Ripped Pants Twice: A Powerful Lesson in Business Flexibility

In this episode, I'll tell you how I ripped my pants not once but twice and what entrepreneurial lesson I learned from it. This week I actually ripped my pants. Really embarrassing, man. Really. And I have to be honest, it happened to me before and that time it was even more embarrassing. Anyway, I was at the gym this week and at the gym you always have those corners, you have the strength corner, then you see those guys between 20 and 30 where you think, they've really been at it for hours. Those machine people, they sit on a machine, then 2 minutes on the phone, machine, 2 minutes on the phone. Then you have the cardio people, cross trainer, they've also been there for hours, you get the idea. Then the floor people, they're doing really beautiful balance exercises, always looks fantastic. Super difficult, I also do yoga or something like that sometimes. I find that quite tough too, but it looks so beautifully streamlined. And then you have me, sweaty buffalo on the floor. So this week I usually do compound exercises first. Back squats, deadlifts I had done and then I was going to do a circuit. With a circuit, 20 minutes long, I set a timer, put in earbuds, nice dance music on, from Heartwell usually, usually live ultra or tomorrowland. And this time I was going to do exercises. Box jump, jump rope, kettlebell swing and slam ball. And I was busy with that. And really at the fourth or fifth round, so really already towards the 20 minutes that I'd been working, really quite sweaty, breathing hard, I have the dance music on. So completely focused and I make that swing with the kettlebell swing and I come up. And I hear simultaneously, as I come up, through the music a sound like... I think, yeah, that's not good, right? But yeah, as I go down, I could also nicely look down. And I've always been someone who wants to finish things. So I look down and think, sports shorts look good. Probably my underwear is probably just fine. I only have to swing 2 more times. I think then I'll check it afterwards. Made those 2 swings and I look and think I think it's okay. I can do the next exercises. I think it'll just stay put, it'll be completely fine. And one more time the swings and suddenly I hear again. I think jeez, I hope it doesn't tear completely and fall out from under my pants or something. Yeah, I don't know. I was also exhausted from that circuit. You don't know what can all happen. But fortunately, it went well. I don't know what people heard, because I had loud dance music on. And when I finished the circuit I took out my earbuds. Then I thought, it's actually quite quiet here. Maybe people also heard that loud sound. I think, if I can already hear it through that music, then they definitely heard it. But I didn't see anyone looking strange. I think, well, maybe they've experienced it themselves too. You don't know, right? So I experienced it before too. That was when I was still a DJ, I think about 12, 13 years ago it was. I had to perform at a party. It was a private party, people were all dressed nicely, it was summer though. So I had put on linen pants. And a shirt. And I felt like the man, because I was the main act, head DJ. And I thought, yeah, this is going to be great. So I walked around nicely in that hall, people were already coming in. They were already dancing to the DJ who was playing before me. And it was really great, people at the cocktails, that kind of vibe. And I really felt like the man, I was looking forward to it, had prepared a good set. And yeah, I mixed live for the connoisseurs. I also played my own music and my own mash-ups I did everything. But prepared, selected new records, made new mash-ups. I was just really looking forward to it. So I walk towards the stage and I think, I'm going to check out the stage. And I get to the stage and I felt like the man. So I jump on the stage and I hear that same sound again. I think, that's not good man. And I look and the entire inside of my pants was completely ripped open. Those linen pants. So you could see my boxer shorts directly. That's a bit weird as a DJ. Now you have a lot of DJ booths. I don't know if you ever go to a club or festival. They're just closed up to the chest. Then you only see the top part of the DJ, not the bottom part. Not this one. This was the kind of vibe where everything was nicely open. So the DJ booth only had 2 poles on the side and a table looked really nice, but you could just look under the DJ booth. So I had to play my entire set with torn open pants, trying to keep my legs together a bit to make sure people couldn't really look into it. I did learn from that. I did see a number of people come up to me after the set, who I think wanted to start about that. But I quickly made myself scarce this time. Normally I do stick around a bit, unless I have to move on to a next performance. What I really learned most from that is, even now, when I have an official appointment somewhere, where I need to look presentable, which just happens often, then I have an extra pair of pants or an extra sweater or shirt in the car, so that if I spill something, if something goes wrong, then I have a backup thing. So I don't take that to the gym, which might actually also be an idea. The metaphor that I really want to share with you as an entrepreneur, even if you're not an entrepreneur, it's still advisable, as an entrepreneur, you can be rigid. Like linen pants, or like the boxer shorts I put on during sports. I swear to you, I was standing that morning this week in front of my closet. And I thought, yeah, that boxer shorts with squats doesn't feel quite right. I think, well, it'll be fine, I didn't think at all that it could break. Another sports boxer shorts, that just flexes nicely. So yeah, the metaphor is, the moment you rigidly hold on to certain things, then there's a good chance you'll rip out of it at some point. That can go in a positive direction, then you still have chaos, but it can also shoot in a negative direction, then you have an unpleasant chaos. What's much more advisable, reminds me of a REED bends along. A reed doesn't stand in the wind and try to stay completely firm. Because if it really blows hard, then it breaks off. No, what does a reed do? A reed bends. Like you know Ronald Goedemond, reed, reed, doesn't matter. Just bends along in the wind and just stays bent during a long gust of wind and just comes back up again. Just like a sports boxer shorts. They just flex along, they bend along. And then the question is: is your business designed for that? Very important question to check. Is your business flexible? Is your business agile? Super important. If you're not agile with your business, then it will definitely go wrong at some point. But is your brain also flexible, agile and resilient? Can you also bend your brain so that your business can grow or can adapt. The moment your brain is not flexible, then you have a problem, because then you're going to rip out of it at some point. A very simple exercise that you can do to help your brain be flexible. It sounds really super simple and it's also a bit weird if you've never heard of this before. But actually everything that happens in your life, happens in your business, happens in your head. And everything is based on patterns and systems. And those patterns and those systems, multiple systems, but also the system of your business you can actually take out of your head and put down for a moment. I have Playmobil figures for that for example. I almost never use them, because I use hypnosis tools. But you can just do it fine with Playmobil figures if you have them, or with glasses, or with attributes, just little things, maybe with chocolate blocks. I happen to see a chocolate bar lying here. Or pens, doesn't matter. What you're going to do is you first place something on an empty tabletop or on the floor, which is just completely empty, first place something that represents your business, that represents the core of your business. What you do next is attributes of the most important pillars of your business around it. So if you take cups, you have a mug, that's the core of your business, and you have a mug with sales, a mug with marketing, a mug with finance, a mug with team, just naming something. So for you the most important pillars within your business. And you place them based on feeling around the core of your business. So it could be that you have the feeling that sales is close to me, so that's also close to you. But finance is very far away, because you have very little to do with it. Or the other way around, doesn't matter. Just based on your feeling you place things around the core of your business. The moment you then look at what you've put down, then you can just see: okay, this is the core, this is the business, and the pillars stand around it in this way. Also look at it first. What you do next is you're going to push them bit by bit, a little bit further away from you. And the things where you feel distance, like in my example just now for example finance, many entrepreneurs don't like dealing with it, while other entrepreneurs don't like dealing with marketing. But the things you like less, you bring those closer. So you turn it around as it were. That does something in your brain because you've actually visualized that system, almost materialized it, in this case mugs, can be anything. And because you move it, it's like that in your sight, in your image, and then that happens in your brain too. That does something with your brain. And so you can play with it, you can just do it once a week. The moment you really want to make your business grow significantly, then you just have to move everything further away from the core. Then you'll notice that your brain becomes more flexible. Besides that, it's of course a good idea the moment you're very much about control, then your business won't easily grow much bigger. While if that is something you want, you have to go a bit more into surrender, let go a bit more. And the moment you find that really difficult, it's useful to sit in the chair of a hypnotherapist. Because they can help you with things you hold on to too anxiously, to soften those so that you create more space. Doesn't mean you necessarily have to solve everything. The best and biggest successful entrepreneurs or top athletes actually have some unresolved things that they use as fuel. So I also always make sure during my sessions that things don't get resolved, if that's what provides the fuel. Unless you want that of course, that you say I'm completely done with it, I want to sell everything, I want to feel free. Yes, then we do have to solve things. But do this visualization technique that actually appears in matter for you to make your brain flexible. And otherwise make sure that through a good therapist, preferably a therapist who also really helps you use the neuroplasticity in your brain like a hypnotherapist, to ensure that your brain really becomes flexible and that you become resilient. So that the chaos that arises when you eventually rip out of it, that you can handle it. Or that it ensures that you don't have to rip out of it because your brain is stretching and therefore your business can also grow. And that also has big advantages in your personal life. --- This transcript has been translated from Dutch.