When to Quit, When to Push Through, and When to Start Again

Chris Albert 00:00:00 (link to this point)

What is going on, everybody? Welcome to the Warrior Soul podcast. My name is Chris Albert Palmitessa, and I'm coming at you today solo. Albert is on a trip right now. He'll be back soon.

He'll be back next week, but I want wanted to come at you and and get an episode over to you real quick. If you listen to the last episode, we had a great discussion about coming home and transitions. And we talked a bit about both mine and Albert's experiences in business, and kinda pushing through difficult times. And we got a question from one of our listeners, and and she said this, I started a business a few years ago and impostor syndrome won out. This led me back to a corporate job.

In retrospect, I didn't take the business seriously. I can honestly say that failing was the best thing to happen, and I'm going for round two. I will not be in a cube next year moving data in spreadsheets. Would you and Albert please discuss when and how you decided to pivot, decided to push through, decided it was time to quit, and when you decided it was time to try again? Not on the grand scale necessarily, more of a focused case study for those coming up to the transitions or moving through it.

So it's a pretty deep question actually, because, you know, I think one of the hardest things to determine in your life is when it's time to make a change. Right? So like, a lot of us, we have this like never quit mentality. Right? Like, we're gonna keep going no matter what.

But the problem with that, and that's an awesome mentality to have, the problem with that is when you're constantly doing the wrong thing, and you're not quitting doing the wrong thing. Like, you're going about it the completely wrong way, and you're just so pig headed that you don't wanna quit, that you don't wanna stop what you're doing. Right? I mean, it's like, like, to equate it to something like, maybe it's like your grandmother's racism or her grandfather's racism. Right?

They're wrong. They're completely wrong, but they're so bullheaded. They don't wanna change their their ways, don't wanna change their their their thinking. Right? Maybe that's not a great example.

Maybe it's like, you know, you've got you've got a father who's super strict on his children. Right? And he just wants the best for them, but he's he's going harder and harder on them, and he doesn't realize the bad impact is happening on them. Right? So, like, we as human beings, we do this all the time.

We keep going down paths that maybe we're not supposed to be on. Like, when I was working on my PhD, I... It was... I was, you know, four years into my PhD. Right, eight years into my higher education, four years into my PhD, when I started asking myself, is this something I really wanna do?

And when I actually explored the question, I figured out, no. This is something my family wanted me to do. It's not something I I actually wanted to do. So I had to leave and I had to get out of it very quickly. Right?

And I think, you know, a lot of us, like, we build these stories up in our minds about who we're supposed to be, and so many of these stories aren't really who we truly are, but they're who other people wanted us to be. So when you're asking me like when it's time to quit, I think that's something that each and every one of us has to do is we have to constantly explore ourselves every week. Right? Every day a little bit, I think this is where meditation helps so much, but at least like every week and every month, we have to do an assessment of ourselves. What are we doing?

Why are we doing it? And and is this something we truly wanna do? Right? And again, this is why I think self exploration, meditation, even psychedelics are so important because they they pull back the curtain on our true motives. Right?

You need this in your life. Or you need honest friends. You need, like, good people around you who are gonna tell you the truth. But there's a lot of us out there who won't even listen to people. Right?

Who won't even listen to people. So so that's the first thing I would say. Now, when do you decide to push through? Right? When do you decide to push through?

If after exploring yourself and really figuring out that this is the path that you truly wanna be on, right, no matter what the difficulty, if this is the path you truly want to be on, then that's when you push through. Right? If it's what you want. Right? You know, and and I think success and failure are are like such subjective definitions.

Right? Like, you could be doing something you love and not have a lot of money, or not have what society would term a lot of personal success, but you love doing it, so keep doing it. Right? But maybe, you know, you're not in a great place, and maybe what you're doing is killing you. You know, maybe you're you're...

We get... I'm in comedy, so I see a lot of like, quote unquote starving artists out there. Like, if you literally have no money and you can't feed yourself, maybe it's time to say, okay, how do I make money while pursuing this dream? Like, maybe I should get a job and and do this after hours. Things like that.

Right? But like, there's there's there... And and we have this thing in our heads that says, like, you know, the most difficult way is probably the way to go. Right? And I don't always believe that.

Right? Like, for example, like, again, I see a lot of comedians out there. They're like, I'm just not gonna have a job. I'm just gonna do comedy all the time. Right?

But maybe there's there's ways you could make money. Maybe you could start a side business. Maybe you could maybe you could try to get some passive income. Right? Maybe you could be smarter about how you're making money and free yourself up some more time to do comedy or whatever else it is you're trying to do.

Right? So like, again, I think like those are two questions again you gotta ask. Like is this what I really want to do? Right? And then ask yourself, am I going about it the best way possible?

Right? Am I am I trying to do this in a way that is gonna be good for me, good for those around me, particularly if you have a family, right, because it's not just you. Right? And am I doing this the smartest way possible? Am putting any undue pain on myself?

Right? Like I think some pain is always necessary, but am I putting any undue pain on myself that doesn't need to be there? Because why put more pain on yourself in a world where, you know, everything's trying to kill you anyways? Right? And then when do you decide it's time to try again?

So like, for business, this is a... If we're talking business and exclusively business, when you decide it's time to try again, well, do you have a product? Right? Do you have a service that nobody else can do? Right?

Do you have a business model? Right? Is that stuff set? Right? Do you have a financial plan for how to bring it to fruition?

Do you have a marketing plan? Do you have your team built up? Right? Do you have the people in your life right now that that you're gonna need in order to get this stuff done? Right?

That's that's... So strictly from a business sense, those are the things you need to have. But then the other thing you need to have is everything I've already mentioned. Right? Why are you doing this?

Is it to satisfy your ego or is it because it's truly something you want to do? Are you doing this because you see yourself spending the rest of your life doing this? Right? Because I I think when a lot of us are going after a goal, we we kind of think of it in terms of, oh, there's a finish line and then we stop. Right?

Particularly with business, like, you know, there is no finish line. Right? Like, your finish line is like, okay, I got this business open, I've been dreaming about this for years, now I'm in it, but now the real work starts. And then I get past my first year, and that was a struggle, but I've got, you know, most businesses die within their first five years, so I got four more of these years that I gotta survive this. And then, you know, once you get past that first part, okay, how do we scale?

How do we grow this business? How do I grow my team? Who do I need to hire? And then once you start hiring people and you're growing, you got other worries like, you know, should should I go public? Should I take this company public?

And then if you go public, you're like, oh, man. Now it's all about satisfying shareholders and making profits for them. Right? There is no frigging end to it until, like, you sell the business and you exit, right, completely. You get rid of all your shares if you went public.

Like, the only end is, like, retirement or death. Right? That's the end. Right? And there is no, like, like, I feel like a lot of us like we view ourselves as young people at the end, and it's not.

Like you're gonna be very old, very almost decrepit when the end happens. Right? And then you're gonna die. So like you have to realize that if you're trying to start something again, no matter what you're trying to start, it's the same to start in the first place, you have to picture yourself doing that for the rest of your life. You have to picture yourself doing it through major difficulties, like your boyfriend or your girlfriend's gonna break up with you, or your husband or wife is gonna leave you, or your kids are sick, or like all this other shit that's gonna happen.

Like you gotta picture yourself being able to do it through all of that. Right? And then if you can picture yourself doing that, then do it. Right? And I just go back to what I said earlier is like, you know, you need to find other people who are gonna help you along the way.

It can't always just be you. Right? You're gonna have to scale at some point. You're gonna have to find a team. Alright?

That's kind of everything I got there. So I hope that all makes sense. Know, I've been through a lot of failures, I've had some successes, but I've been through a whole lot of failures. I could tell you much more about failure than I could about success. And man, you know, there's not...

There's no worse feeling in the world than sitting there and knowing that that that you gave everything you could at the time and still not have everything come through. Right? Like some people say like, oh, at least you gave it all. That's like the worst feeling in the world to me. Because like, there's things I've done where like, I put it all on the line.

And like, I pushed and I pushed and I pushed and it still hasn't come through. And maybe I should have pushed some more, you know? But, you know, this podcast is one of those things. Like, like I used to do this podcast full time. Right?

I used to publish three, four times a week. And I loved doing it. Like it was my passion, but I wasn't making enough money and I was destroying myself. Right? So now I publish, you know, once a week, sometimes once every other week, and, you know, earning an income to build other things, right?

And that's where I'm at. Maybe someday I'll be able to do this podcast three times a week again, you know? I didn't quit, I'm pushing through, but I'm also, you know, trying to figure out how to make this thing work like as I'm talking to you guys. So that's what I got for this week guys. I'll be back at at you soon with Albert when he comes back and you know, I love you all.

This is Chris Albert Palmitessa with the Warrior Soul Podcast and I am out.