Overcoming Addiction: Inspiring Stories of Sobriety and Success

KATHLEEN: Hello everyone and welcome to the journey of an awakening spirit. This is Kathleen Flanagan, your host and I hope you all had a very happy holiday season and ho ho 2024 is here.

KATHLEEN: Nick Barrett is an entrepreneur and product developer, a recovering alcoholic of six plus years. His mission to build something extends beyond his patented creation to one, a benefit nonprofit that builds and maintains housing for substance abuse recovery and two to inspire other build something and to share their creation with the world. Welcome, Nick.

NICK: Hi. Thanks for having me, Kathleen. Great to be here.

KATHLEEN: You're welcome. Nick, why don't you tell everyone what your journey is of becoming an awakening spirit?

NICK: Yeah. So quick background it goes back to of course the growing up in a great family.

NICK: No reason at all to become an alcoholic, as you mentioned. But eventually I did I graduated college and was kind of on my way in the world or so I thought and was deed by that.

NICK: I had some run ins with with the law and DUIs and I even had to spend some time in jail. That process allowed me to really have to take a deep look at myself. I mean, just sitting in a jail cell, I think anyone will tell you who's experienced it.

NICK: You're there, you can't leave. You gotta kind of do some reflecting at that time and of course, that wasn't the first time I had done some reflecting.

NICK: I had been begging myself with screaming at myself in the mirror for years to put it down to not do it the next day. I would and it seemed like I was tearing my life apart. I was intent on it.

NICK: So kind of studying that over the last several years, over 6.5 years now has been an interesting part of the process, And kind of figuring out why did I do that? And how do I not do that again? Because as any person in a 12 step program or otherwise will tell you, it's still there. You see it all the time and you have to constantly not make those bad choices anymore.

NICK: I think I'm on a path of a more awakened enlightened being now though, as you alluded to. But that has been, again, a process that continues, for me when you were giving the intro, one of the things that went through my mind was just now how I view the entire process differently.

NICK: I kind of view it. Some people will say they're grateful, recovering alcoholic. And you're at first people say grateful, why would I be thankful about this? Why would Emma be thankful?

NICK: I think it goes back to once you begin that process of that awakening journey and that search as an adult, it's different than kind of the biological transformations you go to from childhood into puberty and, adolescence and then into adulthood, which is a transformation in and of itself. But a lot of people don't really ever choose to then take a mental transformation into that next step.

NICK: And they just kind of walk through their whole lives. I think I maybe you would agree with this, maybe you would have un awakened.

NICK: And so I was one of those people for a long time and I feel like I am now on that journey which continues every day to improve myself, partially in part because of my business and what I've created there. But mostly from the humility I did experience from the falls and then just having to admit that something needed to change.

KATHLEEN: Have you decided what caused you to want to start drinking when you were younger? Cause obviously they started in adolescence. Correct?

NICK: Yeah.

NICK: I could talk for a long time about all the different things I've thought about that, but I think basically it goes down, comes down to not feeling confident and secure about myself and also not having the mental tools to go through periods of struggle in my life and solve them in a healthy way.

NICK: I'm a pretty I'll say I'm a gifted person naturally. I finished at the top of my class in school without having to try much. I am thankful for that. Very much. I don't resent that I was born with above average intelligence and what not.

NICK: But I think what reflecting on that and hearing some other people's struggles that may have went through that similar thing is you kind of expect that you're going to be able to do that in life and you can't do that as an adult. If you wanna be successful at all in a career without not living up to your own expectations.

NICK: I think really when it comes down to it, you subconsciously know that you could do better. And when you're not, you feel bad. If you do esteem able acts, you will feel good self-esteem if you do acts that are urself-esteem worthy and aren't living up to your potential.

NICK: Intrinsically, I think every human being really knows the difference of right and wrong. It takes a very long ways to go to get down a path of truly not knowing and a lot of self deception along the way, deception from other people usually, always really.

NICK: Just kind of, getting it, working myself into a place of confidence where I felt good about myself and practicing healthy mindsets. It's like it's not something that they teach you in school, maybe on purpose, that's a different discussion. But, for me, it took quite a lot of work.

NICK: Because my family, I came from, we were ok with money. Maybe my parents looking at them they weren't as well off as me. So maybe they felt like they had to do a little bit more. Both of them are oldest children. I'm an oldest child.

NICK: And so it's interesting the dichotomy because they kind of took care of their business. It's like why couldn't I?

NICK: So, a little self-actualization there.

NICK: But lots of different things like that kind of reflecting on have led to where I currently am today.

KATHLEEN: Did they notice that you were drinking a lot or were they just kind of oblivious to that?

NICK: I think they knew some I had mentioned before that I was trying to, I needed to stop drinking and they would ask me, why do you seem to need to drink so much all the time? When we hang out.

NICK: For me, it really started early. As soon as I was first drinking in high school, it really made me feel that social anxiety was gone, that I had and that feeling of insecurity getting back to that with alcohol just completely disappeared and I didn't care what people thought of me.

NICK: When I was had that nice warm cozy feeling of that first drink. The only problem is over time, it just increased and progressed. I needed more and more to get the same feeling. And of course that doesn't happen. You build a tolerance. It never ends until you stop.

KATHLEEN: I think that so much of this happens because of just peer pressure and we're awkward when we start going into high school and our hormones are raging and we want to be like the cool kids. I think there's a lot to be said because I was the same way I was very insecure.

KATHLEEN: I didn't know how to speak. I was very depressed and I didn't, wasn't a big alcohol drinker, or drugs, smoking a lot of pot, but that was enough to put me into a suicidal tendency.

KATHLEEN: I do understand that those teenage years, they're some of the worst years for any of us. I mean, we're just so lost and we're confused and we don't even have our full brain yet. So, we're walking around at such a disadvantage.

KATHLEEN: I get that. So at least that was good that your parents were at least somewhat observant, not probably know what to do to help you because sometimes I don't think our parents at that generation really knew what to do because they were so different.

KATHLEEN: I know from my mother, it was such a different experience with her. She's like, I would never think to do this to my mother. And I'm like, well, so what? You're totally different.

NICK: I agree. I think for men as well just to interject a little bit. It's our brains, it seems pretty good science that men's brains develop even slower than young ladies, the brains develop.

NICK: 16, 17, 18 and then having to go into college and then it's a total drinking culture in college, at least where I went to Penn State. It was one of the biggest party schools and I didn't join a fraternity, but we were right there near the whole downtown area and it just completely normalized.

NICK: I felt my first time going to a bar legally. I've been drinking for years, underage, of course, which in America is just the norm, I think.

NICK: I felt like this should be illegal. They're letting me buy this stuff for money. I can't believe it. It's crazy. That was how I always felt. I don't think people who aren't alcoholics always feel that way.

NICK: I think without my family as well getting sober, I mean, I'm the black sheep of the family if you want the truth be told. Very successful brothers and cousins and everybody. I wanted to when I had the opportunity to go to rehab here, I did kinda, do everything I could to be successful after that.

KATHLEEN: We're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break to hear a word from our sponsors.

KATHLEEN: We are here with Nick Barrett. Nick tell us, what were the steps that you took to get to where you are today?

KATHLEEN: I know you touched on it a little bit, but it was very broad.

NICK: Yeah.

NICK: Well, first I, decided to go to a that was my path. The 12 step program was the beginning of sobriety for me. I think the most important part of a 12 step program which, I still do occasionally attend meetings. I'm not the religious meeting goer that some, might want me to be. But for me that's a different question.

NICK: But the beginning of the process was admitting that I had a problem and then asking for help and then the help not being something of my own making and choosing, right? I had to just sort of surrender and submit to the fact that I was not in control of myself, of my body and of this substance in my relationship with it.

KATHLEEN: How old were you when you did this?

NICK: Well, the first time I went to AA, I was probably 26 but when I first got sober that was six years ago, 6.5 years ago, beginning of 2017. And, then I started going like two and three times. A day to different meetings, got sponsors at the steps, went through with that.

NICK: And then, got to working, but it wasn't really, for at least a year that I did much work.

NICK: I was mostly just working on myself and even after that, practicing a program of just, constant mental improvement and looking at your 10 stepping, as they say, just kind of daily reflection, looking at yourself and looking at your actions and trying to figure out where you could get better.

KATHLEEN: What came up for you during that period of time? Because that's a big mind. If you took a break, so to speak because you started at 26 but it was six years. I mean, it has been six years now.

KATHLEEN: You're 30 something. What happened in between that time of when or was there something that you actually committed to, did something happen to really commit to this or was there just something that you saw in your mind?

KATHLEEN: Your mindset thinking because something has to happen. I mean, we know that when we hit rock bottom, we hit rock bottom but something, but something really drives us or it doesn't drive us. What was the driving force for you?

NICK: Sure. There were a couple of things, number one, there was the legal consequence. Just the fact of the matter was that I had an alcohol ankle monitor on my ankle in the beginning. And so that was from the third I could not drink for the first four months or so.

NICK: When before I had to go to a court hearing, because I had to then go to that court hearing. And if I went to that court hearing and the alcohol, ankle monitor had sensed any alcohol and it literally sensed it from my pores.

NICK: If I had one drink, it would know and then the judge would say, oh, well, how can we, give you a lenient sentence if, you are drinking during this time when you're wearing an ankle monitor to make sure that you don't, so I had to follow that rule first and foremost, I had told myself for years that I was gonna quit and I just never had the opportunity.

NICK: So then when I was blessed with this opportunity, as it was, I decided that I was gonna take it.

NICK: There was just something in my mind that I wanted to be free from alcohol for years. I knew instinctively that it was wrong in my relationship with it was abnormal. Other people when they talked about it, they didn't view it as I did.

NICK: I had that opportunity and because I was sort of forced into it, it's like, did I want to spend more time than I had to in jail at that point? No, I did not. So, that was a very serious legal consequence.

NICK: I think also, then I had the opportunity to go to a rehab center which a family member of mine had also attended and I thought, OK, this person did it, I can do it. Also I don't want to let these other people down who I'm telling that I'm gonna give this my all. I wanted to kind of keep, stick to my word.

NICK: Something I've learned along the way is when you do lose everything, the only thing you have left is what you say. And if people that you love and trust and one around you believe what you say because if you start telling them that you're gonna do something and then they don't believe you, it just affects your confidence terribly.

NICK: They won't help you. You can't get anything you need and your life is tough. But if they know that what you say is gonna happen, that you're gonna do it, they, then this sounds very elementary.

NICK: But it was something I kind of had to relearn from a basic standpoint is I've got to stick to what I say I'm gonna do because I was the king of rationalization before getting sober.

NICK: I would, whatever excuse needed to be made for my behavior, I would find a way to make it. My parents used to say I'm a good, I would be a good attorney, good lawyer because I could argue for anything.

NICK: Just give me any sign and I'll come up with a good defense of it and you'll be like, wow, I might have to consider that, when you can do that for yourself though, that becomes a problem when you're using, why essentially and not telling yourself the truth and not being honest with yourself.

NICK: So it starts with being honest with yourself and then you start being honest with yourself and then you got to be honest with other people and then the other people, then when you're being honest with them, they got to believe what you say because you keep doing what you say.

NICK: They can rely on you and they can't even help it. They just do then believe that you, what you say is going to happen is gonna happen.

NICK: And that's what I've gotten to over the last six years is a place where I say something is gonna happen and now, instead of people kind of just scoffing and rolling their eyes at me, they say, ok, wow, ok, that sounds unbelievable. But you've been doing all this stuff that you said and now I guess, ok, you're gonna do it.

NICK: I'm excited to watch and, that gives me more confidence than to go out and do it because all these other people now are knowing that what I'm gonna say is really gonna happen because it is. And it has been.

KATHLEEN: Well, I agree with that. I know that I was talking to my business partner this morning because my vehicle's been in the shop for six weeks and I said, I just want my car back. They said this license plates were stolen while it was waiting for a part to come in and I've found the part that I need to get.

KATHLEEN: We talked about how we make things happen. We just like we're gonna do this and we look for alternatives. We look to find the answers to problems and that was something. When I came out of the drug rehab, I had to learn how to do everything that you're saying as well.

KATHLEEN: Who's gonna believe anything out of my mouth when I always lied. And yes, I was told I'd make a great attorney and I was a paralegal. So everyone said you'd be a great attorney because, you know how to argue. I was like, yeah, but I don't want to be one of them.

KATHLEEN: But the thing was, is that allowed me to start problem solving more and seeing things and looking differently because it was a whole new mindset instead of being a victim because a lot of times it's really easy to just be a victim of, oh, poor me.

KATHLEEN: Even because we're not always paying attention to what our mindset is saying or what we're thinking like that. But finding solutions to problems and people would come to me. It's like, well, I have this problem. Can you help me with this? And they knew I would get it done because you know what do you do?

KATHLEEN: You give a busy person work because they're gonna get it done. You give somebody who's not so busy, it's never gonna get done. I think you're pretty much like that being, a products guy. I understand that because I have a products business too.

KATHLEEN: I know exactly what that is that you're always looking, you're always researching, you're always trying to find streamline all of that and it just shows in everything that you do. I think that's why people can look at you now because aside from just what you did for yourself, look at what you're doing with your business and where that's going.

KATHLEEN: If you want to go ahead, we're going to take a break in about 34 minutes. But why not? Just get a start on that and then we'll just continue on once we come back from commercial break on that. Tell everybody about when your idea came to create cord brick.

NICK: Yeah. So if you've been following along, I did get so 6.5 years ago, but I thought of cord brick over eight years ago in 2015. I was, struggling to fall asleep. I would always pass out drunk. It's kind of funny now, but it wasn't really funny then. And, so I struggled to sleep. It was a real problem. Any little annoyance where I had to get up from my bed, turn the light on or get out of bed, turn my phone flashlight on or something was annoying to me. And, it still is. And, my phone cord falling on the floor was one of those things that would happen.

NICK: I'd be laying in bed and you get that little 3 ft wall charger in the plugs about halfway up on the wall behind where the nightstand height is. And that little plug tip is very light.

NICK: And so it just naturally wants to snake its way, of course, in the hardest to reach spot, you got to either move your nightstand or bed or whatever your situation is, usually it's not ideal for a plug right next to your bed and then you don't want the cord right there too. So even if it is on the counter creates this like countertop cord, spaghetti and whatnot.

NICK: So I thought, ok, I can just invent a brick really easy. It's silicone rubber and I put my cord in it and then I just put it on my nightstand or even on my bed sheet because it doesn't have adhesive on it. I can just put it wherever.

NICK: So it was kind of out of that male laziness, I'll just say wanting to solve, wanting to solve a problem and being just lazy. I thought, well, I can make it wrap around the middle and then it will solve two problems and kind of be two and one because I saw the ones that were available at the time were all adhesive.

NICK: I thought, ok, well, then it makes the adhesive sort of not necessary. And then you just, it's a weight inside and you can take it wherever you go home and away, multiple cord problems, one tool. So that was the idea for Cord Brick when I was developing it.

NICK: We kind of had a little accident where I had to redesign the product and it became taller. I set it on its other side and then I slid my phone in and I found that it could stand a cell phone and kind of hold the phone hands-free as well. And that actually has led to quite a lot here lately.

NICK: We were recently on the Today Show, with the product as a stocking stuffer, just two weeks ago on the 19th of December. So that was huge, the products. We did about five times our sales that we did the previous year, mostly through stocking stuffers.

NICK: This past year we're on a Los Angeles TV Show KTL A Rich on Tech three weeks ago. So we found a whole lot of stuff happened. We actually just got in 500 Lowe's department stores too. The Lowe's Home Depot competitor, of course. So, lots of stuff has been going on for us recently.

NICK: We're achieving some pretty big growth comparable to a company maybe like pop sockets, which a lot of people know, just kind of a little accessory you didn't know you needed. And created an entire huge market for itself, that company at least. And that's kind of what we're hoping to do.

KATHLEEN: All right. Well, we're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break and we're gonna talk a little bit more about your success because, wow. That's a lot changed since the last time I talked to you a couple of months ago.

KATHLEEN: We are here with Nick Barrett and he just told us some really exciting news. So the question is, is what are you doing today? But the question that I really want to know is how you went from nothing. You created this while you were still drinking.

KATHLEEN: And here you are today managing obviously a very explosive company and I know that can bring out a lot of stress, but you seem really calm and cool and managing it well unless you're really good at hiding it. But I'd love for the audience to know a little bit more of how you've managed this growth especially now. That is exponential.

NICK: Yeah, I mentioned, I thought of it in 2015. Actually, I didn't create the company or start doing really anything with it until a little after COVID in late 2020. So it did take about, three years into my sobriety to kind of get my head straight to where I felt like, and then kind of lots of other things happened COVID.

NICK: Of course, I think it was a big, just impact of like, ok, other jobs that I was doing went away and now is the time to do something truly unique. And I did feel like phone cords and that sort of thing weren't going anywhere. I still hadn't seen the solution out there. So, yeah.

NICK: In 2020 I did kind of have my mindset originally, a little clearer than back in 2015. I originally thought of the idea.

NICK: It's been especially the last year or so, really different. I mean, beginning of this year, this past year, if you had told me, here we are on January 2nd 2024. But if you had told me January 2nd 2023 you're gonna be on the Today Show.

NICK: You're gonna be on NBC news, Los Angeles downtown and get massive spikes to website sales, different stuff at the end of this year, I would have said, yeah. Right. National TV. We're not ready for that. But every trade show I've been going to, people have had great reactions and then our sales and numbers have kind of showed it too.

NICK: So, that's been very exciting. But yeah, as you mentioned, like the mindset change has been different and, I feel like without that precursor of having a recovery background, it would have been a little more difficult to handle all this.

NICK: And then the change and then just the stress and yeah, different problems and whatnot there's still a lot of work to be done though. That said because it is stressful and you in situations constantly that you don't have any experience with and nobody, you know has any experience with as well.

KATHLEEN: Do you find mentors to help you with some of this? Because I think you would almost need a mentor just to help steer the ship a little bit.

NICK: Yeah. And honestly, I'm always looking to talk to other entrepreneurs. I think, one thing that brought me was that group dynamic. I've never done Weight Watchers myself, but if I did, I would want to do something with a group, I would want to not go it alone.

NICK: That sort of thing really helped me just having the group that support of people and seeing like different people's perspectives. I think also, you don't have to listen to every single person in a meeting or any place you go, you can go to find a different group, find a different, few people that you listen to.

NICK: It's a handful of people. I've found a mentor in this organization called Score. It's an organization of retired executives that volunteer their time.

NICK: And one of them has become my friend here and is my current, mentor, I have several other mentors and I'm always looking to network with people in the community or that are well connected or just have their life together.

NICK: I can model mine closer to what these successful people are doing. I think really one of the things missing from, in my opinion, our culture and our society are clear, people that you can, you should aim to emulate in every way that they're living their life.

NICK: There's so many people that are, public very well that are just not living an awakened healthy spiritual life in my opinion. I think to go and seek that in my own life has been difficult but a worthy mission.

NICK: And the people that I have found and been able to kind of literally just imitate what they're doing as well as I can and try to take an honest look at what I'm not doing as well as them get, maybe get some feedback and they'll give it to me that has been probably as important as anything that I've done for myself has been the feedback I've gotten from my actions taken there.

NICK: From these other, these other folks and mentors.

KATHLEEN: Do you contribute? Because you said that you're helping with housing for alcoholic recovery and you've been doing that almost since the onset of your business. Is that correct?

NICK: Absolutely. Yeah. Every year we, that's right. We donate just a small amount. And to a small organization in Florida here.

KATHLEEN: Do you think that could be part of what's contributing is because you were giving before you had it so to speak?

NICK: I did get a little pushback from people saying like, are you sure you need to give money when you're not paying yourself and stuff? So, yeah, that and then I think this past year just kind of talking about the build something mission which I think you just hear are alluding to here.

NICK: Initially, I thought, OK, I wanna donate some of my company proceeds and, our charitable contribution, which many companies do to building housing for recovery. I thought that would be a noble mission. It's close to my heart.

NICK: We build bricks, so it's kind of like the bricks help with building. But then I thought, there's some time spent here at FGCU, a local university, something maybe more impactful that I could do is actually mentor other young people and just kind of share my experience, particularly people who are trying to build and create something.

NICK: I feel pretty proud about my brand. I get a lot of compliments on cord brick the logo, the look, the packaging and then just like the story that we kind of tell with the product.

NICK: If you back out and think about it, it's a little piece of silicone with metal inside that we sell for 10 bucks. So it doesn't cost $10 to make, right? That's the trick of the business is but you can do that too, and so I want to inspire other people to do that.

NICK: And so that's why I've kind of went to the local universities, I speak at the entrepreneurship schools and I aim to inspire because I think I can probably have a bigger impact doing that and then connecting people helping them in any way I can offering free mentoring service. So, that's how I'm trying to give back. I kind of mentioned earlier in our discussion, I don't attend as many a a meetings as I used to.

NICK: I think the way that I'm kind of trying to make up for that if you will is by giving my experience to other entrepreneurs or people who might go create something of value in another way I can so maybe they can go create their own, like build something mission of their own too and then pay it forward as well.

KATHLEEN: Now, I love that idea. I mean, we were talking my business partner and I again were talking because, parts in our world for vehicles is becoming more and more challenging to find. And there's lots of discussions going on about it.

KATHLEEN: I look at it as boy, somebody could make a lot of money if they could just create the parts that they need because it's like find a niche and fill the need. And there is, there's so much that we could use and even though yours isn't so much a so called need, but it was a need because I know about the cords.

KATHLEEN: I know what a pain in the ass it is. They unplug, they fall, you can trip over them, all sorts of things happen. So, I mean, what a beautiful idea that you came up with that because we never know what these things come.

KATHLEEN: We create them twice first in our mind and then in physical form. So it's always everything including a pen was created in somebody's mind before it ever happened. Find a need and fill the niche, you know what I mean? And you're a prime example of something like that.

KATHLEEN: That was kind of probably a little bizarre to people and they kind of might look at you a little weird and all of that because I started aromatherapy in 1995. Long before the world was even know much about organics, recycling aromatherapy alternative medicines.

KATHLEEN: I was down that road and they all looked at me like I was a little crazy and I'm like, well, too bad because you know what, I know where we're going people and we're there, right? We're there. And so again, I'm still another 10 years ahead because I see other things and way out there in the future that I'm working on pulling towards me.

KATHLEEN: But I contributed that is that when you're connected to spirit as you were, even if you were still drinking. At that point, the message came in, you got it and it was just a little bit of a light to get you sparked up just a little bit.

NICK: It was. I think you're right. I think there, I mean, think about how many things are in people's imagination that never come fruition for whatever reason.

NICK: You talk to a lot of people, I talked to a lot of people in my own personal life where I think man, this person is brilliant. Like I'm not nearly as and then you, find out later, they haven't done too much with their life.

NICK: And you think, man, why are you not using these gifts that you have? I think unleashing that creativity because it does take a different, a vision of something first, as you mentioned and us, visionaries.

NICK: I was a perfectionist personally and I think that kind of stopped me for a long time because I thought man, if I can't do the perfect thing for me, why do anything? And that was the wrong mindset, I should have just tried and started getting my 10,000 hours in that pursuit of creating something.

NICK: I think maybe not even if I didn't know what it was, I could have learned more along the way. That would have got me here maybe a little faster. I wouldn't have had to kind of gone through some of the speed bumps I have.

NICK: Because you don't really know what you're gonna create when you create and you're gonna also think of or, and learn so many different things along the way that just weren't part of the plan that will benefit you and they will show the people that you're, that are close to you in your life that you know that you're taking it seriously, you're really giving a full effort and it will impress them.

NICK: I mean, if you spend that time you're just gonna stumble upon things and you're gonna say, well, it was just luck and they'll say no. But you did that, you know? And it's like, yeah, I, I guess I did.

NICK: Yeah, so it's an accident kind of along the way.

KATHLEEN: It's perfect. I mean, you knew you were coming down to do that one way or another. It was just, when do we wake up to realize that?

KATHLEEN: I think when you're creating something like that, a product, especially there's so much of your stuff that comes to your face because you really look at everything, you look at your limitations, you look at how you're handling money or how you view money or how you are with people.

KATHLEEN: And if you trust people, if you trust the process, there's so much because I went through so many things of my own personal evolution with awakening spirit.

KATHLEEN: I believed in the product. But to me, I was, they didn't have the word then, but it was the imposter syndrome because I thought I was an impostor because how should I know this?

KATHLEEN: But I just did and when you have to overcome limitations like that, and I think we're so much more enlightened today that we can get around that imposter syndrome or we can have that confidence or somebody else can sit there and be your cheerleader because sometimes it gets a little lonely out there when you're creating something like what you did and you're the only one fighting for it and believing in it and having that vision and you get a cheerleader or two behind you, you're unstoppable.

KATHLEEN: I mean, that's been my experience is we become unstoppable when somebody cheers us on because us visionaries, we're so alone out in the world. 90% of the time. we're gonna go ahead and take a quick commercial break and we'll get to talk to you when we get back and how people can get a hold of you.

KATHLEEN: We have Nick Barrett in the room with us today. Nick, what would be one piece of advice you would offer our audience to help them move in a different direction, to achieve their dreams or become a better version of themselves?

NICK: Yeah. So my build something mission is all about inspiring other people to do that. I think the first step to doing that is to go out and tell someone your idea and a lot of people push back on that because they say Oh, I don't want someone to steal my idea. Well, my push back is, well, probably you're not gonna do it. So don't worry about that. But if you do do it, probably no one's also gonna steal it.

NICK: And the reason is because it's your idea, you have the vision, they're not inside your head. You know, one of the biggest mistakes that people usually make is thinking and one of the reasons for social anxiety, at least for me, I've learned is that you think that people can see inside your head and what you're thinking more than they can silence is usually OK.

NICK: And a lot of times people talk too much. I'm one of those people. And it shows your nerves and whatnot. And so, but one thing you can do to get started on your mission, I believe is to tell other people and start becoming accountable to them by telling them you're gonna do something and telling them your idea about what you're gonna create because they're gonna ask you questions, they're gonna give you push back.

NICK: And then it's gonna help further develop your idea and maybe it won't be that idea, but maybe it will be the next one that you decide to go pursue. And if you need to protect it, you'll figure out how to protect it along the way with intellectual property.

KATHLEEN: Yes, that's very true. Nick, tell everybody how they can get a hold of you and for the future and if they want to buy your Cord Brick where they can get that.

NICK: Absolutely. So it's Cord Brick Cor DB R IC K and you can find us on social media at Cord Brick. And then you can go to Cord Brick.com, you can search Cord Brick on Amazon.

NICK: And that would be the best ways to find us. We're on all the main social media sites and yeah, check our website, great stocking stuffers for cord bricks. Great gifts as well. Nothing to break or wear out. So, yeah, thanks a lot.

KATHLEEN: You're welcome. Does it come in different colors?

NICK: Of course. Yeah, I gotta have the different colors. I think they're cool colors too. So definitely check them out.

KATHLEEN: I know I got mine. We got ours and so it was like, so which one do you want? What color do you want? Because you sent two colors and it was really cool to see it because it works really well and the fact that we could put our phone in it and we played with like how to get the phone to be the way we wanted the phone to be.

KATHLEEN: It's a really ingenious idea of what you came up with and it works really, really well.

NICK: Thanks. Yeah, when people put it in their hands, it's squishy and flexy and you can kind of fidget with it too. So it just kind of feels good to have her on your desk. I think that's another thing, people just like grabbing on it, it's durable. It's not gonna mark up your desk or anything like that too. So, mess up your cord or phone or.

KATHLEEN: Whatever and it's not awkward in the hand at all. It's very comfortable to hold in your hand as well. That's another thing.

KATHLEEN: Ok. I think that's pretty much I don't have anything else. Do you have anything else you want to say to our listeners?

NICK: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. I appreciate the questions about my journey. Help me think too. Hope I share a little something with your listeners and happy to chat with anyone that wants to reach out.

KATHLEEN: All right. Well, I wanna thank you for joining us today. It was a great pleasure to have you on and learning a little bit more about your journey and I love the success that you're having. I mean, congratulations. Seriously. Congratulations on this amazing success that you're having today.