 All right, Emily, we are live Awesome, this is great Eric. I'm excited to be here. No, I'm excited to have you on for all of those watching and Oh, you have to turn your video Yeah, good For all those watching Emily actually was on the gov con giants podcast. She's episode number 34 If you have not yet watched her interview With me we discuss her time at the Navy office of small business programs and We'll go over that for first couple minutes while people Join us, but for now I like to welcome Emily Harman and she's gonna talk about all the new things that she's learned and experienced since leaving the government I have a special place in my heart for all you entrepreneurs I Love it. Love it. Love it. Love it. So before we get started as always Like I like to tell people out here if you're new to the channel if you're new to the community Use this time to introduce yourself. Let people know the industry you're in let people know the city that you're operating from again With COVID we have not had a chance to have live meetings live conferences And so I always want to encourage folks out there to tell us what city you're in and also what industry because They're gonna be people watching this who may be able to work with you help you network with you connect together We as small business owners need to work together not against one another, right? So we're we're not big enough to fight and to compete. I mean, we should be Again working together. So for me all the folks out here listening welcome welcome welcome Let us know what industry you're in and also what city you're from So Emily with that said, how are you today? I'm doing great Eric. Yeah here I'm I'm in Stanton, Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley. All right, Stanton, Virginia, and I'm in Palm Beach, Florida It's probably a little nicer there, but today's pretty day here. I'll take you. Yeah The weather's been good up there in your areas lately No, not too bad. Well, we have we have some people I hear from Hawaii that my man Charles He's from Hawaii. So he's I think he always takes the cake on exotic locations Again, he wins every contest when we were talking about locations and things like that So, you know, he always he takes the cake on that but so today There's some different topics that you'd like to discuss and if you want to Go over some of the ideas we're gonna kind of just to kind of plant the seed set the stage This is gonna be a little bit different than traditional government contracting 101 102 Emily It's gonna talk about mindset and some things that she's learned since leaving their position at the Navy and Also, she's a podcast out. She's cooperating on some book deals and she's now part of a group. What is the name of it positive? Oh Is positive intelligence positive intelligence program that I'm in so I wanted to talk about that too Yeah, I just wanted to share about like what's happened since I retired and And what I've learned that some of you may already know but And what I'm trying to do about it in terms of I see a lot of people talking about like how to win government contracts And that's what I used to talk about a lot when I was working in the Navy office Small business programs all the things that small businesses need to do and it's really important Those are all things that you need to do. But then when I started my own company I started noticing some of the mindset things that can really hold an entrepreneur back and The best leaders are self-aware and I've spent the past almost two years. I retired in May of 2019 Becoming a lot more self-aware and understanding myself and you know, we're always growing We're always expanding. We're always involving into a new version of ourselves And I was looking forward to sharing some of what I've learned With you and your audience. Oh, that's great. That's great. No, well and and like I said earlier before we started recording this episode today was that You know, I used to Well, I don't say used to in the past. I've made content related to fear motivation goal setting As well and so it's been a few years since we've made any of that type of content So I'm actually excited myself to see what I learned from this episode. So again, I I see there's about 30 people online I only see one or two people who's telling me what they do. I see medical supplies Nigel Murphy, let me greet the people real quick Emily before we jump on Talk to everyone. Can you see your chat on your side? I got I actually closed my screen. I'm gonna open it up again Open it up and see the chat just All right, let's see who we have in here today We already know who why he's here. I'm actually Nellie now Joshua Let's see Maria Martinez, baby goat All right, Stephanie's here Jesse Forte's here Leland's on board Well, it's Tracy Burt, Victoria Singleton, Marisha Pierce All right A lot of people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's getting there. It's getting there Roy Landers welcome Eric Canales welcome All right quest power Orlando All right, I see you I know you have a good podcast Eric, so this is great all these listeners and Um, you put out. Oh, yeah great content. No, we have we get a lot of support I mean, we you know, we get a lot of support and that's you know, I again, I I um, you know, the biggest thing for me what I found is being consistent, right and um, You know, you know what your podcast? It's really being consistent And Always trying to deliver value and and that's one of the things that I found for me That works incredibly well and building my brand was Putting out consistent high quality content videos You know, even look for for about Two years I was constantly upgrading my equipment cameras light sound mics. I mean everything and My my video producer would scream Not literally, but you know all caps and typing This sounds awful. It sounds like you're in a woods like you're in a jungle and he always beat me up So I um, I just kept working on improving constantly Um, my you know everything that I was doing my offerings and so and again also, you know, bringing on great people Right connecting with great folks out there who have experience. Uh, by the way As all of our conversations, it's not a one-way conversation. This isn't a presentation Um, treat it like an event where we're sitting now and pretend like we're in a circle And we're all talking to each other and I want you to be able to talk to me and talk to Emily and ask questions as well So I definitely want this to be interactive. I don't want to uh, you to see us Like we're sitting on stage and you're just the audience listening and you can't participate Uh, I'm gonna have brian amster. Can you do me a favor? I want you to take the microphone and you're gonna go around in the room and you're gonna get the microphone to people So that they can can speak when it's their turn to speak But I do not want This to be like we're on a conference and everybody's sitting in the audience and you're just watching us And there's no dialogue and there's no conversation What I find I don't know everything Yeah, no, absolutely not and and what I found Emily is that sometimes the Best answers come from questions from the audience that again, we didn't think of people want to know or hear about or learn Yeah, um, so again, please if you have any questions for Emily It is so Rare, right first of all Emily. Can you tell us first? Well, what is scs? Oh senior executive It's like equivalent to admiral rank or general rank if you're looking at the army or and what does that mean? What does that mean when you're part of scs? You're part of a small group of people that serve between the political appointees and the general service employees this leadership of the organization where you work right and so Um Is there a thousands of people in scs or the hundreds of people in scs? I'd say probably hundreds in the navy. I know I think it was maybe I could be wrong, but the navy in the marine corps. I think it was around 300 Okay, 300 not a lot. Yeah. Okay. All right. And so you were part of scs. Are you still part of scs? I'm retired. Okay. All right. So I'm tired senior executive. All right. So she's retired scs um, and then you rose to the ranks of The office small business programs director, right? And that was a senior executive job. So yeah, so I started out as a supply corps officer in the navy and um after I graduated from the naval academy and I did seven years on active duty And then I did 13 years in the reserves I got out after 20 because I was a single parent. It was just really hard to be doing two jobs and um being a single parent and A lot of the parenting responsibilities fell on me um, so I decided I needed to uh, not be a reservist anymore So I retired but so I did 38 years total when you add up my military and my civilian time So Thanks Eric Right You see that's why I want you reading the people right in there so you can see it for yourself I don't it wouldn't be the same if it came from me. You got to read that He wrote That's what I did, but then you know, I was able to retire at age 56. That was my minimum retirement age and that was in May of 2019 and That's what I decided to do so and and and the reason why I'm setting the stage is is because for the um 30 plus people that are on as of now um, you know One of the things if you if you've listened to our previous masterminds with judy And some other folks out there Everyone here has not had an opportunity to speak to someone at that level within government um And so now we have someone here who comes on and can share their experiences and can share There from their perspective right at the top rankings what they saw And the things that some of us might have went through so again The whole point I'm making is ask your questions. So All right question. Yep. Ask your questions. That's that's kind of the point that we're making but emily, um You know, we're probably 10 minutes in at this point. So I'm okay with just jumping in to the conversation Just kind of jump in so I just wanted to share a little bit about like why I retired and and what I'm doing now and what I've learned so I retired because I Realized life is short. I was 56 and I was having a hard time walking actually When I was working in my last job because my hip hurt really badly And I wasn't taking care of my health because I was traveling all the time to places like Hawaii And I'm just getting but I was sitting a lot and I was traveling too much And I do remember one of my last trips was to Hawaii for an event and I just had a hard time walking And I needed to have time to better take care of myself And I wanted to spend more time with my parents Who had run a small business my whole life and had finally retired and they had never really had that much time to spend with me So I wanted time to spend with them My kids were out of the house and I was able to retire so Within and I had plans I started the podcast and I wanted to be a coach But I didn't know in like what area or anything and then within Three weeks after I retired my kid's dad was diagnosed with cancer and Stage four kidney cancer, but the tumors were Pretty bad. In fact one was in his neck and it was in his c5 vertebrae His whole c5 vertebrae was a tumor. They had to go in and do two surgeries to take it out and He ended up being paralyzed in both arms within five weeks after I retired so One of the reasons I retired too is because I was so tired of I put everything first before me, you know, my kids my job Everything I'm I've since found out and I kind of already knew and I'm a people pleaser and hyper achiever So I was just putting everything before me and it's like, well, wait a second. Who am I what do I want to do? So I finally came up for a breath and that's when I decided I'm ready to retire and And slow down and do things a little differently and then he got sick and that The whole first year of my retirement was spent helping take care of him Well, the first five months because he passed away in five months and But getting I was the executor of the state getting all that straight and dealing Actually with a lot of emotions. I had not dealt with when we divorced in 2002 and I remember Interviewing one of my podcast guests who said when you don't deal with your feelings you shove them down to the basement they lift weights And even though he had been Verbally abusive to me and the kids and you know, wasn't the best dad, you know, I still loved him, right? and I spent those five months helping take care of him and He was really nice that whole time. We had some good closure But one of the things I decided I wanted to do is learn more about myself and to feel more because I had I had Stayed busy and avoided a lot of my feelings And so, you know, for anyone who's listening that thinks well, you know when that that's divorced and maybe Um, doesn't think they'd feel the same way when there are other their former spouse passes away I beg to differ because it's amazing what what comes up. So if you have feelings if you have past trauma I think it's really important to deal with it and I actually Have learned since that a lot of that can manifest in your body too And so maybe that's partly why my hip was hurting. I mean, I don't know but I finally was able to put my health first and take care of some of that and then I I've invested in quite a few coaching programs where I've been learning about myself And as I've developed my own coaching business, I've seen What it's like to be an entrepreneur because I you know worked for the government my whole life I'd never been on that side of the house. So I was there telling you guys you gotta find your, you know Know who you're marketing to right All the advice I was giving you all now I'm taking it and then I also noticed how Like Your your mindset fear your limiting beliefs all those things are things that can really hold you back As an entrepreneur. I'm sure you know that. Oh, yeah. Now it's now. I like what you just said, okay So before you were telling us all these things Now Um, how do you how do you reflecting back on that time? How do you feel now about the advice that you gave then? I think it was good advice I mean you do have to know your customer and you do have to I mean some people say niche some people say niche But you do have to niche down so many so some of it a lot of it was true But I guess what I'm saying is maybe it's a little harder to implement than you think because it's like well My product is really good. I could anybody could benefit from it. I serve everybody everybody in the government needs my product, right? but It's like the government like you had Judy on your on your podcast, right the government is Not just an it's an right. It's not an entity People it's a whole bunch of nations that you're selling to and right. You're not selling to marsons or aliens. You're selling to people Like me saying I want to sell my product to the world. Well, who's the world the world? It's made up of people right needs my product or my coaching whatever But it's people and then you have to need niche down right like well, okay But does navel aviation use it or would it be best to start with the army? You've got to kind of start small and then talk to that individual customer, right? Which is the same things I need to do with with my coaching and so yeah, I like that now I would love to hear how the things that you've learned Today the emotional intelligence stuff could help someone like us ourselves small businesses talking to that federal person Well, I mean as we go along. It doesn't have to be at this moment, but you know as we go along That it can also help as you lead the company So one thing I wanted to point out that I think it's important to have a board of the board of directors I've interviewed a woman named Angie Schwartz on my podcast and she talks about that like had your own personal board of directors People who believe in what you're trying to accomplish um like for example Not to be mean but my mom's not on my personal board of directors because she's like why are you working so hard? just come over and do pottery with me and Other stuff so I can't have her on my personal board directors. I mean she wants me to succeed But she also is like you're retired. What are you doing? Right, what are you doing? Somebody that's gonna like push you right and when you say, oh, I don't know if I could keep going They don't say well. Yeah, you could just stop. You don't want that, right? Right, right. No, I get you right. They're like, oh, just quit Yeah, I mean like yeah, why do you keep going in because I really want to I'm just you know So having your own personal board of directors is important knowing yourself is important Knowing your why knowing why you're even in government contracting because it really is hard So sometimes people might get into government contracting because they can get rich quick or something like that and If that's what you're thinking, um It's going to be very hard to lead your company in the long haul Knowing yourself so that you know When it's best for you to step aside as CEO and have somebody else take over or when You where your weaknesses are so that you hire the right people you bring the right people on the bus Not just your buddies, right? Those are all so knowing yourself and knowing your strengths and weaknesses And knowing what your mind is telling you and being aware of whether or not you're listening to your mind Is all really important stuff Okay, so I wanted to give you what do we say we're oh People are connecting. So I wanted to Listen if you want to read through the comments and see if there's any questions That's why I like live sessions because I like to read through to see what people were talking about Um Chris says I love your analogy about the basement lifting weights. It's great Um, we're gonna give you a little emoji Tracy says strong woman. Well I try I dealt with a lot of feelings, you know, you can be strong and you can be like I stayed so busy that I didn't deal with my feelings. That was my way of Not dealing with them. I shut them to the basement. So um and we were talking offline about that how Uh, how these things carry over into your business Yes, they can because you don't realize that you're stressed out about something maybe or you know, you react a certain way at somebody Um, so let me just share a little bit about this positive intelligence Book that I've read and coaching program. I've been in and now I'm leading a group coaching program around this So I don't know if you type in or uh website or not or if I just say it but if you go to positive intelligence dot com You can take an assessment and this assessment will tell you what your top 10 saboteurs are and everybody has um Judge we all judge people We judge ourselves. We judge other people and we judge circumstances And but then we have these other saboteurs and some are stronger than others My top saboteurs if you go and take this assessment on positive intelligence dot com Scroll down to the middle and there's an orange section and it'll say saboteur assessment Mine or a hyperachiever um people pleaser and restless And you can learn a lot more about it by reading the book or participating in the coaching program about how they Lie to you and how they hold you back Like my hyperachiever says emily you have to push harder push push push You've got to keep pushing when really There might be a better way to do it if we're always pushing. Are we really seeing? The other way to do it. We're just acting on our limiting beliefs. Maybe not pulling in our um board of directors says yeah, there you go That's a sample chart stickler, you know, so when you You could have your whole team and and shazad uh charmaine who wrote this book Um talks about this. He coaches teams like you can If it's not a bad thing to know what somebody else's um Um saboteur is because then you can help them catch it and the lies that it's telling you Um, they are the so do you really have to work work work push push push? Another book I read is um It's called U squared Okay, my price pritchett and he talks in here about watching a fly the fly Is trying harder and harder to fly through the window You know, you've all seen that flies pushing pushing try harder harder to fly through the window when really A few flaps are going down the doors open So what are some things that you're not seeing when you run your company that maybe your hyperachiever or your victim Or whatever is telling you about The people that you're dealing with the circumstances that you're dealing with and about yourself And you know, it could be something that impacts you when you're dealing with a government customer Um that you haven't really if you better understand yourself you say, oh That's my that's my restless You know saboteur telling me that Um, I should stop on this company this customer and they're no good I'm not going to be able to get any business with them I'll move to another one and I just keep moving all around You know what's going to ask you to give me a practical example of that Yeah, there's a practical example or another one is you know when I ran the office of small business programs my hyperachiever pleaser and restless right As somebody who's restless is always like they get bored easily and it's like well Let's move to this project and do that project and do this project and do this coaching program and do this and this and this And then you've got like 10 things going on and you can only Focus on them 10 percent of your each of them 10 percent of your time and you don't actually finish something so your restless Saboteur is telling you You you got to move on you're you know that That government customer is not really going to pay much attention to you move on to another one When really maybe you need it to be a little bit more persistent. So let me ask you a question because I'm listening to you and What I'm hearing and what I've heard from other people is For example, they have to get four certifications. They got to get women on hubzone 8a You know, they got to get all these certifications And I I always say well No, I make one certification work, right? It's like no, I can't start until I have all the certifications Is that ever does that a good example? That's maybe another good example And I just was on clubhouse the other day and this a woman was saying how she has her 8a certification And she doesn't know what to do with it. She doesn't have any permanent contracts I'm like, why do you even have your 8a certification? That's the other thing I experienced when as an entrepreneur. It's like Let me go get training from this coach and women do this more often than men They feel like there's one more class one more training You know things like that to be good enough and it's like There's all these shiny objects and if you get distracted by all these different shiny objects or Certifications or whatever then you're losing sight of Your real goal So how do we fight that? How do we control that? Okay, so one of the things that you learned in that in this in this Book on a wait wait Emily wait before we go on someone says no one. I'm not advancing I'm like the bunny hopping everywhere. I don't accomplish Anything sabotage And I see that so often, you know, even people that come on and you said there's a even though You said there's a lot of government contracting people teaching that People will come on and and and I've mentioned this in my videos They're watching 10 of the video or 20 only 20 percent And then they hop to the next thing and then they hop and they watch 20 percent of this they never Grasp the full extent of what we were trying to to share or teach or learn And they just hopped over to the next thing And and then they complain that that they're not having success or that they're not Accomplishing anything but even people who pay to take my trainings don't Watch all the lessons Oh, no kidding. You don't know how many trainings I've invested and I haven't watched all the lessons And you know what I do better when there's like, um, I have to meet with the coach Then because I'm a pleaser and I'm not going to let you down. Eric Right after me if I finish your lessons I'm going to do them. So knowing that's why it's so important to know yourself um, and know what your tendencies are and um, So, yeah, it's it's so important to know that. Um, by the way real quick before we start There's 44 people on now Make sure if you like what you hear give us a thumbs up That helps us In the social media world push the content out so more folks can hear who are not able to make it to the live session It will push it out to folks who need to hear these particular questions Uh and answer so go ahead. I just want to put that out there. Give us a thumbs up if you like the content Yeah, what shersad coach is about or in this book and then it's not enough to read the book I'm just going to tell you you've got to practice it every day and he has an app Um that you can use to practice it on um, if you join a coaching program, but there's so he says that there's three core Muscles that constitute your mental fitness. One of them is your saboteur interceptor muscles. So basically it's like You're you pretty much have a neuropathway in your brain that goes right to If you're a stickler if you're a controller if you're a people pleaser, those are your natural tendencies you just go there That's the way it's done. I'm a hyperachiever. You know, you just say that well I can't change but you can Because your sage is the one in you that handles the challenges with a clear and a calm mind And if we can learn to use our sage more um In positive emotions then we are better able to Silence that make those saboteurs a little smaller And their sage has five primary powers Empathize explore innovate navigate and activate and You need to practice the the these mental fitness exercises that he has to help you Access your sage more and not just be hijacked by the saboteur Um, and so he helps with the self command muscle And I can give you an example of one of the exercises he does if you want, but you can also Take an assessment on his website And you can figure out you can learn your pq score So if you go to that website positiveintelligence.com and go to the top menu You'll see a little Menu that says pq score And that Is We'll tell you the percentage of the time right find your pq score in two minutes It'll tell you the percentage of the time that you use is your use your sages To combat your saboteur I went through a seven week program with him where we practice Using our sages more and he has an app and you can track it but it's It's like developing if you would not go to the gym eric you're a strong guy You wouldn't go to the gym one hour and say Dang it my muscles didn't get bigger No, that's pretty silly So you can't do that with your mental fitness either. It takes practice Actually, I like it. Okay. Oh, you know Figure out what your saboteurs are and then learn about how to boost your pq score You're definitely welcome to read the book positive intelligence, but you know, if you're a controller and Just imagine how that makes your employees feel If you're like, well, I've got to control that I've got to control this I've got to control that and then what are your employees thinking and what if you're one employee that you're really being controlling over as a pleaser Just imagine all those saboteurs just going around the room is in your office, you know Hijacking all these different situations when really if everyone was able to be more empathetic use their sage Respond from a place of calm How much more productive we could be during the day Now you said earlier that you had um 10 categories that you fell under Oh, well, he gives you the 10 scores. Everyone has a judge. Everyone judges Okay, so just whether you're high or low in certain areas Yeah, like my my top three. I mean, I victim is like zero Some reason but Like for my daughter hyperachiever was like zero. I'm like that explains a lot. I'm just kidding But I mean, so it's interesting, you know, have your kids take it This these exercises that you learn can even be used with kids You know to deal with some of the stress that they have in your lives I mean, you know, what's going on in the world with respect to our uh mental fitness our mental health And a lot of it is this mom the these voices in our mind. That's the victim. That's the saboteur That's the controller, you know, the saboteurs that are telling us Lies like Emily if you would just push harder keep pushing harder. You can get more done And I could see my saboteur attacking me when I retired right because I'm like, yes, I'm retired I have more time to exercise and do all this stuff but My calendar was More full than ever Giving myself more work, you know Thinking that if I just kept pushing harder and harder harder, right, you know, things would but when I learned to Slow down and I'm it's I'm a work in process But progress when I learned to slow down when I learned to listen to my intuition and When I was working for the navy, I think a lot of times I was just too busy to even notice my intuition or to listen to my intuition Right when you slow down listen to your intuition. Don't push as much It's amazing that you can get just as much or more done right, right, right, right, right. No, that's um I've seen that with certain people that only work Six days a week or some people that work only four days a week But in the 40s a week, they're more productive than someone who works, you know, full four five days a week And so I've seen that I've never been able to figure it out but but But I do know for me, uh personally you know, my my Most productive times Like I found works for me and some people know this is that like I take naps in a daytime so like I I I have Master the art of like napping So I can work and then like if I'm tired at noon or 1 p.m. I'll just lay down and take a nap in the middle of the day That's good. I mean that's like I don't know what your hyperachiever would say about that But your hyperachiever saboteur if you have one but my hyperachiever saboteur is that you don't have time to do that That's crazy When really it helps you out. So maria posted. Yeah the book with only 20 percent of teams in indivit Why only 20 percent of teams and individuals achieve their true potential So imagine if you went through this group went through this coaching program with people or even read the book and did it on your own with people in On your leadership team Just you know and use it not as a way to you know, it's just use it as a way to help yourself I mean I have learned so much more about myself not just in this program, but in other awareness coaching programs that I've been in I just use the only thing I knew when I was in the Navy is that I'm an istj You know, that's my Myers-Briggs, but there's so many more Ways to learn more about yourself that will help you be a more effective leader and definitely this is one Now, let me ask you um, you said that you've learned a lot about yourself in the last two years of starting a small business Um, you touched on briefly the board of directors How does someone find a board of directors? What should you look for in a board of directors? Right? So can you can you elaborate something on that and then we'll move on to the Yeah, and I talked about that too in a couple of my one of my podcast episodes with a woman named Angie Schwartz and you can find that episode on my website, but we were just talking about like You know depending on what are the areas in your life that you're that you're working on especially for running your business you might want somebody on the board that um Compliment and your personal board of directors that compliments you in certain areas like somebody that can hold you accountable for Exercising and I'm talking about it's your personal board of directors as a leader of a company or as an employee Out of a company, you know, I never got a coach until I was a senior executive and the Navy gave me a coach And we had mentors, but I don't think it's the same and I think when you have somebody that is Um that you can talk to that is interested in your Welfare interested in your higher good interested in You know and things that you can talk to them about about that are going on at work that you can't really talk to somebody else at work about maybe but um Just look at the areas in your life where you want to work on where you're weak And that's those are good places to start for finding somebody to be on your board of directors, you know It could be some it could be just an accountability partner for physical fitness or things like that because you know I I saw my husband my former husband passed away He did not say that he wished he had worked more um, so we Somebody that can kind of keep you focused on the big picture too Yeah And I and they always say that is that that's the last thing that anyone ever Wishes that they had worked another day another hour. Um, by the way, you didn't give us the website name Maria just put in there Uh, what's your website that you want us to go to to watch that podcast? Emily Herman.com There you go, he's all over it. You see Yeah And you can just search on uh Angie Schwartz Um, and it'll come up if you if you need to know it just uh message me too I don't remember the episode number Um Someone mentioned in here. Let me go to the questions Personal development is human capital. I like that too. It's so necessary. Yeah, because you know how many people leave the company because they're not happy And you've invested all this training in them and everything Um, you know, and you can go on scherzad's website and take a look at all the companies that Are using this training and there's probably other things out there too, but I'm just saying, you know leaders who are self-aware um, I think are better leaders understand their strengths and weaknesses and um, You know work to work with people that can complement them that can help them, you know I've got coaches even coaches need coaches because they can see your blind spots. Right, right. Yeah No, I mean again, I've invested a lot of programs anytime that I've ever wanted to do something new um, I've invested in the training for to learn that and so When I want to start the podcast and then we discussed this in our last show, right? Uh, I think you took pat flin's course. Yeah Yeah, is it and we took john lee do mrs. Course Did you finish all the uh modules? Well, I said maria through it. So you gotta beat maria Dukes is um newest book Oh, yeah. Yeah, he um I was watching this thing on um There's this guy named pade row that says he's the king of challenges and he's talking about leading challenges and stuff And john lee the lee do mrs was live with him a lot. Um I'm Beefing up Pedro, but also they um, you know shared their his book. So I just got it. Okay. Yeah. So um, yeah I put maria through it because I I could not Look, I was just I was overwhelmed with learning how to do youtube well So just me learning youtube was was enough right and I invested a lot in learning youtube with Different programs. So I have books on youtube But I I took courses on how to do youtube and then I said maria through the podcast one I just didn't think I could take on two things at once. Well, that's important and there's so much to learn I mean one of the things that I've learned about is like, okay I I'm the only employee for my company, but I just invested in a va at what point do you invest in a va? And you know, it's like I can't afford to invest in a va But if I don't invest in a va, then I'm spending all my time doing this admin stuff So you just got to have faith and if you have a strong enough desire for what you want to accomplish Um, and your dreams and goals in life You have to have faith that things will work out even if you don't always know how You know, that's a lot of people are in that situation. They're solar peneurs And we've had people come on and say to me How do we go from like how do we make that first hire? Right and part of my challenge is eric you tell me all these activities that I must do But I don't have simply don't have the time to do all of them Right and and that's where they need a va or an assistant or a temp person to help support them Yeah Just a couple weeks ago. I invested in a va five hours a week, right? He got much done in that five hours. I'm like I'm doubling it I don't care because I can now focus on some other things where I need to focus He was doing things that it probably took him You know so much less time that it would have taken me Because that's his area of expertise Right, right, right va does stand for virtuals. Yeah va does stand for virtual assistant. Yes Yes, yes, so that's something to to think about when you're starting your company is Have you read the book? I'm thinking grow rich Yes, I have So that's another good book to read because it talks about You know and and and one of the things I help coach people on is creating the life of your dream so many times You got to ask your listen to your discontent And listen to your like intuition. What do you really love and so many times? I think we settle instead of creating a life that we would really love Well, I can't have that because this this and this well, what if you could What if what if you could do that? What would that look like? How could you make it happen? How how could so sometimes we don't step out for our dreams because we don't know every single step that we have to take But you have to have faith and that book thinking grow rich isn't just about making money. It's about You know, let's say that there's a particular house you want, but you just don't know How would you move? How would this happen? How would that happen? But It's about visualizing what you really want and going for it And um, so that's definitely a book that I would recommend. I'm in a study group for that I love it because it's teaching me so much. Oh, you are overachiever Oh, you're like three different programs already that you mentioned on here. Oh right now. I'm in I'm in three three or four coaching programs right now. I love to learn. Wow. Wow. I love to learn That's that's fascinating. I love to learn and they all help me be a better coach too because what I like to coach people on I just um updated my my LinkedIn profile about what I coach people on so people can look there, but it's all these things help me Be a better coach and I love, you know seeing people You know With the light that you really want. I think too many of us settle and I agree. Yeah, no, I agree. I can say for me personally you know, I I did construction for many many years and while I You know, I got good at it and um, I had many many years of success. I had a lot of Um problems with you know pain and heart pain and suffering from anxiety and Being unhappy because of all of the The anger and The people in the industry the way that they speak to you the way that they you know the way that they carry themselves it just wasn't positive for the type of personality that I had and I always had a goal To help a whole lot of people And be paid to do so and I I literally sought that out for probably 15 years Um while I went through the world of real estate and I went through the world of construction um And I can tell you that today. I'm A thousand percent happier right and where I was having chest pains every day Trying to manage, you know project managers Super superintendents, you know field teams Um for people who really could care less You know, and that's the way I felt about it, right? But then there's other folks that love and thrive in that environment Right, so go where you love and thrive, you know, one of the things I have on my website is and this is really a true story I'm commuting to To work on the metro in uh, washington dc and every you if you've guys have ever done it You'll see you know what i'm talking about everyone's got their headphones in and they're like this Right, and I caught and I thought wow all these people are miserable And then I caught my a vision of myself in the subway door. I'm like, that's what I look like right and I just like I'm Get get up go to the metro go to this go to that and and I and I liked being in small business But I have been in it for 15 years and I the challenges were still there But they were a lot of things I'd already done and it wasn't like I wasn't waking up like yes, I get to go to work I wasn't Life is too short to not be excited So, you know, all the things that I'm doing right now, even though my mom can't understand it, right? But it's not what brings her love, but it's what brings me love It's a life that I love and I and I don't dread getting up and I love doing podcast interviews and I love people Just like she loves doing pottery and watercolor where different stages are alive, but life is too short to to not do what you love Tell us a little bit more about your podcast You haven't really talked about it. You've talked about different gas But you haven't talked about your podcast and its purpose and what do you do on there? So it's called the onward podcast and I published the first seven episodes the day after I retired and it's I interviewed different people about how they faced Adversity and how they move forward and then what I started to discover is that When people face adversity and how they move forward through it, they also really discover who they are They discover themselves You know what I agree with you, but that is so hard to to get people to buy into Emily listen to some of the episodes you you know may you may not see it right away Even sure Zod talks about it in this positive intelligence training Everything that happens to us that we say is bad That we could come up with what's good about it and he gives an example He gives an example in the book about this company that he was coaching. They lost their biggest client And they're all like, oh my god, it's bad. We're going to go down. Everything's terrible What good could come of it? Right every all the managers are like, what do you mean? You're crazy No good could come of it. But anyway in the to make a long story short The good that could come out of it is that they could be even better They taught them where they could go and look at where they were not doing well And they could make even a better product and they could in the next two to three years get that customer back Maybe and then even increase their sales even more. So it sucks when you're going through it It sucked when I was going through Raising my kids in 10 years of my son being addicted to drugs and alcohol It was really really really really hard But all the things that I went through prepared me for where I am now and My son's doing great. He's studying engineering in college. So You can kind of look back and see it, but you can't always see it when you're going through it No, I agree with you Again, and I have so many stories to share but I will I'll say something that recently happened to me That's relevant. A lot of people that are watching this Are familiar mebs mebs actually is an intern that came on and he started helping us answer phone calls And then today he messaged me and he said that there were some Issues with his family that he may have to step away And so we discussed it and and so this week he's leaving us and he has to go back he's originally from from tanzanilla and he's going back to help with his family's business thursday and um So he told us that and he told me that today And uh, he sounded a little bit down. I said, listen, don't worry I said, I'm you know, we don't know why this is happening and for what reason But you can take all the lessons that you've learned the time that you've spent with us And you may see an opportunity when you get back over to tanzanilla that you didn't see before that's right in front of your face Right because you've you've had experiences here You've had some success here and you've been studying underneath You know gupcon giants and myself and maria for the last six months So you are your eyes are open you're looking through a different lens now And he had so much vigor by the time we got the phone call so I As opposed to saying, oh, it's terrible. You're leaving and you got to go, you know It's more like hey, you know now you're arriving with a whole new lens that you didn't have before And the possibility exists and he said, you know what you're right because On the forecast list for usa id was his country tanzanilla and because they're such a They had a such a strong workforce before When they had a you know when the when the when the economy and everything was good They can rebuild back that same workforce. So I agree with you and I use that and I and I try and teach my students that I've shared other examples where I was I went through a couple lawsuits in my business That it turned out to be the best thing that happened to me But again, I'm telling you I I live it. I've experienced it And I try and share that with people, but it's just it's still hard, you know It's not for me. It's hard for them to understand and see that And so again, I want to you know remind people those things Yeah, so I think it's important to tell your story and for people people come on my podcast They share their story and it helps other people realize that they're not alone and oh If eric can do that or if he can do that or she can do that then Maybe I could do it So that's why the podcast brian asked a question. He says emily. Did you see greatness? Uh while she was in a position with the navy. What was great about them? I think he's referring to like small businesses Oh, did I see great small businesses? That's what I'm saying like it like for example When someone came to you, did you know that that company would be successful versus not successful based on questions or comments or That's what I'm assuming. I'm just And I might have shared some of that in this book. Um, can I advertise this book become an expert? This is a book that I helped write with some other people But um, so I shared a lot of tips in there about doing business with the navy and in one of my chapters I list pro tip all these different tips and so I highlight some things that companies do well So the ones that do well, I think are the ones that have done their homework before they even approach somebody in the government They've looked this sounds basic But they've looked at the website They've looked at the long. I mean it sounds basic. I know but I I know emily I keep tell tell them because a lot of times I think we have to remind people of the basics Um, when I was an athlete and I played football You have practicing drills just practicing you have to practice the basics, right? I don't have many times. I heard my executive assistant on the phone www.navy.com Okay, so that's number one number two Make sure you really know who it is that you're talking to because sometimes companies will call and they'll Give this long explanation to the person that's just responsible for Answering the phone and scheduling the meetings and they don't need to know everything so just being aware of how much time you're taking up on You know and and do your homework those are some things like there was companies that reached out to me And I told them exactly what they needed to do and then they didn't go do it and they'd reach out to me again And I said well, did you go talk to nav there? No, I haven't done that yet Well, then you don't need to come see me as the head of small business for the navy and the marine corps A lot of times people think they have to start at the very top You really should start at the command that you you know where you're seeking to do business But this guy wouldn't this guy wouldn't do it. So Wow Yeah In this book I do cover three I was able to tie my podcast episode about overcome my podcast about overcoming adversity to government contracting It's one of the characters in there the top three takeaways from my guess About facing adversity and moving forward and I tied it to government contracting Wow. Well, good question, Brian. Good question. Yeah. Um, thanks for bringing it out. Someone else asked Let me go back to it They said when you were uh, when you were in s e s Okay, as an s e s rep, how did you keep the large oems from abusing the smaller contractors and taking the set of sides? It was really it was really tough. I mean, I don't know that they necessarily took the set of You know, they may not have, you know, they couldn't take a set of side unless they, you know, lied about their status or something No, no, we're talking but yeah, but that was quite, you know Yeah, they go in and they try to get the government to not make it a set aside. That's too risky or whatever So one thing that I think is really good as a small business owner is to Pay attention to that stuff and when you see some of that happening go see the small business professional because look They're, you know, there's not very many small business professionals compared to contracting officers and compared to the number of contracts that are awarded So they cannot stay on top of everything So you see something on a long range forecast that you think should be set aside for small business and it's not or when you see a large prime You know taking some actions that you think are restricting competition I think it's really important to bring that to the attention of the small business director Professional because they may not know that So and then subcontracting is something to really pay attention to too. I know that the Navy's I can't say everything that they're doing but I know they're looking into subcontracting and when I was in the In my last job I had some people that went to the Naval Postgraduate School and their paper They just finished it but their paper is on subcontracting and they Looked and they they're giving some Recommended suggestions for how to improve contracting because I know sometimes the large primes Try to take, you know, they say that they'll sub to the you but then they don't right no, no, yeah, no and and and Yes, the the large primes want everything guys and we know this and And we're aware of it and the government's aware of it. But like she said you you know when you when you look at the government or the Navy as a whole You know Emily's one person and so like she said, you know, she may you know There maybe there's other people within her agency that's aware But that doesn't make her aware, right? And so again, there's lots moving parts pieces people And you can't make assumptions. So if you fail To do your job and make them aware of it. Then you can't blame anyone on the outcomes is the way I see it Yeah, and it's tough sometimes I know because it's like, well, I want to make you aware But then I don't want anyone to know that I was the one that said anything Then it's sometimes, you know, our hands are tied Sometimes we don't have to let it people know who said something but sometimes You know, depending on the situation you might need to and then, you know, our hands are tied or tied Sure. Sure. Sure. No, I agree. I agree Um What else do we have on here? What else? I'm just looking through some questions Um You guys are all connecting with each other. So that's good. Yeah, no, and that's what I want. I want to connect with each other. Yeah, like What about a three billion dollar small business don't know but that's something you write your congressman about and you know, I mean you got to ADS the company's name is ADS Hmm So Or, you know, I don't know No, it's it's um there they, uh They work with a lot of Small companies internally, but that's we're not going to go into that Have you heard of large primes taken on subs that only have five workers? No I mean, really it's the contracting officer to take a look at You know the subs that the prime is proposing and to make sure that they feel like they can deliver on on What they're proposing so it's really hard to answer questions like that. It depends on the situation Someone asked Emily Can you bid on contracts in a different agency if you work for the government? I think that you can what I would recommend. I know people who work for the government and have their own company So what you need to do is talk to your ethics attorney and make it really clear as to what you're doing Okay All right, let me see um Emily someone asked about chatting with you via email. Do you have an email that you give out? It's uh, Emily Why don't you type it in my thing in our chat and I can drop it in there for you Okay We'll put emily. Uh, I saw someone asked about speaking with Emily via email. I'm going to drop it in the Chat for everyone to have. Yeah, Emily at Emily harman.com. You can also go to my website, which is is mostly um about A movement that I've started the onward movement, which is about creating a life that you love um, I haven't updated my website to um add this book and to show how I help government contractors, but um, I definitely I do some um consulting with small businesses what I really want to consult more on is Is this positive minds positive intelligent stuff and leadership kinds of things But I do help people with uh questions about how to do business with the government And then if I can't answer them, I send them to others people But Emily before someone comes to you with questions on how to do business with the government What should they already know? Know about this book. They should do their own work. They should have you know, they should know like I mean before I come to you Emily say, hey Emily, uh, where'd I get registered from? You don't want those I don't even know Okay, okay Some expectations. Yeah, they should go to the p2. I'm representing my vib network shirt. Yeah guys, so I mean Um, there's a lot of people out here that are giving you some of the basic stuff. So what kind of people what kind of I What kind of questions do you welcome or invite or like at what level do I need to be before I come to you? um I love all terms of revenues or sales, but you know, but you know, um I really I probably end up referring you to somebody like eric or other people that are doing the contracting stuff in this book because um, what I I Don't like I don't do stuff like pull up. Um You know databases and figure out what and what makes you should have and you know, what's your capability statement like I mean, I don't do a lot of that stuff because that's I'm creating a life that I love and that's not what I love right now What I love is doing this leadership coaching. Um, self-awareness coaching Um, helping people create a life that they love helping, um business owners Figure out how they could work smarter and not harder and not push, you know, helping them learn about their saboteurs That's what I want to help with but you know what if you send me an email and I'm not gonna say, you know, get lost I'll figure out a way to help No, no, I I think that's great. I I think that's great. Um Some of the other things that you talked about before is um And in the original email you sent to me We talked about a couple of different things and one was, uh, You know people telling the truth Okay, you want to touch on that it seems like to me you had some experiences with With that when you first came out and worked at the business world Well, just on you know on your what I wrote there is, you know People that are on your personal board of directors should be people who you know We're going to tell you the truth not people pleasers like me. I'm just kidding But people who are a are able to say Call you out and say look that's No, you didn't run that meeting very well or this, you know You could have done better in this area in a way in a good way a way of helping you So people that are going to be tell you the truth people you can trust You know, some leaders want people who say yes to everything and and agree with them on everything and that's I I disagree with that strategy I want people to tell me even though it sucks, you know I don't have no one around me agrees with everything I said It's hard, you know, especially when you have a people pleasing, you know inter critic It's like, oh, you didn't please that person that person. I don't think I have any people pleases around me I don't think so Yeah, and then the importance of health of the self-care is something else that I told you about I think self-care in terms of your mental fitness self-care in terms of you know taking a nap Like you said, Eric right self-care in terms of Taking a break when you need it In terms of knowing that push push push. She isn't going to solve it In terms of realizing that I mean, I know it's a saying And I know it's unfortunate that we just really don't get it until we get it I didn't really get it life is short until I saw I saw Bruce pass away and He was you know really tough hard worker at nav air. He was worked at logistics and He was 64 When he woke up when he passed away. He was 64 when he woke up paralyzed in both arms Can you imagine that you can't feed yourself can't scratch a niche can't do anything and how awful that was and so Take care of your health You know, I told like I said, I couldn't walk when I the day I retired hardly my hip hurts so bad I had to really make that time to take care of myself. I interviewed kyle kozad who's a classmate of mine from the naval academy. He was Um, he retired but he at the time he was in admiral and he was in charge of naval education and training And he slipped and fell in his house And became paralyzed from the waist down Wow, he there's articles about him. You could google him admiral in a wheelchair And He's an admiral, right? He's the head of naval education and training He went to physical therapy. He did the work that it took Um, so a lot of times we tend to blow that stuff up off, right? Right. I went and got my mammogram today Um, you don't blow that stuff off, right, right, right So that's self-care. You know, oh, I'm just so important. It's I'm too busy this and that Right, right, right, right, right. Yeah, I think we forget about that. Um You know, we forget about that and we put those things in the back burner and that's why I was you know for me Uh, I appreciate you coming on and talking about that because I think you know, again I you know, I already have 400 videos and government contracting You know and um I you know for me like I said, it's been two years since we talked about uh, these these other topics these other things that Also influence your life and influence your livelihood. I can tell you um, you know, I had someone that was agreed to come on and be a coach for me that um, her mom became ill and and she just you couldn't make the time and you know life Circumstances happen and and obviously change of fate. So like you said, um, things happen or happen to us around us Uh with the people that we care about the people we love And I think it's important to understand how all of that impacts our decision making and also has a greater impact on our business as well And that understanding that your people are going through that too. Um, uh, very important Yeah, and um, so one of the biggest mindset things I had to deal with And some of you may be able to relate to this, especially if you're like, um, did a whole bunch of time in the military I mean, I worked for the military since I was 18 right 18 to 56 The military the navy decided what my salary was going to be and what I was worth So now I'm retired and I'm a coach And I got some money issues because I don't like asking people for money. I don't like selling I don't you know, I don't like putting myself out there. I don't like You know, I just want people to join my coaching program, but I don't I'm afraid to do the sales stuff that it takes You know, I've I've worked with some coaches on that on that fear. It's like, what's the fear? You've got to go you've got to do the things that you're afraid of you got to pick up the phone and call What's going to happen? What's the worst that can happen? But you know our mind can tell us all these things that are going to happen So, you know, I'm guessing that that is um an issue that Possibly some veterans run into or somebody worked for a company for so long that they just tell you what you're worth Yeah, I think a lot of veterans run today issue. Yeah. Yeah, and I know a lot of people that worked in government They're afraid to leave government because they're afraid of what their next Steps are going to be right? Yeah, and then you have to be accountable for yourself and your actions and everything falls the whole weight of Of your your salary your income everything falls on your shoulders now. I know I know but If you're doing what you love then And you can make money. I mean you've got you can't just say I love um Painting watercolors and you're not going to be able to sell it Something that you really love to do that you can that that would serve other people Other people would find helpful other people would want to work with you. So um, but You know ask anybody who started their own company, right? I'm sure it's worth it You've seen this picture too, right that how sometimes when you want to quit Oh, no, I was gonna say that when you talked about the people Jumping around in different programs and we talk about that Um, you know digging the holes and they dig a hole to dig one feet deep and then they go over here They dig another feet deep and they dig two feet deep and if they just Right If they just kept digging they hit their diamonds. Um So I know I frequently yes, because you know, I mean it I'm sure everyone runs into that like, ah Should I keep going? I mean, I don't have to I'm retired, but I love what I do. So yeah, I'm gonna keep going No, let's say again, if you if you can if you wake up every morning excited I don't think there's anything better than that Yeah, you know I'm the same way look up again. Someone asked but some but maria is on top of it. She Becoming a gov con expert. How do I settle your success in government contracting? um So Yeah, that's the book. I wrote three chapters of it That's all that that was my contribution. I didn't like edit it and all that that's a lot No, I know I Were you the one that says that I'm gonna have that problem editing my next book I heard it's tough. You should talk to uh, michael azun who wrote this He knows how to do the editing really well and he can give you some templates. I think that would help Yeah, no, I'm it's let me tell you it's Yeah, I know they've written three books. So yeah, yeah, so he he's got it down pat He's got it down pat. What else what else guys? Listen, I don't want to hold everyone up. I don't want to hold emily up Any other questions? I'm I'm supposed to be in a coaching meeting right now with one of my coaches I said emily take the time to come on. I don't see any questions specifically for her Look, she's on here. She's supposed to be in a meeting. She's she's still working on um someone asked let's see Ranger in high school is probably the hardest physical work. I've ever had to go through but coders a second um Let's see burky. I just want to ask you something. I started my business three months ago PPE. I can't find customers um burky I can tell you um If you can't find customers then There I mean everyone is buying PPE all the time every single day so i'm not sure where you're looking at but um, if you look up even if you go just to the basic sam website and type in PPE You see a list of people that are buying pp every day So I I find it hard to believe that you're not finding customers. I think the challenge is is that You're not finding people to buy it the way that you want to sell it So the people are buying PPE that is readily available Not PPE that's being shipped or transported from someplace else and waiting for it to arrive So if you've got PPE sitting somewhere in the united states ready to be sold There are all the states cities and even the federal government is buying PPE regularly consistently So that would be my recommendation for you on that Let's see a lot of good comments here Finally you on hold long enough. I was trying to get the picture to order Okay, they got the book. Okay. Good. You can't let me go to military circumvent your capabilities Um, hey eric the last video you made with the waves really hit home for me. I appreciate it good I'm happy. Thank you You know and even that video that I made with the waves How many people actually state to the end of the video? Like so so the video the video is literally like six minutes long But one of it at the very end of the wave video I made a video and I'm standing on these rocks, right and there's waves bouncing like in the back of me And um, I'm I'm there with one of my clients who does we do government contracting I advise them on the on the federal marketplace arena a very successful guy very wealthy And I asked myself. Hey, look, I want to make a video today I want to talk about You know, how did you get to this level of success and people are going to see this house and how you live and they get I want all this stuff and so He he gave me some some tips And so I went over to the ocean because you know, we're looking at the Atlantic ocean I went over to the ocean by the rocks and I'm standing there making the video Well, as I'm making the video emily the waves comes over my head and splashes me. Oh my gosh. I gotta watch it That's funny And of course it's behind me so I didn't see it happening. Oh my gosh, that's gotta be so funny Oh my god, Florida. I can film by the by the ocean Well, you know, and in this particular video, I was actually in Dominican Republic. So I was I was in Dominican Republic and this was a few years ago Oh, okay. I'll watch it It was really neat and then the waves literally come over my head and smash on top of me And and and and for those people who didn't see it and and I'll drop it in chat or marie You could drop it in chat. Um, what it was was he said that And this actually ties into a lot of things we're discussing here emily, which is In the beginning when you're starting out, you're usually giving your time and your effort to someone else, right? So whether it be like you were the given it to the government Other people are given to as employees to small businesses. And so in the beginning when you are Investing, right? You're spending your time your energy your brain power and everything in that company that you're working for and supporting them And so the difference is you have to Figure out how to take that same talent that same skill set of energy and apply it to your business for yourself Right. And and so in the beginning You know, sometimes you may have to give away the biggest part of a deal just to make a deal happen just to get started And and actually going back to john lee dumas. That's what he does He does a lot of partnering with other people's books and content, right and they share in on the deals And so that's what I talked about was was sometimes to get started in this game in this business And I know some people ask questions about being taken advantage of by large companies But see for me emily, I look at it opposite. So I say you're not being taken advantage of that's the cost to learn Right. That's the price you pay To get into this marketplace to to learn this if you treat it like it's your MBA Right. And so that 30 000 that you lost on that particular project or the or that you That you could have, you know, you didn't get the additional monies for the contract That's your MBA to set you up for learning later on right for legacy And a lot of people don't see it that way. So they get frustrated. They get upset, but um I had a friend of mine that taught me that a long long time ago again another successful entrepreneur He said that did ac and he said er I've got my accounts receivables, right? And so, you know after 90 days your accounts receivables basically you know, they're garbage you can't count them on your books and What he said was that's my marketing of my business He said that's the same thing about invested in marketing Yeah So he goes, I run, you know, we run a two million dollar business. You've got 30 000 bad debts. Well, that's my marketing expense It's just a perspective. It's just a perspective of all that paradigms and lenses that we look through things and You know, when you're thinking something's bad, think about well, what could Right, right and and because sometimes we can't see those things. We can't see our blind spots That's where that personal board of directors or if you read that book thinking grow rich Napoleon Hill talks about being in a mastermind, right? Right So do who are you surrounding yourself with that's going to lift you up and help you and make you better If you're not being in a mastermind if you don't have that board of directors If you don't have someone you can call when you're like, oh, I don't know how to do this or you're feeling a little down Someone that's going to help you lift you up and you're not lifting other people up Um, that's something to think about because I think you know being in a mastermind is really important No, it's funny. Actually, we um On my boot camp and all you boot campers mohammed ryan Um all the people in the boot camp did we not just talk about the pillars of success And the people that you need on your team I'm looking at my notes that happens to be here on my desk from the boot camp And we talked about a lot of that stuff and pillars of success people in your team And putting together your organizational chart even if you don't have the people yet Putting together the boxes for the people that you do need to support whatever it is that you're trying to do so Yep, where are you going? What's your vision? Right What notice what you're noticing every day and takes and takes What can I do today with what I have with what I know with what I have to move forward? You may not know exactly how you're going to get all those people on your team to fill out that org chart But you know what you can do today What steps can you do today? That's what you do. Right, right. I agree. I agree. I agree all right, um let's see Mohammed says as an entrepreneur I find what you guys shared here about minds that are extremely valuable especially moving past fear Brian amster the 20 000 that you spent learning how not to get the a day Let's see someone wants to reach out to us Yeah, I mean look if we have uh, I don't remember the the tax number But you can always reach us at service at gov con giants.com. I'll drop that in the chat Also on all right youtube videos. There's a number that you can text We have a line that you can actually send a text to and Let me type this in here real quick Emily You're doing great things eric with your podcast and everything that you're doing all your coaching programs and yeah, thanks. I mean, um, you know It's it's a lot of fun. I enjoy and I saw the need 10 years ago when I was working with some small businesses getting started um And what we try to do Emily is I try to to prepare them so that you don't get those phone calls And again, you're not in that position anymore, but the next director of the navy Yeah, and their assistants are not receiving those phone calls from people asking about Like you said their website and who are you my customer and things like that. I try to eliminate all that so again Um, and it's funny because julie and I have this conversation. She's more at the higher end I'm at the Basic in the beginning stages of what people need so that they can speak intelligently So they can't ask really good questions so that you can really by the time they get to you You can direct them exactly where to go and what to do, but they're not wasting your time and it's a very effective call and and where they're going to get something from it because again And and I know the government has a lot of programs and I and I and I promise you I send them to everything I send them to ptech. I send them spdcs but but You know, those are also people Yep, right with different skill sets varying levels of knowledge Yeah, some are better than others Yeah, and and so, you know, I try to encourage people not to be discouraged when That personally doesn't necessarily Give you information that helps you or that validates you or that takes you to the next phase because There are other resources that you can turn to And it's actually funny my first book that I wrote the building on a playbook Emily I actually list 72 different websites that you can use and go to for free Or very inexpensive resources So that's my very first book because so many people said, well, where do I go? Who do I turn to and so I I thought It wasn't enough to just keep stating them I put it in there and I put how to use those resources So if you're at this step this stage These are the resources that you can use that are free If you're at this stage these are the resources that you can use that are free if you're you know At this level helpful. Yeah. Yeah, because I just I never saw that anywhere listed You know, you you know, maybe the navy gave you four four three or four sites Maybe this other person gave you three four sites, but not in one place where I could have okay here all of the resources that exist And one book and one location Yeah, I mean it's I can see how it's overwhelming to do business Especially when you're you know trying to start your company and if you've never worked in the government You don't really under or for department of defense all those acronyms and things like that I mean, it's it's really tough and so, you know What I wrote in one of the chapters here comparing it to my hour podcast three things you got to know where you are And where you're going right You have to ask for help Yes have to be persistent And those are the three things that run through my podcast on you know overcoming adversity and I Say them again repeat that again for the people that know where you are and where you're going All right. No where you are. I know where you're going Ask for help Ask for help Wait, I think that one deserves two mentions ask for help. Yeah, so many of you out there are not asking for help Okay, and number three And what and be persistent be persistent. I like that be persistent, you know um So when I sit another way to say be persistent Uh, when I was younger and I just got started my business someone said to me Young man stay interested So that to me is be persistent in a different way Okay, he said stay interested because like you mentioned Emily You gave that person when you were working in the government you gave them the exact steps to do and they did not do them I've had p-tex on my show that said the same thing I've had small business liaison officers for large prime contractors Say the same thing and people did not follow the instructions And she says eric. These were good quality small businesses that I could see us working with But they didn't even do the basic things that I asked them to do. So what are they gonna do when we get them on contract? Not do what not do how you do anything is how you do everything Right people see that people are paying attention So in the book just one example that I use is um know where you are and know where you're going What I talk about there is that that means know What where your company is and where are you going are you going to be a subcontractor? What what organization in the government are you going to do business with? Can't be i'm going to do business with the government right And then and then so what I do to drive my point home is I Summarize a couple of podcast episodes. So what I said in that one I I um here's just one of the episodes I said I said claire brown Knew where she was when she was 12 and she's my roommate from the naval academy Okay, her daughter claire brown knew where she was when she was 12 and broke her neck in a fluke gymnastics accident She was told she would be paralyzed never walk She knew where she she didn't want to be there So she knew where she was going she was going to sorry about that. She was going to get back at it Now guess where she is She's I think that was when she was 12. I think she's about 24. You can watch her probably maybe on tv if they Broadcast it. She's a paralympic cyclist headed to korea. I mean to japan. Wow So she knew where she was and she was persistent But she knew that she didn't want to end up like that. I mean and maybe you know, that's not saying that somebody who has an injury You know rodney flowers is another guy. I used I don't know why I used some spinal cord injuries But he's a contracting officer at nav air. Um, I think it took him like 15 or more years before he could walk after a football accident where he he um became He was told you're going to be a quadriplegic for the rest of your life He knew he didn't want that Somebody else who wasn't didn't know where they were and didn't know where they were going Wasn't really determined. What didn't ask for help wasn't persistent Could probably still be laying in bed rodney's contracting officer at nav air and that was when he was 15 He heard his neck. Um, he's a contracting officer at nav air and he's got his own podcast The game changer podcast rodney flowers and he's walking Wow Wow Yeah, so those points, you know, hopefully help people, you know, I still tie it back to government contracting But nowhere you are nowhere you're going ask for help and be persistent Wow. Wow. Thank you. Thank you. I think that was great. I actually You know, we we've been on for about an hour and a half now. I think that was great I want to be respectful and courteous for your time. Thank you so much for coming on today. Emily I love it. I love it. Um, make sure again, how can people reach you? Let's just give them some some last resources where they can reach you at connect with me on linkedin Okay, so linkedin, okay And my and my name is spelled h-a-r-m-a-n And so connect with me on linkedin and by the way, if you connect with her on linkedin Make sure you put in there g-c-g go con giants. So Those maybe she might not Make sure you put g-c-g where you heard emily at okay So go con giants and for all of you that are watching this on replay Right three months from now six months from now eight months from now You know, make sure you put that on there that you can still get all these linkedin requests three Yeah, it's right. Right. Exactly. 2022 right 2025. I want you to make the request as a go con giant g-c-g So, um, share that what else where else can we reach you? Um, just my website is emily harman dot com and there's a way to schedule a meeting with me if you're interested and Um, those are the two best ways I'd say right now and right now you're interested in and and meeting with people discussing uh positive intelligence well Yeah, I mean you can look at my linkedin Site where I did list, you know, the people that I like to work with my clients fall into these three categories Okay, women including female veterans who want to transform their dreams Into reality so that they can create a life that they love. I know, you know and achieve new heights of authentic success I know that there's a lot of, you know, especially even baby boomers people like me getting ready to retire They're maybe they've worked for the government. Maybe they work for a contractor They've been giving back to the country and when they retire they still want to be able to give back But maybe in a different way, but they've just been head down so far. They don't even know like who am I? What do I want? That's how I felt when I retired Right want to help people like that and entrepreneurs who want to position their company to accelerate results and win more government contracts While creating more freedom and time for themselves for their relationships and their health Part of it is this positive intelligence coaching. I do other coaching too And then empty nesters who are ready to retire, but know that they still have something left to contribute to the world Those are the kinds of people that I want to help So and you know, but if you have a government contracting related question, you know, like I said, I'll help you out the best I can um If I have a kind government contracting question related to a specific contract, can you help me? No, okay because I mean probably not I've been out for two years and you know, I'm not gonna Sometimes people want me to do their own their marketing for them or go and pitch their products to the navy Those are things I don't do There you go. And I like to be clear about that that way. We don't waste anyone's time. Right. Yeah I mean we I promise you we we receive hundreds of emails a week I Yeah, I don't want to endate you with a bunch of uh, not nonsense emails So we just want to make sure everyone's prepared and everyone again We that's part of my job is to help educate people and as you see I'm really good at knowing what the question is to ask So we can eliminate Um, as best as possible. We could screen through some of the noise Uh, because again, it's you know, look like you said I don't mind taking the questions because we have a lot of resources. We can send people too But I'd rather be courteous and respectful of your time and mindful that Thank you. Thank you everybody for watching. Thank you. Malika coming on. Um, you know, you seem happy Oh happy My hip doesn't hurt. I swim You know I'm happy being tired No, that's great. That's great. Enjoy. Well, enjoy your retirement Enjoy your podcast. Uh, I see you on instagram all the time So I'll keep sharing. We'll keep putting the message out there. All right. Hey guys. Listen. Thank you so much for watching As always it's been a pleasure Um, let Emily know you enjoyed this podcast leave some comments on youtube. Let us know what you thought give us a thumbs up Share it with your friends Share it with everyone that you think could actually really gain some insight from this because again as you see We we did not just speak on government contracting there's a lot of people out there small businesses solar peneurs and While the I think the government is doing a great job with stimulus and monies We still like you said none. It doesn't it doesn't address some of the other Uh, sociological issues psychological things that are affecting our small businesses Emily I even mentioned offline how lonely it is out here Um, some of our guests on the show make it a giant says it's a very lonely journey And that's why we try to create communities for people to be in together so we can share in Um, those experiences and ideas together as a community here in gubcan giant. So as always Thank you guys for being here Thank you everybody You guys hey much love to you tracy much love to you guys mohammed. Thank you guys as always. We'll see you next week Uh back here at the same time same place. Bye. Emily. Take care. Bye. Bye