When Trauma Becomes Direction - RicketyRoo

Company: RicketyRoo

Guest: Blake Denman

Year Started: 2009

Employees: 11-25

Some stories start with ambition, this one starts with a crash. In this episode, Blake Denman, founder of RicketyRoo, shares how a near-fatal accident and a long recovery reshaped his perspective on business, leadership, and life. 

Key Takeaways

• How trauma can transform the way you lead and make decisions
• The “User Guide” system RicketyRoo uses to strengthen remote culture
• Why self-awareness and communication beat rigid policies 
• The surprising role anxiety plays in focus and performance
• How trust became the foundation of Blake’s agency environment

Episode Transcript

Russel (00:01):
Welcome to An Agency Story podcast where owners and
experts share the real journey,the early struggles, the
breakthrough moments, andeverything in between.
I'm your host Russel Dubree,former eight figure agency owner
turned business coach, sold myagency and now helps agency
leaders create their idealbusiness.
Every agency has a story, andthis is your front row seat.

(00:23):
This is an agency story.
Welcome to the show today,everyone.
I have Blake Denman withRicketyRoo with us here today.
Thank you so much for being onthe show today, Blake.
Thanks for having me.
Well, excited to be here, wantto learn all kinds of things

(00:45):
about your agency, but start usoff.
What does RicketyRoo do and whodo you do it for?

Blake (00:51):
We primarily do local S-E-O-S-E-O and paid search
marketing.
We'll also build websites, andthen our newest service that
we're starting to offer more andmore is what we call SXO search
experience optimization mainly.
Conversion optimization fororganic and who we do it for.
We work a fair amount inhealthcare, legal, and home

(01:16):
services.

Russel (01:18):
Great elevator pitch.
Sounds like you've got that downand uh, we'll certainly learn a
lot more about how you do thatfor the customers and the
specific ones and all that goodstuff.
But let's go back and let's talkabout Young Blake and what were
his aspirations, goals, hopes,dreams, et cetera.
And eventually we'll get to howthat all turned into starting an

(01:39):
agency.

Blake (01:41):
I started the company February of 2009 and it was a
means to an end.
I worked for a company that was,you know, a telemarketing
company where they had 50telemarketers dialing for
dollars, selling local SEO.
I worked in the productionapartment.
I got the job because I couldtype fast.
I started there in January of2007 and then left there

(02:04):
February, 2009 to go out on myown just to freelance.
But during that time working forthem, I became a production
manager.
Phone up to Google'sheadquarters in Mountain View,
got trained up in what was thencalled, their START program is
for Google Ads, but agenciestook that department over, which
wasn't profitable within 90days.

(02:25):
It was very profitable and thenI had no support.
I was doing everything, so thenwent on my own.
I mainly just wanted to focus onschool, which I was researching
as an EMT.
I was gonna move to Arizona, gostraight to paramedic school,
and then become a paramedicfirefighter like my grandfather

(02:45):
was.
And nine months in, so that wasOctober 5th, 2009, I was riding
a fixed gear road bike with nohelmet, about 20 miles into a
ride.
Lost control.
Went up and over the bars andlanded on my head, ugh, and had
a severe traumatic brain injury.

(03:05):
Had a fractured skull bleed inmy brain.
I was in the chemical inducedcoma, which automatically made
me a liability so I couldactually never fulfill that
career.
And then kind of hobble alongfor a little bit, kind of
drifting through life, and thenmet my now wife and realized
like it'd be kind of cool if Ididn't have to do all the work

(03:27):
anymore.
Wow.
And then slowly started to kindof grow up from there.

Russel (03:34):
What a rough experience.
At the time, your ideal careerpath and, uh, to recover from
that.
So, um, are you fine and well orhas that caused lingering things
in terms of having an injurylike that?
Couple months

Blake (03:48):
after the injury, I had some issues with like short-term
memory loss.
Then now kind of went away, hada pretty big personality shift,
uh, which, you know, I like whoI am.
I don't really think there's anyway of getting back to the way I
used to be, but I still like toread up on new ways to try and

(04:14):
improve brain health andconstantly tinker and test and,
you know, seek other modalitiesto improve.

Russel (04:22):
Well I'm sure it sounds like you've probably run down
the path of expert.
You can give us some great tipson how, um, injury or not, where
we can all have better brainhealth.
Which is a certainly animportant thing to take care of.
Take care of your brain.
Yeah.
So you started an agency, and Iguess it was your previous
career where you really feltlike you had the skill of what

(04:44):
you were bringing to the table,but yeah.
How did you specifically decide,oh, this is exactly what I'm
gonna do.
This is gonna be my agency.

Blake (04:53):
I worked with this, uh, it was like a business
consultant or a coach, and.
He kind of had me do like some,I guess what we call like a
vivid vision planning, like whatwould my ideal kind of company
be?
And I really never set out tolike, okay, I'm gonna have an
agency and then wanna do allthis.

(05:13):
And it just kind of naturallyprogressed.
And then once I saw thepossibilities, the heart of it,
like I really like helpingpeople.
It's one of the reasons why westill like to work with small to
medium-sized businesses.
We're getting more and more intoenterprise type deals, but like
helping people, like seeing theresults we're able to bring for

(05:34):
them and when they're actuallyable to hire people or take a
vacation, you know, that makesme feel good.
And for the agency itself, likemy overarching goals, I'm trying
to build the agency everybody inmy industry wants to work at, so
I kind of look at it.
Like a professional sports team,I need to attract good talent.
Once I get the good talent, Ineed to keep them happy.

(05:57):
Compensation is a part of it,but it's not the end all be all.
It's not a secret.
It's all on our about page onour website.
Like I just thought what wouldattract me to go work for a
company?
And that's

Russel (06:11):
just what we offer.
There's no shortage of thingsthat, that path, that endeavor,
that focus has created.
But.
I wanna go back to what soundslike an interesting thing that
you honestly don't hear toooften is getting a coach or
getting that kind of guidanceextremely early on in the
process.
It sounds like, you know, mostfolks wait till they hit a wall

(06:32):
or get stuck, so I'm justcurious, how did you know to do
something like that even beforeyou got stuck?

Blake (06:41):
The first GI was working with, he didn't have any
experience with.
Digital agency, but he kind oflike showed me the possibilities
of like, oh, this is what acoach can actually do.
And the coach I was working withup until the end of last year,
he's one of my dearest friendsnow, uh, but he had successfully

(07:03):
built, his agency, hired a CEOto take over, and then he just
remains like on the board ofdirectors.
The company got fully acquiredby a larger firm a year or two
ago, so he had built somethingthat I was wanting to build and
had an exit.
I don't really have, like, I'mstarting to kind of think about

(07:23):
potentially selling the nextfive or so years, but it's not
like the actual like, oh, thisis the only goal I have for the
company.
When I first saw him online, Ithought he was full of crap.
I just didn't buy into it.
But then I started seeing hisactual work and his work product

(07:45):
and it was really good for likeactual clients in the same space
that I'm in.
And then I was like, okay, thisguy actually knows something.
'cause like I had no idea.
Like I had read Traction byJocko Willink and the E-Myth and
the only other experience I havewith the agency, any agency
stuff was working at atelemarketing company.

(08:08):
I didn't wanna build a tallmarketing company, so I figured
Okay.
I can see where

Russel (08:13):
that would be problematic.
Yeah, just a little bit.
Awesome.
Well, great insight on yourpart.
I mean, obviously I'm biased,but it's, you know, it's
something I believe in the powerof, and you know, always had to
coach in my entrepreneurialendeavors.
So yeah, thanks for sharing thatexperience.
So let's get back to this trackof, you know, you're trying to

(08:34):
create this really idealworkplace company and how long
it was into your journeychronologically actually, but
you went remote before goingremote was cool to do.
So I assume that somewhat alignswith that thought process of
what you shared with the tryingto company you're trying to
create.
But how did you arrive at thatdecision and we'll dive even
deeper into that process foryou.

Blake (08:57):
Yeah, initially like my.
Vision for the agency was, youknow, having a downtown office.
I live in Bend, Oregon,population of a hundred thousand
people, you know, with ping pongtables and you know, just have
like a really cool company vibethere.
But the thing was, there wasn'ta ton of talent or a lot of
experience in, you know, livingarea with less like a, this was

(09:21):
probably six or seven years ago.
I was thinking about this a lotmore and it's like, well.
If we go remote, then that opensup a talent pool to the entire
country and it won't have themassive expense of a big office
in the future.
Okay.
It kind of makes sense.

Russel (09:39):
A lot of people went remote, kind of forced to during
the pandemic in some ways, andjust stayed there.
Their status quo was.
Unnaturally upset, but in thiscase you intentionally did it.
But what were just some of thekey elements of that process
that you had to think about asyou were going through that in a
more natural way?
It

Blake (09:59):
mainly has to do with like, well, I don't want the
physical occasion of a reallygood person to be li the
eliminating factor for them tocome work for me.
I think one of the hardestthings.
We have employees in, I thinknine different states across the
country, and each state isuniquely different in setting up

(10:22):
withholding numbers.
SUI and P-F-M-L-A, all differenttax accounts and just to run
payroll.
They're all employees, or notindependent contractors could
hire out a PEO to take care ofall that, but they're kind of
pricey.
So when we hire an employee,it's something I get to figure
out.

(10:44):
It was mainly just not wantinglocation to be, yeah, the end
all, be all for talent.

Russel (10:50):
Speaking of which, I gotta go on a little tangent
there of just this notion of POwe had like a very brief period
where we had a PEO and I don'tknow, I need someone to out
there to make a business casefor me on why we would want to
pay the prices and do a PEO.
I can't find it.
I don't know.
You experienced it or youclearly looked at it, I guess

(11:11):
you could say, are you that guy?
Or do I need to find someoneelse to gimme that?
That justification.

Blake (11:17):
I can't justify a P right now where I look at it and go,
it's gonna cost how much permonth and this is what the
handle.
And I look at it and go like,well, me setting up one state
takes all, but you know, maybe acouple hours max total, then
wait for confirmation in mail.

(11:38):
Or via email.
Some states are really easy towork with.
Colorado is one of them, orthere's one website and then
within two minutes you have allof your numbers and your rates
and boom, it's beautiful.
But some states are much moredifficult.
You know, they send everythingby paper mail, and then there's
unit or division numbers thatthey don't tell you about.

(12:00):
I don't know if we were maybedouble the size we currently
are, and I.
Didn't have somebody that wasrunning HR would probably make a
case for pe for hiring a PEOcompany.

Russel (12:14):
Maybe then, I don't know, I'm still not convinced
some admin help or some otherways that, uh, can make that a
better experience.
Anyway, that's just me.
There we go.
I'll get off that soapbox.
Uh, but if there's someone outthere listening that you know,
can make a better case.
I'm all ears.
But if Russell's giving advicein day, I say, eh, I'm gonna shy
away from those PEOs.

(12:35):
All right.
Well, so obviously a lot ofmechanical aspects and
administrative, et cetera tomake this happen and pull it
off, you know, going back toyour giving your fundamental
purpose of really wanting tocreate a great environment in a
remote setting, what are justsome top of mind ways where
you've been able to create thatgreat environment remotely?

Blake (12:56):
One thing which we actually rolled out.
Must have been last year waseverybody has a user guide.
Like I have a user guide, it'scalled Blake's User Guide, what
it's like working with me and ittalks about communication
styles, preferences,availability, where there was

(13:17):
some feedback I received that,you know, there was somebody on
the team that I hadn't spokenwith in maybe six weeks.
They thought I was upset withthem, so they had to put clearly
in my user guide.
Like, if I haven't talked withyou in some time and you're not
like my direct report, like I'mnot mad at you.
I'm not even thinking about you.

(13:38):
That means you're doing goodwork.
And just had to kind of like setthe cadence of like, Hey, here's
what, like, it's something I'malways working on is like being
a better communicator.
That's been one of mylimitations is, you know,
constantly communicating witheverybody on the team.
But then setting like thestandard, saying like, Hey, if I

(13:59):
haven't talked to you in alittle bit of time, I'm not mad
at you.
If I have something to bring toyour attention, I'm gonna bring
it to you right then and thereinstead of letting it fester and
become a bigger problem than itshould be.

Russel (14:13):
Okay.
All right.
I gotta know more.
I mean, this sounds pretty cool,even I'll Beit a little bit
nerdy, but hey, guess what?
We're in a nerdy tech space, sothat makes perfect sense.
How are you creating these forsomeone that's, let's say new
coming on board, uh, I'm justfascinated by this process.
So when we have a new hirethat's

Blake (14:28):
onboarding part of that through, we use Bamboo HR for
like all of our onboarding.
One of the things that we asked,the new hire to create is their
own user guide and they get tosee everybody else's user guides
and there's a template that theythen get to fill out for
themselves.
And some people on our teamhave, you know, they're just in
Google Docs.

(14:49):
Mine's very plain, black andwhite.
Some people have added gifts,memes, colorful backgrounds,
because that's how they wantedto show.
That was super helpful.
Other than that, like.
With, you know, culture and thatstuff.
It's way more of like, I kind ofset the initial tone, but then

(15:11):
the rest of the team are theones who have like constantly
like evolved and changed it tomatch our overall

Russel (15:18):
side.
Ah, that's the beauty of goodculture.
It sounds like a bad term.
Bacteria in a dish and justgrows and amongst itself, uh, a
Petri dish.
It's a scientific process.
Yeah.
Sounds like a really cool thing.
You've let people make itthrough.
Added some entertainment value.
So I can see all the mechanics,how this works, you know, I
guess I'm just curious inpracticum, how often are people
in the business using it,reverting to it, checking it out

(15:42):
beyond just the creation of it?

Blake (15:45):
I think when we initially launched them all, um, we asked
everybody to kind of lookthrough, and now I believe
they're revisited on at least aquarterly basis.
In Slack everyone's, or linkedin their Slack profiles for easy
access.
Okay.
All right,

Russel (16:05):
so I guess tons of people moving in and out
revolving doors.
Once you've created and soundslike get to know someone,
essentially you've got some setincrements where it's, you're
gonna make sure to make it sortup to revisit it.
But getting to know someone andhaving taken a look at it, it's
easy to provide the context andit's not like you gotta pull it
out every day, it sounds like,in that sense that.
I know there's gotta besomething else.

(16:25):
Cool.
You've done.
So what else comes to mind andwe'll, we'll go down that rabbit
hole.
Sure.

Blake (16:32):
I guess.
Which ties into remote work andculture.
Like there is no set like, oh,this is Monday through Friday,
nine to five, right to four.
Everybody on the team, they getto set their own schedules.
That's the beauty.
By remote work, I'm hiringadults, not children.
I'm not their babysitter andlike we trust them.
We hired them into the role thatthey're getting paid to do.

(16:56):
And so on a weekly basis, likethe work is doled out and
scheduled.
And if.
That person wants to crush allthe work and work like, let's
say a couple 12 hour days andthen a 10 hour day to finish it
out.
They have that purview.
And though there's been somewhatof a push for like a four day

(17:17):
work week, and you know, that'sbeen available here for the last
six years and for, from whatI've seen, especially through
the pandemic, seeing fewer hoursper day, but more days per week.
But now, once the pandemic hasended.
Seeing a little bit of a shift,especially certain times of the
year, where, you know, givingthem that flexibility and that

(17:40):
trust to just do the workwhenever they want to, um, gives
them a lot more freedom.
If they have a doctor'sappointment or they need to go
run errands, they simply updatetheir Slack sa.
They only have to ask forpermission.
It's like, oh, be right back.
You know, gonna go run someerrands, be back in an hour or
two.
We also do the same thing withlike holidays.

(18:02):
They're flexible.
You know, if there's a holiday,like today's actually you and I
are chatting on its electionday.
Election day is a paid holidayby the agency, and I know at
least one person on the team isworking today, but they're going
to take Friday off, and Ibelieve next Monday is a holiday

(18:24):
too.

Russel (18:26):
Ah.

Blake (18:27):
They're gonna have a four day weekend instead of a three
day'cause they get to flex the

Russel (18:32):
holiday almost like Lego blocks for your ideal schedule
or whatever.
And sounds like really in thedirection of a, a more wait.
You know, I know there's a lotof the terminology we can be
used more fast and loose interms of results only work
environment.
But it sounds like you've reallymanufactured in a way that the
work is somewhat asynchronousand you actually do have the

(18:53):
results only work environment.

Blake (18:56):
The other part of it too is, you know, happens to
everybody, including myself.
Like some days you wake up andlike you just need a mental
health day.
Like you're something, you know,maybe your sleep wasn't good or
just not feeling like you're notsick, but you're not feeling a
hundred percent.
They can simply update theirstatus in Slack and say, Hey.

(19:20):
Taking the day off, gonna getcaught up over the weekend.
Yeah.
They don't have to use sick payor PT O for it.
Interesting.
As long as the work gets done,they have that flexibility.

Russel (19:31):
So I get the premise of this, you know, very similar to
our own ideals of we hiredadults, we're gonna treat you
like adults.
We shared responsibility is yougotta act like adults.
And like any system, there'sguardrails and then, then
there's people that you know.
Not even intentionally, butbecause maybe there's a gap we
haven't filled in there.
They, they hit those guardrails.

(19:52):
So what have you had to do justfrom an accountability
perspective or just to make surethat guardrails stay in place
and that this thing doesn't runoff the rails, so to speak?
We have a department

Blake (20:04):
level sync once a week, and we look at what happened
last week.
Um, our task manage system isclickup and.
Everything gets tracked, and ifthere are deliverables that were
knocked down in the previousweek, usually they're marked
with some type of roadblock.
Either it's a client roadblockor it's an internal roadblock

(20:26):
where the SME that was tasked todo the deliverable was missing a
key piece of information.
It's rare, it's rarely, if ever,that the person is just lazy.
Just didn't do it.
Which kind of goes back to ouronboarding process.

(20:47):
I think it's typically 60, 90days total.
Like for either they're a passor fail.
We haven't failed anybody at theend of 90 days when, you know,
during those first 60, 90 dayswe're looking for, okay, here's
the KPIs we're looking at, andif there's anything that's.

(21:10):
On the border, that gets coursecorrected very quickly, and at
the end of nine days it's like,okay, did they meet all KPIs?
And we're good to go.
But if there are issues, youknow, life happens.
Everyone goes through thingsthat are outside of our control.
Life happens.

(21:32):
And usually when stuff like thathappens, we'll.
Simply started with like justsimple communication.
If it continues to escalate,then it could turn into like a
written warning or it could turninto a pip.
Yeah.
Which we haven't had to do a PIPin probably a year and a half or

(21:52):
so.

Russel (21:54):
So.
What I'm hearing there and whatI like and I talk to a lot of
folks about this, is start withvery narrow guardrails almost,
and use a, I'll say a trust butverify approach in terms of, you
know, helping someone learn thesystem versus sometimes I think
the tendency we can hire someoneand we leave the guardrails wide
open and then it's a lot harderfor the employee perspective and

(22:17):
your perspective to then narrowthem after mistakes are made
again.
So it helps kind of.
Almost like a training wheels,training path or bumpers on a,
uh, bowling alley.
Uh, maybe think of it that, thatyou eventually lift or move away
all the time once everyone'sconfident that we understand the
system and how it works.
Mm-hmm.
Alright.
We'll shift gears here for aminute and you know, I know it's

(22:42):
a very big topic across allthings agency, but maybe it's
especially interesting as itrelates to search and we talk
about ai.
I know that's been a focus foryou in, in terms of your
business.
What's your perspective thereAnd we'll, we'll dig deeper from
there.

Blake (22:59):
I

Russel (23:00):
think

Blake (23:00):
it's a useful tool, but it's not like, uh, more of like
being able to.
Speed up, make things moreefficient, but it's not like
I've yet to find a use casewhere it can replace an actual
human.
Really helpful with dayanalysis, identifying insights,

(23:21):
speeding up communication viaautomations and stuff like that.
We tinkered initially with likeseeing if it could help on the
content writing side.
The amount of post editing fromour content team, it just, there
was no time savings.

(23:43):
It can be helpful in gatheringdata to, and research.
Yeah.
To be used.
Yeah.
But we still have our contentteam write all of the content
for clients and internally

Russel (23:56):
still more of a, and I think this is the way a lot of
folks are finding, and we'recoming down from the apocalyptic
approach of.
You know what this means andeverything like that, but more
of a brainstorming helper toolthan a outright creation tool.
One of the things that isinteresting, and you know, I
only know enough to be dangerousin this space, but is the idea,

(24:18):
right?
We're starting to see Googlesearches leveraging ai, which is
giving us some answers withoutactually going to a website or
seeing actual results, andGoogle's clearly been playing
around this notion for a while.
How do you see that impactingthe work you do in terms of
search and SEO?

Blake (24:34):
With the types of clients that we work with, it can affect
a little bit, but nottremendously where, you know, if
you're looking for enteringwinter, if you wake up one
morning and your furnace isbroken, you wanna find somebody

(24:55):
to come out and repair yourheater.
You don't want AI to tell youhow you can fix it yourself.
Yeah, yeah.
Or even try like looking throughand be like, oh, here's some
results.
Usually people are gonna scrolland look at maps or organic or
even use, uh, Google's localservice ads.
You know, if our clientele weremore on focus on just getting

(25:19):
lots of traffic because theysold ads on that traffic, which
would affect, you know, lots of.
Top and maybe mid-levelinformation.
Uh, I could see thatdramatically impacting revenue
for websites like that, youknow, including publishers.
But it's kinda reminds me of,uh, Google Glass just a little

(25:40):
bit, or when, you know, Alexaand these smart devices were
taking off and it's like, oh,Alexa is gonna destroy SEO.
And voice search is gonnadestroy SEO.
It's the end all be all, andthen it's hasn't really made any
significant dent.

(26:00):
I think it's gonna take a lotlonger for a full integration
where, you know, maybe Gen Z orGen Alpha are way more
comfortable with the resultsthat these AI overviews are
producing.
On a fair amount of my searches,I'll rely on AI reviews for
information.
But if I'm making an actualdecision.

(26:21):
I'm not letting it dictate who Ishould use or consider.

Russel (26:29):
Yeah, so just another helper and then even perhaps,
right, it maybe if it's evenbetter at the end of the day
that people that are movingbeyond just whatever the AI
recommendation is that they'reactually clicking looking for
to, as you said, make adecision.
So it's giving more clearintent, I guess you could say,
behind digital actions.
All right.
Before we hit the record button,we had a very interesting

(26:50):
conversation about this nextquestion.
So I'm gonna give us a littlemore space to dive into.
What, I can't wait for youranswer in this, so I'm just
gonna ask the question.
Are entrepreneurs born or arethey made?
I think it,

Blake (27:02):
you can make an argument that's both.
I like to read a lot and I liketo read a lot about neuroscience
and attachment theory and.
Lots of other things like that,I have a theory, which, you
know, I know a fair number ofagency owners and friendly with
most of'em, and there's a, atest you can take and it's

(27:26):
called ACEs and acronym forAdverse Childhood Experiences.
It was developed by KaiserPermanente some years ago.
Understand the correlation ofchildhood experiences to.
Cancer and disease later inlife.
And it showed, like if youscore, I believe, a four or
higher on this test, theinstances of like mental health

(27:47):
disorder, substance usedisorder, heart disease, cancer,
autoimmune disorder, likediseases, it just skyrockets and
it takes a certain type ofperson to be able to handle the
chaos that usually happenswithin an agency.
You know, there, you know, it'sebbs and flows, right?
There's.
Peaks and valleys, however youwanna phrase it.

(28:09):
But typically, most of thepeople I've asked that have
taken that test, honestly theyscore at least a three.
And me personally, like when myback is up against the wall, or
it's a very high intensepressure environment, I'm calm,
cool and collected, and I'mfocused and dialed in.

(28:32):
And I remember this wasprobably.
Four or five years ago, I wastalking to my wife about this,
saying, you know, if I couldreplicate this feeling via like
a pill, I would probably taketwo every single day.
And I was explaining the feelingand she looks at me, the wilder
and goes, that's anxiety.

(28:53):
And I look at go.
I like anxiety when I feel superalive and just like engaged and
but hyper-focused.
People that don't really have abackground of having adverse
childhood experiences, theymight not like being in an

(29:14):
environment like that, right?
It's like we were talkingculture earlier, right?
It's like the environment thatyoung child is raised in, you
know, kind of sets the tone ofwhat types of experiences or
things you can and can't handlein the future as an adult.

Russel (29:29):
All right.
I am so intrigued.
I'm going to go take this testand two main thoughts come to
mind is one, most scientificanalysis brought to this
question in the history thatI've asked, and I appreciate
that.
And I have talked to a number offolks as well, and I started
knowing a pattern, um, just byasking the very question of, you

(29:52):
know, hearing a lot of folksthat were agency owners.
Yes.
That also had adverse childexperiences from as extreme as,
uh, uh, parent dying or notbeing there to many other
things.
And um, it's fascinating toalways hear the science of
something you've observed inthat sense.
And so it is just the idea ofmaybe what you shared there is,

(30:13):
right, if you had some adverseexperience, you might have had
to learn some type of numbingbehavior or something like that
that makes you an emotional.
I think of this a little bit inmy own case of that.
I too want a little more anxietyat times because I understand
Right.
Some anxiety driven people, uh,that is what motivates you to

(30:33):
get 20, 30, 40, a hundredpercent more done in a time
period.
And so little anxiety is neverbad.

Blake (30:42):
Yeah.
It's more of like, okay, well,is that really healthy to
constantly seek high anxietyenvironments?
Just so you can perform.
And I've actually used Claude.
That's probably one of myfavorite AI tools.
I share personal stuff all thetime.
'cause it to me it's justinformation and there's no

(31:04):
emotion attached to it.
Like I've manufactured thosethings within my company to
create that environment that Iwanted so that way I could
perform.
Which, you know, it works, but.
I've wanted to like, okay,what's a healthier way of

(31:24):
approaching this?
And the first recommendationthat Claude gave me, which I
don't know if I could actuallydo, was take a certain amount of
profit from the agency, put intoa separate account and whatever
the goal is, if you do not hitthat goal within the timeframe,
you donate that money to acharity you do not like.

(31:50):
You know, donate money tocharity, you know, it's great.
But if it's a charity you don'tlike, whether it's through
ethics or it's a, you know, justa money grab that is, I don't
even think I could do that.

Russel (32:03):
Yeah.

Blake (32:07):
But recommend some other ways where it was like, oh, you
know, one of the examples wasfind a high profile type clients
offer skin the game, which couldlead to, you know.
More publicity for the agency.
It had some pretty good ideaswhere it's more of a healthy way
of using this type of stress oranxiety to perform without

(32:30):
having a constant need for myback is up against the wall and
if I don't do this, then youknow, not gonna be able run
payroll or I'm not gonna be ableto pay bills, stuff like that.

Russel (32:42):
Yeah, I mean, I would say it's not weird if it works,
but, uh, I get that that wouldbe a fascinating exercise to go
through.
Well.
Wonderful insight.
Appreciate you sharing that.
Uh, so there you go folks.
If you're sitting at home, gofind this ACEs test, test it
out, and could give you someanxiety about your future health
as well, it sounds like, um,based upon this study.

(33:05):
Yeah.
I

Blake (33:06):
mean, it's not like, oh, well, like when I took ITM a
six, not saying that to like Brior anything, but like that's
just what my number is.
Yeah.
But I'm also not my number wherethose things can be addressed
and dealt with.
You know, that.
Down the rabbit hole of liketherapy.
And I've done EMDR for stufflike this.

(33:27):
I've done hypnotherapy, which isquite frankly amazing for very
early childhood stuff.
But EMDR is awesome for likeadolescent up until adulthood
for like traumatic events orexperiences.
But for like early childhoodstuff, EMDR, it's like single
percentage points of successrates because tapping that deep

(33:48):
into the subconscious mind.
It's just really hard to dealwith the MDR, but hypnotherapy
gets you there very easily.
Hmm.
Learned all that from readingthe book.
The Body Keeps the Score byBessel Vander Koch.

Russel (34:02):
Always love a good book.
Recommendation.

Blake (34:06):
Trigger warning, like, you know, it can be triggering
to some people because he talksabout traumatic events that
happen to patients and stuff.
So, you know, tread lightly ifyou're prone

Russel (34:17):
to stuff like that.
Awesome.
Thank you for sharing that.
Thank you for that disclaimer.
Alright, well if people wannaknow more about RicketyRoo,
where can they go?

Blake (34:27):
Our website is rickety ru.com.
It's R-I-C-K-E-T-Y-R-O-O.
Connect with me.
On Twitter, well, x my handle isBlake Denman LinkedIn, Blake
Denman.

Russel (34:42):
Well, it's always gonna be Twitter in my book, but, uh,
yeah.
And then this one in particular,I gotta know what's the story
behind the name?
We, I don't think we ever got tothat, uh,

Blake (34:52):
completely random.
When that tele market company Iworked at, they had received
venture funding.
But they were hemorrhaging cash,so they did a fair amount of
layoffs and they laid off awhole bunch of my friends.
I was protected because I wasrunning their paid search
department, so we're all hangingout my friend's condo that night

(35:15):
and I just kind of threw it outthere like, we're the ones who
do all work, why don't we startour own company?
They thought it was a greatidea, so we were trying to come
up with a name in the nameRickety Root.
Popped in my head, so I threw itout there.
They all liked it, so I boughtthe domain name that night and
then six months later, when Iwent out on my own, needed a
company name.
People liked the name.
They thought it was fun andcute, and it has tells you

(35:37):
nothing about what we actuallydo.
I've been running ever since.

Russel (35:42):
Not weird if it works and that definitely is
memorable.
Alright, well wonderful storytoday and thank you so much
Blake, for taking the time toshare it from cool examples of
how you've made a, a greatenvironment of user guides to
really breaking down the scienceof whether or not entrepreneurs
are born or made.
Really appreciate you taking thetime to share that with us.

(36:06):
Oh, no problem.
Happy to.
Wonderful.
Thanks for having me.
Most welcome.
Thanks for being on.
Thank you for listening to anagency story podcast where every
story helps you write your own,subscribe, share, and join us
again for more real stories,lessons learned, and
breakthroughs ahead.
What's next?
You'll want to visit an agencystory.com/podcast and follow us

(36:29):
on Instagram at an agency storyfor the latest updates.

Blake (36:35):
One of the first WordPress websites I built, so
this would've been 2010.
The client's website was pureHTML, and it was on just a
GoDaddy basic hosting plan.
And so I built it on my localmachine and it looked great, and

(36:55):
then I was doing a migrationthat evening and I had never set
up.
Databases or anything like that.
So I was following this like guythat I found through Google and
I put everything up there andhit a critical error and

(37:16):
troubleshooted for about 45minutes and it was like close to
midnight.
And so then decided, okay, wellI'm just gonna rebuild the
entire website tonight and hopeI finish it before the client
wakes up tomorrow morning.
And finished and got the newsite launched.
Live is probably like five 30 or6:00 AM.

Russel (37:36):
Wow.
Speaking of anxiety, you createdsome there?

Blake (37:41):
Yeah, not intentionally.
I wanted to sleep, but you know,had to get some Red Bulls and
just power through.
All right.
Power, commitment.
Wonderful.
Thanks for sharing that.