just turn out, you know, better in the end. But when I’m in action and when I’m. But if I’m just sitting stewing about and worrying about or whatever, something. No, that’s just a sitting in worry soup or procrastination soup, whatever you want, a culinary delay.

Jess Dewell 15:18
Uncomfortable. All about the being a little bit of a being uncomfortable in whether. And for me, it’s silence. I don’t like to sit still. I don’t like to be silent. But in that uncomfortableness, it is amazing what will. What clears out and how I can actually filter and go, oh, I didn’t know I had this much noise within me, let alone all the noise I’m trying to discern without me. So there’s something to be said at least for me. And how I’m just checking in whether it’s two breaths, whether it’s 20 minutes, whatever. That discernment of, oh, how much am I. How much of do I actually have to sift through within me and get rid of that noise so that I can better discern the information that is around me? So that’s a little bit about how I’m doing, but mindset at least me personally. And the other thing I will say that I really appreciate that was shared earlier. Dean, I think it was you was life experience. The experience that we have directly relates to our purpose, to what we’re facing. We found out, right? We’re in the middle of season of it’s not a time. It’s a whole season of life of trying to buy a house in a very particular way for very particular things. And I will tell you, this is. The thing that is the longest, and I just wish it could be done. But here’s the deal. If we had made that decision any faster, we wouldn’t be happy with the outcome. We would have been like, fine, we’re done. Let’s go. And every single time we’re faced with something and we get into this place of uncertainty, there are a couple times turned out we’ve regretted it. But overall, it has been worth the wait because we learn more about ourselves in that moment too. We learn more about ourselves and that uncertainty of what is really important. How can we do that? And it works in my business too. We always feel like, I’m not sure about you three, but every time there’s a new opportunity, everybody goes, oh, this is so great. And I could chalk it up to Shiny object syndrome, but I think it’s more than that. Christy and Dean, I think it’s more than that. I think it’s a. I think it’s FOMO. I think everybody, when we get together, there’s a fear of missing out. If we don’t do it now, then what? That urgency that we were talking about that we feel in life, which, by the way, I really want in my house. Let’s just be real. But at the same point in time, in business, I want things to go fast. I want instantaneous results. I don’t necessarily want to do the work, and I hate how long it takes. And all of the experimentation that goes into creating these things despise because I’m like, what? What action was the right action? We don’t know until it’s done. And that’s the journey, my friends. We will know.

Christy Maxfield 17:51
We are part of the journey. I think what I appreciated from Dean’s comments were you have evidence in other parts of your life where you are able to take greater or lesser risks. And so when you’re in that discomfort zone, I think looking to other parts of your life to see where things have worked out, you are more prepared than you think you are. You are more capable of handling uncertainty than you might have expected. There’s always something in our life that we can point to that says, I actually have concrete evidence that when the proverbial crap hits the fan, the world does not end. I actually am resourceful. These are the things I’m capable of. So I think being able to source those examples in your life and be able to take those, not just me telling you you’re capable, but you have concrete evidence of that. And then I am like you, I like to be in motion. And most certainly if I’m feeling uncertain, I would rather do something than nothing. I would don’t want to be in that soup of wondering. But I also know that the only times I’ve truly gotten myself in a pickle have been when I’ve tried to force something that needed more time. So that’s where your comment, Jess, of whether it’s you’re taking time and being okay, being uncomfortable or simply talking yourself down. Yeah, I could do three more phone calls and two more emails and send them an edible bouquet or something to get their attention. But what I probably need to do is just sit tight and let this play out and let the process play out and know that I’ve done what I can to this point and to force anything anymore may actually result in an outcome that I don’t want holding these dichotomies of I want to take action and sometimes not so desirable things happen when I just decide I want to get to the end and be done. Balancing that and making that accessible. Looks like we have a question that came up.

Jess Dewell 19:46
This was more of a. It was more of a comment that came in some of the discussion pre-live and Katherine was talking about key performance indicators and she was saying, hey, this is how we know if we’re on track and if your values and your revenue is where it could be. And are you maxing it out as much as possible? Granted, she said it way better than I just let’s just be real though. But that talks about. Okay, so we have to write stuff down. We have to think about what this means. So I want to know. I want to know, Dean, how do we engage and be strategic around this?

Dean Barta 20:20
It’s setting goals is. And KPIs in business are important for many reasons. Is one you set the goal is. But that’s just step one. You know what KPIs what like this woman was mentioning is that it’s. Then that’s your scorecard of how you’re doing. And we all have multiple scorecards in our lives, right? We have bank account or the kids are healthy or whatever. But things are set up for us to. But the goal setting is really important and the tracking of that and the progress of that. Because if you only set goals and I pulled this quote because I really appreciate this and it’s from Denzel Washington is dreams without goals are just dreams and they will fuel disappointment if you don’t empower them. So imagine this and we probably have all of the experience or whoever is listening to this where you’re like oh I want to do this someday or that someday. And then 20 years later you’re still saying the same thing or maybe you’re too old to even do that stuff anymore that it didn’t come to pass because the. There’s the. You didn’t empower them through basically dis, discipline and consistency. Those are the two K, 2 pillars of empowering goals.

Christy Maxfield 21:48
I also think that. I think it’s Katherine whose comment you put up. She talks about how leaning into your values, using your values as part of your KPIs. And I find that if we’re talking about taking a what-if and turning it into a what’s next change. It’s about change management. It’s about either getting yourself to make a change or your team to make a change, or both. The end and change is not something humans like even when it’s in our best interest. So how do we lean into the values that we have that tell us these are. This is the way we work and do the work of this organization. This is how we interact. This is how we make decisions. This is how we prioritize. It’s how we make sure we’re working and living in integrity. And then how do we use the strength of those values to take things and transform them from what-ifs to what’s next? I think that’s an important tool that we also often underestimate in the ability to communicate the need for the transformation and to weather the uncertainty and the discomfort of that situation.

Jess Dewell 22:56
Share your thoughts and questions below. I thrive on your feedback and engagement. You’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast. I’m your host, Jess Dewell. This is your program for strategizing long-term success while diving deep into what the right work is for your business right now.

Announcer 23:09
You’re listening to the Bold Business Podcast hosted by Jess Dewell, a nationally recognized strategic growth consultant. She works with business owners and executives to integrate just two elements that guide business through the ups and downs of growth. Number one, know what work is necessary. Number two, do all the work possible. Schedule a complimentary consultation to find out more at reddirection.com.

Jess Dewell 23:41
A company that I was working with a while ago now, one of the things that they were facing was competing priorities, but they didn’t understand what the competing, that they had competing priorities going on. And so everybody was aligned to the values. Everybody thought they were executing on the mission, everybody thought that they were on par with the, with the goals for the next 12 months, let alone yes to yes and to the three-year goals. And let’s. So all of these things and they were still stuck. It turns out that those competing priorities came from their own individual goals. So we had the company goals and we have each person with their goals and the role that they want for their advancement, for their development, in this role, for contribution. And that was where the disconnect was. So everybody was doing the right things, writing it down. The company was doing the right things. They had KPIs and that’s how they knew they had a problem, but they couldn’t bring them together. And so it was, oh, it’s so cool that everybody in this company is encouraged to write their goals down. So I asked for all the goals and that was where we found the competing priorities. Somebody wanted to focus on something over here which was part of the five-year plan. Somebody else was focusing on here and trying to get the low-hanging fruit, but they didn’t quite match up. And there was a, there was a pull of resources and so everything got stalled. And so being able to identify that and go, how cool is that? So I would say to add to this conversation is that writing them down, having the KPIs doing these things is incredibly important because if we can’t figure out where we’re stuck, a way we can stir the pot, a way we can look at things differently is to lay all of our business goals down. What are my goals? Christy, what are your goals? Dean, what are your goals? And knowing that we’re going toward a common goal, where are we aligned and where are we not?

Christy Maxfield 25:31
And I think individual business owners can do that too. [Sure] When we were brainstorming about this topic and thinking about what we might share with people, Dean made the point of if I’m trying to build a thriving business, but I’m sleep deprived and I don’t eat well and I haven’t taken any time for rest and, rest and relaxation for myself. The behaviors on one part of my life may be significantly undermining the behaviors in another part of my life. If I want a great home life and I want to be really connected to my spouse and my kids, but I’m also working 15-hour days because that’s what I feel like the business goals are demanding of me. Those can be way out of whack. So I think your example is great, Jess, because we can see it within the organization. Even small companies can have people who are operating on different sets of goals. If my goal is to get the next promotion, I might make short-term decisions that impede the long-term progress that the owner has for the business. Just like the owner might make some short-term decisions that have long-term implications because we’re not able to really look at the big picture. That ability to understand what, where the misalignment is and not assume that what I do over here shouldn’t affect what’s going on over here. Pay no attention to the bad habits I’m perpetuating over here. Look at all the wonderful things I’m accomplishing over here. We may be unaware that we’re even like self-sabotaging.

Jess Dewell 27:08
It’s true because we have all these tools that everybody tells us as long as we’re doing these things. It always makes me think of a bowling lane. We got our pins at the end, which is the achievement and along the lane is the gutter. All of these things we’re supposed to do in our business, fill that gutter. So all we do is move toward the end goal of knocking the pins down. But what happens is we end up with something like a pinball machine in between where we start and those pins at the end. And so I hear you, Christy, I hear you.

Christy Maxfield 27:35
That’s a very different game. I mean throwing, releasing a ball so it hits the pins at the end of an aisle is very different than navigating the target. Essentially redirect you with each move you make.

Dean Barta 27:47
Yeah, it’s always going to be a constant advance between personal and work and business and all that because hey, you’re working towards a certain business goal and your kid falls out of the tree and breaks their arm. And then your, your attention shifts and you know, rightfully show you got to take care of this. And so there’s a certain ebb and flow that can come through that. And to me that’s the ebb and flow is the balance you’re never going to be. Maybe certain days you might be equally balanced and everything’s sunshine and puppy dogs, But a lot of it’s just, I got to focus a little bit more here. I’m going to be on vacation. We get that done so that we can spend more time. Like, a lot of my clients are on spring break with their kids right now, and it’s okay. Good. And then they know that they have things to. They need to attend to when they get back. That’s that dance, that ebb and flow that I experience.

Christy Maxfield 28:39
I think, too, we struggle as business owners with. In order for our business to grow, more people have to do more things and we have less control. And yet we still maintain a mindset of, your mistake is my consequence. You’re spending my money. You’re costing me X. And so we try to control as many variables as possible. And I think we have to think about what’s really important to us, about the way things get executed and what are we truly able to let go and say highly skilled, intelligent people who understand the, the business of my business can make some autonomous decisions and get things done. And that, yes, sometimes other people’s actions will have consequences that need to be dealt with, and sometimes those things will cost you money. I’m not saying that those are not things to be concerned about, but also weighing the. You can’t. You simply can’t do it all yourself. And even if you could, you’re probably not the best person to do it.

Jess Dewell 29:52
Fair on all accounts. And I would add to that, Christy, where, oh, I have so many things fighting to come straight out of my mouth right here. When you said this, I would say. I would add that one of the things that we’re doing when we think about the end in mind. So I’m thinking about it a little bit from your perspective as exit planning, and I’m thinking about my perspective as scale, and I’m thinking about Dean’s perspective as sustainability. Just as three things that I think about when I think about each of us. And what’s important in that moment is I totally lost my train of thought.

Christy Maxfield 30:23
Oh, no. That is the beauty of life. And I’m on the cliffhanger right now. You cleaned it up beautifully.

Jess Dewell 30:30
Okay, Christy, give me a prompt. Let’s see if I can get it back. Let’s see if I can pull it out of the air. Here we go.

Christy Maxfield 30:35
Just. I. My words were inspiration to you before. What I would say is that being able to weigh the, your mistakes are going to Be my consequences and my mold. What you’re going to be? [I got it.] Around with and learning with.

Jess Dewell 30:50
Yes.

Christy Maxfield 30:50
What degree of screwing around and learning with are you comfortable with and what aren’t and what decisions do you have to be in control of and which can you let go? And Jess…

Jess Dewell 30:58
There we go. Because we don’t want to be the center of our business forever. There you go. Because the only way to leave a legacy is to teach other people to know the depth and have the intuition and the feelings that we have about our strengths. And they. Thank you, Christy. It did. It came right back down and that was it. And we forget about that. And there’s a cost to that. That cost is maybe just time, which of course might change the resources of other things, but there’s also the cost of time to the business for the learning. The other piece of that comes in are the actual resources we have available. If we aren’t the right person to be doing it, how come we’re not outsourcing it? What is really. And it makes me think of a conversation that we’ve had before about worst-case scenarios. Right. What being pragmatic. What is the worst case scenario? Experience is that I’m like with everything. That’s how I would start. A calculated risk includes can I live with the worst-case scenario? Is it easy to absorb? What are some of the other things that come in mind? Which makes me think of a risk comfort zone. So as we’re working with, as we’re working in this section, we’re talking about goals and tracking them and engaging them for strategy and strategic positioning wherever we’re focused. Penny Kelly was sharing in a conversation of a thread before. She likes this concept of a risk comfort zone. And it is like an oxymoron. And that’s actually probably why it’s appealing to business owners. So how it’s that individual balance between risk, ambition and life. And that requires effort, which requires energy, which requires time, which is an investment as well. What do you guys think about that?

Christy Maxfield 32:41
I look at it and I think it was in one of Adam Grant’s books this idea of a risk portfolio that if I know I’m going to go skiing down the hill, I’m going to have the right equipment, I’m going to have somebody show me the ropes, I’m going to practice on a bunny slope before I go decide to go do you know, slaloms and things like that? That’s one way to manage risk. It’s also, if I know I’m going to be putting Myself out there, financially, emotionally, time I have to commit, I’m probably not going to also commit those same resources in other areas of my life at the same time. So I’m a big believer that you can have it all, but you can’t necessarily have it all at the same time. And balancing that risk portfolio by doing things that can de-risk the situation but also keep you from having maximum exposure on all fronts at the same time gives us this ability to live in that dynamic tension of trying and experimenting, learning, failing, trying something new. That’s how I think about it.

Dean Barta 33:45
And I just think just a simple definition of being a business owner entrepreneur is you learn how to, you learn how to navigate risk and because if you wanted to stay safe, you’d get the salary job and it’s the nine to five. Okay. And you have your scope is this. But I think many of us, including me, is it’s a, is this much a personal growth to be a journey for me to be a business owner than it is financial or empowering or freedom or whatever. Whatever else I see out of it. I always looked at it when I left. Being a W2 employee is this is the next adventure. And part of that, just like any adventure, when you’re off the beaten path, there’s risk, there’s not a clear-cut path sometimes. And that’s why we bring it around to goal setting and KPIs and all that. Because that’s what helps glaze the path. Because if you’re just wandering out in the woods and you don’t know where you’re, you don’t know where you’re starting, you don’t know where you’re gonna go. That’s called lost. I was in search and rescue. I understand that. That’s called lost.

Christy Maxfield 33:45
That’s called. I like that you are lost. One of my mom’s biggest fears is always getting lost and usually with driving. And I can’t tell you how many times her strategy to de-risk that has been to take a dry run to, to experience it before she’s under the pressure of having to be there at a certain day and a certain time. And we don’t always have the luxury of that. But I’ve also always said to her, you’ve never been so lost that you couldn’t be found one because she doesn’t venture off the beaten path all that far. But also because the worst-case scenario when I used to live near the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel was if you get to the toll booth and break into tears, they will turn your car around because they don’t want a crying lady who needs to be extricated from the Lincoln Tunnel. Trust me, they will turn your butt around. So in there’s almost no scenario you’re going to get yourself out of into probably in business, in the wilderness, I think all bets are off, right? You might get eaten by the bear, but in business there’s usually ways to ensure that your choice is not one that you absolutely can’t come back from. And so how do you balance that out? How do you take the adventure, the journey and the learning and the self-growth that comes with it and also have enough grace for yourself to say you’re not going to get it right 100% of the time.

Jess Dewell 36:24
I’m your host, Jess Dewell and we’re getting down to business on the Bold Business Podcast. This is where we’re tackling the challenges that matter most to you with actionable and achievable advice to get real results that lead to your success. Don’t forget. Press that bell icon so you don’t miss a program and it is time to subscribe as well.

Announcer 36:37
Focused on growth? Listen to more programs like this which support the challenges and opportunities you are working with right now. Search Bold Business Podcast for the key terms at reddirection.com or your preferred podcast listening app.

Jess Dewell 36:57
Because we’re asking a lot of questions that people could consider and so let’s give some concrete examples to those. So what are some of the elements that each of us have that help us know what our risk comfort zone is? What have we found out about ourselves that help us define that?

Dean Barta 37:12
I would say, gosh, I mean, there’s probably so many areas. I just got to pinpoint one specific area. What I did with my business more than six months ago is I reduced the number of clients that I had, which, you know, I have a business coach friend of mine, Slate Dean. That’s a lot of coaches share that advice for people. But you’re the only person I’ve known that has actually done that. Because my goal wasn’t to have a hundred clients, it was to have less and focus on quality. And there was still intrepidation about it because I still have a part of me that wants to save the entire business world from themselves and, and no matter know how big or small and, and it, and I had never done that before with any of my business ventures before. And it was, yeah, kind of scary to do it at first, but it’s been, wow, why didn’t I do that sooner? And, but I had to take the action. I said and just like Christy did mention, is like assessing the risk opportunity of it all. And I. It’s really worked out for me.

Christy Maxfield 38:23
That’s awesome. I actually did give somebody that advice recently, and I don’t think they’re going to take it because I’d rather have a lower net income and a higher profit margin than a higher revenue and a lower net income. But it’s hard to. That’s not how we measure success. Right? And how our peers might think of us as being successful. So I love that, and congrats to you for doing that. So I’ll answer the question in two ways. One, for me, it’s about surrounding myself with people I know can make me stronger, better, faster, smarter. So part of my risk mitigation and finding my comfort zone is, you know, who else can I tap into if I start to get out over my skis? And then when I think about my clients, this time of ambiguity, where. They need to get more focused about what it is they do and what about they don’t do is forcing at least my client and maybe some other business owners to stop doing that thing that they always did because they didn’t want to say no. But it’s not the thing they really love. It’s not the thing they want to build a pillar of their business around. It’s a business line that they do because they feel like they have to rather than they want to. And it doesn’t necessarily align with their total vision for their business. And so there’s these moments where when the rubber hits the road and there are decisions to be made, it can actually make it easier to say goodbye to parts of the business that no longer serve you that you’ve been hanging on to for a while. And I see that also as a way of managing your risk comfort zone is it’s a little less risky to do it now because other forces are a narrowing of product and service for this particular client. There are different ways to use the forces that are impacting us to help us make decisions and right-size the risk. I think for my client, that felt really risky six months ago to say no to that business. And now it feels like it’s part of right-sizing the business and aligning their core activities to what their clients need most. And so it feels a lot less risky than it did before.

Jess Dewell 40:38
I appreciate everything that you’re saying, and I feel like I do something very different, but I don’t think it’s other than on the surface. I don’t think it’s that different. And that is I basically do a gap analysis. Christy and Dean I will go, where am I right now? If I am faced with a decision that I have to make regardless of its risk, in a benign scenario where everything is a hundred percent and it’s easy to calculate and there’s no pressure at all, I have to go, how much pressure am I under? How much capacity do I have? What is the energy that I have available to me today so I can decide how urgent is this really? And it makes me think, think of the matrix, right? Who’s, I don’t remember whose matrix it is. Urgent or important. Delegate, right. Or send it to the bin. And whatever that is, right? Whatever that four quadrant is, it makes me think of that urgent versus important. And that is going to be a tool that I’m always using, especially if I’m feeling any level of stress. Because I know I will take a lot of risk. I know I am comfortable with a lot of risk. I know that if I fail, okay, fine. If my company fails, okay, fine, it’ll suck, it’ll hurt, I won’t like it very much, but I will be fine. The people that work for me will be fine, right? It won’t be, it won’t be a fun time, but we’ll all be okay. And so I will take risk and I will do certain things, but if I am feeling pressure of any kind, I shut down. And it’s not to say that I’m overtly risky because that made me sound like, let me just go take all this risk. I don’t actually do that. But I will say I will take more risk than most people, both in my home life, in my play life, in my business life than a lot of my peers do. I’m open to the idea. And so urgent, important, two very big things, because I can tie that back to my long-term goals. Urgent, important, tie back to those goals. And then another piece I think for me when I show up to this and I’m thinking about, I’m already really this way is whatever personality test you use, make sure everybody in your company that’s making decisions with you is using the same one. You can learn to talk to each other this way and that way. Where we have different risk tolerance. We only have, we have our risk comfort zone, but we have a collective risk comfort zone. And I think that’s an interesting idea too. In relationship to closing the gap. Is this a risk? Is this potential worth the effort and the energy? Whether it’s guaranteed to work or whether it might not work, or it’s guaranteed to fail, but something really Cool might come out of it. Regardless, by the way, I’m okay with that outcome. Of course, it’s going to fail and we don’t. But it’s got to, we’ve got to do it so we can find the actual right way.

Christy Maxfield 43:26
Yeah, and I think ultimately we all decided if you own a business at some point, consciously or unconsciously, you decided to bet on yourself. And what you basically said to yourself was, in the worst case scenario, I know I will do whatever I need to do to take care of fill in the blank. So if it’s like, if this doesn’t work and I’m not able to run a successful business, I will go get a job and I will do whatever job I need to do to take care of the people, the situation, the responsibilities that I have. And on some level, I think even in your methodology you’re saying, do I have the capacity to do whatever it takes if this goes sideways? And if you’re under too much stress, the answer may be no. I can’t add one more thing because I’ve got too many other things that if they go sideways, I’ve already told myself I am the solution to or I am the first line of defense against. And so sometimes it, it has to be about what you can do in that worst-case scenario or the resources you’ll be able to call upon should you need them. I’ve offered more people than I, I can think. And not in this house, in our previous house because we had a separate space. Like if you need a soft place to land for a little while, I’ll be part of your safety net plan.

Jess Dewell 44:55
Yeah.

Christy Maxfield 44:56
And sometimes that’s what you need to know if I’m going to make this risk and the worst-case scenario happens. Do I have a couch I can crash on? Will my kids still go, to be able to go to school the next day? Will the mortgage still get paid? The stakes get higher as life gets more complicated. But usually I think we’re all looking at what is our network, what is our infrastructure of being able to be our own first respondent.

Jess Dewell 45:21
Yep. You are listening to it’s yous Business. We are here talking about what it means to navigate, gain confidence, move forward with intention so that we have businesses that thrive. I am your host, Jess Dewell and I am a growth consultant and I’m here with…

Christy Maxfield 45:36
Christy Maxfield with Purpose First Advisors looking at growth through the lens of exit and secession planning.

Announcer 45:44
And Dean Barta at Barta Business Group, serving small businesses with bookkeeping controller and fractional CFO accounting services.

Jess Dewell 45:54
And the third thing that we really want to talk about today, so far we’ve talked about our mindset around risk and reward and failure. We’ve also talked about writing down our goals, writing down our KPIs, how are we going to track and engage with them. And this last part is about risk versus bad choices. I actually believe that we’re more afraid to fail than we are to take risk. Risk. And that’s an interesting thing to say. And I had to really sit with that to make sure and see if I could poke some holes in it. I haven’t been able to. So I can’t wait to hear in the comments if you can. And I can’t wait to hear from Christy and Dean if they can, because this is where it came up for me. I’m thinking about, right, we’re, we’re small and medium-sized enterprises. We can’t afford to play it safe all the time and actually succeed and have longevity. One of the reasons businesses have longevity, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, 50 years, is because they will take risk. And we also can’t afford to be careless. And so that’s where we’ve been oscillating back and forth today. And so can we figure out using how each of us are doing it, but also the things we’ve been talking about around these things to distinguish is it a strategic risk and what are we going to root that in which we were also speaking about earlier because quick action and blind choice, which by the way, I’m an act to plan. So I will always say let’s go do it and see what we have to pick up later. But those blind choices aren’t always the right thing. So being able to go, how much pressure do I have? Where else might we be vulnerable right now so that we can know when to slow down just for ourselves? And I know that I’m a big believer in experience and I’m a big believer in choosing what we want to take away from experience. So if there is a learning, what was the learning that will help us keep going and take that next step forward? And so I was thinking about this, right? Bad decisions come from just recklessly acting on a large scale or they might come from playing it safe all the time actually too, those can result in some bad decisions, even though it sounds like it shouldn’t be that way. And I was thinking about elements to include in this. So this is where my little, okay, this is what I want to hear. Would you add change or say no, this doesn’t actually belong here. And that is scenario planning, right? What can. We talked about this before. Can we absorb it? Are we okay with it? Experimentation? We talked about this too. Until we do it, until we do it more. Until we’re put in situations we haven’t been in before, we actually don’t know what our potential is. We actually don’t know where our limits are. So to keep finding that edge and testing it over and over again, and then I’m all about pilot programs in this, right? If we’re not sure, can we start it over here, learn from it, and then roll it out in a whole different way, or can we a B test? Right? Either way, what are we doing? We’re gathering real data from a real scenario so that we can make better-informed decisions and we can make sure we’re ready or we haven’t missed anything, or we can catch up and adjust to keep going. And then of course, all of those things, they turn into what’s here and what’s here and what’s in our gut, right? Head heart, head brain, heart brain and gut brain. Because we now have this business pulse. And if this is how we’re operating, if this is how we’re finding our risk comfort zone and we’re operating within that, we get stronger, faster, better, and we can go quickly. Yes, no, yes, no, yes. Actually probably more nos than the yeses, but still good. Not so good for us. And that’s actually something I was thinking about in relationship to the difference between risk versus bad choices and a framework for being able to make that.

Dean Barta 49:53
One of the. I think it’s actually Jocko Willink that mentioned. Yeah, Jocko, he’s got great advice and he is like, when things go bad, his stock answer was good. Like it was learning opportunity for the team or for him or whatever. And it’s in it. And what some people miss about that is that it’s the mindset. Like Christie was mentioning the importance of the mindset that, hey, when crap is the ban and all that is how you react to it or how I would react to a search is it can either deter growth or encourage growth and move you through that. No one wants to sit with the muck of a bad decision. But what if you said, good now it gives me an opportunity to do the right thing or I’ll learn it for the next time. And so I, I appreciate and keep throwing myself into that mindset of, yeah, good, okay. And we’ve seen it, we’ve experienced, we’ve fallen off our bike and what Is, are we never going to ride a bike again? No, we’re going to get back on because FOMO, our kids are, all our friends are riding bikes. So why aren’t we. I want to ride bikes with them. So you could use that to your advantage.

Christy Maxfield 51:08
So many things come to mind. One, I think entrepreneurs in particular are always looking for other people’s stories to inform how they grow. And I think one way to use those stories isn’t as a roadmap as much as it is. These are some of the lessons I don’t have to learn on my own. I can take new risks and learn new things because these are the known things that everybody else is up and out there and got the scrape neon and I can actually use their learning to avoid making some of those other mistakes, which frees me up to do new and potentially risky things. The other thing I was thinking was between a risk and I would say we classify it as a risk because there is some level of uncertainty, some level of unknown, and then a bad choice. I have this feeling like the downside is relatively known and you choose to do it anyway. And the best example I can come up with is deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance is risky because bad things can happen when you don’t maintain equipment and infrastructure. But it’s a bad choice because we know bad things can happen when you don’t maintain infrastructure. Right. So that. And so what. But people do this perpetually, right? Is I don’t want to spend the money on that. That thing doesn’t give me instant gratification. It doesn’t immediately hit my top line. It doesn’t immediately hit my bottom line in positive ways. And I can deal with that later. And. But we know empirically from other people’s timelines and experiences that the best case scenario is it’s a short-term shutdown of your operations to deal with the. The maintenance that was never done. And in the worst-case scenario, there’s actually life and death consequences to it. And yet we still often will make that bad choice. So I think really being able to distinguish am I actually setting myself up for risk or am I choosing a path where the downside is known and I somehow think I’m going to beat the odds. Because you’re not.

Jess Dewell 53:27
Because you’re not. This is interesting. So here’s. Here’s something that in our LinkedIn conversation that Jenny Morse said, it sounds like calculated risk is just a way of saying have enough knowledge to make a good decision. Which is where you come in. I love that isn’t that great, Jenny. I love that, Jenny. This is so good. So good.

Christy Maxfield 53:44
Yes. I think it’s important to have somebody in your life, whether it’s a professional advisor or many professional advisors or people on your team who you trust, where you can have these conversations and weigh the pluses and the minuses and think through the scenarios and have somebody say to you, like, do you really think that’s a good idea? Like, I say that’s. You shouldn’t maybe, but take a little pause, take a little breath, take a little beat. Because I don’t want to say I told you, but there are occasions where I am. I can express to people that I was not surprised.

Jess Dewell 54:21
Right. So you want to know something that’s really interesting that I was thinking about and I appreciate everything that you’re saying was. As I was preparing for our conversation today, I went, I got this thing. I got this thing. I know I’ve got this thing. And then I realized earlier this month, every month we look at, at Red Direction, what is the best-performing content that we have? Right on the podcast and on the website. And there’s this thing called the lead decision-making model. And I looked at this thing and I opened it up and it’s been our best performing, our best performing content for over years, like two or three or more years. This is our number one piece of content, and it’s exactly what we’re talking about today. And I was like, yes, this is great. And so this lead actually is an acronym of a sentence which I thought was pretty brilliant of my past self. I’m like, look at this. I love this. We talk about this all the time because it’s a resource that people use. It’s called lead, which stands for Launch effective aligned decisions. That is what we’ve been talking about today. And risk is built into that. What are we willing to do and how are we willing to show up? And do we have the right people in our corner to help make sure that they stay aligned?

Christy Maxfield 55:36
Back to your question, Jess. What are we doing?

Jess Dewell 55:38
What are our biggest takeaways? I don’t want to stop, but we’ve got to stop. So what are our biggest takeaways from today? I’m line up. Do you want me to go first? [Go. Please go.] All right, I can sum mine up. Mine. My biggest takeaway was the worst thing you can do is nothing. That was my biggest takeaway from all of us. If we’re not looking ahead, if we’re not taking action, if we’re not being real with ourselves, if we’re punting and kicking the can down the road a little too much. Right? That’s the worst thing that we could be doing. That’s my biggest takeaway. Do something.

Dean Barta 56:19
I’ll tag on. Yeah. Because otherwise. And I’ll just tag on to my other comment. You’re sitting in the woods. You have no path and you are flat-out lost. There’s no other way. There’s no argument. You’re lost. And it takes a lot of effort to get out. And guess what? That’s a great way to just increase your anxiety. And that might already be there. And, and it’s avoidable. It’s it with proper planning.

Christy Maxfield 56:46
For me, it’s that you’re. The goals you want for yourself and your family are linked directly linked and tied to the goals you want for your business. And the choices you’re making on one side of that ledger impact the other side of that ledger. If you’re thinking about risk and how to protect and keep safe the people and the things and the relationships that you hold so dear, you need to look at how you’re running your business to support those outcomes that you want. And sometimes that means that you’re going to take more risk in one area than the other, but that you can’t pretend like they’re not aligned or interrelated. They need to be aligned, but you can’t pretend that they’re not interrelated.

Jess Dewell 57:31
Thanks so much for joining us on this It’s Your Business, produced and provided by the Bold Business Podcast. Now, this conversation is not over. Christy, Dean and I want to continue this conversation. So we want to hear your experiences. How are you developing your mindset? What are you doing to engage and be strategic with your written goals and KPIs? What is, what is the validation process you use to make sure you’re actually taking the right risk versus making a bad decision? So join us in the conversations on YouTube or LinkedIn and we look forward to seeing you next time.

Jess Dewell 58:09
Every single time I have a conversation, I take away something that I want to share with 25 people. I know when you’re listening to this podcast, you’re also listening for that. And we’ll have something that you want to share. In the comments, I would like for you to engage with us. What is that thing that you want to tell 25 people from this program? Here’s why it’s important. It’s important because, yeah, there are going to be how-to’s. Yes, there are going to be steps. Yes, you’re going to be like, oh. I wish I wrote that down. I wish I wasn’t doing this and I could actually take action on that right now. But guess what? That one thing you want to share. With others will be the thing that you can figure out how to incorporate in your business, in your workflow, in your style, tomorrow.

Announcer 58:59
Jess hosts the Bold Business Podcast to provide insights for building a resilient, profitable business by deeply understanding your growth strategy, ensuring market relevance, and your company’s future. It is bold to deeply understand your growth strategy with your host, Jess Dewell. Get more information about how to drive solutions and reset your growth mindset at reddirection.com. Thank you for joining us and special thanks to our post-production team at the Scott Treatment.