The Real West Michigan
The Real West Michigan Podcast brings you powerful, personal conversations with creatives, entrepreneurs, community builders, and go-getters from all walks of life. Hosted by Eldon Palmer, each episode dives into honest stories of resilience, reinvention, purpose, and passion—stories that resonate far beyond geography.
Whether you’re here for inspiration, a fresh perspective, or a reminder that extraordinary people are doing meaningful work in everyday places, this show is your invitation to listen, learn, and be moved.
Real stories. Real people. Real impact.
The Real West Michigan
Cameron Embers: From Anxiety and Loss to The Power of Iteration, Fear, and Focus
“You’re not my oxygen tank anymore.”
That’s what Cameron Embers’ brother told him when their paths began to diverge. From homeschooling to heartbreak, from burnout to breakthrough, Cameron shares how his struggles with anxiety, loss, and identity ultimately led him to build Emberly Digital—a web and software agency with heart.
In this conversation, we cover:
- Cameron’s journey from homeschooled creator to youth pastor to business owner
- The link between fear, failure, and massive action
- Why doing one small thing—like organizing your drawer—can start a transformation
- The emotional cost of leadership and the power of self-care systems
- How to build a business that feels right, not just looks right
Whether you’re stuck in your head, scared to start, or need to rediscover your “why,” this one’s for you.
🔗 EmberlyDigital.com | CameronEmbers.com
🎧 Presented by The Real West Michigan Podcast, powered by The Palmer Group.
✅ 5 Takeaways
- Fear isn’t the barrier—inaction is. Most things Cameron feared weren’t that hard once he started doing them. It’s the hesitation that hurts most.
- Failure is your friend. Like the “clay pot” experiment, success is the product of repetition, not perfection. Do it badly until you do it well.
- Mental health matters. Cameron’s lowest points—including suicidal thoughts—led to the biggest breakthroughs. Meditation, nutrition, and self-awareness were his tools for healing.
- Don’t wait to perfect your idea—ship the MVP. Shorten your “time to live,” test your concept fast, and improve with real feedback.
- Build systems that support your state. A successful entrepreneur needs more than strategy—they need a strong story and a powerful internal state.
Video Podcast available here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRealWestMichigan
THIS EPISODE IS SPONSORED BY: THE PALMER GROUP real estate team. The Palmer Group is an energetic team within 616 REALTY led by Eldon Palmer with over 20 years of experience helping people navigate the home buying and selling process in West Michigan. To support the channel and all of our guests, contact Eldon@ThePalmer.Group, drop a COMMENT, SHARE, LIKE or SUBSCRIBE to this podcast.
You can also learn more at https://thepalmer.group/
Whether moving to Michigan or another state, we can help and would love to chat with you over a coffee or your favorite beverage!
HAVE A SUGGESTION? WANT TO BE A GUEST ON THE PODCAST? Reach out to Eldon@ThePalmer.Group or send us a DM.
WE WOULD LOVE TO SEE YOUR 5-STAR REVIEW
For me, the fear of loss has been really big, and so it was actually really important for me to have all those things taken away from me so I was actually able to face myself as me.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome back. Today we have Cameron Embers, owner of Emberley Digital, a web and software solution company, and he's done a lot of marketing over the years as well. Has this little book here 12 Sales Myths and we'll get into it, but let's get started with little Cameron. Tell us about little Cameron.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my goodness. So day one of kindergarten, my kindergarten teacher. So I was homeschooled for most of my my childhood, but I went to kindergarten and I went to part of third grade at a public school. Day one of kindergarten, my um kindergarten teacher, mrs Johnson, nicknamed me the absent-minded professor, and that has been, you know, a moniker that has described me for my entire life.
Speaker 1:I have been, you know, somebody who's just very interested in projects, very interested in, like learning about stuff. I was. I was just overwhelmed with the joy of learning from a very young age. Yeah, um, I went through a lot of like what I wanted to be as a kid, you know I wanted to be. There was a brief time where I wanted to be a firefighter. I want to be an artist. For most of my, um, you know, childhood I wanted to be a, um, uh, pixar animator for a while. So I got really into 3d. So, but I would get really really into themes and different concepts and and kind of immerse myself in different worlds, right, so my, my brother brother Chandler, and I grew up together. We played a lot of Legos, so this is where kind of the theming comes in. So we had bunk beds and we would alternate who slept on the bottom bunk and who slept on the top bunk.
Speaker 2:It's a good solution. Yeah, we fought over that. Yeah, like literally fought for our bunks when we were little.
Speaker 1:sometimes Well, we, yeah, so we would alternate every. I think we thought it was every like week, but it was probably like every couple days, because we were kids and that's what a week seemed like you know yeah. But generally the person on the top bunk would like jump and swing and like kick the person on the bottom bunk would um like jump and swing and like kick the person on the bottom bunk to wake them up and once we were both awake, um, we would basically say, the question was always like, what are you into today?
Speaker 1:And uh, the other one would say, oh, firefighters, or like castles, or spacemen or or the Arctic or whatever. And we would jump into our Lego buckets and we would build and build and build. And you know that was what we would do, so we would theme our days and so I've always been like that sort of like I love um, I love the, the theming around a thing, like the artistry around, um, uh, that sort of thing, that sort of thing that's really carried into a lot of the stuff I've done. But yeah, definitely very curious kid constantly reading um and, and you know, pretty uh had a lot of anxiety too it was a very, very creative um.
Speaker 1:A lot of creatives are like that. We're just very anxious as well.
Speaker 2:So it seems to go together. You know, I think your mind, creative mind, wanders a lot and gets into, like you said, said a lot of different things. I can kind of relate to some of that stuff. Yeah, anxiety, yeah, I mean kids. It's always hard when you're little, but it sounds like your brother was pretty. You guys were pretty close.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Still are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure, yeah. So he and my other brother both work with me at Emberly, so they're my business partners.
Speaker 2:That's awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's really cool.
Speaker 2:You know, did you ever have a falling out, or maybe not a falling out but like a separation for a while? During that time I noticed my brother and I, we kind of teenage years and early 20s, we kind of fought a lot and then we came back. You know. Know, we're kind of almost best friends now yeah, no, there actually was.
Speaker 1:And uh, it's actually really funny you say that because so we did the lego thing for years. Right, we were obsessed with legos and uh, you know, anytime we could get around school or you know just, uh, anytime we could, we were constantly playing legos and building all sorts of different stuff. We would build stuff off the instruction sets and then we would also just like build our own stuff and we used to pride ourselves on like we could build an entire set without actually looking at the instructions.
Speaker 1:We'd just look at, like, the picture on the box and figure it out backwards, which I think was like some of where our ingenuity started, but at some point I actually got into reading okay, so I wanted to spend more and more and more time reading and I started, as I had like this anxiety and like these deep feelings and all that, I found that a lot of the like characters and books, um, really like could resonate and sort of validate and give me a space to feel like I was expressing and connecting with something deeper. And so I wanted to spend, you know, more and more time in in books and less and less time playing Legos, and Chandler was. I mean, chandler was crushed, right, he was, he was, he cried, he was like hey, what are you into today?
Speaker 1:And I'm like well it was really hard being the one drifting away you know and feeling like you were you were drifting away, but you just, you were just called in a different direction and and so it was the sort of thing where he was very dependent on me at that time and I would, you know, even if I went to the store with my parents or something like that, he would cry and cry and cry if he wasn't with me. And then a couple years later he said, you know, he kind of got over it and got some of his own hobbies going and stuff like that. You know, he kind of got over it and got some of his own hobbies going and stuff like that. And I asked him if he was going to be okay if I went to I don't know some somebody was having some events or something. I asked him if he was going to be okay if I went and he said it's okay.
Speaker 2:You're not my oxygen tank anymore.
Speaker 1:That's great, yeah, so. So we did have have that and you know we've all of us have had natural, like you know, ebbs and flows in our relationship over the years.
Speaker 2:So yeah, it's part of growing up a little bit of a rite of passage and, um, I just always find it interesting those relationships over time with family, especially with close brothers, just because that's where I I can relate the most yeah, what was your experience?
Speaker 2:um, we, we fought a lot as kids. You know, I was the older brother, he was the you know kind of typical middle, middle child, if you will. Um, got a lot more trouble. I was the good kid, um, most of the time. Yeah, uh, but we, we, just we, we were wired differently. We looked a lot like mom would dress us like when we were little, um, and we would play we're gonna play dukes of hazard on the little with the matchbox cars, um, on the bunk bed with the little with the. You know you'd be jumping the little blankets and stuff, good stuff as kids, um, but then we, just we kind of fell apart for a while. I went to college, he, he went to work and um, but but a few years later we both grew up a little bit more. I had moved away, moved back, and yeah, we're great now. We're still wired very differently, but you know, it's a lot of fun to hang out and we appreciate each other's skill sets and personalities.
Speaker 1:What are some of the ways you're wired differently?
Speaker 2:He's very much a go do break things, you just get it done, don't think about it. Um, I'm much more of a thinker, more creative, um, in that sense he was just typically he was very much hands-on. He's a builder, he's a contractor, so everything he does with his hand, so and he can just fix it. Like, if I screw it up, I can just fix it right. And, um, I tend to think a lot about different angles, um, different approaches of stuff, so I think that was part of it.
Speaker 2:I was really social back in the day too, so he was in a different way, he was I. I took this. One of the lessons I learned from him early on is we lived on a lake, we didn't have any money, didn't really have a boat, um, but he would go on a weekend down to talk to people, um, and ask him if he could get a boat ride, or they'd take him skiing. Total strangers from the city. That came up and I was like that's so I was much more introverted back then, you know, as a kid, but I learned that from him and over time over life, it's like really I've kind of flipped and that's like one of the biggest lessons I took from him.
Speaker 2:But yeah, that's mainly. I'm much more of the thinking, figure it out the paperwork and I hate paperwork too, too, but I like the this overall strategy and stuff right, and so, and he, you know, we've both kind of come together, you know, but we've both grown out of our initial circles. But yeah, how does that work out? That's not used to talking about me a lot on here. Um, so let's get into the next stage, I guess. So like you, so did you go to college? Did you self-educate? How'd you decide to get into whatever the next level was for you in life?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so. So growing up homeschooled was was definitely a like. You learn how to do a lot of stuff self-sufficiently you know. So my parents, you know very much, just kind of gave me books To their credit. They really read to me a lot and instilled a love of reading and so I think, like any gaps in their um, any gaps in sort of their process of raising me, I was sort of able to to cover by going and finding a book that you know, could help me in that area and then eventually finding people, um, through you know, sort of understanding concepts and that I read about, that I could then use to network and meet people and all that.
Speaker 1:So, huge reader, um, and uh, I growing up was very project oriented, the same way I am now. You know, um, I would like, I would like skip birthday parties that everybody else in the neighborhood was going to and was so excited about, because I was like working on like a drawing or a painting or something that I was like, nah, I'm really excited about this, you know so. So I was always very like, uh, project oriented. And so my childhood of definitely being very like self-sufficient, and also, you know, at some point my parents were like, man, this math is like beyond us. Here's the book, you know. And then they would have me teach my younger siblings as well. So I'm the oldest of eight, right?
Speaker 2:OK.
Speaker 1:So I, you know, ended up teaching a lot of them how to read, teaching a lot of them how to, um, how to, how to write. Um, I ended up, you know, teaching a lot of math. I. So I just did a lot of that, and and I have found that when you teach something, you actually understand it way better. And so, cause you just have to, you have to engage with a different part of your brain opens up and um. So so I did a lot of that, and I think all of that was like preparing me for what I do now. You know, um, I also like sort of learned that you could do things that weren't we just want to take a quick break to thank our sponsor, the Palmer group.
Speaker 2:They are the ones financing this and making everything happen. That'd be me, elizabeth, joni and the rest of the crew. We appreciate your business and if you have a place to buy, sell whether it's vacant land, multifamily, single home, condo, looking for a vacation home up north we can help. Just have a couple of questions, just reach out to us and we'll be happy to answer them. Also, we are able to help people buy and sell homes around the country. We have a network of great agents, particularly in Florida, but we can find you an agent anywhere in the country and even across the world we might be able to help as well. So we will be happy to interview multiple agents, if they're not already in our network, and make some recommendations to make that transition easier. Whether you're moving from there to West Michigan, or from West Michigan to another place, or from Florida to California or Texas to Tennessee, we're happy to help. So, again, thank you, and now back to the show.
Speaker 1:The normal format, if that makes sense, right? So because I was homeschooling, my parents gave me, you know, the books I was supposed to do and I was like, well, how many of these chapters do I have to do a day? And they told me and I was like, okay, no problem, so I get up at, like you know, I started around like seven and uh, and I'd be done with all the stuff by 11 and I'd be like see ya and I'd head out to the woods and I literally went to the woods and would just like chill in the woods every day for for years, like, so what's chilling in the woods?
Speaker 1:look like I would go find salamanders, I would, you know, I would climb trees, I would build forts, I would just like go out there and I'd take a book and like go and read, you know, um, out in nature, out in nature. So I loved being in nature, so, so that kind of like gave me this like self-sufficient foundation, I think. And then I did go to college. Um, I uh went.
Speaker 1:I believe my degree is I have like a bachelor's in theology, so yeah which I don't, I don't really use um in in work at all now, but I'm happy that I got the opportunity. But I'm happy that I got the opportunity to do it. It just didn't like. It's not what I'm doing now.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but so I coming into adulthood and all that. So I was a youth pastor for a while, which you know.
Speaker 1:That's where we met, yeah, for for a while, which you know. That's where we met, yeah, and uh, a couple years of that, and it really like there were a lot of circumstances within the church that I was in that were stressful. That I was a I was a 21 year old kid. I had no backbone to deal with that sort of thing, I had no training to deal with that sort of thing. I didn't, I didn't know what I was doing and uh.
Speaker 1:So there was a point where I was so stressed that like my back hurt, um, to the point where I like couldn't lie down, and so, um, there was one night where I had like taken sleeping pills and was like running at 3 30 am, um, and just like I was running miles out in the dark because I just couldn't sleep. Yeah, and I was so stressed and uh, and once I, once I actually quit. I just quit because of I think because of the stress, honestly, and uh, once I did like my back pain like went away, like I relaxed a lot, but that was a really hard time.
Speaker 1:And that coincided with I got divorced as well. You know, I had gotten married, got divorced and sort of lost that career and, you know, ended up sort of having a blank canvas, you know. And that was when I I really, you know, tried a bunch of stuff. You know I tried, man. I sold cell phones for a while.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I remember that yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I uh, uh, what else I do? Um, yeah, I just did a few random jobs and, um, I ended up working at a web design and development company because that was always a hobby of mine. So I'll go back real quick. I had gotten into like web design and development when my my parents um, I was 10, my parents were trying to sell their house and and we didn't have Zillow at that point or anything like that right, there was, you know, nothing like that existed and everybody thought of websites as like billboards. Right, if you have a website, it's like the best advertising tool in the world. It's not that way now.
Speaker 2:No, but it was people thought of it different yeah.
Speaker 1:So they were like we need to sell our house, you should build us a website. I was like I could probably do that. So I did what I always did. I went to the library. I got every single book they had on web design development.
Speaker 1:I read them all cover to cover, never built that website yeah, they sold their house a different way, but I was really I got hooked into like coding was so fascinating and, uh, it was so interesting to be able to put stuff you know up that that worked and existed. Yeah and uh, yeah, it was really really cool. So so that was how I initially got into it. So, um four years later, I'm 14 years old. Uh, my mom met the owner of some brand bread company that didn't have a website and she was like, you got to build them a website. So I quoted them the highest price I could think of, which was $200. And uh and uh, yeah, I was like, okay, I can make this work.
Speaker 1:So I, you know, didn't know even how to like how to build an e-commerce site or whatever so I had to learn different kinds of programming and all that sort of thing, and yeah, and I mean yeah they, they paid me the 200 now did they have a have a website in the end?
Speaker 2:they did at the end. Yeah, yeah, they did. So I just yep so, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:it was not bad, for I mean, it was, you know, terrible by today's standards. I'm not even sure they used it like as much as they they thought they were going to use it, but it was a cool experience and that. So that was my first paid project mid-20s and all that, you know, or my early 20s, after I got out of being a youth pastor, I ended up working at a web design and development company. I was there for a couple years. I became, like the director of their development department. I was doing everything, absolutely everything. I was, you know, meeting with clients to determine their initial needs.
Speaker 1:I was, um, you know, designing logos and designing web pages and, um, I would make the plans for the development. I wrote a lot of the code, um, I was doing the review meetings with clients. I was making like, I mean, I was doing everything. Yeah, great experience, it was awesome, it was super fun. So, yeah, I, it was awesome. It was super fun. So, yeah, I. But as a result of doing that, I'm I'm sort of thinking like I feel like I could do this myself, you know?
Speaker 2:yeah, I remember having that conversation yeah over lunch one day, trying to decide whether to go out on your own and when, and how long. To how long to wait, maybe, yep, if it was the right time well, well, yeah, and this is another, really, I think, fortunate.
Speaker 1:One of the things I think is very interesting about life is we start out like working towards things from an excitement perspective, right, we're like oh, it'd be so cool if I had that.
Speaker 1:And then once you get that thing, now you flip to working from an avoidance of loss perspective, right, and all of a sudden you're like, oh, better not lose this thing, and sometimes the things that you are afraid of losing don't actually serve you anymore, or just that season is done. You know it's a beautiful season, and then now it's done and you can't let go of it because you have this fear of loss right. So I've had several opportunities where my canvas has just been like you know, it's like my wipe clean just wipe fresh start for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it happened to me and uh, and this was another one of those scenarios I was, um, I was at the web design and development company. It was run by a husband and wife and um, uh, they were cool people generally speaking, and uh, and then, you know, um, there were, there were some you know odd things within the company that you know, um, you know, I, I, I never really I was just so optimistic, I never really saw anything you're always smiling and optimistic.
Speaker 2:Really, yeah, I when I was with people.
Speaker 1:I was optimistic. I struggled with a ton of anxiety, but when I was with people very optimistic and very excited to be there.
Speaker 1:And so you know, um, I had ended up seeing that one of the employees who was there, her job got like posted online, right, and I was like, oh shoot, there's only one position. So I told her like, hey, you might want to start looking for a job Somehow. You know, I still to this day have no idea how they found out about that, but you know, they were super upset. The wife the wife like called me into her office and like yelled at me at the top of her lungs and and, uh, she's like I should fire and I kind of, I kind of pushed the button right.
Speaker 1:So she was like I should just fire you. And I was like, okay, do it then. And she was like you're fired, get out of here yeah, so, yeah so I.
Speaker 2:So I left with my little box of stuff.
Speaker 1:A few days later I met with the husband for breakfast and he was great. He was like hey, sounds like things just got a little heated. Do you want to rewind the clock? And I'm thinking like I've now had three days to think about the fact that I'm like starting my own thing, settling in.
Speaker 1:So I'm like, no, I'm good, but thank you, and interestingly enough, they were my first client yeah, yeah so, yep, so one of their, one of their um, you know, clients just really liked working with me, so they hired me on as a contractor, so of all things. So that was my. That was my very first contract, um, which was really cool.
Speaker 2:So so let's kind of rewind a little bit here. So you've had a few really interesting relationship with fear.
Speaker 1:Most of the things that I have done in life, you know, everything from like buying multiple properties to like writing and publishing a book, to like starting a company, to hiring lots of employees, to like it. Actually it hasn't been like super hard, like the steps are kind of like you know. I mean it's hard, right, like it's. There's definitely lots of nights where I stayed up all night three nights in a row to get something done.
Speaker 1:You know, but, like, the steps have been more straightforward than you would think and it's uh, it's more about taking the action, but it's definitely been scary, and it's been scarier oftentimes than I've, than I've thought, you know.
Speaker 1:So I think a lot of times we think that what is holding us back is the thing is hard, but it's actually what's holding us back is our fear, and so I I have had this really interesting relationship with fear and anxiety and all that my whole life, and I think confronting that has been really, really important for me. For me, the fear of loss has been really big and so it was actually really important for me to have all those things taken away from me. So I was actually able to face myself as me, if that makes sense, because I sort of looked at it and said, oh, I'm a pastor and so you know, um, I'm okay, I'm a good kid, so I'm okay. You know I do the right thing, so I'm okay. I, you know I have a job, so I'm okay. You know, in losing all those things really made me like stop trusting in them, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you kind of learn how, who you are and what you can handle. I think you know from my experience that for me over time, when that happened really changed how I did everything. And not that there's not fear, but you kind of know who you are. When you're arguing with somebody, when somebody's telling you something, it's like, okay, right, it doesn't matter, yeah, you just develop a confidence. It sounds like that's something, something that happened to you through that process. Yeah, yeah, not that there's not continued fear.
Speaker 1:Right yeah.
Speaker 2:So how did you work through that, like when you had that time with yourself and when you, when you lost it all, like what was the self-talk like at that point? How'd you work through that? Or was there a mentor, or did you have people? How'd you kind of work through it?
Speaker 1:yeah, well, I'll go a little deeper down the anxiety depression route, um, because I think that, like, I can just say like, oh, getting over fear and all that, the reality is like. When I was, you know, 17 or 18, I was so stressed and so depressed that I stood on the side of the road watching semi trucks go going by, calculating like hey, um, I think if I jump out in front of one of these it'll, it'll hit me fast enough that it'll be a quick death. That's the point, you know, that's the level of like stress and depression that I got to, you know, and I really had that sort of like suicidal, like intense, and I don't, and I honestly don't know. Like fear is a good thing in a lot of cases, right, fear is not bad all the time. Fear was probably one of the major reasons I didn't jump in front of a semi-truck because I was afraid of the physical experience of it. So I'm glad it kept me.
Speaker 1:I'm very glad, I'm super glad that that was a scary thing that I couldn't go through with. I also think that when you are oftentimes and I can only speak to my experience of being suicidal and anxious and all that right, like I don't- know what everyone else's is like, like, um, but for me, um, it's actually because I'm longing for something more and I know that I need to do something drastic.
Speaker 1:Does that make sense? It's like I cannot stay where I'm at, I need to do something drastic, and so, like you, just think of the most drastic thing you can think of, but your body is screaming to make a change. Right, sure you might. So I do think that if you are in a situation like that, um, you know, tony robbins calls it massive action. Right, massive action is all that is what will save you, you know, and, uh, and that certainly was the case for me. So, so I, you know, um, started listening to a lot of. I just started like I'm really thankful youtube was a thing, right?
Speaker 1:yes, I started, I started youtubing like how to get over anxiety and things like that, and I ended up listening to like motivational speakers like tony robbins and, um, you know, dean graziosi and yeah, just lots of the greats.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all those guys I mean they really changed a lot of my life. I think that those times where I kind of turned out, learned who I was, was through listening to a lot of those, those speakers over and over, and just kind of understanding, getting a different look at the world.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so so I definitely had a couple of different things. I had a lot of, I had a lot of. How do I put this? Pride and insecurity go hand in hand, right, like it's the same. It's the same thing. It's an estimation of yourself as as different than other people you know, and so you know I would, I would like be feeling really insecure and so I would do something really showy to like make myself. You know, feel better than everyone else.
Speaker 1:And then like I would get knocked down, um, because people didn't perceive it the way that I thought, and I would be insecure again. So it's like this vacillating thing right, and so I think one of the biggest realizations for me is that, like I'm the same as everyone else. You know, um, I'm unique, obviously. Like I have my own things I love about myself that are different but, like I'm not. I'm not different than you.
Speaker 2:We all struggle. You know the old adage we all put our pants on one foot at a time or whatever. We all have stuff. I mean from celebrities to most successful people. They struggle with something or have struggled through things. So it is once you realize that. I do think that brings a little bit of peace, or at least understanding and context that helps.
Speaker 1:But also like, so that takes you into like. Why not me?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so when you, when you look at something, why not me as in? Yeah. So so have you ever told somebody about? So? Success is a weird thing. When you become more successful, right? You ever told somebody about something and they're like oh, it must be nice, you know. You're like, yeah, I'm going on like a ski trip.
Speaker 2:And they're like oh, yes, yeah, oh it must be nice.
Speaker 1:You know, you're like, oh, I'm going down to Florida, oh, it must be nice. So what I realized about that is they just don't believe that it could be them, right, they believe it could be you, but they think for some magic reason it's not them, right, they couldn't be the one going to Florida. You know when the reality is like, look at your brother, like, let's take that story of your brother right, he wanted to go on a boat, right? He didn't say, oh man, look at all those people going on boats, I'm not one of those people going on boats. I'm not one of those people going on boats. He just said, I guess they have a boat, I could go.
Speaker 2:I want to go on a boat. I could go. Ask them to go, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I think that Jeff Bezos has a quote. He said stress doesn't come from pressure, Stress comes from not taking action on something you have control over, Sure. And so I think that is where a lot of my like beliefs just kind of swirled around, and and and. When you are depressed or anxious, what happens is you, you go in a cycle, right, Like one bad thing. You do one bad thing that then makes you feel worse. That then makes you have another belief that's worse. That then makes you do something that makes you have another belief. That makes it. You know, it's just this downward spiral constantly. And so the good thing is that you can actually spiral up too, right, you do one thing like I'm just going to like organize my drawers.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Simplest things yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And all of a sudden you're like, oh, okay, I can affect change on my life. It can be me, you know, um, why not me? Why can't I be the one who has a great relationship, um, with his brother? Why can't I be the one who has a house in Florida? Why can't I be the one who, um, you know, makes millions of dollars? You know, whatever, whatever it happens to be right, why can't I be the one with a nice car, you know, and uh, and I think it's, it's, it's all that, Um. But I think it's also like being able to cut through all that, like self-talk, and be okay with where you're at. You know, because what I have found as you get more successful, I remember thinking like, oh, you know, it'll be so great when I have, you know, hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in from, from contracts and I have employees to deal with it. Like then I'll feel secure.
Speaker 2:That is so funny. There's always another level or new challenge or new problem.
Speaker 1:Well yeah, then you, then, all of a sudden, you have the fear of losing those contracts. And then, all of a sudden, all the people who you have the contracts with have expectations. And then, all of a sudden, all the employees have expectations and needs and you know, and uh and they'll you know, uh, bring to you, they'll bring to your attention things that you didn't even realize were problems with you know, with your business, with yourself, with everything Like it, just the like, learning to, to be, be still with yourself and like just be okay. You know, in the midst of whatever's going on, you know you have to be able to not have it dependent on your circumstances.
Speaker 2:So what have you found from a practical, tactical side works for you? I mean do you meditate, do you just go away? Do you silence? Mean, do you meditate, do you just go away, do you silence? What do you do to kind of get work through those things? Yeah, well.
Speaker 1:So I used to I actually talk about taking massive action I used to meditate like a lot because I I realized that meditating was good for my anxiety. So I was like, okay, I'm gonna go deeper and deeper into that um, into that practice. And so there was a point where I was doing like two or three hours at a time. I would sit there and just like meditate for like two or three hours at a time. I don't really like, um, do that now because I'm so busy. Um, I could do that now, right, like if I decided I was going to make that important okay, that's impressive.
Speaker 2:Not many people, I mean, I think most people have to work up to. Oh, I had to work up to it, I would do. Not many people, I mean, I think most people have to work up to oh, I had to work up to it.
Speaker 1:I started with 10 minutes, like I. Yeah, I had to work up to it for a while. I started with 10 minutes and I, um and I, I, it was right when headspace was coming out, the app yeah they had like their demo versions online yeah, I whatever that one yeah yeah, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna try that.
Speaker 1:And they, they had this great like um, it was uh, like they had this great description of it. It was like your thoughts, um, instead of interacting with each thought, like, imagine your thoughts are like cars on a freeway right and what happens is like every time you have a negative thought, you like jump out into the freeway and try to like stop that car and you get hit and you get hurt.
Speaker 1:Really bad you know, and so they said you know, you just sit there and watch the thoughts pass on the freeway and just enjoy being there by the freeway and don't be like I don't like that. That. You know, blue car is passing by, I don't like that. That red car is passing by, I don't like that truck. You know, like just let it, just let him go, you know. And so that was really, I mean, that was really meaningful. Um, so, learning how to do that, um, and then also how to breathe and focus on my body and focus on what I'm feeling, and, um, because we are, we are bodies, you know, we are, and so a huge part of my, you know, overcoming anxiety and depression. All that has actually been like wow, I didn't realize how poorly I was taking care of the vessel that carried my brain yeah, you know what's the system.
Speaker 2:So the whole thing, they're all interconnected so yeah, so I definitely have.
Speaker 1:I have a lot of systems um at at this point, um, so I I typically uh, so my day I'll get up and I'll I'll. Typically I have a lot of like. I take creat, I take a bunch of different supplements. I make some coffee, I typically will go to the gym and I'll walk and work Like I literally put a box on a treadmill. They call me laptop guy.
Speaker 2:I was so impressed just seeing you, like when we were meeting at the coffee shop or I'd come in there. I don't know how anybody can do what you did and how productive you could be in a very noisy and busy coffee shop. I'm like I don't know how he does it, but you're just you're able to focus and kind of tune that stuff out. Let those cars go by, if you will. Yeah, um, even while you're working on that project or or whatever that is. I was always impressed by that.
Speaker 1:We will credit either the meditation or the fact that I grew up with seven siblings like throwing things at my head while I was doing any given thing, so you can dodge a wrench?
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so but then I, I, uh, I definitely eat like extremely clean Um as much as I can I try to eat. My average meal is actually like meal prep now with, like I typically have, like a protein, a carb, a vegetable um, and try to get the macros and working on micronutrients now, but yeah, just very pretty healthy how does that look for you?
Speaker 2:because a lot of people complain hey, that's too much work, it's, it's too difficult. Um, I can't do that. I'm busy. I'm on the run all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I actually um. So this is, if a thing that has happened as I've gotten more able to do this, I've actually hired, hired my sister as, like, uh, an executive assistant assistant. Okay, she actually meal preps one day a week for me, so on tuesdays she meal preps and she makes six meals and so that's, you know, um, a decent amount of, you know, my eating comes from there oh yeah otherwise, honestly, I'm pretty I'm eating out um or or like grabbing something at home, but.
Speaker 1:But I eat really simple stuff, like even when I'm at home you know, like the other day. I just opened like two cans of canned salmon and I have these like sweet potato. It's literally just organic sweet potato.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:You can get it from Costco or whatever.
Speaker 2:Super cheap too, yeah, relatively.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it from Costco or whatever. Super cheap too. It's like relatively. Yeah, it's actually surprising how, like, when you get really simple, how cheap it is, like relatively speaking. But or I'll have eggs or something like that, you know, just warm up veggies that are either, you know, usually I do frozen veggies, I'll throw them in the microwave and that's my veggie, and yeah. So as long as I'm keeping it simple, it's not too hard. But I also like, if I go to restaurants or whatever I'll, and we actually eat out a lot cause we're just so busy, I'll like look at the menu ahead of time and and my, my wife now knows like what I will eat and what I won't eat She'll like look at a menu and be like, oh good, they have like a harvest grains bowl, you know, and she'll, uh, she'll, you know, plan our restaurants around that a little bit now, because she knows that I'm just not going to eat like burgers.
Speaker 1:And well, burgers, burgers, burgers. A little bit of a misconception, because it's actually like it's it's meat, right and you know, depending on the yeah, it gets kind of hammered as a bad-for-you, classic American diet food and obviously your McDonald's burgers and stuff like that. But if you make a burger at home with healthy bread or whatever, take some Dave's Killer Bread or whatever and some organic ketchup or whatever and a burger and all that, that's a pretty healthy thing to eat actually yeah, dave's killer bread.
Speaker 2:I haven't heard that one before. Oh yeah, I've seen that, yeah do you use?
Speaker 1:okay, so I don't eat much bread. So so have you seen the yucca app? Y-u-k-a? No, okay, so a few siblings made it okay they will not accept sponsorship from any food company at all. Ever you pay what you want for the app um and uh, and they rate different foods based on research, so they give it a health score okay they tell you exactly why. So I use that. So I I try to eat things that have like above a 70 percent on the yucca app it's a great way to look at it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, keep it general. Yep. Yeah, don't get too too into the weeds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally, I just love it. It's so easy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'll have to check that out. Yeah, that's pretty cool so so now, who does the um the rating?
Speaker 1:on that, is it? I mean they're rating, you know, millions of products Like yep, they're going through it all and they probably have. I'm sure they have staff at this point who know? What to look for. They probably use like AI to an extent. Now you know, yeah interesting. Yeah, it's really cool. It's a cool way to just like find out about stuff, so yeah, I'll check that out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so now let's maybe get into what you're doing now, what you're working on, um, things you've worked on maybe the past couple years.
Speaker 1:if you want to talk about the book, you want to talk about your business, um, you know, tell us, tell us what's happening yeah, so definitely, you know, my, my company is where I pour the majority of my um, uh, day, daytime resources I guess working hours, resources, so, um, emberly um means a lot to me. It is, it's uh, so it's a design, development and marketing company. So basically the idea is to actually work on all of these holistic work on a company's goals in a holistic way. Right, so it actually it started as an accident, so it just so happened that I have always been really into design and brand and theming and messaging and all that stuff.
Speaker 1:My brother, Colin, who was my original business partner. I convinced him to drop out of engineering school to start Emberley with me.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:He just so happens to be really into tech, so he's like an engineer and just genius. He's a savant. You know, when we did like the NASA project, he's the guy that everybody looked to for for technical guidance and all all that. So I got really lucky having like literally a savant.
Speaker 2:It's great to have that. Well, it sounds like you have that built in and you have what sounds like a bit of a complimentary piece from from the creative side to the technical side, if you will.
Speaker 1:Totally yeah. So Chandler, our third brother, happened to go into marketing, got really good at running pay-per-click ads and he just worked on running tons and tons of different campaigns for lots of different organizations At the same time. He was getting really good at that. We were having a lot of clients coming back to us saying like, oh, we love this website that you built for us, but nobody goes to it. You know, everybody loves it. Who goes to it? But there's like four people.
Speaker 1:So, so we're really, you know, we're really thinking like, oh, we, we should really really. And whenever you do an initiative, it has all these different component parts that all have to run like a machine, right, you take the transmission out of a car, you're not going to be going anywhere, and so what happens to a lot of companies is they have to hire all of these different agencies and then they have to have an internal project manager to manage them and then all the agencies sort of have trouble working together and all that sort of thing. Right, because they need all the different parts of the. The funnel so emberly started as an accident. Now it's very intentional where we have the three departments. We have the design, development and marketing department. They talk to each other a lot and we can come in and help clients with what they need help with, right so a lot of people listening.
Speaker 2:They don't. Everybody has a different idea of what design, development, what all that is in in your case or in a company let's just say an example company. What would that look like?
Speaker 1:yeah, so so let's just let an example company. What would that look like? Yeah, so let's think about the funnel, right, like what actually happens in a business to make money. And let's think about it from a digital perspective. So let's say you run an ad. That ad takes you to a landing page. That landing page has information on it and you can make a purchase on that page. Right, very simple concept. But you've got a purchase on that page, right, it's a very simple concept? Sure, but you've got a number of factors at play. Number one you have a brand identity, the look and feel of that company. Right, it's got to be interesting, engaging, true to who the company actually is, and it has to communicate. A polished brand, right, you look at, a good example is like personal care products, like shampoo and stuff like that. The really well-branded shampoos sell for a lot more.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, a lot more than the generic ones that look more generic, right? And so, definitely, having a brand identity that looks really intentional and fits the demographic is a big deal. So that's design, right? So all of that has to look consistent, from the pay-per-click advertising on social media all the way to the landing page, to the post checkout process, to the emails that they get. That will make sure they buy again, right? Yeah, so that's design from a technical perspective. You got a lot going on even with that simple example. Right, you've got UTM parameters are they're coming in? The page needs to load fast. If you've got login logout functionality, um, how does that interact with caching, right? Like are, you'll have situations where you can cache things to make the page load a lot faster which will increase your conversion rate.
Speaker 1:But then, all of a sudden, you're having trouble with some users seeing that they're logged in when they're not logged in, or logged out when they're actually logged in, and things like that, right? So there's all these technical ramifications building the database and scaling it, and like what platforms to use and how the different integrations talk to each other. So that's all development, right? Sure?
Speaker 2:okay.
Speaker 1:And even just building the framework of pages and stuff like that. That's all development. A lot of that stuff you can use tools to do now, but as you scale and as you change things you're going to need you need intentional engineering to be a part of that. And and then, obviously, marketing is like when you're running ads, like who are you targeting? What type of messaging are you using? How do you make sure that that messaging is interesting? What are? What is your like? Return on ad spend what's your roi? What's your you know conversion rate on the page? Um, what's the cost? Return on ad spend what's your roi? What's your you know conversion rate on the page? Um, what's the cost of your product, right? Uh, what's the profit on your on your product? Um, so all of that stuff is what, what marketing ends up handling so it's a it's a lot to think about.
Speaker 2:Like anybody that's started a business or tried to grow a business, you start getting in the weeds a little bit. Yeah, it's like, oh, I can do that, like a lot of us want to want to do that myself or I'll figure that out. And then you start realizing, after you've even created pieces and parts of that, that it might work a little bit when you want to scale or when you want to grow. It's just so much, so much more work. Yeah, far better to to hire somebody that's got all the experience you got the understands, the potential pitfalls so you can avoid them.
Speaker 2:When I try to do something myself that's new, even though I might be able to accomplish it, it's like there's so many other things, even in real estate, people come to me and I can see all. I have a whole backlog of what problems have gone wrong, what people have struggled with, what challenges have come up in houses and in in your business. Same kind of thing. If you have all that experience, the understanding where you can just avoid problems, it saves so much money, so much time, so much more effective.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I. I definitely think that people should try to do stuff themselves so they understand what they're managing. Sure, you know, even if you end up hiring someone else to do it. I think it's really valuable to spend some time like researching the world so that you know what you're talking about, because the most successful companies I've seen, even when they're working with agencies, they have an understanding of what you know. When they're working with agencies, they have an understanding of what you know, what, what, um, you know um, a conversion rate is how, how Google analytics works.
Speaker 1:They they just at least have a base level understanding of all the pieces. So they know how to ask the questions, they know how to, you know, manage the metrics, they know how to tell when there's success. You know, they know what to expect. Yeah, all that, all that sort of thing. I think it's way, it's way helpful to do as much as you can yourself, but you also have a diminishing law of returns on your time right when, like, if somebody has done this a whole bunch of times, I always say that marketing is marketing is like, you know, is like a race. You know, um, you can't guarantee that a you know a particular, you know uh person is always going to win every race. Right, but, like you, you're going to do a lot better if you hire a professional runner you know right than if you go and just try to run and a trainer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's not an exact analogy, because business is, of course, like there's one winner to a race and there's like lots of winners in business, like even within a market, um, and that's one thing we find a lot. A lot is that, um, you know, I've talked to many, many people who are like starting something, or whether they're in a company and they're trying to like launch a new product initiative within that company, or they are like they don't have a company. They want to start something completely new. They have an app idea, all that sort of thing. Um, I could go down that rabbit trail for a long time, but, um, there's, there's a lot of misconceptions about that. Um, I think one of the biggest ones is like, oh, there's other people doing what I want to do. That means that that territory has been conquered, and all that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:I'm like well, actually you're probably way better off being a competitor you know, doing something that's already being done in the market, because if you have an idea that hasn't been done, you might be right and it might work, but it might also be that a lot of people have already tested that idea, the way that you were thinking of it, and it didn't work and that's why nobody's doing it. But I will say that one of the things that is most important in optimizing a new product or you know something that you want to get out into the world, the version that you are imagining in your head almost definitely won't work.
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:It has to be. I forget who said it, but they, they said that um, uh, something about like you're, um a a product never, uh, a product concept never survives its first interaction with a customer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I've heard this a couple times, yeah, a couple times, from people, and it's so much iteration from something totally not even quite often it's not even in the same same line. Again, it's just, it's very's, very, very different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and um.
Speaker 1:So I think the the most important thing to be doing is I always talk about, like in, in tech, we have TTL time to live, which is normally like a DNS thing, um, but um, I like to talk about, like, if you're trying to succeed at something, lower your time to live as much as possible, right, um, and your, what a lot of people will do is they try to increase their, their development time, right.
Speaker 1:So they say like, okay, I'm going to work on this longer before I put it live. Oh sure, right, um, and I'm going to have a long, you know, uh, development time and a and a low uh TTL, or, sorry, and a high TTL, um, and basically the idea is really to like shorten your time to live as much as possible and then iterate as much as you can on the development time, because it just, you know, you don't know that the stuff you're building is going to be useful to a real customer anyway. So get the most mvp version you can out there as fast as you can, let it get knocked around and then bring it back and do version 1.1 so mvp minimum viable product yeah, um, this theme has come up so many times.
Speaker 2:This is what I struggle with in life. Yeah, it's like, hey, the longer you put that thinking and thought process, the more other things come in. Yeah, you know, it's like you get more, the most work done the day before vacation because you've got a short amount of time. Yes, um, I think elon musk does a great job of this, like he takes stuff and just compresses it yep, and it's forced action and focus. It's, it's sort of forced that focus. Yeah, forces that focus. Yeah, even with the podcast, um, I've done a lot of things. Just I just got, I finally got over. Hey, it's, there's gonna be a lot of things that aren't even perfect, aren't close. I could make things a lot better, but starting and then just iterating, making something a little bit better each time, really has helped keep things moving Right. And it's just a constant reminder, and not only in business but everything in life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like you'll accomplish more by really shrinking that window which creates focus. I think Totally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I always like the analogy of like the, the pots, um like clay pots. Yeah, I don't know if you've heard that one before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go ahead. I've heard it, but it's a great one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's. It's a study that I don't know where this was done and I don't even know if it was a real study or just a story, as someone told us an analogy. But um, the idea is that two groups were assigned to make clay pots for four hours. One group was told make the best pot you possibly can make. You have four hours to make one pot and it's gotta be the best.
Speaker 1:And so they set to work on that, and the other group was sold make as many clay pots as you possibly can, don't worry about quality, make them as fast as you can and just get as many done as you can in the four hours.
Speaker 1:Don't worry about quality, make them as fast as you can and just get as many done as you can in the four hours. And so you would think, okay, well, the group that you know worked harder and spent more time on their pots is the group that you know would have the best quality. Turns out, the group that did them as fast as possible actually made way better pots. Maybe their first one was trash, but you know, maybe their first 10 were trash, but no worries, they made 50 of them, you know. So 40. You know, 40 of them now have superior quality to the one that that this other person made, because now they know oh wait, you know I have to have this mixture of clay and I now I know how to do the uh, this part, and and I know how to do this part and I know how to craft it properly.
Speaker 1:You know what to expect and you know.
Speaker 2:using those numbers, they failed 10 times. Maybe they failed 45, 49 times.
Speaker 2:The 50th pot was the one, but they kind of had to get over and over. I think I do see a lot of people that struggle. They worry about that, have anxiety and stress around that failure and unwillingness to to just get started, screw it up, do it again, fail forward fast. You know you hear that quite often in successful businesses too. I just iterate, just get started and do it. It's a such a hard one for a lot of people. Even people that have done it in certain aspects of life, it's sometimes hard to implement that in other areas because of fear.
Speaker 1:Well, and it's definitely like the relationship to other people is always really hard. You know, I've talked to a bunch of people. There's people who feel like everybody sees them when they're in their car, and there's people who feel like nobody sees them when they're in their car and there's people who feel like nobody sees them when they're in their car.
Speaker 2:Yeah right, some people are like yeah, when you look around and see what they're doing, yeah.
Speaker 1:Some people feel like they're in a bubble and everybody's looking at them, and other people feel like nobody can see them and they're just like picking their nose, you know, yes, singing it up their lungs.
Speaker 1:But I think, like the uh, it doesn't really matter whether, because sometimes people look and watch every movie you make and criticize you the whole way and sometimes people won't.
Speaker 1:You know, like sometimes nobody will notice anything you're doing until it's really far. You know, through the paces they may not even notice what you're doing until it's really successful, no matter how loud you are about it. But I think, like what I've kind of learned, I remember talking to a therapist when I was younger and I was basically like oh, but this person wants me to do this and my parents want me to do this, and this person wants me to do this and this. Like you know, I just I don't know what to do. And they were, like you realize you can't make everyone happy, right, like, literally, like you just named five people and, no matter what you do, four of them will be disappointed in you, you know, and that's really hard for like a people pleaser type of person to realize and so Good kid, like a people pleaser type of person, to realize um, and so a good kid, totally.
Speaker 1:I mean, we, we just had a. We just had a situation where, you know, um, a uh client went on a podcast like this and told a story about a vendor and, uh, and it was a nice, it was, you know, a good story that turned out right. But they were they. They missed all like all the details were wrong, you know, and and I'm like, oh, actually, no, that's not how that went down and and I felt unsettled about it.
Speaker 1:Right, I'm like oh, you know, um, it's it's awkward, it's awkward that I was perceived so differently than than reality actually happened. Happened, you know, and uh, and so I think that, um, one of the things I have just learned is that, like, people are just going to perceive you wrong. You know, no matter how hard you try to manage perceptions, no matter how, like, people's perception is always so related to, like, what they are experiencing, what they have experienced, how they're feeling at any given moment, right, like people, people might be in a really horrible state, like really miserable and depressed, and then they, um, you know, and then they just like perceive you because they're looking through that lens, and so people are going to perceive you negatively all the time anyway, like, regardless of whether you do stuff or don't do stuff, or you know, yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, you can hold back and play it safe and people judge you for playing it safe. You can get out there and do it. People judge you for doing it wrong, you know.
Speaker 2:Or even trying yeah, or even trying, yeah, so yeah, the man in arena quote is one of my favorites. For that. It's like, hey, um, just, I give credit to people get out there and get after it, yeah, for sure. So in a situation like that, you had an awkward moment, um, like, how did you you handle that? Did you address it or just let the car go by?
Speaker 1:No, I just let the car go by, okay, I mean it's not worth calling out something like that. That doesn't really affect me, you know, yeah, so I mean, obviously we'll try to do everything we like we always try to do. It's very hard. Being in an like an agency is a weird thing to run, right, because you are, you're like sort of like a people-pleasing company yeah, I mean like I've always struggled with being a people pleaser my whole life, so I founded a people-pleasing company.
Speaker 2:Yeah and uh, no more stress or anxiety.
Speaker 1:Yeah, right, exactly yeah, so, so every individual organization. Not only do they have their, their goals and their um, they have their goals and what they want to accomplish, and all that. They have differing goals within the organization, right, so you'll have different people in the C-suite and different people who are, you know, making decisions, who have all these different competing goals and priorities, and they all have different states, like all of them will be having a positive day and a negative day, and all that. And so then, as an agency, your reality is you want to help all of them, you know, achieve their goals, but then you also want to achieve your own goals, and it can be this like you have this dual goal, all the time, you know, of whatever the client's goal happens to be, and also your own goals of hitting your own metrics and growing and all that.
Speaker 1:So agencies are really weird goals of hitting your own metrics and growing and all that. So agencies are really weird. Um and uh, I really like doing it because I, I think you get to. For me, I think, one of the most rewarding things is, um, when I can help someone get clarity on something in minutes that I know they have been like wrestling over for a long time and I'm like, nope, nope, we're going to do it this way, this is the solve, we'll have it done tomorrow, like, ah, it's incredible, but also like a lot of times they are trying to overcome fear, right. So so we talk about sales, right? Um, this book. In this book, it's called selling to selling to smart people with integrity, right? Um? So, 12 sales myths.
Speaker 1:By the way, I'm so impressed that you had a copy of that sitting here when I got here.
Speaker 2:I got to do a little work, you know.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah, so obviously, like everyone's encountered the sleazy sales guy right. Like who just wants to sell you the thing, whether you want it or need it or not, and that's the key, right? It's all about whether the person wants it, needs it. But what I have thought of as I've done sales so, um, so I have been up to this point and we're now hiring more sales people, but I've been the sole salesperson for the company pretty much.
Speaker 1:I mean other people in the company function as as a sales role from time to time, but it's pretty much me. The way I have been thinking about it is, my job is basically to form a positive relationship with a person where they know that they are in a safe spot to ask their question and I will give them an honest answer in a safe spot to ask their question and I will give them an honest answer right. So now we have we have a safe place that they can go for their question about this thing or whatever they're trying to solve. Um, and then I am either going to redirect them and say, okay, you're looking for the wrong thing, you know you, you actually need this. We don't provide that. Let me try to see if I can get your resource for that, so redirect. Or or get it to be a no right, or, like you think you need seo and that's actually probably not going to work very well for you, given your, your industry uh, shut that conversation down.
Speaker 1:I recommend you just don't do that um so get it to a no or a redirection as fast as possible. So so I don't waste their time Right or secondarily, if we do have something that's a good fit for them, my goal is to help them overcome their fear, right, Of why why not get started on it right now, you know, and sometimes you need to get started on it later, right, Like. Sometimes it's like actually this is not the stage where you should build an app you should build an app later on.
Speaker 1:Um, but, yeah, help them overcome their fear as as fast as possible and uh, and then, and then the only goal after that is, you know, once we have secured the contract or whatever, um, I want to guarantee that we were the best people they could possibly have picked by every possible metric. So that's where you work your ass off to make sure that you know every single thing you bring to the table is incredible and that they get the best above and beyond experience they possibly can get.
Speaker 2:So how have you found that communicating what you're doing and what you've provided has helped? What role does that play? Would you say? Communication is something that I think, um, it's the root of most problems, most, whether it's interpersonal relationships, businesses, uh, so so many things. Communication is kind of a necessary link, yeah, and I think a lot can, um, live or die on that. Like the customer's experience often is related to communication and even understanding what you've done for them yeah, for sure, yeah, totally well, so we have.
Speaker 1:We have like six core values that we like. Really, we spent a lot of time like figuring out the core values super interested yeah, yeah, yeah, um, I'll, I'll hit him real quick. So so number one is think abundantly. We like to talk about like the uh, you know the henry ford quote of like the man who will use his skill and constructive imagination to give as much as he can for a dollar instead of as little as he can for a dollar, is bound to succeed. So like, think about it, there's more where that came from.
Speaker 1:We can do, we can go bigger, we can do better. Um um uh, I'm gonna have to look these up well, you know, a lot of times I can't remember the order, so yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 2:A lot of times we find we don't um use them daily. We have them kind of ingrained like the concepts, but if you're not like addressing them, yeah, so, yeah, Okay, and we can number two eyes on the prize.
Speaker 1:So what's the goal? And refining the goal and making sure cause in in development. People get stuck looking at the trees a lot you know, so making sure everyone understands what the goal is. So then, fit foe is number three. Figure the F out.
Speaker 1:So, basically that's like making sure that you can focus on a successful like sales funnel and all that. It's really, really valuable to learn as much as you can about the process. You don't have to do all of it, but it's really valuable to learn everything and not be afraid of like diving into a platform or opening a software and clicking around, handle your monkeys. So if it's in your swim lane, take responsibility for it no matter how many bananas or feces it throws at you.
Speaker 1:Um, and this is the one I was. I was thinking of like teach the why. So never do anything for a client or internally without teaching everyone involved why it matters.
Speaker 2:Yeah so that's always been super important to me when dealing with anybody or anything. It's like I hate it, like math was always tough because, um, I want to know why the calculation worked. Yeah, I needed the concept behind it, right. So, um, I was okay at math, but not amazing because I just always sucked so much time. I want to know why one of the concept and even in in doing something or somebody is doing something for me. It's definitely helpful. So, teaching the why, I think that's a great one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's for communication. But I was going to say choose. Wonder and joy is our last core value and that's like the idea of you can always choose, you know, if you want to, to live in a beautiful state or a miserable state. You know you can choose that anytime, anyplace, and that's a choice we or a miserable state you can choose that anytime, any place, and that's a choice we consciously have to make. So, going back to communication, right, so it is my responsibility, when I talk to a client, to be in a beautiful, empowered, abundant state before I begin that conversation, because the level of resourcefulness and decisiveness and honesty honesty is big. If you don't have an abundant mindset, right, because you're going to start going scarcity mindset and you're going to try to close a sale that they don't need.
Speaker 2:Oh sure.
Speaker 1:Right. So, um, so get in. Getting in that beautiful state before I talk to that empowered state, before I talk to a customer, is part of communication, right? I'm a very bad communicator when I'm not in a good state.
Speaker 1:So getting in that good state and then teaching the why for sure, I mean it is hard in development too, because there's a lot of like well, you know we need to use the cookie method instead of the session method, because you know we're using light speed caching and we need the HTTP headers to like yeah, so it's a whole thing, yeah right. So it can be hard translating it into something that makes sense for both developers and clients.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you're dealing with a lot of different world, specialties, personality types, totally, um, and I think the other thing that's come up often in this podcast even is psychology. Like how important you know, in my business, among all the technical things, psychology seems like it ends up being half the business. Yes, like managing expectations, emotions, challenges and getting people through, like you're just guiding people through. Yeah, um, and that is that come often totally, yeah, well, tony.
Speaker 1:So tony robbins has been a hugely influential figure in my life for my whole life, um and uh, well, you know as long as I've known about him. But yeah, he talks about how any, any business is 80%, what is 80% state, or you know, and 20% mechanics, right, so change your state, change your yep, change your state, change your story or whatever.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, he talks about what I find really interesting. I don't. I think he goes over so fast that people don't realize how profound it is. He talks about, like state story, strategy, and so, like most people start with the strategy, they're like, oh, how am I going to do this Right and as soon as that happens? Well, first off, if I'm strategizing out of an abundant excited state, I have a totally different range of options to work from. I make way better decisions. All that stuff Right, absolutely Um so, and then if you don't have a good story, then you're not going to be able to carry yourself to through the difficult times that are that are that make you want to quit, you know, Um, so it's.
Speaker 1:I think it's really important to get your, your state, um in a, in a good place and then then get your story of like why do we want this, why is this this way? And then you can, you can have a strategy is really important. It can save you a decade, it can save you millions of dollars, but it'll never touch what a good state and a good story can do, Because you'll figure it out, You'll find another strategy.
Speaker 1:You'll find a different strategy. You'll switch strategies, as long as you have a good state and a good story.
Speaker 2:Oh, I agree, and that's self-talk and personal talk and just your outlook. Yeah, like you can grind through and outwork a lot of problems even without a different strategy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, totally.
Speaker 2:So this has been awesome. Anything you'd like to kind of cover before we wrap up Any advice you'd want to give what? Maybe, maybe this would be a good one. Um, you know somebody trying to start a new business, sure, um, or side hustle, or something kind of like you did. You've been through a lot of a lot of things. What, what kind of advice would you give them?
Speaker 1:yeah. So if someone's trying to start something new, um, so I would say, be patient with results and impatient with action. So, basically, you know, if you want to first off, you don't have to figure out exactly what you want to do, right, because chances are good that it's going to iterate into a version as you encounter customers. It's going to iterate into a version that's not customers. It's going to iterate into a version that's not going to be the same as it was at the beginning anyway. So you know you don't have to worry about like, ooh, what if I start it this way and then it isn't the way I want it, like you know, and then I'm stuck in it.
Speaker 1:You can always change and pivot and stuff like that, especially as you. But the number one thing is to get momentum and you will have to take way bigger action than you think you have to take, right, like. So, when I started out, I had been dabbling with you know, starting my company and dabbling and dabbling, and then, as soon as I got fired, right, I had the time to really dedicate to it and so I started working. I was having a really hard time with motivation, so I started working five hours a day, on it five hours yeah, that's hilarious to me.
Speaker 1:Now I'm like five hours but it was hard when I didn't know what I was supposed to be working on you know, no one had a list for me or anything, so I just started like looking at what other companies had and I said, well, I want to start a web development company. Um, I mean, I need a logo you know, so I'll work on designing that.
Speaker 1:Today I need a website of my own, so I guess I'll do that. I need, I need to do some networking, so I guess I'll make some phone calls, you know, um, but I would say like the faster you can take some of those next steps the better, Um, and you have to, you have to write it down somewhere, work on it every day.
Speaker 1:It has to be something that that you work on every day, Um, and the more you can involve other people in it as a means of keeping you accountable the better, right, like um, you say, hey, let's, let's meet up and let, and, let's you know, let's do some networking together.
Speaker 1:Let's go to this networking group together. Let's you know, whatever it happens to be, you got to create that external accountability for yourself Because at some point it starts pulling you right, yeah, so, for instance, today I have stuff that I know I have to do, like a lot of it, yeah.
Speaker 2:I appreciate you coming on. Oh, for instance, today I have stuff that I know I have to do like a lot of it.
Speaker 1:And yeah, coming on, oh yeah, yeah, I mean I, but I'm not being, I'm not like pushing to try to think of things to do or figure out what the next thing is right, like, yeah, I just got to get in there and like, fulfill the obligations I know people are going to ask about, so it'll start pulling you as you get more momentum. But you've just got to get momentum really fast and I think also just being willing to pay the price. The price is going to be higher than you think. You know a lot of people are like, oh well, I'll, you know, start this thing on the side and I'll work on it a little bit here and there and then if it takes off, like no, you're gonna have to hit it hard enough enough times that it does take off, because it has no choice.
Speaker 1:You know, there's no magic and and that's been one of the, I think, the biggest things for me is just like recognizing that there's no magic in any of this.
Speaker 1:You know, it's all magic, it's all a miracle and, in many senses, right, but there's no, there's no special magic sauce that makes one, you know, one thing explode and be really successful and other things stay small.
Speaker 1:It's just, you know, um, uh, it's just effort over time by people who are dedicated to it and who keep optimizing and pivoting. And I would say one of the things too is like modeling is so important. So like, find someone who has done what you want to do, look at how they did it and copy them as much as you can Until you have done a bunch of successful ventures and stuff like that. Then you can start creating like new ventures out of thin air and all that sort of thing. But look at someone who has done pretty much what you want to do, copy them, copy them, copy them and put in as much dedication as they have put in, you know, and ask them to you. I mean you can call them up and ask like, hey, how did you deal with this? And yeah, I think that's one of the biggest things, but it's consistent action over time.
Speaker 2:I think that's great advice. Well, I appreciate it. Anything else, how can people find you?
Speaker 1:So emberlydigitalcom is our company website.
Speaker 2:That's the best spot.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yep, otherwise cameronemberscom.
Speaker 2:So good deal. Well, I appreciate you coming on and, uh, look forward to chatting with you again in the future. Thank you, guys for joining us appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Hey, tell me that I'm never gonna make it.
