Episode 123: The Secret Society of Success with Tim Schurrer

So the big question is this: how do small business owners like us grow our leadership, develop our teams, and scale our business in a way that allows us to get our products and services out to the world yet still remain profitable? That is the question, and this podcast will give you the answers. I'm Bradley Hamner, and this is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Hey, before we get into today's episode, did you know that Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agency owners in the country, providing monthly accounting, CFO services, and tax preparation. Check them out at club.capital. Welcome to another episode of the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. My name is Bradley Hamner, your host. On today's episode, we have Tim Scherer. Tim knows what it takes to build a winning team. As a matter of fact, he spent almost a decade of his career launching two brands, StoryBrand and Business Made Simple, as CEO alongside New York Times bestselling author Donald Miller. During his time as CEO, Tim and his team accomplished the following, which is pretty remarkable. They grew the business from $250,000 to $16.5 million in annual revenue. They generated more than 20 million podcast downloads, launched multiple bestselling books and on-demand video courses, produced dozens of events from a 2,400-person conference to a 5,500-person livestream. And most importantly, they built a culture where people love their work and would do whatever it took to help one another and their customers win. Tim lives actually not far from me in Nashville, Tennessee with his wife Katie and their two kids. I think you're going to get so much out of this podcast. He just released a book, The Secret Society, which I highly recommend. It's been one of my favorite books of 2022. Without further ado, here's my conversation with Tim Sure. Have you ever tried online marketing before and weren't sure if it was working? Maybe your rep talked about all the impressive features and stats and said things were going great, but you didn't know how all that tied into raw new policies written. Well, that's not the case with DirectClicks. DirectClicks is the premier Google Ads and SEO option exclusively for State Farm agents. Why? They're 100% results-oriented with an exclusivity guarantee. Every review call you have with your account manager focuses on what really matters to your business. And that's leads and call-ins received. Everything will get broken down to cost per lead received. By investing with DirectClicks, you're gonna free up time and energy to focus on what's most important in your agency and doing what it is you do best. This will be the best investment you make for your team by spending confidently and scaling your agency today with exclusive online marketing partner DirectClicks. Visit us at directclicksinc.com. Ambition is the first step towards success. It's time to level up your agency, and Coach P Consulting will help you do just that by using the same strategies he used to sell over 700 life insurance policies in 2021 alone. Now, this is not your regular one-and-done type coaching. You'll get personalized coaching 2 days a week, every week of the month, and you'll get a live look behind the scenes of his team training and an office that's performing at the highest level. There's a reason Coach P Consulting is the fastest growing coaching company for insurance agency owners in the country. Coach P will train your team alongside his own and show you the exact steps they are taking to achieve Chairman's Circle, Exotic Travel, and Multi-Line Presidents Club and be one of the few agents to be selected to have a third office. So whether your goal is to be at the top of your local market or amongst the best in the country, this training will give you the strategies and the tactics to get there. For just $250 a month, you'll get high-level coaching each week from someone who is already getting it done at that level, and his strategies work, and it's time to put them to work for you. Sign up at CoachBe Consulting.com and get your first full month for free when you mention the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. Tim Scherer, welcome to the Club Capital Leadership Podcast.

Thanks so much. I'm pumped to be here.

Very excited to have you. So I have so many questions to ask you about your book that just came out. Before we do all of that, we always start with background and origin story. And I think that your background and how you got to where you are today is so fascinating. You just have such a wealth of experience. But for people that don't know you, why don't you tell them your journey?

I wanted to be the next John Mayer. That was where it started for me. I, in college, I wrote a, you know, so I started writing songs, released a couple records, had my songs on iTunes, and I just thought, this is it. And what's— I'll just jump ahead and give you a little spoiler here. I did not become the next John Mayer. Tried hard though. And it's interesting to me in that journey, I started to experience that fulfillment and that sense of belonging and everything in my life when I moved further and further away from the spotlight. And there's a cultural message saying, to be successful, it's stepping into the spotlight, climbing the ladder, and I've just found myself over the last 15 years of my career, I've been on a different path. So when I hear people say success is this one thing, I just ask, is it though? So that was really the journey for me stepping into more of what I've been doing most recently, which is becoming a right-hand too somebody else and kind of serving alongside somebody. So I did that for a few years with a musician named Steve Moekler, loved him, and, you know, one of my best friends to this day. And then for the last decade, I worked with Donald Miller as the COO of StoryBrand. And I just really found a lot of happiness and contentment playing, playing a role on the team like that.

Well, I've got a lot of questions to ask you around culture and around how do you, you know, what is it like in the trenches to grow a company from, you know, a few hundred thousand a year to the success that you guys have. But I want to start with this idea that you mentioned in the book, and it is around the spotlight mindset and contrasting that to the to what you call the way of the secret society. Can you just begin to talk? First of all, what is the spotlight mindset?

So I define the spotlight mindset as this unhealthy desire for attention and recognition. And this is the thing that I think we are all up against. What is keeping us from success? The, the, the long-lasting, fulfilling version of success? It's the spotlight mindset. And the spotlight mindset plays out in so many different ways in our lives. And I'd love to just kind of talk you through a few of them because I feel like if we can learn to identify this in our life, we actually can start to solve it. You know, that awareness will help us be able to realize we need to head down a different path. So I'll read a few of these symptoms I call of the spotlight mindset. And one of them is comparison. You know, do you wish you were someone else or wonder how your success stacks up against others? Are you looking to the, you know, other agents in your field and seeing the success that they have, the number of employees that they have, the number of clients? And is that success? And are you measuring your success just based on that comparison? Striving. Yeah, right. Here's another one. Do you struggle to find contentment in your life? Does it lead you on this restless pursuit for more? And what I've learned about striving is there is always a next thing to chase. You will never arrive at the place where you say, I did it, you know. There is always another one, right? You hit this tier, this level, you know, now all of a sudden the bar has just been raised, and that just happens over and over and over. So So comparison, striving, these are symptoms of the spotlight mindset. But one more, damaged relationships. So does this desire for fame, money, power, success, is it actually impacting your relationships? And somebody that I've been actually pretty inspired by over the years is a guy named Michael Hyatt. And Michael talks about in one of his books a particular failure he had in his career. And Michael was given the opportunity to run a division at a book publishing company. And at the time, this division was ranked 14th out of 14 in all significant metrics. So team morale, revenue, I mean, they were at the bottom. So he tells the CEO, give me 3 years, I'm going to turn this thing around. Well, in only 18 months, he turns the business around and his division was now at the top. Revenue, team morale, I mean, they couldn't stop winning. So Michael gets a bonus check that he says was greater than his annual salary.

He was pumped.

Like, he couldn't wait to get home and tell his wife about it. She was his biggest fan. He knew she'd be thrilled. But the conversation that he has with his wife is very different from the one that he actually thought he was going to have. And he gets home and his wife says, "We need to talk." which is not a great start, right?

No, it's not. Not a good start.

And, you know, with tears in her eyes, she goes on to say, "Your 5 daughters need you now more than ever before. And in fact, I feel like a single parent." So here Michael was having all the success that he could imagine at work, and yet relationships with the people that mattered most to him were suffering because of it. And so just to close the loop on the Michael story before I kind of finish here, but Michael now is starting to look at success very differently than he used to. And in fact, he wrote a book called Win at Work and Succeed at Life, which he calls the double win. Like it's success in both of these areas. And so whether it's striving, comparison, damaged relationships, and there are more, We are all up against this unhealthy desire for attention and recognition. On the other end of the spectrum, we have living in the way of the secret society. And the secret society of success is this group of people who've shown me what it looks like to define success in a little different way than maybe we're thinking today. That's not the fame, the money, the power. So if success isn't these things, the fame, money, power, what is it? And so the reality is we're kind of living in this tension between wanting the attention and recognition and chasing after all of it. And then you have living in the way of the secret society, which is just approaching your life in a very different way.

You know, I told you before we got started with the recording, when we have people on that for the podcast, I will always, if they've written a book, I'll always try to get their, their latest book and go through it. And sometimes I read it, sometimes I don't. This one I really love because so many of the things that you mentioned, even some of the couple that you gave examples of there, just hit home with me personally. The one around comparison, I can remember 12 years ago, uh, when I first started my, uh, business, there was somebody that was a competitor in my marketplace and I'd never met him before. And I had this envy and just almost like hatred to this person. I'd never met him before. And now 10, 12 years later, we've become good friends. And if you would have told me that 12 years ago, and I think back on how much wasted time and energy I had on this person that I didn't even know. And because I thought it was almost like this zero-sum game, like I was taking business from this person, like me winning was going to lower them down. And I just think how immature those thoughts were that I had then. I want to ask you though around striving, okay, is because everyone listening to this podcast, they really have what Carol Dweck would say is a growth mindset. I mean, they're listening to a podcast to be able to grow and develop. And so they want to reconcile this tension of like, yeah, but isn't that what life is about, is about striving and wanting and, and developing more skills so I can do more and serve more people? And so I think in the book, you do a really good job of talking about like, it's not really a problem to be solved, but more so a tension to be managed. And can— so you— can you talk about just this idea of striving but also contentment of where we are, but still being able to want more and grow and develop as a person versus what does that mean? I just let off the gas completely.

Yeah, somebody I've learned a lot from in this regard is a guy named Michael Collins, which is somebody that a lot of people have never heard of. But most people have heard of Apollo 11. They know Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind, right? But Michael Collins is the guy that actually Ubers Neil and Buzz to the moon. He drops them off, then they do all the things that they need to do on the moon surface while he actually stays back in the command module, orbits the moon something like 26 times. Until those guys are ready to be picked up and brought back to Earth. And what would make this a miserable story is if Michael were to get back and sit down with the press and say something like, well, it sure would have been nice to actually walk on the moon, and, you know, acted like a victim or tried to take the spotlight in some way from the mission as a whole. But what's beautiful is that's not at all what happened. Michael gets back and sits with the press to say, how content he was to have had one of those three seats. He was happy to be part of the mission. And for so many of us, we feel like to be happy, to be successful, we have to walk on the moon. And I guess my question for all of us is, do you though? That's it? That's the only path? And I think that there is some misunderstanding here that as people hear me say that, they may say, so to be content means that you lack ambition. That's not at all what I'm saying. Think about Michael Collins. To even have had a seat on that mission meant he was incredibly talented, best in class. He just didn't walk on the moon. So for so many of us, we are wanting to just have the answer. We want it to be black and white. Our brains love that clarity, but life often doesn't give us the kind of clarity that we want. And I had a friend, I have a friend, I still have him, his name is Tim Arnold. He wrote this book called The Power of Healthy Tension. And he said that tensions are a lot like breathing. You know, you can't have all inhales, you can't have all exhales. Tensions are like that. It's not a problem to solve. It's not an either/or, it's a both/and. These are not problems to solve. These are tensions to manage. So as soon as we go and try to get all the way to striving or ambition, if you could, it's not going all the way towards ambition. It's not also going all the way towards just sloth and contentment. It's like, no, I mean, you can be content and also be ambitious at the same time. And it's living in the tension between these things. But the motivation to me is, I think, the most important thing. Why is it that you want to chase the thing? Because if somebody says, I really want a million dollars in my bank account because I want to be rich. It's like, okay, cool. If you get pumped up about that, go for it. Have some fun. I just don't know if that's going to last very long. But if you met somebody who said, I want to make a million dollars, and then they go on to talk about this beautiful vision of how they would use that million dollars to help somebody else.

Totally.

There is an ambition that actually is worth pursuing. Ambition is not bad. It's our motivation in wanting the thing in the first place. The spotlight mindset wants you to get the million dollars so that you will get the attention, the recognition, to be seen as famous and successful. But I think that for all of us, the important thing is that the work that we have to do is to check our intentions whenever we're about to go chase down something, whether it's a new business idea, whether it's a desire to increase our staff or whatever, scale the company. So it's the intention and learning to live in that tension Uh, that's, that's most important.

This week of, of when we're recording this, we're coming off of, um, the new LIV golf tournament. Before we were recording, you and I were talking about golf and our love for golf, and we're going to try to make sure we tee it up here pretty soon. And, um, it's the US Open week, uh, the week of this week. And so there's all these questions that are happening in press conferences around And for those of you that are not golfers, you know, just kind of live, just, you know, hear through. Basically, these golfers have been offered an egregious amount of money, hundreds of millions of dollars, literally. I think Dustin Johnson got $150 million to go to this other tour. And the reason I'm bringing this up is because I think it's a good segue based on what you just mentioned, is in Chapter 11, you talk about when is enough enough? You know, I mean, money can only solve money problems. Right? It can only solve money problems. And so you talk about this thing that I had never heard. I grew up in the country. I mean, now we didn't have sheep. We didn't have sheep, but we did have cattle. And I'd never heard about this before. But it's called sheep bloat. So talk about sheep bloat. And how does this, like, sheep bloat, which is a real thing, you talk about the book, how does that relate to what it is we were just talking about? When is enough enough?

Yeah, so almost every day when I'm in the car, I'm listening to podcasts. And I listened to this talk by a guy named Jason Strand. Talking about sheep bloat. This is where I learned all this from. And apparently sheep, if left to their own devices, will actually eat so much that they will actually become sick, even to the point of death. So the shepherd's job is not only to take the sheep from grazing ground to grazing ground, but it's also to keep them from overeating. Knowing that sheep have a tendency of sheep bloat, if they see a sheep overeating, they will force them to lie down. So in this particular talk, Jason, kind of the punchline is, will you lie down or will you be forced to lie down? Like, is it going to take a moral failure, a health crisis, a relationship, you know, being damaged in your own life to realize that this thing that you are chasing has actually gotten out of control? And you would think with sheep that it would be maybe unhealthy grass that these sheep are consuming, but that's not at all the case with sheep bloat. It's green pastures all around them.

Yeah.

So I think the same is true for all of us. We have every opportunity to go and chase and get, but I do think we need to, to ask, is it working? Is it working for us and is it working for the people around us? Or are we chasing this version of success that is actually just not sustainable? And in doing so, are we at risk of sheep bloat? Is it going to take a crash to wake you up? When is enough enough? And for so many of us This problem is created because we haven't done a very simple exercise. And that exercise is this. If I were to ask you to fill in the blank, you know, finish this sentence for me. Success is— so many people haven't gotten clear about their version of success, what success actually is to them. Because they haven't gotten clear proactively, subconsciously now they are actually living in accordance to this definition of success. It's almost being handed to them, shoved down our throats, bombarded in media. Success is fame, money, power, running the company, being the greatest, getting all the attention, the recognition. But I think that if we were to quiet ourselves and ask, what is success really? That we would find that maybe we are not as connected to that definition in the way that we're living as maybe we would want to.

Yeah.

So you may actually say success is helping others, success is serving others, but then when you look at how you spend your time, does it actually line up?

Yeah.

And so, you know, if there is a common denominator for people in the secret society, the one thing that I think unites all of them, it's this foundation of service, helping others win. And I think for more of us, we need to show up and operate in that way. And I think if we do that, we're going to be on a, on a much better path.

I think it's another good segue. In Chapter 3, talk about success is in the assist. And I'm a big basketball guy. There's not something I don't love as much as golf, it's basketball. And I am one of the few in North Alabama that keep up with NBA basketball. And I'm a Lakers fan, okay? And I am a LeBron James fan. Whether you like him off the court or not doesn't matter. He is an incredible basketball player, period. And you tell a story about in 2020, obviously the season was, uh, they went into the NBA bubble, etc. But that year LeBron had set it out that he wanted to lead the league, not his team, but the league in assists. And he did, and they ended up obviously winning the championship. Can you just speak to that and how that story and metaphor is also really good to what you just mentioned about like setting others up for success, helping others to be able to win, you being the spotlight, not in the spotlight, so to speak, right? Like, look at this, don't look at me.

Yeah, so if you think about some of the greatest players NBA history, so many of them have strived to be the scoring leader. Michael Jordan won that thing a record-setting 10 times. I mean, him taking over games was kind of what he did. Um, but that's what's interesting to me. In 2020, LeBron wasn't even in the top 5 in scoring, but by leading the league in assists, what he is saying is The way we will win and how he's choosing to show up is by setting his teammates up to score. What if success is in the assist? And in 2017, I heard this guy Andy Stanley speak. He's a leadership expert, one of the greatest communicators I've ever heard. And Andy says, you know, if we really want to find our purpose, that meaning, that motivation in doing our work, he said these cultural questions around like, what's in it for me? Why am I here? These are so prevalent. But he said, that's not how we actually find purpose. He says the question we need to ask is this: Who am I here for? And what I love about that who am I here for question is it still allows us to show up and do our thing, play our part, bring our skills, our talents, our abilities. But what it does is it puts us into this headspace and into a posture of helping somebody else? What if success is in the assist? And what if we were to ask, who am I here for, a little bit more often?

Are you an agency owner looking to grow your revenue, increase your bottom line, and better manage your taxes? Club Capital is here to help. Club Capital is the largest accounting and advisory firm for insurance agents in the country, providing monthly accounting, tax strategy, and CFO services. Way more than bookkeeping and your everyday run-of-the-mill tax prep, Club Capital is focused on providing financial and tax advisory services that help you plan and forecast your agency's performance. Their financial dashboards and agency forecasting tools help you better understand your agency's historical performance, create, measure future targets, and see how your agency compares to your peers around the country. Imagine what it would be like to understand the impact to your bottom line when deciding to hire a new employee. Or forecast the impact rate changes or commission rates will have on your business. With over $200 million in tracked annual revenue and $140 million in tracked annual expenses, Club Capital has the data and the team to help you make better informed decisions for your agency. They will help you turn that back office stress into the backbone of your agency's success by giving you the tools to take your agency and your leadership to the next level. Visit club.capital today to book a solution overview with one of our business consultants. Club Capital, way more than a CPA firm. Many people have listened to this podcast know my affinity for my beloved Auburn Tigers. My goodness, you can see it behind me on the, on the bookshelf. So it really pains me to have to give credit to this next person, but I'm going to do it anyway. You talk about getting lost in the work, and specifically I'm referring to focusing on the process. You knew what was coming, you knew what was coming, and Nick Saban and talking about the process, the the process, the process. Yeah, but I have to say, clearly his success is evident. And they do, they focus on the process. What are the things that they need to do so that they can focus more on themselves than even the team? In fact, Cole Kubelik, who's an SEC analyst, came on the podcast a few weeks ago. And he talked about one of the things that really stood out to him is every time he goes to an SEC stadium this coming fall, and he's talking to the coaches the week before a big game, they talk about how they will self-evaluate themselves as much, if not more, than what— who— how they evaluate the other team. And I thought that was a fascinating comment. I had no idea that they would do it, you know, that way. But he's referring to focusing on the process. And so can you just talk about, like, getting lost in the work and surrendering to the outcome and allowing the results to speak for themselves?

So I spent almost a decade working alongside Don and building the team at StoryBrand. And, you know, if you were to ask what my favorite memory of that time is, it's the day when Don had released a book. And about 10 days after that book comes out, you find out if you've hit the bestseller lists. So Don was in the office and gets a phone call from the publisher. We knew this was the call that he'd find out if we hit these lists. So he hangs up the phone, lifts his hands up in the air, says, "We hit number 5 on the New York Times," which is the highest any of his books had ever been on that list. It's a huge deal, not only just to be on the New York Times, but number 5 is pretty great. So we high-five, we hug, pretty excited about it. And then something really beautiful happens. We all went back to work. And some people would hear me say that and say that we're dysfunctional, that we didn't actually know how to celebrate wins. But I look at it very differently. I look at it as we had built a culture where everyone was as interested in doing the work as anything else. The validation for having done great work is what we got from hitting this bestsellers list, but I would have shown up the very next day exactly the same whether we hit that list or not. It was a group of people who found contentment doing the work, finding success in the process. And it's so easy to focus on the results.

Yeah.

I mean, I just released this book and let me tell you, when you put out something like this and there's a whole chapter on, you know, focus on the process. Well, guess what I'm having, you know, some challenges with is staying focused on the process.

I bet.

Everything in me wants to refresh the sales rankings and the sales numbers and Everything in me wants to focus on that, but that will do me no good. And the more I do that, the more I look at podcast download numbers or whatever it is, we can constantly measure ourselves against these scoreboards when it's not actually the most important part. There is no silver bullet in business. I think so many of us want to find the silver bullet. The silver bullet is continuous improvement.

Yeah.

And so what is another way of saying that? The silver bullet is in the process, focusing on the process. And so it's in those moments when I want to just keep checking these scoreboards and these rankings that I just need to remind myself, what got you to that place? And it's defining the plan, working the plan, and being content with whatever happens and, you know, surrendering the outcome in any way that we possibly can.

I think— and I wish I could give credit to the person that first shared this with me— but, you know, we set these arbitrary numbers of the things that we need to do this year, or— and I'm a big believer in setting a 3-year vision, you know, for where you want to take the company, because it kind of begins to align compensation plans and goals for the organization and all those things. And you're not saying any of those are not valid and not, and not important for the business. But I think it's more important, like, not just what we accomplish, but who we become along the way.

Yeah.

So we look back and say, well, who have I become over the last 12 months or last 24 months? Am I a better version of myself? And so I get caught up in that too, Tim. Like, you know, I told you when we first started the podcast, I mean, there was, there was no zero idea of, okay, well, let's start the podcast. But what, what's our goal for how many downloads we're going to have? I didn't even know how to check downloads. I didn't even know how to get a podcast on you, on, uh, Apple iTunes to begin with. I was like, we got to figure that out. The first 2 episodes were recorded on GarageBand on my Mac, and not very well, by the way, you know. So I mean, I didn't know how to do that. And, and, and, and now it— obviously just the gift to be able to serve people, and for our listening audience to get to hear from people like you But even though I still get caught up into it and looking at it on a weekly basis, okay, well, how many did that one get? And how many, you know, what are the things we need to do? And it's easy to get caught up in that mindset sometimes.

And I, I'm right there with you. Let's, let's get back to this idea of learning to live in the tension. Because I wish so badly that I could tell you, okay, all you got to do is step 1, step 2, step 3, and you will now no longer struggle with you know, checking the results and caring about that, you're just going to be able to totally live in the process. Like, yeah, it's just not true. It's just not real life.

Yeah.

And so this is another one of those we have to realize our own tendencies. And the important thing is that self-awareness of knowing what we're in so that we can start to get out. You know, there I heard a guy named Tom House say problem identification is half the solution. Yeah, self-awareness is one of the greatest gifts that we can have. If we know that we're caught up in the result, we can now change course. We can actually realize that we need to maybe spend more of our time focusing on the process. And, um, when I have done that, I've just gotten into a much better headspace. But it is tough, it's challenging, and yet I think it's the right thing to do.

I would be remiss. I've got to ask this question selfishly because I'm, I'm really curious on your answer. Um, the, uh, uh, Gino Wickman, who wrote the book Traction, uh, he's got another book called Rocket Fuel, and he talks about this integration between a visionary entrepreneur and the integrator is what he calls it, right? So this kind of like this two-person team to really lead the organization. And I don't know, you may not necessarily have referred referred to and look back on your relationship with Donald in that way. Maybe you do, maybe you don't. But for somebody who's listening to this and saying, hey, I really want to begin to scale my business, I want to do it in a healthy, sustainable way. And they do have these aspirations to be able to really grow the company. I think that intuit— like, academically, we know, hey, we can't do it alone. We got to be able to have really, really good people. On the team, and it is impossible to wear all of the hats, okay? CEO, COO, CMO, CFO— like, it's just too much, okay? It really is. And so can you just talk about that dynamic, number one, okay? Dynamic of visionary entrepreneur, integrator, COO— like, y'all's relationship and how that really worked to be able to grow the company. And then two, advice for a business owner who who recognizes the need that they need really kind of a 2IC, a second in command, to be able to really go and grow the company.

Yeah, one thing that Don and I used to talk a lot about is this idea of we are staffing our liabilities.

Ah, okay.

So let's not try to hide the fact that we have liabilities. We all do. And let's just staff for it. So I was such a great partner to Don because of our two skill sets and our two, you know, sets of liabilities coming together. It just was really well positioned. As the company grew from just he and I to then some of the other needs in the business, we had some things that we needed to chase down that we didn't feel we were best at. So we hired somebody else for that role. And When I worked at StoryBrand, I hired every single employee. You know, building winning teams is what I love to do. And so often in these hiring conversations, I would talk about how I'm trying to live at the intersection between the company need and the employee's wants and desires and skills.

Yes.

And when you're in that place, when it's something that the company needs and also this perfectly fits with what you're skilled at doing and are passionate about, that's when some beautiful things can happen.

Yeah.

And so to even get back to this whole idea of liabilities, I think for so many of us, we just need to be honest about what we're good at and maybe what we're not so good at. And based on those liabilities, is there an opportunity for the business to grow into that area, maybe by adding somebody else into the mix? So Don is not short on vision. Or the content that he was creating, it's just his superpower. So I then tried to give him as much time and space to do his thing really well. And I gave him the gift of really running the business day to day, managing the team, kind of overseeing all the different projects that we had going on, the product releases and things. And I really just get everybody set up to be at their best, do their thing. And Don has the ability to really focus on, you know, doing the content creation after he kind of sets this big vision. It's like, all right, here's where we're going. Here's my part. Now, like, off he goes. And then I'm managing that on a day-to-day basis. It's not like he disappeared for like 3 months and then came back like, how's it going, guys? It wasn't anything like that. He was a lot more integrated than that. But I really felt like I was at my best when he wasn't having to think about running the business day to day.

Yeah, you know, I— in my mind, as you were just describing that, I did, I did think about you being, um, John Stockton. I don't know why. John Stockton, like, you were just dishing out for Karl Malone and, and the whole, whole crew, like, going back to the '90s since you mentioned Jordan earlier. Yeah, you know, but that's how I think about it. Like, you were really set— okay, like, hey, let me set Don up and so that he can go and do his superpower and and bring out his genius. But then there's this whole team to be able to scale to where you guys were. You had a whole team that was able to, to be doing what they were doing, and you were doing what you needed to be doing yourself.

And the mental struggle in all of that, I remember very vividly moments when I felt I was less than because I didn't have what Don had. I felt that I was not doing my job well, if I too wasn't bringing the vision. If I wasn't bringing what it is that he was coming to the table with. And that's actually challenging for so many people. They feel like they need to become like the leaders that they see. And I'm not saying don't be inspired by that and grow in your own abilities. But what I am saying is it was most important for me to lean into what it is that I did best and allow other people to also be at their best. And for that unit, that team to function. And I have this podcast called Build a Winning Team. And I interviewed Dan Cockerell, who's former VP of Disney's Magic Kingdom. And he talked about how it felt like he was putting together a 12,000-piece puzzle. Everyone playing their part matters. And if somebody is not playing their part, we're missing something. And whether you have 12,000 employees like Dan did, or whether you have 30 or 5 or 3, I think it's most important for us to realize what is it that we are great at? What are some of our liabilities? But then how do we come together with those unique skill sets and liabilities to create what we all know is a team, a great team, uh, that can win together. And I think that's all a part of that equation.

I'm gonna have you come back on in the future and we'll talk all about creating a winning team because I've got so many questions. This could end up being a 2-hour podcast. But, um, congrats on the success of the book. We're going to go into rapid-fire questions in just a second, but where, uh, where would you like people to be able to go and learn more about you and pick up a copy? Obviously listen to your podcast, where would you point them to?

Yeah. So if, if people go to secretsocietyfree.com, you can actually get the first 2 chapters of my book for free. And that's just a great way to start down this path of figuring out how you can define success perhaps a little bit differently from the ways that culture is defining it for us these days.

Awesome. Awesome. All right, you ready for E9? You know where E9 comes from. You get— now we got young kids, we have to be able to just play an emergency 9 holes. All right, you ready?

I'm ready.

All right, last book that you read. The best use of money is to buy back your time, and one of the best ways to do that is with a virtual assistant. Rock Solid Virtual Assistants brings together top business leaders with exceptional virtual assistants to build successful relationship-driven teams. The services they provide range from graphic design and marketing to executive admin assistants and everything in between. There are many virtual assistant companies on the market to choose from, but at RockSolid, their processes and passion for what they do place them at the very top of that list. Not only is their hiring process exceptional, which nets them the very best assistants, but they also provide superior support to their teams for the duration of your time with them. The matching process at RockSolid is unlike any other. And they have the track record to prove it. Their hands-on approach has proven to increase the success rate of their teams exponentially. So if you're looking to build a rock-solid team for your business, reach out to Tracy and the team for a no-pressure discovery call at rocksolidassistance.com. They value your success as if it were their own, because it is.

I'm almost finished. I'm just gonna say this because I'm almost finished with it. Um, Alan Shipnuck wrote a book on Phil Mickelson.

Yeah.

Oh, you already got it? Yeah. It came out May 17th. So I've, I've, uh, I'm almost done. I'm really enjoying it.

All right. All right. Now I was going to get it. I haven't gotten it yet, so I'm definitely going to get it now. And it's US Open week, Father's Day weekend. It's probably a good week for me to read it, right? Uh, before he misses the cut. All right. Uh, other than your book, the book you would recommend the most to other small business owners?

David Novak wrote a book called Taking People with You, and I just love David's approach on leadership. I feel like when he was the CEO of Yum Brands, he grew that business from $4 billion to $32 billion by creating a culture of recognition and this idea that you can't do anything big alone. And, you know, David, that, that book's fantastic.

That's awesome. I'll pick it up. Your favorite travel destination?

Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

That's a good one. Place you would want to travel to that you haven't been to yet?

I want to go— well, man, this is hard, actually. I have so many ideas in my head. I want to spend more time in San Francisco. I feel like I've driven through but I've never really spent time in that whole kind of— that's pretty close, like kind of the Pebble Beach area, right? That's all right in that little— I want to go hang out up there.

Yeah, yeah.

I just want to go to Pebble Beach. That's where I want to go.

I'll go with it. I'll go with you. I haven't been to Pebble yet either. Your favorite tech tool or app that you use every day, non-native to your iPhone or whatever you use?

There's an app I love called One Second Every Day. You take a 1-second video clip, almost as like a diary of the day. And it's, you know, stacked up one after another, you actually see a year in 6 minutes. And I've been doing this for 8 years.

Oh, cool. I love that. I love, I love little things like that. And I'm definitely going to download that after this. 10-hour flight. Who would you love to sit next to?

Jim Nantz.

Uh, yeah, I love that guy.

I'm just— I've heard that guy on interviews and just seen him at the Final Four and the Masters every year. He's got an incredible number of stories that I'm sure I just— I could ask him a question after a question and I just get some incredible, uh, entertainment out of that.

Yeah, that's a good one. That's a good one. All right, when you're not working, uh, what do you love to do?

Either play basketball or golf. Spend time with my family too. All those things, but a couple hobbies and a couple things with, uh, with family would be fun.

Last two questions. What's your favorite golf course?

Augusta National, hands down.

Have you played Augusta?

I haven't, no.

Okay, if you had, we were not doing this podcast. We were just shutting down. All right, uh, last question. It is the Club Capital Leadership Podcast. What is the best piece of leadership advice you've ever received?

Albert Schweitzer has a quote that I just love. He says, um, I don't know what your destiny will be, Perhaps some of you will occupy remarkable positions. Perhaps some of you will become famous by your pens or as artists. But I know one thing: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.

That's so good. I love that. Tim, you've been awesome, man.

Thanks so much for having me.

Every week I always try to share some of my biggest takeaways. And this one was hard because there was actually a lot of takeaways. Let's just— a lot of things that I love hearing from someone who, you know, Tim is not just— he's not just an author. I mean, he was COO. They were in the trenches doing the work in the business of growing it from $250,000 to over 8 figures. I mean, that's incredible growth. I mean, there's a lot to be learned to unpack success. I mean, if you want to shortcut your success, Learning from someone like that that has been in the trenches is unbelievable. Um, so the first thing that really stood out to me is when we were talking about the NBA and LeBron James and leading assists, etc. So I want to just read this one quote that's, that's in the book that I didn't mention, uh, on the podcast itself. But it says, the most successful people I know make the people around them better. They're all about the assistant. I mean, that's her— that's your job, um, as leader of your organization. Whoever your direct reports are, it's your job to be able to not be in the spotlight but to be the spotlight and to help them to be able to succeed and help get the most out of them. And I think as much as anything, that comes from a mindset of realizing that you don't have to be always in the spotlight. You are evangelizing the message that your company is trying to get out. Obviously, StoryBrand does an incredible job. If you've not read that book, Building a StoryBrand, highly recommend that because you're not the hero, your clients are the hero. Your job is just to be the guide. Number 2, you know, it really was kind of funny, but it really stands out, the sheep bloat. You know, when is enough enough? And I was talking about, the PGA Tour versus LIV Golf and, you know, the kind of the money grab. And I'm not judging those people at all, I'm really not. Um, you know, I certainly understand in some respects, um, why they would do that from being able to spend more time with their family. That's, that's part of the argument with that. And again, I know some of you are not necessarily golfers, but I think if you take kind of an extreme example when you're talking about, you know, $100 to $150 million, but all the way down to You know, in the book, he talks about desire is infinite. And I think that there is a tension we can manage, not necessarily a problem to be solved between having the desire to, to want more in our businesses and to be able to want to be able to make more money so you can impact people. But there's a, there's a tension to be managed there. And I think the recognition of that, and he does such a good job in the book talking about it. Is just— it's given me something to make sure that I contemplate on after this podcast. And I think the third one that stood out to me is in Chapter 8, talks about getting lost in the work. Years ago, a friend of mine lives in Tennessee, and they have the lottery. And so we were always— we would always joke, and he was a golfer, and he would say, if we ran— if I won the lottery, of course, I would quit and, you know, pay the debt off, and I would travel the country. And he said, but you know what I would also do? I would, I would make sure that I would at least have 2 people with me, that they would have enough money, because I would be left alone if I didn't also buy them out and give them money so that they could quit their job, because I wouldn't be able to, to travel the world. And the reason I bring that up is because I think that when I look back on that, I think that for a period of time, I mean, it's pretty realistic, traveling the world, playing golf all the time. I mean, yeah, it'd be great, but I think we would lose our purpose. I think I would lose my purpose and I would still work. I would still work because I just get so much joy and fulfillment out of work. And I so realize for me, as for many of you, sometimes that gets out of balance and you end up spending too much time. You work on the weekends whenever you need to be more present with your family. I mean, I'm still guilty of that at times because I just really enjoy it. Working. I enjoy reading a book on business. I enjoy listening to podcasts myself on business. And, and sometimes I have to check that and realize that that can go a little too far. But it really is a part of the process and who we become along the way, not just the accolades and the trophies and the pins and the plaques that we rack up as well. That was a great episode. Make sure you check out his book, I've mentioned throughout this year that I have read less books this year than I have in the past, but I have really taken the time to make sure that I am digesting the books that I am reading and not just trying to devour and read as many books as I did in the past. And this one is really fantastic. I have read probably 50% of it completely. I needed to prepare, obviously, for the podcast itself, and I thought, man, this is actually really good. Good book. And I started going to the very beginning and, and flipping through it. So make sure— we'll put a link in the show notes if you listen to this on Spotify or Apple. And then if you follow us on social media, we've got the links there as well as on our email. So thanks for Tim coming on and congrats all of his success. Check out his podcast, by the way, Build a Winning Team. Hey, thanks to our sponsors. If it wasn't for our sponsors for this podcast, we would not be able to have amazing people like Tim on. So we're so grateful for them. But more importantly, they are helping to get our listeners results so that they can be able to go and serve more people in their communities. DirectClicks, Club Capital, and Coach P. You hear me say it all the time, the best use of money is to be able to buy back your time. And there's two ways to do that. Number one is through your team. Utilizing a, a source like Rock Solid to be able to find yourself an executive assistant, a creative marketing assistant. But also, it's investing and learning from someone who's already getting it done at the highest level. I've, for several episodes, shared many testimonials and case studies from other people that have been a part of David's Coach P consulting. They meet twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and the results have been incredible. David is without a doubt the fastest growing consultant. And the reason I tell you that, uh, for insurance agency owners, but the reason I tell you that is because people are staying. And they're staying because they're getting value, not only from what they're paying, but for their time. Look, your attention and your time is more valuable than your money. So for $250, and you get your very first month free, so there's absolutely no obligation. Um, but no risk really for you, uh, being able to check out coachpconsulting.com. I was talking to, um, Josh Fuller, who many of you remember, uh, he's been on the podcast and he is the owner of Relevant. He's also the owner that owns SF Agent Promos, if you're familiar with that website. So I was talking to him just yesterday and we were talking about the world of SEO and pay-per-click, and he was like, yeah, I mean, you know, we're in the marketing space. And so we had really we were going to dive into that at one time, but he just realized, you know what, there's just so many different complexities and making sure that we're doing it right for all the insurance agents around the country. We decided years ago not to go that path. And, uh, then I was telling him about Matt and Maddie and the team, uh, Tim, who's COO at, uh, DirectClicks, and just the, the job that they do for clients is just really incredible. You know, they are very different from some of the competitors that are out there is because they're going to help you to make sure that your area is going to be locked down just for you. They have exclusivity that a lot of other carriers don't have, and that is incredibly important when you begin to think about the success that you're going to have with your SEO platform. And look, a lot of those things can be— it'd be easy to be able to hide behind certain results and metrics that at the end of the day don't matter. And so there's some metrics that really do matter in marketing and some metrics that don't matter. The bottom line is, is are you getting leads And is it helping your cost per acquisition, period? I mean, are you getting a return on investment for the money that you're spending? Look, there's a time and a place for branding. We all understand that, know that. But for direct response marketing, you want to be able to know, I'm spending a dollar, how much am I getting back in return? And if you want to be able to download one of their free tools, go to their website and download their marketing ROI tool, which will certainly help with that. But if you're not spending, investing money in your SEO and your pay-per-click, Clicks. Go to directclicksinc.com. At the time of this recording too, Micah just shared with me that he and his team crossed a huge milestone, something that just a couple years ago for them to be at, in the acceleration that they're having as a company. Why am I telling you that? Telling you that is because more and more people are referring, uh, other insurance agents to go and check out Club Capital. And the plans that they have in place to, to be able to serve, not just grow their company, be able to serve most importantly all of you at a higher level over the next 12 months is really impressive. And they just continue to find ways— how can we make this easier for insurance agents? How can we make this impactful? How can we help them to be able to understand their financials, understand the scoreboard of their financials in a way that's— that is unique? So it's not just about having the tool. I mean, look, it's one thing to get a P&L, it's one thing to get a profit and loss statement, an income statement on a monthly basis, maybe you get a balance sheet, and then have the skills to actually, you know, understand it and interpret it. So it's important to have the tool. And how the tool and the data is presented to you is incredibly important. Look, a lot of people would tell you they're visual learners. I know, certainly I am. And so that's why I enjoy the aspect of reading a physical book, even sometimes better than I do like a Kindle book, etc. But it's important for you to be able to have the tool itself, but that data's got to be presented in a way that you can actually utilize it. But furthermore, you got to have the skill set to be able to actually say, okay, now that I've got this, it's presented to me in a great way. And that's one of the things that Club Capital does that I will probably need to mention more often. Is that they're not just teaching you, here, here's the fishing rod, here's what you need, but they're also going to be able to teach you how to fish. And so how you can actually utilize and interpret the data, and they guide you along that process. They're going to customize it for you in your business using the data that they have from hundreds, hundreds of agents around the country. So go to club.capital, book a no-obligation demo, and talk to them about their CFO services. I've been mentioning that this year that they've gotten tremendous amount of feedback from agents around the country about how even more information that has been able to give them an insight into things that they didn't know. Alright everyone, that was a great episode with Tim. I really did love that book. Hope you did as well. We're grateful for your time. We're grateful for your attention. I don't take it lightly. I hope that we are able to continue to serve you and your business and your team on a weekly basis. Alright everyone, till next episode, lead well.