Guy Reams (00:00.814)
Today is day 162 success flows like water. When I was a child, I spent much of my time inventing small games to play, you know, and surrounding my family home. We lived in a rural community surrounded by fields. So I had spent a lot of time playing in these fields, finding all sorts of games to come up with. This was before the video console games. As I got older, I would get, you know,
I'd play Asteroids and Pitfall, Mazotron, and of course, Pong. But this was before there was those types of games, so I had to come up with my own ideas. I had to figure out, you know, using whatever tools I could pilfer out of Dad's garage, I would find little things I could do to play in the backyard.
You know, when you're surrounded by sagebrush, anthills, ancient debris from a day gone era, when you're surrounded by all that, you find fun things to do. Now, I lived in the Grand Valley in Colorado, and the Grand Valley was characterized by the merging of two major rivers, the Gunnison River and the Colorado River. And what had happened in that area is they had diverted the Colorado and River to.
to into canal systems. And those canal systems would basically flood the Grand Valley so that farmers could then draw from these canals to water their crops. Well, my neighborhood was no exception. Somebody had diverted a small amount of water from these canals to flow down through my neighborhood. And I think the reason it was there is so that people in the neighborhood could put little small pumps.
in the water and pump the water out and irrigate their grass or whatever. A lot cheaper and easier way to take care of your grass than to use, you know, ground well water, which is more expensive to obtain. So I would, one of the things I, I was fascinated by this water flow, of course, as a small child. So I spent a lot of time there and I would come up with all sorts of things to do.
Guy Reams (02:19.182)
For example, catching crawdads was I used to even pick asparagus down this canal, but I loved picking asparagus up until the point that my mom made me eat it one. And then I no longer liked picking asparagus. Um, so, so of course, then I found out I could create little homemade boats and float them down the canal. And I would come up with, uh, I would pretend that I was the artillery and firing dirt clods at my boats and trying to sink them. So.
I had lots of fun, lots of things to do. But my favorite game above all was diverting this water and creating my own plan with the water that I would divert. Now, I realize now as I've gotten older how much consternation that probably caused some of the homeowners that the small boy was messing around with the flow of the water coming into this little canal. But I had a lot of fun doing it.
So like a lot of times I would divert the flow of water to like go to a castle I built and make a moat or I would divert the flow of water to like invade an ant hill of a bunch of pesky red ants that I didn't like, whatever the case may be. But as I played with this water over the years, I learned a lot about how the mechanics of how water flows, how the forces of gravity and other obstacles and the forces of erosion.
impact water flow. And so I've oftentimes gone back in time recalling what I had learned about this water flow concept. And I always come back to this because it's an analogy that I've used often in my life. And I believe that water flows in much a similar manner as our lives. So when we're attempting to find success, we can use water as a pretty
analogy to help us through some of the obstacles or understanding some of the barriers that we'll experience when encountering a new endeavor. So if we're launched into a new business as an entrepreneur or a new career or even a new relationship or some other great ambition, oftentimes it will be much like when I was a child and diverting water into a new area for the first time.
Guy Reams (04:40.942)
So there are many stages that this water goes through. The first stage is what I call the beginning stage or the chaos stage. When you first divert water out of a canal and the water starts flowing into an area where water hasn't flowed before, it's rather chaotic. The water spreads rapidly. It finds all the little nooks, crannies, small depressions, whatever it can find, it just flows everywhere. And it's really hard to predict where the water will go at that point.
It would take a lot of engineering to figure out just exactly where this water would flow. The water's trying to find the path of least resistance, it's trying to find the path where gravity is the strongest, and you have a real hard time predicting that when it starts to flow over a wide plane.
So just like in our lives, we might come up with a new idea or have a new thing starting and it seems exciting at first and then the reality sets in and you realize the idea may be good, but the practicality of the idea is difficult. So you end up just trying to do anything and everything that you can. It's very chaotic. You start to just take on every opportunity, say yes to everything and you feel like really stressed out because you're spread all over the place. This is what happens.
on any new endeavor. It's the same thing that happens to any new entrepreneur. They start out and it seems exciting. And then the practical reality of trying to make money kicks in. And then they're trying to do anything and everything I can. They have this wide field, this chaotic attempt to find a path. It's like, I call it searching for the path. And this is the same thing that water does. Well, eventually you get to the next stage, which is what I call the resistance stage.
Water will eventually begin to coalesce and collect in a particular area. This will usually be the lowest area, the lowest place in that area. And so water, all the water, wherever it went, will eventually start to find this low place. And the low place will be where the water will start to collect and start to pool. And things will start to become a little stagnant and feel like they're moving slowly.
Guy Reams (06:53.038)
The water will face resistance. It will not be able to escape this for some reason, usually because there's a high berm or a high area that it has to fill up before it can overflow. Or maybe there's some other obstacle in the way, like a large tree branch or something that's preventing the water from flowing. So this is an obstacle that the water encounters. And it will start to just collect. And this collection time feels like...
All of your energy is just going into filling this obstacle area and it's exhausting. When you encounter a new thing like starting a new business or whatever it may be, there are always this period that happens. You find an area that just seems to be where your energy wants to flow and then you start working on it and it just gets slow and stagnant and starts to pool and the obstacle feels like you'll never overcome it.
And so you really have a choice at this point. And you do the same way of diverting water. You have to decide, do I continue to divert the water until this obstacle is overcome or do I stop it? Same thing with our new endeavor. We can continue to pool our reservoir of resources. We can continue to flow our energy into this in hopes that we might be able to overcome this obstacle or we can quit. And this is really the thing that kills most new startups.
it kills most new relationships, it kills most new endeavors, is we do not have the patience or the energy to overcome the first major obstacle. But if you keep the flow of water happening, eventually the water overcomes it. This first moment of hesitancy, this resistance we face will ultimately be overcome. Now it may not happen right away, right? It may take a while. We may feel stagnant. We may feel like,
All progress is being lost, but eventually we'll get to the next stage, which is what I call the breakthrough. The breakthrough happens when you eventually get to where you've built up so much strength, your reservoir is big enough to where you finally overcome or saturate the obstacle that's in your way. In the case of water, it'll completely saturate the obstacle and the obstacle will dissolve out of the way, or it'll just simply overcome the obstacle, overflow it,
Guy Reams (09:15.31)
or break through it, and then the water now is on its way. Now when you break this initial resistance, this initial obstacle, which there always is one, when you break through it, what ends up happening is there's this tidal wave of Russian energy and force that you finally found a path that seems successful. Everything coalesces and flows through that pathway. And then you start to carve a deeper channel, a deeper path, and this is where all the water starts to flow.
Same thing in your new endeavor in life. Once you start to see that glimmer of success, that hope, that resistance is overcome, you start actually getting customers to buy your new product. You actually get somebody that appreciates your time and wants to spend time with you. Whatever it happens to be, you get that first job. Whatever it happens to be, you're going to break through. And that's where all things start to flow.
And now this is an exciting time. This is what's addicting to being an entrepreneur. This is why people love the game, right? Because it's this moment, this breakthrough moment is where all the excitement comes. This is fast paced. This is exciting and it's unstoppable. Once you break through that first obstacle, you cannot stop it. All momentum, all energy just seems to flow naturally, right? This is the great time to be alive. This is the great time to enjoy.
your new business venture. But then we come to the next obstacle. And this is what I call the next obstacle or the realization and the split. You're eventually going to come to another obstacle and another one. And this process will repeat. And this can be enjoyable or it can be disheartening. But the realization will come that this is the journey. You will eventually figure out that there is no
Real focus on the destination. The journey is what really matters. And if you choose the life of an entrepreneur, a new business owner, you choose the life that you're introducing change into your life, you're gonna discover that obstacles are the way. Now, you have lots of reactions to that. You can just decide, this is too tough, I'm out, I'm cutting off the spigot. You could decide that, okay,
Guy Reams (11:39.086)
I'm fine with, you may discover an obstacle that's just really hard to overcome. It's going to take a long time and you may just decide I'm okay with that. I'm going to allow myself to build and build and build and continue to build until eventually I overcome this obstacle too, because I know the reward will be great.
Most likely, there will come a time when you hit an obstacle that is almost overwhelming, where you can't overcome it. That you don't have enough resources. You do not have enough strength to overcome it. This is what happens with water. You'll find a depression, a deep area, a section that the water is gonna take a long time to accumulate. In fact, it may never over accumulate. The evaporation rate or the soak -in rate of the groundwater,
maybe so much that the water will never overcome the obstacle. So this is always something that comes up. So there's a couple of things that happen when this occurs. The first one is you can just realize, hey, this is the way it is. But oftentimes you end up finding a path around it, or you find a small tributary or a small break. And usually water will find more than one of these at the same time. So water will find two or three ways around this big obstacle.
This is why you see rivers flowing around a giant area, a giant rock formation. The water finds multiple paths that go completely around it rather than overcoming it. And this is what will happen. And so different paths will start to happen and this is what I call the split. You will eventually get there too. In your life and your journey, you'll eventually find that the obstacle's too great and you need to take a diversion path and you will.
But not everybody that was along with you on the ride will go with you. Sometimes you're on your own, sometimes a few will go with you, sometimes a lot will go with you. But the idea is that there will be multiple people that take different paths when you hit an obstacle of this nature. This is usually when you've hit a level of maturity and now you need to make different decisions about where you're gonna take this journey you're on. So you'll take a diversion. Now the diversion may end up becoming something greater.
Guy Reams (13:57.102)
the diversion may become something smaller. The diversion can get into another obstacle and it just completely fails. But this is what it is. This is what life is like and this is water. So, this is what you're in for, right? Now, the final one is what I call the merger or the end result for most. The journey, the new path that you carved will eventually come to an end, just like water.
Water will eventually start to find the greatest, the least, the path of least resistance and all water will start to flow there. This is why you have the Colorado River. All water finds the path that goes down through the Lake Powell region and floods out down through the Colorado River. And that's why all water that flows out of the Rockies seems to find that river. Same thing with the Mississippi River.
All water on the East Coast just seems to flow down through the Mississippi River. Same thing. This is the path that all water seems to find. So eventually your little tributary, your little journey will find its way back to the primary river and you will merge yourself into that river and flow with everyone else. That is just inevitable. If you start a new business, you will eventually find your way into the larger path, right? There's no way around it. Now you can decide, you know what?
I'm back in the river and I'm gonna go ahead and divert myself off to another path eventually. You can do that. That's what we call being a serial entrepreneur, right? But you are eventually going to find your path to the river. Now water will eventually have a terminus. It will eventually reach the open sea. And that changes the dynamic completely. You're now at the terminus. You are no longer flowing downhill. You're now in the open ocean, right?
And so all water will find the sea eventually and the same with us. Our lives, our journey, whatever we're attempting to do, we'll eventually find is terminus. It will eventually become part of something bigger, something larger. That is our fate. Our fate in life is that we will find something bigger, something larger to be part of. That is just the way it's going to be. You will get bought out by a larger company. You'll become part of the big multinational.
Guy Reams (16:15.886)
That relationship that you built will become a large extended family with a rich history. All things have their terminus. All things will get bigger. All things merge. And so this is ultimately what water will find and so will we. Success flows like water.