Sewing Wild Oats - Ryan Brubaker

Ryan is a low-stress guy, but when he acquired a business from its retiring owners, he found he had even more things to not stress about. Like many entrepreneurs, he finds himself processing issues at 2:00 in the morning. Staffing, payroll, cost controls, profitability, and anything else to keep you up at night.

Ryan told me that life is too short to put up with these things. And to navigate the stress of business and life, he’s picked up at least three methods to manage stress and anxiety.

• The Lookout method
• Couch Counting method
• The Baby Carrier method

After we talked about how to navigate stress, we talked about how Ryan has 9 kids, which made me want to go back to the first topic. (It’s stressful enough having a dog.)

We talked about the differences he sees in each kid, whether the traditional college path, entrepreneurship, or something else is right for each of them. We also talked about whether AI would make all of their jobs (and ours) obsolete. I’ll ask Claude to figure this one out for me, or just invite Ryan back for another conversation focused on the future of technology.

About the Guest:

• Ryan Brubaker is an entrepreneur who recently acquired Select Sewing (https://contact.selectsewingservice.com/) and has served as a CIO for several companies.

About the Hosts:

• Daniel Herndon is a brand strategist at HRNDN Brand Agency (HRNDN.com) and author of The Lorem Ipsum (danielkherndon.com).
• Michael Salemi owns a branded apparel and promotional products company, Colored Threads (colored-threads.com).