Sean Finter on Founder Identity: When the Code That Built the Business No Longer Fits the Leader | Paper Napkin Wisdom

It's just not fun when you're when you're a thousand miles an hour barreling through things and more, more, more, to try to fill a hole that, you know, had I stopped at that point if I had the awareness and set said, what do I really want? You know, look at me now. I've I'm fifty three years old. I don't really work more than, you know, a couple hours a week.

Why there's no more more. The more is experiences and love and time with my children, Hi, I'm Govindh Jayaraman and this is Paper Napkin Wisdom, episode number 383. There comes a point in the life of almost every successful entrepreneur where the question changes. It's no longer can I make this work?

You already did. The harder question becomes is the person who made this work still the person I need to be now? And my guest today is Sean Fenter. Sean is joining me for the third time, which says something about.

Both the deep respect I have for him and the depth of his thinking and the conversations we seem to create any time we sit down together. Sean has built companies and advised entrepreneurs around the world, and he has spent decades helping leaders create extraordinary results. More recently, he's been examining what happens when the beliefs and behaviors responsible for those results begin to cost more than they create. He brought this idea to a TEDx stage in Barcelona, and it connects closely with much of the work I have been exploring through Edge of the Napkin.

The traits that helped us survive, build, and prove ourselves may still work. They may even continue producing impressive outcomes, but that doesn't mean they belong in the next chapter of what we are entering. So as you listen, Consider the patterns that have become so familiar that they no longer feel like choices. Consider the identity underneath your ambition and perhaps begin to notice where an earlier version of you is still making decisions for the person you are becoming.

So let's dive into my conversation with Sean Finter. Sean Finter, welcome back to Paper Napkin Wisdom. I'm thrilled to see you here today. Yeah, well thanks for having me back and great to see you as well.

So for those of you listening, Sean is now a three time guest. If I had like a golden jacket, I'd be sending you one right now. But three time guest and one of my favorite guests to have. We've been part of a a network for a long time together and and ~ and and I really love our conversations.

They're always deeper than I expect and ~ and and more fun than I expect. So expectations are high, but I know it's gonna be a great one. So thanks for thanks So for joining me. I'm delighted to be here.

So you've you've done a little bit of a shift from some of the ~ very practical tools that you shared in the past to something that's more identity-based. And it really spoke to me when you shared it with me because it's something that I've been observing a lot, ~ especially out in the world, but also with myself. And and I'm gonna read or describe parts of the napkin and I can't wait to dive into it with you. At the top, it says, You're not broken, you're running old code.

And then you've got A picture on the left of old code and a new code on the right. And there's a head on the old code, like a a brain above the Mm-hmm. old code, and a heart above the new code. There's a loop in the middle, and at the bottom, you've got this thing that says awareness creates the choice.

Awareness creates choice, choice rewrites the code. I love essentially everything about this napkin, and I can't wait to dive into it. Tell me, why did you share this with me? You know, this this lesson that I that I learned the hard way was a long time coming.

~ in some ways something I thought I already knew. I watched my friends go through some very tough times. I lost some friends from not being able to adapt and and ~ overcome some of the struggles that not just entrepreneurs but humans go through. And Then I went through myself and I decided when I was in the hospital that I was ~ when I got better that I wasn't gonna be quiet anymore.

I I just you know, came up in a in an age where it was all slogans of just do it, no one cares, try harder. ~ all those sorts of things, watching movies like Rambo and you know, all the action films. And I just at one point in my life I thought the the only way forward for a guy like me was hard work and keeping my mouth shut and and getting the results. And ~ that certainly got me ~ farther than I ever thought I was, but ~ at some point you have to rewrite your code and make some changes.

So for you, that realization came horizontally, right? Like you were in hospital. Yeah, that's ~ yeah, that's kind of ~ the red light that I ran. ~ you know, knowing y you should stop and and ~ a little voice in your head telling you you've got four kids and two companies and a lot of clients that are counting on you and but what I realized is with this overriding factor was like I'm not enough.

I'm not ~ I haven't proven myself yet. I I need to be more, I need to be better. and yeah, that is in in part and a major part of what ~ landed me in the hospital, which I've described as the the best and worst eight days of my life. ~ you know, a lot came out of that.

I was able to hit reset where ~ a bunch of my friends didn't they're they're no longer with us. so I feel in some ways that it saved me and it gave me an opportunity to to realize like this idea of of overriding the code that's in your head, you know, I learned to do that as a twelve year old working in a truck stop. Right? My boss said when I felt like a failure and I was you know, my teachers told me I I was destined to wash dishes.

Like, I'm glad you found this now 'cause what you're gonna be doing for the rest of your life. And when those are people you look up to and trust, you believe them, right? A part of you does at least. Well this gentleman, Mr.

Panu, said to me, They're lying to you. They don't know any better. Right? He said, There's a formula.

I was, you know, I was very young when I came here from Greece. I had five hundred dollars in my pocket, I didn't speak the language, and someone showed me the formula, this code. How you dream out loud, you know, you set goals, you find mentors, you do the work, you get the proof, and you go around again. And you know, it was the first time I went through this process.

It's like for me it was like giving a a young person a weapon and not teaching them. It's a very powerful thing and it it it really surged me forward in life. But there was no ~ accompanying lesson about how often you needed to clean that weapon and upgrade it and how you n how you take care of it. ~ no one mentioned to me at the time and I take full responsibility for my own journey, but no one mentioned at the time that every time your beliefs change or your circumstances or your goals change You need to change before those things happen or or in conjunction and that's what got me in trouble.

Right. I mean I I think there's lot a lot there. And I want to start off I don't want to spend. with this idea, and and we talked about this Yeah.

in the green room before we began. And one of the things we talked about, Sean, was how there are different times in our lives, there are different seasons in our lives. And in those different seasons, we notice different things about ourselves. And and you know So this season we were talking about you're changing out of is some of what you do is coaching, right?

And you were leaving that behind. But one of the things you even noticed about that was one of the reasons why you have to leave that right now is because there's an overperformance that y y you feel like you have to give so much to it and you have other priorities that you want to include time for So you you have to put down that that toolbox, that that that maybe security blanket that you've been using Mm. for a little while, right? And it's Yeah.

hard to do that, isn't it? It is. And, you know, I I I always ~ had some sense of knowing what I didn't know, so I've always been pretty good about having mentors around me and they and they for the most part they serve me really well. But in hindsight, you know, with me now as a mentor to other people, what was never or at least very rarely ever asked is why.

Why are you doing this? I went from one bar in Sydney, Australia to eight bars and restaurants. And my business plan, I didn't really have one. If I did, it would have just had more.

Right? I just wanted more for the sake of more. I sold that group, I went from a consulting firm off my kitchen table, wrote some software around it. Then we had 28 offices in eight countries around the world.

It's just more. And no one ever said to me, What for? What like and how is it how will this impact your kids? And when the company starts to grow at this arc and your kids are now three, five, and eight, or whatever it is, you know what I mean?

Or how do you think your health will hold up when you're on an airplane, you're having to do 85 flights a year and all this sort of stuff? Again, I don't blame anybody else, but like the system for entrepreneurs, the system for humans, isn't really stacked to the benefit and the well-being of the person doing it, it's just the business. Yeah. And I I love that.

I love I love that your business plan y would have said more and the awareness now that you can look back at it and say the business plan would have said more, ~ and was missing the question what for? So so when did you notice that the business plan needed to change and that word needed to change from more or or maybe it was more and you needed to define more closely what you wanted more of. You y you still want more of some things, but Yeah. Maybe non all things.

Well I I'll tell you where it it changed for me the first time ~ on a treadmill in Sydney, Australia for key man insurance. 295 pounds. I would start drinking my calories at six o'clock in the morning Five, six coffees with lots of cream. Then I'd switch over to Coca-Cola and Red Bulls all afternoon, beer and wine to go to sleep at night.

You know, I didn't even eat that much, but I just put on 100 pounds drinking. And so I'm on this thing, this treadmill, ~ 32, 33 years old. ~ at some point I thought, my god, I'm gonna have a heart attack. I surged forward and hit the button.

Having grown up in Canada as a as an athlete, as a hockey player, I I got off that treadmill drenched in sweat, ashamed of myself. myself and the doctor said to me, he said, you know, Sean, the only thing I really pick up from you is how much you love your kids. He says, How old's your eldest? And the time she was three years old.

And he said, The way you're going, you're not gonna be at her wedding. And I don't remember leaving the office but I do remember sitting on the curb out front and just crying and going like what what have I done? And what am I doing to myself and everybody else around me? That's what inspired me to to sell the restaurant group.

But the fact is, you know, I sold everything in Australia, I moved back to to North America and the only thing that changed was the geography. Right. I j took a consulting firm and blew it up globally, same software running in a different geography, and the next red light was me going to the hospital. Yeah.

How many red lights did take for you to actually change? Cause I think that a lot of people do this, right? They say and and they kind of beat themselves up about it. I think one of the reasons why people s stay stuck in old code and and and underneath this you've got childhood pain protection patterns.

And I think Okay. all of those words are really important, but but it takes some for some of us, Yeah. it takes lots of red lights. It takes lots of signals because You know, you're just sharing now.

I said I said being horizontal in the hospital was the time you changed, but it wasn't the first signal. Yeah. And and this is ~ part of the message and I I'm just trying to, you know, continue a conversation ~ and create some awareness around a subject that I think is is underserved at the moment in our community. And ~ and both the entrepreneurial community and the bar and restaurant community that I belong to, ~ I think the first thing is really defining like what is a yellow light for you and what's a red light.

You know, red lights for me are things that if you if you make it through it, you're very lucky. You didn't kill yourself or somebody else. Right? So I ran a ton of yellow lights.

The yellow lights for me were losing meaningful friendship. being an absentee father when I lived in the same house as my family. ~ yellow lights for me were ~ heart palpitations and and you know laying in bed after drinking too many Red Bulls to try to stay awake to to go to work to open up another venue. The red lights were, you know, having a doctor say, dude, I'm not I'm not telling you this good up and this is how it ends for guys like you.

And it wasn't just the weight, it was the stress, you know, it was the diet. He he just predicted my future. Red light for me is, you know. Just like in the movies, I hope no one listening ever ever has to experience someone asking you to hand them your your belt and your shoelaces.

Right? It's a very, very humbling moment for me. And trying to explain to someone that I wasn't gonna hurt myself. ~ I had run a red light and I was out of control.

And I had to be controlled. And that is very it's makes you f makes me feel ashamed. But it's real and it happened and I don't want it to happen again and I hope other people can avoid it and in hindsight all the yellow lights were there. And I think an adult, leader of a company, leader of a family, should be able to respond to yellow lights and not have to hit the reds.

Yeah. ~ Thanks for sharing that. And I think it I think there's a lot there as well. And I want to go back to maybe where the urge to burn the yellows comes from.

Right. And I think for us, you know, running businesses, I I think we we take a lot of responsibility and some of it's real and some of it is self-imposed. And you know, we we push a lot of responsibility on ourselves that maybe ~ can be shared. ~ But w you said I'm not enough and I used to I used to sort of skirt over this idea and say, well that's that's just something but i i well you know ~ I'm not enough and I I would I would I would find it almost empowering to realise that I was thinking that.

But then I realized Mm-hmm. it was such a limiting decision. And because it's not enough according to whom? Like who who who is deciding when is enough?

I was that something you became conscious of at any point along the way, or did that stay unconscious for you? I think that a as I mentioned, I I feel very fortunate that I at times in my life stumbled across mentors and and then once I became more cognizant of how valuable they are, I gravitated to them and tried to pull them into my world. But the early gentleman that was twelve years old, like he was the first person to really help me understand that I was enough. You know, and by comparison to him, he's like, dude, you have every advantage over me.

Like, look at you compared to me. But my you know, a lot of that was material. And my ~ what I my perceived shortcomings at the time is I'm adopted. And so I I I'm I'm the luckiest adoptee in the world that I the family like I won the lottery with, but that's still for a kid to reconcile that you know I was given up ~ with no guarantees.

~ so that happens. I'm dyslexic and at the time I was diagnosed as a son of a French Canadian woman. ~ and you know, it just but walking into that special education classroom ~ tells you you're not enough. You're not allowed to sit with the other kids.

You're you're not good enough to do this. Having teachers reinforce that because you're the class clown. ~ and that's their way to to use a sharp stick on you to say that you're not enough and I'm gonna punish you. ~ I was bullied a bit.

You know, all these things just add up to to a place where you get and say, you know, how do I become enough? And so the yellow lights for me, my resume would have been pretty short, right? I don't graduate high school. So ~ education part would have been eighth grade was the last grade, I technically graduated.

~ You know, so what would my resume say? And at that time in my life, in my early twenties, it was I'm a yellow light guy. You take me on, and I will make it s safely to the other side, but I'm gonna take a lot of risk. I'm gonna work harder than anybody else.

I'm gonna drive a team to work harder than you want. I'm get extraordinary results with a minuscule budget, you know, back me, take me on. And that The the the proof I got from that was more money I never thought I'd make, traveled all around the world. I couldn't believe it was working.

And it worked right up until it didn't. And that's the idea of, okay, I gotta rewrite this code because, you know, you you can you can you can jump over a a a pool of alligators so many times that it went away you're gonna slip and things are gonna end poorly. So I decided to rewrite. You know, the I I so what's really interesting about that and what you're not maybe saying out loud, but I believe is right there is that you formed an identity around being this high risk, high reward guy.

And I I'm I'm just gonna I'm gonna gamble everything that I'm gonna be able to make it through this yellow light and I'm gonna do that over and over aga over again. And and by the way, the part of it that we don't tell out loud is I'm gonna take my family with me. I'm gonna take Mm. my business with me.

I'm gonna take my team with me. I'm gonna take all of you with me as I gamble this yellow light over and over and over again. And Yeah. that becomes our code.

That becomes our creative. That becomes our identity, doesn't it? Yeah. Well, for me it was ~ a little different than I'm going to take these people.

I have to take these people. This is all I got. This is who I am. And you know, sadly my self-talk was everyone knew what they were getting into.

Right? ~ that might have been true at one time, but as this the circumstance evolves, as our as our beliefs evolve, as our goals evolve, so must the person. And that's where I failed. I was still using the old system.

to try to accomplish new results and then you know I'm sure teams of people that work with me and my family you you wake up one day and you're like, wow, we're in the car and this guy's driving and it's scary. And and it's and it's not fun anymore. Right? It's just not fun when you're when you're a thousand miles an hour barreling through things and more, more, more, ~ to try to fill a hole that, you know, had I stopped at that point if I had the awareness and set said, what do I really want?

You know, look at me now. I've j I'm fifty three years old. I don't really work ~ more than, you know, a couple hours a week. Why there's no more more.

The more is experiences and love and time with my children, all that sort of stuff. Like I I'm so thankful that I woke up now rather than at at sixty five alone in a hospital with a heart attack. Right. And and and so and and I think that there's there's a lot of awareness around this recently.

And and you said it off the top and and I'm gonna say it too, that a lot of people are pushing away for something, and that away from energy works because you can push away from it. It's the same thing that makes people make New Year's resolutions and choose something that they want to do in the short term. But the the second that you get a little bit away from it. The second that you get away, it starts to lose your pull.

And this is why most New Year's resolutions are abandoned by the time you get to February, because people, you know, I'm gonna lose five pounds, they lose two point three pounds, and then all of a sudden they're like, ~ well, maybe that glass of champagne looks good, or maybe this thing, it's it's Valentine's Day, it doesn't count. And all of those kinds of things start to come into people's lives the moment they push a little bit away from it. But but the more powerful opportunity is moving towards something.

And focusing on what you really want. And Yeah. not not what you don't want. You don't want pain.

You don't want patterns. You don't want all of this stuff. So you push hard away from it. And that keeps you to let yellow light thinking.

But this to word thing and sitting down, really thinking about what you really want. And that goes back to your question that you said is like more, but what for? Like what's behind it? Doesn't it?

Yeah, exactly. And I and I think that's you know part of the work I try to do now with my clients in coaching is like, you know one one of the first things that that we do is prepare your business for sale. And people say, Well I don't want to sell my business. I say, Well you will at one point.

And there's something liberating about having something ready maybe an offer comes in, maybe you get sick, maybe someone in the family gets sick. So I'll it it's impacted me in such a way I'm thinking about everybody around me to just create options and have awareness around that. And you know, the the goals they're setting now, it it when I look back to to the younger ~ coach version of Sean, it was all about doubling, tripling whether that's company size or outlets or or profit.

And now I'm like, well what you know, how old are your kids? ~ fifteen and nine. Okay, fifteen got three summers left okay what if you how much time do you take off with your kid in the summer ~ you try to get a week off i said what if you got six weeks off for the next three years what would that look like i can't do that ~ yeah you can yes you can you know so these are the new goals that all people set and i'm happy to report you know over the last four or five years of of changing this mindset is that nobody's gone backwards now has everyone grown the way they used to some have some haven't but No one's unhappy.

Right? No one's gonna regret that six weeks, three weeks in Europe, three weeks at the cottage with your kid. Kid's gonna be gone. Right?

Maybe they come back for some trips, but for the most part, it's you and your wife, or you and your husband, or you on your own. And so that's the sort of, you know, what for is saying that like, what if this was all over in three years? Right? ~ you break your back, your life is very different.

And so what's this three years worth? Let's run a kick ass business in parallel with a kick ass life, but you have to design both. And I and I think that most people just don't realize that what they want, what most people want, is i leaders, most entrepreneurs want freedom in their business to do the work they like. Because you know, people get into business because they like an element of what they're doing anyway.

So you want to work on what you wanna work on within the business. There's a part of it you love, do that part. They want freedom from the business to be able to do those six weeks off and freedom because of the business. And most of the things, most of the time people don't remember to even design around any of the other freedoms.

They try to control around everything. And and I think that keeps them in this, in this pattern, in this, in this reaction, doesn't it? I I think it does. And even even the idea of not being able to to get the time off that to me that should be a primary goal, right?

Like if if your business I get some business if you're a one man show or a one lady show, whatever, but if you have employees and you can't take six weeks off with your family You know, maybe you just have a a a really nice job that you have a ton of overhead attached to and a bunch of risk. Like the idea that, you know, getting that business ready for sale or for someone else to run in your absence while you, you know, heaven forbid, take have to take care of a child who has cancer or or whatever it might be.

Or or you want to go backpack with your your teenager through Africa. Like These these to me are the new awesome things that are possible in this world and especially with technology. If you had to say twice a week, hey, I gotta I gotta cut out an hour twice a week to do a Zoom call with my team to answer any questions I didn't answer before I left or make any key decisions, like that's the world we live in today. And and when I look at especially in my industry, in the bar and restaurant industry, people aren't living that reality.

They're they're living like my bosses were in the eighties. That's a shame. Yeah, it it really is. So l let's let's let's talk about you know, you part of it was the yellow light versus the red light and understanding it.

But the other part of it is y something you said where this is all I got. We convince ourselves that the yellow light thinking, the high risk, high reward thinking is all we've got. Because it's got receipts. So, you we said this off the top and and the language I like to say is that, you know, we've got this mask that we put on when my leadership mask, my business owner mask, my c business development mask, my customer service mask, my whatever mask.

I'm gonna put on my mask and I'm really good at putting on that mask. And I've got receipts for that mask, right? I've built a business. I've employed Mm-hmm.

Yeah. people. I've built I've got a house. I've got a life.

I've got family. Everybody's depending upon you said it, I have four kids, all these employees, eight locations, everybody's depending upon me. And this mask has got receipts. It's it's hard for people to put that down, isn't it?

It's it's extremely hard. And in my case, you know, just the the lack of formal education that I had, that that little voice in my head kept saying like, dude, you you you cracked the code, you're on to a good thing. what else what else is there? You know, where you're gonna go?

Right, you're gonna go get a job for somebody or something else. And it's also not wanting to lose the momentum. And, you know, I just kept pushing and pushing. Like I said, just for more and not even I'm not even I've never really been incentivized by money.

So it was just more validation that I was enough that everything that was ever said to me about you were you were born to work and wash dishes or you're gonna be digging ditches or you know, some the the bullies like you're adopted because your parents didn't want you and all that all even the adoration I got from other people, I started public speaking, like all these things just didn't fill that hole. And I maybe it's a good ~ argument for therapy, right? I just I was that, you know, tough guy that I'm not gonna go to therapy either.

Like when I when I first started to go to therapy, probably fifteen years too late, but my therapist when I told her what I was trying to do in business and in coaching and and all of that and she said to me, she said, You're going back to rescue your twelve year old self. And she's right. Right? I want to do for others what what happened to me and I also want to help people avoid some of the major ~ missteps that I took along the way.

So yeah, when it's you know, what do they say? When it all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail to you. I just kept pounding those nails and It got me and in trouble and got it you know, it's not pleasant to to work for somebody either who's, you know, that hard of a driver and and ~ as a lack of you know, I wasn't in touch with my own feelings, so I certainly wasn't that in touch with anybody else's. No, I mean I sadly relate to a lot of that.

so you you said something really interesting, right? So you had this no education, so you wanted more validation that and that you you'd created this great thing, right? So who am I to say that this isn't right? Because like look at all I've achieved even though I had all these strikes against me and and so it's I've gotta hold on to this mask.

I gotta keep on doing it 'cause it's all that it's gonna work. What am I Who who am I to even think that I can change anything? And and there was a moment where you believed you could, right? There was a moment Yeah.

where that transition and you could believe you could. ~ And did it come at that moment? Because I think there's a lot of when Mm-hmm. I when I talk to you, Sean, every single time I talk to you, the you're you've become every time I talk to you, you're increasingly comfortable in your own skin.

I mean, A, you look great. You you've lost weight, you've taken care of yourself, you're taking great h care of yourself. And I think a big part of yourself. is that you've started to appreciate yourself just the way you are.

And that's the other side of this, I'll be trying to make something else. right? On one side is, I need more, I need more, I need more validation, I need more. But there's another side of it, which is loving yourself just the way you are.

Right. I I I think what I had to what took me the longest to appreciate ~ getting out of the hospital and just doing the work on myself and in therapy and and a lot of writing and and reflection. you know, the the shame that I felt wasn't about the old code. Right?

The old code was not only all that I had, it was actually very useful for me. It was a right thing for me at that time. My problem was I kept running the old code in a new environment. Right?

And that's where will it still get results? Sure. Yeah, it get get results. It'll it'll move certain KPIs, but it didn't make my life better.

And it didn't make the people around me better or love me more or or grow as human beings. And that's you know, that's what I took the time in Barcelona to talk about at the TEDx talk was like, you know, we shouldn't be ashamed of of how we've been wired and programmed. But we should take the time. You know, in my case I look back and it was like every three to five years.

I I went through major changes. Geographically, I went from being not a not a parent to a parent to having four kids to having two employees to having four hundred employees to having one office to having twenty-eight offices. Like all of those things require, am I running the right code for this now? Am I growing, preparing myself to grow into this situation and allow everyone to do that with me?

I kept the old code, it got the results, but not the results I wanted. So So let's talk about the how we go from this old loop into this new belief. Where does that start? Where did that start for you?

Yeah. Express going to take back. Because Barcelona, I mean, not all of us ~ express it on a TED talk. Hopefully not all of us have to be on.

And and hopefully not all of us have to be horizontal and hospital before we make that realization either. Right? So so how do we set this for ourselves? Yeah, e exactly.

So a few a few things that that really became clear and and funny enough, like A lot of what we're talking about today and a lot of what I've been writing about came out of an eight-day period of my I filled up countless ~ these ~ spiral ring binders. They just kept bringing them to me. All this stuff poured into my head and I couldn't read it for about a month or five or six weeks. And when I did, I kept thinking, who wrote this?

Like if these these are just was like my subconscious thoughts and it frustrated me that it was all there and I just didn't have access to it when I needed it. so I think first off, I've always appreciated the acronym for fear in false evidence appearing real. Right? That's what fear is.

It's not a big scary thing in front of you that you gotta go and poke. It's your past beliefs. It's false evidence that you've had. So my false evidence in this case was the things that made you successful are running red light or running yellow lights.

And and I've got to the point where I can do it as a bus driver. I've got 40 people behind me and a wagon tied behind that. You know, I and and somehow we'd always get to the other side. But everyone's terrified, exhausted.

You know what I mean? But if the goal is just to get to the other side, without killing anybody, I was being very successful. So that was first off. But I think the the the pattern that I realized and I have to adopt now and moving forward is the first thing is the recognition of the pattern.

Like what what are you actually what what are you cycling right now? You know, where do you you know the can you identify the old code? And in the old code, like what's the trigger? So what's the initial trigger that you're feeling?

Because when that trigger happens, then that old story comes out. Right? And my trigger, I didn't realize it at the time. It was through therapy that really helped me understand.

My trigger at the time was you're not enough. Look at the way that guy's looking. You didn't get that contract with that public company. You're not enough.

And so now you're going to show them. You're going to go, they're the number three public company in the space, you're going go to the number one, which I did and got the largest ~ contract of its type in my industry. Why did I do that? Not because it was gonna make me a better father, right?

It was gonna answer my story that I am enough. Turns out that it didn't anyways. Then you get to react to it, right? And then from reaction you go to proof and say see what happens.

My problem was is that the old story kept getting the very visible results that look like a success for an entrepreneur. Right? But then I realize how many people do we know that have died of heart attacks doing this? And and that their kids don't even talk to them.

All of their friends from the early part in their life, they don't know where they are anymore. They're alone, you know, it's I realize, ~ my goodness, this loop that I'm on is is going to a very dangerous place. And Mm-hmm. I realized that right before I went to that dangerous place.

That shows you how hard headed I am and I said, just one more run. Right, just like a a gambler. Just one more all in with these chips, I'll double and then I'm out. Well, I coulda lost everything.

Yeah. So let's let's go back to this. So I think bringing awareness to it and noticing it is such a big is such a big an important part. and important part of that, right?

And and you took dozens of spiral rolling b binders and just put it out, put the loop out of your head. And I think there's something so therapeutic about that, something so dedicated about that if you're not in your feel that if you're not sure how you feel and it's just running around in your head, and it's just really going on in your head. The easiest way to start processing it is really to start writing. What distruct processing it is to really disrupt like you can get the loop Get the loop out.

Put it on paper, out and put it on paper, isn't isn't it? it? Yeah. It it that that's ~ definitely a great way to start to capture.

I I think though, for me anyways, like getting out of my head and taking my notes and sitting down with people. Like I'm I'm still part of a a forum group and I propose this exercise that we we look at our current code and and what's triggering us and you know, therefore what's driving our lives and everything else, and we did it as a group. ~ extremely powerful. ~ you could do it with five friends at a coffee shop.

And and really and then y you know, if there are people that care about you, they might poke you a bit and challenge you and say, Really? ~ therapy is another great way, right? Go and talk to someone and you know, what I said was I I know that this old software I have in my head is get it got me in a lot of trouble and I need to to change it, but you can't change something that you can't fully recognize. Right.

Right. So After you fully recognized it, you talk about this idea of a reaction, Right. That's true. right?

So w what is what is your new reaction? How do you build a new reaction? How do you practice the older reaction? You know, reaction is the old reaction is eventually not even thinking about it.

Because the older reaction is habitual. You're not even thinking about it. So it's it's one thing to say I'm gonna have this different reaction. So it's it's one thing to say I'm gonna have this different reaction.

It's another thing to say, this is how I'm gonna perform under stress. It's another thing to say just as hell we're looking at the point under stress. Yeah, well so if we take a step back before the reaction and we look at the trigger, so my old trigger was I'm not enough. My new trigger now and in my life, I'm getting married ~ in in August.

Allie and I have been together six years. We've traveled all over the world together, like I just wanna live a a full and wonderful life now. I just wanna have have a very rich life of experiences and friendships and and travel and and more time than most people get with their parents and their kids and all of those sorts of things. So if that's my trigger, if that's what's what's gonna drive me and set off, like, you know, then you know, when you look at the cycle, like does this serve me?

Am I headed in that that direction? Very different from where I used to be, playing out of a A place of pen. Yeah. And so your old story, your old trigger would have been around comparing yourself to these other people and saying, I I I I need more.

I need to catch up. say I I I I I need more. I need to get more I need to I need to get more. I need to I need to get more.

Your new one is Yeah, I I I was never one to to compare myself so much that I know we all do to a degree, but I d I've never felt a lot of envy of b but I was I was purely like I was at a deficit. I was not smart enough. I was Not from a rich enough family. I was not this, I was not that.

And I was gonna do this work until I was not only, you know, at a certain level, but I wanted to be recognized as somebody who was better than that, that people would talk about. And I did that for the most part. But that trigger isn't the right one for me. Right.

So then what comes next? So you focus on the experiences, you focus on the people around you, then what comes next? So then for for us now, you know, it's really just driving the our own narrative now, the story. And it's like all entrepreneurs are are pretty good at at planning or at least articulating their plan to get people to take action around it.

I look at the four quadrants of my life now, every single day. I have a vision board that I look at, being dyslexic, I'm very visual, you know. Most people are just looking at the professional side and it's planning around that. But I also look at the family side and look at, you know, what plan do I have over the next thirty-six months for between Allie and I are six kids, my my wife seemed to be wife, my parents who are in their mid eighties, her parents mid-eighties, like th it's almost a full-time job if I want to get it right and and what I consider right inside of that.

So that's quadrant number two. Quadrant number three, I look at my community and part Part of why I'm doing what I do right now. It's not half of the time that I spend working, but probably a third of it is talking to people about this and saying, you know, we might have our sight set on the wrong goal. You can still hit a lot of those financial goals, but you might be missing your life on the way through, mental health, all these sorts of things.

And then the fourth quadrant. is is me. Most people don't have it personal. I appreciate you know what you said to me about looking good.

I feel good. I'm I'm at the right weight right now. I'm not as strong as I as I wanna be. So I'm getting to that.

I'm eating totally different. I'm drinking less. I'm I'm I'm walking rather than running and pounding. I'm doing all these things differently now.

And because I have a plan for each of those four quadrants, which at one point my out of a big chunk of my life it was just the business box and it drove everything it dragged everybody along with it. Right. Forced everything along with it. Right.

Well forced everything along with it, right? Aren't we? Right. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. And and when in my case, when you can't, you just get frustrated with people and be the martyr. Don't you see what I'm trying to do for everybody and make them feel bad?

And I look back at past behavior, you're like, that's just not not who I wanna be. So what happens after that? What happens after you look at your four quadrants, you look at how it sits, you've changed your story. What's next for you?

What's next for you? Then we just go we take action on it. And that's what we're that's what we're doing now. You know, I I I talked for a lot of years about doing a lot of things, and then I woke up and I was fifty three.

I've done a lot. I've ch I've traveled to over sixty countries, I've done a lot, but I and that we talked in the green room, ~ you know, I've been to sixty three countries. Probably in reality I've been to like twenty five. And the other ones, I was in those countries.

Yeah. What what do you mean by being in those countries? 'Cause I think you and I have a similar story, but people listening are like what are you talking about? Yeah.

Well I you know, I a good example as a a few years ago, five, six years ago, a neighbor said, we're we're going to Milan in a month's time and I said, that's cool. I was just there last week and they're like, Can we get some recommendations? And I froze and I'm like, well the airport was nice, Ubers are a lot like here, the hotel I stayed at looks just like the hotels here. ~ I went to two restaurants, I'll give you the name of that.

But I d I wasn't I wasn't even in Italy. I was just in transit at meetings and speaking somewhere, in and out and gone. And that's a good example of what I I'm never gonna do again. Unless I have to, unless you're going to a funeral or something.

But y if I'm going somewhere I'm gonna get on a plane, you know, a week, a month, we're looking at spending two months in different places, three months. You know, that's that's to me is living, right? And changing your mindset. And yeah, that does come at a stage in your career when you can do that, but I I mentor a couple of people that are in their mid-20s that make killer money in American dollars and they're nomads.

They go all over the world. And you know how far a hundred and fifty grand US goes in Vietnam? Like, it's it's just incredible. Japan's expensive.

Not for them. Not if you're making 150 US and you're single, you can go and live a beautiful life and spend six months in Japan. It's a new world that I just don't think a lot of people have really changed that software and went, what could I do if I hit reset and and reset my goals? I really like this.

I mean, when I used to travel for business, I mean like this. I had this rule that if I had a meeting at four o'clock on one day, that it was perfectly acceptable for me to land at, something more for me to land you know, three fifty nine if I could. You know, if the meeting were in the airport and I could guarantee that I was gonna be there on time. I it was it was last flight in, Yeah.

Yeah. first flight out. That was my rule. That was my topic in that that's sort of the way And it's funny to observe as you're talking.

that that's the way I used to run my code and now it is totally different. I used to run my code and now it's totally different. Right. We we went a couple of years ago to ~ to Romania and a client of ours and we'd scheduled to be there for a few days and had one one gig to do.

And this guy owns some of the coolest bars and restaurants. So he took us everywhere, all over the city, everything else. And we just said we're gonna extend our our stay and and then l Little plane, went to to Greece, which is a short hop away, ~ came back and and I just said, This is it. Like this is how you live.

You just have a flexible schedule, you go where it feels good, and you say to people, like I just said to him, I I wanna I wanna experience this. I wanna don't take me to the the best places according to TripAdvisor. I want best places according to you. And it's just a different way to live.

And and it takes me anyways, like a month to get a feel. We spent a lot of time in Mexico, and after I'm there for three or four weeks, I certainly Don't feel like a local, but I no longer feel like a tourist. Start to see all the same people. You hit the restaurants, live music at night, catch up with different friends.

I love Harleys. You can rent a Harley anywhere. I jump on a bike, alley on the back, we go around like that's living for me. Right.

And that's your version of that's the that's the take action you want to have now. Yeah. That's the action you're taking That's the action you're taking now. now.

Yeah. And then the final piece of that where you're you're looking at like what what proof do I now have? Right? Is this working?

Right? And even as cool as all that might or sounds to me anyways, you know, there's trade offs because when you're in Bucharest or in Lake Chipala or Sydney, you're not in Schaumburg where your parents are, or Indianapolis where your kids are, or or Sydney where your other kids are. But I'm constantly taking stock as to am I living the life that I'm I'm proud of? Am I trying to make as many opportunities for everybody?

We were also saying earlier that, you know, the the trade off now is a a a organization fly me in used to be business class. Now I'll just take two economy tickets, which are cheaper than business class. Allie and I go and instead of a hotel, a nice hotel, it's as cheap or cheaper for a three bedroom ~ Airbnb that we'll get for a week or two weeks and then tell our friends that here's a schedule. We've got this open and this open.

You wanna come in, be our guest and we'll check out the town and I work in one of the best industries for that in that every bar and restaurant owner wants us to come by and say hello and check out what they have. So it's I wasted a lot of time and a lot of air miles in the past. You seem you know, I I I said earlier on that you look great because obviously Obviously you've lost weight to look at you've lost weight, you look healthy, you are healthy, but you seem lighter too.

Two like Like there's a there's a difference to look, i anybody who knows Sean Finter or if you've heard his name before, anybody knows Sean Fitcher, if you've heard his name before he speaks he speaks on big stages, you're good at talking. on fifty stages in talking. And And Is a better meter to your dialogue today. is it better than just give a two-year dialogue today?

You're lighter, you're more present. Have you said by yourself? Have you noticed that about yourself? well, thank you.

it means a lot coming from you and ~ yeah, I have. And I think that the biggest reason ~ of of the changes that I've made to to work on me and to reposition for this next phase is you know the self-forgiveness. You know, I I had a lot of guilt before. I when I started talking about not being the best employer I could and all that, I've I've had dozens of people that work for me to reach out and say, are you kidding me?

You were great. And I the the the delta between what I know I could have been and who I actually was is is is huge. And my friends, I most of them have stuck with me all these years and I'm so grateful. but I wasn't I wasn't a great friend.

I just wasn't present at all. And most importantly to me is my family, you know, even my kids, my son, who's so much more emotionally intelligent than I am, you know, we were talking about the divorce and tough times and all of that and and I just said I'm sorry for all that happened and, you know, how it all transpired and he's he's like Dad, like More than half of my friends' families are divorced and he goes, We're all great now. We're, you know, we it was tough, but we all got through it and we're better for it.

~ so it's been a lot of forgiveness and a lot of self-forgiveness, and I think that's where the real weight gets shed, right? That you start to feel like, you know, made some mistakes and ~ wish I could take a few things back, but At the end of the day, I'm I'm happy where I'm at and I think that I can do a lot of good moving forward and that's in great comfort to me. There's a thing that I like to say to people, and it's that we ~ we are our most exponential selves. the most exponential sense we are putting this contribution to the world what We are our greatest contribution to the world when we are for others what we for others what we needed most desperately for ourselves and we needed most desperately for ourselves.

And I mean desperately for ourselves. I mean desperately for ourselves. And you even said that earlier on, And you even said that earlier on that you are now a given that you are now giving people what you needed. And what you needed.

Right. Yeah. And you're doing that you're doing that from a very genuine kind You're doing that, you're doing that from a very genuine and loving place. of London place.

And I think that's the other part of this. And I think that's the other part of this, that, you know, the old code is run by our heads or so we think. That you know the old code is run by our heads or so we think. And the new code is run by our hearts.

And the new code is run by artist. And you know And you're very, very aligned a lie what you're thinking, in how you're what you're thinking, what you're saying, and how you're chatted. what you're saying, and how you're reacting. And I think that's beautiful.

I think ~ twelve year old I think that's meaningful. I think ~ told me to put Don't the Victoria have to let Sean would have grabbed on to you as a mentor and never let go. go. I I think so and I hope so.

And as I said, I I have b I have nothing but gratitude for all of my mentors. I just think there was a a piece of the conversation missing in when I brought these really crazy audacious goals is why? And who is this gonna benefit? All of you or just you or for your ego or a hole that you're trying to fill or you know what I mean?

Like I just think that's gotta become part of our planning process and You know, one other thing that I encourage my clients to do is like when you get your plan worked out for the next twelve, thirty six months, take it to your family, take it to your kids. Show what you're gonna do and and talk about what you know, if all goes well that that paper probably represents, but if you hit some tough times and like does mom have to disappear for seventy hours a week, does dad gotta go on the road for fourteen weeks a year to lock things down?

Like, you know, there's I I made a lot of decisions on behalf of a lot of people and and didn't ~ talk to them about the plan. Yeah. I love that. I I love that idea of sharing it with the people that we love, especially our our families.

Families. You know, however you have your quadrants, quadrants test them against each one of those. test them against each one of those. So Sean, this is the part and it feels like as usual I feel like we could So shut this is the part that feels like as usual I feel like we do eight episodes instead of one, can do eight episodes instead of one.

but But I Many years ago, John Rulin came to me with a great napkin and said, John Rulin came to me with a great napkin and said, What you appreciate appreciates. Well, he appreciate appreciates. ~ as you know, he passed away suddenly, ~ as you know, he passed away suddenly, unexpectedly, eighteen months ago. unexpectedly, two months ago.

And since that time we've been asking every guest And since that time we've been asking every guest to pay forward to pay forward his message of gratitude and appreciation by shouting out somebody. his message of gratitude and appreciation by shouting out somebody. And I know you've shouted out a lot of people already in this conversation, And I know you've shouted out a lot of people already in this conversation. but let's close this with one big shout out for somebody.

Yeah. But let's close this with one big shout out for somebody. Man, there's a lot of let me pick. You can pick more than one.

Well, if I if I was to pick one ~ person who has ~ impacted me before the hospital and has been ~ really there for me afterward. Just a very wise and kind soul. it's my friend and and forum member Rob Cosberg. You know Rob at Bestseller Publishing in ~ in St.

Augustine? He'd probably be a great guest for you here. He's such a such a great guy. but Rob's that friend who What I love about him is, you know, y he you can go to him for advice, he's very thoughtful, he'll think it through and he'll give you his best.

But he's also the friend that'll just sit beside you until you're ready to talk and and ~ that's very rare. I'm not very good at that. He's he's a guy I'll sit in silence and just bring this comfort and then suddenly, you know, you'll you'll be ready. But I just think the world needs more people like Rob Cosberg.

Well, I'm grate I'm grateful for that. ~ I'm grateful that you had Rob and we'll people the world needs more people like Sean Fetter, I'd say that much. Thanks for being here, Sean. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Sean's napkin offered a compassionate place to begin. You are not broken. The code you are running may have been written at a time when you needed to protection or proof or a way to keep moving.

It may have helped you build everything you have today. And it may no longer be the chapter ahead. So as this conversation settles, perhaps you can notice one pattern that you've been repeating in your life: the trigger, the story, the reaction, the proof that keeps the belief alive. And you don't have to judge it, you just have to see it, notice it.

Because awareness creates a choice. And the moment a response becomes a choice, the code has already begun to change. Sean's story also reminds us that growth needs a purpose. Maybe more is just not a complete vision.

The numbers matter, but so do the people who live inside that plan with us, our families, our teams, our health, the version of ourselves. Who will eventually arrive at the destination? So, what are you building? What's it for?

And does the person you are becoming still need the identity that brought you here? So thank you, Sean, for returning to Paper Napkin Wisdom for a third conversation and for sharing this part of your life with us with such openness. We can all learn more about Sean and Sean's work at SeanFinter.com, and I hope you'll check it out.

And I really appreciate Sean. So thank you. Until next time, keep looking for the ideas that are small enough to fit on a napkin and large enough to change your world. My name is Govind J.

Rahman. This was Paper Napkin Wisdom. Make it a great day. I believe in you.