Ep. 51 The Stern Truth: Lessons from Turning 50

What’s on your Business Bucketlist, the things that you want to achieve in your business? Maybe you haven’t even looked at it for a while. In this episode, I talk about my own Business Bucketlist item that came to fruition in 2025—this very podcast.

I talk about the lessons that I’ve learned over 50 episodes of the Stern Truth. As some of you might know, about 10 years ago, I had another podcast. I stopped around episode 20, but I always wanted to get back on the podcast horse. And at the beginning of this year, I did, with some amazing assistance along the way.

Since this is Business Unfiltered, I’ll be honest and let you know that this podcast was the ultimate in “I will when” procrastination. I made a list of what I wanted to do in January 2025 and this podcast was near the top of the list of what I wanted to accomplish.

I never got around to making a specific timeframe or plan. Not until I took my own 1-person entrepreneur retreat, which gave me the clarity I needed about what I REALLY wanted to do.

 “Launch the podcast by December 2025” was on the top of my Business Bucketlist. I knew what didn’t work, and I was ready to loop in a team so I could focus on the coaching, the conversations, and the relationships within the podcast.

I made a clear vision of what I wanted. I built a team. I focused on what lights me up and fell in love with the outcome. Above all, I was consistent, and I built something I’m proud of.

Even if you didn’t look at the title and say, “Wow, Marshall, you look great for 50!” I’m always glad to have you here listening or watching, my friends. 50 episodes is a true milestone in my book.

Subscribe to The Stern Truth Business Unfiltered so you never miss an episode and receive a FREE GIFT: http://www.thesterntruth.com/

Join my Business Inner Circle Community for free here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebusinessinnercirclegroup

Book your complimentary business blindspot assessment with me here: https://attractwell.com/MarshallStern/landing/breakthrough-session

I encourage you to reach out with feedback, topic suggestions, and share your own entrepreneurial challenges.

Get in touch in the comments or head to...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marshallstern/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarshallDStern
Email: marshall@marshallstern.net

Transcript

[00:00:00] So in today's episode, I'm going to give you some lessons about turning 50 lessons that I've learned along the path to this big number of 50. It's not quite what you think of what I'm referring to. So I'll leave it at that because I want you to hear this episode. It's short, it's powerful, it's impactful. As always, I encourage you, grab a pad of paper and a pen.

[00:00:22] Take some notes because you're going to get some strong insights and golden nuggets. And takeaways from this episode. Enjoy.

[00:00:34] Hi, I'm Marshall Stern and I've spent over 35 years leading and growing multiple small businesses. I know firsthand the struggles of entrepreneurship, feeling isolated, lonely, overwhelmed, and feeling like you have to do it all by yourself. I've been through multiple recessions, and I have felt the highs and the lows. 

[00:00:53] I've been there, and I get it. This podcast is here to change that. Every week I will bring you straight talking advice, real world strategies, and honest conversations about what it takes to succeed in business without the fluff, the gimmicks, or the sugar coat it. If you're ready to stop spinning your wheels and start making real progress, then you are in the right place.

[00:01:17] This is the Stern Truth.

[00:01:22] Alright everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Stern Truth Business Unfiltered. And you're probably saying to yourself, when you saw the title of this episode, man Marshall, you look really good for 50. Okay? I have not just turned 50, so, so there's that. In fact, I turned 50 several years ago.

[00:01:39] But my podcast did turn 50, and if you saw last week's episode, episode 50, we turned 50. Our 50th episode this year, our 50th episode of the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered, and I know I really look good for 50. Okay, that's fine. I'm not 50. Let's move on. 

[00:02:00] I want to talk to you about the lessons that I have learned in this whole experience in the 50th episode and in the lead up to the 50th episode in the whole evolution of this podcast. You see, here's the thing. I had a podcast many years ago, somewhere around 2013, 2014. I maybe had 20 episodes. I had a couple listeners, including my mom and I stopped doing it. And I always wanted to restart or relaunch or start a new podcast.

[00:02:32] And I kept saying one day, that one, one day kept saying, I will when, when I'm ready, when this, when time is right, when I get around to it. You've heard that you've, we've all said it. I will when. In fact, if you go back to episode six, I talk about that quite a bit, about the I will when mindset.

[00:02:52] And so when the calendar turned 2025, okay, almost a year ago, if you're listening, listening to this as it comes out, I started to reflect on the past year and I started to reflect on what I accomplished and what I didn't. And the podcast was on my list, but I wasn't – I didn't have a set specific timeframe. I just said, yeah, I'd like to start the podcast this year.

[00:03:15] So in 2024. But I didn't put any timelines to it. I didn't have a plan to it. I just said, yeah, it's on my list. I'd like to – it's, it was a, it was nice to have. One day I'll do it and it, I'll do it sometime this year and I never got around to it. So when the calendar flipped to 2025, in fact, backing up, early December of 2024, so around about a year ago to the day almost, I took a – and I highly recommend this for everyone – I took a 48 hour or a two day retreat.

[00:03:43] A what, what I call a CEO. Entrepreneur retreat, and I went into a hotel room, actually in the same city that I live in, and I checked myself into the hotel room, and I got clarity. I spent some time, I went for walks. I exercised, I swam, hung out in the hot tub.

[00:04:03] Cleared my head and I began to journal and I began to plan. I needed to get clarity first of what the previous year had looked like and what I wanted to accomplish in 2025, the year ahead, and one of the carryover items year after year was the podcast. So I put it on my list. By December 2025, I will have launched the podcast.

[00:04:29] In fact, my goal was to launch it in the first half of 2025. But again, I didn't have a complete plan, but I had clarity to the fact that I wanted to launch it and I was committed to launching it. But I still, in the back of my mind, I still had that “I will when”, when the time is right and life happens.

[00:04:48] Right? And I have coaching clients, one-to-one group programs I was launching. And it wasn't until the CEO entrepreneur 48 hour retreat that I really realized one of the reasons why I hadn't launched it was because I needed a team and I didn't have a team. I knew what didn't work. The first time I was doing everything, and after 20 or 22 episodes or whatever it was, it was under a different name back then.

[00:05:17] I got tired of doing it because I was recording it. I was coming up with the content, which I have no shortage of. I was recording it. Then I was editing it. I was doing all the graphics, I was doing everything myself, and it was taking me away from my focus of what I really should be doing, which is the, the conversations, the coaching sessions, the building relationships.

[00:05:36] I love this part, but the rest of it, there was someone else who could do it faster. Better, more effective. And so I set out in 2025 to find that person and lo and behold, the person was right in front of me. And if you watch episode 50, you will meet the team behind the Stern Truth. My team, they are amazing.

[00:05:57] I highly recommend it. If you haven't after this, go back and watch that. And Lindsey and Jordan, amazing, Boss Assistants, and because I brought them on my team, I was able to focus on actually launching the podcast. And actually within less than three weeks of finding out that Jordan and her team actually did podcast editing and management, I had my first episode published, which was remarkable.

[00:06:24] I would've never done that on my own. So if you have something on your list, on your Business Bucketlist that you have not achieved, I highly recommend and encourage you to go back and look at why you didn't achieve it and what has to change in order for you to then achieve it into 2026 and beyond. So, to celebrate the milestone of 50 episodes and there's going to be so many more, so many more.

[00:06:49] Because now I have a team which allows me to do what I do well and not have to worry about the rest of it. They do that much better than I could. I want to give you the, the few lessons that I – not few, but the really important lessons – that I learned in this whole journey. Have a clear vision of what you want as you go into 2026, or if you're listening to this and it is 2026, have a clear vision of what you want the future to look like for you.

[00:07:16] Have a clear vision as to what the specific goals are that you want to achieve this year or next year and into the future. I like to use a maximum of a three year timeframe. That's lesson number one. So take some time. If it's taking a day or two, if you can do that and you can go to a hotel, great, by yourself, you a laptop or a pad of paper, that's great.

[00:07:44] Build a team. Build a team around you. This is the second lesson I learned. I mean, I knew this before, but this has been – this is what's allowed me, this is what's allowed me to be here right now, because I could have done it on my own, but I wasn't. The point is a lot of things we can do ourselves, but should we be doing it?

[00:08:05] Is that where our passion and our genius zone is in the editing? Or maybe in your case it's the bookkeeping, the admin, the invoicing, all that stuff that's behind the service or the product that you provide, your clients, your customers. Should you be doing all the other stuff? Does that light you up?

[00:08:24] Is it, does it energize you? And if it doesn't, look at what you need to do. Ask yourself, who can I bring on my team? It doesn't have to be an employee. It can be a virtual assistant. It could be someone five hours a week, five hours a month, build a team around you that supports you. It could even be a coach or a mentor.

[00:08:43] Number three. Talk about this from time to time as well. You know, we've, I'll say it, focus on the journey. Fall in love, fall in love with the journey and the process, not the outcome, not the goals. Too many times, especially as we flip the calendar to New Year, you know, New Year's resolutions and business goals and all that kind of stuff, we get all excited about what's going to happen, the outcome, given what we say we're going to achieve. 

[00:09:09] But we don't fall in love with the process and the process is what is going to help you achieve the outcome, your goal, your vision. It is a process and we need to focus and fall in love with the process and do the work. It's not always easy. Some days you don't want to do it. We need to do it. We need to take breaks. That's fine.

[00:09:35] Give yourself a break. You need to reenergize yourself. But then get back and do it, and do what lights you up, do what you're really good at, and bring people on your team that can help you achieve it. So that's number three. And the fourth one, once you have the clarity, once you have people on your team, once you're starting to do the work, be committed and be consistent.

[00:09:58] My friends, it takes – it's not sexy, I've said it before. It takes commitment and it takes consistency if you want to build anything. It doesn't even have to be a business. If you're putting together a puzzle, you have to do it one piece at a time. If you want to build your business, it's one step at a time, but you have to take the steps.

[00:10:23] Otherwise, you're going to just keep spinning your wheels and another year's going to go by, and then another year's going to go by and it will not have achieved what you've wanted to achieve. So here's what I suggest. As we exit 2025, enter 2026, slow down. Slow down long enough that you can get the clarity that allows you to create the business and the life that you want.

[00:10:51] Then you can speed up and you plan it and execute it, do the work, have people support you, be committed and be consistent. And then when we meet again next year for episode 100 and whatever it's going to be, we could talk about something else and maybe we can have you on the Stern Truth Podcast talking about how you achieved the goals that you set for yourself in 2026.

[00:11:19] As always, please subscribe, like, comment, I'd love to hear your feedback on this episode and the others. Again, go back, watch episode number 50. You can meet my team, the team behind the Stern Truth Business Unfiltered, and episode six specifically the “I will when” and let's stop and no longer I will when.

[00:11:37] Let's take action and let's get going. 2026. We'll be here before we know it and it'll be gone before we know it. So let's take time and let's just do it. We'll see you again next week in another episode of The Stern Truth Business Unfiltered.

[00:11:55] Thank you so much for tuning in to the Stern Truth. If you found today's episode helpful, we would love to hear from you. Please like, share and leave us a review. Also, if you'd like to be a guest in an upcoming episode or join us in one of our Moment Accountability Group sessions, simply email me to marshall@marshallstern.net.

[00:12:14] That's marshall@marshallstern.net. And don't forget to hit the subscribe button so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep pushing forward and leading with confidence.