No One Will Save You: Finding Your Way Through Entrepreneurial Challenges with Hersh Rephun

Have you ever found yourself alone at your desk at 5 AM, feeling like you're already behind before the day has even begun? That gnawing sensation of being solely responsible for every aspect of your business with no safety net beneath you?

In this deeply honest conversation with personal brand strategist Hersh Rephun, we explore the rarely discussed emotional landscape of entrepreneurship - what he and I call "founder syndrome." It's that peculiar mix of isolation, pressure, and responsibility that comes when you realize that truly "no one's going to save you, no one's going to tell you what to do, because no one has as much invested in it as you."

Hersh shares his journey through entrepreneurial loneliness, including how he transformed this challenge into an opportunity for growth. "Don't think of yourself as a piece of the puzzle. Think of yourself as the puzzle," he advises, highlighting the mindset shift that helped him embrace the full scope of business ownership.

We dive into the liberating perspective that failure isn't just acceptable - it's often necessary. From Hersh's pandemic pivot when his agency work disappeared overnight to my own pre-COVID career leap, we discuss how entrepreneurial setbacks can become doorways to unexpected opportunities. The conversation reveals why planning too rigidly can sometimes block innovation, and how learning to trust your instincts becomes your greatest entrepreneurial superpower.

Perhaps most powerfully, Hersh reminds us that "when you're alone, you're the smartest person in the room," encouraging entrepreneurs to create space for inner wisdom among the constant noise of external advice. His parting insight about processing information through your unique personal filter might be exactly what you need to hear if you've been struggling to find clarity in your business journey.

Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial path or feeling the weight of founder syndrome after years at the helm, this episode offers both comfort and practical wisdom for the road ahead.

http://www.hershrephun.com/

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 Founder Syndrome and Entrepreneurial Isolation
• 3:54 Shifting From Loneliness to Leadership
• 7:29 Finding Confidence Through Service
• 14:00 Embracing Failure as an Option
• 19:13 The Wisdom of Listening to Yourself
• 32:00 Final Thoughts and Closing

Transcript

Hersh: 0:01

But this is you. If you're founding something, if you're starting something, this is you, and no one's going to save you, no one's going to tell you what to do, because no one has as much invested in it as you. So in this instance, for some reason, it really started to feel a little lonely. That was something I noticed.

Nico: 0:37

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within. In a few seconds, you just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. At today's episode, I'm your host, nico van de Venne, confidant to successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs who are striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment. Before we dive into today's episode, I do have a small request. So at the end of the episode, don't forget to put that five-star review and share this episode with somebody who you might think in your network that might be interested in the content. So thank you in any case, listeners, for all the support and all this time and all these episodes that I've been producing. So today I welcome Hirsch to the show. Welcome, hirsch.

Hersh: 1:33

How are you doing today? I'm doing great, nico. I loved your, I love your intro, I love the the kind of uh you know, cause we do have to shift our our mood a little bit to get ready for this conversation, but it's great to be here, thank you.

Nico: 1:48

Yeah, indeed. So you know the first question mentioned in the green room already. Have you ever heard of CEO disease or founder syndrome?

Hersh: 1:58

I have not. Founder syndrome, you know, definitely resonates. When I hear it it's not like I would be like what the hell was that? I kind of get it, but no, I haven't heard it before.

Nico: 2:12

Okay, so basically it comes down to a couple of symptoms that come out of a founder or somebody in C-level or an executive, a C-level or an executive. Basically, it is like isolation, micromanagement, change, all those beautiful things that you know you get confronted with as an entrepreneur. I don't know if you've noticed those.

Hersh: 2:35

Yeah, yeah, I think I think the the one thing that took me a while to uh, to recognize in myself cause I've been doing, I've been, I've always been entrepreneurial but I think over the last five years is when I have um had my own consultancy no partner, no, nobody else, no staff. At first, you know just me coming out of the pandemic and just starting my personal brand strategy business, and the loneliness is the thing that I recognize, because you can have colleagues and you can have people who help you, you can have vendors, you can have coaches, you can have all kinds of people in your orbit family but this is you. If you're founding something, if you're starting something, this is you, and no one's going to save you, no one's going to tell you what to do, because no one has as much invested in it as you. So in this instance, for some reason, it really it started to feel a little lonely. That was something I noticed.

Nico: 3:51

And how did that go from there? From noticing, Because that's usually the first step, of course. How did it go from there?

Hersh: 3:58

I think that you know, I think that what it did for me was it gave me a hump to get over and say, okay, so that's the case. I'm not looking for a partner, I'm not looking for even a co-branding opportunity or a cross-promotional opportunity. None of those things are what I need. What I need is to step into this and take a holistic view of the business and just do all the things that don't appeal to me, that are important to get done, and just kind of start thinking like that. Don't think of myself as a piece of the puzzle. Think of myself as the puzzle. The irony is, that's what I kind of tell my clients who are seeking help with their personal brand, because I remind them that your personal brand is actually bigger than your business. If you have a tire, you know automotive tires business, you know that's one thing, but you're bigger than that. So your personal brand is going to be about more than selling tires. The tire place can be only about tires, you know. So I had to take that view, though, of like, this whole thing from 30,000 feet is what I have to focus on, you know. I have to preside over that. So I have to look at all the different angles and and I and I just leaned into it and and I think it's, I think it's helped, but it's it's a long.

Hersh: 5:37

You know, changing a mindset in your fifties is, like, not necessarily his thing, right, sometimes it is easy, like there are certain things I kind of snapped, you know, overnight I did a lot of meditation and quantum consciousness work and things like that, where I was able to kind of think beyond myself anyway, because if you go out and start thinking about the universe and the vastness of it, well, now you know, keeping your eye on your own practice or whatever your own consultancy, is not as daunting, is it? Because compared to everything else, it's like this is a very, very small piece. So, yeah, I find that helps yeah, yeah, it's, it's.

Nico: 6:30

It's a different approach to them than than what I've heard before. But I do see where you're going with this, because I I love the, those short films where they create, like you know, they show you the earth or the moon, and then the earth, and then it goes up to, I think, venus, and then mars, and it goes, and you know size just you know gets bigger and bigger and you have the sun, and then suddenly they go like beetlejuice, like I don't say it three times because it might appear.

Nico: 6:56

But yeah, you know that really big sun and it's like, yeah, you, you kind of feel very small, you know, I used to struggle with that, you know, philosophically, but um, wow, I really stumbled over that word, uh, but it's, it's a switch in the mind, like you said, and and then it's kind of at the point where, where am I really having impact? You know, I'm doing this alone. I'm really sitting, I'm managing my own stuff, I am the passion, the drive and everything, and then you're trying to get these people to. You know, either find the customers or find people who you can work with to get that same passion and drive in there. So how did you skip from being that lonely part and going meta into a daily day story?

Hersh: 7:50

I think that it had to do with really facing a period of almost stagnation, where I had a period last year where, you know, this was all kind of a relatively new model but it was a version of what I had done my entire career. So the proof of concept of what I was doing to help people with their message, with their voice, with their strategy, all those things I had done that for 30 years in one form or another as a publicist, as a, as a, you know, corporate strategist. I had just done it, like you know, different ways, but I didn't have the case studies yet to show everybody what it was. So last year I was fortunate enough to work with, you know, four or five clients and create these, these kind of case studies and experiences. But in the in between there was kind of a dry period and there was no, like there was no way of knowing what was going to happen, because it was it was not yet formalized that the system I'm not a big fan of. You know the cast a huge net and just catch a million fish and then pick out, you know, then from that you get 100, and from that you get 75, and from that you get two. That just didn't, for what I do feel like the right way figure out who those 50 fish are and really, you know, attract those, those 50 fish you know, because those are the ones I can help. Those are the people that are. So how am I going to do that?

Hersh: 9:33

So I think there was a period of just a lot of like introspection and and sitting there and going, okay, well, no one, no one really has the answer, cause I've asked, I have coaches, no one really has the answer. Because I've asked, I have coaches, I've had people give me systems, something works, something doesn't work. And it came back to this idea of, okay, you have to just serve, just help people and see what information that gives you back. So, in other words, you had to reverse engineer it. I had to start providing a lot of value and this is not new, a lot of people will say this but the benefit of it is that if you're doing something for someone and someone's coming to you for something, someone's coming to you and presenting a problem, chances are you have some way to fix it. You know, and I think that by listening to that and then saying, okay, I'm going to help this person. It could be five minutes, it could be five minutes, it could be five hours, it could be. You know, it could be anything, but it's like I just want to.

Hersh: 10:49

I want to get better at what I do and I want to gain more confidence, Because I think that that's what it all comes down to. Is confidence, like, was I yeah, I had these case studies now but was I confident in the model that I'd created? Or was I still not sure about it? And was that reading to people that I was talking to and they're maybe feeling like they're not as confident I think I am. They think they are, but they're not enough to pull the trigger.

Hersh: 11:27

And it's like, and so I think it took, it took like six months to which, which turned me, in a way, into more of a mentor, more of a of a coach, in some ways, you know, more of a, uh, more of a friend. I have a little speck of dust or something, oh, a little eyelash, um, you know, uh, and I think that that helped my external presentation because it made it clearer kind of what I do. But it was a necessary evolution, because there's nothing, none of that. It's all based on real world experience right. I could have a great concept for a business and put up a sign, have a great name and have a great you know product. But you know, the real world experience is what happens when someone buys it, pays for it, takes it home, uses it. Then what happens, and so I needed to just play that out.

Hersh: 12:49

I think patience, which I don't have a lot, have a lot of patience for, for myself. Basically, that may be another founder thing that founders and CEOs don't are not imbued with a lot of patience for themselves or, in some cases, anyone around them. But in my case, we'll start with me. You know, I wake up in the morning feeling like I'm like I'm a little late to the game. Like at five o'clock in the morning I feel like, oh, what did I?

Nico: 13:22

what did I miss? I miss, you know, this is a weird feeling. I've been there four, yeah, no, it's true, and would be there.

Hersh: 13:30

No one would be there at four and no one would be. No one would be would be have done anything any faster, you know well, it's, it's I.

Nico: 13:39

I see what you mean and, and indeed I as well, have found. But you know I started off doing coaching and mentoring and training. That was the first step for my business. I was going on, I jumped, you know, and it was one month before COVID. So you start your business during one month before. So I had a full agenda. You know, my schedule was full and one day, like I think it was the 13th of March or something like that, it was empty. Bang. One day. Next day it was empty.

Nico: 14:11

But what I did find is that at the start, even in those first couple of months, everything flowed from who I encountered, how I talked to them, how they saw my talents come up and et cetera. And you just went with that step and said, okay, I need you for this and I need you for that. Okay, you know I'm busy, you know, let's, let's just do it, and you know I'll bill you for whatever I'm doing. And, um, especially during COVID, those couple of months, I think you know, especially the first, I had one week that I really panicked because you know I left IBM, which was like a platinum six, you know, really good pay, and everything jumped and then went into the you know the void. But that one week I kind of panicked and then after that I said okay, let's do this. You know that's like you're an entrepreneur do this, otherwise, like you said earlier, nobody's going to come, nobody's going to tell you how to, et cetera, et cetera.

Nico: 15:12

What I also found, indeed, was that the whole story after that has become a story of who I encounter, how I service them and what came out of that as a business and I evolved into. I had no idea I would go into learning and development or or the, the region of confidant or stuff like that. I had no idea and still I'm building new things. One works, the other doesn't. One is a little bit more difficult to get into the world because, you know, the confidant thing is something that a lot of people you know it's, it's about trust. So you need to know somebody first and then goes build from there, where learning and development is known to companies and it's something they need, and and so on. So it's like a little bit easier.

Nico: 15:53

But doing all that it is indeed a very lonesome road on one side and very um, steep learning curve of the self. Um, you know it's, it's something that you have to confront yourself in the mirror, you know, in this guy in front of you. Like you said, get up at five in the morning and you're thinking what the game's already running. Well, where was I?

Hersh: 16:17

you know I should have been xyz, but on the other hand, saying no hold on. There is time you're doing this you're doing it step by step and it's okay yeah, yeah, you have to remind yourself, and you made me think of something, nico, which is that when that nobody really feels sorry for a founder, you know like you could have stayed at IBM, right.

Nico: 16:39

Yeah, you know I could have, you're not sure.

Hersh: 16:42

I could have stayed. You know I could have stayed in. I could have gone in the corporate, worked in an advertising agency, worked at a big PR firm. I could. I could have fit in anywhere because I wasn't an outcast, I was not a an outlier in the typical sense. I could put on the suit, I was an actor, so I could put, I could do anything, I could put on a suit and go to an office and you know be that I could.

Hersh: 17:10

It wasn't like that was abhorrent to me, it just was that my inclination was always to do something a little differently and think outside the lines, a little bit. Color outside the lines. That's what I did when I was a kid. I always colored outside the lines. And my mom, who, who would be more of a? She was a singer, she was kind of a formal, you know, she thought of art more formally in terms of training, you know that kind of stuff, and she would. You could tell she was like you know, you're coloring outside the lines. But eventually it was like well, it's not a mistake, it's not because I don't care, it's because you know I want this, I want this mouse to have a balloon, and the picture doesn't have a balloon. So what am I supposed to do, you know? But?

Hersh: 17:58

But I think that nobody feels like, oh, poor poor Hirsch, poor Nico, they're, they're, they're stuck in a spot with their business and they don't know what to do. So that's when we realize okay, we have to dig ourselves out. We got ourselves in this situation for a reason, and maybe the thing was not what we thought it was. You know, maybe the maybe the path that we thought we were going to take is not, is not the path we we need to be on, but it got us somewhere, got us even in this hole. So if this is the hole, maybe the way out is through the dirt and not up. Right, maybe we have to dig a new tunnel.

Hersh: 18:45

Do a thing like that and I think that's quite often the case is that we have to have confidence that we're going to get through. We're going to get through this tunnel, we're going to get through this hole, out of this hole, we're going to get through there somehow, and we may not even know what that is until we're on the other side of it. But when you get on the other side, you have that story now. Now you're like oh, but I got. That's what I did. I did this thing and I went through and it worked. It worked, or, as you point out, or it didn't work.

Hersh: 19:22

And then I had to go this way and then you know, nobody. Nobody will say, nobody that I've ever interviewed and you can correct me if your experience is different nobody I've ever interviewed has said well, I tried something, it worked incredibly well and I just kept doing it and I did it forever, you know.

Nico: 19:42

Indeed, can I ask you a personal question on business-wise? It's not personal business. How many failed businesses do you have in your back?

Hersh: 19:50

pocket. Uh well, failure is relative. I I would say, you know what I mean.

Hersh: 19:59

Like it really is it really is relative, like, like I would say, I have one for sure, two, two, I think two that two businesses that have nowhere near fulfilled their potential or been realized. One just was, a, was a, and both were obviously good ideas. One I bought into, the other one I formed with a partner, um, but the investment I made in the first one was just like you know, like it just didn't happen. I don't know what. I haven't thought about it in years. The other one is more, uh, you know something I would that we could still do, but it's like we failed at it. And so, uh, and I put a lot, a lot of energy into that one, but I think maybe if that had just been one of one person, it would have succeeded, because when you have two people, you could say two heads are better than one, but when you have two people, you can give each other permission to fail you know, you can say you know what buddy what?

Hersh: 21:14

why? You know, you have this, I have that, one else, let's just cut our losses. Let's just cut our losses and stay friends, or whatever. It wasn't even like about personalities. There was no personality clashes or anything. It was like it was like look, do you want to keep trying to do that?

Hersh: 21:32

Actually, you know, and I, and I would say that in a way, I had an agency before COVID with a partner and I guess I could say that also failed because, in a way, covid, covid hit all of our, all of our client, uh, projects that we had gone traveling around the world to line up, uh got canceled in that same span. You know, march, we came back from our, from our world, uh, our world tour, uh, march 3rd at 2020. And the first client was a big client in Italy that we were going to do this big project for, and not only was Italy one of the first places to shut down, but it was an experiential project that had to do with, you know, live gaming all over the gaming events all over the world, and it just everything got shut. It was just like no done and I, and even thinking on our feet and saying you know what it's? It's gaming we can do. People can be alone. Gaming, I mean gaming can be anything and we're gonna do, we'll do'll do it on Zoom. No, you know, this was supposed to be like stadiums and whatever. So so it was like okay, so that's done. And and you, we let go of everything you know. Like if in a normal year you would say, okay, well, I'll talk to you guys in a month, we're going to see what, see what happens, let's see if we can still get venues and still. But it's almost like everything that was happening. Just the world changed so much that none of it, none of it, none of the campaigns, nothing. So we would have had to rebuild a year, have a year of just rebuilding, to rebuild our agency essentially, and we just decided not to.

Hersh: 23:32

And it's like and I I guess that's a, that's a failure in a way, but in another way it was a pivot. It was like okay, I'm going to go into this whole other world, podcasting, entrepreneurship, starting my own consultancy, I'm going to do all those things. And I didn't know what they were. I just started doing them, one at a time. I started podcasting first because I just wanted to meet people.

Hersh: 23:56

I felt isolated just as a human being. You know that led to interviewing entrepreneurs. Interviewing entrepreneurs led to my recognizing that there was a space for me in that world. You know, doing some stuff and and it all kind of snowballed from there, but, but I think, a good good. You know, you know, the more I think about it, the more failures I can come up with. I think, you know, that wasn't the idea. I could. I could, I mean, but but I do think it's a matter of perspective because you could. You could look at almost anything as did I fail or did I succeed to a point well, right, that's kind of whatever I wanted to go with.

Nico: 24:42

And it's so wonderful to hear that you talked about the pivot and indeed, failure is an option. We have this old not that old, but this was this hero episodial thing on children's TV here with a car called Rocks and they said failure is not an option. And I always cringed when I heard that, because you're like telling small children that they're not allowed to fail. You know, right, and I was like no failure is an option.

Nico: 25:16

On the contrary, it's a wonderful thing if you notice that it's the same thing with the pain in general, and it doesn't mean physical pain or anything like that. It's just a pain in life, it's a part of life. And if you accept the fact that failure or pain is something that is prevalent in life and it's just something that's there and you accept it and you see it more as an opportunity or as a swift switch or anything like that. And I think that's also one of the things that I've seen in the Founders Syndrome story is that there's founders who are so embroiled in what they're doing and stuck in it that they don't want to move away, because we've always done this and it works.

Nico: 25:57

And your example is just amazing. In that case, you just hit a wall right when COVID came in, everything fell apart and you could have rebuilt that. But no life told you or you said to yourself you know, move on, let's try a different world completely. And that's the whole thing about breaking through those symptoms, not getting stuck in one way of doing things. But it's not natural to stay in the same place, it's not natural.

Hersh: 26:30

No, and I think to your point, what my my business partner in that case and I realized was we didn't miss it Right, like we weren't like, oh man, I can't wait to go out and do this Now. We would have been all fired up if, if things had gone as planned, it would have been fun. You know it would have been fun it wouldn't have. You know, in the end it's a lot of work. You know how much money you really make do. Are you really do? You know it's just a great project. So what you know it's like after that, you know, is it really going to change anything? And I think that was another thing is we had always looked at, we had stopped doing these long-term like visions, because what gets in the way of long-term visions is reality.

Nico: 27:16

You know, you get a gig.

Hersh: 27:18

You got to focus all your attention on it. And this is what I tell clients too, because when I was doing PR, they would come to me after the project was done and all this other stuff, and I would say you have to come to me when the project gets awarded and then I can start helping you figure out the PR, because you're never going to think about that. You're going to think about executing the project and getting the next project. You don't have, you don't have any room to think about promotion. So let me think about promotion and let me, let me start ideating about that from the minute you start the project and then, by the time it's done, everything will be ready to go. And I think the same thing with us. We were just doing projects and then getting the next project.

Hersh: 28:05

And so the big dream again very difficult to share a dream or a vision with another human being, because you know outside of a, you know partnership in life. But I mean like, even so, the idea that you would have to share your actual vision with this other partner in the business is just not. I don't see that happen very often. There's room for both of people's visions, but it's, you know, and so I think, I think we just didn't miss that grind of what we were doing.

Hersh: 28:43

So the energy to like, go and hustle that out, you know, go and do and invest and invest in it, you know, was like, well, if I'm going to invest, I'm going to invest in myself. That's that's basically how I felt and I did. I invested everything I had in what I'm doing now, because I also believe that, you know, there's, there wasn't going to be another like there was no reason to save it or hold back. It's not going to last forever and it's not going to, you know, it's not going to fulfill me and I'm not going to feel better about myself, feel better about myself If I put everything I have into myself and see how far I can take that, yeah, so, Hirsch, it's, it's been.

Nico: 29:32

There's a lot of wisdom in, in in our conversation, and I think we could go on for hours if I hear where we're going. But what's one message that you really want to bring out there to the listeners?

Hersh: 29:45

I would say that we don't spend enough time listening to ourselves, listening to ourselves and whatever mode you use, whatever, whatever that is, you could sit in a quiet room, sit in a park, go on a walk, but literally there's so much input, there's there's all our devices and all, and it's a testament to our curiosity that we are constantly seeking information and answers. But I think there's a really important point, especially for your audience, you know, for the people like us that you know do a lot of these solitary pursuits or take on a lot of responsibility or a lot of risk, that you know that we look inside and just let our unconscious mind speak to us more and in a way, that is a show of confidence that a lot of us also sometimes lack. Don't trust our gut, don't trust our instincts or whatever. The smartest person in the room is when you're alone is you.

Hersh: 31:06

That just occurred to me as I was saying it. But basically, yeah, that's true, when you're alone you're the smartest person in the room. So give yourself that space to really really talk yourself through what you want and to have ideas, kind of percolate and pop up, and don't think that Google or an event or a lecture or whatever in itself, will ever hold the one, the one major answer. You're gonna probably here to have all your input and everything, but, but that moment alone is where whatever you took in becomes something that is that is unique to you, because everybody else in that room heard that person speak. Everybody else who googled that thing saw that answer. Yeah, you know, but only you have the capacity to process it through that filter that is so unique to you.

Nico: 32:08

So use it wow, that's uh, that's some heavy stuff right there. I want to. I want to thank you, hirsch, for taking the time today to have our conversation. So where can people get in contact with you or look up stuff that you're working on if they're interested?

Hersh: 32:27

Yeah thank you. Thank you, nico, this has been wonderful and an honor and a pleasure. Yeah, they can go to yesbrandbuilderscom. Yesbrandbuilders all together, com and everything is there. My podcasts are there. They can get my book there. They can learn about me, see some comedy from my comedy days. Yeah, that's the hub.

Hersh: 33:00

So, that's the first thing. They'll see, the comedy. All the rest is no, the comedy's kind of buried a little bit under under, uh, in the about section, but um, but if they are interested in it they'll find it. You know, like, when people are curious, they'll, they'll, they'll find it. I don't think I have a section that says standup comedy, but it's, you know, like on the menu. I'm not that uh, that uh, uh, self-absorbed that I would be. Um, but, uh, but, but it's there, it's all there the fun stuff is there.

Nico: 33:29

So for for everybody who, uh, who finds the comedy, uh, you get a free book from me, oh, nice, that's good, oh nice. That's good, Okay, great. Well, thank you so much, Hirsch, for the wisdom and the knowledge that you shared with us today and to our listeners. Thank you very much again for supporting the podcast and remember to put that five-star review on there and share it with somebody you know. Have a good one, everybody.