148 - Preparation Will Only Get You So Far When Sailing An Ocean

In this episode Erik Holmberg explains that to prepare as much as we want, we need to fundamentally believe in ourselves and let go of what we know.

Erik is an incurable entrepreneur and resides presently in Longmont Colorado with his wife and 2 teenage children with his wheaten terrier.  A lover of adventure, he spends his summers paddle boarding and sailing the local lakes, and biking the local trails.  In the winter he spends his time snowboarding and snowshoeing.  Erik is a self-employed business coach and is passionate about training team leaders and managers the challenging soft skills necessary to navigate today's rapidly changing world of business.  Eriks' dream is to sail the pacific ocean from the west coast of the continental USA through Fiji.  

To learn more visit www.nauvatis.com

In this episode we cover:

2:11     Personal Development Defined

3:46     Optimism Is A Choice

6:10     Control

10:02   Live In Fear or Possibility

12:52   Failure

21:21   Bouncing Back

23:49   Reframe

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Special thanks to Erik Holmberg for being on the show.

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Transcript

Did You Know  0:02  
Did you know that the Portuguese Man-O-War gets its name from an old Portuguese warship at full sail? In fact, it sails with the wind with its pretty purple and blueish sail. Without knowing what it was, Erik swam up to one in the middle of the Atlantic to take photos. 

Intro  0:19  
Hello, action taker! Welcome to Live Blissed Out. A podcast where I have inspirational and informational conversations with business owners and subject matter experts to help you get the scoop on a variety of topics. Tired of hesitating or making decisions without having the big picture? Wanna be in the know? Then this is the place to go. I'm your host Marisa Huston. Helping you achieve bliss through awareness and action. So let's get to it. In this episode, Erik Holmberg explains that to prepare as much as we want, we need to fundamentally believe in ourselves and let go of what we know. Erik is an incurable entrepreneur and resides presently in Longmont, Colorado, with his wife, two teenage children and Wheaten Terrier. A lover of adventure he spends his summers paddleboarding and sailing the local lakes, and biking the local trails. In the winter he spends his time snowboarding and snowshoeing. Erik is a self employed business coach and is passionate about training team leaders and managers the challenging soft skills necessary to navigate today's rapidly changing world of business. Erik's dream is to sail the Pacific Ocean from the west coast of the continental USA through Fiji. To learn more visit novautis.com. 

Disclaimer  1:31  
The information opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. This podcast should not be considered professional advice. 

Marisa Huston  1:43  
Erik, it's so great to have you. 

Erik Holmberg  1:45  
Thanks Marisa. Appreciate you taking the time. 

Marisa Huston  1:47  
You're very welcome. I'm so glad you're here. And I'm looking forward to our conversation. What are we talking about today?

Erik Holmberg  1:54  
I really wanted to jump in and talk about some personal development and the importance of having a firm stance on the ground so you can reach for the sky. 

Marisa Huston  2:04  
I'm sure a lot of people will resonate with that. When you say personal development, could you elaborate on that? 

Erik Holmberg  2:11  
Sure. So personal development can mean a lot of different things for a lot of different people. For me, I feel like as long as we're breathing, we're learning. We're always going to be evolving, we're always going to be changing. And of course, we become what we think about. It's not only be careful what you eat, and you are what you eat, but it's be careful what you think. So be careful what seeds you're planting. For me personal development is just constantly being aware of the self, and focusing on improving that for the betterment of everyone around us. Because there's this whole illusion that things happen in a vacuum. Like I'm gonna go work out, or I'm gonna lose 10 pounds, and it's just only going to be a physical affect, but it's not. It develops to the spirit to the mind, etc, etc. So when I say personal development, I'm talking about kind of the tireless pursuit of constant improvement. That's what I mean by that. 

Marisa Huston  3:03  
It all connects. When you're healthy physically, that also impacts whether you're healthy mentally, and sometimes the other way around. All of the things come together and, frankly, I believe that we develop every day. We become better versions of ourselves. In fact, I even think there's periods where every decade, you almost don't recognize the person you were 10 years before, because you have evolved, you changed, you learn you become somebody different. I'd like to think in a good way. I mean, that's what we're striving to do anyway. And I think that that's absolutely critical. Because if we're not growing, then weren't dying, essentially. The goal is to keep growing and bettering ourselves to the best of our ability. 

Erik Holmberg  3:46  
Yeah, I agree. And I appreciate and respect your optimism and your positive attitude. I will also say, in my opinion, that choosing to be optimistic, is in itself, obviously a choice. And choosing to improve ourselves is a choice and it takes effort. And the thing is it doesn't just affect us, it affects everyone around us. I'm a father, I'm a friend to a lot of other people, I have coaching clients, etc. And when I work on myself, it actually works on everyone else too. 

Marisa Huston  4:17  
Giving an example of what you just said, let's say that you are having a great day and somebody just does something terrible to you. Or maybe they're just not as happy as you are. It rubs off on you in a way and vice versa. It's very important also to remember that you do have some control over that environment. Because you can't control how other people treat you or how they're feeling, but you can certainly control how you manage your day. 

Erik Holmberg  4:45  
Couldn't agree more. And to me it comes down to that magic hour the first hour when I wake up, I'm going to choose my intention. Am I going to be reactive and grumpy and look at what's missing? Or am I going to choose to look at what's possible and try and live in some gratitude? It's not always an easy choice.  Sometimes, we'll wake up and we won't feel good or something really innately is going on. There's some sort of health concern, or there's a tragedy in the family, or you've got close friends who are going through something. But there's always different ways to look at it to help pass through whatever experience we're having. That's what I would say. 

Marisa Huston  5:23  
And we all deal with challenges. That's the other thing is, I think that people forget that. We're living in a time now where everybody posts all the great things. They're at the baseball game, or they're at the beach, or they're doing fun things. And then people are dealing with some very serious things in their lives and they see that and they think it's just them, like no one else is dealing with that. But I think a lot of us cover it up, because it's not something we want to share with everyone. And we try to deal with it silently, or perhaps with loved ones in our lives. At the end of the day there is no one living on this planet that has everything perfect. We all have our struggles, ups and downs. You have to navigate through it, which is a lead into what you do. You are very interested and into sailing. Could you share your story with our listeners? 

Erik Holmberg  6:10  
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for that. I like to say I'm a sailor trapped in Colorado, a landlocked state. It sounds very bizarre, but I swear it's true. I grew up a lot around boats. Believe it or not people in Colorado here we're very into different sports are very active communities. There's a high number of people who are into scuba diving, for example, which is obviously very bizarre considering it's Colorado, its a landlocked state, I got interested in sailing through my aunt in Seattle, gosh, it was about 25 years ago, when I was going to college up in the Puget Sound area. They had their family, they would take their boat up to the Canadian Gulf Islands, and I was just so infatuated with the idea. There's so much of this planet is covered by water, and there's so much exploration that can be done. Still, we don't know a lot about the oceans on this planet. I mean, we know more about the moon than a lot of the oceans that we have right here on Earth. There's just so much to explore, and to find out about. And for me, I really enjoy being out there on the water and introducing this to other people as well. To your point of, we're not alone, when we're out there sailing, sometimes it really can feel that way. When we're out there we create a wake. So the trail that comes behind us, it dissipates quite quickly. It's not like driving on a muddy road where you can look in your rearview mirror and your tire tracks remain. So as a result, it's really easy to feel like we are alone out there and we are just by ourselves. At the same time there's also a freedom in that. To say that, hey, we control and manifest and create our own existences and our own futures. For me, my claim to fame is to have sailed the Atlantic Ocean twice, believe it or not. One was a 22 day trip, one was a 25 day trip. And to me it was the ultimate freedom. You know, I probably had survival mechanisms and subconscious things going on, where a week in or a week and a half in I would wake up in the morning and feel like we just left the dock the previous day. But meanwhile, it had been a week and a half. Just seeing that sunset and the sunrise with no land in sight to me it's the ultimate freedom. So much we believe we're in control. People say Oh, well, gosh, it sounds so dangerous to be standing across an ocean. And I also agree that sure there's some dangers out there, the biggest one is weather. But the biggest hazards are when you actually get close to land because there's other things to hit. There's rocks, there's reef, there's other boats. You're out there in the middle of the ocean, it's a treat to see another boat, it's pretty rare. And then tongue in cheek of course, people talk to me about safety. And I say, well, look what's going on in the world now. Where is safe? What does safety mean? There's a lot of nastiness going on in the world. I'm sure you understand what I mean.

Marisa Huston  8:58  
I completely do. It's funny because you think about just your daily life, getting in the car isn't safe. The minute you get out of your driveway, you have no idea what's going to happen. You're going to try to get from point A to B as safely as you can. But you know, there's so many unknowns. I think what happens is because it's part of our lives, we tend to just shove it aside and think of it as a normal occurrence, which it is. But it's still dangerous. I think we have this false sense of security now where we expect everything to work a certain way. You know, entrepreneurship is so similar to that. People get into it thinking, oh, this isn't going to be hard. I'm going to wake up, I'm going to do what I love and everything's gonna be okay. And when they realize that it's a lot like sailing, where there's so many unknowns, so many things that can happen that you have to try to plan for but you'll never be 100% safe doing. You have to kind of accept that there's going to be highs and lows, so to speak. And you have to figure out how to get around that stuff and be resilient and believe in yourself and work hard and do your best? 

Erik Holmberg  10:02  
Absolutely. You hit the nail right on the head there. For me, it's all about, are we going to choose to live in fear or are we going to live in possibility? For us to untie from the dock we can prepare all we want. But we have to innately believe that this could be possible. Otherwise, we end up our own saboteurs. Just like in business, one of the lessons that I have when I try and support as many entrepreneurs and team leaders as I can here is to set up some sort of safety net for yourself. And what I mean by that is some of your operating costs some of your finances, make sure that you've got a firm footing, which will allow the person to dream and to strive and to take calculated risks. For example, before we left the dock, we'd figured out are we going to have a sea anchor? Or what's the condition of our life raft? Suppose we flip? Suppose the boat breaks up? We lose our mass. Do we have a hacksaw to cut the rig off and leave it to sink so that we can try and drift or motor to where we need to be? Do we have first aid kit? Do we have appropriate amount of food rations? Appropriate amount of water and so forth? But there can also be this analysis paralysis. I mean, we could have just stayed there the whole time and just been like we're still preparing. It's been a year it's been 10 years been 20 years, we're still getting ready. Right? It is possible to be constantly preparing, and never actually step into taking the risk. So one of the big key lessons that I have is to say, hey, you know, let's make a strong foundation in business and entrepreneur just getting started. Why don't we set up two months worth of your operating costs, or at least a line of credit to that amount. So then we could just start taking those calculated risks and making those mistakes, which are critical to learning. 

Marisa Huston  11:50  
Absolutely. And there are key words you said there, calculated risks, then analysis paralysis, and it's very real. And in fact, not only have I done it myself, but I know several people who still do a lot of that. What happens is, they are not only afraid to take risk, and calculated it is the key word there. You need to try to anticipate what you think might happen and that happens in majority of situations. Like you know, most entrepreneurs deal with financial challenges. So what are some of those things? And how do you get a step ahead, so you can at least try to anticipate what might happen. But at the end of the day, if you start to really think about all the possibilities of where things can go wrong, then you end up running away from it and never doing it. And then you hold yourself back. That analysis paralysis can be really scary. It stops us. And one of the words I always use on the podcast is forward. Well, it really stops you from moving forward, if all you're doing is thinking about all the things that could possibly go wrong. 

Erik Holmberg  12:52  
Yes. Without a doubt I would kind of sidebar with that would be the perspective on what is failure. I don't know about you but for me, I have gone through episodes and times of my life where I take failure just so seriously. I take it completely personal. 

Marisa Huston  13:07  
Oh, yeah. 

Erik Holmberg  13:08  
The thing is, it's a result. Think of it like a science experiment. We have a theory, we have a hypothesis, we test it. Now we got a result. Okay. Sure, you can have big effect. Say something explodes. The beaker explodes in the science classroom, right? Wow. Okay, that was surprising. Let's make sure not to do that one again. Or it could be as simple as like a dud. You light a firecracker and nothing happens. So like, huh, all right. Well, I guess that didn't work. 

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Marisa Huston  14:09  
You know what's funny, Erik, is that in a science lab, you expect to fall down and make mistakes. It's a mindset to say my job is to play with all these little chemicals and figure out what works and what doesn't work. So it's part of the expectation. But I don't know why most of us entrepreneurs don't think like that. We think that it's a straight line. And if we fall, then we're terrible. I don't get why our mindset is so different. 

Erik Holmberg  14:37  
You know, it is a pickle. What I learned growing up was that, you know, we're supposed to know, I've been an entrepreneur all my life, but I went out in earnest with a big enterprise in 2008 and I just felt like we're all supposed to know. Like, I thought it would be totally evident what choices to make when. I was slightly naive but not inexperienced. You know, actually have a degree in business and I'd had different businesses before. I don't know if some of this is potentially some of the American cowboy attitude. Like, you know, how its really rumored that men don't like to look at maps or to take direction. There's a real thing there you know. We're cowboys, and we conquered the west. Gosh, darn it, we're just gonna figure it out. So there's some of that, which doesn't serve us. But also, you're right. I think as we grow up, we kind of lose some of that openness and the perceived, maybe neuroplasticity, or just the willingness to not take ourselves so dang, seriously. 

Marisa Huston  15:35  
Yeah. And the attitude of thinking that learning is actually just another way of growing. Because you can't get better unless you fall every once in a while, make mistakes. And just like the example you shared, oops, that didn't work. So I'm not going to do that one again. You know, let's try something different. I think that instead of thinking of it that way, we tend to be really hard on ourselves and say, Gosh, how could I have done that? I just don't understand. It's so obvious. And I still made that mistake, and you get so hard on yourself, and then you get discouraged? 

Erik Holmberg  16:05  
Well, sure. Because when we connect those neural pathways in our mind, we tend to, oh, my gosh, I can really self sabotage and take ourselves seriously. I know, failure. People do ask me, they say, oh, so what about this boat that you were sailing for a while? Where is it now? Where do you keep it docked? And you know, the truth is, we lost the boat. We hit a reef in the middle of the night, at three in the morning. And we were on the beach at 11am with whatever we could carry. And we were at this weird outpost on these little tiny islands 90 miles offshore from the mainland of Venezuela. I think my maker was really looking out for me, because as captain, I was the last one off the ship. And I tried all sorts of techniques to pull the boat free. And it caused all sorts of trouble and getting flipped and tossed around in the waves. And concurrently to this whole situation. I had previously sold the business that I'd started in 2008. And I'd sold it on a handshake, and it all fell apart. I lost my whole nest egg. And that happened a month before the boat crash. And so suddenly, we were catapulted back into our previous life back in Colorado. And it was not planned. It wasn't smooth. It was very violent. It was very sudden. And it was very difficult. You know, certainly took me a while to come around the corner on that. But I will tell you to the point of making preparations before I left, I met with a financial advisor and planned this adventure and lifestyle well ahead of time. And I remember when he told me, he said, you know, let's figure out sit down together, what is the worst case scenario that could ever happen and put a number to it? And I said, Okay, great, I got that. And he said, good. Now save up that money, and then double it. And I will tell you that really helped us land on our feet. After the worst case scenario that manifested itself. We had some financial stability, and we were able to recover from it and not only recover from it, but I actually restarted the business back from zero back in 2016. Everything was caught up in bankruptcy, the interim owner had ran it into the ground. I still don't know why. I just let it go at this point because I may never know, I couldn't even get the phone number back. It was all tied up in bankruptcy court. And it was just all this thing, it's all this big mess. I couldn't get any vehicles, no assets, nothing. All I could get was the entity had been abandoned and I went back to my marketing channels and turned back on the tap and all of a sudden, it just started flowing again. And it just kept going from there. I was actually able to rebuild that business back from zero. But always purchasing vehicles, you know, one man, one van, purchasing vehicles with cash and not taking loans, because I didn't want to have that financial exposure. And I would always have something in the bank. I would be analyzing the financials every step of the way, just to make sure that if I made a misstep. No one likes to make the same mistake twice, right? So if I'd made a misstep, I could recover from it. Because taking a hit like losing a business sale is one thing but doing it twice. You know, the recovery as we get older is a little bit tougher, whether that's physical or financial. So I actually was able to build that business back up. And I was learning Coaching and Consulting at the same time, because that's really what I had wanted to be doing. And I implemented those on the team and learned that as I was going along. And it actually helped me to double the company from anything previously when I rebuilt it the second time. And lo and behold, I'm still celebrating because I actually was able to sell the business successfully again. The same business. I got the money this time. And this is a eally great position now where I'm actually able to help others find their success through my learning.

Marisa Huston  20:06  
Which is why you wrote this book. I talk to a lot of authors, and they all say the same thing. I never realized any of this until I went through it. And instead of feeling sorry for themselves or being discouraged, they say, well, how can I help other people not make the same mistakes. Or they're going to make mistakes, but maybe they don't make as many and maybe they can learn something from what I've been through. And the thing is, as you were telling your story, we all fall. But sometimes these things happen in groups of three. I don't know what the universe does. What you explained. Like, your boat didn't work, and you had a problem with that, then your financials crashed? They were both crashing at the same time. Now, some people will say, Oh, my gosh, after the first crash, I'm done. Some people would just get so scared and spooked and walk away. But you didn't. You kept saying, no, there's a way around this, I'm gonna figure it out. It's just a setback. And I will get back on my feet. But not everybody thinks that way. And I think it's important for us to talk about that. And I think that your book will help people with that, because that's really key. It's not smooth sailing for business or life in general. It never is, even though we'd like it to be. 

Erik Holmberg  21:21  
Absolutely. And to say that I was just able to quickly bounce back. That's not completely true. It took me a good while. There I was in 2016, lots a nest egg, lost the lifestyle. It was tough. There were some really dark times. And you talked about things coming in threes. You know, a little while later, I wasn't so sure I wanted to rebuild the business, I had a lot of resentment, I had a lot of anger, I had a lot of frustration. And I ended up sustaining a pretty significant injury to my hand, at which point, I would not, therefore be able to do the work for myself and feed myself that I had always been doing. So I had an electrical contracting company. And for that, you really need full usage of both your hands. And at this point, my left hand was basically incapacitated. So I had to relearn how to put my pants on. I had to relearn how to tie my shoes, I had to relearn all sorts of things. But the big takeaway for me was the inflection point there was, listen, do I just go find disability or unemployment. I've never actually taken unemployment, even though I've been offered it a number of times. It's just not in me. And I said, you know, the big inflection point was essentially, I decided, I either had to pivot to a different career, or just pop the top on this business and go for it. And I ended up going for it with the business. And what I started by doing was paying through the nose for benefits for these guys. You know, health insurance and vacation, and I had never done that before. And I said, you know, worst case, I will pay for it out of my own pocket. Because we have to have good people on the team. And if somebody isn't supported, if they don't have that foundation, again, you know, circling back to the whole, having a strong foothold and a foundation so that you can reach for the sky and have risk. You know, the employees, they're taking a risk by joining the team and choosing who they're going to put their energy behind. And if they don't feel supported, if they don't feel like they've got benefits or health care, or things of that nature, if they don't feel cared for, it's not going to work. They're gonna go find a place where they can be supported, and they can have their needs met. 

Marisa Huston  23:31  
And the thing is, when you were sharing the story about your hand, I got to thinking, yeah, okay, that's a setback, because we all have those things. But instead of saying, well, okay, I can't do this, which is pretty obvious. There's certain things you can't do now that you could do. But then the question becomes, what can you do? 

Erik Holmberg  23:49  
Exactly? So for me, when the doctor said to me, they said, hey, it's a good thing this didn't happen to one of your employees, they'd be screwed. But you got people to work for you. I'm like, you know, there's a good reframe right there. 

Marisa Huston  24:00  
That's it. 

Erik Holmberg  24:01  
You know?. It's all about reframing it. Yeah, for sure. 

Marisa Huston  24:04  
Yeah, it's reframing. That's a perfect word to use. Even though we don't like to think about it very often, we have limitations. There's certain things we can do. And each one of us has a different talent. And so rather than say, well, why can't I do what that person does? Look into yourself and say, hey, I can do this better than that person. They probably can't do this. And there's always something. And so rather than focusing on the things that are holding you back, focus on how do I get ahead, using what I have? 

Erik Holmberg  24:33  
Totally agreed. Let's just use what we got positive mindset. 

Marisa Huston  24:37  
Exactly. And that's why I think your book is going to be so helpful for people. When is this coming out and how do people get a hold of it and learn more about what you do? 

Erik Holmberg  24:45  
So right now, the launch date is set for April 14, and it will be available on Amazon. The name of the book is Waypoints Of Entrepreneurship. Waypoints, meaning your satellite waypoints, you might use for GPS. And multiple waypoints creates a line and a direction. That is going to be coming out in ebook as well as on paperback. And I will have some other master classes and Masterminds actually emerging this summer as a result of these lessons. And it's basically based on these 10 really important lessons that I learned coming up and doing this twice. And what is really important to create and have a sustainable, healthy business that will not only serve the owner, but to serve the world, and really to serve everyone who's around. Because there's this whole concept of a zero sum game. But I think winfinity is possible. You know, the whole thing is like, heads, I win tails, you lose. I don't subscribe to that anymore. I really don't. When I walked away and sold the business, I said, the employees were happy because they had more options, the seller was happy and the buyer was happy. It is possible that everybody can win. To get a hold of me, my website is www.nauvatis.com. And that's a new words, I'll spell that NAUVATIS.com. I can also be reached at erik@nauvatis.com again NAUVATIS and the phone number is 720-324-1291. 

Marisa Huston  26:19  
You know, Erik, in closing, there was something that you said that struck me and it took me a long time to learn. And that is, everybody can win. In the sense that I like to look at every scenario that I do and say how do I make it beneficial for the other person as well. Because I think that if we go in with a mindset of collaboration, and everybody succeeding together, it's that much more powerful. I think there's just no downside to it. Just even thinking about things that way and approaching it from that perspective does make a difference and will help. I'm glad that you wrote this book, because I would love our listeners to have an opportunity to read it and maybe be inspired and learn and maybe help them navigate through all the ups and downs of life and business. I appreciate you being here today and sharing this with us. 

Erik Holmberg  27:10  
Thanks so much for having me. And I really do hope that this information and the book, and everything that we do does reach out and truly help and support people. Because there's a lot of challenges out there. We need that help all of us. 

Marisa Huston  27:23  
We all do. I don't think there's any exception to that for sure. Thank you so much, Erik. 

Erik Holmberg  27:28  
All right, thank you. 

Marisa Huston  27:30  
That's a wrap for this episode of Live Blissed Out. Thanks to Erik Holmberg for joining us and thanks for listening. If you have a question or comment for a future episode, all you have to do is go to www.speakpipe.com/lbovm or click the link in the show notes to leave a brief audio message. If you find value in our show please visit www.liveblissedout.com to reach out, subscribe and share on social media. This show is made possible through listeners like you. Thank you. So long for now and remember to keep moving forward!