Founders' Forum

Entrepreneurship’s Toughest Test: Turning Setbacks into Success

• Marc Bernstein / Ang Onorato • Episode 94

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What happens when everything you’ve carefully planned falls apart? In this episode, co-hosts Marc Bernstein and Ang Onorato turn an unexpected guest cancellation into a powerful conversation on resilience, adaptability, and the lessons that emerge from life’s disruptions. Drawing from personal experiences—including a business lost to fire, navigating health challenges while running a business, and overcoming financial hardship—they explore how setbacks often pave the way for growth and transformation.

In this episode, Marc and Ang discuss:

  • The peaks and plummets of entrepreneurship and how to navigate them
  • The power of vulnerability in leadership and client relationships
  • Lessons from personal crises and how they shape business decisions
  • Why you don’t need to be perfect—just 1% ahead to make an impact
  • How to embrace uncertainty and turn setbacks into stepping stones

Whether you're an entrepreneur, business leader, or navigating personal challenges, this conversation is a reminder that resilience isn’t just about bouncing back—it’s about evolving.

Tune in and join the conversation. And if you found this episode valuable, share it with someone who might need to hear it!

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Announcer:

Entrepreneur, founder, author and financial advisor, Marc Bernstein helps high-performing business owners turn their visions into reality. Through his innovative work and the Forward Focus Forums, Marc connects entrepreneurs to resources that fuel their success. Founders Forum is a radio show and podcast where entrepreneurs share their journeys, revealing the lessons they've learned and the stories behind their success. Join Marc and his guests for a mix of inspiration, valuable insights and a little fun. Now let's dive in.

Marc Bernstein:

Good morning America. How are you? Good morning Ang. For the first time in many years, many months, many days, I have a big echo in here. Tj, what's going on? It's on my side, Okay, it's on Zoom, we're on Zoom and somehow we have an echo. I know why because I didn't turn off audio. Let's do that real quickly. I love doing this live on the radio. Here we go Now, no echo. We got it. There we go.

Marc Bernstein:

So, thankfully, my team is here, TJ's here, Ang is here, and the theme of today is going to be things don't always go as expected. So what happened was we're doing two shows today, one virtual and one live in the studio, which I am, and Ang is virtual, and our guest today didn't show up, and that's never happened in the history of the show without at least a phone call, or you know, we've had some last-minute emergencies, but nothing like this, and this is somebody who you know is an advertiser and was very excited about it. So I'm hoping that everything is okay, Anyway. So Ang and I were getting caught up this morning and we're talking about the similarities in what we go through often. We've had a lot of amazing synergies over time and I think that's going to be the theme of the show. Just that kind of day, so anyway.

Ang Onorato:

Talking doesn't go as planned sometimes.

Marc Bernstein:

Sometimes things just don't go as planned, right? So I actually have a little quote, if I can find it. Where did it go? Albert Einstein, that's not the one. Thomas Edison, I'm sorry, I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. So something to think about. What occurs to you with that Ang?

Ang Onorato:

I feel like that quote was written many moons ago, but it's very applicable to life right now, right, right. But you know they say in sales, right, that to get excited every time you get a no, because the more no's you get, the closer you get to the big yes, yep, and I think that's very relevant to you. Know, just, the journey. We talk about that quite a bit. I know we'll talk about it today that everything life, business, health it's all a journey. There's not a beginning and an end. It's the part in the middle and I think that's what you and I are both living in and experiencing today where the show must go on, kind of thing, right, yep.

Marc Bernstein:

So we're going to do some kind of free form, we're live on the radio and we're just going to talk. But I'll start with I had written a book and I think Ang knows this story called the Fiscal Therapy Solution. The Fiscal Therapy Solution 1.0 and 2.0 is coming out one of these days, but 1.0 starts out talking about my journey and how, I think I ended up in the business that I'm in as a financial planner and as a consultant to people in regard to their finances, and it tells my father's story, who had built a business that he created from scratch. He was a greeting card distributor and he, you know, everything was going well. He was at the point I think he was 55. I think he was about the same age as you, Ang, without giving anything away, but I think, and what happened is he came, you know, he got a call in the house and said come on, go with me and get in the car. We got to go, and so he told me on the way over that his business was on fire and the building that he was in was on fire. And he, you know, when we got there, the fire was almost out, but there were still fire trucks there and there's lots of water going into the building and lots of smoke. So we didn't really see fire, but we saw water and smoke. Well, if you're in the greeting card business, your inventory is totally destroyed.

Marc Bernstein:

And as we're watching it, he was really upset with himself because he knew he had to update his property casualty insurance for the business and he hadn't gotten around to it and he knew he wasn't going to have enough and he knew it was an issue and he was, you know. So I watched my father. I was, I was, you know, kind of heartbroken because I knew he worked seven days a week for many years and I knew how much he put into this business and he literally is watching it going up in smoke and, um, you know, so he went through a whole journey of you know, maybe it's time to throw in the towel. And he had an offer to work in the greeting card industry and pick up and move the family to Kansas City from Philadelphia. And I was a senior in high school and I selfishly said I'm not going because, you know, I was a big, big man, I had a girlfriend, I had a band. I'm like I'm not picking. You know, it was my senior year of high school. It would have been a pretty tough time to do it anyway and you know, looking back, I should have taken the journey. It could have been fun. But anyway, he decided in the end and shortly after that his brother passed away my uncle suddenly, and I remember walking at my you know, my aunt's house at the funeral. We took a walk and he was um, and I think that's when he said you know what? I'm going to figure this out. I'm not going to. I don't, you know, we're not going to move to Kansas city, we're going to. You know, I'm going to fight the battle.

Marc Bernstein:

And fighting the battle meant finding new space, because his building was destroyed and in order to make up the money from what it cost him, he figured out he'd have to triple the size of his business. So at 55, when he thought it was finally time to start taking it easy, he had to go out and kind of do it all over again and rebuild the business to another level in order to survive and thrive, which he did, which was a great role model for me, and so I have had. You know, I'll just mention this you know I made a big change 10 years ago and I thought that was it. I had to go backwards, to go forward, to start a new business and to, and I thought that was it. Now it's smooth running. Now, here it is, 10 years later and you know I have a financial services business called March and I have partners in it and I love my partners. It's great relationships. But, without going into a lot of detail, we had some other people involved that weren't necessarily aligned and we had to slug through a lot of issues Good people, but just different visions of different versions of vision and all that the business has done really well despite that. But, um, there, there, and we finally have resolved it and we've got the right people in place and everything's moving forward. Our slogan is March forward, and so it's. It's moving forward.

Marc Bernstein:

But, um, there were repercussions. To me, it's often the stress after the stress that I have had to adjust to, some of them financial, because of new arrangements, new partners, new, different things. And about a month ago I was thinking how did I let myself get in this position after all these years in this business? I know this. Inside and out, business is good, but here are these other things I have to deal with. And you know, I realized I'm in some groups. I'm in an entrepreneur's organization, eo Forum, and I have another group that I meet with on a regular basis and I had the opportunity to talk about these things and, interestingly, I realized the others were all either had just gone through or were going through very similar things in many cases, and I real, and they're all entrepreneurs.

Marc Bernstein:

And I realized that this is what we talk about every week.

Marc Bernstein:

This is our show.

Marc Bernstein:

We are, you know, it's an entrepreneur.

Marc Bernstein:

It's not a smooth ride.

Marc Bernstein:

I talk about that a lot with guests. There's peaks and valleys and I'm simultaneously having a peak and a valley, you know, and that's what, and it's hard to get my arms around that. But once I realized that and said, look, this is. There was no promise, there's no guarantees that at a certain age it's not going to happen anymore or that you know, a certain stage of a business it's not going to happen anymore. You've got to learn to expect the unexpected and that's what I think the role of the entrepreneur is.

Marc Bernstein:

So I will say I bounced back from it pretty quickly. I'm in a really good mindset. I feel that the vision that I have for the business is really everybody's on board and we're really clear and we know what to do to move forward. But you know, it's just you have to deal with these things along the way and I've talked enough. So, Ang, I know you have some perspective on this. So, and believe it or not, this show goes so fast. We have about six minutes towards the tool till our break, but we will let's have you talk for a little bit and then we'll come back and we'll get deeper into this after the break.

Ang Onorato:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, you know. First, Marc, I think the whole fact that you and I are chatting today I'm back on the show and for listeners that don't know, you know I was out with a surgical procedure. I had to have a new hip replacement. We told them a little but not many details, but we did reference it. Yeah Well, you know, and I think it's to start there, you know I was gearing up it's relatively these days considered a routine surgery, especially for someone, I'm going to say, young like me. That's physically fit.

Marc Bernstein:

And me, who's older. I had it and it was a routine surgery, however.

Ang Onorato:

Right, right, and you don't know right. And so a couple of different things happen. Talk about preparing for the unexpected. I don't even know if I shared this with you, but the day of the surgery was right after the major hurricane hit the East coast. It wiped out, it created a shortage of IV fluids, so I went into surgery and came out and post off with a shortage of that, which led to severe dehydration and there's a whole bunch of other complications. So I'm still dealing and not feeling a hundred percent.

Marc Bernstein:

I missed that exciting part of the story.

Ang Onorato:

Yes. So that started it, and then I have other complications now. But I think when you talk about from a journey, preparing for the unexpected and what does it look like when you are an entrepreneur, right, I think there's a couple lessons I've learned from this, where I went into this saying you know, I'm fine, I'm healthy, I'll be walking, I'm coming home that night, it's going to just be routine. And now I'm months into this procedure and it's not routine. It's had me adjust very differently. When you run your own business and you're supporting clients as a consultant as well and you're not feeling great and you don't have a huge team behind you, it's how do you, how do you adjust quickly on the fly, like you and I did this morning?

Marc Bernstein:

Right Besides all that besides all that. Besides all that, everything's great, though right I'm sorry. Yeah, besides all that, I'm making light. Great, though right I'm making light, no, but actually.

Ang Onorato:

But I think what you and I talked about offline, which is, I think we're both in the same boat, we're service providers of different stories, but kind of the same thing.

Ang Onorato:

Where you know, I think a lot of us as entrepreneurs, especially when we're providing a service to our clients, we try to keep the at least the external look facing container that, hey, we've got this, come to us, you come to us to trust us in the work that we do and the support that we give.

Ang Onorato:

So we don't want to show any kinks in our journey, right, because we feel like how would our clients feel if we let them know that we're struggling or that we're in a valley? And what I've learned, Marc, and I think what you and I are both learning is that to really create the most trust and credibility with our clients whether in your case you're providing financial support, in mine I'm providing leadership and executive job search and personal development that I think our clients appreciate it even more when they understand that we do have valleys like them. The difference is how do we put it together, how do we pick it back up, and the lessons that we learn from that are the things that we now are bringing to our clients to show them we can help you get back to the peak. I, as you know, also just finished a nine-month program with Heroic Public Speaking for keynote speaking training, and a big part of my speech is about what I call my own peak and plummet cycle, and it's a natural thing.

Ang Onorato:

We peak and we plummet, and the difference is how do we learn the things in both sections of that cycle that you and I both have developed mechanisms, tools, methodologies that I think are really beneficial for our clients. The hard part is for us as entrepreneurs, as leaders, as individuals, to realize it's okay to say, hey, I'm in a valley right now, this wasn't expected. Does it feel great? But I know, on the other side of this, not only is it going to be better for us, but we're going to do even better for our clients because we can relate to them and vice versa. So I think that's a big message for us today and for that I know we're almost at break time and I'm really glad we had a chance to do this show on the fly Me too.

Marc Bernstein:

And we will take one more minute before we do the break, because a couple things I just wanted to point out that caught my attention, that you said A couple things I just wanted to point out that caught my attention, that you said. So one theme that we've had on the show before, especially with Emily and Julie, who we've had here before, is vulnerability. And what I heard you say although you didn't use the word is it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to let the people around you know what's going on, and I think that's important. And I do think you know we call what we do physical therapy and I and that's part of the journey. It's just like if you have a therapist, you know that they've been through a lot of the stuff which is how they've come to be what they are today. So it brings a lot more depth to people in the relationship when you can do that.

Marc Bernstein:

And the other word I heard although you didn't say it was resilience, which is something we've talked a lot about on the show, which is you learn to be resilient. If you're an entrepreneur, you almost have to by definition, and it's come up in all kinds of interviews we've done on the show. It's come in the groups that I'm in and groups that I've coached and I know it has with you and your clients, and so resilience is the other word and with that TJ we'll take a real quick break and we'll be back and we'll dive into this a little deeper.

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Marc Bernstein:

We are back on Founders Forum. So, Ang, I was just thinking about something at the break, so I do want to hear about your peak and plummet. Is that how you? What do you call it? The way you refer to the words?

Ang Onorato:

Yeah, I call it my peak and plummet cycle.

Marc Bernstein:

But before you do that, I just had an observation. You know we're talking, we have people listening. I'm sure that aren't entrepreneurs, and this is really Founders Forum. It's really not just entrepreneurs, but people who have founded businesses. However, isn't it true of people in general? In life peaks and plummets, and resilience is important for everybody, and so is, I think, the idea of being vulnerable and being able to express what's going on in your life is very important as well. That sounds like a female kind of trait, but I've always said I have a my wife says this and I think Anne would acknowledge this. I have a highly developed female side as well as male side. I think I've learned to be vulnerable and learned to express that side of myself over the years, um, but anyway, having said that, um, let's talk about peak employment and what you talk. What you talk you're talking about in your talk, and it might give us some more fodder?

Ang Onorato:

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I'm glad you pointed out the fact that that, while you know we focus and concentrate on entrepreneurs I mean there's a lot of entrepreneurs that you and I both know that had total corporate careers before they decided to pivot and maybe start a business, right? So, there, there, I think this cycle and that's exactly what I talk about, Marc is I'm that person too Right, I had a corporate career. I'm an entrepreneur now. I call myself a corporate hippie, as you know, because I combine the elements of psychology, spiritual intelligence and business together. And when I realized, what is it that I actually bring to the world? And it used to be, let me think of something that is a functional expertise until I realized that what really makes me impactful and the work that I do to my clients is sharing what I have gathered over my life cycle, professionally and personally.

Ang Onorato:

So the peak and plummet cycle is when I realized that the work that I do, when I was particularly in executive search, for example, I would be helping executives negotiate million dollar salaries, but there were many times in my personal life that I had money and then lost all of it. In fact, a very known secret, I don't talk about much and I'm going to start talking about it. When that was happening, there was a period of time where for three months, I would come home from work doing that work and I was legitimately homeless. I had to leave a very difficult, abusive relationship. I had to come home and at lunch break gather a suitcase and leave. I had nowhere to go for three months and nobody knew that I was making great money, I was working at a big global firm, I was having great success, but I made bad decisions financially. I had terrible personal things going on and I had to hide that from the world. At that time I was in my 20s and things like that kept happening right. So on the outward, you'd peak, it looks great and then you're plummeting.

Ang Onorato:

And until I got real as to what were the things that were blocking me, what were the things that were holding me back, what were the things I was hiding, until we can bring that together and be authentic and understand how that impacts and the the people and also the leaders that we are and how we show up in that. And what were the mechanisms, what were the tools? What were the frameworks? What were the mechanisms? What were the tools? What were the frameworks, what was the support that I had to seek?

Ang Onorato:

And now I've put all that together into a program and I help others. So I need to tell people, I need to let people know that, yeah, being vulnerable isn't just a male-female thing. It's a lot more that goes into that story. But I want people to realize that just because we're providers or they've, you know, they're a CEO of a company and they look like they've got everything you know undercover. We see it every day how the people with the means are also often the most unhappy Right. And so it's looking at that cycle and how do we put it together and support others?

Marc Bernstein:

Yeah, so exactly, and actually an observation about you and your business, because there's a parallel there too, which doesn't quite have to do with this topic, but I want to point it out. What's happening is, because of everything you're going through, you're getting closer and closer to your uniqueness your quote corporate hippie thing Because there are I know people, I know a lot of consultants, I know a lot of people that do what you do in some form or another, just like you know a lot of people who do what I do. But the elements that you've brought together are getting more and more to make you unique, and that's because of vulnerability, it's because of your resilience, it's because of all the things that you've had to go through to get there, which is why we often become wiser as we get older and also realize how much more we don't know. All of that, and I feel the same way, the same thing we're going through in our business right now. I always knew we had something unique, but I'm now. What I'm able to move forward on right now is a truly what I think unique value proposition, because and I've done a lot of comparisons there are a lot of firms out there that have elements of what we do, but there's nobody that's put it all together and we don't, as a company, call it fiscal therapy. That's what I call it, that's what I think.

Marc Bernstein:

I am, over the years, a fiscal therapist, but that's what I think. I am, over the years, a physical therapist. But we're going to name that process. We're in the process of it because we need to make it known, because the end result, which is like the end result if somebody works with you, is much different than people that have a lot of the same elements of what you do, but not all of it. It's like alchemy it's going to be a whole, it's going to. It's like alchemy. It's going to be something totally different when it comes out. And that is like part of the richness of business and part of the richness of life that your experiences make you who you are and what you're able to deliver to your clients.

Marc Bernstein:

While we're on it, and we do have a, we have an extra minute because we started a minute late, but we um, I do want to mention that and she's been through a lot and and won't be regular co-host as she's been in the past. She hasn't been for a while but hopefully we'll be a frequent co-host because we're going to have rolling co-hosts and she and I are attached to the hip. I think forever regardless, because we've it's, we've, literally and figur are attached to the hip. I think forever regardless, because we've been.

Ang Onorato:

Literally and figuratively. Just in the last year and a half Left and right hip, bionic hips.

Marc Bernstein:

Right, that's right. That's exactly right. I didn't even realize what I was saying, but we've been through a lot together already in a year and a half and a lot of common experiences and a lot of sharing over that time. So I know that's not going away. And also, while I'm mentioning changes, because I always talk about it's always sunny in Philadelphia. That's a lie, it's not so, as a result, I'm going where it always is sunny in the winter, which is Florida, and we will be broadcasting.

Marc Bernstein:

I'll tell you this, and we will be broadcasting I'll tell you this on WXKB FM HD2, an HD station out of Fort Myers, florida, from the middle of January till the middle of May, and I'm very excited about that. We have guests who are located in Florida. We have guests from the Northeast who are coming to Florida for the show. It's going to be an exciting time. We're going to have a lot of new energy on the show.

Marc Bernstein:

There's going to be a lot of cool things happening and, at the same time, there are going to be two people filling my slot, two new shows that are coming. One is and they've both been guests on the show Chris Patino and Craig Lerch, who will be in our. Chris will be in the Wednesday slot that we're in and Craig will be in the one right after that for a four month period, and then we'll see what's happening. So we're building a network of podcasters and we'll be referencing that and making references to relevant podcasts within our network, not just our own. So a lot of cool things happening, so I wanted to mention that. Having said that, we have a few more minutes, let's get back on topic. So anything more you want to say about this topic of expect the unexpected Ang.

Ang Onorato:

Yeah, absolutely, and I think you know, Marc, one thing that's gotten really clear for me and I hope this will help a lot of people that may be listening now or on the podcast when it gets uploaded is that I think many of us operate in this mindset that we've got to be, you know, we've got to be perfect, we've got to be together, we've got to be so accomplished it at such a subject matter expert way up here, so that people see us that way and want to work with us. And the reality is and something that's become very important to me is really that 1% rule, right, and what I mean by that and you and I've talked about this offline too which is, in reality, we only have to be 1% ahead of where somebody else is in their journey, because that 1% on a compound effect is so powerful that it allows us to give so much to who we might serve, and that's true for anybody, right? So, if you're learning a new skill, I think a lot of people are saying I'm not ready to leave corporate because I want to start something new, but I don't have enough skill yet, or I don't have enough things built, I don't have enough money to do it yet and the reality is that if you just do 1% incremental above something, that 1% is exponentially more than where that person or where that other business is in the current moment. And I think what you're finding with social media and with these big influencers and people, people don't really want to feel like they're way down here, looking way up there at somebody that's so far out of touch with them. They want to know that they can relate to someone, that this person speaking things that connect with them on a deep level. That's what really creates connection and trusted advisership and all of those things.

Ang Onorato:

And I just want to put a point on that that at the end of the experience at Heroic Public Speaking, everybody that wants to learn how to public speak better check it out. They're amazing, they talk about and it's palpable. When you go on campus every morning before events, the entire team does what they call the 1% walkabout. They walk about the entire campus and they look for every little thing. Is there enough things outside the restroom so they have enough coffee filters, anything to make the experience 1% better? So holistically, when you're on campus for three days every month, it is a profound experience and so 1% can make a difference anywhere. And that is probably the biggest thing I've learned, Marc, in my journey and what you and I talk about, and when I think about all the amazing entrepreneurs we've spoken to and hear their stories, for me it really boils down to that he can plummet. Learn from it 1%. One minute left in the show.

Marc Bernstein:

Less than.

Ang Onorato:

It's really powerful.

Marc Bernstein:

Well, really well said. I'm glad you brought that up. It reminds me of Ritz-Carlton, the Ritz-Carlton experience. When you go to Ritz-Carlton Hotel, it reminds me same thing we're trying to do in our business that little extra deal. It's a great lesson for everybody. That extra 1%. I love that. I was going to ask you what books you're reading, but you know what. We have another show we're going to do, so maybe we'll get it on there. I'm starting to read novels and I have one I want to recommend.

Ang Onorato:

That's good, because I've got some good ones.

Marc Bernstein:

Cool. But anyway, thank you all for being here and being with Ang and I in this moment of unexpectedness and hopefully you enjoyed the show and our conversation and we look forward to seeing you, or being with you, I should say, next week again on Founders Forum.

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