Ep. 263: Howard Chang - Mastering the Comeback
Welcome back
Adam Larson:to Count Me In. I'm Adam Larson. And today, I'm excited to host Howard Chang, CEO of Just Meeting Rooms. Howard is not only a seasoned entrepreneur, but also a survivor of both personal and professional trials. In this episode, he shares his journey through bankruptcy, battling cancer, highlighting the critical importance of resilience, learning from failure, and effective cash flow management.
Adam Larson:Join us for an inspiring conversation filled with Howard's invaluable insights and seasoned wisdom on navigating the challenging waters of entrepreneurship and life. Well, Howard, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I'm really excited to have you here. And today, we're gonna be focusing on just lessons from somebody like you who is an entrepreneur who's had ups and downs successes. And, you know, any entrepreneur probably has those similar stories.
Adam Larson:And one of those things that's inevitable when it comes to starting businesses and any journey that you have is failure. So maybe we can start with, like, how do you define failure and what's your perspective and how it changed you as you went throughout your journey?
Howard Chang:Well, I think failure is only real if you fail to learn from a mistake and try to evolve and get better from it. I I think we all fail, you know, with a small f, meaning we make mistakes all the time, but are you willing to kinda pick yourself up and move ahead? I I think a true failure is is walking away from making a mistake in some way and not learning, deciding that you just gonna turn your back and, you know, do the same old thing all over again. I mean, I mean, that to me would be a failure. I mean, I I had a bankruptcy at 29, and that was a really soul searching moment for me where I had to decide, you know, do I pick myself back up and try to start another business?
Howard Chang:Do I try to get a job? I've never had never held a job at that point. I only had my own business. Do I go drive a cab? I mean, what were my options?
Howard Chang:You know, I was bankrupt, destitute, you know, in single dad with 2 kids in my parents' basement at 29. It was it was a I was a sad sack, to be honest with you, at that moment. But you know what? I I decided to, you know, hit the public library. It was in the nineties, you know, long before the Internet kind of, you know, gave us, you know, all that information at the fingertips.
Howard Chang:And I I hit the public library and I started reading about business, and I started reading about marketing, and I started reading about all these things. So so I think, yes, I failed in a sense that I had a bankruptcy. I lost my house and my wife left me and all that stuff. But I turned that into a really important lesson in life, and I think that is probably the most valuable gift that's ever actually happened to me as a business person.
Adam Larson:That that is an amazing gift to watching yourself get back up from from that, especially looking back upon it. And picking yourself up from something like that is very difficult. What helped you stay motivated to keep going? Because I can imagine it's it's not an easy task picking yourself up from something like a bankruptcy you're just explaining.
Howard Chang:Oh, man. I was depressed. I mean, you know, like, I'm literally, like, at 20 at 25. So I made my first million at 23. By 25, I was driving a brand new Porsche.
Howard Chang:I had a beautiful house on the water in Toronto.
Adam Larson:Mhmm.
Howard Chang:I had 2 kids, married. I was living the life. And at 29, I'm, like, single dad in my parents' basement, total loser. So I was having depression issues. I was, you know, doubts about my own self worth.
Howard Chang:I had one of my own family members just say, hey. Give up. Just drive a cab. Like, you're never gonna you're never gonna pull yourself back up from this. Like, this was too big of a fall.
Howard Chang:Right?
Adam Larson:Yeah.
Howard Chang:And so yeah. So you're dealing with all of that stuff. So I I think for me, one of the biggest gifts that my parents gave me when I was young is they really encouraged me to get into sport. So I did lots of sports as a kid. I started martial arts when I was 9.
Howard Chang:I studied judo. We spent about a year in Japan. My dad was a a economic commissioner in Japan for about a year. He was sent over by the Ontario government here in Canada. So I learned judo in just it was.
Howard Chang:And judo in Japan is like a hard knocks judo. Right? This is this is not judo in Canada. Like, I like, you got beaten when you didn't do your technique. Right?
Howard Chang:So so but what that taught me that that journey through martial arts and sport, it taught me resilience. I think any business person any person, I would say, resilience is probably our best quality, you know, to be able to survive a moment and and move beyond it and get stronger. So I kinda tapped into some of those resources that I had in sport where, you know, I crashed when I raced bicycles. I had my shoulder dislocated multiple times in judo tournaments, but I always came back from those. So I used some of that thinking and and kind of reminding myself, I've done it before.
Howard Chang:I can do it again. I think giving yourself that context and and and that moment to really take a breath and remember that you can actually do this. We need these reminders all the time. Right? Because in in the moment, we can get very tunnel vision and fall into that spiral of depression and self doubt and also have some good peers around you, you know.
Howard Chang:I I yes, I had some detractors, but I also had some cheerleaders. That really helps as well.
Adam Larson:It really does help because you you can't you can't get up to the top of a mountain by yourself. No. You need people helping you. You need tools. And all the something that came to my head as you were talking, I thought of you know, how in a lot of times in organizations, people silo themselves and they don't connect.
Adam Larson:But a lot of times, we silo our experiences, and we forget that your experience in sport can be applied to your business and it's like you have to break how like, what what did you have to do to break down those silos and your experience to apply it?
Howard Chang:Well, I think one of the things I had a bit of time on my hands when I went bankrupt, right? So I started getting back in the sport. I started, riding my bike again. I started, doing some inline skating. I started I got back into martial arts again.
Howard Chang:I started teaching judo again. And so I think getting moving the body is really important. So I think there's an old Chinese saying that says experience without reflection is foolish, but reflection without experience is dangerous. So if I just sat there and just gazed at my navel for months, I probably would have spiraled really heavily. Yeah.
Howard Chang:But you know what? Instead, I decided to move my body, get into the world, connect with people, keep moving forward, and and combining that with some self reflection, I think, put me in a healthier place.
Adam Larson:Mhmm.
Howard Chang:I think we don't wanna just move forward without, you know, thinking about the lessons we've we've learned, but we can't just think too. We need to think and act together in order to find that balance, which makes us productive. I think, ultimately, I think, I'm I'm a fairly straightforward person. Like, I wanna be productive in this life. So whether that's the philanthropy I do or the businesses I run or the dad.
Howard Chang:I'm I'm actually a granddad now. I like to think a really young granddad, a young hip granddad. But, anyways, I'll let my granddaughter judge that. But, you know, I think that come that that idea of how do we remain productive is a combination of of of thought and action together, which makes us productive.
Adam Larson:Mhmm. Yeah. So what about your support system? That's very crucial. What did you do as you were kind of starting your new businesses after you came back from that bankruptcy?
Adam Larson:How did you build that support system, that network to kind of help you get through?
Howard Chang:Well, I think part of the reason why I went went bankrupt in my twenties is I thought I was the smartest kid in the room, and I obviously wasn't. In the eighties, bank financing was or in and around 17%. I know some of your younger listeners are going, what? What do you mean? You mean 7%?
Howard Chang:No. No. There's a teen there. 17% was bank financing, back in the eighties. And so trying to, you know, grow business, I I I grew a multimillion dollar retail chain using bank financing, which apparently was too costly.
Howard Chang:So I didn't listen to enough advice. You know, one of the people that I really listened to in my thirties was my dad. My dad was super smart, but being a, you know, a belligerent, arrogant little jerk in my twenties, I didn't listen to my dad. And in in the nineties, he gave me some amazing advice. He told me to buy an Apple computer, invest in Apple stocks.
Howard Chang:He started pushing me towards technology, build yourself a website, and I started listening to him, and he was really, really wise. He was an economist. That that was his training. And I thought, like, literally, I have an economist as my dad, and I didn't listen to him about business. Like, what a dork.
Howard Chang:But, anyways, I finally started listening to him, and started also talking to other people in my life that were successful. I asked for their advice. I I learned a bit of humility, essentially. Mhmm. That really helped me a lot.
Howard Chang:But I I think I think, you know, something that I think we all hear, you know, takes a village. Right? I don't think there's any such thing as a self made person. You know, we we bring people around us, and they help lift us up to some level of success. I have 60 employees now.
Howard Chang:I mean, I can't do what I do without my staff. They're incredible. They lift me up. You know, I might give them some leadership and guidance, but they're doing the heavy lifting. So I so I do think surrounding yourself with the right people is huge.
Adam Larson:It is huge because as you as they raise you up, those people get lifted up too, and they can become successful as they learn from their own journey. So it's like it's a win win situation.
Howard Chang:Definitely. Definitely. I I mentor some young entrepreneurs out. Yeah. So my company, The Tern Lab, we're a marketing technology company, but we're also an incubator.
Howard Chang:We we actually incubate startups, and, we've done it for ourselves as well as others. So I do mentor some young leaders. And you know what? I learn as much from them as they do from me. You know, I'm always learning something new when I when I chat with some of these young leaders.
Howard Chang:And I think leaning in, listening, and really actively listening to the people you engage with is is a is kind of a superpower for successful entrepreneurs. I find most really successful entrepreneurs very curious. We have a saying at the Tern Lab is our job isn't to sell solutions. Our job is to fall in love with the problem. And I think that philosophy has helped us gain a lot of traction in the marketplace because we're not trying to sell someone a website or a marketing program.
Howard Chang:We're we're trying to deeply understand what are the gaps that they're facing between, let's say, themselves or their audience or the customer experience. And by deeply understanding that and using research intelligence and solution, but it actually solution, but it actually is something that solves a problem. I think as we as we face anything in life, let's first all start with falling in love with problem. Like, I think about even relationships. If I Mhmm.
Howard Chang:I think about some of the conversations I have with my wife is, you know, I probably do a lot better if I just asked her more questions. Right? As opposed to mansplaining something to her. Right?
Adam Larson:Mhmm.
Howard Chang:Like, just ask more questions, learn more, and then that way, you can get some insights into, okay, what is upsetting her about me not cleaning the sink in the bathroom on a regular basis? Okay. I now I get it. Now I understand. And therefore, when I connect my actions
Adam Larson:Mhmm.
Howard Chang:I know that this is what's is something that she actually cares about. So I do think curiosity and really interested in in the problem is better than, you know, coming at it like, I'm the smartest guy, and I've got the solution.
Adam Larson:Well, I think all of us can understand what it feels like. If you've if you've been in your thirties or gone through your thirties, you I think all of us get a little humble in our thirties as gravity takes over and life hits us and kids get older and all those different things kinda hit us. But I love what you said about, you know, falling in love with a problem and being curious. And I was wondering if we could talk a little bit more about that because that's something that I feel like all of us can learn from in our in our lives but also in jobs because a lot of times you're presented with this and you've get so folk you you get presented with the project at work. Let's say you're not a leader.
Adam Larson:You let's say you're just a, you know, you give a sense of the project site and use focus on the solution. But
Howard Chang:Mhmm.
Adam Larson:From what I'm hearing you saying, if you focus more on what if you fall in love with the problem and delve into what the problem is, the solution presents itself.
Howard Chang:Well, I know your audience has some finance professionals. And I would say that, you know, finance professionals in general are actually probably better at this than most. Most financial professionals are are fairly interested in the problem. They're fairly interested in what exactly is going on here. Why why is this g and a where it where it's at right now?
Howard Chang:Why is our labor percentage so high? I think a lot of fine you know, my my finance leaders in my company, they're constantly raising issues with me, problems we need to solve. So I think I think that's a really good thing. I don't think enough people in positions of management or authority have the same philosophy, unfortunately. Mhmm.
Howard Chang:They're they lead more through force of will as opposed to really deeply understanding, you know, what what what are their teams and their clients actually facing.
Adam Larson:Mhmm.
Howard Chang:So I do think that that idea of of curiosity is great, but then disciplining that into practice is really important. Right? So Mhmm. You know, there there's I'm curious about the finances and then there's forensic accounting. Right?
Howard Chang:So there's kinda there's kind of a difference between the 2. Right? And so, yeah, what we try to do, in our consultancy, you know, we we we go in and we have very specific tools that we use to fall in love with a problem. Like, for instance, we host a 10,000 member consumer panel that we regularly survey. We run focus groups.
Howard Chang:We runs we run surveys. We have, our analysts on staff. We have strategists on staff, market research. So that we we we invest in falling level the problem. It's just not, you know, a bunch of schmoes sitting around asking questions.
Howard Chang:Like, it's act it's an actual process.
Adam Larson:I like that it's an actual process because when I think about it, you know, you can be curious George, the monkey, you know, getting your hands in everything and breaking everything, or you can be curious enough to, you know, there's a there's another side of that, not the extremes. The extremes like forensic accounting to just being, you know, I I it takes data. It takes discipline. A lot of the things that you were talking about you learn from sport. It takes that drive and that you may stumble a few times.
Adam Larson:You may fall off your bike and dislocate your shoulder. But do you let that stop you from ever riding again?
Howard Chang:No. Yeah. No. For sure. And I I think, you know, if I think back at the pandemic, like, there were a lot of problems to solve, by the way, in the middle of the pandemic.
Howard Chang:But one of the ones that that we saw that was really growing and still an issue right now is sort of a growing collaboration deficit amongst knowledge workers. So with remote and hybrid work, you know, you know, you know, you and I are talking through, essentially, Zoom right now, but, you know, it's very hard to make deeper human connections through the little pinhole of a of a video conference or a phone call. And so we knew this collaboration deficit was impacting people's mental health. We'd also knew it was, impacting innovation, creativity, and Microsoft did this massive study where it was actually impacting product quality. So I I think, you know, when we were looking at those problems, we go, well, how do we solve a collaboration deficit?
Howard Chang:So we actually launched a startup not even a year ago, last March, called Just Boardrooms. So just boardrooms.com. You know, check it out. It's it's a very easy platform to use. It's like an Airbnb of professional because really what we wanted to do was create a really easy, frictionless way for people to come together in person for moments that matter.
Howard Chang:Mhmm. I agree. We don't all need to be in the office 5 days a week anymore, but there are moments that matter. There are times when we have to come together to build a solution, to innovate, and to collaborate, or to pitch a big client. You know, Harvard Business Review did a study that showed that you're 10 times more likely to close a business deal in person than over the phone or on a video conference call.
Howard Chang:So there are moments that matter. So just boardrooms, all really, it's a very simple idea. We don't own anything. We're just a marketplace. Right?
Howard Chang:Mhmm. We have hosts. Like we have co working spaces. We have professional office. We actually have law firms and, and, accounting firms that put their boardrooms on our platform.
Howard Chang:The way they look at it is, well, everybody needs an accountant. Why wouldn't we put our platform on, have business people come in here? So anyways, we have all these hosts. We have about 270 so far. We just launched.
Howard Chang:We're in 50 markets in US and Canada. And and then we have users. So the users are like gig like freelancers, consultants. Could be someone like you, Adam, that you may not have a corporate office, but you need a office you need a place to meet someone once in a while. Coffee shop isn't really cutting it these days for, you know, important business meetings, And it's just really putting people together, sharing economy.
Howard Chang:Right? Like, that that's really what it's about. So that was a problem that we saw. So we're building the solution now, and and we're constantly research and iterating, and we're we're pulling our users, and we're and we're looking at the data. And so we don't think a problem is one problem.
Howard Chang:It's constantly looking at the business Mhmm. And seeing how can we put there I think there's, there's a Japanese term called kaizen. I think Toyota kind of used a lot when they're developing this idea of continuous improvement. Mhmm. I think that's another piece.
Howard Chang:Right? We're not we're not just solving a problem, but how do we continuously improve? How do we constantly iterate so that we keep getting better? I think those are things that I've learned in business is that there's no stop and go. You got to just keep moving forward at a pace that makes sense for you and your partners.
Adam Larson:That does make a lot of sense because the importance you know, I've been in organizations that applied the Kaizen method, the 6 Sigma, the the that continuous improvement people. Yeah. And working with those folks can be pretty intense because you're like, wait, we have to look at this process and look at that process and that it's that it can be overwhelming at first, but once you kind of get into it, you realize how important it is. But I think the problem with sometimes with those with some of those processes is they'll bring somebody in who's that expert. They here's what you need to do and that person goes away.
Adam Larson:Yeah. But then you never look at the process again. So how do you build that? How do you build that kind of that mentality of that continuous improvement all the time? You don't have to bring a expert consultant in and that person leaves and you never do it again.
Howard Chang:Well, I think the most important attitude to have is don't let perfection be the enemy of productivity. Right? So the biggest problem I think with the kaizen idea is this idea some people interpret it as a path to perfection. There is no perfection. Right?
Howard Chang:Mhmm. If you think of it as just incremental improvements, that way you're not constantly, you know, flipping from 90 degrees to 180 degrees to a 100 like, it's small incremental, like the idea of kaizen, the general philosophy of kaizen. Because Japanese are pretty conservative to begin with in terms of how they make decisions. It's all about small incremental changes that leads to a much better outcome over time. Mhmm.
Howard Chang:So that's why I talked about the pace of your organization, the pace of your stakeholders. Because what most leaders fail to do is they fail to take into consideration the pace of their stakeholders. Most leaders can go from 0 to 100 really fast, but then they leave about 80% of their team behind. Right? We wanna go forward.
Howard Chang:We wanna create better things, but we don't wanna leave dead bodies behind. Right? So incremental change, let's get it to 70%, and then we keep moving. We don't need to get it to a 100%. I I think really understanding that is important because otherwise, you'll constantly feel like you're failing.
Howard Chang:Oh, we tried to make an improvement, but it wasn't perfect, so we failed. No. No. No. It's good enough, And we can keep moving forward.
Howard Chang:That that's one of the key lessons I've learned.
Adam Larson:I wish we had had this conversation as I was in my 20s, because I feel like it would have really helped me have a better view on business and how I should go through life because it's one of those things where you see something, you're like, that's really cool. I wanna do that. But you don't take the time to look into it, develop it, see how it applies to you. And I think that's why rushing into things can be very dangerous, especially as an entrepreneur and especially when you're taking different gambles and risks in business.
Howard Chang:Listen, life is risky. Right? We could step off a curb and get smacked by a bus. But you know what? Carpenters are there are smart.
Howard Chang:Measure twice, cut once. Right? Like, I I think it's really important to, you know, spend a little bit of time understanding something before we jump in. But, you know, it's okay to jump in sometimes a little bit ahead and and learn a lesson from that too. Life is not linear.
Howard Chang:Right? Life can be quite convoluted, and I I've learned lessons in a lot of different ways Mhmm. Including being slapped right in the face by life. So, yeah, it's it it it all remains positive if we make it so, essentially.
Adam Larson:Yeah. So, you know, talk a little bit about risk, you know, especially in your entrepreneurial journey. How do you when you make that decision to take that calculated risk or or when do you find and when you sometimes you find out that calculated risk could become a reckless gamble? Like, how do you find that balance?
Howard Chang:You know, you know, I think after bankruptcy, one of the things I I really focused on was really mitigating risk. So as an entrepreneur, you're you're you have to make risks and, you know, calculate it. Yeah. You can calculate all you want, but what's your backup plan? That's, you know, I jokingly tell people the secret to my success as cash flow management, and they go, what?
Howard Chang:What are you talking about? Mhmm. I go, yeah. Because, you know, in a for a small company, what often sends that company into deep trouble and sometimes into chapter 11 is is bad cash flow management. So you can be actually making a profit, but if you don't have, you know, x number of months of operating capital, if you don't have the ability to access cash, you know, either through credit or through, you know, savings or whatever to fund growth, growth can be really dangerous.
Howard Chang:Right? So if you look at my company, my one of my companies, the TernLab, we are a essentially a professional services company. So if I landed a big client tomorrow, that's a that's a $1,000,000 contract. That's incredible. I've gotta hire about 8 to 9 people.
Howard Chang:I may not see the 1st payment for 90 days. Mhmm. Like, that's just how it works. Right? By the time you sign the contract, you're building the teams, you're hiring people, you're ramping up.
Howard Chang:Now I'm like a couple of $100,000 in cash that I've laid out for all these teams, software I had to buy, computers I had to buy. I haven't seen one check from this client yet. Contract signed. Now I'm in a cash crunch. Now I can't make payroll.
Howard Chang:Now I start getting stressed out. So you could be profitable. You can you can land that big client. But if you don't have the essential essentially, the financial planning and strength to manage those cash flow issues, growth can be actually extremely dangerous.
Adam Larson:And I'm sure our listeners love hearing you say that because I'm sure they've had many fights with bosses, with people that they've connected with, organizations they work for, and the the importance of that cash flow management because if you don't have good cash, you don't have a good organization of your finances, things would go crazy very quickly.
Howard Chang:Yeah. It's I find it really bizarre when I hear leaders talk about EBITDA all the time, which is great. I mean, you gotta make a profit, but the day to day management of your financial resources is actually way more critical to success. And and I and I certainly, you know, my my business that went bankrupt, we weren't losing money, actually. We were just managing cash so badly that we were struggling to make our bank payments, for our line of credit, and that's why the bank called the line.
Howard Chang:The the the the bank didn't call the line because we weren't making money. The bank was calling the line because we weren't making our interest payments. Right? We we we're managing our cash balance. We had all this inventory.
Howard Chang:We didn't have enough cash, and they put us into chapter 11 because of bad cash flow management. So that's just an example. And and we're growing. You know, I was growing this into a multimillion dollar company, but, like, you know, on paper, it looks like I was doing all the right things, but apparently not. So that was one of the big lessons I learned, in my twenties.
Howard Chang:Luckily, I got that one out of the way because I haven't had that issue since.
Adam Larson:Yeah. That's good. Yeah. You don't wanna do that a lot. It's a lot harder to come back from that later, I'm sure.
Howard Chang:Definitely. So, you know, you've you've been through
Adam Larson:a lot of battles. I would I'll call them battles because a lot of times in life, you know, we we it's not really fighting, but it's it it feels like fighting the way it physically drains our bodies. You know, and and maybe we can talk about some of the scars you've received. You've you've kinda mentioned some of them. You know, how have you turned those scars, those failures into kinda like badges of honor and things that help you inspire you, help inspire others.
Howard Chang:Yeah. I I think, you know, wisdom is is that accumulation of experience and and battle scars. I mean, there's absolutely battle scars. I mean, to this day, I'll remember certain things that that I've done or happened to me, and it literally just gives me the shivers. I'm like, oh my god.
Howard Chang:That was so horrible. So even to this day, some of those scars remain. Mhmm. But that's okay. They're kinda tacit reminders not to do them again.
Howard Chang:You know, I I I will say though that, you know, I've had a few lessons around, you know, the people that I've brought into my world, you know, whether they were an employee, a partner, investor, client, that that didn't necessarily work out very well. But each time I've tried to, you know, take a lesson, you know, I learned from that. You know, I I've been fired by clients. I've had to fire some clients. Mhmm.
Howard Chang:I've had to lay off lots of people when a big piece of business went went away. I had to do all kinds of things that, you know, even to this day, I'm like, god, I wish I didn't have to do those things. But that's how business happens, unfortunately. It's not a linear. You know?
Howard Chang:It's this like the staggered kinda jagged growth to success. You know? I I'm definitely, you know, successful now. I own a bunch of companies. I have a beautiful home on the water.
Howard Chang:I've got a beautiful place in the Bahamas. By any measure, I would say I'm successful, but it's taken a long road to get to where I am and a lot of lessons along the way. And and I think the other thing that I think really impacted was my cancer diagnosis, in 2017. So I was diagnosed with with prostate cancer in 2017. I'm thinking, god, I live this healthy lifestyle.
Howard Chang:You know, I I eat, like, mostly a plant based diet. I eat organic. Like, what the heck could be causing cancer? But, you know, again, I fell in love with the problem. I started doing tons of research.
Howard Chang:I started talking to all kinds of experts, but not just in Canada, in the US, in the UK, in Germany. And I really wanted to kinda take control of my own health. So so that crisis became also a bit of an opportunity for me to kinda like rethink my my health. So I ended up getting surgery in Germany because they had the most advanced therapy. It's called IRE NANO KNIFE.
Howard Chang:I I I suggest anybody who knows anybody who's, suffering from a prostate cancer or has been diagnosed with the checkout NANONIGHT. It was it was actually invented in Albany, New York, actually. Oh. Yeah. It's a it's an American invention.
Howard Chang:And what it is, it's a it's a focal therapy that ablates the tumor in your prostate without damaging tissue around it. So the biggest challenge with prostate surgery is that there's tons of nerve damage. Right? A lot of men end up incontinent, erectile dysfunction, all kinds of issues. So I went and did this very advanced surgery in in Germany.
Howard Chang:And and through that whole process, yeah, it sucked. Cancer sucks. You know, my cancer was fairly advanced. I was wondering, like, am I gonna have the intestinal fortitude to get through all of this? Did I get depressed?
Howard Chang:Absolutely. Did I consider, like, ending it all at one point? A little bit.
Adam Larson:A little bit.
Howard Chang:I thought about it for a little bit because I had so many friends that went through cancer. It was such a shit show for them that I'm like, oh my god. Like, I don't know if whether I'm up for this. So so that was an again, another moment in life where I had to kind of reset everything I knew about myself. Mhmm.
Howard Chang:And then out of that, I have some literal scars from that. I literally have physical scars from that from the surgery, but my mental scars, I would say, have made me stronger. I would say the journey through cancer has definitely made me stronger. And then 2 years ago, I had a reoccurrence. So it came back.
Howard Chang:So then I dealt with that now, and I'm again cancer free. So it's it's it's I think light just keeps throwing wrenches at you because I think you know, I'm I'm not a religious person, but I'm also not stupid enough to feel like I know everything about, you know, I wouldn't call myself an atheist per se. There's probably forces in the universe I absolutely don't understand, but sometimes I think the universe just throw shit at us because they're they believe that we can handle it and it's a way for us to learn and grow. So that's how I kinda treated it as kinda like a life lesson. So scars are good.
Howard Chang:You know, I don't really want one across my face necessarily, but I'll take a few of my psyche because it it's helped me learn.
Adam Larson:It does help you learn. And I really appreciate you being vulnerable to share that story because I know it it may not be easy for everybody to share that type of a story, but you've learned so much from it and grown from it. You're stronger because of it and that that just makes us better people in the long run.
Howard Chang:Yeah. I mean, we're all flawed in some way. Right? I mean, it's, you know, one of my business partners, here is actually my daughter. She's one of the cofounders of the TernLab, and she's a fabulous executive in her own right.
Howard Chang:But a couple of years working together, she was very frustrated. And she said to me, you don't have a work mask, do you? I go, what do you mean? Because you're exactly at work as you are at home. Like, you don't have a work mask.
Howard Chang:And and she goes, I don't know how to deal with that. And I go, you know, I guess I've always been that way because I've always run my own business. Right? I've never really felt like I had to perform for an audience because I always felt like I just had to be who I am. I I need I need to bring who I am to the table.
Howard Chang:And I think when we talk about things like authenticity, I think, you know, meta talk aside is just be yourself, treat your audience, your stakeholders with respect. And I think I've learned that over the years. I try to behave in that way with everyone around me. So whether they're, you know, my clients or or my staff, But I think that's also was really exemplified through some of these tough lessons like cancer, which is, hey. You know, we're all gonna die.
Howard Chang:Mhmm. That's the great equalizer here. Right? Like, no one's getting out of this alive. Yeah.
Howard Chang:Right? So when you remember that, you kinda go, yeah, it's okay to just be yourself. Mhmm. Right? Just treat people with respect.
Howard Chang:If you're if in doubt, be nice. If in doubt, be generous. I always tell people my path to success has been more about what I gave than what I got. Mhmm. You know, if you're constantly willing to lean in, you're constantly willing to help out, it all comes around.
Howard Chang:You know, the people in your life recognize that and they wanna help you in return. So I I I really do think that, you know, the these these battle scars, lessons, etcetera, more than anything, they've just taught me humility. And I think humility brings you closer to your authentic self.
Adam Larson:Mhmm. Well, Howard, I I think we could talk like this, talk about these things for a long time. But I just really appreciate you tell coming on the podcast, sharing your story with our audience. I've been inspired, and I hope they're inspired as well to be their authentic selves and do great things.
Howard Chang:Thank you very much.
Announcer:This has been Count Me In, IMA's podcast providing you with the latest perspectives of thought leaders from the accounting and finance profession. If you like what you heard and you'd like to be counted in for more relevant accounting and finance education, visit IMA's website at www.ima net.org.
