EPISODE 235 WITH JIM HARDWICK: THE JOURNEY FROM CORPORATE AMERICA TO ENTREPRENEURIAL SERVICE

Ready Yet?! Podcast with Jim Hardwick: The Journey from Corporate America to Entrepreneurial Service

Transcribed with Descript

Erin Marcus: All right. All right. Welcome. Welcome to this episode of the Ready Yet podcast. I finally had to remember to hit record. Mr. Jim Hardwick and I just like to talk to each other. It is what it is. But I can’t wait to share your experiences with you. You know, while we’re in the quote unquote green room, green room talking about the amazing things you’re doing, the things you had to go through to get there.

Erin Marcus: And you can share as much of that as you want. But this idea of About figuring out your passion and being pulled forward by it. And I can’t wait to share yours with everybody. So before we get into all the, all the, the dirty underbelly of it, how you tell everybody who you are and what it is that you do.

Jim Hardwick: Well, thank you, Erin. It’s great to be. On your podcast today. I really appreciate it. My name is Jim Hardwick. I live in Phoenix, Arizona, which is I I’ve lived all over the country, but I love Phoenix because it’s warm most of the year. And what I do, I do a couple of different things. I am a fractional outsource VP of sales.

Jim Hardwick: So I work for myself. I’m powered by an organization called sales acceleration. There’s actually 190 of us across the country in England and Canada. And so I help small to mid sized businesses that are in sales pain, need sales infrastructure, or need sales management. I go in there and I’m a sales builder.

Jim Hardwick: I’m not a consultant. We go and roll our sleeves up and we get the work done. I was in corporate America for 36 years. Mostly healthcare driven. And we’ve all experienced corporate America.

Erin Marcus: And healthcare. Yeah, wrong subject for me today, but okay.

Jim Hardwick: I learned a lot, got a lot of wisdom from the experience. I took a year off because of stress at one time.

Jim Hardwick: Learned a lot about that and I vowed I would never let myself do that again or anybody that’s ever worked for me. So now I absolutely love what I do because I can work with small to mid sized business, between one to 70 million. And. Go in there and help them grow the revenue. That is to me gets me up out of bed every morning.

Erin Marcus: Oh, it’s so much and I had a great, like you, I had a great corporate career. I worked with amazing people. I learned so much, but it’s so removed from a feeling of impact. Like there was a feeling of accomplishment when I would close a deal and put pieces together and, you know, but it didn’t feel like that impact went beyond those four walls.

Jim Hardwick: Or, next Tuesday, They decide they’re going to downsize the company and you are a great employee and you’ve given 16 hours a day, but yet your numbers in the, your, your name’s on the bullet and you’re gone.

Erin Marcus: And there’s no control over it. Right. I mean, I didn’t have, but my version of that, that really bothered me was we would put these amazing opportunities together and these deals together and they take a year or two years, three years.

Erin Marcus: And then one of the parties would be like, you know, we’re just going to go in a different direction. And all your work just goes away. And I get it. I got paid to show up regardless, but I want, I have a bigger attachment to my effort than, hey, I came in, I clocked in, I clocked out, I got paid for sitting at the desk.

Erin Marcus: Who cared?

Jim Hardwick: I cared. But now, when you work for yourself, If I put in time on Saturdays and Sundays, which I often do, I’ll write articles or whatever. I walk out of my office going, it’s a great day. When I used to, if I had to work on Saturday, Sunday, walk in my office and look at my wife and said, I’m done.

Jim Hardwick: When can we retire? I can’t do this anymore. It’s taken away from my family. Nobody cares. It’s just such a flip. And you know, every minute you put invest in your business, Is it investment in yourself and your family and it’s just it’s very inspiring.

Erin Marcus: Yeah, and I will For people like you and me who are so excited about it.

Erin Marcus: We can make it sound easy and very little of it is easy like it’s Learning how inspiring and exciting and easy are probably mutually exclusive, right? I mean if i’m excited about it ads are it’s not easy

Jim Hardwick: You nailed it it takes A lot, a lot of work and at sales acceleration, there’s 190 and I wasn’t a job.

Jim Hardwick: I just left recently where I was in charge. Responsible for the success of 190 of these people and they’re great professionals, but we had people they didn’t want to work. They wanted to say they had their own business, but they weren’t willing to put in the effort. And then they wonder why they failed.

Jim Hardwick: And it would just broke my heart. Because they invest in this and they want to be successful, but they’re not willing to put it you’ve got to work your tail off when you were

Erin Marcus: right. And I have a lot, you know, I try to, I do try to come to that with an empathetic approach because I know what we’re up against.

Erin Marcus: Right, I know what we’re up against from neuroscience, I know what we’re up against from business acumen, like, I get it, but yes, there are people who, they think they’re pressing an easy button by joining a franchise, they think they’re pressing an easy button by, you know, putting out their own shingle.

Erin Marcus: You know, I don’t have to listen to anyone anymore. And anytime, what I have learned is anytime you think you are pressing an easy button, you are taking a shortcut. Hell, even if it was long and you say to yourself, I think I finally have this figured out. Doom. Signals doom. Like, that just, That’s not how this works,

Erin Marcus: That’s not how this works.

Jim Hardwick: No, no, no, no. And especially, and this is any job, if it’s corporate, if it’s working herself, your first year is always your hardest. Yeah. And I, I used to, when I was a, I got transferred around the country and things, or different jobs and my wife, we’d always look at each other and go first year.

Jim Hardwick: And you just know because you’re learning and you’re, you’re understanding the culture and you’re understanding their people and you under. And the same thing when you’re a solopreneur, you’re learning, you’re building a network, you’re building referral partners. Every business I get is through referral partners.

Jim Hardwick: And that’s the myth for a lot of fractional people out there. If it’s via coaches, if it’s, there’s so many different fractional people and they don’t understand the power of how you cultivate and develop a referral network. And it takes time. It takes effort and it takes lot, a lot of zoom calls. But it’s what for you build that your business is set for years to come.

Jim Hardwick: And.

Erin Marcus: Well, it’s because, you know, the other thing is, if you look at the age difference, and this isn’t like a dig, this is just how we were brought up, my generation, we were brought up interacting with each other, and so we realized the power of that. And younger generations, they just weren’t brought up that way.

Erin Marcus: They really weren’t. They were brought up online. And so and I I’ve been talking about this idea of what stages your business in. Are you growing? Are you leveraging or are you scaling? And one of the biggest challenges and mistakes I’m watching people make is they should be working on growing or leveraging, but they’re jumping the scaling strategies that it’s nothing wrong with the strategy.

Erin Marcus: They’re just not ready for it, right? It’s a mismatch. And you could get everything you want with growth or leveraged strategy is a different game. Scaling strategy is a different game, but Instagram would have you believing that’s where you start,

Erin Marcus: right? And if you just don’t know any better, again, not being a jerk, but just with empathy, if you just don’t know any better, why wouldn’t you believe that?

Jim Hardwick: Well, and you’re exactly right. And I think that’s a struggle is everybody sees. What they see on social media. And as far as I’m concerned, if you look at social media, everybody is making 5 million in place without

Erin Marcus: working, right?

Erin Marcus: By sitting at the pool and pictures of their toes,

Jim Hardwick: loves world peace. And they have a cocktail in their hand and life is great. And it’s, it’s reality is it’s not that way. People still buy from people. And as I always preach, I preach this to anybody I work with. When you first meet somebody, when you’re fractional, when you’re got your own business, or if you’re in sales, you want to sell something, you got to first build trust.

Jim Hardwick: Then you can educate them on what you’re doing. And once you’ve built that trust, and my trust is built because my referral partners have already built the trust for me because they’re a trusted advisor. They’re saying, Jim can help you with sales. So by the time I meet with Amir, I never have to talk about myself.

Jim Hardwick: I just talk. I just find out if I want to work with them. Can I help them? Are they willing to change? And then we sit down and we talk about what it’s going to cost and what I’m going to do in the engagement. And we get to work and it’s, it’s, I, I, I hate to say it in a lot of cases. It’s that easy because my referral already done it.

Jim Hardwick: Yeah. It’s that simple.

Erin Marcus: Uncomplicated. And, you know, I mentioned to you before we hit record that I made a bunch of big adjustments in my business at the fourth quarter and moving. And one of the things I did was I looked at everything we were doing from a marketing strategy, from a client acquisition system strategy, and I went through and I removed all the dots.

Erin Marcus: If there was more than two steps between what I was doing and acquiring a client, we’re not doing that right now. We’re just not. That’s a scaling strategy. We’re just not doing that right now. I’m building things that are a little different. And the complication will kill you.

Jim Hardwick: Yes.

Erin Marcus: The complication will kill you.

Erin Marcus: So I do want to talk about something. We were chatting about this idea because I know you have much bigger things going on than even your job and what you do for a living. We were talking about this idea that. If you go into becoming an entrepreneur, or if you’re already out there and make it, you know, making it work, and you’re trying to go for more, trying to grow, trying to leverage, trying to scale this idea that if you’re trying to just pay the bills, avoid, I call it avoiding pain, right?

Erin Marcus: Get the monkey off your back, get out of debt. Like it sounds like getting out of debt would be a fun thing, but truthfully, the way most of people approach it, it’s a it’s a burden. Right. We feel the burden of it. We don’t feel it as an opportunity. Right. If you are doing whatever it is you’re doing in order to avoid pain of whatever.

Erin Marcus: It is so much harder to move forward than if you’re doing what you’re doing because you’re, I don’t even say moving towards pleasure, but you’re creating something bigger than yourselves. And where does your version of that fit in with your business, with your life, with all of the things?

Jim Hardwick: Well, my whole vision in purpose is about serving others, and that’s what inspires me.

Jim Hardwick: I’ve been blessed and the, the sales side of it is to serve small to mid sized businesses to help them grow the revenue. My wife and I also have a foundation called Hardwick Foundation, and the way we serve in that regard is my wife’s a dental hygienist. And we take a dental team to Kenya every year.

Jim Hardwick: And we work with the Maasai people. The Maasai people is an indigenous tribe out in the bush. There’s 1 million Maasai, the 52 million people in Kenya. And if anybody’s ever watched a documentary, they’re the guys that jump. They’re

Erin Marcus: the

Jim Hardwick: jumpers. And when I asked my Maasai friends, I said, Why do you jump and they say the one that jumps the highest gets the prettiest girl,

Erin Marcus: right?

Erin Marcus: Right? It always comes back to that doesn’t it?

Jim Hardwick: But they’re fantastic people. They were back in the day. They were warriors now. They’re conservationist and so we go over there and we take our dental team. We’ll be going again march 2nd And we’ll have 16 people total and when we went over there last march in four days You We saw 341 patients did 1097 procedures and extracted 197 teeth.

Jim Hardwick: We set all of this up on the floor of a pavilion and we basically build a clinic in four hours and then we do our work and then we store the equipment and we come back the next year. And the reason why that happened there and it was, was we had an opportunity to go on a safari in Africa and it wasn’t on our bucket list.

Jim Hardwick: We kind of went. Not kicking and screaming, but we thought we’d take some pictures and be done with it. And you know, just that’s it. And we had an opportunity through this safari camp and some connections. So we went and with my brother in law and sister, and we got, because of our experience, we got to go to a school and a two room school two room clinic.

Jim Hardwick: And the clinic was a cinder block building with two tables and virtually nothing in it, except for physician assistants. There were some Maasai women and their kids. And you, none of us would even go in there, you know, this to us and our standards, this wouldn’t be a clinic. And so I walk out of the clinic and mind you, I’ve been in healthcare for 30.

Jim Hardwick: Six years. I looked at Derek, the Maasai guide, and I said, Derek, do they ever bring dental teams here? And he says, no, we get medical teams through here, but never dental teams. And mind you, I had spent the last 10 years looking How do you create a life of significance? How do you build a legacy? And I read a book by Bob Buford called Halftime and it really talked to me.

Jim Hardwick: So you know, when you’re in your 20s, 30s and 40s, you do things differently. As you get in your 50s to 60s, you look at things differently. You’re differently financially, your kids are gone. And so when I asked Derek, I said, is, is there they bring dental teams. He said, no. And I said, there’s a need. He goes, I got a cavity right here.

Jim Hardwick: And at that moment, God, the universe, the Maasai warriors from the past spoke to me and said, you’re bringing a dental team back. I also become, we talked about this earlier, Aaron. I’ve also become extremely intentional about what I do. And I decided at that moment, I’m bringing a dental team.

Erin Marcus: I have a question.

Erin Marcus: How long did it take you from moment of inspiration to taking your first action?

Erin Marcus: What was it? What was the first thing you did?

Jim Hardwick: It took three hours.

Erin Marcus: That’s the right

Jim Hardwick: there. I went back into my tent with my wife who was actually standing next to me when I asked Derek the question. And

Erin Marcus: it’s like, what are you even talking about?

Jim Hardwick: She knows my mind. And I said, Jody, I want to bring a dental team back. Would you come alongside me? That’s the pivotal question. If she says no, I’m out. I can’t do it.

Erin Marcus: Right.

Jim Hardwick: Yeah. This is a, she says, absolutely. We came home being very intentional of our approach and I’ve become intentional because I see people that are passing away that I know I see people with illnesses.

Jim Hardwick: I used to think of God about somebody, you want to drive her down the road. I need to call him. I wouldn’t call him. It’d be a fleeting thought. So now if I think, I call. When I think about doing something, I do. And so 10 months later, we took our first team. Eight people, all our equipment, and we saw 192 patients our first time.

Jim Hardwick: Didn’t know what we didn’t know. Didn’t understand any of this. You can

Erin Marcus: make a difference without knowing everything. I mean, I think one of the things that stops humans is we get stuck in our brains with all or nothing. If it can’t be huge and perfect and the end game vision of it, we do nothing. And what I have learned is success loves speed.

Jim Hardwick: Interesting.

Erin Marcus: Success loves speed. It’s got, you know, is it, who is it? The, you know, five, four, is it Mel Robbins with five seconds? Take action, you know, success loves speed. How I have learned. Cause I never had the language before that my intention is very, very tied to my instinct.

Jim Hardwick: And

Erin Marcus: I need to find ways to pay attention to what my instincts are telling me.

Erin Marcus: And take intentional action on that.

Erin Marcus: And people let this go by and it’s not, it’s not that hard and you can talk about the altruistic side of it and say, look at the good you’re doing. Look at right. But you can also, let’s face it. You don’t do this because it makes you feel bad, right? Like you don’t do this because it makes you unhappy. So there is selfish, absolutely fantastic self serving feelings.

Erin Marcus: as well.

Jim Hardwick: If that’s okay.

Erin Marcus: And it’s perfectly fine.

Jim Hardwick: I wrote a whole program about embracing your service heart to help out your business. It’s another company I have. And they, and the whole thing about that is when you serve like this, it comes back to you 10 times.

Erin Marcus: Right. I mean, you don’t see the Gates foundation using an anonymous name.

Erin Marcus: We all know who’s like, it’s perfectly acceptable for the world to know.

Jim Hardwick: It is. And it’s okay to feel that because You know, they say, well, you should be humble. Oh my gosh, we are very humble. We, we, we don’t, we don’t want the accolades, but we

Erin Marcus: want you to spend money so we can leverage it to make, do a better job, right?

Erin Marcus: Yes.

Jim Hardwick: Yes. But the accolades come, which we’ve been blessed, but people believe in us and it’s so rewarding when you put your head on the pillow at night, you know, you’ve made a difference in this world. And what, here’s the one thing, if I could share this real quick is. People will say to me, Jim, yeah, I get you go to Kenya.

Jim Hardwick: That’s really cool. And the active service, I can’t go like to another country. And I say, you’re missing the point about what it means to serve. What it means to serve is if somebody needs to be heard and spend some time and listen, if, and when. Somebody needs help. Like, as little as your neighbor. If there’s, they’re elderly and their garbage cans are out and it’s raining, bring their garbage cans in.

Erin Marcus: We used to just call this common courtesy.

Jim Hardwick: Reach out to that friend that’s pinging in your brain, call them. That’s, that’s what service, if everybody would have every morning, I know this is impossible, to wake up and think, how could I serve somebody today? It could just be as much as saying something nice to somebody that hasn’t heard a compliment in 10 years, right?

Jim Hardwick: It’s something, it is so such a small act.

Erin Marcus: And I’m going to bring it back to how it helps you in your business. Cause this is where two things, and it’s funny cause it has to do with sales. When I was in corporate sales, that was easy. We were a big fish in a little pond. Yeah, I had to put deals together, but there was no cold calling.

Erin Marcus: Prospecting, it was very warm prospecting. People weren’t necessarily ready, but everyone knew who we were. So sales was easy. You’re out there on your own, you hang your own, you know, you put your shingle out now, sales is about you. And it was a whole different ballgame. And one day, Because I talk to animals, whether or not they understand me.

Erin Marcus: One day as I was walking out of my house, I was looking at my dog because I had, I had consultations to go on that day and the business I had at the time, we did those in people’s homes. And I literally, for whatever reason, said to the dog, I’ll be back. I have to go help some people. And that’s what came out of my mouth.

Erin Marcus: And that’s what set the stage for the day. And when I looked and just kept that thought as I walked into those consultation, I wasn’t trying to sell something. I literally just changed my entire approach to see how can I help somebody. And it changed everything because it took me out of my own head. It, it was the starting point of me understanding that it wasn’t about coming up with a magical thing for someone to say to someone and get them to buy.

Erin Marcus: It was about asking questions and just trying to help. And then the other thing that happened. was when I would network. I would meet these people that looked very, the word I always use is put together, right? They were normally tall. I’m only five feet tall. They were blonde. I am so not blonde. They were, you know, lean and I am, I am big, but I ain’t lean.

Erin Marcus: There’s no, there’s no straight lines on this body, right? They’re everything you see the magazines tell you is what. beautiful looks like and successful looks like and so right and so they have their outfits and everything matches blah blah blah blah and what would happen is they would come up to me and say oh do you want to have coffee And I was putting those people on a pedestal because they looked the part.

Erin Marcus: And then we would go to have coffee. And then I realized these people have no idea what the hell they’re doing. And I actually could have helped them. But because I walked in putting them above me, that’s very hard to come back from. So instead, what I did was I very intentionally changed my approach to knowing that I could help in some way, whether that was a referral, whether that was Officially, whether that was put a smile on your face.

Erin Marcus: Every time I walk into a room, my goal is helping someone.

Jim Hardwick: And I would use that word instead of help. I would say, sir, it’s the same idea. It’s so rewarding. I tell people all the time. If you need sales advice, if you need help, call me, I will give you free advice all day long. I’m not here to monetize everything in my mouth.

Jim Hardwick: And if more people that are trying to build a business would offer their services at no charge initially, guess what? The impact that you’ll make because guess what? People call me and then they refer me to somebody else because I helped them for 15 minutes on a call. Right. Raving

Erin Marcus: fans that never were your client.

Jim Hardwick: You got to call this guy. He knows what he’s talking about. And it’s so easy. So many people are so balled up on, I got to chase that dollar. If I’m going to talk to somebody, it’s going to cost them an hour. And that’s so much money. And it’s just like, that’s the wrong approach. The wrong approach is how do you make them better?

Jim Hardwick: Because if we can, if I can raise their boat, we all win.

Erin Marcus: Right. And I think, unfortunately, what we’ve really seen as I get older, I’ve learned I’ve become a total conspiracy theorist. I don’t know if it’s age. I don’t know if it’s just appropriate for the environment we’re in. It could go either way, right?

Erin Marcus: But what we’ve seen is this horrible shift towards blame, lack of responsibility, entitlement. You can’t serve from any of those places. It doesn’t work.

Jim Hardwick: It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work. People first. People first. Powerful. It’s, it’s fun. Here’s the other thing. I’m having the most fun I’ve ever had. But you

Erin Marcus: can tell, like the first time I talked to you, you were having an abject meltdown over a power cord and you were way too busy and we still had a blast, right?

Erin Marcus: Like you were not having a good day.

Jim Hardwick: I remember that. I can’t believe you remember that. Oh my gosh. That was horrible.

Erin Marcus: And yet, and yet. And this is how, by the way, this is one of my tests. Look, this is how I know true entrepreneurs. When you can look at your horrible days and look at all your mistakes and do nothing but laugh at yourself, we know you’ve been through, you know, we’ve, we know you’ve been around the block a couple of times, cause if you don’t have a sense of humor about this, you won’t make it.

Jim Hardwick: No. And, and I, I, and I go back to the word fun, how many times did I ever use that in corporate America? I didn’t use that a lot. And I, I, one, here’s the blessing is the quality of people I deal with on a daily basis. Is unbelievable. And the people that one work in small to mid-size businesses, they’re the backbone of this country.

Jim Hardwick: The referral partners that are all trying to make it, they, these people are amazing people and a lot of ’em have become friends of mine. That is just really empowering to meet such quality people, which inspires me and creates, I’m, I get energy off of others. And it’s just a lot, a lot of fun. I don’t use that word lightly because people say, Oh, we’re having fun.

Jim Hardwick: No, I enjoy it. I enjoy it as

Erin Marcus: horrible as it is. That’s still fun, right?

Jim Hardwick: I enjoy, I don’t worry about it. I don’t have in corporate. I used to get these Sunday blues and my stomach would get knots. My wife could almost set the clock to it. And it’s like here comes Monday. I haven’t had Sunday blues since I started.

Erin Marcus: Well, when I say It’s been my last business was working with families with aging parents, which is a very trauma filled situation. So I don’t say it about then, but this, you know, I sold that close that at the end of 2017. But since I’ve been doing what I’m doing now. It’s been five, six years since I’ve had more than just a passing interaction with someone I don’t like.

Erin Marcus: I mean, think about that. Think about people who have co workers who are sabotaging them, managers who are so insecure that they’re derailing people’s careers, companies who are restructuring with no humanity, even in good companies, by the way, even in really good companies. They have to meet this number, that objective, and everybody goes by the wayside.

Erin Marcus: I haven’t interacted. And if you’re an entrepreneur and you’re in a small business and you can’t say the same thing about your business, we need to revisit what you’re doing and how you’re doing it.

Jim Hardwick: Because

Erin Marcus: it doesn’t have to be that way.

Jim Hardwick: That’s very insightful. That’s really good. And I’d say it’s very, I’ve had the same experience.

Jim Hardwick: How many times do you have to work with somebody in corporate? You’re just like, How do they still hear you?

Erin Marcus: So there was a movie, I don’t know if it was maybe in the 90s, 80s or 90s, with Jackie Chan and Owen Wilson.

Jim Hardwick: Yes.

Erin Marcus: Shanghai Noon.

Jim Hardwick: Yes.

Erin Marcus: And it has one of my favorite lines, where the two of them are in a, they’re in a gunfight.

Erin Marcus: Owen Wilson’s in a gunfight with the bad guy, and I don’t remember who played the bad guy. And he’s trying to shoot back, and he’s, and the bad guy just, Stops and says, how do you even survive out here? , right? How do you even survive out?

Jim Hardwick: No, you’re right. Say

Erin Marcus: that about a lot of people, , how do even survive out here?

Jim Hardwick: Good stuff.

Erin Marcus: So if people, I, I could just keep talking to you, but eventually we have, you know, people have to stop and go to other things. If people wanna learn more about what you’re doing, about your foundation, about your, the way you’re able to help with sales, about all the things, what is the best way for them to find you?

Jim Hardwick: I’m on LinkedIn. You can ping me on LinkedIn or at jhardwick at salesacceleration. com. It’s up there in my picture and it’s sales acceleration with an X. We try to make it as difficult as possible.

Erin Marcus: You’re hiding. It’s very hard to

Jim Hardwick: find. Also, Hardwick Foundation. Is my work that we do in Kenya and if you’re interested every night when we’re there, we’re leaving again, March 2nd, we post on Facebook and Instagram.

Jim Hardwick: I do the Instagram. My wife does Facebook. I don’t have Facebook, but I do Instagram. And so we post a couple things. Reasons why is because a lot of people donate to us, our friends and family and corporations, and we need to be good stewards of their money. 100 percent of every dollar that we receive goes to these people and they, the average income was 1, 000 a year, 2.

Jim Hardwick: 74 a day, less than a cup of coffee from Starbucks. That’s what they make. So we do, we spend hours and hours and hours putting together these trips. My wife is the most organized person in the world. We take over 825 different dental items. Oh my God. The amount of hours. But we don’t, we’re not a foundation where we’ve got 65, 000 salary for this person is no, every cent goes to our, to these people.

Jim Hardwick: And it’s just, that’s how they can follow us. They can find us. And, and all, all we look for is prayers, support people that they want to donate. It’s a blessing, a dollar goes so far over there. People don’t understand that. And it’s, it’s just, it’s such rewarding work. And we get people when we first started, Aaron, I’ll be very brief.

Jim Hardwick: When we first started, it was a dream and a vision, and we didn’t know what it was going to become. And now we’ve got so many dental professionals saying, can we go, can we go? Because we know how to go.

Erin Marcus: How many years have you been going?

Jim Hardwick: This will be our, this will be our fourth dental trip. We’ve been to Africa five times.

Jim Hardwick: And the other thing we’re, we’re very blessed is typically when we go, we go to other countries within Africa. Because if we’re going to be that far, let’s go.

Erin Marcus: Right.

Jim Hardwick: We’ve had such great experiences in other countries, but Africa is a big continent and it can get scary. There’s civil wars, all those things.

Jim Hardwick: So we know where to go. These are our family. And this time when we go in March, Jodi and I are going to stay a couple of extra days and we’re going up to Saburu, which is Northern Africa. And that’s the poorest of the poor. And they want us to set up a clinic up there. Not a clinic. Well, our pop up clinic, cause our dream is.

Jim Hardwick: We’ve been donated an acre of land.

Erin Marcus: Oh, wow.

Jim Hardwick: And we want to build a clinic and we’ve, we have the town it’s Itong. They have 1500 people in the town market day. They have 10, 000. And if you could see the market, it’s unbelievable. They sell goats and sheep and cattle and tennis shoes and colorful clothes.

Jim Hardwick: And, but, and we’ll, we’ll have an apartment for the dentists. We’ll have our clinic and then we’ll have an apartment for us and, or traveling people that want to come in other dentists. And my real dream is to live there three or four months a year.

Erin Marcus: Imagine the impact you could have.

Jim Hardwick: It’s just these, you know, if you have been Africa, you haven’t been Africa.

Jim Hardwick: The people that have been know that the people in Africa, there’s just a life from them that is infectious and it’s unbelievable. Somebody said Africa is like the heart of life. People have nothing. We have so much and they live life to its fullest. And it’s very empowering. And sometimes I’ve, as I walked out of this Maasai woman’s home, that was a one of three wives with two junior high school kids, I walked out and was humbled by the experience.

Jim Hardwick: Cause at home, it’s made out of dirt and cow dung. And I said. Whose life is really better because these people are happy. They don’t have anxiety, the depression, all the medications to get them through the day, all the addictions. Now, do they struggle? Absolutely. But do they have all the crud we go through?

Jim Hardwick: They really don’t. And they smile and they laugh.

Erin Marcus: Also, you know, it speaks to the point that happy is a choice.

Jim Hardwick: Yes. Yeah.

Erin Marcus: Happy being happy is a choice.

Jim Hardwick: Absolutely.

Erin Marcus: Like my mom and I always joke around. We, we could have fun standing in line. Happy is a choice. There’s nothing external that will give that to you if you aren’t, if you’re not there.

Jim Hardwick: Well, and if you make the choice to be happy or figure out how to become happy, guess what?

Jim Hardwick: A lot of things fall into place.

Erin Marcus: Amazing how that worked. All right. We’re going to do round two. We’ll get you to do more shows. We can have more conversations. I really hope people check out the foundation, reach out to you. I love chatting with you. Thank you so much for spending time with me today. And I can’t wait to connect when you come back from your trip and hear all about it.

Jim Hardwick: Erin. Thank you. Thank you. I, it’s, it’s wonderful just to have a dialogue and conversation. And so thank you. This has been a pleasure.