In this episode of “Authentic Conversations with Entrepreneurs” I spoke with B Corp Consultant, Nathan Stuck, on “Taking the Leap” in starting and growing your business!
Katherine Morales: Hi everyone. Thank you so much for joining Authentic Conversations with Entrepreneurs. I’m here with Nathan Stuck and Nathan is a B Corp consultant, I should say THE B Corp consultant, honestly. He’s founder of his new business, Profitable Purpose Consulting. So excited to have you here, Nathan. This is our 10th episode of Authentic Conversations with Entrepreneurs. So you’re entrepreneur number 10. And what this whole show is about is having exactly that, an authentic conversation. I think, and as I was telling you, I define authenticity as both the good and the growing. I think way too much in entrepreneurship we want to just talk about all the success. And then we truly know though, that’s constant growing. It’s an ever-growing process of self and the business. So this is about sharing those authentic stories of your journey.
And today’s topic is “Taking the Leap,” which is, I think, very relatable. Not just in the beginning of entrepreneurship, which is I think where you are at officially now, Nathan, which you’ll talk more about. But I think that the misperception is that you only leap once. You think you start the business, but then you’ve got to leap again and again.
And the only other thing I’ll say is I was telling you it was such a coincidence, I start each morning with the Calm app and a meditation, just a quiet start. And the topic today was, the time is now. And it had this quote that I want you to bounce off of, if you will. It says, “If you wait until everything in your life is perfect before you begin something challenging and new, you’ll be waiting forever. The best time is now.” So introduce yourself, Nathan, anything else you want to say and really let us know what is it that you feel about taking the leap. Where does the passion come and how do you relate to that quote?
Nathan Stuck: Well first of all, thank you. Glad to be here.
Katherine Morales: I like to load the first question.
Nathan Stuck: I feel bad for everybody to join us now because we spent 30 minutes in the green room having one of the best conversations we’ve ever had.
Katherine Morales: We should have been recording this.
Nathan Stuck: Oh, now we need to replicate it. So hopefully I don’t dud now. No, I love that quote because I mean, and I’ll just share a quick story of even this leap that I just took, I started my business last January. My CEO pushed me… I keep calling him my CEO. My old boss, now my friend, and my former boss. And anyway, I had somebody basically approach me of like, “Hey, Mr. B Corp, can we pay you to help us with our certification?” And I went… So I went to Jeff and he was like, “File an LLC and see if you can’t grow something.” And so I-
Katherine Morales: Supportive boss.
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. And I just kind of side-hustled it for a year. And then this year I started to get serious. I invested a lot of the revenue from last year into a website and all this stuff. And I was getting out there, I mean, not that I wasn’t networking before, but real, real busy networking. And the website was live and I had all these little seeds that I plant along the way. And the goal was maybe by the end of this year I’ll be ready. And I sat down with literally on a day where I had no intention on quitting when I woke up that day and I got my first email was that at age 39 I did not make UGA’s 40 under 40 list. Apparently I did not meet the necessary amount of UGA memorabilia in my Zoom background. Which it’s cut off right now, you can’t even see it. It goes.
Katherine Morales: Oh, yeah. You’re like a walking UGA brand.
Nathan Stuck: So I threw on a Braves hat today to mix it up. But yeah, I got that and it took me a second to realize, oh this is just an ego hit, get over it. Who cares? And I know what I’m doing and I’m proud of it. So that’s all that matters. And so I had to drive into the office that day and I stopped on the way at Publix. I got a sub because Katherine and I are both Floridians at heart and everybody knows that Publix-
Katherine Morales: From my hometown.
Nathan Stuck: … Publix is a sub shop that sells groceries.
Katherine Morales: Where shopping is a pleasure.
Nathan Stuck: Yes. And I’m eating a sub in the car and I feel this crunch and I’m like, I never thought that I’d think, oh, please be bone in the meat. No, it was part of a crown that had chipped off. So I’m like, there’s a bunch of dental work I have to pay. So that’s number two. And then I’m pulling into the parking lot at work and we had this big wine-tasting event the next night. And nine of the 15 bottles were delivered that day and the UPS driver came in and told our executive admin that they all broke. And I was just like, you know what? I don’t want to do this anymore. This is the universe just sending me-
Katherine Morales: Happens in threes. Right?
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. So I sat down with my… And I had an intern and she had her presentation. And after everybody left the room, Jeff kind of was like, “Hey, you got a minute?” And I stuck around, we were just talking and I was like, “What are we doing here?” I was like, “Do you think I’m ready?” He’s like, “You’re never going to be ready, but you’re ready.”
Katherine Morales: Wow.
Nathan Stuck: And it was kind of same premise of… And he’s been very supportive-
Katherine Morales: You had a boss that was telling you to leave?
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. And I think he got it though, that he believed in me enough that I could do this. And I don’t think he’s right. I know he’s right. That as long as it was a side hustle, it was never… When all of a sudden you have to feed yourself. Once I got the tooth fixed, of course. Now that once you have to feed yourself, it was the urgency at which all of a sudden top of funnel becomes very important. And all of a sudden just some leads in a Google sheet become like, boom, this one’s at 80% and this one’s at 40% and here’s the follow up items. And it became very targeted. And I was shocked at how quickly I was able to start selling and getting projects booked and revenue booked and how quickly it took off. But yeah, that was-
Katherine Morales: Well that MBA I think was serving you well in that moment.
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. Yeah. It was just everything. I mean, there’s the old adage too that good fortune is when hard work meets or when opportunity meets preparation, and I had been preparing for this. I didn’t know I was preparing for it, but I had been for four or five years, all the work I was doing in the B Corp space. And then I think the opportunity was there and I already had some people kind of like, hey. And so I was able to close those deals and have a little revenue already booked when I jumped. And so, yeah. No, that quote, Yeah. There’s not a good time, apparently it’s when you chip a crown off and a bunch of wine breaks and UGA-
Katherine Morales: So what you’re saying is read the sign.
Nathan Stuck: And maybe next year maybe I’ll be 41 under 41. I don’t know. I don’t think they give that, but we’ll try.
Katherine Morales: Yeah. Yeah. I’m curious though. So if your boss at the time had said, “Wow, it just seems like a shitty day. Some bottles broke and what you trying to make of it.” If he hadn’t encouraged you, do you think you would’ve still lept? Lept, leap. Yeah.
Nathan Stuck: I think it was coming. I had been there five or six years. And at some point too, it’s like when your title is stagnant, it’s like how long can you stay at the same company before it starts to hinder your career before that doesn’t look good on your resume that you made director and then you’ve been in the same director role for forever. So yeah, I mean I don’t know that it would’ve happened that day, but I think it would’ve happened. It would have happened.
Katherine Morales: You felt it stirring.
Nathan Stuck: Yeah.
Just the timing. Everything was just right. Everything just… And again, it was like there was an opportunity of timing of everything, of growth of the B Corp Movement, of just that it all just kind of aligned. Yeah, it might not have been that day, but it was coming.
Katherine Morales: I love it. Can we pause one minute because I think that because you’re so involved with B Corp, there’s an assumption that most people know what the heck that is. So this is your moment. Please share what a B corporation is.
Nathan Stuck: So B corporations are for profit businesses that are certified by an outside non-profit body B lab and using their business as a force for good. So kind of like lead is to a building or certified organic is to milk, B corps are to the entire business. So looking at your corporate governance, transparency, your workers and benefits and pay and supplementary benefits, your community impact. From everything from supply chain diversity to employee diversity to pro bono charitable work, et cetera, to your environmental footprint and also your customers and how you take care of your customers. Even things like are you collecting data on your website and are you transparent about what you’re using the data for? Those types of things.
And then above and beyond that you get points for if you know any for profit business can certify. So there’s companies like the one I worked for was just a regular consulting company, IT consulting, but there’s also social impact businesses. So depending on what your business is in the line or in which line your business is in, you can get points for going above and beyond to solve some sort of need for underserved populations or people below the poverty line and things like that. So there’s some really cool for-profit social enterprises that are out there that people would go, oh, so you’re a non-profit? No. No, they’re for profit. So it’s a very cool movement. I mean Patagonia, Warby Parker, Tom’s Shoes, Tom’s of Maine, Bombas socks.
Katherine Morales: Those are the ones I think a lot of people know about. But where can people go to… There’s a website where you can look up B corporations, right?
Nathan Stuck: I think it’s bcorporation.net/directory. But if you google B Corp directory, it will say it’s a nonprofit. So scroll down past the ad, the paid click one.
Katherine Morales: Well I mean, I want to say try to shop that for the holidays, try to support B corporations, because I think that’s how I think all business should be honestly.
Nathan Stuck: Uncommon Goods. I highly recommend Uncommon Goods for gifts. It’s certified B Corp. And they have, well, uncommon stuff.
Katherine Morales: Really cool gifts. Yeah.
Nathan Stuck: It’s just really cool handmade. A lot of makers sell their stuff there. Really cool products.
Katherine Morales: I love their catalog. So is your business a B Corp or what are the steps to get into it? I don’t think it’s all that you describe. It takes the process, right?
Nathan Stuck: Yeah, you have to be in business for a year working at least 35 hours a week on the business. Which for anybody doing the math means that for the first year I was basically working two full-time jobs. I like my work. So I didn’t really care. It’s not really work if you enjoy what you’re doing. But yeah, so as soon as I hit my one-year anniversary, I submitted my assessment and then got through the verification, the evaluation queue, verification queue. The audit call. And I’ve been certified since May, I believe.
Katherine Morales: Oh, wow. Congrats. Of course you are. You’re like Mr. B Corp.
Nathan Stuck: A few years is a bad look to be a B Corp.
Katherine Morales: Well that’s the title Mr. B Corp.
Nathan Stuck: Bad look. Yeah. You can’t be Mr. B Corp and then own a company that’s not a B corp or do B corp consulting if you’re not a B corp.
Katherine Morales: Exactly, exactly. So, okay, take me back. Let’s get back to the leaping here because I don’t think this is your first leap. I think we’ve had 30 minutes before where I really want you to talk about. I think you’re part human, part frog. So go ahead and fill us in.
Nathan Stuck: You know what? It’s funny, until this little conversation before this, I don’t think I even noticed. I think that I would’ve said this is the first leap I’ve taken but, yeah I’ll date myself.
Katherine Morales: Well that’s the beauty of having a truly authentic conversation. It’s like you hear something for the first time within yourself. So thank you. I’m glad I could unlock that for you.
Nathan Stuck: I was going to say, I don’t want to share what year it was because I’ll date myself, but I already told people I was 39. So 2006, I quit a job, I got a job in Athens after I graduated.
Katherine Morales: In Georgia, yeah.
Nathan Stuck: One day I just decided I was done and something, I forget what happened, some spoiled Wendy’s chicken nuggets or something. Anyway.
Katherine Morales: It’s all related to food.
Nathan Stuck: It was trucking. I worked in trucking. Somebody forgot to check a trailer and a bunch of chicken spoiled over the weekend. And so I was like, you know what? I’m done. So I’d been playing a lot of poker and I just decided that that was it. And I was going to move to Las Vegas and try to be a professional poker. It was the heyday of all the World Series of Poker was on primetime and some average Joe had just won, Chris Moneymaker. His last name literally was Moneymaker.
And so I moved to Vegas. So I literally packed up a U-Haul, booked an apartment site unseen because I had some other friends who had moved out there to play poker who also lived in that apartment complex. I reffed Hockey and played poker. Until I decided that maybe I should get a real job and I did that. I went to Enterprise, I rented cars for two years and it’s funny how many people I tell that story to. I worked for Enterprise.
Katherine Morales: Really?
Nathan Stuck: Oh yeah. And honestly it’s funny how much I owe to that company of when I think about how much they trained me on APIs and managing the numbers and things like that.
Katherine Morales: I thought you might literally owe money. I was like…
Nathan Stuck: Oh no, no, no. How much I owe. No. I’m not on their do not rent list. Don’t worry.
Katherine Morales: I don’t know why I took it there. You were going with money and gambling.
Nathan Stuck: Living in Vegas. I owe them so much money. No. I owe them so much for my career. But even there two years in, I took a leap with a really promising rental career and you’d be the next big branch manager. And I was like, what’s this outside sales role? That looks pretty cool. I’ve always wanted to try sales. So I did outside sales for three years, can’t say I’m great at it. And then, yeah. Then I’d say those leaps just kind of kept happening. And I quit a job, a horrible job when I knew I just had to quit. I couldn’t go back with no plan in place. I mean then now we’re fast forward to 2014, 2015.
So then it was like I had to figure it out and so I drove an Uber. Because I kind of quit that job and I was like, I’ll go back to grad school. But I was already summer so I’ve missed deadlines. So I drove an Uber. I bartended. I did a bunch of stuff I never thought I would do or really ever… Just in your mid-thirties. I mean I thought I would bartender in college; I didn’t think I’d be starting bartending at a convention center at age 32.
So I did all that. I got into grad school and then even finishing grad school, I worked on that B corp project for my old company. And I don’t know, I was like what made me want to go work for… I mean now it all makes sense that I went to work for the same boss I was just telling a story about. But I went to work for some company that had… I was employee 18 or 19 when I started and all my MBA buddies are going to Georgia Pacific and Delta and UPS and I’m like, I’m going to work for this startup consulting shop.
So yeah. It just kept happening. I mean, I don’t know. I guess going back to the quote you shared. I was like why did I start… Why did I take that job? Why did I start B Local Georgia 2018 to start my own non-profit? Why did I decide that I should write a book and release it? So again, that conversation we had before this, I guess I didn’t realize that, yeah, maybe I am part frog that I think if you’ve put in the work and you know you’ve put in the work and you feel prepared, maybe it’s less scary. But I don’t think that that’s even true. If I’m being a hundred percent candid, it’s all terrifying. And any entrepreneur will tell you there’s-
Katherine Morales: Even though you were doing a lot of leaping, it’s always been terrifying?
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. I mean I quit a job with no idea of anything lined up. No job, no real plan other than grad school.
Katherine Morales: How do you do it anyways? How do you push through the terrifying?
Nathan Stuck: I think you just have to believe in yourself. Bet on yourself. If I’m using the little poker analogy. You have to be willing to bet on yourself. And again, to stick with the poker analogies, I don’t think you need to shove, which is poker speak for push all your chips in the middle of the table and go all in. Which everybody loves to do.
Katherine Morales: Yeah, thank you for defining that. I was like…
Nathan Stuck: It was one of my favorite home games to play in with a bunch of people like that. But I think sometimes you can just call a bet and see what happens. You don’t have to… It doesn’t always have to be a binary all or nothing. But I think you can take leaps and conservative leaps. And I think the older you get, you start to trust your gut and the situation that you’re in and you know how hard you’ve worked and how prepared you are for what’s going to happen. And you understand the risk versus reward too.
Even quitting my job, what is the worst thing that was going to happen to me? Failure and an ego blow. Honestly, the worst thing was that I would have to find another job and admit that my baby, my idea, my new business didn’t work. And it’s still a possibility but at the end of the day, I think at some point I had that epiphany very early on. I was like, what’s the worst thing that could happen right now? And it isn’t that bad. But the best thing, honestly the worst thing that could ever happen was I never take the leap and then I live the rest of my life talking about this idea I had and I used to have this consulting business on the side. It kind of fizzled eventually. That’s the worst thing that could happen was to never know if I have the potential that I believe I have.
So yeah. Leap.
Katherine Morales: That’s why I say it’s like this spark inside of you. It’s like this burning. It’s not going to go away, but it’s up to you to decide when you ignite it.
Nathan Stuck: And all the little things you’ve always wanted to do at work where you’re like, man, if I was the boss, I run things this way. And then it’s kind of like, well, go start your own company. You’re like, fine, I will. So now you get to build whatever you want to build.
Katherine Morales: But you’d be surprised how many entrepreneurs don’t ask themselves that question. And it’s something that I thought of at the end of my first month in business. I say, you have to ask yourself what kind of boss do I want to be to myself? Because you think whatever situation you’re in, you think is all about that situation, but you take yourself with you. And so it goes both ways. So I realized, we talked about this, that I am super hard working and I was stressing myself the hell out and I was like, I’m my worst boss. So yeah, that’s when I really started talking about pacing and the aura and fire in my brand is rhythm. Finding your pacing, setting your rhythm and your business. Because you get in the motions with, I think we’ve talked about this already too, you’re figuring out your rhythm and your business. Because maybe this is the first time you’re having to stick a while and you don’t want to leap away from this. This is your baby, like you said.
Nathan Stuck: And knowing what works for you too. There was a night the other night where I was working on a deliverable for a client. It involved basically making a lot of slide decks, training slide decks, because I do some culture work as well. And it was kind of like, hey, let’s implement this, but let’s implement it in a way that enhances the culture. How often are we going to review? So anyway, so I’m making these decks and I have three decks left out of the eight I was making. And I find myself at, man, I’m in the zone at midnight. But earlier that day I was just not feeling anything. So I was doing laundry and vacuuming. When you find yourself doing stuff, I don’t know, I’m vacuuming the blinds. And so I worked till four in the morning because, man, I found my… And same thing with working on the book, it was like I’ve discovered that I do the late night work. I’m better. I don’t know why. I focus, I zone in. Maybe there are less alerts.
Katherine Morales: Which doesn’t work in a traditional business.
Nathan Stuck: But you think about-
Katherine Morales: Tell us more about the book, Nathan. Tell us more about the book.
Nathan Stuck: I’ll tell you about the book. The book is a longer version of a lot of the story I actually shared.
Katherine Morales: That’s another leap.
Nathan Stuck: But no, the whole premise of the book, when I took the leap into outside sales at Enterprise, I had a boss who gave me a CD set. At least it wasn’t a cassette set of Jim Rohn.
Katherine Morales: Not floppy disks.
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. Oh God. It was the motivational speaker Jim Rohn. It was his, The Art of Exceptional Living. And anybody who knows Jim Rohn knows he has a really unique voice. And anyway, I love it. I ate it up. I’d never been introduced to personal development before. And he has a quote that he always says, which is, “Learn to work harder on yourself than you do in your job.” And I was sitting on a… I’ve been thinking about this book, I’ve been trying to write it. I got a cabin in up in North Georgia and sat there and wrote seven pages and then just moved a table of contents around a bunch of times.
And then I was sitting on a tarmac waiting to go on a vacation and I hadn’t taken my computer. And I started thinking about that quote and reflecting on how hard I had worked to get to this point. And I just started writing. And out of that just came this whole story of, again, much this conversation where I didn’t realize it until I started putting my thoughts down that I have always worked really hard on myself. Not just because I think we lose that in the whole work-life balance conversation. And I hate to tell you nobody who’s made it and I think who lives that life that they’ve always dreamed of outside of maybe an influencer or a YouTuber. Most of us have put in really, really long hours developing skills and networks and going trudging through those jobs that we didn’t necessarily find any purpose or meaning in. But taking things out of them.
And I just said that that was worth telling the story of you have to take ownership of your own career and what you want it to look like cause nobody else is going to. So if you’re going to spend your early career going, well it’s 4:59, I am done and that is it. And I don’t read books, I don’t go to networking events, they don’t pay me to do that. Then don’t be surprised when you wake up and you’re my age now and you’re going like, huh, that job looks real… You’re scrolling through the jobs and you’re like, that job sounds great. And you’re like, I have none of those skills. Especially nowadays. Everything’s online.
Katherine Morales: You’re not going to grow them all under that one roof.
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. And you can look at a job posting now and be like, man, really, in my world, everybody’s like, I want to work in sustainability. Well what does that mean? Sustainability is so broad. So let’s define what it is. But then when you find, okay, no I really want to work in like ESG consult. Okay, environmental. Okay great. What do those job postings say? What skills do you need? What qualifications are they requiring? Go get them.
Katherine Morales: It’s specific, right? Yeah.
Nathan Stuck: It’s 2022. It’s online. There’s Khan Academy and New Demi and there’s nonprofits you can volunteer at and build skills. There’s just so many ways that there’s really no excuse. And I think that’s something that I think gets missed a lot of the times. Because I think most people… I always joke, unless you’re a finance or accounting major, you don’t know what you’re going to do after college. You just kind of go and like, oh I don’t know. I’m going to get a degree because people told me to. And I think that it’s important to know that A, you don’t have to love that first job and B, start to just be constantly kind of always working on that, what’s my five year plan? Where do I want to be? And be okay to pivot too when you realize that maybe I thought I wanted to do PR or whatever.
Katherine Morales: Not just when a pandemic prompts you to pivot. Right?
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. And be willing to say, okay, this plan was good and I’m working towards it and what are the skills I have? How do they transfer to where I want to pivot and what is it that I find meaning in? But I think that also requires a lot of little leaps and little failures and little trials and things to figure out what you love and what you don’t.
Katherine Morales: What is the book called?
Nathan Stuck: It’s called Happy Monday: Designing Your Dream Career.
Katherine Morales: Love it. Love it. And who is it for? Because I can hear a lot of different… I know you do some work at UGA, University of Georgia and working with students, I hear some with early career, but who can benefit from reading it?
Nathan Stuck: I think students all the way up through, I would think, I would even say young professionals. I would say mid thirties, late thirties. I mean, I think really just anybody looking to pivot, if I’m being honest, I never think it’s too late to wake up at early forties, mid forties and go, what am I doing here? What did I always want to do? How do I get there?
I mean I knew I was onto something because this started, when I wrote on the airplane, I paid a buddy of mine that has a film production company. I paid him a thousand bucks to come recording me. I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I probably didn’t need to be spending a thousand dollars or I was like, let’s do this. I’ve never done anything with the video. But his son helped him. His 15 year old son helped him with all the cameras set up and we made it look like I was giving a TED Talk. I was in an empty room, it was kind of fun. And afterwards I was like, I literally got off and I went, “Was that any good?” And his first response was, “I’m so glad my son was here to hear that. Because that was very valuable.” I was like, oh.
Katherine Morales: Were you reading your book?
Nathan Stuck: No, I hadn’t even written the book yet. This was just me. It was a speech that I wrote to kind of maybe this is a TED Talk. And that’s the book came out of that was I was my fleshed out thoughts of like, huh.
Katherine Morales: You know you have to share this behind the scenes. I’m so curious.
Nathan Stuck: It’s on YouTube somewhere.
Katherine Morales: Oh my God. I love it.
Nathan Stuck: But yeah. Well I don’t like it because you can hear me breathing. I need to rerecord.
Katherine Morales: The authentic you Nathan.
Nathan Stuck: Yes. But I think, it comes back to, and we talked about this before the show, some of the imposter syndrome and things that just never go away of, was that any good? Or the night I released the book where I didn’t sleep because I’m like, you’re stupid. Nobody wants to read your story. And then people start reading it and they’re like, “Dude, loved your book.” And you’re like, “Oh, my book?” So I think, I don’t know, coming to grips with that as an entrepreneur has been fun as well of acknowledging when that’s creeping in and just riding the wave of the imposter syndrome knowing that this too shall pass.
Katherine Morales: It’s part of the journey.
It’s interesting. Well I want to show people where to go for your business website because I know they’re curious to learn more about you and check you out.
Nathan Stuck: It’s a really easy short domain name, I know.
Katherine Morales: It’s memorable and I love the alliteration of it, so that makes it more memorable. No. I was going to say, so my daughter is five and a half and I think there something with the five and six between five and eight obsession with floor is lava and she’s found the TV show. So I think inevitably there’s just varying comfort levels. Just like it is with investing. Are you conservative or you more easy breezy with it? And so for the people, I can’t avoid alliteration, who fear the fall or the fail or the floundering or, I think even more so, those people who are sitting on that wall like a Humpty Dumpty.
Nathan Stuck: Oh, you need me to push them over?
Katherine Morales: Well I think it’s whether you think the floor is lava or you think, well I can’t take the leap because I might fall and crack open like Humpty Dumpty. What if I embarrass myself, for the early entrepreneur taking that initial leap. Or deciding I can change my business or I can do this, write a book. For the people that aren’t as used to the leaps, what advice would you give them?
Nathan Stuck: I mean, maybe take a baby leap. But I think mean there’s the old embrace failure. If you’re not failing, you haven’t really tried anything. If you’ve never failed or you’re some sort of genius person, that’s awesome. You think about where the wisdom comes from. And I try to get that through in the book is the wisdom is coming from the fact that I learned all these things failing. I learned them getting laid off twice in a year or realizing that I’m an adequate salesman. That’s it. There’s just so many things of, even the things I was good at, I discovered I was miserable. And so, I don’t know, I think putting yourself out there is just… I wrote down a line to myself.
A year and a half ago I had an email and I’d snooze it and it pop up every Saturday. I literally said, do something every day that makes yourself uncomfortable. And I’ve been trying to. So I think a lot of, I don’t think I appreciate how much the stretching and the uncomfortability have helped me grow as a person. Starting to even… I remember the baby leap of being on my first podcast and now I’m like-
Katherine Morales: All over.
Nathan Stuck: … I’ll see if I can fit you in.
Katherine Morales: I’m so honored to have you Nathan. You’ve been all around the globe on podcasts.
Nathan Stuck: But oh I know it keeps going too. South Africa next month. But yeah. I think the more leaping you do, the more you learn to trust your gut and read the situation the correct way. And it’s kind of like football or whatever sport you’re into. The quarterback comes up to the line and he’s seeing this defensive formation and he knows that linebacker’s blitzing and you know what I mean? But the first time you’re going to get hit in the teeth, but after you get hit in the teeth enough times, you’re going to, okay, he’s coming. Check down, throw to that guy over there. So I think that’s the beauty of it is the more you do it, the more you fail, the better you’re going to get. And again, getting over your ego, the worst thing that could happen is that you fail. Who cares. And honestly, the older you get and the more-
Katherine Morales: Be unafraid to fail.
Nathan Stuck: If you have a friend that makes fun of you or somebody in your network that’s like knew you were going to fail, cut them out of your network and just move on. Only supportive people.
Katherine Morales: Nobody needs that.
Nathan Stuck: Even my dad, when I quit, my parents swore up and down, they’re like, oh, Nathan got laid off. And I was like, “No, no, no, I quit.” And my dad sent me something about when he tried to start a business and about how quickly he ran out of money and I just sent him back. I said, “Dad, that’s great, but I don’t want to hear more-”
Katherine Morales: I’m writing my own story.
Nathan Stuck: Positive vibes only. And I hit send and I’ve never heard it again. But I’m like, I need support. I don’t need Negative Nancy. I don’t need the sky falling. I already know how to gauge risk. Need support. That’s all I want and that’s all I need. And anybody who isn’t offering that, I don’t really have time for you.
Katherine Morales: Right. Yeah. I’m glad you’ve already figured that out as an entrepreneur for sure. It’s about having support and minimizing any of the naysayers for sure.
Nathan Stuck: Yep.
Katherine Morales: So I know you are wild active on LinkedIn, so I want people to find you there since we are on LinkedIn.
Nathan Stuck: The only social I use.
Katherine Morales: And you have a special offer for people, right?
Nathan Stuck: Yeah. If anybody wants to read the ebook.
Katherine Morales: Happy Monday.
Nathan Stuck: Happy Monday: Designing Your Dream Career. I can’t believe I don’t have the copy right here. Anyway, if you will go on LinkedIn and follow my company page, Profitable Purpose Consulting, and then just send me a message and tells me I followed it and give me your email. And I don’t have a newsletter, so you don’t have to worry about me spamming you. I legit just need your email that’s associated with your Kindle account so that I can send you a copy of the book free-
Katherine Morales: A free copy of the ebook.
Nathan Stuck: … E-reader. Yeah, free copy. So follow me on LinkedIn–
Katherine Morales: When do they have to do this by?
Nathan Stuck: I would love it by the end of the day tomorrow. Because I’m supposed to raise the price and then my free promo just got a lot more expensive.
Katherine Morales: Okay, so you have 24 hours.
Nathan Stuck: Yes.
Katherine Morales: And I’ll say I read the forward of the book, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. And it felt like a conversation with you, Nathan. It just felt like, so you and I loved it for that.
Nathan Stuck: This is who you get when you read the book.
Katherine Morales: Yeah. And we’ve known each other what? Like a year and a half, two years now?
Nathan Stuck: A little bit longer than that. It was like-
Katherine Morales: I don’t know.
Nathan Stuck: Maybe? I don’t know.
Katherine Morales: Yeah.
Nathan Stuck: Feels like years.
Katherine Morales: Yeah. Our good friend Lisa.
Nathan Stuck: Yeah.
Katherine Morales: Lisa Michaels connected us. She was on here last month.
Nathan Stuck: Oh, nice.
Katherine Morales: So I was like, I’m talking to Nathan. But every conversation has just been so natural and so wonderful. I think if you can, I don’t care if you’re a young professional, you got to read Nathan’s book. He’s just a superstar.
Nathan Stuck: Yes, please leave a review on Amazon.
Katherine Morales: Yeah. And I’ll have the replay here on LinkedIn also. It’ll be on my website next week. And speaking of imposter syndrome, we’re going to be talking about it on our next episode on November 17th at 1:30 ET. We’re going to be talking to Pam Valentine about “You Are Enough” and her own journey with imposter syndrome. I see you shaking her head. I think that’s a message that every entrepreneur has had to remind themselves of every now and again, maybe daily on some days. Yeah.
Nathan Stuck: It’s real.
Katherine Morales: So thank you so, so much for doing this, Nathan, for being here, for being the authentic you and nothing else, just enough.
Nathan Stuck: Baseball cap and all. It’s my pleasure.
Katherine Morales: Yeah, all you 100%. And just very rich in every conversation. Thank you. Thank you.
Nathan Stuck: Thanks.
Katherine Morales: And I look forward to continuing to follow your journey and your business. So congrats.
Nathan Stuck: Thank you.
Katherine Morales: Thank you all for joining.
Nathan Stuck: Thanks everybody.
