Podcast Blog #2: Chris Gillan — Walking through fear to go from valeting cars to entrepreneur, investor, and mentor (Fear is a Liar: Ep. 2)
Have you ever woken up in the morning and faced immense fear of the unknown? Or even fear of the known, unsure how you’re going to tackle what lies ahead? Had to come face-to-face with your greatest fears to move forward? Have you been held at gunpoint in the jungle of Honduras?
Ok, the last one may be unique to our guest on episode #2 of my podcast, Fear is a Liar, Chris Gillan. Chris shows us how facing your fears and using your negative feelings to lunge toward your goals can lead to success.
Chris grew up with a desire to always know what was next, what was around the corner. But, growing up in a single-parent household with little extra money limited his ability to explore the world. So when he got the chance to leave home and explore on his own, he did so and never looked back. From the risk of traveling through the jungle of Honduras to leaving his full-time job to start his own business, Chris has overcome fears that kept him up at night to make it to the top.
Here are some takeaways from my interview with Chris:
Laugh at your fear to move forward in the face of uncertainty (2:38)
As a kid, Chris rode his bike for miles to see what he could discover. As soon as he had the opportunity to be more mobile, he expanded his radius of exploration with motorcycles, cars, and eventually airplanes.
When a friend backed out on a trip through South America while in college, Chris decided to go anyway — even though his friend was the one who spoke Spanish, not Chris. So, he set a home base in English-speaking Belize and then went on week-long travels to different South American countries. The trip was going great until things went wrong in Honduras. Chris got on the wrong bus and ended up at a border crossing between the government-controlled and guerilla controlled area in Honduras. He found himself face-to-face with a fourteen-year-old boy pointing a machine gun directly at him. When the boy asked for his visa, Chris immediately handed it over. To show off his strength to his group, the boy looked at the visa, then ate it. At that moment, Chris wasn’t sure he’d make it out alive. Eventually, the group did let Chris go after some convincing, and he finally made it back to Belize.
His instinct was to end the trip and go home after being faced with the possibility of death in the Honduran jungle. But, he knew if he left and didn’t get back on a bus to travel to a new place, he’d never do it. He needed to face the fear he’d experienced in Honduras and prove he could walk through it and make it to the other side.
“If I get on this bus and do this, by the end of the day, I’ll look back and laugh at the fear,” Chris said.
Using a shark-like mentality to fight off a deluge of negativity (11:15)
When he left school, Chris worked as a valet at the largest limousine company in Texas. After several summers parking cars, an EVP at the company left and decided to hand the reins to Chris, even though he had never held a role in the company other than as a valet himself. Suddenly, Chris was in charge of 300 people.
He describes the experience as “absolute madness,” as he was always in crisis management. Any given day could see a car stolen, a car crashed, or just employees and customers yelling at him because they were upset about something gone wrong.
Chris describes himself as a “shark” for facing the constant deluge of negativity and using it as a slipstream to lunge towards his goals.
With new daily challenges, Chris would wake up in fear — fear of both the unknown and known. He dreaded all the upcoming struggles with his valet team and angry customers but began to anticipate them in advance. So, every morning he told himself that the fear isn’t real. Then, he’d remind himself that by 7 pm, he’d be home from work and laugh at having had that fear when he woke up.
Being uncomfortable helps take you to the next level (16:40)
Chris credits those early challenges at the valet company as making him comfortable dealing with the uncomfortable. He saw at an early age what he could gain from facing his fears. So, in his subsequent roles in business, Chris always set a date in the future and promised he’d stay at a company at least through that date, no matter how hard it got. Then after that date, he’d pivot to a new challenge to allow himself to tackle new challenges and opportunities.
Betting your future on a scary decision to go all-in on a dream (18:44)
Working at a software company called Ideara, Chris found success in learning how to build a top-notch sales organization within a business. So, Chris went to the company’s founders and asked to be the VP of Sales at their next startup. To his surprise, the founders encouraged him to start his own company, given his strengths in finding new markets and building exceptional sales teams. They even offered to help him do it with guidance and advice.
So, he starts his own company while still working full time at Idera. Money was tight because he and his business partner were paying company expenses out of their personal funds. At one point, Chris had to decide between buying his son a Christmas gift or paying his company’s developers, and he paid the developers. This decision put into perspective the financial risk Chris was taking to build his own business.
Knowing they needed someone to be full time to grow the company to the next level, Chris had to leave his secure job and go into the company full time, knowing that that level of commitment was necessary to find investors and grow.
How did it feel? He was “scared to death”, but felt confident the fear would be alleviated when they raised their Series A funding round. But then the VC firm backed out, and their funding opportunity vanished.
“It was like I was staring at a lion...I can’t believe I put family in this position, I can’t believe I put the company in this position...the fear it just overtakes you..I turned white”
But Chris trained himself to get back into thinking about using the negatives to pivot to a positive. He didn’t let fear paralyze him. He kept moving. Two months later, they finally closed a deal. And again, he could look back and laugh at the fears he had before knowing he came out the other side.
This experience showed that you have to have the self-awareness that this challenge will pass, but you have to experience the pain to grow.
Don’t try to hide from emotion, examine it. (27:32)
From all his experiences, Chris has learned a lot of lessons in self-awareness of fear. What is it that makes you feel like this? “Feel the fear, let it envelop you, and awareness of the fear and what brings it on helps it disappear”, Chirs said.
Outro (33:35)
After tackling challenge after challenge and fear after fear, Chris is now prepared to help his mentees at Capital Factory face their fears. If you have a dream, you can’t let fears stop you. When you have fear, either your dream is over, or you walk through the fear and to your goals. Always keep in mind the dream you have at the end of this, whether it’s a business goal, a dream home, or just freedom.
Shout-outs
A quick shout out to Simon and Stephanie who helped me produce the show. Thank you. To my daughter Savreen and our future Gyani’s, I hope you hear or read about this episode one day, and it provides some value on your journey. For the readers and listeners, if the show provided positive takeaways, please subscribe, leave an apple podcast review, and share with others in your network.
Thanks for checking out the FEAR is a LIAR podcast blog — Where we share how my guests embraced all the FEARs related to risk, self-doubt, failure, unknowns, what didn’t work, and how they dealt with it.
I’m out.
Ep. #2 | Fear is a Liar Podcast w/ Chris Gillan & Ronnie Gyani
0:00 | Intro
2:38 | Laughing at fear to move forward in the face of uncertainty
11:15 | Using a shark-like mentality to fight off a deluge of negativity
16:40 | Being uncomfortable helps take you to the next level
18:44 | Betting your future on a scary decision to go all-in on a dream
27:32 | Don’t try to hide from emotion, examine it
33:35 | Outro
Links & Resources
Chris Gillan and Ronnie Gyani at the Capital Factory (Austin, Texas)
