1
0,00:00,000 --> 0,00:31,000
Cut the tie to anything holding you back from success. Welcome to the Cut the Tie podcast. Hi. I'm your host, Thomas Helfrich. And in each episode, we bring you real entrepreneurs that really overcame challenges on their journey to become successful. We look at the impact, the moment, how it affected everything in their lives. Follow us on Apple, Spotify, and YouTube. Now let's meet our guest on Cut the Tie podcast. Thank you for taking the time to get on here. I appreciate it. You know, let's start with the basics. And who are you?
2
0,00:31,000 --> 0,01:11,000
I'm Lisa Ducharme, retired air force veteran, which is the most important part of who I am, and I am the executive director of the Massachusetts Veterans Chamber of Commerce. Our goal is to empower our veteran military, military spouse entrepreneurs and help them with everything from idea stage all the way to exiting their business. Tell me who who you serve exactly. So my focus is only on either entrepreneurs or business owners who are veteran, military, or military spouse. I generally focus on Massachusetts only. However, I do assist other people outside The United or outside of Massachusetts.
3
0,01:11,000 --> 0,01:15,000
I I want you to hook the audience and tell me what your power statement is. You know, why should someone
4
0,01:15,000 --> 0,02:10,000
work with you? So the reality is I am the only one of a handful of veteran business experts. What I mean by that is I'm not only an expert in business, but I'm an expert in veterans, and I know how to integrate our veteran status and and what we did in the military with business. And those are always the two most important things. And when you integrate them together, we stand out in our dynamos. And people need to understand that as a veteran, you are uniquely different. I mean, let's face it. The military broke you down to build you up for a reason. And the military tries to tell you, well, I wanna transition you to be a civilian. You can't transition a veteran to be a civilian. I don't care who you are. They've been doing it for longer than I've been in the military and longer than I've been retired, but we need to teach our military how to be veterans.
5
0,02:10,000 --> 0,02:26,000
And into this world too. Right? Like, it's it is a different game because, you know, you're you're coming in and you the military smashes you down, rebuilds you. Here we just and then the society just slowly cuts you cuts you back down. What was the tie that you had to cut to become as successful as you are today? I had to actually
6
0,02:26,000 --> 0,03:29,000
realize that I that I was a veteran and that it was okay to be a veteran. When you transition and you go into the civilian world from being military so my entire life is military. My dad retired with thirty years in the air force. I retired with a little over twenty years. And all of a sudden, I jump into this civilian world. I have no idea how to fit in. And even though you would think that why would I not know how to fit in, when you call somebody ma'am or sir and then you get chewed out for calling that person ma'am or sir, that reality just smacks you right in the face. That was the cut I had that that's what I had to cut. I had to realize, you know what? It's okay to be a veteran. I don't have to be a civilian. And that was the moment that I wanted to, a, hit him in the face, which I did not because that's not the right thing to do. I was like, wait a minute. Why are we arguing about something as basic as we're both vets? Why is this even an argument? And it was that moment that I realized he was just transitioning
7
0,03:29,000 --> 0,03:47,000
to being a civilian. And my problem was he was trying to be a civilian and not trying to be a vet. What's the impact been on your business, personal life, relationships, if you will, even after you've kind of you made the choice to say, I'm done with that. I'm gonna accept that. I'm not gonna try to become a civilian. I'm gonna try to become a veteran. The impact was
8
0,03:47,000 --> 0,04:21,000
I actually am now forcing people to look at it in a different way. I'm forcing individuals to actually look at the lessons and the skills. So running the Massachusetts Veterans Chamber of Commerce, now I incorporate everything in there. It doesn't affect my personal life because to me, every day is Veterans Day. The mindset shift did not affect my personal life because for me, what I didn't realize is I transitioned as a veteran through one of the jobs that I had with Diane Duquette, who was the vice president of development.
9
0,04:21,000 --> 0,04:44,000
It allowed you to become who you are. Out it, you're chasing two different like, you never find the way to help others by so it freed you to help others. It's like, you know what? I own it. I can't tell people to go be this unless I am this. You're not here without cutting your own tie and say, listen. You have to. Give me the lesson for the listeners. The same advice I always give. It's it's for me the most important piece of advice I can offer to anybody.
10
0,04:44,000 --> 0,05:25,000
That is that you have to find time to reflect on you. I always tell my clients, the last line of my obituary does not read, I wish I worked more. It says cherish each moment. I did. And I need people to really take that the way it means. You have to don't let things bother you. You get into a fight with somebody, resolve the issue. If that means that you have to agree to disagree, agree to disagree. You can't have all this anger and hatred within you because it just breaks you down, and it tears you apart. Enjoy each moment. We are not promised right now. We are not promised tonight. We are not promised tomorrow.
11
0,05:25,000 --> 0,05:47,000
So cherish what you have. I love that. It's one of my, my lessons in life is, you know, time lost can never be found, I think, Benjamin Franklin's. And that is so true that you should not assume you have more time. Take control. If if not now, when? And why are you waiting? You ready for some rapid fire? I am. Who gives you inspiration? Queen Latifah. I have been following her for over twenty
12
0,05:47,000 --> 0,07:47,000
years. She's filled with grace. She has not done an interview or a talk show or accepted an award without thanking other people, without mentioning other people. It's never just about her. I love the fact that she inspires people. If you watch any of her TV shows, any of her movies, any of her interviews, if you listen to her series on Audible, you will hear nothing but inspiration, ways to get out of out of the negative. It it's all there. There's lessons in everything that she does for people to follow. Yeah. What about the best business advice you've ever received? Best business advice I ever received was stop what I was doing. My original business was photo art because I love taking photos, not good photos, by the way, just photos, and then combining them all together. And it is the best business advice I got was, Lisa, just stop. Do something else. Reformat, restructure, and get out of the photo art business. Who gave you that advice? It was Mike Zakaya. He passed away in 2022, but he was the founder and the director of the University of Connecticut entrepreneur boot camp for veterans. What's the book do you think is a must read for entrepreneurs, and what was the, like, one major thing you got from it? It's the ultimate sales machine. Every entrepreneur should read it. Chet Holmes, he passed away many years ago. His daughter has done an update to it. And the reason that that one book is important is because that one book is all about educational marketing. The true value that we offer to people is education. And if you can educate people and not make everything about the sale and don't get me wrong, Chet Holmes made everything about the sale. He also was very education based, and everything he did was education based. If you had to start over today, what would you do differently? If I had to restart today, what I would have to do is I'd have no choice but to really sit back and think about what I'm good at and what I wanna do and who I wanna help. Because a lot of times, people will start businesses,
13
0,07:47,000 --> 0,08:22,000
and they won't think about their why. And I know when I started any of my businesses, my why was not my main thing, but that would be the very first thing that I would have to do is I'd have to get my why. It's interesting because you can't sometimes discover that why until later in life, and there's no way you would know the why because it would be incorrect back then. But I get that that's the dilemma of wisdom. See, I I would differ with you. You're Please. Please. I I I would not have had that, just to be clear. Autobiography and that, my why would have been like, money, money, money, and now I'm kinda like But see, that was your superficial why. Every your superficial why is deep to me, Lisa. I mean, it felt real deep at that point.
14
0,08:22,000 --> 0,09:57,000
Superficial why is deep to me, Lisa. I mean, it felt real deep at that point. Okay. That's all. It did. But if somebody sat with you back then and said, let's dig a little bit deeper and do the seven levels deep, you get to the real why. And the real why for you very, very easily could have been the same why today that you have for today. So if you think about your real why for today, why in the world would anybody wanna do a podcast and help people? You can help people by writing books. You can help people by doing Zooms live for free. You can do a whole bunch of different things. Why podcast? And if you think back to your original why, which you say is money, money, money, if you dig deep and if you look, you'll probably see that your why today after you've had time to think about it, reflect on it, and really work on it is the same that it would have been all those years ago. Money. Okay. Final question ish. There's one question I should've asked you today, but I did not. What would that question be, and how do you answer? I would ask someone like me. So you're an introvert and an extrovert. How in the world do you come on a podcast or do what you do as an introvert and someone who's shy? Because this is not your world. And my answer is I use my alter ego. How do, it's I call it shameless plug time. Who should get ahold of you? How do they do it? And where should people do the shameless plug? So people can find me. The website is massvcc.org. I am on LinkedIn, but limit my connection's on LinkedIn. So if you wanna connect with me on LinkedIn, it's linkedin slash lisa ducharme.
15
0,09:57,000 --> 0:9:59,000
But you better put the message because if you're not telling me why you wanna connect, I will delete you. On Instagram, which is lisa ducharme twenty twenty or mass v c c twenty twenty three. Any cool offers to get anybody? I'll give you a lead magnet, and I'll send it your way so you can put it out there. I like it. Because I got lots of lead magnets. I have lots of things, educational pieces that I love to share with people. Awesome. For anybody watching, right, listening, I really appreciate, checking out the show today. We are on a mission to help you cut the tie to everything holding you back. Thank you for joining us on this episode of Cut the Tie. Let's stay connected. Please hit that follow button on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube. And if you're ready to advance your entrepreneurial journey even further, join our free community at facebook.com/groups/cutthetie. Cut the tie to everything holding you back from success.