Change Under Pressure + Resiliency with Richard Walsh (part 1)

What if the key to resilience lies in embracing change and operating under pressure? Join us for an illuminating conversation with Richard Walsh, a former U.S. Marine turned entrepreneur, whose journey from military service to business success offers profound lessons in overcoming adversity. Richard opens up about the daunting challenges he faced during the economic downturn of 2008-2009 and shares how he managed to reinvent himself while prioritizing family and personal values over mere financial gain. Through his story, we explore the intricate balance between personal identity and professional pursuits, learning how to rebuild with resilience and ignite passion in the face of setbacks.

Richard's experiences teach us how to turn pressure into a catalyst for change and growth. From selling off equipment amidst financial strain to crafting massive exhibits under tight deadlines, Richard mastered the art of taking leaps without safety nets. His journey is a testament to adaptability and resourcefulness, proving that recognition and personal achievement often trump financial success. As Richard reflects on overcoming educational challenges and defying expectations, we gain insight into the power of affirmation and the relentless pursuit of excellence.

Discover the unique fusion of entrepreneurship, athletics, and family bonds that define Richard's life. By structuring his business to prioritize family time, he ensured his children could learn from his entrepreneurial journey. We hear touching anecdotes of homeschooling flexibility and his son's aspirations to become a Navy SEAL. As Richard shares his insights into starting anew in different industries, we are inspired to navigate life's challenges with resilience and passion. Join us on this motivational journey filled with real-life lessons and aha moments, and be sure to subscribe, like, and share as we reignite resilience together.

About Richard:
https://www.facebook.com/richard.walsh.9231  www.sharpenthespearcoaching.com

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Chapters

• 0:06 Reignite Resilience With Richard Walsh
• 11:24 Driven by All or Nothing
• 20:02 Entrepreneurship, Athletics, and Family Bonds
• 24:11 Continuing Richard's Inspiring Journey

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

All of us reach a point in time where we are depleted and need to somehow find a way to reignite the fire within. But how do we spark that flame? Welcome to Reignite Resilience, where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. Resilience where we will venture into the heart of the human spirit. We'll discuss the art of reigniting our passion and strategies to stoke our enthusiasm. And now here are your hosts, natalie Davis and Pamela Cass.

Natalie Davis: 0:41

Welcome back to another episode of reignite resilience Resilience. I'm your co-host, natalie Davis, and I am so excited to be back with you all today. I may be afternoon caffeinated, so you're going to get a higher paced version of Natalie today, and joining me is our fabulous co-host, pam Kass.

Pamela Cass: 0:58

Pam, how are you, I am fabulous, and I'm even better because you and I just discovered we're going to the exact same event tonight that we didn't know we were going to. And so for you guys, yes, it seems like we're together a lot, but we hardly ever get to see each other in person, and so when we get a chance to do this, we get a little bit excited, I'm excited it's going to be fun.

Natalie Davis: 1:17

I know Pam said I've got an event this evening. Here's the other thing Pam and I don't typically do evening events. She was like I've got an event this evening. I said I've got an event this evening and she goes are we going to the same event? And lo and behold, yes, we are. Well, I am excited to dive into our episode. Pam, just so you know, in person you're going to have a super energized version of me, because I had to have an afternoon cup of pick me up, but we learned something new. Maybe we'll share with our listeners our to have an afternoon cup of pick-me-up, but we learned something new. Maybe we'll share with our listeners our tip about afternoon coffee as well. We just learned something new from our guests, but we have a fabulous guest joining us today.

Pamela Cass: 1:55

Why don't you tell our listeners who we have on and then we can dive in? I am so excited. So today we have joining us Richard Walsh. He's a CEO of Sharpen the Spear Coaching. Richard is a 30-year seasoned entrepreneur. He is the best-selling author of Escape the Owner Prison, the Contractor's New Way to Scale, regain Control and Fast-Track Growth, while Loving Life. A speaker and podcast host, he's a husband and father of six, a US Marine champion, boxer, black belt and an international recognized steel sculpture. Okay so I know not to make you mad. I would not want to meet you in a dark alley, but share with us your story because you've done a lot and just so excited to get to know you a little bit better.

Richard Walsh: 2:42

Thank you guys. It's great to be on the show First. Thanks for having me. That's the most important thing. Appreciate it. So, yeah, if we go back, went to the Marine Corps US Marine Corps when I was 17,. Did that. That was cool.

Richard Walsh: 2:53

And then got out, started working, decided to become an entrepreneur because I was swinging a pickaxe digging trench by hand for five dollars an hour and I thought does it get any better than this? It has to get better than this. Yes, a guy came out of the house working his name and he said, hey, I need to do a little side gig, you know, and he had like 35 tons of this crushed granite. He wanted me to move it from the street to the backyard. This was tucson, arizona. So he did. So I can do that. I do that all day, I work. So I spent my last 85 and I bought a wheelbarrow and a shovel this was before payday Went shoveled about 10 hours, moved this whole thing and here's the best part he put a thousand bucks in my hand. I got done for that right and I'm like dang, I did this yesterday for 50. I know my future. I am going to work for myself and that was the launch of my entrepreneurial journey, became a landscape business, which then became Custom Water Features, became nationally known, one of the best in the business, won a lot of awards. All the cool stuff started doing sculpture that turned into international recognition, world-class exhibits started building all that great stuff. All that was going really, really good, making a ton of money, doing things, being out front, being the artist, being the public guy and all that stuff.

Richard Walsh: 4:01

And then 08, 09 came, and at this time, I had six small children, four years and younger, my wife. Everything started collapsing. November 5th of 2008, I lost a half a million dollars in a day. That was the beginning of the cliff and it just kept going and by early 09, I knew it was over, and the reason being not just the economy. It was really the things I didn't do in my business. I was too busy being out front, being cool and doing great things, not paying attention to the economy. It was really the things I didn't do in my business. I was too busy being out front, being cool and doing great things, not paying attention to the store, if you will. We lost our house, we lost the business, we lost everything. So I had to relocate, start over, didn't know what I was going to do. All I knew is I wasn't going to do that again. So I sold everything I had left. I'm never doing this again because my identity was truly wrapped up in what I did, and that's a big problem.

Richard Walsh: 4:46

So I actually woke one day in early 09 and I had this big epiphany that said, if you keep chasing business, business is first, it's everything, it's who I am. I got to win, I got to be number one. I got to overcome all this stuff. Spend whatever money you have to do. I said I think I'm going to ruin my children's lives. I think they're going to have broken marriages, failed relationships. They might do okay in business, but everything else in life is going to be trash. And I got out of bed, I went to the office and said we're done today. And I shut the doors, went to my construction yard, told my guys, we're wrapping up this week. We're finished. I said I'm not going to do this anymore. We're going to collapse anyways.

Richard Walsh: 5:23

Then the challenges began because you got nothing and you got to go somewhere else and do the whole thing, and that's what I did. So we kind of relocated and started over and I had to figure out what I was going to do, because I didn't know. I just didn't want to do water features, I didn't want to just steal. And to this day it's been 15 years, I haven't built a water feature and I haven't done a sculpture, I haven't touched it, got rid of it. I guess I could maybe go back and like control it, but I'm like I don't want to become that person again because of who I was, you know, and how that really drove me to do things.

Richard Walsh: 5:52

And I didn't do bad things, I just didn't do the right things. That's kind of a problem. So I used to train people a lot. I love to work out and boxer that cool stuff. So I'm like, well, I'll go be a trainer at like an anytime fitness. So I went there and then started training people. They didn't have any trainers and I built this whole program and did all that. Next thing, you know, rich is trainer of the year. So I'm like, well, I'm an entrepreneur.

Speaker 1: 6:14

So if you're trainer of the year.

Richard Walsh: 6:15

That means I got to go open the gym. I'm going to go start my own thing. So I created the gym body weight training right ahead, phase progression like a belt system and all that. So it was really cool. That was great, did that? Then I got into a contracting business, built my contracting business roofing, siding, windows, that kind of. So that went really great. And then I decided you know what, I'm gonna write a book. I'm gonna write a book because I'm gonna tell the story. And then I started seeing all the patterns in business and why people were kind of failing, like I was or they're trapped. So I wrote this book called Escape the Under Prison and it became bestseller. And I'm like, wow, people ask me how I did all this stuff. So I started mentoring them and you guys are coaches, so you understand what mentoring means. The word free comes to mind, doesn't it Free?

Natalie Davis: 6:55

A hundred percent it does yes.

Richard Walsh: 6:58

So, again, I'm an entrepreneur so I'm like well, see mentors do it for free, coaches get. I had the book, I created an academy around it, started coaching people, bring them in programs. That went through a few iterations and now we're at Sharpen the Spirit Coaching and my ultimate goal is to help 10,000 business owners create freedom, profit and impact in their business. I want them to actually get what they started having a business for it's freedom, profit and impact. Because most never get it, they get enslaved to it. They, they get enslaved to it. They're serving it. It doesn't serve them. So that's kind of the big nutshell for where that is Make sense.

Pamela Cass: 7:32

Yeah, it totally makes sense, and I want to go back to what you said is it became your identity? I think we see so many people that whatever it is that they do just becomes their identity and then they feel like they're trapped, like they can't walk away from that. That is a hard thing for people to do, whether it's an identity with a specific company or an identity with a specific career. It's very hard to walk away and redefine yourself.

Richard Walsh: 7:58

I still have friends who are distraught because I left what I did, because I was so good at it. They still can't understand how can you do that? My wife might have those bouts too. She's like you know. You could just go do that again. I know what I did. I don't want to do that.

Richard Walsh: 8:16

It was hard, it was incredibly difficult because for men especially, like what's the first thing we say to each other with me, what do you do? I mean it is a defining question. So we're putting that, whether you realize or not, you are identified with what you do. It can be good, it can be bad. You say someone's a lawyer, you say someone's a doctor. I mean that's what they do, right, so they're a doctor. Yes, they're not Richard Walsh, they're doctor, so-and-so. So you have to.

Richard Walsh: 8:39

I think the challenge is separating the two. Yes, how can you do what you do and then leave that entrepreneur? It just never gets turned off. You're just always thinking about the next thing or who's not going to show up tomorrow, what's going to happen in your business. So it's a really rough ride. And when you have a family, I think, guys, the challenges. I'll use my experience my wife. She came in where things were good. Okay, I'm killing it, I'm all this. You know she met me and I'm amazing and all that cool stuff. Just ask me she never had gone through the business building process. So now we lose everything, have to go from that, from the negative, all the way back up, and it is no easy ride. It is no easy ride at all. I like to say I don't wish it on anyone. I hope he has to do that. But if you're going to start a business, buckle up so I can say it's going to take a minute.

Natalie Davis: 9:38

Richard, there's so much that I want to unpack.

Natalie Davis: 9:39

I mean, I know that you gave us like years in a few moments, but there's so much that I want to unpack. Let's start with the entrepreneurship piece, because that's something that's near and dear to us and a lot of our listeners. Oftentimes, when we look at entrepreneurs, if they change paths, let's say that there's typically this desire to have a through line right Like what am I doing now? That can easily transition into something different. You went from point A to point Z, you came back to L and circled it back, and now you're tying it all together to help other individuals in coaching. So how did you make the transition, or what was your process like in making the transition to these variety of industries that you've touched so far?

Richard Walsh: 11:14

Part of my personality good and bad is. I'm all or nothing.

Natalie Davis: 11:18

I'm not surprised by you saying that I picked up on that piece.

Pamela Cass: 11:23

You're an excellent listener.

Richard Walsh: 11:25

The good thing is you can stop something completely and go another direction. There's no hesitation, you can do that. The bad thing is, you can stop something and go in a complete different direction. I'll give you an example. I owned everything. I had Trucks and machines and I just sold it all. 08, 09, you're getting 20 cents on the dollar for anything Brand new or not. So it was a really bad time. Now I sold everything, every welder. I'm like I'm never doing this again. I'm on nothing. Now could I have kept some of that equipment, done some side gigs, making some money, moving some stuff and doing things? My wife would say, yes, done that, but I don't operate that way. Spider-man, right, you know Spider-Man. So he shoots a web and he starts swinging. Well, he doesn't let go of that web until the next web is on to something. Right, that's the Spider-Man thing. I'd be dead in the street because I'm not connected to the next web, I'll figure it out before I hit the ground.

Richard Walsh: 12:18

That's what I say. That's the bad part of it. But the good part is I only operate under pressure. I don't do well with limitless time. So someone who would commission me for a sculpture and I'd say, okay, great, yeah, I can make whatever, I'll make it, you know. And then they'll say, well, when do you want it done? Oh, whenever it's okay. I'm like, oh, yeah, that time doesn't really work for me because you know, the last part of that word is never. That's when you'll get it, never. But tell me you want it tomorrow, I'll have it done. Tell me next week, give me a date.

Richard Walsh: 12:47

I had a woman I got commissioned for a big sculpture on downtown Chicago. So it's on Armageddon's boutique, really cool. It's this tree, it goes up and hangs over the sidewalk and has cantilevers and it and everything. And so I kind of tell her I kind of don't draw, but I kind of draw what we're going to do. Okay, good, then she calls me and she goes well, I want to come see it when it's halfway done. I'm like, yeah, I'm not really into that, I don't really like that. You know she goes. Well, I really need to come see it. I mean I'm paying you but foot pipe like a 14 inch steel pipe and I welded this 20 foot solid steel bar of metal.

Richard Walsh: 13:28

Like I bent it and I like welded it to the side of it and I left it in the dirt. And she came to my yard. I wasn't there. I go yeah, it's on the ground, you'll see it. I get this voicemail from her. I am so disappointed. This is terrible. I'll pay all this money, all this thing is this blah, blah, blah. I'm like, okay, okay, I'm listening to voicemail so I get it done the following week. It's done. I'm installing it on a Sunday with a crane. They're not there. I put the whole thing in so you want to hear the voicemail on Monday. This is what it was. You're the master. This is unbelievable. I've never seen anything so beautiful in my whole life. I'm like let me play the other voice. Six days ago you had listen to it.

Natalie Davis: 14:03

Six days ago you had different words for me, but that's okay, that's right, that's right, it's all good now.

Richard Walsh: 14:08

So it just kind of encapsulates what I do. So I'm a pressure guy. I will perform when I need. I win when I need to win at the big games, I do that kind of stuff. So if that's a good analogy With Good analogy, with that in mind, I started operating this way. So now it's the next business, right.

Richard Walsh: 14:24

I started thinking, well, I'll just do this thing, but you don't have anything. How are you going to do it with nothing? I don't know. But I'll figure it out. I'll be resourceful, I don't need much, I just start. I just start and I do it and it'll work out. I'm not saying it's the best For me.

Richard Walsh: 14:41

I don't know if we go a little psychological trip. I think a lot of it was that people say you can't do something you know like, you don't have talent, you don't have this, you can't add, you can't subtract, you're in sixth grade and this is second grade math and you can't divide. So there's all these things. Right, I have school issues. So I had this battle like, well, that's not true, I can't do it your way, but I can do it. So when I became an adult and I got in the Corps and I got out, I retaught myself, I taught myself the way I could learn. And then, next thing you know, I'm thinking about the art teacher that told me I had no talent. And I'm doing this massive exhibit going, you know, I am making more money on one commission than they'll make in 10 or 15 years, but I have no talent. Right, it's so. It's just that's revenge is success. Right, exactly so.

Richard Walsh: 15:28

I think that was a big driver for me. What I figured out. Actually, on a podcast, like a few months ago, a guy like figured me out. For me it was like free therapy and I was just on to the next great thing, you know. And he goes oh, you're a words of affirmation guy. I go, you know, you're right, I did the next thing. So people would tell me I'm great. Yeah, I did the next cool thing to tell me I'm great. And I did even cooler thing to tell me I'm even greater. And that was literally my existence that 20 years, because I didn't care about money. I made a lot of it, but it isn't what drove me. I didn't like it at all. I just wanted to make great things and build the next thing and just tell me I can't do something. So yeah, it was kind of neat to figure that out before I'm 60.

Natalie Davis: 16:13

Even just telling yourself building the next great thing is a mindset that many entrepreneurs don't have, right, it's like, well, I've got to build this, I have to, not even that I get to or I choose to. But you take it a step further. I'm just going to build the next great thing, the next amazing thing, and you have proven that to yourself over and over again as a serial entrepreneur.

Richard Walsh: 16:36

Yeah, it really is. The more you think about it, it is a mindset. Obviously, boxing was the same thing. So I get out of the Marine Corps and I'm like managing a bar and I'm like the head doorman. He's a boxer, big, 6'3", 240, 10% body fat just a monster, south London kickboxing champion. And he boxes. I go hey, I want to box. He goes well, come on down to the gym. So I go down to the gym, glove up, get in with him. I'm in the ring.

Richard Walsh: 17:02

I looked like a complete fool and he's just kind of smiling and he looks at me and he throws a jab at me and breaks my nose. Is it bleeding all over? I'm like oh, I'm okay. So I keep chasing him down. You know we're working. He looks at me again, he stops and he throws this left hook. My mouthpiece, you guys, was out of my mouth, out of the ring and across the gym. It was so hard. And I'm like whoa, this little kid runs up and gives you back my mouthpiece, like all full of hair and nasty stuff, you know whatever. And I like try to go, we finished the round. And they're like okay, that's enough. And I like go.

Richard Walsh: 17:30

I got two black eyes, busted nose I can't chew for days. I go to work back to the bar that night. The general manager sees me, looks like a train wreck, he's like what happened to you? And I go oh, I was boxing with Dave His name was Crazy Dave, oh. And he's like you can't do that. And I go what do you mean? He goes you can't work here and look like the big guy and I go. Then I'll quit because I'm going back tomorrow. I'm going to get good at this. And then boom, I became a champion. I trained every day, six days a week for years and doing face, I had plates and wires. I got all this cool stuff now because I'm that dumb of a person.

Natalie Davis: 18:05

All or nothing. It all comes back to all or nothing.

Richard Walsh: 18:10

That's right. I went until I forcibly quit, since I had to have my whole face open up Then I couldn't box. So then I went into Taekwondo and decided to get a black belt in that case, that's not as hard.

Pamela Cass: 18:18

Wow, I think a lot of people like the Spider-Man analogy. They keep holding on to the past because it's safe. Because, man, if I still have that safety, I would say I tend to do that a little bit with my real estate business. I know it as I'm launching the coaching and the speaking. It's like ooh, but that's safe because I can just turn that on and make a few calls and I got money coming in. So it's hard to do what you did, which is just a Nope.

Richard Walsh: 18:44

I'm all in. Like I said, I don't know if I use it as a recommendation, like try it my way, it will crush them.

Natalie Davis: 18:52

If you're not built for it, do not start out this way.

Richard Walsh: 18:56

We want to put that disclaimer out for everyone. It's an acquired taste. Exactly, it's not for everyone. It's not for the faint at heart.

Pamela Cass: 19:05

Oh my goodness, I love that.

Natalie Davis: 19:07

Thank you. The initial driving factor as well in the story that you shared, was the example that you wanted to provide for your kids. So fast forward. Now we're a few years out, a decade and a half out. Tell us a little bit about the impact of your decision on your family life and what that looks like.

Richard Walsh: 19:26

It was really cool because I mean there's a whole story in the six kids and three and a half years too. But that decision was really, really pivotal. When I say epiphany, I mean an epiphany in the sense that truly God opened a window for me to see into the future. It was so clear I never thought I could do that like go and just it's done. But what I saw, obviously I'm still talking about it right. So that decision again, it wasn't an easy time, but we wanted to homeschool our children, right. We wanted to homeschool them all the way through and do all this. So we had these great plans, which then got altered because you got nothing. But we're still going to do it. But that decision and making that work, because now each new business was built so that I had time with my family, full transparency. I was never going to be a stay-at-home dad. No interest in that. I want to work. But if my wife calls me at noon and says, can you come home and help me? I can be there in 15 minutes, I'm not going to tell her I can't come home until six. I'm not going to tell her I can't come home until six. So I built my next business. That way, other people doing the work and I figured out those systems and now I got to influence my children with my actions, because more is caught than taught. So, like I said, if they watch me do all that stuff in business 309, and we continue down that path I can tell them all the cool stuff and the things you should do, as a lot of people do, but they don't do it. It's that hypocritical kind of thing, you know, but the default will be what I did, whether that's when they're 30 and they run into a hard time or whatever. That's a default. So that was what really drove me to change how I did business and figure it out. But I want to be around. I'll tell you something really cool about that One of my twin boys I think he was about eight and so, like about four years later, I come driving out my truck, get home, you know, doing my stuff and it's kind of a hard day and beautiful day out and then he goes, dad, dad, dad come here and he's got two like full out canvas chairs sit in the middle of the yard facing each other.

Richard Walsh: 21:14

He goes sit down and I sit down. He screws. I just sit up in the gym like legit, like he won the nook, and I'm like, well, it's good, it was a hard day, I'm talking, I'm going. This is why I did it. Yeah, because I have an eight-year-old who understands what I go through in a day and he gets it. So all my kids got to experience entrepreneurship. Because they come to the gym with me, my daughter would see me settle a membership. They watched me train people. Right, I trained my kids. I got to train all my kids. I got my oldest. They were runners. So he's like, well, I want to go to the Junior Olympics and I go well, let's go. You mean as an athlete. Oh, that, okay, we'll go as an athlete.

Richard Walsh: 21:58

He was a talented runner, now hundreds, so let's train. So we trained for a little over a year. I trained him every day, worked together and we got him to the junior olympics. Even he had to race an older age class too because of his birthday, but did fine. It was a great experience. If you're 14 and you're running in front of 16 000 people on the track, that's cool. Yeah, you could come in last, which he did, but you got there. You got to the big stadium. It was really cool.

Richard Walsh: 22:23

And my other kids did different things right, so they all kind of got to do my daughter music and voice and music lessons for 10 years. It was really really great. Every kid I got to tailor exactly how they learned because we homeschooled. So I see how they learned. They got to travel, they got to do all this great stuff. So that epiphany and that drive to do it opened up a world for my kids that they could have never had if they were. Just what I like to say on the yellow bus and for me I'm not saying it's for everybody or anything else and you should all do it, but you should. But if you don't, it's really awesome. My oldest is in the Marine Corps now. So after the cross-country track thing in the Junior Olympics, then the next thing he's like, well, I want to box. I'm like, oh man, don't you want to do like jujitsu or do something else? He goes no.

Richard Walsh: 23:12

I want to box, I go well, you tell your mother I'm not telling her you want to go box because she's going to. It's your influence. I'm like I'm going to do something else.

Natalie Davis: 23:16

And the possibility of having to, like, reattach your face. Those are details.

Pamela Cass: 23:21

Those are little minor details I trained.

Richard Walsh: 23:26

We went every day in the box. He did really well, super tough. I'm like, wow, man, he's not a quitter, he's super tough. All this stuff's so great. So we do that, all this training, everything else, and then he's getting his eagle scout. Okay. So we're having the ceremony that day. So him and I go to lunch and he goes dad, I gotta talk to you. I'm like, oh, here it comes like I don't know what's next and he's like I gotta tell you something.

Richard Walsh: 23:47

I'm like, oh man, those aren't words a parent wants to hear. Okay, I gotta tell you something. He goes I want to go in. I go, go in. He goes I want to be a SEAL, I want to be a Navy SEAL. And I'm like, okay, we're sitting in the car and I'm like you know what that entails. He goes yes, but I need you to train me. And I'm like you know what that entails. He goes, yes, but I need you to train me.

Natalie Davis: 24:04

And I'm like okay, we hope that you've enjoyed part one of our two-part conversation with Richard Walsh. What a fabulous story, as he shared his journey of starting over from scratch in a whole different segment. Make sure that you come back and join us for part two. We're going to continue to hear from Richard some tips that he has to share with us, and also listen in on the opportunity that he had to help train his son to become a navy seal. We'll see you soon.

Speaker 1: 24:35

Thank you for joining us today on the reignite resilience podcast. We hope you had some aha moments and learned a few new real life ideas. To fuel the flames of passion, please subscribe on your favorite streaming platform, like or download your favorite episodes and, of course, share with your friends and family. We look forward to seeing you again next time on Reignite Resilience.