Randy Nelson is a speaker, a coach, a Qualified Entrepreneur, and a former nuclear submarine officer in the U.S. Navy. He co-founded and later sold two market-leading, multimillion dollar companies–Orion International and NSTAR Global Services. Randy now runs Gold Dolphins LLC, a coaching and mentoring firm to help entrepreneurial leaders and CEOs become Qualified Entrepreneurs and achieve their maximum potential. Randy is my guest for next week’s podcast where we talked about his new book, The Second Decision. 
An excerpt from the podcast:
Joe: The Second Decision, maybe is kind of out of place. Maybe it’s something you should read before you make the first decision.
Randy: You know, it’s great, it’s a great point. I got interviewed last week, and here’s how I answered the question. They said, “Who do you think should read the book?” I thought, “Tell you what, I’m going to answer it two ways. I think the people who need to read the book are the people who are in the middle of building a business. They may not necessarily like what they hear or read in it, but they really need to read it.” Some of them when they start to read they’ll say “Oh, that’s a lot of work, and I’m not sure I want to involve myself in all that.” I think the people that will absolutely read it are the people who are about to start because they’re soaking up as much knowledge as they can, and they want to know how to build a business. I think the people who are just starting will read it and say “Boy that makes all the sense in the world.” The people who are in the middle of the fight, they’re going to look at it as a little bit of work because they’re not necessarily doing these things right now.
Joe: I think it’s interesting that you break it apart into that leader, role player and creator because what I see a lot of entrepreneurs do is when they start out in a company they end up hiring a mirror to themselves, if there’s someone like themselves because they just can’t get it all done. They just need someone like them, they think. What you’re doing is you’re setting in place, those areas that they need support even if it’s just a relationship to be able to talk to. I look at not only about who I am but also who I need to surround myself with.
Randy: Yeah, and it goes back to the definition of self-awareness which is you’ve got to become aware where your shortcomings and weaknesses are hurting the company and then understand how to either overcome or compensate for them. This is the difficult part for entrepreneurs is I think to get that self-awareness, that be a little vulnerable because we love self-confidence as entrepreneurs, that’s what makes us great. With a little vulnerability and understanding we don’t have to know everything, and then it because a little easier to at some point. I’ve built two businesses from scratch to exit but I have turned both over because it came to a point in the company’s operating cycle that I knew I wasn’t going to be the best guy in the next five years to run the business. It was becoming a little bit operational and that wasn’t my absolute strength and love so I turned over my first business at thirteen years and my second business in 12 years and the person who came into that business was much better than me at that point. That allowed me to go back and start another business.