Episode 35 – Navigating the Emotional Journey of Selling Your Business with Denise Logan

Todd Bertsch: 0:10

Welcome back to the Bolt Podcast. I’m Todd Bertsch and I’m thrilled to be your guide on this inspiring journey of personal growth and leadership. Together with my guests, we’ll dive into transformational stories, uncovering how small, intentional changes can create massive positive results in your life from overcoming challenges and setting impactful goals to building lasting habits and living with confidence, health and positivity. We’ll explore it all and, if you’re ready, to embrace a growth mindset, and unlock the best version of yourself, then let’s spark that transformation today.

Todd Bertsch: 0:46

Today’s guest is the amazing Denise Logan, author of the Seller’s Journey and expert on the emotional challenges business owners face when selling their companies. With a background as a lawyer, mental health professional and business owner, Denise helps entrepreneurs navigate the complex emotional obstacles of business transitions. Drawing from her experience speaking to over 500 audiences globally, she provides key strategies to ensure a successful, regret-free business sale for both owners and advisors. Listeners, get ready for a great episode, Denise. Welcome to the Bolt Podcast, my friend.

Denise Logan: 1:28

Oh, Todd, I’m so glad to be with you today. Thanks for having me.

Todd Bertsch: 1:31

Yeah, absolutely. I loved our initial conversation. It’s really interesting what you do. In fact, this is the first time we’ve had a guest of kind of your expertise on the show, so I think this will be really interesting for our listeners. We have a lot of listeners who are entrepreneurs and business owners, so at some point there will be that fork in the road, as we may say. So I’m really curious to get into this conversation.

Denise Logan: 2:05

Well, I always say we will all leave our businesses one day, voluntarily or involuntarily. We sure want that to be on our own terms, on our own timing. I was talking with a client recently and he said, well, if I leave my business? And I said, oh, I’m sorry, that word is when. It’s when you leave your business, not if, because we will all leave at some time.

Todd Bertsch: 2:30

Yeah, no, that’s a great point and that took me a long time to kind of realize that, because when you first start it’s hard to imagine ever leaving your baby. Right, yeah, but you’re right, at some point there will be a time. Be right, yeah, but you’re right, at some point there will be a time. So if we dig into the beginning of Denise and I like to kind of set up our audience with your background, because your background is very unique, so from a lawyer to a mental health professional, and now you’re helping business owners and advisors buy and sell companies so talk a little bit about how you made that transition and how that expertise has really helped you find success in this industry.

Denise Logan: 3:14

Oh my, gosh, I might go back a little further, that’s okay. Go, yeah, go back, let’s set it up.

Denise Logan: 3:21

When I was young, I wanted to be a lawyer and the guidance counselor in my high school said to me and I just need to tell your audience that I graduated in 1981, not 1951. When you hear what is about to happen, the guidance counselor said to me oh, you don’t want to be a lawyer. If you become a lawyer, you will be all alone, you will never meet a husband and you will die as a spinster. And imagine being a 16 year old girl. I was like Mr Erfurt I don’t want that life. That sounds horrible. What should I be? And he said you should be a nurse or a teacher or something that you can fall back on in case your husband dies or leaves you and you need to raise your kids. I can just tell from your face we’re like. That man should not have been talking to young women.

Todd Bertsch: 4:18

At 1981? Well, at any time, but at 19,. Geez Louise.

Denise Logan: 4:23

Which is why?

Denise Logan: 4:24

okay, maybe 1940, 1950, maybe that was the conversation that was happening. So I switched my mindset, thanks to our evil nemesis, mr Erfurt, and I went to school and have a degree as a social worker, and partway through my education I realized wait, mr Erford isa dope, he should not have been giving me that advice. I think I do want to go to law school, but first I finished my degree and I worked for a time as a therapist, and so my specialty training is in two tracks. One is work and financial disorders, so people who are addicted to work and money that’s probably none of our audience today, right? None of us are addicted to our work, or our money.

Todd Bertsch: 5:13

That’s a dangerous combination, Denise.

Denise Logan: 5:15

That certainly. And the other track is called thanatology, which is the study of death and dying. I can tell you that at that time in my life I wouldn’t have been able to explain to you why I needed both of those tracks. But I can sure tell you now how they come together. Because for entrepreneurs, as we prepare to leave our business, we often come straight up against those existential mortality questions.

Denise Logan: 5:44

And for us, as a culture, we don’t generally deal with death, we don’t deal with endings well, and so often an owner starts coming toward the end and they think, nope, I’m going to head right back to getting more money and more attached to my work. So from this perspective in my life I see exactly why Mr Erfurt was put in my path, because that is my foundational training. From there I did go to law school and often I think, oh, couldn’t I have used my good training as a mental health professional to keep myself from becoming a lawyer, because that’s an odd little transition. But I built a law firm in Washington DC and when we reached 50 lawyers and 300 support staff, I exited my practice.

Denise Logan: 6:32

And so and we can come back to talking about that exit it was a super choppy exit, not what I would recommend for most of our listeners, but I exited my practice, merged with a large Baltimore firm, got rid of my house and bought a motor home and I took off for what I thought was going to be six months to clear my head and turned into almost five years where I traveled all over North and Central America on my own with two little dogs and a car I towed behind my RV. Again, that’s another little path we might detour off on a little bit.

Denise Logan: 7:10

But when I came off the road I joined a friend’s business who was preparing it for sale and he said why don’t you join us and help us get ready For the next 10 years? We tried to sell that business three times. Each time he got right to the door and then would pull out because he couldn’t see what his life would look like on the other side of his business. So I left and did a research study about why business owners get stuck. Why are they like me?

Denise Logan: 7:40

I was so sick of my business I would have given it away to be free of it or why are they like him where they go too early and can’t pull the trigger and get stuck again and again in that cycle? So for the last 15 years I’ve worked one-on-one with business owners and their advisors to navigate the emotional arc of letting go and stepping into their what’s next. So that’s kind of the path. I always say you will not see that in a career path trajectory, but I can see from this place in my life why each of those little stages built to the place where I am now, where I’m able to bring the combination of that wisdom to bear for the clients I work with.

Todd Bertsch: 8:26

Yeah, those are some great stepping stones and, denise, I always find it interesting everybody’s unique path and journey, and you’ve certainly been able to leverage all of those experiences and bring those into your practice right now. I do want to go back to a couple of points there.

Denise Logan: 8:46

For sure. That’s why I gave you little stopping points. I was like you might take off there or here and your audience is thinking wait, I want to hear more about something. So hopefully we’ll touch on those.

Todd Bertsch: 8:57

If not, we’ll have another conversation at another time, I’m sure, absolutely, absolutely. So the reflection points I love. Well, I guess we need to. Let’s take a step back even further. So when you sold your business, and this was the law firm that you built up to, you said 50 lawyers and 300 and some clients that’s quite a bit In many minds that would be extremely successful, right? But you said, uh-uh, I’m done. You said you would. Even you were at the point where you said I would give it away. So how did you get to that point and how were you able and you know in Cliff Notes, how were you able to detach when you just set it up and said most people are stuck, they can’t get away from it? But you said no, you were able to recognize that I’m going to guess that this was not a healthy business for you and you said I need to make some change in my life. And then you hit the road, literally.

Denise Logan: 9:59

Yeah. So there’s some interesting pieces about that. There’s what you think is the pivotal moment and there’s all the things that lead pieces about that. There’s what you think is the pivotal moment and there’s all the things that lead up to that. Sure, probably at least four years before I actually exited, I knew I wanted out, but I all of the people around me, professional advisors and social acquaintances when I would say, you know what I’m done with this, I think I’m just ready to move on A lot of them would say almost exactly the comment that you made, which is, like I would kill to have what you have. You built this. Like, how could you walk away? Or you would get the. I would get the other piece, which is, ah, you’re just tired. Like, buy a boat, go on vacation ah, you’re just tired like buy a boat go on vacation.

Denise Logan: 10:46

You know the consumerism Right.

Denise Logan: 10:48

Use your success to buy toys or experiences, which there’s nothing wrong with any of that, sure, but it was not the core issue for me, and so I tried all of those options for sure, and even some of the consultants that I hired would say you know, if you just buckle down and do the next five years, you could go from here to here, and I will tell you that felt like death. Just buckle down for five more years, oh, I just feel sad saying it now even. Sad saying it now even and I noticed that happens a lot for our entrepreneurs that they are expressing like I’m ready or I want out, and at the time I was in my late thirties, mid to late thirties, and so, honestly, it made no sense to the people around me that I was just going to go. Boy, we’re about to get real. What you have heard so far is what I call the sanitized version of my story. Right, I built the law firm and off I went. Want to know, want to go deeper.

Todd Bertsch: 11:55

Yeah, can you first say how many years were you in business before you sold it?

Denise Logan: 12:00

Almost, let’s see. So we’re going to have a little mini backstory here. I left high school when I was 16 and went to college. Did college in two years, worked for a little bit, then became a therapist, so I graduated from law school. I was 20, almost 23, which is early.

Todd Bertsch: 12:22

You fast tracked your life which is early.

Denise Logan: 12:28

You fast-tracked your life, so exactly. So can you like?

Speaker 1: 12:30

yeah, listeners are like wow, no wonder you were kind of burned out by that point right.

Denise Logan: 12:32

So it was about 14 years that I practiced law. So by then, if you think about that trajectory from a, from a work perspective and from a life perspective, I was later in my I was later in my life.

Denise Logan: 12:46

I was probably having my midlife crisis except I was having it earlier, Although I don’t know, who knows, might actually have been the middle of my life I haven’t doubled that yet so I knew that I was ready to go and I started unconsciously creating little mini crises. Maybe you or some of your listeners could relate to this where first you have like little pebbles that fall on your head and you’re like, yeah, that’s annoying. And then you’ve got some larger rocks and you’re like, yeah, I’m going to shrug that off. And then you got a boulder that comes and crushes you.

Denise Logan: 13:23

I would say my life lesson from that period of my life is that when change starts coming and almost all of us know when change is coming and we try to push it away it’s still coming. So for me, in the years leading up to my exit from my practice, I was definitely creating little mini blips to like is that enough drama yet? Could I get out now? Have I created enough crisis? Now, could I get out? And all of that was happening unconsciously for sure. It’s not like my mind was thinking that, sure, the ultimate end game for me came. I’d been driving to work, thinking about what angle I would need to hit my car on the embankment to flip it, not because I wanted to kill myself, but because I’ll bet that would let the people around me say well, yeah, for sure, girl, you should leave that business. Oh my God. Fortunately I did not do that.

Todd Bertsch: 14:23

Yes.

Denise Logan: 14:24

Fortunately not. Instead, I really woke myself up and said wait, this is my life. I get to make a choice about whether I am ready to leave or not leave, just because the people around me think, yeah, you should stay in this business, it’s great, you should buckle down. The world wants something else from me, and I don’t know what that is yet, and I’m prepared to let go of this without knowing what comes next. I think that’s the piece that lots of people struggle with is how can, like we’re bridging, how can I let go of this until I know for sure what’s on the other side? Yeah, so I did. Wow, we’re going deep fast, friends.

Denise Logan: 15:10

I did an exit. That is not what I would tell any of you to do, which is why you need to pay attention to the signs of change earlier, not later. I called my three biggest competitors in the industry and said I am selling and I am going to sell to one of the three of you, and I am going to sell to one of the three of you. I’m talking to all three of you and the one who makes the best offer, who will take all my clients and any of my staff who want to go with you and will let go of the ones who don’t want to go with you and can do this deal by X date is the winner. And it was a very short timeline. It was way too short, honestly, but I just knew I was ready to go and the primary goal for me was to make sure that my staff and my clients were taken care of.

Denise Logan: 16:00

I wasn’t actually worried about how much money I got from my business, mostly because I have a little motto about money. Money is like Doritos Eat all you want, I’ll make more. It’s only money, and money matters, but it’s not the only thing that matters. So the exit that I made from my business is not one that I would recommend for a client, but also I work with my clients before they’re at that point of I want out. So when I say I would have given my business away for free, almost. But what mattered to me and I know we’re going to talk about success like what is a marker of success For me the success was that all of my people and my clients landed safely with someone who cared about them and I was free to go and in many ways, I think I took the most valuable asset from the business me and off I went onto my life into something new.

Todd Bertsch: 17:06

I just want to make a couple of comments. First, congratulations, kudos to you, because, my gosh, you were young. I’m trying to picture myself in my 30s. I was nowhere near as mature as you were to be able to make major life decisions, and maybe the experience, the college education that you had and those earlier experience set you up right To be emotionally intelligent enough to make that decision. But to also say it’s not about me, it’s about my team and my clients. To be at that age and to really have that empathy and to care about that.

Todd Bertsch: 17:52

I don’t think a lot of people would do that. They would be driven by the Doritos, the money. So I guess I’d say just kudos again for one at that age or any age. Building such a successful firm and then having the guts right to be mindful enough to say you know what this isn’t serving me the way that I thought it would. Yeah, you know that this was all cracked up to be and I would imagine that you felt it right in your bones, the whole notion that you potentially wanted to roll your car over. That’s not good. That’s not good.

Denise Logan: 18:35

No, it’s not good.

Todd Bertsch: 18:36

And to be a mental health professional. At one point you know that and I think you probably said that’s it. This is the final straw. I cannot do this anymore, but I need to take care of my people, my clients. So for me, again, it’s just a little bit of inspiration that, regardless of what age you’re at, if we can be emotionally intelligent enough to make sound decisions without making knee-jerk reactions.

Todd Bertsch: 19:03

And I think what I loved about this is you being mindful, and I don’t know if you had mindful practices in your routine, but you were able to stop and reflect. Stop and pause, which we talk a lot about on the show, and I have been through a lot of transition in my own personal growth journey. The pause button has changed my life in every aspect, especially as a business owner and leader. And when you can pause every aspect, especially as a business owner and leader, and when you can pause, wow, life can be beautiful and you’ll make, you’ll have so much clarity that you can make sound decisions and feel good about it at the end of the day. So I know that was a long-winded answer, but in you know, it really gets me thinking about what is success? How do you define success?

Denise Logan: 19:49

And for me and my thesis, it wouldn’t have been the way that you handled it, because it’s all about a season in life too Right, and it’s also one of the things that I saw during that time is that the people around me were defining success themselves, but that was a decision that I needed to make for me, and often as entrepreneurs, we are so focused on building and our identity gets wrapped up with our business. I want to offer you one more piece about that transition that happened for me For a long time. I was really embarrassed to tell that story because I thought, oh, people will think I quit, that I was a loser, blah, blah, blah Like all the head trash that comes around that.

Denise Logan: 20:39

So we fast forward. I come off my motorhome trip, which is a separate conversation for another time, but I was speaking at a conference. It was a women’s retreat on an island with 400 women entrepreneurs.

Todd Bertsch: 20:54

That sounds like fun.

Denise Logan: 20:55

Yeah, it was super fun and I had my whole plan for the weekend what we were going to cover. And for some reason on the stage I decided to tell the full, unsanitized version that you guys have just had Actually there’s a little more pieces of it, but I was on the stage, it was very early. In the event, I could tell it was like pushing up, because usually I would tell the sanitized version right, I got rid of it, I sold my, I exited my business. I bought a motorhome blah blah, blah, sounds all sweet and perfect and tucked in and tidy. The coffee, the business. I bought a motorhome blah blah, blah, sounds all sweet and perfect and tucked in and tidy. And I was on the stage and I could just feel it starting to push up from my belly and I was like, oh no, I’m about to tell the full story. And out it came and I told what I’ve told you in a few more pieces and then I said this is probably a good time for a break and I went in the ladies room and I splashed some water on my face and I thought, oh my gosh, it’s out in public the very first time I had told the full story. And so I came back on stage and I said wow, that’s the first time I’ve told this publicly. I wonder how that lands here.

Denise Logan: 22:05

Here, and a woman at the back of the room stands up, she puts her hand on her hip and she just dressed me down. She was like wow, here, I thought you were a successful professional and you had your shit together, and blah, blah, blah. And she said all kinds of stuff to me and I said and my mouth was open, I’m sure your listeners are too I was sweating through my blouse and I was shocked, oh my gosh. And then I like took a breath Sure, like we all do, and I said wow, thanks for saying that, because you just said to me every single thing I’ve been afraid someone would say to me, and a few I hadn’t yet thought of. So thanks for that. Afraid someone would say to me, and a few I hadn’t yet thought of. So thanks for that. And my question to you is what in your life are you unwilling to do because you’re afraid someone will say to you? Your version of what you just said to me Gets better.

Denise Logan: 23:05

She turned on her heel and stormed out the back of the ballroom. She turned on her heel and stormed out the back of the ballroom and one third of the audience got up and stormed out with her and I thought, holy cow, I am on an island with these women. What have I just done? And then, as I caught my breath, I realized wait, two thirds of my audience are in their seats. I abandoned my outline for the rest of the weekend and we dropped very deeply. The remainder of those women, which, remember, is two thirds of the audience, not the one third that shook off, which is still a lot of women.

Denise Logan: 23:46

For sure, and we dropped down into what are the things that each of us, as entrepreneurs, need to do, but we are scared out of our minds to do them or say them because of the judgment of other people around us. People we know, people we care about, strangers. I mean, this woman was a relative stranger to me and what came from that weekend was unbelievably different than what I thought would happen if I had stayed with my sweet little sanitized version. I’ve got it all together. I know what to do and it changed. And over the course of the weekend, as I was really reflecting on what triggered that woman. I mean, I don’t know what that is, but some of my guesses are that she came to that retreat hoping that I would have the formula, that I would have the solution for success, and how terribly disappointing it must have been to her to realize there is no formula, there is no path. The path is set within us. And are we willing and I’m not even going to use the word brave, because I did not feel brave when I was making those decisions, I just knew it was what I needed to do and are we willing to listen within and to do what is right for us, even if it bucks the system, even if it doesn’t look like what other people think is success.

Denise Logan: 25:16

There were surely people around me at that time in my life when I made that transition, who thought, oh my God, she’s lost it For sure. But then I took my little break and my life went a different way. Without that experience of what I call a super ugly, choppy exit to my business, how would I be able to bring a level of wisdom into the lives of the clients who I see now? I don’t want them to do that, and for some of them their exit will not look magical and beautiful, but it still is a successful change. So when I think about success, it’s not what most people look at. Do you have a certain amount of money in the bank, do you like? I’m like, I’ll make more Doritos, and I have, and I will. Right, but that was a that. But that was an amazing moment. It actually stripped away a lot of the shame, a lot of the worry that I had around it. Were people going to judge me? And I realized, yes, for sure, and did that matter? No.

Todd Bertsch: 26:25

Right, yeah, thank you for sharing that, denise. What an interesting sad story Was this early on in kind of your keynote speaking training career I hadn’t been.

Denise Logan: 26:46

I mean now I speak at 70 to 80 conferences a year. At that point I wasn’t doing that much. I was doing deeper type of topics like that. You know, I’m sure it scared me.

Todd Bertsch: 27:00

Yeah.

Denise Logan: 27:01

I’m sure it scared me, but I just I did what I do with clients, which is, I processed and integrated that, and I was like, wow, what does that mean for her and what does that mean for me? Am I worried about judgment? Right? Had that experience not happened for me, I don’t know if I would feel as settled about talking truth on our conversation today. Right, I’m not worried about that. I don’t feel like there is a part of my life I need to conceal or hide or put lipstick on the pig Instead, because I think one of the strange parts obviously most of us know this with social media and just even with entrepreneurs it’s all about the win, the win right.

Denise Logan: 27:52

How I’ve done it. Well, look at me, I’ve been successful. All you need to do is follow my five-step formula, which may or may not be true, and I think what happens for a lot of professionals is we reach a point where what has worked for other people isn’t working for us and we think there’s something wrong with us. It’s not that there’s something wrong with you, it’s that your path is different. And I think, on owning businesses, one of the things that’s curious is what is your business for? What is the purpose of it. We could kind of go to the Stephen Covey model begin with the end in mind.

Todd Bertsch: 28:30

End in mind, yeah.

Denise Logan: 28:31

And most of us don’t do that. We start a business, we have an idea, something triggered it off, we go, and pretty soon we wake up and we’re 65 years old or 52 years old or whatever age, and we’re like, oh my gosh, what have I done?

Denise Logan: 28:48

Mm-hmm oh my gosh, what have I done? And there’s a lot of conversation in our space about scaling and that you must scale. Scale is success. For me, having owned a business with 350 employees, I don’t want scale in my business. I don’t desire that. That wasn’t pleasurable for me. And so sometimes the noise about scale I can feel the friction of it for me, sometimes, where I’m like, ah, am I doing it wrong? Do you know Jonathan Fields? He’s a podcaster. He has a podcast, the Good Life Project. You might know Jonathan.

Denise Logan: 29:31

I think one of your prior guests, casey Carter and I we know each other through Jonathan. Oh yeah, Okay, Casey yeah.

Denise Logan: 29:39

Yeah, jonathan had a really interesting kind of a saying that he would have, which is there are three different circles that need to intersect. There is market maker, product, so market product, maker those three different circles, and they intersect so much in our world. We’re focused on market product. Does the product fit the market, do we have the right market for our product? And we completely leave out the maker, which is us, the business owner. And pretty soon, if you’re not bringing back in the maker into that formula, you have built a baby that you hate. You built a business that is excellent. It’s serving the market. Your product is flying off the shelf and you can’t stand your business or you wonder why you’re not fulfilled. And I think that was such a brilliant statement of his and what a great formula as business owners to keep bringing back in. Is this business serving you? Is it only serving the market or the product? And how do you make those kinds of changes?

Denise Logan: 30:53

It’s ideal when you learn it early on, because early on you can keep tweaking for that it’s what happens for many of us, when we’re late in our business and then we realize, like I did, there’s no room for the maker. Right. And it’s grown really big and I don’t want it. I don’t like it. And how do we revamp that? How do you unscale or descale or scale down? And that looks like failure to lots of people.

Todd Bertsch: 31:24

Yeah, a lot to unpack there, denise. A couple of thoughts that I have. It can be difficult, especially when you care so much.

Denise Logan: 31:35

Right.

Todd Bertsch: 31:35

So I think about the parenting paradigm where we always give, give, give right. We will give everything and anything to our kids. We are the last to get. Right, and I talk about that a lot in my talks and my keynotes about the best investment you can make is in yourself. Right, and that’s absolutely true for running a business too, and that’s a whole different subject.

Todd Bertsch: 31:59

But to your point about the maker right, so you get and I’ve been there where it’s so focused on everyone else that it feels selfish to bring me into the picture right, because I have so many others and I care so deeply about my people and their families. It is a tremendous burden to wear that on your back, to know that the food that’s going to be put on their table comes from this product right that I’ve created and the work that my amazing team is doing. So that’s a I love the point, but that can be very difficult to navigate that without having and I think what really helps is having somebody like you a therapist or a coach right A high performance business executive coach. I wish I would have had that earlier in my tenure as a business owner, because they could have identified those.

Denise Logan: 33:01

Well, most of us don’t have the. We often don’t have the resources to have someone in our corner there, or we don’t know of someone and someone. And my view is that’s why, when we begin our businesses, why do we have this business? And sometimes for owners they’re like well, what kind of question is that? You and I have talked about one of my favorite questions. So the work I do now is helping business owners near the end of their business.

Denise Logan: 33:28

How do they begin to prepare for exit and how do they successfully exit? And one of the questions I like to ask them is what does work provide for you other than money and financial security? Because guess what, we’re not exiting you from your business if you’re not getting money and financial security. We’re just not doing that. So what other things do you get from your business? What does it provide for you other than money and financial security? And I hope listeners at home that you’re writing that down, because I try to get 15 distinct answers from an owner and usually the first answer is well like, what else is there other than money and financial security?

Denise Logan: 34:14

And so Todd want to play a game with me.

Todd Bertsch: 34:17

Yeah, let’s play.

Denise Logan: 34:19

Okay, what does work provide for you other than money and financial security? What’s one thing.

Todd Bertsch: 34:26

Well, which work so? You choose, we get to talk about right, so I’m in two different seats, if you will so.

Todd Bertsch: 34:34

I am at a position 16 years in my business where I saw the fork in the road, like you, and ironically I did have a camper during COVID, but I didn’t take it. I probably should have and it did the. You know the three to five year travel, like you did, because that sounds absolutely amazing, but you know it was and COVID was a major time of reflection and at that time I realized, when the smoke cleared, business wasn’t the same.

Todd Bertsch: 35:03

Work wasn’t the same and I really like my people and have a beautiful space here that I pay for and for people not to come back.

Todd Bertsch: 35:12

It was different for me and it was a change that I didn’t expect and it kind of took the air from within me and I said okay, to answer your question. I wasn’t quite as fulfilled, right, there was an emptiness. My cup wasn’t full. Fulfilled, right, there was an emptiness, my cup wasn’t full. And I had started a personal growth, holistic personal growth journey and that led me to positive intelligence program which changed my life and maybe we’ll talk a little bit about that. But what I realized was, you know, for me, work and success. Right, I define success by my happiness level. Am I truly happy? Do I wake up in the morning truly blessed and stoked to go do what I’m doing? And is that work meaningful? I’m 54 years old, am I? You know, and I, and I do. I love Stephen Covey and you know, with the end in mind, like, am I going to leave an impact here? What is my legacy? And I have two kids, I have a 26-year-old son and what tracks am I laying down for? Him.

Todd Bertsch: 36:20

What example am I setting? But, aside from that, it was about me and just saying I’m at a point where I need to be truly fulfilled. I need to be truly happy every day. I don’t know if I’m going to live tomorrow, so I want to be doing what I love to do, and that’s where I made a decision to empower the people that have been with me for so long. You know, delegate to elevate and say here I’m going to take a step back. You can do this, you can run this thing without me. I’ll be on the sidelines cheering you on and being there from a visionary standpoint and we’ll continue to do this. But I need to step out and do my new thing, which is, like you, keynote speaking, corporate training programs, podcasting that fills my cup right and don’t get me wrong, and what does it give you?

Denise Logan: 37:12

Tell me one thing that you feel you get from that.

Todd Bertsch: 37:16

I mean I get happiness, I mean point blank I get happiness. That is my number one thing. Am I happy?

Denise Logan: 37:24

Yeah, and I’ll give your listeners some of the. We’ll start with some of the foundational pieces, which are work provides us with structure. It’s structure to our day, to our week, to our year. Work also typically provides us with a place to go. You know, during COVID, weren’t we all desperate to get out of the house? And guess what? Our spouses were desperate for us to get out of their house too. When are you leaving? But it provides lots of other things and it’s different for every person, but I’m going to toss some out as just thinking prompts for everyone. It provides us with friendship.

Denise Logan: 38:02

For a lot of our business owners, their employees and customers and vendors and even their competitors are their friends. They don’t have what I call Saturday friends. Their friendship is happening there. It’s meeting their intellectual stimulation need. For lots of owners it’s the thrill of the chase or the thrill of the kill. I closed that deal. I solved this problem. It’s a place where their wisdom is valued. Employees and customers are coming to you for that wisdom that I don’t know about in your house, but in my house people don’t necessarily think I’m as wise as the people who are outside my house, and so it’s a place where that need is getting met. But then we also have a layer of needs that a lot of us don’t really like to think about. Things like power At work. I say I want something done. It usually happens At home, not so much. Just because I said I want something done doesn’t mean it’s about to happen.

Denise Logan: 39:08

But there are also things, and I might tell you a story about a client who experienced this. He was very close to the end of his deal, very close to the exit, and all this chaos started churning up in the transaction. And so I said to the professional advisors I said I don’t think this is coming from him. I actually think this is coming from home At work. He is a bully. He bullies employees, he bullies customers. He’s been engaged in lots of litigation. I think his wife has unconsciously realized that the bully is about to return home and she is going to be the target, and I think she is unconsciously stirring up some chaos, which makes sense If we think about here’s where the other piece of my life shows up to remind people something’s going on under the surface. And so I got him involved in a boxing program. He thought it was for his physical fitness and his social needs, which was definitely true. I wasn’t making that up, but it was also a place where the bully need could get met.

Denise Logan: 40:15

So the list of needs that we’ve gone through before this just because you get a big sack of cash, those needs don’t go away. You still need to have structure to your life, you still need to have intellectual stimulation or friendship or bullying or power, or or or all of those needs go with you into the period after the sale of your business, and so a lot of what I’m focused on with clients is how. What are those needs for you? Because they’re different for each of us, but we’re going to dig deep enough to find 15 of them, because we do have them. And how will we get those needs met outside of work? Because they still resolve, they still remain with you, and if we don’t address those, what’s likely to happen for an entrepreneur is that they exit their business. They do travel, golf, playing with the grandkids for a couple of months, and then there is this emptiness and they don’t know what it is, and what they will say is I miss work, and what they’re actually missing is what meets those needs. So unless we address them and we find alternate ways to meet those needs. They will return to work, they will go buy another business, they will take a role somewhere else, and it’s because these are essential elements of who we are, and so we have to begin before the exit. Ideally, we do this long before the exit. We do this at the beginning of our business, which is why we don’t leave the maker out of our business, why we come back to what lights me up and am I getting that and how else can I get this outside of my business, because there are lots of forces that can cause us to exit our business before our plan our own health, the health of a family member, a change in the industry, a financial crash, a pandemic, blah, blah, blah. We’ve got lots of things that could happen. How are we getting all of those needs met outside of our business in multiple ways?

Denise Logan: 42:31

I was talking about another show that I was on recently, before we got on this, and the guy is a triathlon or that’s like his big thing outside of work, and so when we were talking about if he left his business, how would he get his needs met, and he was like, well, I just triathlon harder. And I was like, well, that’s one way. What if you couldn’t triathlon? First he and I went through the list of like what do you get from triathlon? And a lot of it were the things we’ve talked about social needs, physical fitness, blah, blah, blah. What if you couldn’t triathlon? He’s like my life wouldn’t really be the same. So we should be diversifying in our lives now. Many ways to get each of those needs met. We should have multiple ways and we’re not likely to find one single thing in our life that meets all the same needs that our work does.

Denise Logan: 43:23

We’ll often hear professional advisors say to owners as they are leaving or anyone who’s retiring you know what? You should join a nonprofit, you should join a charity, and that’s great if you know what need you are meeting. But let’s say you’re trying to get your power need met. Do you think making sure the cheese tray is filled or you’re licking envelopes to send for contributions is that going to meet your need? No, so a lot of times what happens is folks will take up some activity post-exit and feel empty, and the reason they feel empty is because they don’t know what need they’re meeting and being clear about how are we getting there? Because you know retirement for us will not be like it was for our parents and grandparents. My parents and grandparents were happy to play golf and wait for Wheel of Fortune to come on and feel like that was a super satisfying retirement For us. That’s not going to hit it, and so I’ll often hear people say well, I’m never going to retire or I’ll die at my desk. What message are you sending to your spouse and your children? That the place where you feel most happy and most fulfilled is not them? That’s where we come back to my training as work and financial disorders. We are most fulfilled when we are attached and connected to others, and what I see with a lot of owners is that when the time comes for them to exit their business, the business has served other needs.

Denise Logan: 44:56

I’ll give you a funny example. This business was transitioning from father to sons, and the transition was not going well, and so they brought me in to help, and the sons, in a joint meeting, were like Dad, when are you going to retire and turn the business over to us and go travel with mom? She’s been waiting 38 years to travel with you. And he stormed out of the room. And so I said to the son who asked that, does your dad like to travel? He said no, he’s a crazy homebody.

Denise Logan: 45:27

I was like, do you see what you just did there? That one of the things that he was getting from work unconsciously was an excuse to not have to do something he didn’t want to do. He could say to his wife honey, I’d love to go on that trip with you, but I sure can’t. The business needs me. If we take the business away, is he suddenly going to have the courage to say to her honey, I don’t want to travel with you, I can’t stand being on a trip with you for more than a weekend? No, he’s probably not going to have the courage to say that. So there is a developmental piece that has missed in that couple. You know, when we talk about business transitions, it is like other transitions in our life, except that we go through other transitions with other people and the business owner is going through this alone. So think about another transition in our life when the last child leaves home. You’re a little ways from that. Right, you have a young you still have a young.

Todd Bertsch: 46:31

Yeah, I still have a 13 year old, yep, so I’ve seen one go, but but when the last child leaves home, what?

Denise Logan: 46:37

what do we call it?

Todd Bertsch: 46:39

Right Empty nester.

Denise Logan: 46:40

Empty nester. We have language for it as a culture. We know what it is when you drop that child off at college and you come home and you’re setting the dinner table and you have three plates and you realize rats, there’s only two of us here today and you might feel some emotion about that, like I miss that child, or lots of things, but no one is shaming you, no one is saying but I thought you wanted that kid out of your house. Well, heck yeah, guess what you did and that was our job. Our job was to grow them up and successfully launch them into the world and we miss them.

Denise Logan: 47:17

We’ll often hear in the industry that people say you know they treat their business like a baby. Heck, yeah, we do, because we birthed it. We went through the terrible twos. We got through the stage where everyone was saying no and just like with our children, our goal and sometimes the business is our favorite child, if we’re honest, it’s the child that doesn’t talk back, it’s the child that validates us. So for a business owner, when that business is leaving, often it is the last child leaving home and that business child has served an awful lot of needs and an awful lot of purposes beyond just the money and what happens in the sale of a business. There are two things that are happening simultaneously there is a transaction, the sale, and there is an emotional transition that is happening. And all of the professionals the investment banker, the lawyer, the wealth manager, the CPA they are all focused on the transaction, as they should be. And I am focused with the owner on the transition that is happening. Because when we start going through the process of a sale, an owner is going to have these things churning up. And who will they say that to? Who will they say?

Denise Logan: 48:42

And this happened with a client of mine. Oh my gosh. He was 37 years old, selling his software company. He was set to earn $16 million on the other side, which is a really good chunk of change at that time of his life. And one day he said to me who am I going to hang out with? All my buddies have jobs. It’s going to be great, but I’m going to be all by myself. And the investment banker said you can buy friends. No, that was in your outside voice where he could hear it. You can buy friends.

Denise Logan: 49:17

No, that was in your outside voice where he could hear it. I know he thought that was funny, but often what happens is the professionals are so focused on the transaction that the emotional pieces that come up they are dismissive of, or even our friends and family. It was true for me after I left my business. There was a day I was sitting on the back on the patio and I was having a cup of tea, reading a magazine and I was like, oh, this is so great.

Denise Logan: 49:43

And then all of a sudden I thought about that case. Oh, that’s not mine anymore and I missed it. And in the days that followed, and actually for more than a year, the people around me like I missed my business and I wanted to be rid of it. Both are true. Or for owners who want to sell their business, you want to sell it and you miss it and the people around me were like but I thought you were done with that, I thought you wanted out.

Denise Logan: 50:10

Yes, and and we don’t say that to people in the other aspects of transition that they are going through when your teenager, your young, your youngish child is moving from junior high to high school and they have to leave behind their soccer coach from junior high, they miss them for sure and they’ll say I’m going to miss coach, so and so we don’t say get over it, you’re going to high school. I thought you wanted to go to high school. What do you want? To be a baby and stay in junior high the rest of your life? We don’t. We know what is happening for them. We know it is a transition and we comfort them through that and we help them step into the next, frankly scary, part of their life, and that’s that little world that I live in, because we are in transition all the time.

Todd Bertsch: 51:01

Absolutely Wow, Denise, that was a great story that you took us through A lot to discuss there and unpack, but wow, I’m just thinking about all the things that you said. I think it comes back to well. Two points that I want to make as we kind of wrap up here. One you’re a transition coach. In my mind and I know I’m not taking away If I were listening to you today you are a transition coach.

Todd Bertsch: 51:33

You have all this wealth of experience and that is incredibly beautiful work, challenging, right To do, and I think we all need that. You just happen to be helping people sell businesses. I think it’s a by-product. Honestly, it’s a huge transition, as you said, and potentially one of the most important or difficult, challenging that certainly a business owner will face. But still, I think a lot of what you’re discussing can be applicable to many different life situations. For sure, and I loved how you said you asked me one question which didn’t really stick with me, but when I heard you say what lights you up, that got me thinking that was a question that I needed what lights?

Todd Bertsch: 52:21

me up and now I can start thinking about okay, yeah, these are the things right. My love language is words of affirmation and I need to feel like I’m doing something meaningful, right, and I love helping people become the best version of themselves, so it feels gratifying.

Denise Logan: 52:40

And it’s also the foundational things. I’ll tell you the reason why I ask the question that way what does work provide? Is because structure doesn’t light you up. Right, people are not going to say, oh, knowing where I have to be at 8 o’clock every morning lights me up, but it’s definitely a piece we need to solve for the. What lights you up for sure we need to solve for, but we also need to be able to solve for some of the mundane things like where do I go?

Denise Logan: 53:10

I’m not just going to go to Dunkin’ Donuts and hang out all day so that I’m not in the house, right, and we watch people struggle after they exit their business, because sometimes it will feel like a black hole. I’m out here all alone. How do I meet new friends when I’m 40, 50, 60, 70? How do I meet new friends?

Todd Bertsch: 53:31

Right, it could feel like being on an island, like Tom Hanks, and nobody likes that really.

Denise Logan: 53:37

And one of the other things that happens. You know, there’s a question that we all get asked. It’s what do you do? I don’t ask that question and I will tell you why. I believe that is a social pegging question. When we ask what do you do, the answer that comes from the other person. In our brain we’re thinking am I above you or am I below you? Should I be kissing up to you right now or should you be kissing up to me and for almost anyone who’s retiring? But we’re going to focus on business owners. One of the worrisome things is what will I say? I do? And they will default to what they used to do because they’re needing a place in that pegging order and it can feel lonely. So some of that, what do you do? And I’ll bet if you ask any stay-at-home parent they will tell you yes, it’s super shaming to be asked that question. What do you do? Question, what do you do? Because as soon as they say I’m a stay-at-home mom or I’m a stay-at-home dad, conversation dud thud, because people assume, oh, that’s not interesting For our business owners. They are acutely aware of that. So one of the things I’ll give you two pieces.

Denise Logan: 54:51

One, the real question that I ask when I’m out socially and why, and the exercise I have clients do before they exit and anyone listening. You should do this when someone asks you what do you do, you should answer with something that’s interesting to you. I play guitar, I garden All of the other options, not how you earn your money. So I was getting my hair done a couple of months ago. The woman two blow dryers down for me is like so what do you do? And I said about what she said for work. I was like you want to know how I earned my money. And she said well, no, no, I just want to relate to you. I was like there are about a gazillion other questions that we could talk about other than how I earn my money. To set up our relational set, you could ask me what book I’m reading. You could ask what I ate for dinner last night, what was my most fun childhood memory. Those are the questions that I ask when I meet someone, not what do you do. So I would challenge listeners for the next week practice Instead of asking what do you do and just notice how many times a day or a week you ask that question, instead of asking what do you do?

Denise Logan: 56:06

Ask another question, ask something that will actually lead to relationship and, for business owners or anyone contemplating retirement or exit, start answering with a different answer. Yes, it will throw that person for a loop, because what they’re looking for is how do you make your money? But answer the question differently. I play guitar. You’ll notice that they’ll say, oh, are you in a band? No, I just play in my living room. What instrument do you play? Oh, you don’t play an instrument. What do you do for fun? You can see how we can shift conversations. The reason I do that with owners before they exit is I don’t want them to plunge into the oh no, I don’t have value in the world because I don’t have an acceptable answer to that question. That makes me feel like I am in a position of power to that question.

Todd Bertsch: 56:58

that makes me feel like I am in a position of power. Wow, I love it. I love it, denise. So many great words of wisdom and nuggets that you share with us today. Where can somebody find? Do you have? I know we didn’t really get to talk about the book, but you have this book, the Seller’s Journey. Does that include some of the content that you talked about today? You know, is there a list of questions or can we find something on your website?

Denise Logan: 57:23

Yeah, tell you a couple of things. So my website is deniselogancom. Super easy, nothing complicated. Yeah.

Denise Logan: 57:31

Easy name, easy. The book the Seller’s Journey is actually written as a business fable. It’s the story of an owner. One year after he exits his business, he goes on a trip across Glacier National Park with his banker, his lawyer, his wealth manager and the buyer of his company.

Denise Logan: 57:51

Right now your listeners are thinking that this is a murder mystery, but in the story they relate the physical obstacles they’re facing to the emotional obstacles he faced in letting go of his business, and so there are tools woven into a story format so you will recognize yourself in the story, and it will also help you to realize why you need good people around you to help you make this exit.

Denise Logan: 58:20

Of course, they need to be technically proficient, but they should also be people who understand that this is a transition that you’re undergoing, because when you have people around you who help support that part of your life, you land safely on the other side of what I consider to be the most vexing chapter in the life of a business owner how do we exit and let go. So on my website there are a variety of different tools. There’s something I do called the Legacy Dinner, and there are tons of little resources on there, but you’re always happy to email me as well. Happy I hear from lots of listeners. My email is just as simple as my web address, which is denise at deniselogancom.

Todd Bertsch: 59:04

Thank you for sharing that. Oh, I’ve really enjoyed this conversation, denise. You’ve given me a lot to think about and I’m sure our listeners as well. I appreciate you coming into my life and us being able to have these conversations and to share the knowledge that you’ve accumulated over these years and in different areas. I’ve enjoyed it, so thank you so much for being here, thank you.

Todd Bertsch: 59:31

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Bolt Podcast. You’re on an inspiring journey of growth, transformation and joy, and I’m honored to be a part of it. If you found this episode valuable, please like share it with your friends and consider leaving a review. It means the world to us. For show notes, resources and to subscribe to the weekly Motivational Monday newsletter. Please visit toddbertsch.com and don’t forget to follow us on social media at the Bolt with Todd B for more inspiration. Remember, real change doesn’t happen overnight. Start small, stay consistent, and watch as your growth unfolds. See you next time, thank you.